Eat My Flesh

[abigya]

Eat My Flesh


by Chip Brogden


Except a man eat my flesh and drink my blood, he has no life in him (John 6:53).
How can this man give us His flesh to eat? So wondered the crowd, and so we wonder, even when we know that Christ is refering to Himself in a spiritual sense (My Words are Spirit and Life...the flesh profits nothing). So what is meant by this strange command? How may we apply it to our Christian life?
It is actually not as mysterious or enigmatic as it sounds. Let us say at once that what man needs is more than healing of the body, or restoring of the soul. He needs the impartation of Life into his spirit, his inner man. In order to abide in the Living Christ one must be alive in spirit. This presence of Life in the inner man is absolutely essential. We need more than a touch from God; we must have God Himself. There is an ocean of difference between receiving the blessing and receiving the One Who blesses; between getting a touch and receiving the One Who touches; between healing and the Healer; between redemption and Redeemer; between salvation and Savior. The former deals with what God has or can do, while the latter deals with God Himself.


For too long we have contented ourselves with what God can do for us and what He can give us. We come the Lord with a need in mind, and the next day we approach with another need, and the following day we return with yet another request. This pattern repeats itself continually. We return again and again to withdraw a little more from the heavenly bank. Surely we should let our requests be made known unto God, and we must also ask, that we may receive. But think: if a man owns a field, does he not also possess the buried treasure in the field? Christ even gave us a parable to this effect. Does it not stand to reason then, that if we receive HIM, we possess all He has? How shall He not, with His Son, freely give us all things?


So when we turn to the matter of His Life in us, it is important that we grasp Christ for Christs sake, and not look on Eternal Life as a separate thing Christ gives to those who ask. Christ is Our Life. We do not call upon a friend and say, I would like to speak to your emotion for a few minutes, but later I want to address your intellect. Later I hope to commune with your heart for a bit, and maybe then our bodies can go out to eat dinner while our souls remain here and read a book together. How absurd to even consider it, for we do not divide people into parts and relate to them as separate things. We relate to others holisticly, and even though we can clearly identify the parts we would never dream of isolating one part of a persons life and trying to separate it from who they are.
In like manner we must begin to see that Christ is Life, the sum total of many parts which equal His Being. The individual parts are what we usually seek - a little life for the dying, some health for the sick, a word of wisdom for the ignorant, a dose of guidance for the confused, a shot of patience for the impatient, a wave of joy for the depressed. We ask for, and receive, a thousand and one little pieces of Christ and think this is Christianity. This is not Christianity.


If we would realize that God only has one Gift, that is, His Son Jesus Christ, it would save us a lot of unnecessary heartache and effort. Would it shock you to learn that God has not given us a thing called eternal life? The Apostle John made this quite clear in his inspired writings, saying first of all, in the oft quoted John 3:16, that the Son is that which was given, and eternal life is simply the reward for those who receive the Son. It becomes even more apparant in the First Epistle of John, and one of my favorite passages of Scripture: This is the record, that God hath given us Eternal Life, and this Life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath Life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not Life. Yes we are given Eternal Life, true, but the Life is not floating out in space somewhere waiting to fall on those who ask. Eternal Life has nothing to do with everlasting existence. Eternal Life is a Person; the Life is the Son; hence, we need only ask if we have received Jesus and we shall know whether we have Eternal Life. The Life is bound up in the Son, as is every one of Gods precious gifts. Having the Son, we therefore have all the Son has. Eternal Life is simply an alias for Christ.


Now the Scripture concerning eating His flesh and drinking His blood becomes clear. Jesus had just multiplied the bread and the crowd was thrilled. Give us to eat of this bread evermore, they said. Please hear what I am saying. It is good to be fed, to have the bread and fish multiplied before your eyes, and to take up the basketfuls that remain. This was indeed a miracle. But the things Christ gives you and does for you will never satisfy you. Only He alone can satisfy. They ate of the loaves, and were filled, yes. For a time. After a little while the hunger came back again, the stomachs began to growl, and they had to seek Christ for bread all over again. This pattern would fain repeat itself for ages. So Christ offered them more than another meal; He offered Himself as the final solution and fullfilment of all they hungered for.


The simple, beautiful truth of this passage is that we must receive Christ into ourselves, digesting Him so to speak, and thus uniting with Him. For he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Obviously the physical Christ could not be received, as the crowd pointed out. How then do we receive Christ? May I say it reverently? The Holy Spirit is Christ in a receivable form. The physical Christ can multiply the loaves and fill our stomachs; but the Spiritual Christ can satisfy us with His Presence. This is why He said, It is expedient for you that I go away... but I will come again. We look forward to His Second Coming, and the Rapture of the Church, but there is an immediate sense to which He refers to as well: that is, His coming to us in the form of the Holy Spirit. As a Man we could only behold Him, as Holy Spirit we may receive Him; as a Man He could give us to eat; as Spirit He becomes our food and drink, our life and sustanence.

