The Bread Of Life

And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. John 6:35

As we come to the Gospel of John in the New Testament, we find seven “I AM” titles for Jesus.(I am the bread of life (6:35), I am the light of the world (8:12), I am the door (10:7), I am the good shepherd (10:11, 14), I am the resurrection and I am the life (11:25), I am the way the truth and the life (14:6) and I am the true vine (15:1).) And these titles speak to us about how Jesus is God, the great I AM, Jehovah, the Lord. He who revealed Himself to Moses and to His people in the Old Testament, has come to earth. Jesus is God incarnate the great I AM.

Jesus is not only God with us, but He is all that we need. He is the all-sufficient one. He is Light in the darkness. He is a Shepherd to lead and feed and guide us. Whatever we need, He is.

Now in ancient times and still in many parts of the world, bread is considered a basic staple for sustaining life. People made it every day, fresh bread, and it was an essential part of their diet. They couldn’t live without it. It was a necessity. You’ve heard the phrase “bread and butter.” That means what’s your main source of sustenance. Well, in the Scripture, bread points to our basic spiritual needs—what we can’t live without, what is necessary to sustain life. It also points to God’s provision for our needs and God’s presence to fill us and sustain us.

The first mention of bread in the Bible is found in Genesis chapter 3 where God says to Adam that one of the consequences of eating the forbidden fruit is that the ground will be cursed. There would be pain and labor and hardship and sorrow and toil. And He says, “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.”- Genesis 3:19. In other words, it’s going to be hard work to just support yourself, to sustain yourself as a result of sin.

Then you remember how in Exodus chapter 16 as the Israelite came out of Egypt and were led by God into the wilderness, how they grumbled against Moses and grumbled against God. And they said, “When we were in Egypt, we had meat and we ate bread to the full. You have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (v. 3). They were so focused on their basic physical needs, and they grumbled when those needs didn’t meet.

And so God says in verse 4 of Exodus 16: “You want bread? Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day. Exodus 16:4. God so graciously provided bread for His people. They called it “manna.” And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel. Speak to them, saying, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. And you shall know that I am the Lord your God.” Exodus 16:12.

Daily for the next forty years, God sent this manna from heaven, bread from heaven until they reached the Promised Land. And that manna, that bread from heaven was a daily reminder that Jehovah was their Source. He was their Provider, and they were dependent on Him to meet their needs.

Then we come to the Tabernacle in the Book of Exodus. Bread, representing the twelve tribes of Israel, those loaves are called the Showbread. In our more modern translations it’s translated literally the Bread of the Presence. The Bread of the Presence. The table of the Showbread, the table of the Presence of God. And you shall set the showbread on the table before Me always. Exodus 25:30.(Lev.24:6) It was a picture. Those loaves were a picture of God’s desire to have fellowship, communion with His people and that He was their nourishment that they needed His presence to live each day.

Now bread in the Old Testament was intended to point us to Jesus. Turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of John chapter 6, let’s begin in verse 2. "Then a great multitude followed Him, because they saw His signs which He performed on those who were diseased." They saw the miracles, the signs that Jesus did. And then verses 5–13, is the story of the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus does yet another miracle.

Actually, there were probably about 20,000 people there, when we add in wives and children. And Jesus did this miracle of providing food for the crowd. They ate, & filled and there were twelve baskets of bread left over. I wonder if that is a connection to the twelve loaves in the tabernacle, the bread of the presence of God.