Meat Indeed, and Drink Indeed
(No. 3424)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1914.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed." John 6:55.
THE crowd had followed Jesus for the loaves and fishes. He gently
upbraids them for being guided by so carnal an appetite and impelled by
so coarse a motive to follow Him. Then He tells them that there is a
spiritual meat which is far better–a spiritual drink far richer than
those things which nourish the body and gratify the animal tastes.
After which, speaking of Himself spiritually, He says, "My flesh is
meat indeed"–real meat, such as supports the soul, and, "My blood is
drink indeed"–real drink, the best, the truest beverage, such as
invigorates the spirit for immortality!
Why, you may ask, on the outset, does our Lord speak of His flesh and
blood as separated? I tried to explain that some time ago when we
gathered around this Table. There must be, in the Lord's Supper, bread
and wine–but bread separated from the wine–as our Lord speaks of His
flesh as separate from His blood, and this was to indicate that it is
as a dying Savior that He is most precious to us. The blood separated
from the flesh indicates death. It is to the death of Jesus that the
Believer first turns His eyes and it is when considering the living,
reigning Christ as having once been slain that our richest comfort
comes to us. So it is not an unnecessary multiplication of words, or a
vain repetition of the same idea, when our Lord says to us, "My flesh
is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." He thereby denotes
Himself as the dyingChrist.
Taking the words as they stand, our first point will be that–
I. THE FLESH OF CHRIST IS MEAT INDEED–SPIRITUAL MEAT.
The likeness is emphatic–it is "meat indeed." I t is like meat because
meat, or food, sustains the body. The body could not be kept in vigor
ordinarily or without a miracle, except by the use of food. We pine, we
languish, we sicken, we die without bread! So the soul without Jesus,
supposing it to be alive, must soon sicken, pine, be famished and
decay. You, O Believer, with all your strength would be weak as water
at this moment if Jesus were not now your present support! All your
past experience would go for nothing if you had not now a present
Christ to stay your hopes upon. It would be only a matter of time with
you–you would before long sink into the corruption of an open
apostasy. Like a man shut up in a dungeon and deprived of food who
drags out for a few days, a most painful existence and, at the last,
expires and becomes carrion, so must it be with you. Unless Jesus
Christ is your daily meat, you would go back to the carnal elements of
the world and become corrupt and depraved as others are! Christ is the
only true sustenance of the quickened soul. But, mark you, let a man
eat what meat he may, it does not always so sustain him but that he is
not sometimes weak and stretched upon the bed of languishing. It cannot
so sustain him but that before long he must be carried to his grave.
But if your souls learn to feed on Jesus, they shall enjoy the blessed
immunity promised to the inhabitants of Zion–they shall not say, "I am
sick"–they shall never die! They shall feed on this immortal bread
such as angels eat. You shall be carried up to the seats of the
immortals to dwell forever with the Christ upon whom you have fed,
coming to Him first to appease your hunger–and believing on Him
continuously to sustain your life!
Meat not only provides substance, but it assists growth. The child
cannot develop into an adult if he is denied his daily food. He must
certainly die in infancy or in childhood if he is without the nutriment
which is requisite to the building up of his bodily frame. Now,
Brothers and Sisters, we are babes in Grace, many of us. We have been
brought to Jesus' feet, and as such, we are of those who make up His
Kingdom, but we need to grow into spiritual manhood. We are not content
with little faith, dim hope and a spark of love. We need to attain unto
perfection in spiritual things–I mean to be perfectly developed men
and women strong in the fullness of spiritual energy–and this can only
be by Christ. Onlycan you grow as you increase in the knowledge of Him
and in subjection to the influences of His indwelling Spirit. As food
makes our bodies grow, so Christ is food to our souls–He is "meat
indeed"–for He makes us grow after a Divine sort. Let a man feed upon
what meat he may, he shall not come unto absolute perfection. But let
him feed on Jesus and he shall! Through the Grace of God in Christ
Jesus we shall yet come to the fullness of the stature of men in
Christ. Up there they are all men in Christ. Before the Throne of God
they are all perfect and without fault–and this because they have fed
upon this sacred meat which makes them grow until they come unto the
perfect image of Him they feed upon!
