In chapter 6 of John we read about the feeding of the five thousand. What resources are available in the Son of God, that He can use five loaves and two small fish to feed such a multitude! The next day the people refer to their fathers who ate manna in the desert. The Lord Jesus tells them that it was not Moses who gave them that bread. How easily the children of Israel lost sight of the true source of their blessings as coming from God Himself, but simply saw Moses. It is easy for us, too, to look at men as the source of our blessings, instead of looking up to our God and Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Truly, every good gift and every perfect gift comes from above!

Then the Lord tells them that now His Father has given them the true bread from heaven. Like so much in the Old Testament, the manna was a picture or type of Him who was to come, our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the true bread, as He is the true vine. Like the manna, the Son of God also came down from heaven. Unlike the manna, He came to give life—spiritual life—and not to sustain natural life. We must eat His flesh and drink His blood to receive life. But we must also continue to eat and drink that the life we have received from Him might be sustained.

It is very interesting that as the children of Israel murmured over the manna (Num. 11:5–10), so in John 6 the Jews murmured over the Lord’s words that He was the bread from heaven. We also read later in John 6 that many of His disciples left Him, just as in the wilderness some of the children of Israel wanted to turn back to Egypt.

May we who have believed, not murmur or turn back into this world, but afresh, each day, feed on Him who is the true bread!