"The bread of God is that which comes down
out of heaven, and gives life unto the world... I am come down from heaven, not
to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me... For this is the will of
my Father, that every one that beholds the Son, and believes on Him, should have
eternal life... My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." John
6:28-34,38,40,53-58.
"If any man wills to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it
is of God, or whether I speak from myself." John 7:17.
"My meat is to do the will of Him that sent
me, and to accomplish His work." John 4:31-34.
In that statement of our Lord Jesus there are
three things implied.
Firstly: the Lord Jesus has a secret source of
strength. "I have meat to eat that ye know not".
Secondly: There is a link between the will
of God and LIFE. "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me." We
remember that at this time the Lord Jesus was hungry and very faint. He sat down
at the well weary from His journey. When the disciples came back from the town
where they had bought food, they found Him remarkably revived. They thought that
somebody had brought Him some food. But the Lord explained to them that the
renewal of His life had come from doing His Father's will. That shows a close
connection between the doing of the will of God and 'Life'.
Thirdly: The link between this is a divine
purpose and the fulfilment of it. "My meat is to do the will of Him that
sent me, and to accomplish His work". The Father's will represented a divine
purpose, and the Lord Jesus says that He was linked with that purpose. To
accomplish that divine purpose was a greater satisfaction to Him than earthly
things. We can say that He found His Life in doing the will of God.
Therefore, an important factor for us is that
obedience is the way to God's fulness. It was so in the case of the Lord Jesus.
When He said: "For this is the will of my Father, that every one that beholds
the Son, and believeth on Him, should have eternal life", it clearly shows
that union with Christ, according to God's will, means Life for us. Thus God's
will is in vital relationship and oneness with the Son.
Now, food is taken for the maintenance of our
life. It satisfies our need, and serves for our development and growth. But all
this is related to the will of God. The doing of the will of God is like taking
food in order to live. When we do the will of God we are taking what maintains
our Life. Our need is satisfied. The spiritual growth is maintained. The Lord
Jesus said of Himself: "I live because of the Father", and "he that
eats me shall live because of Me." The Lord Jesus lived by reason of His
union with the Father. And we live by reason of our union with the Son.
What is essential in that union is obedience.
Satan was out to destroy the life of the Lord - the last Adam - by the same way
he had succeeded to destroy the first Adam: in getting him to disobey God. But
the Lord Jesus met the devil by appealing to the Word of God. Three times He
said to him: "It is written". This maintained His life, and overcame the
prince of darkness and death.
Obedience towards the revealed will of God
means deliverance from death. That is what we mean by the maintenance of our
life. This attitude was true of the Son of God throughout His life. Being
obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross, He overcame death. Therefore
He is alive for evermore. So everything is bound up with obedience in the matter
of life. Immediately we withhold obedience to God, we arrest the Life of the
Lord in us, and make it impossible to go on. Obedience is Life.
This spiritual meat is not only maintaining our
Life, it also increases our Life. It is leading us into the fulness of Christ.
We grow by taking that meat, and Life increases by obedience. In Philippians 2
we are told that the Lord Jesus was obedient to the Father to the uttermost, "wherefore
also God highly exalted Him and gave unto him the name which is above every
name." That is fulness resultant from obedience. Every fresh act of
obedience leads us into a greater fulness in Christ, into spiritual enlargement.
But disobedience brings limitation and holds up the flow of Life.
This then, is the meaning of spiritual food:
the doing of His will, being obedient in all things. This spiritual feeding is
related to our union with Christ in His resurrection. It is a living upon that
which Christ is in death and resurrection. In the background of John chapter 6
we have the Passover. In connection with what that means spiritually, the Lord
Jesus fed a great multitude. The Jews were about to eat the Passover lamb. But
before that took place we have here a hungry multitude, and He - God's Lamb -
feeds them with bread saying: "I am the bread of life." He links that
with the Passover, the Cross, the Lamb slain, saying in effect: "I am yours. In
my death and resurrection, that is, in ME you have Life." It is Christ imparted
to us.
