Doctrines (posted Tuesday, February 13 2007)

Bread in Jesus' ministry

During His ministry on earth, Jesus taught many things using bread as an illustration. Perhaps the most well known is the Lord's Prayer. There are two versions of the prayer that He presented at different times to different groups of disciples, but both mention daily bread.

- Matthew 6:11 Give us today our daily bread.

- Luke 11:3 Give us each day our daily bread.

As Jesus was teaching primarily Jewish people at the time, He was establishing for them a very clear link between His teachings and the daily bread provided by Jehovah to the Exodus generation. He is also teaching that His followers ought to continue to pray for God's Grace as a demonstration of our reliance upon Him.

The second use of bread in Jesus' ministry was of Himself as the Bread of Life. He now explicitly draws the connection between Jehovah's daily provision of manna from heaven to the Jews in the desert, and His coming to earth as bread from above to provide salvation to all.

- John 6:30-33,48-51 So they asked him, "What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. [...] I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

This teaching was so shocking to many of His Jewish followers that they stopped following His ministry. They fell to the belief that His flesh was to somehow literally be eaten, not that it is the representative Bread of Life which needs to be taken in.

He also warned his followers to avoid the leaven of religion and to only eat pure bread. He was referring not to physical food, but to the lack of purity of the teachings of the religious leaders compared to His bread which is pure.

- Matthew 16:6-7,11-12 "Be careful," Jesus said to them. "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees." They discussed this among themselves and said, "It is because we didn't bring any bread. [...] How is it you don't understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees." Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

To solidify the meaning of His body as the pure Bread of Life, Jesus instituted the Communion during His final night on earth, and only after Judas had left, since he could not be identified with Christ. Here, he explained that bread shows identification with His sacrifice, not some literal mystical cannibalism involving real flesh.

- Luke 22:19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."

Therefore, Jesus taught that bread was a symbol of God's provision for His followers; in this case, of His own saving work on the cross. This is totally in harmony with how the Israelites were to approach bread as a ritual rememberance of God's deliverance from Egypt. Just as the Jews took bread to remember Jehovah's Grace work for them, so today we take bread to remember the Messiah's Grace work for us.

Paul confirmed this use of unleavened bread as a reminder of God's Grace, both in the past to the Jews and in the present to Grace believers. By taking in the bread, which is Christ, we are no longer identified with the yeast of the world but with His pure Grace.

- 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.

- 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.

Conclusion

As this study has shown, imagery throughout the Bible associates bread with God's Grace provision and presence. Old Testament believers were instructed to eat physical bread as a reminder of the great things that God had done for them. New Testament believers are instructed to eat bread as a reminder of the great thing Christ has done for all.

By eating bread, we are identifying it with ourselves completely. We are commanded not only to ritually eat bread at the Communion table, identifying self with the Grace through Christ, but to eat the bread of the Word daily so that our souls may be filled with the nutrition of God's thinking.

Bread teaches our complete reliance upon His Grace, both for corporeal provision, and in salvation.

- Proverbs 30:7-9 Two things I ask of you, O Lord; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, 'Who is the LORD ?' Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.

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