You Are What You Eat

There are several commercials which show some amazing things which you can experience, or some really great purchases you can make; then the price of that event or thing is given.  Afterwards, there is a clip, such as a child cuddling with a parent during story time, ending with the comment that this is priceless.  Finally, the closing line is, For everything else, there is Visa. 

Without going into a tirade about the false claims and the fraudulent ideas behind credit cards, it is obvious that there is a play on humanity’s search for satisfaction and fulfillment.  With enough money and time, the idea that is played out so many times is that we can find satisfaction and fulfillment.  Of course, if that were true, then we would stop chasing, wouldn’t we?

We could go to the local bookstore or kindle or e-book store online and find something similar.  Some of the most popular books being read are those that are focused on self-help and fulfillment and becoming what you want to become.  Even in the religion sections, the books that are truly biblically based and acceptable are in the minority.  

As man continues to try to improve, it seems the focus is on the physical and upon what humanity is capable of doing.  There seems to be either an ignorance or an intentionality about leaving God out of the equation or trying to force Him out of the realm of possibility.  Those individuals who suggest that they are followers of Christ, yet show incredible anger and animosity toward others, are probably those who have not truly accepted what Jesus offers.  They’ve bought into a religious form of humanistic pursuit which is really another form of legalism.

To experience true satisfaction, one must personally receive what the Savior offers.

Please understand that this message is probably evangelistic in its nature. Not only is this because this passage lends itself towards that end, but there are probably some, here or online, who do not yet know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. You have tasted of the bread but you have not partaken of the bread of life.

There are others here who do have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and it shows. Yet, you find yourself wondering how to understand individuals, whether they be family members, friends, neighbors, or coworkers who have not yet accepted Jesus Christ as Savior. Maybe something you hear today will help you in this area.

The Offer - 6.51

“I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”

Once again, Jesus proclaims that He is the I am.  He, the Creator of all that is, the giver of life, is not just the true bread; He is the living bread.  Keep in mind that this group of people seemed to be fixated on earthly things.  The previous day they enjoyed a very satisfying meal that consisted of bread and fish.  Jesus capitalized on their connection with earthly bread and further explained how He would give eternal life, since He is the living bread.  

Last week, I mentioned Wonder Bread.  Throughout the Bible, we see reference to bread being a staple in a person’s diet.  Formerly, a prisoner knew he could be sustained with bread and water.  Now, I’d like to invite you to come with me on a little rabbit trail; actually a trail of bread crumbs.

This information is taken from the March 7, 2014 edition of Chicago Magazine.  Wonder Bread actually began in Indiana.  Even though many people love white bread, it was actually considered a threat to our nation in the early 1900s.  It seems there was an outbreak of epidemic proportions of pellagra, which is caused by a lack of vitamin B3.  It has been estimated that by 1930, 150,000 people died as a result of this.  The cause was a lack of vitamins; the U.S. was becoming a nation of malnourished individuals.  

In 1940, the FDA held what is known as the “flour hearings.”  Then the Surgeon General met in Chicago with the leaders of milling and baking organization to develop a plan to resolve this problem.  Let me read what one of the scientists explained:  “This new machine-science transformed bread that had once been dark and coarse and strong, to bread that was pure and white and dainty,” Paul de Kruif wrote. “The whiter it was the better man liked it. It became the staple food for one-third of all the people of the world.  But this super-milling scalped the life from the wheat grain,” de Kruif continues. “Man kept for himself wheat’s whiteness, its starch, its calories—and fed the husks, the germ, the life, to swine. But his body could not use those calories without the vitamins in the husk and the germ he had discarded. So today our pure white flour has lost all but a fraction of the thiamin, the riboflavin, the nicotinic acid, (which is related to niacin), that were the secret of the bread’s strength.”

