The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
The Jews quarreled among themselves over His declaration that He would give His flesh for the life of the world, asking how He could give them His flesh to eat, taking His words literally with unbelief while He solemnly answered that without eating His flesh and drinking His blood they have no life. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is spiritual, not consuming literal flesh, for it is the Spirit that gives life and His words are spirit and life. To eat is to receive Christ Himself as personal Saviour by living faith and to receive His words, character, and life into mind and heart, believing and obeying them until they become the life of the soul. Whoever so partakes has eternal life, abides in Christ with Christ abiding in him, and will be raised at the last day. This daily feeding on Scripture by study, prayer, meditation, and obedience transforms the character into His likeness in purity, love, and holiness.
Setting After Feeding Multitude
The question belongs to Jesus' further teaching after the miracle of the loaves and fishes and the walking on the water, when the spiritual meaning of that miracle had not been understood. He spoke in the synagogue at Capernaum, declaring Himself the living Bread come down from heaven and that the bread He would give for the life of the world is His flesh. His further words explaining that eating the flesh of the Son of man and drinking His blood are necessary for having life were the answer to their questioning thoughts, solemnly declaring that without this they have no life in them. This further teaching brought a closer test of allegiance for those who followed Him.
The teaching forced a decision for or against Him and revealed what people truly believed, so that those not wholly with Him would take a position against Him. Many disciples were offended by His plain and definite words about a spiritual kingdom rather than temporal advantage, murmured at truth not palatable to them, went back, and walked no more with Him. His word was spoken at the best time so that the unbelieving and criticizing ones would show themselves, while the thoughtful and candid were led to take exalted views of His character and office. The Twelve did not turn away then and Peter declared loyalty, a past faithfulness contrasting with the night when all would be offended and scattered.
The chapter is to be read and studied with prayer for understanding of its truths. Its words are to be understood in their plain sense under the Holy Spirit's guidance and not treated as an incomprehensible mystery through human interpretations. Its truths teach dependence on God by creation and by redemption and not on human beings, with the Word of the living God as guide and with looking to Jesus Christ as the true Light received by faith as sanctification and righteousness. They teach accountability to impart to others and to walk and work as accountable to God, with the Bible itself as the bread sent down from heaven building up mind and soul. Those ministering in word and doctrine must not be dull of understanding but must prayerfully seek clearness of understanding to comprehend what the chapter contains, and not spend time on books and magazines that lead the mind astray and hinder spiritual growth.
Jews' Literal Dispute
The Jews, including priests and rulers, strove among themselves in the synagogue at Capernaum over the promise to give His flesh for the life of the world, asking how this man could give them His flesh to eat. They took His words literally as incomprehensible and hard, answering with scornful unbelief and caviling rather than faith seeking understanding. Jesus read their questioning thoughts and answered them solemnly, declaring that unless they eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood they have no life in them. The figure does not mean physically eating His flesh, but receiving Him and His character by faith, receiving His words which are spirit and life, so that those who partake abide in Him and have eternal life.
Their dispute came because deep, pure truth was strange to a superficial understanding corrupted by worldly ideas, with minds closed against Him and ears hearing without inward appropriation. They had no genuine faith despite evidence heaped upon evidence sufficient to convince any open mind, including witnessing the feeding of the five thousand. They sought Him not because they saw the miracles but because they ate of the loaves and were filled, wanting only temporal advantages. The demand for death to self and the practice of self-denial was too great for hearers who cherished ambition to rule, and though convicted they were too proud and self-righteous to yield to conviction.
Some deliberately treated the figure as literal and used that reading to turn people against Him, though they understood His meaning. Their question was criticism and unbelief, not faith seeking understanding, the same murmuring and criticism Christ met then and His servants meet in their work today. It stands as the same proud, unbelieving resistance seen in the present day when truth is brought home to the heart and rebukes lives not in accordance with truth and righteousness, so that many close eyes and hearts against reproof, choose the praise of men, and turn away rather than take up self-denial.
Spiritual Meaning of Eating
Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is spiritual, not eating literal flesh or physically consuming His body and blood. It is explained by the saying that it is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh profits nothing, and His words are spirit and life. The question, How can this man give us His flesh to eat, came from taking as literal and temporal what was spoken as spiritual food bringing everlasting life.