Meat does not only sustain and cause growth, but it makes up for the
daily waste of the body. Some people forget that every exertion of the
body wears it away as truly as the machine spends its fuel and wastes
itself. As even an engine of iron needs repair, so does this body of
ours, and the meat we feed upon goes to repair the daily waste to which
bone, and muscle, and nerve are all subjected. Beloved, Jesus Christ,
in this sense, is meat. "He restores my soul." He makes up for the
waste of temptation, for the wear and tear of care, for the fret of
trouble, for the fume and flurry of manifold anxie-ties–for everything
that would waste a man away. My soul once again renews her strength
like the eagle when she sips from the brook that flows from the foot of
the Cross. Oh, Believer, you will soon degenerate–this world of sin
will soon make you backslide and lose every good thing you have unless
you go continually to Christ and feed on Him! But feeding on Him, the
world shall not hurt you, temptations shall not wound you, your trials
shall not overwhelm you, for you shall find His flesh to be meat
indeed! The best meat that man's body can receive will not always
repair the waste. After a certain period of life, the body must decay,
and the most nutritious diet cannot prevent the hair, the teeth, the
eyes, the legs, the arms–the entire man–from discovering that the
hour of prime has passed and that the time of decay has arrived! Bend
must the man and lean upon his staff, and eat or drink what he will,
according to the strictest diet and regimen of the physician, yet still
the time of waste has come. They who look out of the windows shall be
darkened. The teeth shall fail because they are few, and the pillars of
the house shall tremble. But, Beloved, His flesh is "meat indeed,"
because they that feed upon Him shall still bring forth fruit in old
age! They shall be fat and flourishing, to show that the Lord is
upright. Their last days shall be their best days and, instead of
declining, they shall gather strength with the multiplying years till
the very moment when heart and flesh shall fail, and then shall be the
instant when the strength of their souls and their portion forever
shall be most fully revealed to them!
Moreover, meat is a great remover of pain and disease. Without meat, or
without food of some kind, a man's inward constitution becomes full of
gnawing and anguish. Bitter are the grips of hunger. Perhaps no pain
can be more severe, when a man is long exposed to it, than hunger, with
the exception of thirst. No doubt, lack is the root of multitudes of
the diseases of the poor. Generous diet often does more for the sick
than the best medical prescriptions. It is certainly so with Believers
in Christ. His flesh is meat indeed in this respect. The pains of
conviction, the throbs of a guilty conscience–all are stopped when a
man gets Christ! If a man is spiritually sick with worldliness, with
doubt, with pride, with envy–with anything that is the common sickness
of the child of God–let him get but a hearty feast upon the flesh of
Jesus, and the disease will fly away! Christ puts such vigor into the
spiritual system of His own people when they feed on Him, that it
drives out diseases as strong men cast them off by the very force of
constitution! Blessed and happy is he who eats this flesh, for it is in
this sense, meat indeed!
Once more, meat is used constantly by us for the development of
strength. The man ill-fed cannot lift the weights that another can who
has a more generous diet upon his table. Lowness of food brings
littleness of strength. Now Jesus Christ is the only food that can make
His people strong for service. Feed on Him and you shall run and not be
weary! You shall walk and not faint. It is meat indeed because it gives
us strength that is all but boundless. It clothes a mortal man with the
might of God. It makes the feeblest Christian in the Church, when he
has fed upon Christ, to be as a giant to suffer or to do!
I cannot enlarge upon all these points, though there is enough in any
one of them for a sermon, but, dear child of God, seek after Christ and
be not satisfied until daily you are fed and nourished upon Him.
The word, "indeed" gives the sentence an air of strong protest. We must
take this into consideration. Why does He say that His flesh is meat
indeed? It is in opposition to mere animal and corporeal food which is
meat, but not meat indeed. You think that bread is solid. So it is,
speaking one way–but what does it support? It supports the body, and
the body, you say, is substantial. So indeed it is to the eye and to
the touch–but what is the body? All flesh is grass, and all the
goodliness thereof as the flower of the field; the grass withers and
the flower thereof fades away; surely the people aregrass. This body is
so little a while, here, and so soon dissolved, that I may safely call
it but a shadow! And the food that feeds the shadow is but a shade. And
what is the soul within us? Why, that, you say, is unreal. Truly so,
Sirs, to smell, to sight, to touch–but not to real thought! The real
thing about a man is his inward self, which you cannot see–his secret,
impalpable, unseen, immortal self that never dies! Time's tooth does
not touch it, nor does the scythe of Death cut it down. The soul is the
real thing–not the body–and, Sirs, the food which feeds the soul is
the real food, after all, and though the men of the world turn on their
heels and say, "Ah, no, the bread and cheese that we put into our
mouths– that is the real thing–give us plenty of that!" Sirs, 'tis
the shadow, but the Truths of God you give your souls to feed
upon–that it is which in God's sight, in the sight of wise men and in
your sight, if you have any spiritual discernment– is meat indeed!