 

[arunangelo]

Eat My Flesh


by Chip Brogden


Except a man eat my flesh and drink my blood, he has no life in him (John 6:53).
How can this man give us His flesh to eat? So wondered the crowd, and so we wonder, even when we know that Christ is refering to Himself in a spiritual sense (My Words are Spirit and Life...the flesh profits nothing). So what is meant by this strange command? How may we apply it to our Christian life?
It is actually not as mysterious or enigmatic as it sounds. Let us say at once that what man needs is more than healing of the body, or restoring of the soul. He needs the impartation of Life into his spirit, his inner man. In order to abide in the Living Christ one must be alive in spirit. This presence of Life in the inner man is absolutely essential. We need more than a touch from God; we must have God Himself. There is an ocean of difference between receiving the blessing and receiving the One Who blesses; between getting a touch and receiving the One Who touches; between healing and the Healer; between redemption and Redeemer; between salvation and Savior. The former deals with what God has or can do, while the latter deals with God Himself.


For too long we have contented ourselves with what God can do for us and what He can give us. We come the Lord with a need in mind, and the next day we approach with another need, and the following day we return with yet another request. This pattern repeats itself continually. We return again and again to withdraw a little more from the heavenly bank. Surely we should let our requests be made known unto God, and we must also ask, that we may receive. But think: if a man owns a field, does he not also possess the buried treasure in the field? Christ even gave us a parable to this effect. Does it not stand to reason then, that if we receive HIM, we possess all He has? How shall He not, with His Son, freely give us all things?


So when we turn to the matter of His Life in us, it is important that we grasp Christ for Christs sake, and not look on Eternal Life as a separate thing Christ gives to those who ask. Christ is Our Life. We do not call upon a friend and say, I would like to speak to your emotion for a few minutes, but later I want to address your intellect. Later I hope to commune with your heart for a bit, and maybe then our bodies can go out to eat dinner while our souls remain here and read a book together. How absurd to even consider it, for we do not divide people into parts and relate to them as separate things. We relate to others holisticly, and even though we can clearly identify the parts we would never dream of isolating one part of a persons life and trying to separate it from who they are.
In like manner we must begin to see that Christ is Life, the sum total of many parts which equal His Being. The individual parts are what we usually seek - a little life for the dying, some health for the sick, a word of wisdom for the ignorant, a dose of guidance for the confused, a shot of patience for the impatient, a wave of joy for the depressed. We ask for, and receive, a thousand and one little pieces of Christ and think this is Christianity. This is not Christianity.


If we would realize that God only has one Gift, that is, His Son Jesus Christ, it would save us a lot of unnecessary heartache and effort. Would it shock you to learn that God has not given us a thing called eternal life? The Apostle John made this quite clear in his inspired writings, saying first of all, in the oft quoted John 3:16, that the Son is that which was given, and eternal life is simply the reward for those who receive the Son. It becomes even more apparant in the First Epistle of John, and one of my favorite passages of Scripture: This is the record, that God hath given us Eternal Life, and this Life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath Life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not Life. Yes we are given Eternal Life, true, but the Life is not floating out in space somewhere waiting to fall on those who ask. Eternal Life has nothing to do with everlasting existence. Eternal Life is a Person; the Life is the Son; hence, we need only ask if we have received Jesus and we shall know whether we have Eternal Life. The Life is bound up in the Son, as is every one of Gods precious gifts. Having the Son, we therefore have all the Son has. Eternal Life is simply an alias for Christ.


Now the Scripture concerning eating His flesh and drinking His blood becomes clear. Jesus had just multiplied the bread and the crowd was thrilled. Give us to eat of this bread evermore, they said. Please hear what I am saying. It is good to be fed, to have the bread and fish multiplied before your eyes, and to take up the basketfuls that remain. This was indeed a miracle. But the things Christ gives you and does for you will never satisfy you. Only He alone can satisfy. They ate of the loaves, and were filled, yes. For a time. After a little while the hunger came back again, the stomachs began to growl, and they had to seek Christ for bread all over again. This pattern would fain repeat itself for ages. So Christ offered them more than another meal; He offered Himself as the final solution and fullfilment of all they hungered for.


The simple, beautiful truth of this passage is that we must receive Christ into ourselves, digesting Him so to speak, and thus uniting with Him. For he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Obviously the physical Christ could not be received, as the crowd pointed out. How then do we receive Christ? May I say it reverently? The Holy Spirit is Christ in a receivable form. The physical Christ can multiply the loaves and fill our stomachs; but the Spiritual Christ can satisfy us with His Presence. This is why He said, It is expedient for you that I go away... but I will come again. We look forward to His Second Coming, and the Rapture of the Church, but there is an immediate sense to which He refers to as well: that is, His coming to us in the form of the Holy Spirit. As a Man we could only behold Him, as Holy Spirit we may receive Him; as a Man He could give us to eat; as Spirit He becomes our food and drink, our life and sustanence.

