For those who are converted to God, the grace of God envelops everything, drives everything, and defines everything. This includes our desire to learn how to walk in His ways, which means our desire to grow and flourish in our sanctification, which means loving and understanding His law.
This is a Table of grace. There is nothing here but undeserved favor. Christ died for the unlovely, He redeemed the inexcusable, and He secured those who were as unstable as water. This is all grace, and yet here we are, invited to come. God offers us bread from heaven.
And yet grace introduces us to a test—a test that measures whether or not we understand the potency of that grace.
“Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no” (Ex. 16:4).
Not only does God provide bread for His people, it says here that He rains bread from heaven upon them. But why does He do it? He is proving them—to see whether they will walk in His law, or not. And as the record of Israel in the wilderness shows us, they frequently did not.
Why did they not?
“Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven” (John 6:32).
But what the type cannot do, the antitype does.The manna from heaven was a type, and this means that it could not accomplish what God intended for His people to do, which is to walk in His law. But what the type cannot do, the antitype does. The true bread from heaven is here because Christ is here. But Christ is only apprehended by faith. So then, the invitation is to eat and drink with the mouth of true and living faith.
So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.