Eat God's Flesh and Drink His Blood

By Hayley Boud

^“Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.  For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

 John 6:53-58

How can we eat the flesh of Jesus?

In John 1:1 & 14, we discover that Jesus is God and the Word of God is God and here we find that Jesus is the Bread, so the bread is the Word of God.  Therefore, we have to eat the Word of God in order to have eternal life.

In order to eat physical bread, we need a mouth, teeth and patience to chew before to swallow.  The mouth represents the heart which needs to open in order to allow the Word of God in, in the same way our physical mouth needs to open in order to allow the physical food in. 

Our teeth represent the focus and concentration required to chew the bread.  We need to focus on the Word of God and chew over it, trying to break it down into pieces we can understand in the same way our physical teeth chews the physical food in order to break it into smaller pieces which can be swallowed. 

Then we have to be patient with our physical food.  We can’t swallow the food whole, or we will choke and even die.  We have to take our time with the Word of God and meditate on it and be patient or we will miss out on the life that is in it which can cause us to spiritually die.

There are different types of bread, some kinds of bread are really tasty and we usually buy those from the supermarket while there are other kinds of bread we don’t really like.  But it’s all bread.  We have to be careful with the Word of God that we don’t only eat the parts we enjoy, we need to read the whole Bible and not miss out on anything.  It takes me about 2-3 years to read my Bible from beginning to end, so I have read the whole thing more than 5 times now.  There are definite chapters I enjoy and then there are chapters that are boring...but it’s all good for me.  I would be in danger if I only ate croissants and never ate healthy bread and I would be in danger spiritually if I only read the New Testament, or I only read the gospels. 

In order to eat physical bread, it is a decision we make.  We have to decide to open our mouth, we have to make a decision to chew and we have to decide to swallow.  Once when Roda had a very upset tummy, I told her to eat some dry bread with nothing on it.  She complained and refused to do it.  I explained it would help, but she couldn’t accept.  She felt like dry bread would make her more sick.  Sometimes we are the same with the Word of God.  We know we need to pick it up and read it but we don’t feel like it.  Sometimes we are tired so we tell ourselves that we should go to bed and read it in the morning.  Sometimes we are discouraged and disappointed and we don’t feel like reading.  What I have noticed in my life is that the very times I don’t feel like reading the Bible, are the very times I actually need it the most.  So, we have to make a decision to take the Bible, to open it, to read it, to meditate on it and put it into practise.

Once we have decided NOT to read the word of God, or to not listen to it...we will be the ones to lose.  Our bodies will be the ones to suffer in the same way our physical body suffers when we don’t eat physically.  How many of you have gone without food for more than three days?  How does your body feel?  Weak, sick, depressed.  That is the same for our spirit when we don’t read the Word of God, we make ourselves weak and sick spiritually.

We can’t just read the Word though, we need to also concentrate and even memorise it.  How many times have you enjoyed a song so much that you have listened to it over and over until you know every word.  We should be the same with the Bible, we should love it so much that we read verses over and over until we know them off by heart.  Memorising scripture will save you in times of trouble...it really, really will.

How can I drink God’s blood?

Drinking is different to eating – all you have to do is put it in your mouth and swallow immediately.  The blood of Jesus is there to clean our sin and all we have to do is open our mouth and confess our sin and immediately we are forgiven and our sins are released.  We don’t have to spend a lot of time after we have sinned justifying ourselves or condemning ourselves or meditating on your sin.  Repent straight away and God will remove your sin immediately. 

Jesus said to drink the wine as a remembrance of His blood and when we drink wine, it can be smelt on our breath and people will know.  Those that repent, don’t have to feel shy to say sorry to the person they have sinned against, because people will know if we are sincere when we ask for forgiveness.  The blood purifies us when we have a problem with someone and we first fix it with that person before coming to Christ for forgiveness.

When we ask God for forgiveness, His blood takes away our sin and we move from being dead to being alive.  Once we are alive in Christ, do we need to keep asking God to make us alive?  Why do we have to keep asking God for forgiveness every time we sin?  If we are alive, then we don’t need the blood of Christ anymore.  The blood of Christ is to make us alive but once we become Christians we are no longer dead, we are alive so is there any need to keep asking God for forgiveness?

When we sin, we are dead spiritually but in blood is life so every time we sin, we make ourselves dead to God and every time we repent the blood of Christ cleanses us and brings us back to life.  Every time I sin, it makes me spiritually dead because the only thing that separates us from God is sin and when we are separated from life, there is death.  God doesn’t close His eyes if I have sinned just because I’m a Christian.  That is like saying, I once had malaria so I can’t get it again.  Jesus said, repent, repent, repent and He is able to forgive a million times and that is how we see the expression of His love...the fact that He keeps forgiving.

Isaiah 59:2, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear”.

In Ex 12, the Israelites were told to put blood on the doorframe and without it, when the angel of death passed, you would die.  So they needed that sign of blood and we also need that sign of blood on us so that when Jesus comes close to us, He can know if we belong to Him or not.  We need repentance and forgiveness and we need also to forgive others in order to be forgiven.