Our bread

During the temptation in the wilderness Jesus rebuked the devil, “Man shall not live on bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” I don’t want to be too pedantically literal but I would like to share a couple thoughts on a single word that proceeded from Christ. When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray he gave them a prayer that starts with the words, “Our Father.” The word “our” in this context speaks to the unity of the church in prayer it also speaks to our position in Christ. Since Jesus died for us He is our priest before God, our intercessor. To stand alone before the awful majesty would be more than mortal man could bear but God is gracious and gives us Jesus who as the firstborn from the dead goes into the presence ahead of us and stands with us where alone we could not stand. Additionally, the word “our” reminds us of God’s triune nature. Jesus stands with us, the Spirit empowers us and our Father hears us. In one word “our” Jesus brings us into contact with the fullness of the Godhead.

During the temptation in the wilderness Jesus rebuked the devil, “Man shall not live on bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Many have made much of the fact that Jesus had been fasting for forty days when this temptation occurred, prosaically observing that Jesus was tempted to satisfy a legitimate need in a wrong way. That is part of what was going on but there is more to the story. The devil believes that existence is about power and having more of it than anyone else. Anyone who could turn rocks into bread could feed the nations and make them all dependent on him thus accruing all the power in the world. In one sense Jesus came to rescue us from the devil’s power and here was the devil offering to give Him what he came to earth for and all without the cross. What Jesus knew was that physical bread satisfies one need but not the need we really needed Him for. Physical bread preserves physical life but we have physical life. We need spiritual bread to give us spiritual life and this is Jesus himself, the Bread of Life. And just as physical bread is broken in the eating of it, the Bread of Life had to broken on the cross to be efficacious in restoring life to us. Jesus is also the Word, He is the Word that proceeds from the mouth of God and by Him we live.