Our scripture reading this morning is from the gospel according to John chapter 6. John chapter 6. We will read verses 32 through 58 of John chapter 6. John 6, verse 32, Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord evermore, give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you that ye also have seen me and believe not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I am come down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. This is the Father's will, which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that he says, I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, murmur not among yourselves, no man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life. and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, even so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eateth of this bread shall live forever. So far we read God's holy word. The text for the sermon is verse 51. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, last week in our exposition of John 6, verse 37, we pointed out the tremendous significance of the events of this chapter. It came after Jesus had fed the 5,000 people with merely five small loaves and two fish, and the people who had been part of that miracle then wanted to make Jesus king. Here was a man that could supply their every need, fill their bellies, make them prosperous by his miracles. Jesus would have none of that. And the next day when they found him, he began this instruction. And he pointed out to them the true bread, not the earthly bread that they had eaten the day before, the true bread and the true life that bread gives. He reminded them that all of their fathers had eaten manna, that wonderful miraculous food, and yet they were dead. Those, however, who would eat of this bread would live forever. In the text that we consider, Jesus again identifies himself as the bread. I am the bread, the living bread, which came down from heaven. This bread must be eaten. His words caused a great offense in the Jews. Eat his flesh. Drink his blood? What kind of talk is this? And came down from heaven? They did not believe it. They did not have faith. Their eyes were closed, blinded, and their hearts were calloused. Nevertheless, Jesus insists, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. And that word is not merely to the Jews, but it's to us. Except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. We consider this in connection with communion this morning, but it's important for us to recognize what is the relationship between what Jesus says here and communion. He talks about bread, talks about eating and drinking, but understand that when Jesus gave the instruction of John 6, he is not giving direct instruction about the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper. If we would take it that way, then we would say, well, anyone in all the world who did not have the communion bread, and did not have the wine of communion, then they cannot live. They must have perished in hell. That would be the direct application if we're thinking, well, the bread here is the bread there, and you must eat that bread or you perish. That's not at all the relationship. Nonetheless, there is obviously a connection. because the communion bread is a picture of the flesh of Jesus. And as we partake, as we see this morning, later, it is a matter of partaking by faith, and as we partake of that piece of bread by faith, we are partaking of the body of Jesus Christ. We partake of him. of his crucified body and shed blood. So the passage will help us understand the significance of partaking of Jesus by faith. We consider this then under the theme, the bread communicated to us, first of all, living bread, secondly, broken bread, and thirdly, eaten bread. Living bread, when Jesus speaks of bread, He is using a figure to help our understanding. Bread is a picture or a figure Jesus is using. Bread is a staple food known to be a basic element in a person's diet. Today, we may not think of mere bread as having that significance because we have so many other things that we eat that bread does not seem to be that important. But the reality is, all through history, And especially in times of great poverty, everyone recognized bread is what sustains. Sometimes it was the only thing people had that they could eat was a piece of bread. Bread kept them alive. So that's the significance of the term bread. It's that which sustains earthly life. Without it, you will die. Jesus applies that to himself. In some way, he is absolutely necessary for life, to sustain life, even to give life. And without him, one dies. But Jesus calls himself the living bread. And what exactly does that mean, to be living bread? We all know that the bread that we eat is not living, It's inanimate, and only after one has taken it into the mouth and swallowed it that the body begins to break it down and to draw from it the necessary things to sustain life in the body. On the other hand, Jesus is very much alive, very much active, and he gives life. As the one who himself has life, he is, or rather, as the one who himself is life, he is able to give life to others. That he is the life is something he testified. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the life. And therefore he is able to give that life to others. This is the testimony of Scripture, 1 Corinthians comparing Jesus and Adam said this, the first man Adam was made a living soul, the second Adam was made a quickening spirit. A quickening spirit is Jesus. So when Jesus says he is the living bread, it is because he is able to give life and he is able to sustain that life. He said the life that he gives, if a man eat of this bread, he will live forever. That tells us what kind of life He gives. A life that cannot die is eternal life. But that eternal life is not merely a matter of continued existence as if someone would in this life just live on and on and on and on and never breathe his last breath. That would not be the life that Jesus gives, merely continued existence. It is that. but it's far more than that. Eternal life is life with God. Eternal life is the joy of knowing God, of living with God, and fellowshipping with Him. John 17, 3, and this is life eternal, Jesus said to His heavenly Father. This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the one only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. That is life eternal. Jesus is that. No earthly bread, not manna itself, could possibly give that kind of life, a life that not only never dies in the sense that one breathes his last, but