This essay continues a sequence. Read the previous one here.
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And when the tempter came to him, he said,
If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
But he answered and said,
It is written,
Man shall not live by bread alone,
But by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
— KJV; Matt 4: 3-5
Then Jesus said unto them,
Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
And they reasoned among themselves, saying,
It is because we have taken no bread.
Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them,
O ye of little faith,
…
How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread,
…
Then understood they
How that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread,
But of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
— Matt 16:6-12
Christ often used the word “bread” when referring to doctrine. Because He spoke “From Above to Below” (ref. “We Don’t Understand The Word“), His references to sustenance were often meant spiritually, not physically.
He expected His followers to interpret His Word in this sense, which is why He was often disappointed at their/our conclusions.
He explained that true sustenance is spiritual, and it comes from The Word:
It is the spirit that quickeneth;
The flesh profiteth nothing.
The Words that I speak unto you,
They are spirit, and they are life.
— John 6:63
He went further to equate this spiritual bread, The Word, to Himself. That is to say, In His essential being He was a direct manifestation of The Word of God (ref. “What Is The Word (1)?“):
I am the living bread which came down from heaven;
If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever
— John 6:51
Essentially, by imparting The Word to us, He was sharing Himself with us. This operates on a higher level than human words (ref. “Truth vs Human Words“).
We can only know Christ through His Word (ref. “The Word is Christ, Not Jesus“). It is therefore not out of place for him to describe The Word, this Living Bread, which is Him, as His own flesh and blood:
I am the living bread which came down from heaven:
If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever:
And the bread that I will give is my flesh,
Which I will give for the life of the world.
— John 6:51
The “giving” of His “flesh” is a deeper concept than physical death on a Cross: it is the act of giving The Word to mankind through His birth and life.
These concepts have been discussed in more detail in earlier essays: Christ as The Word in “The Basics“, and “What Is Truth?“; the nature of Christ’s Word in “Truth vs Human Words“; the fact that the digestion of The Word does not happen by reading but via action in “Act To Experience To Know“, etc.
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In “God Is Neither Superman Nor Santa” we investigated anthropomorphism, which makes it difficult to interpret The Word, particularly passages like these ones, correctly.
If we digest the above, we will arrive at a completely different interpretation of Christ’s Words at the Last Supper:
Jesus took bread,
and blessed it,
and brake it,
and gave it to the disciples,
and said,
Take, eat; this is my body.
And he took the cup,
and gave thanks,
and gave it to them,
saying,
Drink ye all of it;
For this is my blood of the new testament,
which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
— Matt 26:26-28
What He said at the Last Supper was in line with what He had already said several times.
He was declaring His willingness to testify to the Truth of His Word even if it meant giving up His physical life. And He was establishing that His “body and blood”, His Word, would remain with them in His physical absence if they “ate and drank” It, which is to fully think, live, and act only in the sense of The Word.
In His Love for humanity He was willing to be crucified, that is give up his physical flesh (rather than withdrawing from preaching, running away, or recanting) to demonstrate the unbelievable seriousness of our plight, and the fact that The Word, His Doctrine, was our only hope.
Christ’s primary purpose in coming to Earth was to give the Word, not to die on a Cross:
To this end was I born,
and for this cause came I into the world,
that I should bear witness unto the Truth.
— John 18:37
The Crucifixion was the will of evil men who wanted to eradicate Christ’s Doctrine, and not the Will of God.
His coming and His entire earthly life was a gift, a sacrifice, for humanity. He further extended this sacrifice by standing by His Word unto death. It is in this context that we should interpret verses like:
Even as the Son of man came
Not to be ministered unto,
But to minister,
And to give his life a ransom for many.
— Matt 20:28
Today’s Resolution:
- We shall accept that the Way, the Truth, and the Life are found only in living The Word, not in a mental “belief” in physical events or old traditions.
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