What did Jesus mean when He said we must eat His flesh and drink His blood?

Peter, in his reply to the Saviour's challenge, speaks of what He has (5:68), and of what He is (5:69) The one meets our need as sinners, and the other for ever satisfies our hearts as saints. "Thou hast the words of eternal life." This is what the Lord had been setting forth in the synagogue in Capernaum. It will suffice to quote verses 53-54: "Verily, verily, I say to you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eats My flesh and drinks My blood, has eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day." Let us beware of carnalising our Lord's words by importing a Sacrament into them. The Lord's Supper, so dear to every believing heart, was not instituted when these words were uttered. What then did the Saviour mean? Just this: that such was man's guilty and alienated condition in the sight of God that nothing could avail for his blessing but His death. Himself as the slain One must be appropriated in individual faith. In this way His flesh is eaten and His blood drunk, and the believing soul receives eternal life. The writer of the familiar words, "the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:20), was eating His flesh and drinking His blood as he adoringly penned the words.

Get hold of this clearly in your soul, my reader, that unless you have eaten the flesh of the Son of Man, and have drunk His blood, you have no life in you; and do not think that this means the communion — the Lord's Supper. Nay, nay, this is the substance; the Lord's Supper is the shadow. This is the reality, the communion is the figure. A man might eat the Lord's Supper a thousand times, and yet spend eternity in hell, but no man could eat the flesh of the Son of Man and not have eternal life. When the Lord said this, He knew that He was going to die, and to rise again and go, as man, to the right hand of God, — that He was going to do a work whereby man might be brought to God, a work which enables the believer in Him in righteousness to go to the spot where He now is; and therefore here the Lord presses the necessity of knowing Himself, of eating Himself, saying, "Whoso eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:54). Again, "He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in him" (John 6:56). In plain words He says to the believer, We are one. In view of the gravity of this matter, let me ask you, my reader, Have you ever yet eaten the flesh, and drunk the blood of the Son of Man? That is a question that you must answer to God, and to Him alone.

It is a very happy thing to eat the Lord's Supper with the saints of God, but that is only the symbol; whereas what the Lord means here is, we must accept Him in His death, and feed on Him in death. Thereby only can we get life to our souls.

It is impossible in the limits of a "Scripture note" to give anything like an exposition of this significant scripture. The utmost that can be done, is to indicate a few points to help the reader to study it for himself. The first thing of importance to note, is the character of the death of Christ here, and in the gospel generally. He is not seen here as dying for our sins, although every aspect is included in His one act of death, but rather as bearing the judgment due to what we were as men in the flesh. In one word, it is the brazen serpent aspect (John 3); that is, the condemnation of sin in the flesh; and hence it is the judicial end of the first man, inasmuch as God passed judgment in the cross upon all that man was. Secondly, as corresponding with this character of the cross, man is not seen in this gospel as alive in his sins, as for example in the epistle to the Romans, but as dead, without one movement of life towards God, as morally dead, as in 2 Cor. 5:14, Eph. 2 and Col. 2:13. This is distinctly taught in John 5:24-25. Thirdly, "the flesh of the Son of man," and "His blood" can only refer to His death; for the two things could not exist in separation excepting in death. The contention — sacramentarian contention — that the Lord's Supper is referred to, ignores the plainest teaching of the chapter. That the Lord's Supper looks back to, and is the commemoration of, His death is true; and that the flesh and blood of the Son of man speak of His death is also true; but the two things must not be confounded. The meaning of eating, it may be noted in the next place, is identification with, appropriation of, and so assimilation. It is "to acknowledge, realize, feed upon His death — to identify ourselves with it before God, participating in it by faith." The last point to be mentioned is, that verse 53 should run, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man, and drunk His blood, ye have no life in you." Thereafter "eat," as rendered, is in the present tense. That is, verse 53 refers to the first appropriation of the death of Christ, as the way of life for dead souls, and the following verses speak of the continuous feeding upon that death in their several connections. A few words may be added upon the blessings specified. On the first, that of receiving life, we call attention to the following language: "In receiving by faith Christ's death as the absolute condemnation of that which I am, I have part in the efficacy of that which He has done. Sin has been before God, and has disappeared before His eyes in the death of Christ, who, however, had not known it. I say to myself, That is I. I eat it; I place myself there by the operation of the Spirit of God, not that I believe that it is for me personally, but I recognize what His death signified, and I place myself in it by faith in Him. There, where I was, in death spiritually, by sin and disobedience, Christ entered in grace and by obedience, for the glory of His Father, in order that God might be glorified. I recognise my state in His death, but according to the perfect grace of God, according to which He took my place there; for it is in this that we know, love, that He laid down His life for us. Now, if one died for all, then were all. dead. By faith and repentance I recognise myself there, and I have eternal life." (Collective Writings of J. N. D., vol. 33 pp. 292-3.)

