What are some examples of metaphor in the Bible?

Hence it is, beloved friends, that we come so close to the blessed person of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Supper. "This is my body," are the Lord's words. There is no need, however, for fanciful notions with regard to the bread. Let us be clear that the material is bread, and that it remains bread. He said, "This is my body," using, of course, a figure of speech, such as was often upon His lips. He spake in the manner of that nation to whom He came. When He said "This is my body," He thereby attached a special significance to the loaf. This, and nothing else, was to be the emblem which should set forth His body, and should for this reason recall to their minds His body.

Hence it is, beloved friends, that in the Supper we come so close to the blessed person of the Lord Jesus Christ. "This is My body," are the Lord's words. There is no need, however, for fanciful notions with regard to the bread. Let us be clear that the material is bread, and that it remains bread. He said, "This is My body," using, of course, a figure of speech, such as was often upon His lips. He spake in the pictorial manner of that nation to which He came. When He said "This is My body," He thereby attached a special significance to the loaf as His memorial. This, and nothing else, was to be the emblem which should set forth to them His body, and should for this reason recall to their minds the things done in His body.

In verses 50-58, the Lord speaks of eating Himself or His flesh as the living bread no less than seven times, and of drinking His blood three times. His language is figurative, yet really very simple. That which we eat and drink we appropriate in the fullest and most intense way. It is wholly and irrevocably ours, and ultimately becomes part of ourselves. It is consequently a very appropriate figure of faith, for that is just what faith effects in a spiritual way. By incarnation the Son of the Father was amongst men, truly come down from heaven, and thereby all that was revealed in Him was made available for men, but only to be actually appropriated by faith. Hence men must eat of that bread, and eating they live for ever.

Clearly the terms used on this subject by the Lord, and recorded in the New Testament, are used, not literally, but figuratively. He says, "My Father gives you the true bread from heaven." Do the teachers of Transubstantiation mean to say that Christ was really bread? Surely not. Yet He says, "I am the bread of life"; "He that eats of this bread shall live for ever." He was not physically or literally bread come down from heaven: that is, the "is" was figuratively and spiritually used: the bread means Himself, who came forth from the Father, and came into the world, the Word made flesh, the Son of God. But incarnation was not enough to save us; for this He must die in atonement for sin, and so He gives His flesh (in death) for the life of the world. To get eternal life we must eat His flesh and drink His blood: in other words, we must each one personally, by faith, receive Him as the dying and crucified Saviour.

There is a marked change in our Lord's discourse. He turns from His incarnation to His death. In both cases He speaks of eating. It is the well-known figure of scripture for appropriation or communion. He was not only the Living Bread that came down out of heaven, that one might eat and live for ever. He would give His flesh for the life not of Jews only but of mankind, or as He says "for the life of the world."

The first is in John 6, that wonderful chapter which sets the Lord before us as bread in a fourfold way — "true bread," v. 32; "the bread of God," v. 33; "the bread of life," v. 35; "living bread," v. 51. Our Lord spoke of Himself thus as One who could be appropriated in order that His own might obtain and be sustained in spiritual life in their souls. Note this second suggestion — "sustain" as well as obtain.

Israel is called a vine in the Old Testament (Psalm 80:8; Isaiah 5:1-8; Jeremiah 2:21; Hosea 10:1) and Christ here in this parable takes the place of Israel and is the true vine. His disciples are the branches. Israel under the law covenant could not bear fruit for God, as the law cannot be the source of fruit-bearing. Fruit unto God can only spring from union with Christ. (See Romans 7:4.) He as the true vine on earth brought fruit unto God. The true believer is as closely united to Him as the branch is to the vine. The branch is in Him and He is in the branch. The life-sap of the vine circulates in the branch. And this life and nature in the believer produces the fruit. Our Lord said: "The Father who abideth in me, He doeth the works." And believers should confess: The Lord Jesus Christ Who abideth in me and I in Him, He produces the fruit. Apart from Him we can do nothing. This vital union with Christ, dependence on Him, the result--fruit unto God, is more fully revealed in the Epistles.

The vine symbolises our blessed Lord; the branches the believers, and just as the branches bear fruit, as abiding in the vine, so believers bear fruit, as they abide in Christ. Abiding in Him they bear much fruit. This is to the glory and pleasure of the Father, symbolised by the Husbandman, who purges every branch that bears fruit, that it may bring forth more fruit (John 15:2).

To set forth this responsibility the Lord uses the figure of the vine and its branches. In a vine the fruit is not found in the root and stock, but in the branches; but the vine is the source of the life that enables the branches to bear fruit. The Lord can say of Himself, "I am the true vine" and of His disciples, "Ye are the branches." It is only as we abide in Him that we shall be able to carry out our responsibility to bear fruit for the Father and witness for Christ.

In this chapter the Lord Jesus speaks of Himself as the true vine, the source of all vitality and spiritual power to the branches. The eleven disciples, to whom He spoke, were the branches, for it was while He was on earth that the blessed Lord was the true vine. They were connected with Him that they might bring forth the fruit that would give joy and delight to the Father's heart. This could only be through their abiding in Jesus, through dependence and communion with Him. Nothing from the natural heart could bring pleasure to God, only that which is derived from His own dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.