It is meat indeed in contrast with the typical meats of the Old
Testament. There was the Paschal Supper–surely that was a glorious
feast when, by it, the people went their way out of Egypt rejoicing.
Yes, but 'twas only a deliverance from a common temporal slavery. They
that eat the Paschal Lamb are delivered from the bondage of death and
Hell, for His flesh is meat indeed! In the wilderness they ate the
manna. Yes, but every day it seemed to tell them its own unsubstantial
character, from the fact that if they kept it till the next morning it
bred worms and stank. But our Lord Jesus Christ is food that never
corrupts! Feed on Him, lay Him up in your hearts and you shall find no
corruption there, nor shall you die. In the old Tabernacle and the
Temple there were the loaves of showbread and these were meat for the
priest. Ah, but the showbread was nothing but a type–and to the
priest, however devoutly he might receive it, the showbread, in itself,
was no food for his real self, but only for his corporeal frame. And I
may say the same of the bread which we have upon the table here,
tonight! There is nothing in it–it is a mere emblem and a sign. But
Christ's flesh is meat indeed! When I have sometimes seen this text put
over the table commonly used for what is called the "Sacrament," I have
trembled lest people should be led into the grievous and unnatural
error of Transubstantiation. When our Lord said, "My flesh is meat
indeed," He could not mean that bread on the table, for the Lord's
Supper was not then instituted! In this particular text, at any rate,
there can be no allusion of any kind to what is called, "the Mass," by
some, or by others called, "the Sacrament," because these things were
not brought forward by our Lord until within a few hours of His
death–and He is now speaking months before that time! Beloved, the
bread is bread, and nothing but bread, and so far as it points you,
like a signpost, to the real flesh of Christ, so far so good. If you
stop there, I can only say of it that bread is meat, but the flesh of
Christ is meat indeed.
When our Lord says, "My flesh is meat indeed," He clearly distinguishes
it from every other kind of soul food. There are many sorts of soul
food. Some men feed their souls on their own works. "Oh," they say, "we
have prayed. We have fasted! We have given to the poor. We have been
upright, we have been righteous"–and their soul feeds on that, though
it is all wind! But if they trusted in Christ, it would be meat indeed.
Some feed on ceremonies. They have been baptized, christened, confirmed
and I know not what besides. Fine confectionery this, but it is all
wind! Christ received into the soul and trusted in for salvation, is
meat indeed! Some have grown up with false doctrines, or with true ones
exaggerated, and these bring them to a very fine development of
self-conceit and bigotry–but they make no solid food for the man's
mind. But oh, Beloved, when a man can say, "My hope is in the Crucified
alone–I look to Him every day, my meditations are on Him, my reading
is much about Him, my prayers are sent to Heaven all through Him, my
praises are for Him, He is my soul's great joy, comfort, strength, and
help"–then he has got the meat indeed! He will be a strong man to
overcome his sin! He will be a holy man, a happy man, a heavenly man
and, by-and-by, he shall be caught up to dwell where Jesus is, on whom
he has fed.
I hope I have made this clear. It is thinking upon Jesus, trusting in
Jesus that is the eating Jesus, Himself, being the food. Those who
trust in Him and rest in Him have got the best of soul meat. They have
got meat indeed!
II. CHRIST'S BLOOD IS DRINK INDEED.
Like drink to the body, the blood of Jesus, that is to say, the merits
of His atoning Sacrifice sustains. The body is not to be built up
without some liquid–the system needs it. The soul is not to be
sustained without considering and resting on the substitutionary
suffering of Jesus. That Jesus died in my place and suffered for my sin
is to stimulate my hope, my comfort, my joy–in a word, my whole
soul–just as drink invigorates the physical system.
Drink refreshes the body. The traveler is faint. It is a hot, burning
day. That cool brook–how different the man looks when he bathes his
face in it and drinks a sweet, cooling draught. And so the blood of
Jesus refreshes the man who trusts in it. If I trust that Jesus was
punished for me and I am clear that Jesus died for me, how my soul
seems to have got a new life! How it revives! Though he were dead, yet
should he live who could believe in this. He who could trust in the
precious blood, though despair held him in a fainting fit so that he
could not stir hand or foot, yet if this precious Doctrine of a Savior
dying for him were believed by him, his heart and his spirit must
revive at once!
Drink also cleanses the body I do not mean washing, but that the
reception of the water into the system flushes all the various
departments of the frame and, no doubt, the liquid always has upon the
human body a healthy influence. Unless it is taken, however it may be,
intemperately. It is, to a great extent, made the life-fluid of the
system. Now, whenever you get Jesus Christ into the soul, how it seems
to set the veins right even if the blood is wrong! How it flushes out
all impurities from the spiritual system–and the more you really come
to rest upon a bleeding Christ, the more sure you are to get rid of
your sins–I mean your reigning sins, your besetting sins, for we can
overcome them only through the blood of the Lamb. Christ's blood is
thus drink indeed!