that one lives with God and enjoys the blessings of the covenant life with God, no earthly bread could possibly give that. Jesus says, the one who eats this living bread will never die. That's why Jesus emphasized too that he is the bread that came down from heaven. Six times in this discourse Jesus says that he came down from heaven. He's emphatic about this and that's why the Jews murmured and said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? That was part of the offense of what Jesus said. Jesus began to make clear then the difference between bread and even manna on the one hand and himself on the other. He makes this great distinction, difference between the two. Moses did not give you this bread, he says. Moses, of course, was the one through whom God gave the miraculous bread of manna. Manna was a wonder, a miracle. But it was not the kind of bread that could give eternal life. it would only sustain their earthly life, as all other breads in this world can only sustain our earthly life. Your fathers ate the manna, and they're dead. Jesus reminds them, that manna did not give them eternal life. I, as the living bread, give something that the manna could not give, which no earthly bread can possibly give. I came down from heaven as the manna came down from heaven, but the life I give is something far superior to anything that the manna gave the Israelites. Now, we pause for a moment and just consider this in relationship to the Lord's Supper. The bread of the Lord's Supper is a picture of Christ's flesh. And you recall, even when Jesus instituted it, he took the bread and gave it piece by piece to the disciples and said, take, eat. This is my body. This is my body. He said very clearly to them. We do not take that literally, of course, as the error that developed through the Middle Ages and is still taught by the Roman Catholic Church, that the bread becomes the very flesh of Jesus with blood still in it, as they teach. The impossibility of that is obvious from the fact that Jesus was breaking off bread and standing there in his body when he said, this is my body. He was not giving them a piece of his hand. He was not cutting it out of his body. Clearly the bread is meant to say, meant to be a picture. This bread represents my body. is what he clearly intended the disciples to understand. It's a picture of, and it points to something higher than we can see with the eyes, merely earthly things, the heavenly and the spiritual body of Jesus. In the Lord's Supper form, just before the elements are distributed, I will read this, which I do every time, that we may now be fed with that true heavenly bread, Christ Jesus, let us not cleave with our hearts unto the external bread and wine. We don't cleave to them, but lift them up on high in heaven, where Christ Jesus is our advocate at the right hand of God, his heavenly Father. The bread points to something far higher than merely earthly things. The wine, too. It is not only a picture of the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, but it is a symbol of joy, of fellowship with God in the kingdom of heaven. Those are pictures, and Jesus is explaining a bit the necessity of partaking of them and explaining the significance of his being that bread. Living bread is Jesus, but the bread that he gives had to be broken. This activity, which is part of the Lord's Supper when the minister breaks the bread That is represented in this text when Jesus said, and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. It's an amazing statement. I will give my body, my flesh. I give. If one looks at the cross with natural eyes, it might not seem that Jesus gave himself. You see there the hate-filled Sanhedrin determined to put Jesus to death, so intent on that that they would bring in false witnesses to try to convict him. And after they condemned him, they spit on him and they hit him. You see the mad, bloodthirsty mob screaming out before Pilate, crucify him, crucify him! They wouldn't let it be any other way, there would be a riot if Jesus was not put to death. You see the mad, you see Pontius Pilate hating Jesus, giving him over to the cruel hands of the soldiers, Finally, issuing the orders that he be crucified on Golgotha. Then the cruel Roman soldiers completing the execution, leading Jesus to Golgotha, stripping him naked, nailing him to the cross. Peter himself in Acts 2 in the sermon after Pentecost said, him, Jesus, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. But for all that, Jesus said, I will give. I give my flesh. The giving is first of all found before even Jesus gave, and that is God giving his own son to the death of the cross. But then Jesus here and elsewhere insists, I give, I give. Matthew 22, 28, the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to give his life a ransom for many. John chapter 10, I laid down my life. No man takes it from me. I laid down my life for my sheep. It was absolutely necessary that his death be a laying down, a giving, willing obedience. If Jesus had gone to the cross unwillingly, if he had gone there struggling and fighting to be gotten out of their hands, There would be no salvation. It's that crucial. His entire saving work must be performed in perfect obedience to the Father. Perfect obedience. His Father's will is that of those whom He had given the Son, He should lose nothing, but one day He would raise them from the dead. His Father's will is that they be saved by a satisfaction of the justice of God, which meant the bearing of God's wrath and death. That sacrifice of Jesus must be a willing sacrifice in love, saying to the Father, lay upon me the guilt of my people, pour out upon me the wrath that they deserve. I will bear it for them in love for thee. Jesus gave his flesh, his human nature, to suffer and die. That's what's pictured when we break the bread in communion, the breaking of the body of Jesus Christ. That's what's pictured in the pouring of the wine. I make a special point to pour the wine so that we're all looking at that activity pointing to the blood of Jesus being shed. I give my life, I give my flesh for the life of the world. The world that is dead in sin, the world that is without hope, having only this corruptible and corrupting life that will ultimately end and be a passageway into hell itself. But Jesus, who is life, is giving himself to death, overcoming the power of death, overcoming the power even of hell itself. He destroyed the legal hold that death had on his people when he paid for their guilt. It no longer had a legal reason to hold them, but he broke the