"Man shall not live on bread alone."1 The statement uttered by Jesus of Nazareth has not been seriously challenged in nearly two thousand years. On the contrary, nearly every thinking man and woman has come to a similar conclusion. Even with our limited experience, we realize that the mere abundance of physical nourishment has done nothing to alleviate our inner hunger. Odd though it may seem, neither has our free exercise of the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" brought us the satisfaction we seek. Indeed, despite our freedom to determine the course of our own lives, the pursuit and attainment of physically, intellectually, emotionally, and morally satisfying goals have somehow left us hungry. More troubling still, religion and philosophy, the two great bookends of man's search for satisfaction and meaning, have failed to satisfy our appetite. A great hunger is seated deep within the heart of humanity. Regardless of the place or condition of those who feel it, the hunger has endured unfilled to this very day.
Divine Design
To understand this most fundamental human plight, it is wisest to look to the One who understands us the best—God, our Creator. When God created us, He did so in an extraordinary way. On one level, He created us with a body—the physical organism with which we would contact the material realm. On a somewhat deeper level, He created in us a soul so that we could function psychologically and emotionally. God did not stop there, however. In the center of our being—past our body and soul—God created a spirit. God created a spirit in us because He wanted to come into us and desired that we receive and contain Him. Since God is Spirit—neither a mere physical nor psychological being—He needed there to be a place within us into which He could come. Just as only our body can eat food and only our mind can assimilate information, only the human spirit can partake of God, who is Spirit.2
According to His divine design, God created each of the three parts of our being not only with a capacity to appropriate certain things outside of us but also with inherent, corresponding desires and appetites. In this sense, we could rightly say that we hunger on three levels. Just as the sensation of hunger presupposes food to satisfy it and the feeling of love presupposes that there is someone to love and be loved by, so the sense of a still deeper hunger for something eternal and deeply satisfying points to God's existence and character. Just as there are ways for us to satisfy the appetites of our body and soul, there is a way for this deepest of hungers—the hunger of our spirit—to be satisfied. That way is simply to eat God.
In the Beginning
The fact that we can eat God is vividly portrayed in the book of Genesis. After creating the first man, Adam, God placed him before a particular fruit-bearing tree—the tree of life. This tree represented God Himself. Having set Adam before this tree, God told him to eat. The implication was clear: Adam was to eat of the tree of life. Indeed, the text uses the words "pleasant to the sight and good for food" to describe the tree of life.3 Since the tree of life represents God, if man were to have eaten of this tree, he, in actuality, would have been ingesting God, albeit in an unseen way. This is the way the Bible begins. We were designed, conditioned, and positioned to eat God.
If Adam had eaten God, that is, if he had taken God into his spirit to contain Him, everything would have been in order: God, who is Spirit, would have come into Adam's spirit, and Adam would have been satisfied in the deepest part of his being. Not only so, we—Adam's descendents—would have had the way to eat God as well. However, the actual situation took a turn that has resulted in far grimmer consequences.
Closing the Way
Instead of eating God by partaking of the tree of life, Adam partook of another tree—the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.4 Just as the tree of life represented God, so the tree of knowledge signified God's enemy, Satan. As a result of eating from this tree, Adam—and all those after him—partook of Satan, causing mankind to become sinful and defiled.5 Because God is righteous and holy in that He will not touch anything that Satan has corrupted, He could no longer be available to be man's food. The way to the tree of life—the way to partake of God—was once open to man. Now, God closed the way.6 Although God had come to man as the tree of life for man to eat, He was now apart from man. Even though physical and psychological "food" and satisfaction were still available to man, a deeper hunger, the hunger for God, could no longer be satisfied. Once man partook of the wrong tree, God closed the way to the tree of life and was no longer available for man to eat.
Once the way to God was cut off, the history of humanity predictably became one of vain pursuit and never-ending hunger. Perhaps the philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau best gave utterance to the unyielding desire for God when he wrote the words, "The thirst after happiness is never extinguished in the heart of man."7 If Adam had eaten God at the beginning, his innermost hunger would have been assuaged, and the perpetual search for an inner content that defines our lives would have been avoided.
Brought Back
Yet God, because He had created us for His purpose, still desired to come into our spirit. To do this, He, in an indescribable act of love and mercy, became a man—Jesus Christ.8 Although He was a genuine man, He was untainted by Satan and by sin, which had been passed down from Adam through the generations. This perfect man lived a life without sin and at every turn defeated Satan. After living such a life for over thirty years, corrupted humanity killed Him by nailing Him to a wooden cross. Not only did mankind mock Jesus and judge Him, God Himself judged Him. All the sins we have ever committed were placed upon Him so that God could judge Him in our place. Jesus Christ, the only perfect man, bore the judgment that should have fallen on us. After He died, He was buried in a tomb. Three days later, He resurrected from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God the Father. His resurrection was the sign that this man-the Lord Jesus Christ—had solved every problem between us and God.
By going through this process, Christ dealt with everything that stood between us and the tree of life. In fact, although the way to partake of God had been closed for millennia, Christ's death and resurrection reopened the way.9 Previously, God's righteousness and holiness had prevented man from approaching God. Christ's work on the cross, however, fulfilled every one of God's righteous requirements. Christ, through His death and resurrection, justified us and enabled us to righteously come forward to eat God. Because of all that the Lord Jesus has done for us, all those who believe into Him receive the inalienable, God-given right to partake of Him as the tree of life.10
God, Our Food
Today, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God Himself, is the tree of life.11 And today, as of old, He wants us to eat Him. All the work has been done. Christ has fulfilled all the requirements. When we eat God in Christ as the tree of life, He as the Spirit will come into our spirit and fill our deepest hunger. Our existence will no longer be empty and vacuous. Neither will we continue living a life fueled by "bread alone." Instead, we—the empty ones, the starving ones—will have the authority to feast on God as our portion. God Himself will become our deepest satisfaction, for God Himself will be our food. 
1 Matthew 4:4 (back) 2 Romans 8:16; Second Timothy 4:22; John 4:24 (back) 3 Genesis 2:9 (back) 4 Genesis 3:6 (back) 5 Romans 5:12 (back) 6 Genesis 3:24 (back) 7 Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), Confessions, Book IX (back) 8 John 1:1, 14; Matthew 1:21 (back) 9 Hebrews 10:19-20 (back) 10 Revelation 22:14 (back) 11 John 15:1 and John 11:25, where Christ is the tree (the vine) and life respectively, hence the tree of life itself (back)
If you, too, have a hunger inside that refuses to be filled up with anything you've tried, you need God as your food. To begin a life of eating God, simply open up and speak these words to Him from deep within:
"Lord Jesus, I am empty and hungry. I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross to cleanse me of my sin. Thank You for rising from the dead as the Spirit so that I can eat You. Lord Jesus, I receive You into me right now. From this moment on, fill me with Yourself every day of my life. I love you, Lord Jesus!"
