Hello,
I have been having a discussion with a protestant, and He brought up this
“In light of your comments about Jesus the bread of life in John 6, according to Matthew 4:4 what is true food?”
I am not sure how to answer this one, can someone please help?
First, the verse:
[bibledrb] Matt 4:3-5[/bibledrb]
Satan is tempting Jesus to demonstrate His power for the sole purpose of satisfying a physical, worldly desire. Jesus’ answer indicates there are more important considerations than worldly desires, such as doing the job His Father sent Him here to do, which included that period of fasting.
This does speak of bread, but not in the same way Jesus is speaking of when He gave the “bread of life” speech. The parallel between both versus is the crowd who was following Jesus WERE seeking that “worldly” bread, having just recently been fed by His miracle in feeding thousands. Just like the temptation by Satan, they were content to follow Jesus seeking only the creature comfort of someone who was going to feed them with free bread, not in the sense that they had a deep spiritual love or connection with Him. And they were all perfectly fine with that until Jesus raised the bar and told them they would have to eat His flesh if they were to have eternal life.
No thanks, that’s not what we were looking for. That was the “followers” reaction.
Does this surprise anyone, really, after hearing about the seeds, where some fall in fertile soil, others on rock? Or about how the chaff will be separated from the wheat? That speech was the ultimate “sifting operation” in Jesus’ whole ministry. He didn’t want followers, He wanted
believers. And what did the only believers left give as their reason for remaining? “To whom would we go? YOU have the
words of eternal life.” So, isn’t this similar to what Jesus told Satan in the desert? The “words of eternal life” being more important than worldly bread?
The belief He demanded was that He is the living bread, and we must follow His commandment to eat that bread if we want eternal life. Disgusting? Smacks of cannibalism? Well, yeah, if Jesus was just a man. But He wasn’t just a man, He was God in human form, with a human AND a supernatural nature. We are called to believe that in His supernatural nature He has something for us that will both demonstrate our willingness to believe (by following His command) and benefit us in achieving eternal life.
We don’t know exactly what that “something” is; He never explained it in detail and neither did the Apostles if they even knew. One thing is for certain though - THEY believed it. All He left us was His command at the Last Supper to “do this in memory of me,” and we still do it today.
