I have meat to eat that ye know not of (John 4:32)

“I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” And after their wondering enquiry of each other as to the source and nature of the supply, he added: “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work” (John 4:32, 34). The doing of that will involved the indwelling of the word of God in which, by the Spirit of God, he was of “quick understanding.” The Scriptures frequently speak of the word as food to be eaten. “The Lord thy God humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.” So said Moses to Israel (Deut. 8:3). “I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food,” said Job (ch. 23:12). “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart” (Jer. 15:16). Words that in their “reading, marking, learning, and inwardly digesting” thus establish and delight the new man, are “butter and honey.” The words of the covenant-breaking enemy, said the Psalmist, “were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords” (Ps. 55:21). The sham illustrates the true. Another psalm, the 119th (a long panegyric of the word of God), says: “How sweet are thy words unto my taste—yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Through thy precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way” (verse 103). Solomon uses the same metaphor as Isaiah 7. His exhortation runs thus: “My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste. So shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul, when thou hast found it, then there shall be a reward and thine expectation shall not be cut off” (Prov 24:13–14). All this finds pre eminent illustration in Immanuel, who refused the evil and chose the good, who “loved righteousness and hated iniquity,” and is therefore “anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows” (Heb. 1:9). He is himself the bread of life, antitypical of the manna with which God fed Israel in the wilderness. “Labour not for the meat which perisheth,” said He to the people that followed Him because He had miraculously multiplied bread, “but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed” (John 6:27). “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you” (verse 53). And pacifying his disciples, who complained of the hard saying, he added in explanation: “It is the Spirit that maketh alive, the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are life” (verse 63). All Immanuel’s “seed” eat of the same “spiritual meat,” and esteem it exceedingly; and by it alone in its daily assimilation, “know” and are encouraged to “refuse the evil and choose the good” in hope of the day of recompense that lies ahead.

1899 Christadelphian p8 "Ministry of the Prophets"