Hence it is the Lord proceeds to say that he that eats His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life; having eternal life the soul feeds upon His death constantly, for only thus can it maintain its new condition morally in having passed out of death into life, and be in the enjoyment of the assurance of resurrection at the last day. Already living in the new scene to which eternal life belongs, it awaits its perfected condition in resurrection. Further, the one who thus eats dwells in Christ in abiding communion, and Christ in him as the source of his power while still down here. And finally; "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by [by reason of] the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by [by reason of] me." It is not now eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ, but eating, feeding upon, Christ Himself, and upon Christ Himself in the place where He is, in His glorified state. Down here, as sent of the living Father, He lived "by reason of what the Father was and His living," and now he that feeds upon Christ lives by reason of what Christ is, for He is our life, and because He lives, we shall live also. "This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." We live, therefore, in Him before the Father, and by reason of what He is, and hence it is as we feed upon Him that we really enjoy the life which is inseparable from Himself.

But it proves more. It proves that, in speaking of eating Him and drinking His blood, such language refers to spiritually feeding on Christ, not on any actual reception of the Lord's body and blood. A person who eats, as here spoken of, lives by the life of Christ, has eternal life, abides in Him, and is raised up into glory. But it proves more; it proves that the terms used on this subject by the Lord and recorded in the New Testament are used, not literally, but figuratively. Christ declares His Father gave them 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 that bread of life." "He that eateth of this bread shall live for ever." He was not physically nor substantially bread come down from heaven; that is, "is" was figuratively and spiritually used. Again, the bread which He gives is His flesh which He would give for the life of the world. As bread, as a figure, He was come down from heaven, incarnate in the world. The bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. This bread means Him who came forth from the Father, and came into the world, the Word made flesh, the Son of God. He was the living bread come down from heaven. But incarnation was not sufficient alone to save us. He must die, or He would have abode alone, and the bread He gives is His flesh which He had taken, and this He gives for the life of the world. Here we have the cross, the propitiation made for sin. The Eucharist is for believers, His people. This giving His flesh is for the world; and he that eats not this, and drinks not His blood, has no life in him. But the Lord's supper none can truly eat but those who have life in them already, and even if only formally, it is as Christians they do it, not as the unsaved world, to which He came that men might live and be forgiven through Him; and as we have seen he who does eat has eternal life, and will have part in the resurrection of life — he will live for ever. In a word, no eternal life without the cross, without shedding of blood. Hence the blood too must be drunk. It must be shed and taken into the heart, as shed, to be of any use. Without shedding of blood there is no remission. It was not a Messiah to the Jews they were to believe in, true as that was, but One come down from heaven incarnate in the world, and giving Himself and shedding His blood for the world. So must He be received, so fed upon, and thus men would have eternal life. Hence, having spoken of incarnation and death, He adds, "What and if ye see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" You make giving His flesh for the life of the world, after His ascension, contrary to the order of the chapter. Thus, when Christ is said to be bread, it is a mere figure. The bread was Christ in the flesh which He was going to give for the life of the world.