To eat is to receive Christ Himself as a personal Saviour by true, earnest faith, believing on Him as Redeemer, coming to Him, looking constantly to Him, and living by Him as He lives by the Father. Those who so receive dwell in Him and He in them, are united to Him through daily, hourly faith that works by love and purifies the soul, share in the divine nature, and become one with Him as He is one with the Father. So eating means receiving His spiritual life, sharing communion with Him and becoming Christlike, with love for God and others, His Spirit, and holy aspirations, and those who so eat grow up to the full stature of men and women in Christ, receive forgiveness and sanctification unto eternal life, have eternal life now, and will be raised up at the last day, for His flesh is food indeed and His blood is drink indeed.
To eat is to receive His words, teachings, will, character, life, and principles, taking them into mind and heart, meditating on them, and bringing them into practical life by obedience and practice. Feeding on Christ daily gives life, nourishes mind and heart, shapes character, brings His life, satisfies spiritual hunger and thirst so that the believer never hungers, never thirsts and never dies, strengthens the spiritual nature, and teaches seeking His will and imitating His actions, words, meekness and lowliness while valuing food for the soul above physical appetite. Mere outward connection with any church, mere intellectual study, mere theory, or merely contemplating or hearing the Word is not enough; it must be voluntarily appropriated, believed, obeyed, and lived until it becomes the very life of the soul.
His flesh is identified with His character and with His Word as the bread of life representing His body and blood. The living oracles are His flesh and blood, the words He spoke and the spirit He revealed, the bread that came down from heaven; He gives His flesh in those living oracles where divine beauty and celestial light shine, received as living bread by taking in and living by God's Word as a rich banquet that gives spiritual strength, growth in grace and knowledge, self-control, and Christian maturity. Even before He had been crucified, this pointed to His work as substitute for sin, the only hope of ancient Israel, with the Old Testament directions full of marrow and fatness, and the New Testament reflecting light back to give significance to the whole Jewish economy and to practical holiness and obedience. The Holy Spirit is in God's Word in John 6, which contains a living, undying element.
Christ's Flesh Given for World
Christ is the living Bread come down from heaven to give life to the world, and this bread is more important than food that perishes. Unlike the manna the ancestors ate after which they died, whoever eats this bread lives forever, never hungers, never thirsts, never dies, and has life in himself. The questioning arose when He said the bread He would give for the life of the world is His flesh, which the hearers did not understand and disputed how He could do so, and His next words explained that eating the flesh of the Son of man and drinking His blood are necessary for having life. Receiving this spiritual food means coming to Him and believing on Him as a personal Saviour, laboring for the meat that endures to everlasting life, and believing and receiving His word as daily bread by taking His words into practical life, for His words are spirit and life and it is the Spirit that gives life while the flesh profits nothing. As bread gives bodily strength, so faith in Him and obedience to His teachings give spiritual life and strength, fellowship with Christ with mutual indwelling, the strengthening of the spiritual nature, satisfaction, and eternal life with resurrection at the last day.
By perfect obedience to the law and by offering Himself for the sins of the world He became the Sin-bearer, the bread of life, the Lifegiver, and the tree of life to the world as the tree of life was to Adam and Eve in Eden. He gave His flesh and blood on the cross for the world's salvation, laying aside His royal robe and crown and stepping down from high command as Prince of Life and Glory to combine humanity with divinity as a steppingstone for man to step on to vantage ground with God. His language is a spiritual figure, not literal eating, and does not mean that His human flesh itself gives eternal life or that the chapter is merely about physical eating. His life, teaching, example, death, and sacrifice are the spiritual food that gives life, and eating and drinking signify believing in Him as a personal Saviour, receiving His words and trusting in the saving power of the sacrifice He would make for the world, receiving and practicing His teachings and principles, being nourished by His life, taking His Word and practicing it and making the Bible food and meat and drink and the elements of character, doing His works and seeking to follow His will. Those who share this union abide in Him by striving in every circumstance to act and speak as He would, seeking His will and imitating His actions, words, meekness, and lowliness, and they have eternal life and are raised at the last day, with the sanctified and holy character of God imbuing the life because that life is in Christ and Christ is in them, placing the human family in the same relation to Christ as Christ was to God. The living oracles are the Son of God's flesh and blood received as living bread by taking in and living by God's Word, pointing to His work as substitute for sin, the only hope of ancient Israel, even before He had been crucified.
