The Real Food

But He said to them,  “I have food to eat that you now nothing about.”  John 4: 32.

We almost always get Christ’s words mixed up with some other philosopher’s.  The reason we do this is because we keep trying to combine His message with what we think we already know.  For the sake of parable, metaphor or illustration, using what we know is good, but understanding deep spiritual truths means we have to subtract sin from our calculations in order to grasp what is being said.  And subtracting sin isn’t something we’re very good at, since we are pretty much confused about that issue as well.

Let’s see what Jesus says about His message first so we know the rules:  “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.  The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.”  John 6: 63.

“He who belongs to God hears what God says.  The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”  John 8: 47.

The Bible tells us clearly:  If spiritual subjects are confusing to those who read, it is because they either don’t accept them or have shut themselves off spiritually.  Jesus also told us that Holy Spirit would come into the world to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment.  (See John 16: 8.)  Those who open themselves up to the message of Christ, will gain a growing understanding.  Not everything will come clear at once, but like babies they will begin first to distinguish the voice of God, then the shape of things then progress from there.

Sin is the most confusing subject mankind has ever discussed.  The problem is discovering what it actually is, for many interpretations and perspectives have judged sin as either anything negative or all that is earthbound.  Some take sin to be breaking the ten commandments alone, others have added addendums to the pentateuch.

Let me clear something up:  If eating a piece of fruit was a sin, then we all sin every day.  But if it wasn’t the fruit itself but what the fruit symbolized, then we’ve misplaced our focus.  The fruit wasn’t sin, but the choice to eat what God told us not to was.  What gives?  Here’s sin in a nutshell as far as I understand it:  Anything which goes against God as boss.

God is in charge, there’s no argument, insurrection or reelection campaign going to change the fact that He’s Creator of the universe and everything is alive because He gives it all power to do so.  We could tie our shoes against the command of God and sin, if there was such a thing.  Since God hasn’t designated a specific way to tie our shoes that I’m aware of, no one could sin doing it a variety of ways.  The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was a symbol of distrust in God.  There wasn’t anything poisonous perse about the fruit itself, rather it was what the tree represented.

Let’s take a common thing and use it to illustrate my point.

If I tell my son not to eat a cookie before dinner, the rule of obedience is that he needs to wait until after dinner to get his cookie.  If he eats it before dinner, he disobeys my instructions.  There is nothing wrong with the cookie itself for it is inanimate and morally neutral.  It’s the action of stealing a cookie or not that indicates the morality; his actions, his choice.

The tree wasn’t anything in and of itself, it was mankind’s choice to eat that was the whole point.

The Real Food Then Is?

Jesus tells us the real food is doing God’s will.  He survived 40 days and nights on nothing but communing with God, afterwhich He was hungry.  The devil thought Jesus would be vulnerable after such a long fast, but he forgot who he was dealing with first off, and second, what He had been doing for forty days.

The disciples insisted that Jesus eat something and when He answered them with our text above, they exclaim to one another,  “Could someone have brought HIm food?”  It probably didn’t occur to them that the woman herself gave Him food, considering that her status was immediately known to them because the time of day.  Plus, she was a Samaritan and they didn’t consider her an option for so holy a prophet as Jesus.  Since their reasoning didn’t include her as an option (remember Jews don’t eat out of dishes Samaritans have used) at all, they were at loss.

Jesus answered them,  “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.”  John 4: 34.  Succinct, educational and a complete mystery to the disciples.  Their reasoning didn’t include this kind of logic because they were so earthbound.  We aren’t any better for we still look at the physical body as some kind of curse, the sexuality of humanity as sinful and to be discarded with our glorified new bodies and food as a necessary evil that will go away once Jesus returns.

This is a declintion of Gnosticism.  There’s barely any Scriptural foundation for it and what is used is used completely out of context.  The Prophets proclaim that we will be made new and the original design of humanity will take on not only what we lost, but new meaning in the wake of grace through the cross.  Isaiah proclaims that humanity will be glorified, yes, but that glory will be on a new earth where they will build houses and inhabit them and their children will rise and call them blessed.  (See Isaiah 60 & following.)

What God made is holy.  The word “holy” means set apart to God, which is what we were originally and will be again.  The food of Jesus is to do God’s will.  The food of everlasting life for us is to ” know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.”  Anything more or less is confusion.

The work of God is simple as we’ve studied before and not to be combined with human philosophy or sophistry.  Our obedience, therefore, is trusting Jesus completely in submission, which means in essence to come under His mission, and this is also our food.

Tags: Jesus, belonging, woman at the well, outcasts, marginalized, salvation, truth, worship, sin, righteousness, judgment