the bread that was given you was not that true bread which endures to everlasting hfe."
[Bui my Father giveth you the true hread from heaven.'] The use of the present tense should be noticed in this sentence. The idea seems to be, '' What Moses could not give you, even the true bread which feeds the soul, my Father does givTi you, and is actually giving you at this moment, in that He gives yoi: myself."
The expression, " giveth you," must not be supposed to im^' ply actual reception on the part of the Jews. It rather means "giving" in the sense of "offering" for acceptance a thing which those to whom it is offered may not receive. — It is a very remarkable saying, and one of those which seems to me to prove unanswerably that Christ is Grod's gift to the whole world, — that His redemption was made for all mankind, — that He died for all, — and is offered to all. It is like the famous texts, " God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son " (John iii. 16) ; and, "' God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." (1 John v. 11.) It is a gift no doubt which is utterly thrown away, like many other gifts of God to man, and is profit- able to none but those that beheve. But that God nevertheless does in a certain sense actually " give " His Son, as the true bread from heaven, even to the wicked and unbelieving, appears to me incontrovertibly proved by the words before us. It is a remark- able fact that Erskine, the famous Scotch seceder, based his right to offer Christ to all, on these very words, and defended himself before the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland on the strength of them. He asked the Moderator to tell him what Christ meant when He said, " My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven," — and* got no answer. The truth is, I ven- ture to think, that the text cannot be answered by the advocates of an extreme view of particular redemption. Fairly inter- preted, the words mean that in some sense or another the Father does actually " give " the Son to those who are not believers. They warrant preachers and teachers in making a wide, broad, full, free, unlimited offer >f Christ to all mankind without ex- ception.
Even Hutcheson, the Scotch divine, though a strong advocate of particular redemption, remai-ks, — " Even such as are, at pre- sent, but carnal and unsound, are not secluded from the offer of Christ ; but upon right terms may expect that He will be gifted to them."
The expression " true," in this place, when applied to bread, means " true " as opposed to that which is only typical, emble- matical, and temporal. The manna was undoubtedly real true food for tl e body. But it was a type of a iar better food, and