The Bible tells us a single story, weaving together threads from the Old and New Testaments. Discover how the Old Testament points to Jesus from our study of John’s Gospel: The Truth.
The account of God’s “bread from heaven,” or “manna,” appears first in Exodus 16 and is remembered throughout Israel’s history as evidence of God’s power and love.
The book of Exodus opens with God’s people, the Israelites, trapped in backbreaking slavery to Egypt. Through a series of powerful signs, God empowered Moses to free the people and lead them out of Egypt toward a land that God promised to their ancestor, Abraham (Exodus 6:1-13).
But the path to the promised land was through the desert. The people became hungry. They wondered if God saved them only to let them starve! But God heard them. He told their leader, Moses, “I will rain bread from heaven for you” (Exodus 16:4a). The bread in the morning appeared for 40 years until the people reached the promised land and ate its food for the first time (Joshua 5:12).
Whether rescuing them from slavery or hunger, God continued to provide for His people.
Bread of Life
Thousands of years later, God again had compassion for a crowd of hungry people. As Jesus stood before a crowd that numbered in the thousands, struggling to reach Him for healing and straining to hear His teaching, He prayed over a small collection of bread, miraculously multiplying it to feed every person in the crowd (John 6:10-11).
Then the people remembered the bread from heaven (John 6:31)—the manna God gave their ancestors. Was Jesus a prophet like Moses?
Jesus reminded them that Moses did not give them bread; God did! In the past, God provided for His people physically with manna. But this bread only offered temporary life. Jesus, the bread of heaven, was pointing toward something better in His offer of eternal life.
Jesus explained, “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:48-51a).
Those who ate the manna in the wilderness or the miraculous loaves in Israel would eventually die. The physical provision was temporary. They needed more. They needed eternal provision. They needed “bread” that would give them life forever. Jesus proclaimed Himself to be that bread!
Bread Broken for Us
Jesus came down from heaven to be life for us. Yet something even more miraculous happened—the “bread of life” was “broken” for us.
Before His death, during the last meal with His disciples, Jesus took bread, broke it, and passed it around to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19b).
Sound familiar? The same God who provided bread from heaven is offering us life today!
Will you trust God to provide satisfaction for your deepest spiritual needs? Will you accept this new life that Jesus offers?