Jesus said that He is the Bread of Life, the Living Bread that came out of Heaven. And He said that,
Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him (John 6: 53-56).Bread and flesh and blood are all physical things, material things. So they are a picture of what is spiritual.
When Jesus talked like this, many of the people who had been following Him couldn't fathom how they could eat Jesus' flesh and drink His blood, but He wasn't talking about anything physical. He explained to them that,
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life (John 6: 63).Life itself is spiritual. When the spiritual portions of a man leave his body, the body is dead. But we can't see the spiritual with our fleshly eyes.
Jesus is the Word of God who became a human Man (John 1: 1-5, 14). So His words are also spiritual. When He says to "eat" His flesh and "drink" His blood, He's not referring to His physical, human body; but that is what we can see and touch and understand.
So He is using the physical as a picture of the spiritual we cannot see. Our spiritual nourishment is His Word, the Word of God. His flesh is the "meat" of the Word, and His blood is the "milk" of the Word. Hebrews 6: 12-14 says,
The elementary principles of the oracles of God, ... [which are] milk, and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature.The "milk" of the Word of God, the blood Jesus was talking about, would be the basic Gospel that Jesus took our place in death as the Lamb of God and rose from the dead. Even a child can comprehend that.
The "solid food," the "meat" of the Word is His flesh. As we grow in our spiritual lives, we are learning how to love God and love one another. This takes more understanding and discernment.
This also relates to the Last Supper, when Jesus pronounced that the bread was His body and the cup of wine was His blood. He was saying that this solid food and drink that they would partake of regularly was to remind them that Jesus gave His body to be broken in death for them, and that His blood splattered the sides of His altar, the Cross, to wash them clean of all sin.
And it was also the blood of the New Covenant, that God would write His Law in our hearts instead of on tablets of stone or parchment (Jeremiah 31: 31-33). And this would require for us to be mature in our walk of faith, understanding the "meat" of the Word of God.
When Jesus offered to the Twelve the bread and wine, He said to them to do this to remember (I Corinthians 11: 23-26). It's a picture. When we don't understand the seriousness of this picture, then we will suffer consequences, as those in Corinth experienced, with some being weak and sick and some of them had even died (I Corinthians 11: 27-32).
Father, please open our eyes to see the imagery clearly, to obtain an accurate understanding of the spiritual Truths You are teaching us. Show us how serious You are about these things, so we will respond to You in the most appropriate way, in honesty and purity, giving You all the glory for everything You are doing.
And every eye shall see, every knee will bow, every tongue will proclaim that Jesus is our Christ, our Redeemer, the Lord God Almighty, sovereign King over all Creation, to the eternal glory of Almighty God the Father, for ever and ever, Amen.
Even so, come soon, Lord Jesus!
