Jesus -> I AM -> the Bread of Life

John 6:35, 6:41-51 King James Version (KJV)

35 ... 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.

41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. 42 And they 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?

43 Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. 44 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. 45 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. 46 Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. 47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. 48 I AM that bread of life 49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. 51 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’s gospel is loaded theologically and offensively. Jesus says of himself, I AM the bread of life. His adversaries the Judeans, who hold Jesus the Galilean and all other non-Judeans in contempt, point to their father Moses who fed them bread from heaven. Jesus turns them upside down by identifying himself as the I AM who called Moses from the burning bush in the first place, and by saying that the bread God sent down from heaven in Moses’ time was temporary, transient, while God himself is the source and sustenance and essence -- the bread -- of life, and that he himself is that bread. 

To the Judeans, this is a blasphemous claim, which at the end of the story gets Jesus killed. But he promises to overcome death, for himself and for all who eat his bread.

The Body of Christ the Bread of Heaven.

TW+