The figure keeps the crucifixion before the believer's mind and is embodied in the sacramental service, which is understood through faith and the Holy Spirit. Yet eating His body and drinking His blood means receiving His Word and doing His will by daily partaking of the bread of life, not only by taking part in the sacramental service, and this daily partaking alone satisfies the hunger of the soul. Each person must receive His words for himself, and obedience to them nourishes spiritual life and makes the believer one with Christ, while earthly minds that take the figure literally are offended and gain nothing, for the Spirit gives life. This eating and drinking is the representation of the tree of life as opposed to eating of the forbidden tree of knowledge, meaning receiving Christ in truth and having Christ abide in the heart by faith, eating God's Word as the bread of life, showing respect for it by obedience to God's laws and by heeding His requirements, and refusing to disobey the commandments of God. All who so eat escape from the control of hereditary and cultivated tendencies, pride, vanity, self-esteem, worldliness, and every sin, and reveal Christ in their lives, thoroughly aroused to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling while God works in them both to will and to do of His good pleasure as they cooperate with God. The prayer for daily bread asks for this spiritual food and not for temporal food alone.
The words have special reference to the spirituality of the Word, for eating His flesh and blood means reading the Word of God and appropriating that Word as the living bread which came down from heaven, whose value not one in a hundred knows. The directions given as the invisible Leader of Israel in the Old Testament Scriptures are full of marrow and fatness, and no soul who takes those words and eats them will remain in spiritual hunger. The living oracles were the flesh and blood of the Son of God even though He had not then been crucified among them, and His work as the substitute for all sin was the only hope of ancient Israel. After God's plan was fulfilled in the death of Christ the New Testament Scriptures were given not to cast aside the Old but to reflect the light of the New back into past ages and give significance to the whole Jewish economy, and the plain directions on practical holiness and obedience given to ancient Israel must enter the life of everyone who claims to be a Christian. Accepting the righteousness defined in the sixth chapter of John puts on the wedding garment, the standard of character required to be counted a fit guest at the wedding, which is the marriage of humanity with divinity and requires a firm stand for Christ and surrender to God of what is already His.
Life and Character Received
Whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life, even the life of Jesus Christ Himself, and will be raised up at the last day. He may die as Christ died, yet the Saviour's life is in him and his life is hid with Christ in God, so natural death cannot make him die eternally and the gates of eternal life are thrown open to him. This chapter states the conditions and the plain way of eternal life and entrance into the kingdom, a life that measures with the life of God. Whoever so eats lives forever, never hungers, never thirsts, never dies, but has life in himself, for His flesh is food indeed and His blood is drink indeed.
Those who partake dwell in Him and He in them, and live by Him as He lives by the living Father, placed in the same relation to Christ as Christ was to God. They hunger and thirst for His righteousness and are filled, no longer hungering for fame or esteem, and receive power to become sons of God with sins pardoned and full joy. They escape the world's corruption through lust and receive holy life, assurance, and an earnest of immortality through Christ's death and resurrection when they daily partake, share His trials, obey under temptation, and hold faith firm to the end.
This nourishment transforms the character into Christ's likeness, forming holy aspirations, love for God and others, meekness and lowliness, purity, sanctification, and holiness. As food shapes the body the Word shapes the experience, spiritualizes the mind, renews the person in holiness, and strengthens the spiritual nature. It cleanses from hereditary and cultivated tendencies, pride, vanity, worldliness and every sin, regulates desires, purifies thoughts, sweetens the disposition, quickens mind and soul, and enlarges capacity for feeling and loving. This is seen in humble words and actions, in doing His works and revealing His attributes, in seeking His will and imitating His actions and words, and in bearing the fruit of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, still bringing forth fruit in old age like an evergreen planted by rivers of water.
Daily Receiving God's Word
To eat is to study Scripture daily, pray for enlightenment upon it, meditate on it constantly, digest it, and by practice assimilate its truths until they become part of the self and of the life current and give tone and vitality to the whole religious experience. No one can receive, repent, believe, obey, or exercise the will by proxy or by being submerged in another's individuality, for each must take the Word into mind and heart, understand and enjoy it, and show it in practical holy life. This requires a humble, teachable spirit opened with determination to practice, a sanctified mind, appetite under control, and temperance in all eating and drinking, since unhealthful habits injure the stomach and unfit mind and body to study what Scripture says about inheriting eternal life. To live by every word proceeding from God's mouth is to keep His precepts, bring them home to the soul, refuse to leave them for human suppositions, and commune with Him to prove His mind and know His will and grasp the mysteries of godliness.
