EXPERIENCING, ENJOYING, AND EXPRESSING CHRIST (1)

Message Seven
The Bread of Life

Scripture Reading: John 6:22-71

I.　If we read John 6 carefully, we should have a deep impression of this chapter and pay attention to the sequence of seven crucial points:

A.　The Lord is the bread of life—vv. 35, 48.

B.　The Lord gives His bread of life for us to eat—v. 51.

C.　The Lord also gives His blood for us to drink—v. 53.

D.　The Lord not only died but also resurrected—v. 56.

E.　Because Christ lives in us, we live because of Him and live before God—v. 57.

F.　His Spirit, not His physical flesh, gives us life and the life supply—v. 63a.

G.　The Spirit is in the Lord's spoken words; His words are spirit and life—v. 63b.

II.　The primary purpose for which the Lord Jesus came down out of heaven to the earth was to accomplish one central matter— to give Himself to us as food—the bread of life—so that He could be eaten by us as spiritual nourishment and be digested by us to become our constitution—vv. 50-51.

III.　Chapter 6 of the Gospel of John is a detailed discourse on the Lord Jesus being the bread of life; He declared, "I am the bread of life"—v. 48:

A.　Many verses in John 6 reveal that, for our experience and enjoyment, Christ is the bread of life—vv. 27, 32-35, 47-58, 63a, 68b:

1.　The most important point in the entire chapter of John 6 is that Christ is our food, the bread of life—vv. 35, 48.

2.　To eat Him is not a once-for-all matter; rather, we need to contact the Lord and eat Him daily, for He is edible—v. 50.

3.　We need to exercise our spirit to feed on Him, receiving Him, digesting Him, experiencing Him, enjoying Him, and applying Him moment by moment—vv. 56-57.

4.　We all should concentrate on one thing—eating Christ and then living by what we have eaten of Him—v. 54.

B.　"Work not for the food which perishes, but for the food which abides unto eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you"— v. 27:

1.　Eternal life is the divine life, the uncreated life of God, which not only is everlasting with respect to time but also is eternal and divine in nature—3:15.

2.　The food which abides unto eternal life can supply us and bring us into eternal life—6:27.

C.　"My Father gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world"—vv. 32-33:

1.　Only spiritual things are real; "the Spirit is the reality"— 1.John 5:6b.

2.　As the true bread, Christ is the bread of truth, of reality; Christ is true, real.

3.　We all need to be deeply impressed with the fact that we need Christ as the true bread of life sent by God to bring us eternal life.

4.　"The bread of God" in John 6:33 is "the true bread" in verse 32.

5.　As the bread that came down out of heaven, Christ is the heavenly bread, and as the bread of God, He is of God, He was sent by God, and He was with God—v. 33.

6.　When we eat this bread and digest it, it becomes our constitution, and we are joined and mingled with the Lord as one— 1 Cor. 6:17.

7.　Anyone who eats the living bread which came down out of heaven will live forever—John 6:50-51a.

D.　In verse 51b the Lord Jesus said, "The bread which I will give is My flesh, given for the life of the world":

1.　At this point the bread becomes the flesh.

2.　The Lord gave His body, that is, His flesh, dying for us that we might have life.

E.　"Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life within yourselves"—v. 53:

1.　The separation of blood and flesh indicates death.

2.　Here the Lord clearly indicated His death, that is, His being slain.

3.　He gave His body and shed His blood for us so that we may have eternal life:

a.　To eat His flesh is to receive by faith all that He did in giving His body for us.

b.　To drink His blood is to receive by faith all that He accomplished in shedding His blood for us.

4.　To eat His flesh and drink His blood is to receive Him, in His redemption, as life and the life supply by believing in what He did for us on the cross.

5.　By comparing verse 53 with verse 47, we see that to eat the Lord's flesh and drink His blood is to believe in Him, because to believe or to believe into is to receive—1:12.

F.　"My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink"—6:55:

1.　Unless we eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, we do not have eternal life within ourselves.

2.　If we eat Him and drink Him, we will have life because of Him.

G.　The strongest and strangest sentence in the entire Bible is John 6:57: "As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me":

1.　To eat is to take food into us that it maybe assimilated organically into our body.

2.　To eat the Lord Jesus is to receive Him into us that He may be assimilated by the regenerated new man in the way of life:

a.　Then we live by Him whom we have received.

b.　It is by this that He, the resurrected One, lives in us— 14:19-20.

IV.　"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life"— 6:63:

A.　The last part of John 6 is the section about Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit and the Word.

B.　Since Christ is the Spirit, we can contact Him as the Spirit within us—1 Cor. 15:45.

C.　Because He is the life-giving Spirit, we can feed upon and assimilate Him as our food.

D.　In order to receive the Lord Jesus as the bread of life, our life supply to nourish us, we need to see that He is the life-giving Spirit and that this Spirit is embodied in the Word—John 6:63.

E.　What the Lord gives us is the Spirit who gives life; this Spirit is the Lord Himself in resurrection—1 Cor. 15:45.

F.　In John 6:63 "the words" follow the Spirit:

1.　The Lord indicated that for giving life He would become the Spirit.

2.　Then He said that the words He speaks are spirit and life; this indicates that His spoken words are the embodiment of the life-giving Spirit—v. 63.

3.　If we do not touch the Spirit in the Word, we cannot receive life.

4.　Daily we need to come to the Lord and touch Him as the Spirit in the Word; if we do this, we will feed on Christ as the bread of life—v. 35.

G.　Chapter 6 of John closes with the word of life, which is the means for us to receive the Lord as the bread of life—v. 63:

1.　If we receive the Word, we will have the Spirit, and if we have the Spirit within us, we will have Christ as the inner supply of life.

2.　May we all realize that our need is Christ as our life supply and then daily contact Him as the life-giving Spirit embodied in the Word.