In this lesson we will continue to see other aspects of the experience and enjoyment of Christ as the Son in the grace of the Triune God.
As the portion of the saints, Christ is also the believers' spiritual food. First Corinthians 10:3 says that the children of Israel went out of Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, and "all ate the same spiritual food" in the wilderness. The spiritual food here refers to manna (Exo. 16:14-18), which typifies Christ as the daily life supply (John 6:31-35) for the believers' journey. We believers should all eat the same spiritual food, not eating anything other than Christ.
The Christ who is our spiritual food is the Christ who becomes subjective to us. He is the processed Triune God indwelling our spirit subjectively as the all-inclusive Spirit. Therefore, He can be our daily spiritual food. Anything that is to be our food and life supply must be something that can enter into us and then be digested and assimilated by us to become the elements of our tissue and fiber. This is precisely what Christ is to us. When we eat Christ as our spiritual food, He enters into us and mingles with us as one.
In John 6:48 the Lord declared that He was the bread of life, indicating that He would be man's life supply in the form of food, like the tree of life (Gen. 2:9). He was God incarnated in order to be the bread of life for us to eat. He came down from heaven not only to be our Savior but also to be our food. In John 6 we see five characteristics of Christ as our food: the heavenly bread (vv. 41, 50, 51, 58), the bread of God (v. 33), the bread of life (v. 35), the living bread (v. 51), and the true bread (v. 32). As the bread that came down out of heaven, Christ is the heavenly bread. As the bread of God, He is of God, He was sent by God, and He had God with Him. As the bread of life, He is the bread with eternal life. As the living bread, He is living. As the true bread, He is the bread of truth, or reality; all other kinds of food are merely shadows of Him as the real food. The reality of the food we eat daily is Jesus Christ. He is the true bread of life sent by God to bring us eternal life. We all need to receive Him as the bread of life, the spiritual food, to us.
In 6:57 the Lord said, "He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me." To eat is to take food into us that it may be assimilated organically into our body. Hence, to eat Jesus is to receive Him into us that He may be assimilated by the regenerated new man in the way of life. Then we live by the Lord whom we have received. This is the living that we should have according to God's ordination in His economy. For our spiritual living, Christ should be our unique food for us to be daily strengthened, sustained, and satisfied by Him.