Those who feed most on Christ as the bread of life are most ready for service, for His representatives must first receive that spiritual food themselves in order to have anything to impart to hungry souls. This feeding on His words is the most important education for children and youth and for men and women becoming workers together with God, teaching the law of Jehovah with the penalty of transgression and the ransom accepted through the Saviour for the obedient. It forms habits of obedience and self-control, gives wisdom in the use of gifts, places the feet on Christ as the first round of the ladder heavenward, and builds believers as living stones into a spiritual house; teachers must know the Word through experience before teaching it, joining busy activity with learning at Jesus' feet and extending the feeding into new territories rather than building up one place. Without this inward receiving ministry gains no fresh perception of truth, for ordinary reading alone is distinct from taking in the life and teaching that come from the living Christ.
Turning from this nourishment to feed the mind on worldly entertainments, corrupting books and magazines, or human suppositions leaves no soul hunger for God and hinders spiritual growth, since men and women are built up spiritually from the food they give the mind. Merely knowing truth repeated over and over is not feeding on Him, and merely contemplating, hearing, or reading the Word without obeying brings no life. Feeling is not faith, and excitement and fanaticism must be shut out; maintaining pure, unadulterated truth without surrendering vital points enables standing steadfast amid false theories, and as long as truth abides in the soul there is nothing to fear from contact with error.
This inward receiving is the grand remedy for all physical, mental, and spiritual disorders, to be shown in family government, customs, practices, and order down to every jot and tittle as evidence of what obedience to truth can do. The bread of life heals the soul's maladies and brings spiritual life and strength, and those who live by His words feast on the bread that heals and drink the waters of salvation. To study the Word is to eat the leaves of the tree of life, which satisfies the appetite for spiritual food. Feeding on Christ daily in this way teaches by example to think less about temporal food and fleshly appetite and to feel much greater anxiety for food for the soul.
The Jews quarreled among themselves over His declaration that He would give His flesh for the life of the world, asking how He could give them His flesh to eat, taking His words literally with unbelief while He solemnly answered that without eating His flesh and drinking His blood they have no life. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is spiritual, not consuming literal flesh, for it is the Spirit that gives life and His words are spirit and life. To eat is to receive Christ Himself as personal Saviour by living faith and to receive His words, character, and life into mind and heart, believing and obeying them until they become the life of the soul. Whoever so partakes has eternal life, abides in Christ with Christ abiding in him, and will be raised at the last day. This daily feeding on Scripture by study, prayer, meditation, and obedience transforms the character into His likeness in purity, love, and holiness.
Setting After Feeding Multitude
The question belongs to Jesus' further teaching after the miracle of the loaves and fishes and the walking on the water, when the spiritual meaning of that miracle had not been understood. He spoke in the synagogue at Capernaum, declaring Himself the living Bread come down from heaven and that the bread He would give for the life of the world is His flesh. His further words explaining that eating the flesh of the Son of man and drinking His blood are necessary for having life were the answer to their questioning thoughts, solemnly declaring that without this they have no life in them. This further teaching brought a closer test of allegiance for those who followed Him.
The teaching forced a decision for or against Him and revealed what people truly believed, so that those not wholly with Him would take a position against Him. Many disciples were offended by His plain and definite words about a spiritual kingdom rather than temporal advantage, murmured at truth not palatable to them, went back, and walked no more with Him. His word was spoken at the best time so that the unbelieving and criticizing ones would show themselves, while the thoughtful and candid were led to take exalted views of His character and office. The Twelve did not turn away then and Peter declared loyalty, a past faithfulness contrasting with the night when all would be offended and scattered.
The chapter is to be read and studied with prayer for understanding of its truths. Its words are to be understood in their plain sense under the Holy Spirit's guidance and not treated as an incomprehensible mystery through human interpretations. Its truths teach dependence on God by creation and by redemption and not on human beings, with the Word of the living God as guide and with looking to Jesus Christ as the true Light received by faith as sanctification and righteousness. They teach accountability to impart to others and to walk and work as accountable to God, with the Bible itself as the bread sent down from heaven building up mind and soul. Those ministering in word and doctrine must not be dull of understanding but must prayerfully seek clearness of understanding to comprehend what the chapter contains, and not spend time on books and magazines that lead the mind astray and hinder spiritual growth.
