The Contrast (John 6:30-33)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/6/2016 8:41 AM

My Worship Time                                                                                          Focus:  The Contrast

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                      Reference:  John 6:30-33

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  “30 So they said to Him, "What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? 31 “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ’HE GAVE THEM BREAD OUT OF HEAVEN TO EAT.’" 32 Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. 33 “For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world."”

            John MacArthur entitles this sub-section from his commentary “The Contrast,” and what we are contrasting in this section is in actuality the true gospel with a false gospel, the true Bread which comes down from heaven, with the temporary bread which God had given to the children of Israel while wondering in the wilderness.  But first we see the great stupidly of and total spiritual blindness from the people that Jesus was speaking to when they ask “What do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You?”  This is response to what our Lord said in verse twenty-nine “Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent."”  Let’s look at Matthew 12:39a “But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign;” John MacArthur writes “Unbelief, however, is never satisfied, no matter how much evidence is given.”  Now the evidence that was given by Jesus happened the day before when he fed all those people with bread and fish that He created.

            I have mentioned in our last SD that the Rabbis taught that the Messiah when He comes would continually give bread to the people and this I read from John MacArthur’s commentary which came from a number of sources that he used, men like Colin Kruse and also Leon Morris.

            We have gone over the words “truly, truly” in recent SD’s so we know that the words mean “amen, amen,” stating the truthfulness of what Jesus was about to say, a phrase only found in the gospel of John.  MacArthur writes that the reason He uses these words was “to underscore the significance of what He was about to say, Jesus rebuked the people for their fourfold misunderstanding of the manna in the wilderness.”

4/6/2016 9:13 AM    4/6/2016 12:24 PM

            The first rebuke that Jesus gave to them was that it was not Moses who gave them the Manna, but it was the Father who gave it to them:  “Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction (Ex. 16:4”). 

Next rebuke is that the manna was in no way true bread from heaven.  MacArthur writes “Jesus told them, ‘My Father’ now ‘gives you the true bread out of heaven.’  The present tense of didomi (gives) indicates that the true bread was not the manna of the past, but what the Father was currently giving.  Further, alethinos (true) means ‘genuine,’ or ‘real.’  The manna, though it was truly bread supplied by God, was merely a type that foreshadowed the ultimate, ‘true bread’…which comes down out of heaven (vv. 38, 50-51, 58, 3:12; cf. 1:9, 14, 8:42)—the Lord Jesus Christ.”

            Thirdly, the manna that was given for forty years was given for physical life, however the “bread of God,” gives spiritual life.  MacArthur adds “As it does throughout John’s gospel, zoe (life) refers not to the physical and temporal life which the manna sustained, but to the spiritual and eternal life that comes only through Jesus Christ.

            Lastly, the manna in the OT wandering in the wilderness by Israel was only done for Israel, whereas the “Bread of Heaven” is given for the world.

            MacArthur concludes “So Jesus was the true bread sent by God from heaven, and thus infinitely superior to Moses (cf. Heb. 3:3).  The crowd’s desire for more proof exposed both their evil motives and their ignorance of the Old Testament Scriptures and the words of the Son of God.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I need to concentrate on the spiritual things more than the physical things.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To love the Lord more and to know the Lord more.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Felix” (Acts 23:23-24).

Today’s Bible question:  “Which one of Paul’s epistles was addressed, not to a particular church, but to a group of churches?”  (In my opinion there are two correct answers to this question.)

Answers in our next SD.

4/6/2016 1:05 PM