February 25: Show Me the Proof

Chapters 4-7 of John's Gospel are a unit, held together by the "I am" sayings of Jesus. In Chapter 4, the word "water" occurs nine times and four times in Chapter 5. Chapter 6 and 7 present Jesus as the Bread of Life. "Bread" is used 17 times in Chapter 6. The key verse is 6:48, "I am that bread of life." He was speaking about God feeding Israel the manna, the "what is it," in the wilderness. When He applied the word "manna" to Himself, the Jews doubted Him, observing that they knew the family of Jesus. The manna, the bread, is our focal point.

Wiley Richards is a retired professor of theology and philosophy at The Baptist College of Florida in Graceville.

• To begin Jesus is the hidden manna (vv. 30-31). Following the feeding of the 5,000 in the wilderness (vv. 1-13), the Jews assumed Jesus must be the fulfillment of Moses' prophecy of "that prophet that should come into the world" (v. 14, with Deut. 18:15). The next day the Jews located Him on the Capernaum side of the Sea of Galilee and asked for a "sign." They evidently expected Him to begin a series of plagues against Rome similar to those Moses called down on Egypt. They called to His attention the manna in the wilderness and prodded Him to bring forth another work after they observed the feeding of the 5,000.

•Jesus continued the conversation by declaring, in effect, that He was the revealed manna (vv. 35-36). It was revealed in the sense that He opened the deeper meaning of the manna and applied it to Himself. Just as He told the woman at the well that He gave the living water which would spring up into everlasting life (4:10, 14), He now enlarged on the analogy saying He was the Bread of Life. Additionally, those believing in Him would never hunger or thirst. The key was, they must believe in Him.

•We now come to the third stage in our Lord's challenge to the Jews, the doubted manna (vv. 41-42). His statement "I am the bread from heaven" caught their attention. Like their forefathers of old they "murmured" at him. The original episode developed following Israel's murmuring about the bitter water in the Wilderness of Shur. They failed their first spiritual test in the wilderness. The other failures followed from this. I Corinthians 10:10 cautions believers not to test Christ the way Israel did. Sadly, even some of Jesus' disciples succumbed to murmuring (Jn. 6:61).

•Jesus then set forth what we can call the interpreted manna (vv. 43-47). Our Lord realized His disciples as well as the Jews were understanding His words literally. As some of them observed, it was a "hard saying" (v. 60). He is the spiritual bread and water. We might note those who, erroneously, apply His words to the elements of the Lord's Supper. They believe consuming the bread and fruit of the vine either brings the essence of the Body of Christ into the participant, or at least mediates grace in a special way.

•Finally, Jesus led some of them to receive the eternal manna (vv. 66-69). At His inquiry of whether the twelve disciples would go away, Peter replied there was no one else to whom they could go. Jesus alone had the way to eternal life (v. 68). Peter then added the wonderful confession, "We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God!" (v. 69, HCSB). His confession thrills us to this day. It is transcended only by Thomas in the upper room when he called Jesus his Lord and God (21:28).