As a result, it was decided that these missing ingredients would be added back in, thus enriching the bread .  The result is that pellagra virtually disappeared overnight.  It was a “wonder” how miraculously the population was saved from malnutrition.  Thus, we have “Wonder Bread” which was a leader in this endeavor.  However, the American public didn’t care for the taste and insisted upon the white, stripped-down bread which required enriching with vitamins rather than using “real bread.”

You may be wondering what that has to do with this verse.  Simply this; our feeble efforts at putting together what is palatable to us, whether it be taste or cost or ease, ultimately leads to death.  The same is true in a spiritual sense.  We can attempt to present a more palatable, easy to swallow Jesus for anybody to access without any changes; yet, it will not result in eternal life.  We can present a Jesus Who is only love and shows no justice; however, that will not provide eternal life.  Interestingly, we cannot even try to enrich these other forms of Jesus by adding works or rules or regulations.  Only the true bread, the living bread, Jesus Christ Himself, gives eternal life.

Sometimes, my dear bride makes a meal that not everyone likes. Interestingly, most everyone in our home likes dessert of some sort.  There are many occasions when a child would find something distasteful. Their fork would go on an amazing adventure of navigating around everything they didn’t like.  I still cannot understand how every semblance of a cooked carrot can still be on a plate after a meal.  Understand that my wife really wants us to have a nutritious meal for the benefit of our health.  She also strives to make the meal tasty.  None of the food she makes for us is done to punish or torture anyone.

Then comes that question at the end of our meal; May I have dessert, please?  The funny thing is that it is usually asked first by the one who did not finish all their food and has this interesting parking spot on their plate filled with carrots or peas or whatever it may have been they didn’t like.  I could say yes.  However, our rule was that you need to have finished what you had on your plate.  To make it easier, I could offer to eat their carrots for them so they could have dessert.  However, they would receive no benefit from that.  For them to benefit from the nutritional value in the food, they would have to eat it for themselves.

My friends, for a person to receive the eternal benefits of what Jesus Christ has done for us, one has to believe on Him for themselves.  Just because a child, a parent, a grandparent, a relative, or a close friend, has accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior; that will not get you entrance into heaven.  Just because you attend church, give to worthy causes, even read the Bible, you will not enter heaven unless you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.

Now, obviously what Jesus said to those people is not going to make any sense if they’re so focused on the physical.  And that’s exactly what we’ll find from the next verse.

The Opposition - 6.52

Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?”

You can almost hear a squeamishness in their response.  They may have thought Jesus was speaking of cannibalism.  Of course, we know that this is not true.  Yet, the language suggests that their arguing was quite heated by the choice of word John uses for argue.  

Even today, there are some who suggest that this verse is proof that the actual body of Jesus is present in the communion element of bread.  However, simply looking at this logically, that sacrament had not yet been instituted by Christ, so nobody would have understood this in that way.  In addition, if one was able to actually expected to eat the body of Christ, then salvation is not by grace through faith; instead it would be by groceries through feeding.  We know that only those who are already saved are supposed to participate in communion; it is for the believers in Jesus Christ.  

In other words, God is speaking by using a metaphor to make a point.  He was using an illustration in an attempt for the people to recognize that the bread they ate was temporary and only physical.  What He was offering them was life-giving for eternity in Himself.  The people needed to recognize that Jesus came from heaven to offer His life for them and they needed to receive Him for themselves.

However, we will see that their minds were so darkened and full of themselves.  They had convinced themselves that they had this life after death all figured out if they did it their way.  Let’s look to the next verses.

The Options - 6.53-59

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.  He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.  For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.  He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.  As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.  This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.”  These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.

If this were anyone other than Jesus Christ, He would have tried to correct the wrong perception the people had.  Instead, Jesus tells them to pay attention carefully as He relates something even more confusing.  Again, this has resulted in false teaching by certain groups over the years.  Yet, all one has to remember is that God had already forbidden the people from drinking blood or eating meat with the blood still in it back in the Old Testament.  For Jesus to have suggested that the people were to literally eat his own flesh and drink His actual blood would have shown that He was not God; for God does not contradict Himself.