Jews' Literal Dispute
The Jews, including priests and rulers, strove among themselves in the synagogue at Capernaum over the promise to give His flesh for the life of the world, asking how this man could give them His flesh to eat. They took His words literally as incomprehensible and hard, answering with scornful unbelief and caviling rather than faith seeking understanding. Jesus read their questioning thoughts and answered them solemnly, declaring that unless they eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood they have no life in them. The figure does not mean physically eating His flesh, but receiving Him and His character by faith, receiving His words which are spirit and life, so that those who partake abide in Him and have eternal life.
Their dispute came because deep, pure truth was strange to a superficial understanding corrupted by worldly ideas, with minds closed against Him and ears hearing without inward appropriation. They had no genuine faith despite evidence heaped upon evidence sufficient to convince any open mind, including witnessing the feeding of the five thousand. They sought Him not because they saw the miracles but because they ate of the loaves and were filled, wanting only temporal advantages. The demand for death to self and the practice of self-denial was too great for hearers who cherished ambition to rule, and though convicted they were too proud and self-righteous to yield to conviction.
Some deliberately treated the figure as literal and used that reading to turn people against Him, though they understood His meaning. Their question was criticism and unbelief, not faith seeking understanding, the same murmuring and criticism Christ met then and His servants meet in their work today. It stands as the same proud, unbelieving resistance seen in the present day when truth is brought home to the heart and rebukes lives not in accordance with truth and righteousness, so that many close eyes and hearts against reproof, choose the praise of men, and turn away rather than take up self-denial.
Spiritual Meaning of Eating
Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is spiritual, not eating literal flesh or physically consuming His body and blood. It is explained by the saying that it is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh profits nothing, and His words are spirit and life. The question, How can this man give us His flesh to eat, came from taking as literal and temporal what was spoken as spiritual food bringing everlasting life.
To eat is to receive Christ Himself as a personal Saviour by true, earnest faith, believing on Him as Redeemer, coming to Him, looking constantly to Him, and living by Him as He lives by the Father. Those who so receive dwell in Him and He in them, are united to Him through daily, hourly faith that works by love and purifies the soul, share in the divine nature, and become one with Him as He is one with the Father. So eating means receiving His spiritual life, sharing communion with Him and becoming Christlike, with love for God and others, His Spirit, and holy aspirations, and those who so eat grow up to the full stature of men and women in Christ, receive forgiveness and sanctification unto eternal life, have eternal life now, and will be raised up at the last day, for His flesh is food indeed and His blood is drink indeed.
To eat is to receive His words, teachings, will, character, life, and principles, taking them into mind and heart, meditating on them, and bringing them into practical life by obedience and practice. Feeding on Christ daily gives life, nourishes mind and heart, shapes character, brings His life, satisfies spiritual hunger and thirst so that the believer never hungers, never thirsts and never dies, strengthens the spiritual nature, and teaches seeking His will and imitating His actions, words, meekness and lowliness while valuing food for the soul above physical appetite. Mere outward connection with any church, mere intellectual study, mere theory, or merely contemplating or hearing the Word is not enough; it must be voluntarily appropriated, believed, obeyed, and lived until it becomes the very life of the soul.
His flesh is identified with His character and with His Word as the bread of life representing His body and blood. The living oracles are His flesh and blood, the words He spoke and the spirit He revealed, the bread that came down from heaven; He gives His flesh in those living oracles where divine beauty and celestial light shine, received as living bread by taking in and living by God's Word as a rich banquet that gives spiritual strength, growth in grace and knowledge, self-control, and Christian maturity. Even before He had been crucified, this pointed to His work as substitute for sin, the only hope of ancient Israel, with the Old Testament directions full of marrow and fatness, and the New Testament reflecting light back to give significance to the whole Jewish economy and to practical holiness and obedience. The Holy Spirit is in God's Word in John 6, which contains a living, undying element.