Now, there is a remarkable clause in John 6:27,
where the Lord says: "Work not for the food which perishes, but for the food
which abides unto eternal life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for
Him the Father has sealed." Those to whom the Lord addressed this word knew
quite well what He meant. They knew that they were not allowed to take any lamb
for the Passover. It had to be one without blemish. Then every lamb had to be
brought to the temple to be examined by the priests as to its absolute
perfection. And when it was according to the demanded requirements the priests
put the temple-seal upon it and it was slain. Everybody knew what that seal
meant. So the Lord Jesus took that familiar custom, relating it to Himself
saying: "Him has the Father sealed." Christ was going to give Himself to
His people as one whom the Father had declared absolutely perfect. He was giving
Himself to be their food that they might live through Him and walk in obedience
to Him as He had been obedient to His Father.
We too are 'sealed' by faith in our Lord Jesus
Christ. The apostle Paul writes to the Ephesians that they are "sealed
with the Spirit of promise". God knows them that are His. We are His possession.
We receive the Father's seal as an earnest that He has chosen us, that we are
accepted in the Beloved One, that He has not rejected us. We are accepted in
Christ as perfect. That complete fellowship with Christ implies nothing less
than an utter abandonment to Him, a putting aside of all which is personal, all
self-will, so that we can say in truth: "I am crucified with Christ. Christ
lives in me."
Meat and drink are a spiritual thing. It means
abiding "in Christ" and is related to the doing of the Father's will in every
part of our life. But the question which arises here is: Do we really want to
live? Remember, we only 'live' in truth, if we accomplish the will of our Lord,
if we allow the Lord Jesus to be our Life, being perfectly obedient to Him. Our
will is a corrupted will. Personal desires are always corrupted. We are flesh.
But there has to be none of that 'in Christ'. Sin has been dealt with and judged
in the Cross. There it was made manifest that Christ's perfect humanity was
maintained and free from any corruption right to the end. Now that perfect Lamb
of God is given for us. We are allowed to receive Him, to abide in Him. He who
wholly accomplished the will of God will abide in us. Thereby we grow. To eat
His flesh and drink His blood means growing up into Him so that His power in us
becomes manifest. He will, and must, increase until we are transformed into His
likeness, until His image is seen in us.
Now, what is God's purpose for us? The Lord
Jesus said that the will of the Father was "to accomplish His work". What
was that work? Let us look once more at chapter 4 and the need of that woman of
Samaria. She did not know the true life. When she came to the well she was in
great need. Brought into a conversation with the Lord concerning life, she
eventually saw that Christ was the Life. "He that believes on Me has eternal
life." And the woman believed. When the disciples came back from the town
they found the Lord Jesus wonderfully renewed. He was fully satisfied, because
He had accomplished the will of the Father. What was that will? It was to give
Life to all whom the Father had given Him.
God's work is to lead poor souls to know the
Life in Christ. When we fulfil our ministry in being channels of Life to others,
we shall soon discover that this is more satisfying than anything else. If you
have led a soul to Christ you know what satisfaction means. To carry the divine
Life to needy souls fills the heart with such joy and satisfaction, that earthly
desires fade away. Let us seek to lead poor sinners to Christ, for when we are
in that work we shall know what true Life is, a life of perfect obedience to
God, devoted to the Father's will. This was the law of Life of the Lord Jesus.
This is the hidden Manna, the secret sustenance of our life. Those who do not
know the Lord know nothing of this. But he who lives out of Christ knows that
meat. He knows that to do the will of God is Life. The more we are obedient to
that divine will, the more the rivers of His Life will flow in us. Let us seek
that kind of meat which the world does not know, but of which the Lord said: "My
meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to accomplish his work."
"For we are Hs workmanship, created in
Christ for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them"
(Eph. 2:10).