By sowing Himself as the seed of life into us, Christ makes us the wheat of life (v. 30b). As the wheat of life we are the many grains produced by Christ (John 12:24). The Triune God in His embodiment has been sown into our being to grow wheat, producing the many grains that can be blended together to be one entity, the one Body of Christ (1 Cor. 10:17). This thought is high, deep, and profound.
Following the Sower we have the Feeder (Matt. 14:16-21; 15:33-38). Christ has sown Himself into us, and now He is feeding us so that we may grow Him in our being.
As the Feeder, Christ feeds us with Himself as the barley loaves and fish (John 6:9). Whereas the loaves are of the vegetable life, signifying the generating aspect of Christ’s life, the fish are of the animal life, signifying the redeeming aspect of Christ’s life. To satisfy our spiritual hunger, we need both Christ’s generating life and His redeeming life.
As the generating life, Christ grows on the land, the God-created earth. In order to regenerate us, He grew on the God-created earth for reproducing.
Barley signifies Christ resurrected. According to the Scriptures, barley represents the firstfruits of resurrection. In Leviticus 23 the Lord’s people were told to offer the firstfruits of their harvest each year. In the land of Palestine, barley ripens earlier than any other crop and is the first of the harvest. Hence, it typifies the resurrected Christ (v. 10). Barley thus signifies the resurrected Christ, who is our life supply. As the firstfruits, He has become our bread of life. From this we see that the barley loaves signify Christ in resurrection as food to us. The feeding Christ is the resurrected Christ.
The fish in John 6:9 are of the animal life, signifying the redeeming aspect of Christ’s life. As the redeeming life, He lives in the sea, the Satan-corrupted world. The Lord Jesus came not only to the earth created by God but also to the world corrupted by Satan. If He had come only to the earth created by God, He would have been signified only by the barley loaves. But because He also came to the world corrupted by Satan, He is signified also by the fish.
Christ, however, had nothing to do with the corrupted world. Just as fish are not salty though they may live in salt water, so the Lord was not corrupted by Satan though He lived in the Satan-corrupted world. In order to redeem us, He lived in the satanic and sinful world. Nevertheless, He was sinless, unaffected by the world. As the generating life, Christ lived as a proper man in the God-created earth. As the redeeming life, Christ lived in the Satan-corrupted world without being affected by its corruption. We need the Lord Jesus to be both our generating life and our redeeming life. As members of Christ, we are now being fed by Christ with Himself as the resurrected bread of life, and we are being nourished by Him with His redeeming life.
Christ’s feeding us with Himself as the life supply is for us to receive eternal life. “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life” (v. 54). This eternal life is the divine life, which is not only everlasting with respect to time but also eternal and divine in nature.
Through Christ’s feeding we receive eternal life, the divine life, that we may live daily by Him as our life supply. “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me” (v. 57b). Eating is to take food into us to be assimilated into our body organically. Hence, to eat the Lord Jesus is to receive Him into us to be assimilated by the regenerated new man in the way of life. Then we live by Him whom we receive. Christ, therefore, is not only life but also the life supply, the food that sustains us to live because of Him in our daily walk.
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