God desires intimacy with us
In order to save us from sin and have intimacy with us God took human form and made his dwelling amongst us (as Jesus) (John1: 14). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World (John 1:29). He is the new Pascal Lamb whose sacrificial flesh and blood brings us forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:27-28), and seals God’s new and everlasting covenant with us (Luke 22:20). Therefore, unless we eat His flesh and drink his blood, we will not have life within us (John 6:53). Since, we do not eat human flesh and drink human blood; He gave us His flesh under the appearance of bread (Matthew 26:26) and His blood under the appearance of wine (Matthew 26:2-28). He, therefore, told us that the bread that He gives us for the life of the world is His flesh (John 6:51); and then at the last supper He gave us the bread to eat and told us that it is His body (Matthew 26:26); and then gave the cup to drink and told us that it is His blood of the new covenant, which will be shed for us so that sins may be forgiven (Matthew 26:28). Furthermore, He commanded us to do this as often as possible so that He will be in our heart (memory) (Luke 22:19); thus enabling us to have a continuous love relationship with Him.

In the old covenant God wrote His words (Exodus 20) on stony tablets. His people were to follow the written words to find peace. They stored these words of God on the stony tablets in the ark and revered and worshipped them, because to them they were God’s presence among them. In the new Covenant, God became flesh (John 1:14) and feeds us with His own flesh and blood to imprint His own being on our hearts (Jer. 31:33) in order to change them from stony hearts to natural hearts (Ezekiel 11:19). This means that believers follow God’s laws, not because they are laws, but because, they love God and want to live His life of sacrificial love. Furthermore, by commanding us to celebrate the Lord’s Supper as often as possible, He makes His word become flesh (in the form of bread) ever present to us.

Communion with Christ
By receiving the body and blood Christ we unite with other believers who share in the same meal (1 Cor. 10:16-17). This brings unity among believers; which Jesus desired very much (John 17:21). Christians therefore, have celebrated this supper from the very beginning of Christianity (1 Corinthians 11:26-29, Act 2:46, 20:7 &11 and 27:35) and considered themselves very blessed for having the opportunity to celebrate it (Rev. 19:9). Because, the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper is truly the body and blood of Jesus, Paul warns us that if we eat the bread and drink the wine in an unworthy manner we will bring condemnation upon our selves (1Cor. 11: 26-29).

Accept His body and blood in faith
If we were to see a man called Jesus, who was totally powerless, carrying a cross, being mocked and spat upon by people and then see Him dying on the cross along with other criminals; and if someone told us that He is the infinitely powerful God, King of the Universe; we would think it is a joke. Yet, Peter recognized Him as the Son of God, because, it was revealed to Him by the Father (Matthew 16:16-18). John, who was filled with the Holy Spirit, also recognized Him as the Lamb of God (John 1:29). Similarly, if someone gives us a piece of bread and tells us that it is God, we would think that, that person is insane. Therefore, after Jesus’ discourse on eating His flesh and drinking His blood (John 6:51) some people stopped believing in Him. One of them was the one ((Judas) who was to later betray Him (John 6:64) and walked away from the Lord’s Supper (John 14:30). The other apostles did not leave, although they probably did not fully understand, how the bread that He gave them to eat was His flesh (John 6:51). They simply accepted it in faith, because, they believed that Jesus had the Words of eternal life; and were convinced that He was the Holy One from God (John 7: 68, 69). It is important to remember that if God could take the form of a little baby, He can easily take the form of bread.

Personal relationship with Christ
To participate in the Lord’s Supper is to have communion with Christ. This is what it really means to have personal relationship with Him. This is what we are made for. It makes us part of His family. Then His Father is our Father, His mother our mother and His house our house. Oneness with Christ brings us salvation. Without this unity with Christ we cannot have true goodness in us, because, He is the only source of true goodness.

Although it is possible to have spiritual communion with the Lord in meditation and intense prayers, perfection of communion can only occur when there is, both physical and spiritual communion. Prior to Jesus’ coming, the prophets and holy people of the Old Testament did have spiritual communion with Him. However, the Lord had to come, both, spiritually and physically into this World in order to bring us salvation.

When we truly love someone, we are not content with merely speaking to that person on the phone or via e-mail; we also desire physical communion with that person, because, we are both, physical and spiritual. Furthermore, holiness is not only spiritual but also physical; because, God took physical form (in the person of Jesus) to make us holy; and also, because, expression of God’s love (by human beings) requires the physical acts. We, therefore, need both, spiritual and physical union with God. This union occurs when we receive the body and blood of Jesus.

Worshiping God
To worship God is to offer our entire life as a sacrifice to Him. As sinners we are incapable of making this sacrificial offering. However, Jesus, who is pure and sinless, made a perfect sacrifice of His life to the Father on our behalf and allows us to join in His sacrifice by sharing with us His sacrificial body in the form of bread and His sacrificial blood of the new and eternal covenant in the form of wine (Matthew 26:26-28). Furthermore, He asks us to continue to offer this sacrifice, as often as possible so that His presence in our heart is kept alive (Luke 22:19) and we may thereby have life (John 6:53). Therefore, every time we offer this sacrifice at the Lord’s Supper we re-enter into Jesus’ sacrifice. His sacrifice is the only pure sacrifice. Therefore, when the Lord’s Supper is celebrated through out the world, it fulfills Malachi’s prophesy (Malachi 1:11) which stated that, from the rising of the sun to its setting, in every place a pure sacrifice will be offered to God.