Flesh and Blood

Flesh and Blood                                        

by Danny C. Wash

Jesus said, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man 1 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 upon the last day.” 2 What in the world does this mean? Are we to be vampires and cannibals? This is a real shocker when you think about it. Jesus had just explained what this meant to the people who were following Him around to get the bread and wine He had been creating for them. Jesus intended to upset the hanger-ons for the food people by these shocking statements. If they had been listening, He told them before this, that He was speaking about spiritual blood and bread. “I am the bread of life...I am the living bread that came down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.” The hanger-ons for the food dropped away because of the grossness of these statements about eating his body and blood. Although Jesus did eventually shed His blood on the cross and His flesh was torn; the blood and flesh are symbols of what is really happening, in that the blood represents Christ’s life, forgiveness, and His righteousness. The Bible says, the life is in the blood. The flesh represents His words that He spoke from the Father and we are to eat His word daily to bring spiritual life and growth to us. As Jesus also says, “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. 3

1 Jesus referred to Himself as “the Son of Man” here, which referenced His being fully human and having a human existence like us but without having the sin principle in Him. He was also fully divine and this is the great mystery of God in Christ Jesus coming to earth through a human birth to live a perfect life, keeping the law for us, die on the cross as us to pay our penalty for our sin satisfying the wrath of God against all sin, and rising from death with us [as a new creation] in Him with eternal life.

2 John 6: 44-58

3 This introduces the truth about us being “in Christ.” 1Corinthians 1:30 states that, “by His
[God’s] doing you are in Christ Jesus...” Paul says in Galatians 2:20 that we have been “crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live [no longer just me by myself] but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh [with Christ through the Holy Spirit in me] I live by faith in the Son of God...”