power of death when he himself went into death and came out of the grave. life he is. He merited righteousness for his people and eternal righteousness for them that gives his people the right to live with God. That's eternal life, but you must be righteous to live with God And he is able, therefore, to give his life to us, which he does in regeneration. For the life of the world, we won't bother ourselves much with those who might want to make this into an Arminian text, as if Jesus came and died for every single person who ever lived. Just a few chapters from now, Jesus makes it so obviously false when he says, I laid down my life for my sheep. These are the people, the sheep that God has eternally given. I know my sheep. And he says to the Pharisees, you are not my sheep. Besides, in this very chapter, verse 64, he says, there are some that believe not. And Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not. and who would betray Him. He knew those who would believe. Why then for the world? I laid down my life, I will give for the life of the world. Well, this should be one of the most beautiful and comforting parts of the verse. Without it, you and I would have no hope. But this statement includes us. Jesus here indicates that his saving work is not limited to the nation of Israel. That chosen people, precious to God throughout all the Old Testament, his saving work is not limited to them. The Jews that were standing in front of him had come to make him king of Israel. That's all they were interested in, is a king for Israel. And Jesus said, my work is far broader than that. I'm not here merely to save Israel, but the world. And who are the world throughout the verse? Those whom the Father has given to Him out of all the nations of this world. That's the world for whom He dies. That world obviously excludes the reprobate. They're cut out. They are separated. They are cast out and have no place in the kingdom. They're not included in this, but Jesus gives his life for his world. The bread is living. The bread must be broken in the cross. And thirdly, it must be partaken of. Jesus said, if any man eat this bread, he shall live forever. This is true of natural bread and our physical life. It must be eaten. If there is a man who is starving to death, but bread is set in front of him, and he only stares at it, he will die. He must partake of it. Jesus applies that to himself. Partake of this spiritual bread. Do not merely look at it. The entire saving work of God is a marvelous work that we do look at and admire. It's a beautiful thing to study it, to contemplate the wonder of God becoming flesh, to contemplate the thought that He would give Himself to death, the accursed death of the cross? and the perfect order of God, eternally choosing His people, making Jesus to be the head of those people, so that their guilt could be put on Him, and His righteousness could be imputed to them. This is a marvelous work of God, and you could spend your life just admiring the wonder of what God has planned. But one must not stop there. simply to look at Jesus and admire His humility, His self-sacrificing, His amazing teaching? No, we must partake. Except ye eat, and now Jesus says, verily, verily, truly, truly, I say unto you, except ye eat, the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood. Ye have no life in you. You must partake. So how is it that we partake? And the answer is, of course, by faith. A number of places in this chapter he says it, but most clearly, verse 47, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. He that believeth on me. Later in the chapter when they were talking about how can we eat this man's bread, a body and so on, Jesus said, It is the spirit that quickeneth. The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. That's how faith comes, through the word spoken. Faith takes hold. of the crucified body of Christ. What do we mean by that? Taking hold of the crucified body of Christ is embracing the truth that there is no salvation apart from Jesus, that His death on the cross was a real satisfaction for sin, that Jesus is the bread of life who has given His flesh for the life of the world, that he has given his flesh for me. No one may come to the table, ought to come this morning, unless they are absolutely able to say by faith, not that our faith is perfect and it doesn't have some doubts, but that we are able to say, Jesus gave his flesh for me. For me. That is eating his flesh, taking hold by faith of the blessings of salvation, forgiveness, grace, love, mercy, and by faith knowing we are righteous in Jesus Christ and have the right to heaven. And that's what the Lord's Supper helps us do, to take hold of Jesus and His crucifixion by faith. Here we eat Jesus' flesh. The Belgic Confession, Article 35, marvelous explanation. Let me quote a couple of statements from that. Belgic Confession, Article 35 says, Jesus nourishes and strengthens the spiritual life of believers when they eat Him That is to say, when they apply and receive Him by faith in the Spirit. Again, we err not, says the Belgic Confession, Article 35, we err not when we say that what is eaten and drunk by us is the proper and natural body and the proper blood of Christ But the manner of partaking of the same is not by the mouth, but by the Spirit through faith. And so our teaching this morning as we take the bread and the wine is not as Rome that the bread and wine are changed into the very body and blood of Jesus and all who partake of it this morning will actually partake of Jesus. No, the bread and the wine remain symbols of his flesh and blood, and the unbeliever, having no faith, has no spiritual mouth to partake of Jesus. He can't. He only partakes of the bread and the wine. But for the believer, it's different. For the believer, we partake of the bread and the wine, with our mouths of faith. The Holy Spirit feeds our souls. He nourishes that life of Jesus that we have, strengthens it, eternal life. In this way, the Lord's Supper becomes a means of grace to us. It strengthens our faith. It convinces us ever more that Jesus died for us and earned complete salvation. And through it, we experience the riches of His salvation in the cross imparted to us. The Lord's Supper is a picture. of the true heavenly bread communicated to us. May God bless our souls as we partake of Jesus by faith. Amen. Let us pray. With understanding, we may partake, believing all that the scripture teaches us about our beloved Savior, His death and resurrection, His saving power. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen.