Now, with that background on bread, we can move on to Christ's use of bread as a symbol of His body. Christ's body is referred to in different ways, and we need to have a good grasp of those ways, so we understand what we are partaking of during the Passover.
Revelation 13:8 tells us that Christ's death was foreordained from the foundation of the world. By extension, that means that His life in a human body was foreordained as well. He had to be given a form that could die. Hebrews 10:5 says, Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: ‘Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me.' Because mankind is made of flesh and blood, Jesus likewise partook of the same things (Hebrews 2:14, ESV). God's plan necessitated that the Creator partake of the same physical life and substance that He had created.
Because flesh is mortal, death is always an aspect of human life, and Christ's life in the flesh was no different. Some scriptures focus on the death aspect of Christ's human body, and those are the ones we tend to think of first. For example, I Peter 2:24 says that Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree. The body God prepared for Him was marred and disfigured so much at His crucifixion that He no longer looked human.
A primary effect of the sacrifice of His fleshly body is reconciliation, both between God and man as well as between men - Jews, Gentiles, and everyone else. And because of that reconciliation, there can be fellowship - communion - with God and with all others who likewise fellowship with God, which fits with the passage we saw in I Corinthians 10. When we partake of that one bread, we are reminded of the brutal end of Christ's life as a Man, which brought about reconciliation and allowed for spiritual fellowship.
But we cannot stop there, because Scripture speaks of Christ's body in other ways as well. It really is a complex symbol.
Notice that this imagery relates to life rather than death. The larger context is the church's relationship with Christ. Our relationship is with a Being full of life. It is true that the church consists of those who were buried with Christ in baptism, but we don't remain in the watery grave. We are raised to newness of life as we become members of His body. As we partake of the Passover bread, we become one with the living Savior.
Now, when bread is used as a symbol for Christ's body, it is overwhelmingly a symbol of life, even eternal life. This springs from the symbolic usage of bread in Scripture that we saw, which always relates to life rather than death. We find Christ's own explanation of the bread symbolism in John 6, if you would turn there.
This is Christ's explanation of bread as a symbol for His flesh. He speaks of bread that endures to everlasting life; the bread of God; the bread of life; and the living bread. Please note this: When Jesus uses bread to represent His flesh or body, it is consistently a symbol of life. He says that He is the living bread in verse 51, which indicates that His flesh is not merely something that leads to eternal life, but within this metaphor, His flesh is living. The picture is of living bread, indicating living flesh, and thus a living body.
At the end of verse 51, He says He would give His flesh for the life of the world. Because we hear so often about Jesus giving Himself for the sins of mankind, we commonly read this verse in a similar way. It sounds like He is saying He would give His flesh in exchange for all those under the death penalty. But we need to consider that carefully.
Another way to understand this verse is that Christ lived His life so that the world, in time, could likewise experience life as He lived it. That is, His complete and sinless life would be a gift that everyone can receive. Those who receive the life He gives are then sustained by Him. It is about becoming one.
There is a specific aspect of Christ's life that adds to this picture. The metaphorical … . . .