Christ's Flesh Given for World
Christ is the living Bread come down from heaven to give life to the world, and this bread is more important than food that perishes. Unlike the manna the ancestors ate after which they died, whoever eats this bread lives forever, never hungers, never thirsts, never dies, and has life in himself. The questioning arose when He said the bread He would give for the life of the world is His flesh, which the hearers did not understand and disputed how He could do so, and His next words explained that eating the flesh of the Son of man and drinking His blood are necessary for having life. Receiving this spiritual food means coming to Him and believing on Him as a personal Saviour, laboring for the meat that endures to everlasting life, and believing and receiving His word as daily bread by taking His words into practical life, for His words are spirit and life and it is the Spirit that gives life while the flesh profits nothing. As bread gives bodily strength, so faith in Him and obedience to His teachings give spiritual life and strength, fellowship with Christ with mutual indwelling, the strengthening of the spiritual nature, satisfaction, and eternal life with resurrection at the last day.
By perfect obedience to the law and by offering Himself for the sins of the world He became the Sin-bearer, the bread of life, the Lifegiver, and the tree of life to the world as the tree of life was to Adam and Eve in Eden. He gave His flesh and blood on the cross for the world's salvation, laying aside His royal robe and crown and stepping down from high command as Prince of Life and Glory to combine humanity with divinity as a steppingstone for man to step on to vantage ground with God. His language is a spiritual figure, not literal eating, and does not mean that His human flesh itself gives eternal life or that the chapter is merely about physical eating. His life, teaching, example, death, and sacrifice are the spiritual food that gives life, and eating and drinking signify believing in Him as a personal Saviour, receiving His words and trusting in the saving power of the sacrifice He would make for the world, receiving and practicing His teachings and principles, being nourished by His life, taking His Word and practicing it and making the Bible food and meat and drink and the elements of character, doing His works and seeking to follow His will. Those who share this union abide in Him by striving in every circumstance to act and speak as He would, seeking His will and imitating His actions, words, meekness, and lowliness, and they have eternal life and are raised at the last day, with the sanctified and holy character of God imbuing the life because that life is in Christ and Christ is in them, placing the human family in the same relation to Christ as Christ was to God. The living oracles are the Son of God's flesh and blood received as living bread by taking in and living by God's Word, pointing to His work as substitute for sin, the only hope of ancient Israel, even before He had been crucified.
The figure keeps the crucifixion before the believer's mind and is embodied in the sacramental service, which is understood through faith and the Holy Spirit. Yet eating His body and drinking His blood means receiving His Word and doing His will by daily partaking of the bread of life, not only by taking part in the sacramental service, and this daily partaking alone satisfies the hunger of the soul. Each person must receive His words for himself, and obedience to them nourishes spiritual life and makes the believer one with Christ, while earthly minds that take the figure literally are offended and gain nothing, for the Spirit gives life. This eating and drinking is the representation of the tree of life as opposed to eating of the forbidden tree of knowledge, meaning receiving Christ in truth and having Christ abide in the heart by faith, eating God's Word as the bread of life, showing respect for it by obedience to God's laws and by heeding His requirements, and refusing to disobey the commandments of God. All who so eat escape from the control of hereditary and cultivated tendencies, pride, vanity, self-esteem, worldliness, and every sin, and reveal Christ in their lives, thoroughly aroused to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling while God works in them both to will and to do of His good pleasure as they cooperate with God. The prayer for daily bread asks for this spiritual food and not for temporal food alone.
The words have special reference to the spirituality of the Word, for eating His flesh and blood means reading the Word of God and appropriating that Word as the living bread which came down from heaven, whose value not one in a hundred knows. The directions given as the invisible Leader of Israel in the Old Testament Scriptures are full of marrow and fatness, and no soul who takes those words and eats them will remain in spiritual hunger. The living oracles were the flesh and blood of the Son of God even though He had not then been crucified among them, and His work as the substitute for all sin was the only hope of ancient Israel. After God's plan was fulfilled in the death of Christ the New Testament Scriptures were given not to cast aside the Old but to reflect the light of the New back into past ages and give significance to the whole Jewish economy, and the plain directions on practical holiness and obedience given to ancient Israel must enter the life of everyone who claims to be a Christian. Accepting the righteousness defined in the sixth chapter of John puts on the wedding garment, the standard of character required to be counted a fit guest at the wedding, which is the marriage of humanity with divinity and requires a firm stand for Christ and surrender to God of what is already His.
