Our fathers did eat manna

With reference to John 6:49-54—The Flesh and the Manna then, according to Paul, were "spiritual meat." In regard to the manna, it is styled in Psal. lxxviii. 24, "the corn of the heavens," "the bread of mighty ones" -- "man did eat the bread of mighty ones." This and the flesh, by which the life of Israel was sustained, was "spiritual meat;" it was, nevertheless, material and corruptible flesh and bread; for under certain conditions, it stank and bred worms. But it was "spiritual" in the sense of representing something else than its own material constituents; in other words, the flesh and the bread were types of something that was afterwards to descend from the heavens, and to become the life-sustaining principle of all that should receive it. What was that something?

This question has been answered by Jesus in John vi. The Jews had said, "Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread out of the heaven to eat." But in reply to this, Jesus said "Moses gave you not the bread out of the heaven; but my Father giveth to you the true bread out of the heaven. For the bread of the Deity is He, who descendeth out of the heaven, and giveth life to the kosmos." This was as much as to say, that the manna was representative of a life-imparting agent from heaven; even the Logos speaking by Jesus. "In him," the Logos, "was life," says John; "and the life was the light of men." The Logos, or Spirit of Deity, was the manna, or true bread. It was this Logos who said, I am the Way and the Truth and the Resurrection, and the Life;" I am the Bread of Life," or the Manna; "I came down from heaven;" "this is the bread which descendeth from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die ... if any man eat of this bread he shall live in the Aion: and the bread that I, the Logos, will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the kosmos."

Thus spake the Logos, who was in the beginning the Deity. He promised to give "His Flesh" for the sustenance of the kosmos. This flesh was the Son of Mary and David, named Jesus; and the Logos appointed that Jesus should be eaten, and his blood drunk, in the even, by all who would become the subjects of resurrection to the life of the Aion. "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." This saying is fatal to the heathen dogma of an immortal soul in Sin's flesh; for they only eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus, who "discern the Son and believe into him;" and this can be affirmed only of an almost Noachic few in this evil generation. He that believes the written testimony of the Logos concerning Jesus, set forth in the prophets and apostles, and becomes the subject of repentance and remission of sins in his name, eats his flesh and drinks his blood, and "hath aion-life" in the sense of Apoc. xxii. 14 -- "blessed they doing God's commandments, that they may have the right to the Wood of the Life:" "and I will raise him up at the last day" (John vi. 54). Thus, "he that eateth me, even he shall live by me," and none else.