Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life!

This is the first post from Chapter 4 of Friends With God “Living The Life Of Jesus In Us”

As discussed in the previous post, all people can be on the path to eternal life, if God chooses to give them his Spirit to open their eyes to their sins. We therefore should show respect to others, and love them, and show mercy and compassion and forgiveness toward them, for they too have the potential to be Sons of God. (Acts 17:30) In doing so, we express how Christ would have related to them, and given them a chance to understand God and come to repentance. (Matt 5:16)

Being A Living Sacrifice

To live with compassion and love toward others is the will of God for us. But it is always our choice to do the will of God, or not:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies (God doesn’t force you to yield to him) a living sacrifice (which is) holy, (the word holy means set apart or sanctified) acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable (logical) service. (it’s the logical thing to yield to God) And be not conformed to this world: but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, (through repentance) that you may prove (demonstrate in your lives) what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Rom 12:1-2)

Why then did Jesus die? His death was the final part of his life of being a living sacrifice, which showed us how to live. His death on the cross was to show us the supreme example for us to follow. That was the Will of God for Him.:

No one has greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. (John 15:13-14)

What he commands us to do is to follow his example of living and dying for his friends, as a living sacrifice. This is the Will of God for us. Doing God’s will in our lives means that we are to be a living sacrifice for others, which demonstrates that we love God in the same way that Christ loved us, and gave himself as a living sacrifice for us to follow.

There is nothing mystical or mysterious about this process. No spiritual mathematics. No complicated and confusing ideology or symbolism. Jesus lived a good life; we must emulate that life if we truly love him and love how he lived.

The First Fruits Of God

As discussed in this previous post, many events in Christ’s life occurred in the context of the Holy Days. By neglecting to keep these days we miss the richness and depth of the plan of God for all mankind. If, however, we follow Jesus’ example by keeping these days, then God is willing to grant us to follow after Jesus in also being resurrected to eternal life as a Son of God.

We see the importance of understanding the events surrounding the Holy Days, when Paul said But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them (all righteous people) that have slept (have died). (1Cor 15:20)

The analogy being used here of “firstfruits”, refers to the fact that Jesus was resurrected on the very day that the first grains were being harvested in Israel.

The beginning of the harvest always occurred on the first day of the week, after the First Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. At this time Israel was required to take the first sheaf of the grain harvest and “wave it before the Lord”, which is called the “wave sheaf” offering. (Lev 23:9-14)

No grain was allowed to be harvested prior to this specific wave sheaf offering being made to God. In 1Cor 15:20 Paul is referring to Christ as representing this wave sheaf, being the first of the firstfruits of the grain harvest. All righteous people who lived prior to the time of Christ, will also be resurrected at the first resurrection:

And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, did not receive the promise, for God had provided some better thing for us, that they should not be made perfect without us. (Heb 11:39-40)

Christians, and all other righteous people prior to Christ, are represented by the rest of the grain harvest, which is called the ‘first fruit’ harvest, because it is the first harvest of the agricultural year:

• Of his own will he begot us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (James 1:18)

• Similarly: These are they which follow the Lamb (Christ) whithersoever he goes. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb (Christ). (Rev14:4)

Symbolically we follow Christ in being the firstfruits in the first resurrection to eternal life. However, we are not resurrected from death until Christ returns, which is symbolized by the Feast of Trumpets.

Jesus was resurrected at the very start of the grain harvest. This is because Jesus represents the first of the firstfruits of the harvest of God. The timing of his resurrection was the will of God for Jesus, as it fits in with his overall plan illustrated by his Holy Days.

The start of the grain harvest marks the beginning of the fifty-day countdown to the next festival of Pentecost, on which the Holy Spirit was given. (Acts 2:1-41) All these festivals have rich meaning for us and it’s God’s will for us that we keep them, to remember and teach our children the spiritual plan of God for our physical lives. (Luke 22:19, 1Cor 11:24)

If we don’t keep God’s festivals, then it’s easy to get caught up in erroneous, non-biblical doctrines, such as keeping Easter, which is never mentioned in scripture, and is completely pagan in origin.

Passover, and the following seven day Feast of Unleavened Bread, symbolize the process of understanding the love of God and his expectation for us is that we produce abundant fruit in our lives, by following the example of Christ.

Eat the Flesh Of The Son Of Man

Sometimes, Jesus was very clear about how we are to live our lives: This is my commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you…. If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. … This is my commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you. (John 15:12-17)

If we love him then we will have everlasting life: Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life’. (John 5:24) By combining these two scriptures we can see that in order to gain eternal life we must love Jesus and love living by his words.

At other times Jesus used some confusing terms, yet the meaning is the same - for the outcome of gaining eternal life is also the same:

 Most assuredly I say to you unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no (eternal) life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. (John 6:53-5)

We see, therefore, that to “eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood” means to “Love one another as I have loved you”, and also means to be someone who “believes in him who sent me”. They are all just ways of saying the same thing.