Life and Character Received
Whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life, even the life of Jesus Christ Himself, and will be raised up at the last day. He may die as Christ died, yet the Saviour's life is in him and his life is hid with Christ in God, so natural death cannot make him die eternally and the gates of eternal life are thrown open to him. This chapter states the conditions and the plain way of eternal life and entrance into the kingdom, a life that measures with the life of God. Whoever so eats lives forever, never hungers, never thirsts, never dies, but has life in himself, for His flesh is food indeed and His blood is drink indeed.
Those who partake dwell in Him and He in them, and live by Him as He lives by the living Father, placed in the same relation to Christ as Christ was to God. They hunger and thirst for His righteousness and are filled, no longer hungering for fame or esteem, and receive power to become sons of God with sins pardoned and full joy. They escape the world's corruption through lust and receive holy life, assurance, and an earnest of immortality through Christ's death and resurrection when they daily partake, share His trials, obey under temptation, and hold faith firm to the end.
This nourishment transforms the character into Christ's likeness, forming holy aspirations, love for God and others, meekness and lowliness, purity, sanctification, and holiness. As food shapes the body the Word shapes the experience, spiritualizes the mind, renews the person in holiness, and strengthens the spiritual nature. It cleanses from hereditary and cultivated tendencies, pride, vanity, worldliness and every sin, regulates desires, purifies thoughts, sweetens the disposition, quickens mind and soul, and enlarges capacity for feeling and loving. This is seen in humble words and actions, in doing His works and revealing His attributes, in seeking His will and imitating His actions and words, and in bearing the fruit of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, still bringing forth fruit in old age like an evergreen planted by rivers of water.
Daily Receiving God's Word
To eat is to study Scripture daily, pray for enlightenment upon it, meditate on it constantly, digest it, and by practice assimilate its truths until they become part of the self and of the life current and give tone and vitality to the whole religious experience. No one can receive, repent, believe, obey, or exercise the will by proxy or by being submerged in another's individuality, for each must take the Word into mind and heart, understand and enjoy it, and show it in practical holy life. This requires a humble, teachable spirit opened with determination to practice, a sanctified mind, appetite under control, and temperance in all eating and drinking, since unhealthful habits injure the stomach and unfit mind and body to study what Scripture says about inheriting eternal life. To live by every word proceeding from God's mouth is to keep His precepts, bring them home to the soul, refuse to leave them for human suppositions, and commune with Him to prove His mind and know His will and grasp the mysteries of godliness.
Those who feed most on Christ as the bread of life are most ready for service, for His representatives must first receive that spiritual food themselves in order to have anything to impart to hungry souls. This feeding on His words is the most important education for children and youth and for men and women becoming workers together with God, teaching the law of Jehovah with the penalty of transgression and the ransom accepted through the Saviour for the obedient. It forms habits of obedience and self-control, gives wisdom in the use of gifts, places the feet on Christ as the first round of the ladder heavenward, and builds believers as living stones into a spiritual house; teachers must know the Word through experience before teaching it, joining busy activity with learning at Jesus' feet and extending the feeding into new territories rather than building up one place. Without this inward receiving ministry gains no fresh perception of truth, for ordinary reading alone is distinct from taking in the life and teaching that come from the living Christ.
Turning from this nourishment to feed the mind on worldly entertainments, corrupting books and magazines, or human suppositions leaves no soul hunger for God and hinders spiritual growth, since men and women are built up spiritually from the food they give the mind. Merely knowing truth repeated over and over is not feeding on Him, and merely contemplating, hearing, or reading the Word without obeying brings no life. Feeling is not faith, and excitement and fanaticism must be shut out; maintaining pure, unadulterated truth without surrendering vital points enables standing steadfast amid false theories, and as long as truth abides in the soul there is nothing to fear from contact with error.
This inward receiving is the grand remedy for all physical, mental, and spiritual disorders, to be shown in family government, customs, practices, and order down to every jot and tittle as evidence of what obedience to truth can do. The bread of life heals the soul's maladies and brings spiritual life and strength, and those who live by His words feast on the bread that heals and drink the waters of salvation. To study the Word is to eat the leaves of the tree of life, which satisfies the appetite for spiritual food. Feeding on Christ daily in this way teaches by example to think less about temporal food and fleshly appetite and to feel much greater anxiety for food for the soul.