You may be asking yourselves as to what proof I have from the Bible that Jesus was not speaking of eating His literal flesh or literally drinking His blood.  Once again, we let the Bible interpret itself.  Let’s just sneak a peek ahead at John 6:63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

Warren Wiersbe very eloquently explains this:  a person eats Christ’s flesh and drinks His blood—that is, partakes of Christ and receives Him—by receiving the Word as taught by the Spirit. Christ is not talking about the bread and cup of the Lord’s Supper or any other religious rite. The Lord’s Supper had not even been instituted, and when it was, Jesus clearly stated that it was a memorial. It did not impart life. To say that a man receives eternal life by eating bread and drinking wine is to deny the grace of God in salvation, as seen in Ephesians 2.8-9.

We continue to look at the rest of the Bible to get clarification on this.  We see, time and again, that blood is required as a sacrifice for sin.  Once again, Jesus is speaking by using a metaphor to show what is required to gain eternal life.  No longer is there a continual need to spill the blood of animals and to burn their flesh in sacrifice for sin.  Jesus came, as John the Baptist stated, as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  What Jesus would eventually do on the cross was going to be the last sacrifice for sin that humanity would ever need.  

There is something else which I wish to draw to our attention and that is the use of the verbs eat and drink in verse 53.  They are not in the present tense, but rather in the aorist tense.  This clearly shows that this is to be a one-time event.  Once a person genuinely accepts Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, it is a one-time event and is not necessary to repeat over and over and over again.  

For those who suggest that there are many ways to heaven and many religions that can offer eternal life, but are simply using other names, this cannot be true.  Jesus very clearly states that unless it is through Him, you have no life in yourselves.  That person who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves.  We don’t set the guidelines and parameters; only God can do that.  

However, for the person who will take Jesus at His Word, accepting Him and the free gift of salvation, that person is guaranteed eternal life immediately.  So when one looks at the usage of receiving eternal life which is given by Jesus Christ, one goes back from verse 54 to verse 40.  It is all about coming and beholding Him and believing in Him.  The results are the same; eternal life and resurrection.  It has nothing to do with what one puts into their mouth.  

That leads right into the promise of eternal life being truly eternal.  When we leave this planet and our bodies no longer function, that is not the end of our story.  We are going to be raised with new, glorified bodies by the Lord.  This lets us know that our hope is not just for the sweet by and by; it is for today and forever.  

Finally, Jesus reminds us that we are united with Him when we take Him as our Savior for ourselves.  He uses the word abides to show that this is a dwelling together.  This is what it means to be in Christ.  This is what Paul refers to when he states that Christ lives in me.  This is the shout we give with Paul when he proclaims that Christ is in you, the hope of glory!  

Yet, we ourselves may ask how this is all possible.  It is because the Father has willed it so.  It is because Jesus has life in Himself.  Therefore, anyone who comes to Christ and believes will live because of Him.

It’s not a promise that lasts only until the next meal, the next revival, the next church service.  The promise is that the person who believes in Him will live forever.

Reflections

If we were to create two grave stones dealing with the grumbling Israelites, alongside those who have chosen to come to Jesus and believe on Him for salvation, they might have these inscriptions:

Those in the wilderness wanderings, along with those still wandering today = “They ate and they died.”

Those who believed in Jesus = “They ate and they lived eternally.”

For many, the idea of heaven being so limiting and having only one way to get there is hard to swallow, if you’ll forgive the pun.  Yet, so many are willing to swallow whatever is thrown at them from a human perspective. 

However, all of that is meaningless and ends up in death.  Regardless of what one eats from the plate of this world’s offering, it is always physical, appealing to our humanity and our sinful nature.  It always will provide a very bad taste in one’s soul.

Yet, for the one who will humble themself and take Jesus at His Word, allowing the Spirit of God to apply the truths of the Bible to their life, that person will have eternal life now and forever.  

To experience true satisfaction, one must personally receive what the Savior offers.