However, we should really read these verses in context of the scripture they are taken from, for each of these various statements was said to a different audience, and was specifically phrased to achieve a set purpose.

Will You Be Offended By Jesus?

When Jesus said, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood” he was being deliberately provocative, for he was sorting out who believed him and who was just following to see the miracles, and eat the physical food he provided for them. (John 6:66) Some of his followers were offended by this saying, and that showed that they did not believe who Jesus was. (John 6:61)

Even today this is quite an outrageous statement, at least to our modern way of talking. However, the book of Proverbs shows that this analogy of “eating my flesh” should not have actually been too difficult for those of his day to comprehend:

For they (wicked people) sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause someone to fall.
For they (wicked people) eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence. (and obviously enjoy doing so)
But the path of the just (righteous people) is as the shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day.
(Prov 4:14-18)

Clearly, Solomon is poetically saying that wicked people enjoy sin and violence, as if eating a banquet that fills their bodies with delicious, rich foods.

In the same way, when Jesus says we are to drink my blood and eat my flesh, he means we must enjoy the way of God, such that we crave it like sumptuous food. However, this food is much more important than physical food, as it’s essential for our eternal lives. See also: John 3:18, 4:36 Rom 6:21-22, Gal 5:22-23.

So, for that time, in that culture, this saying was not so outrageous, and certainly fits in with the terminology of scripture. Despite this, some people of his day did get confused, and were offended by it. (John 6:60-61)

Physical Examples With Spiritual Meaning

At other times, even his closest friends didn’t understand his poetic ways of speaking. On one occasion his disciples brought him food, but he refused it and said:

I have food to eat that you don’t known of.' The disciples then said one to another, 'Did anyone bring him anything to eat?' Jesus then said to them, 'My food is, that I may do the will of Him who sent me, and to finish His work; (John 4:32-34)

Jesus was using an obscure and unusual metaphor in order to get his point across to the disciples- which is that what he was doing in teaching God’s truth to them, was much more important than anything they provided for him to sustain his physical life. 

From Genesis to Revelation the issue of what we eat is taken very seriously. Adam and Eve ate of the tree they were told not to eat of. (Gen 2:17) Similarly, in the New Heaven and New Earth, we will eat of the Tree of Life, and drink living waters from the stream of life. (Rev 22:1-2) All the trees in the garden of Eden, except for two, were to provide nourishment for physical life. (Gen 2:9) In the New Heaven and New Earth, the Tree of Life will provide spiritual nourishment for eternal life.

What you choose to eat and drink, shows what you love, and what your heart desires. If we desire his “way of life”, which Jesus demonstrated to us when he was physical, then we metaphorically “eat his flesh and drink his blood”. His life on Earth as a physical human was his living sacrifice that we partake of, which he came down from heaven to show us. When we eat and drink of his body and blood, we metaphorically live his life in us.

The Meaning Of “Eat The Flesh Of The Son Of Man”

Let us look again at these verses in John 6, for they are not too difficult to comprehend, when we view them with his intended perspective:

Then Jesus said unto them, truly, truly, I say unto you, except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. (without accepting Christ’s way of life as the example for how we should live, then we are not on the way to eternal life) Whoso eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. (If we accept and love his way of living, then we are on the path to eternal life) For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. (If we imbibe of this food, by living his life in us, we will gain eternal life) He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in him. (By dwelling in him, we imitate, in our lives, how he lived on earth) As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eats me, even he shall live by me. (when we follow him, Christ gives us eternal life, which comes from the Father) (John 6:53-57)  

In another analogy Jesus compares how God provided for the physical needs of the Israelites when they left Egypt. They were provided with bread from heaven, called manna, while they wandered in the desert for 40 years. (Exo 16:1-35)

This manna kept them physically alive, but it didn’t provide eternal life. Jesus explained that his living sacrifice by coming as a physical human being, is the new bread from heaven, which, if we follow his example, is the good food that will enable us to gain eternal life.

Jesus goes on to mix these two analogies of being “the bread from heaven” and “eating his flesh and blood”:

I am the Bread of life. (food for eternal life) Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and died. This (my physical life) is the Bread which comes down from Heaven (Christ came down from the Father), so that a man may eat of it (follow the example of Jesus’ life) and not die.
I am the Living Bread (he is the living sacrificial example of how we should live) which came down from Heaven.
If anyone eats of this Bread, (enjoys living Jesus’ way of life, as much as we enjoy eating a meal) he shall live forever. (He then brings the two analogies of bread and flesh together) And truly the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. (John 6:48-51)

It was therefore fitting that Jesus, the living bread of life, should be born in a little town called Bethlehem, which means House of Bread, and has been discussed in detail in this previous post.

In the next post in this series, we will look at why God required Israel to give animal sacrifices, and how they reflect the sacrifice that Christ gave as “the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world”. (John 1:29)