The use of John 6 goes somewhat farther and differently into the matter. Chapter 5 had presented the Son of God as quickening whom He would. In the latter, it is sovereign life-giving; in the former, it is appropriation by faith, and this of the Son of man (that is, the Lord come in flesh). Hence He is the bread that cometh down from heaven. But it is not the Christ to the Jews, received as born on earth, but the Son of man (the Word made flesh) giving life to the world. He must be received in this character; and to receive Him in this character, in which alone is life, we cannot stop short of His death. We must eat His flesh and drink His blood. This is His death — the blood separate from the body. Incarnation is of no avail for life unless death comes in: otherwise there is no atonement, sin is not put away. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Eating the flesh comes first, because it is the first prominent point of incarnation — Christ come in flesh for man, for the world. Drinking the blood is added because this is available as a dead Christ — the blood out of the body. Hence the monstrous character of the refusal of the cup in Romanism, as well as the doctrine of concomitancy (that is, that the blood is in the bread or alleged body of Christ). The forbidding of blood in the Old Testament denoted that man in the flesh could not meddle with death. Life belongs to God. Our drinking Christ's blood shews that through His death we come in freed from flesh as dead; and that death thus is life and liberty to us, deliverance from the old man and its guilt too, to us who have received the quickening of John 5.

Ans.—Verse 63, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life,” shows plainly that the Lord's words, of which you inquire, are not to be taken in a material sense. The eating and the drinking of which He speaks is not done with the mouth; nor has it the least reference to the Lord's Supper, where we eat bread and drink wine, though in eating and drinking these we profess to be of those who have eaten the Saviour's flesh and drunk His blood.

It is faith, and faith alone, which in the power of the Holy Spirit, can and does eat His flesh and drink His blood. Flesh and blood separated means death. Feeding on the death of Christ by faith is what the poor sinner does when he realizes himself guilty and condemned. The substitutional death of Jesus thus received brings him life. Apart from this, the Lord has said: “Ye have no life in you.”

This was not true of the manna in the wilderness: it sustained only the natural, temporal life, which ended in death: what more would the loaves and fishes do? But one eating of the Bread which came down from heaven would not die. Of course the Lord is not speaking of natural death, but receiving Christ Himself gives spiritual life, which is not affected by death at all. For He is the living Bread, come from a higher sphere than earth, where death prevails. One who eats of this Bread will live forever (v. 51). Then He adds that the Bread of which He speaks is His flesh, to be given for the life of the world. For He could not die apart from having a body of flesh and blood. Eating this bread therefore is a spiritual appropriation by faith of the value of the death of the Lord Jesus on our behalf.

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.

We have two things to say as to this verse. (1) Our Lord was alive when He said it, so the eating and drinking could not be literal. (2) When He spoke these words the Lord’s Supper was not yet instituted, and therefore at that moment it could not refer to it. The words were symbolic of what? Eating and drinking are the two most thorough ways of appropriating. For instance we might find a wallet on the street, and of course would pick it up. We appropriate it. But not for long. Someone runs after us and asks with anxiety, Have you picked up a wallet in the street? The wallet is returned to the owner. But who can take from us the food and drink we partook of yesterday? Not all the Acts of Parliament, not all the emetics ministered by doctors or chemists, not all the clever operations of the skilled surgeons, could take from us this food. It has been appropriated, gone into the system to build it up in all its parts. It has become part of us. So with this mystic eating and drinking. The Lord was alive upon the earth. His death had not taken place, but He told His disciples of His coming death, and that death being for their life and blessing. He showed how appropriating this death in all its personal meaning and power was the only way of life for them.

Each individual Israelite had to present himself to the priest, bringing with him his own piece of money as a ransom; and his name would then be entered in God's book. The Lord Jesus, in the 6th chapter of John, says: "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." Eating and drinking are actions which one cannot perform for another. The food, taken into the mouth, becomes one's own, and ministers strength and nourishment to the body. So, the death of Christ must be appropriated by each to himself. The soul has to say, My Saviour; My Lord; My God. I have been crucified with Christ. Christ loved me, and gave Himself for me. Just as assuredly as the Israelite of old had to eat the manna he had collected for his own sustenance; or according to his eating, to make his count for the lamb.