<p>6:51 <i>I am the living bread which came down out of Heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever. Yes The bread which I will give is my flesh &ndash; given for the life of the world</i>- John&rsquo;s Gospel points out how the Lord often changed tenses so strangely- to the extent that many have concluded that some of the strange combinations of tenses are a result of John&rsquo;s later editing. But it could be that the Lord used past, present and future tenses in close proximity in order to show His manifestation of the Name. He is the bread which was, is and will be on the cross. He came, is coming down, and will come (Jn. 6:50,51). The hour was coming and yet &ldquo;now is&rdquo; (Jn. 4:23; 5:25; 16:31,32). These mixing of tenses must have seemed strange to the hearers, and they read strangely in the tense-conscious Greek language. About 50 times in John&rsquo;s Gospel&nbsp;we read the phrase &ldquo;I am&rdquo; as having been on the lips of Jesus. And it gets more and more frequent as He nears the cross, as if He was aware of an ongoing manifestation of the Name which reached its climax there.</p><p>Not for nothing do some Rabbis speak of 'eating Messiah' as an expression of the fellowship they hope to have with Him at His coming. The sacrificial animals are spoken of as &quot;the bread of your God&quot; (Lev. 21:6,8,21; 22:25; Ez. 44:7 etc.), pointing forward to the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition to alluding to the manna, the Lord must have been consciously making this connection when He spoke about himself as the bread of God. The only time &quot;the bread of God&quot; could be eaten by the Israelite was at the peace offering. When in this context the Lord invites us to eat the bread of God, to eat His flesh and drink His blood (Jn. 6:51,52), He is looking back to the peace offering. But this is also an evident prophecy of the breaking of bread service. Many of the Jews just could not cope with what Christ was offering them when He said this. They turned back, physically and intellectually. They just could not grapple with the idea that Christ was that peace offering sacrifice, and He was inviting them to sit down with God, as it were, and in fellowship with the Almighty, partake of the sacrificed body of His Son. But this is just what Christ is inviting each of us to do in the memorial meeting and in life generally lived in Him, to sit down in fellowship with Him, and eat of His bread. God really is here with us now. He is intensely watching us. He is intensely with us, He really is going to save us, if only we can have the faith to believe how much He loves us, how much He wants us to share His fellowship and know His presence.</p><p>The Lord taught the crowds to focus more on the gift of Him as a person and His sacrifice, than on the literal achievement of the Kingdom there and then. The Jews understood the coming of manna to be a sign that the Messianic Kingdom had come. Their writings are full of this idea:</p><p>- &ldquo;You shall not find manna in this age, but you shall find it in the age that is coming&rdquo; (Midrash Mekilta on Ex. 16:25)<br />- &ldquo;As the first redeemer caused manna to descend&hellip;so will the latter redeemer cause manna to descend&rdquo; (Midrash Rabbah on Ecc. 1:9)<br />- &ldquo;The manna has been prepared for&hellip;the age to come&rdquo; (Midrash Tanhuma, <i>Beshallah</i> 21:66).<br />Yet the Lord told them in Jn. 6 that the true manna was His flesh, which He was to give for the life of the world. Some have supposed from Josh. 5:10-12 cp. Ex. 16:35 that the manna fell for the first time on the eve of the Passover, thus adding even more poignancy to the Lord&rsquo;s equation of the manna with His death. Yet all this painstaking attempt to re-focus the crowds on the spiritual rather than the literal, salvation through His death rather than an immediate benefit for them, patient eating / sharing in His sufferings rather than eternity here and now&hellip;all this went so tragically unheeded. And it does to this day.&nbsp;</p><p>There are evident parallels between Paul&rsquo;s account of the breaking of bread, and the Lord&rsquo;s words about the giving of His body. There is no record of the great preaching commission in John, but he does in fact record it in more spiritual and indirect ways. And likewise there is no account of the breaking of bread, but in fact he has already recorded the essence of it in the discourse about the bread and wine of life in Jn. 6:</p><table border=1 cellspacing=3 cellpadding=0>    <tbody>        <tr>            <td width=369 valign=top>            <p>Jn. 6:51</p>            </td>            <td width=369 valign=top>            <p>1 Cor. 11:24</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=369 valign=top>            <p>The bread which I will give</p>            </td>            <td width=369 valign=top>            <p>This</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=369 valign=top>            <p>Is my flesh</p>            </td>            <td width=369 valign=top>            <p>Is my body</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=369 valign=top>            <p>For the life of the world</p>            </td>            <td width=369 valign=top>            <p>Which is for you</p>            </td>        </tr>    </tbody></table><p>Note in passing how &lsquo;we&rsquo; are &lsquo;the world&rsquo; to Jesus. And He likewise should be our world, as we are to Him. The word of interpretation which the Lord Jesus spoke over the emblems was a reflection of the way the head of the family explained the meaning of the Passover lamb and unleavened bread to the participants during the Passover meal. But before His death, during His life, the Lord Jesus as it were proclaimed this word of interpretation over His own body. The conclusion is clearly that He saw Himself even during His life as the slain Passover lamb. This explains why so much stress is made upon His &ldquo;blood&quot; saving us, when crucifixion was in fact a relatively bloodless death. It wasn&rsquo;t as if the Lord was killed by His blood being poured out. But it was the life which the blood represented which was the essential basis of our redemption. And that life was lived out over 33 years, not just in the 6 hours of crucifixion. All this means that the spirit of the cross must be lived out in daily life; not merely in occasional acts of heroism, nor only in occasional acts of commitment or religious duty, such as attending ecclesial meetings. The cross was and is a life lived.</p><p>The link between the Lord&rsquo;s death and the true word / voice of God is made in Jn. 6:51 cp. 63: the words of the Lord give life, whereas also His flesh &ldquo;which I will give for the life of the world&quot; on the cross would also be the source of life. The giving of His flesh was in essence His word to man; the word made flesh. This phrase, we have suggested elsewhere, also refers to the Lord&rsquo;s death rather than His birth. See on Heb. 12:25.</p><p>The Lord died so that the world may have life (Jn. 6:51); but only those who eat His words and assimilate the true meaning of His cross will share this life; therefore &quot;the world&quot; refers to all who would believe. It is for them (us, by His grace), not even for those who respond but ultimately fall away, that the Lord gave His all. We are &quot;the world&quot; to Him. Let's not dilute the specialness of His love and the wonder of our calling to these things. We ought to be deeply, deeply moved by the fact that we have been called into God's world, into His sphere of vision. He even created the different types of meats &quot;to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth&quot; (1 Tim. 4:3); they were made for us, not the world, and therefore we ought to give thanks for our food with this realization.</p>