Drink also cheers the man. How many a faint heart has been cheered when
the cooling draught has been brought! The fainting one has opened her
eyes and smiled. And, oh, how the thoughts of a dying Christ revives
the fainting soul and make the spirit sing that once was ready to moan
and cry, "I am forgotten! I am forsaken. I am lost!"
Notice the word, "indeed," how it comes in again–"My blood is drink
indeed," in opposition to all carnal drink, for as I said about the
food–that it is but a shadow to support a shadow, so it is with the
drink–it is but a shade to support a shade. Christ's blood supports
the spirit–therefore, it is drink indeed.
How superior to all typical drinks! There was the water which flowed
from the Rock when it was struck. There were the various drinks with
the meat offerings, but Jesus Christ is the fullness of which these
were but the shadows!
Christ says, "My blood is drink indeed," as though utterly ignoring all
other soul drinks. Some men drink until they are drenched with earthly
pleasure. Others drink until they are inflated with their own
self-righteousness. The Devil has his cups and he knows how to fill
them to the brim and make them sparkle and fascinate the eyes. But let
men's souls drink of these draughts till they come to the dregs, they
shall never be satisfied! And in the world to come their misery shall
be greater if they have had any satisfaction here. But oh, if your soul
can get to the precious blood of Christ and rest there, and you can
rejoice that Jesus died for you, you may drink but you shall never be
inebriated! You may drink, but you shall never know satiety! You may
drink and you shall have a satisfaction which nothing can destroy,
which time or habit cannot cause to pall on your palate and of which
eternity shall be but a blessed prolongation! Drink, thirsty soul,
drink at the Fountain of the Savior's blood and you shall thirst no
more, but cry, "I have enough! I have found in Jesus' atoning blood all
that my soul can want!" Put these two things together. It appears,
according to the text, that–
III. OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST IS BOTH MEAT AND DRINK TOGETHER,
So I would have you notice the suitability of Jesus Christ to man's
needs. Man needs meat and drink. Jesus is what man needs! You need
pardon–you have it in Christ. You need life–eternal life–you have it
in Christ! You need peace, comfort, happiness–you have it all in
Christ. No key ever fitted a lock as well as Christ fits a sinner. You
are empty– Christ is full! You cannot have a need that He cannot
supply. There never was and there never will be, a soul that was past
the power of Jesus. Oh, what a suitable Savior He is to me! That I can
say, for if Jesus Christ had been sent into this world for me, only, He
could not have suited me better than He does! And if He had been sent
for you, only, poor trembling Sinner, He could not have fitted you
better than He will! Why, when I think of Jesus, He seems to be all
mine, and I am sure I cannot afford to do without a bit of Him. I need
Him altogether and He just exactly fills my soul up to the brim–and
you shall find it true, also! He will be your meat and your drink and
if you get Him, you will say–
"All my capacious powers could wish,
In You do richly meet.
Nor to my eyes is light so dear,
Nor friendship half so sweet." If Jesus Christ is thus meat and drink
together, what fullness there is in Him! He is not only one thing, and
not only the other, but He is both! A man with meat would die, let him
have as much as he pleased of it, if there were nothing to drink. A man
with drink would die if there were nothing solid for him to eat. Jesus
does not give us part salvation, but He gives us all of it! You shall
find in Jesus Christ everything that will be needed between Hell and
Heaven. All the way, from the gates of Hell to the pearly gates of
Paradise, every need of every pilgrim is met in Him. Ten thousand time
ten thousand as His people are, yet all of them receive all that they
need from Him, for, "It has pleased the Father that in
Him should all fullness dwell." "All fullness"–mark the word.
"Fullness" is a big word but "all fullness" is bigger, and all fullness
dwells in Him–that is, it is remaining in Him, always fullness and
always remaining all fullness–that is the greatest word of all. He is
both meat and drink, He is all that we need!
Consider, too, that if Christ is both meat and drink, what need we have
of Him–because there is no need in the world, I suppose, that is
greater than the need of food–of meat and drink. You hear the cry of,
"Fire!" in the street and it startles you. But those who have ever
heard the cry of, "Bread!" in a bread riot, say that the cry of,
"Fire!" is nothing to it. There is something so sharp, so awful, so
determined, so ferocious, so like the yell of wild beasts, about men
and women that scream for bread, that it is the most awful thing that
is ever heard. And, "Drink!" What a word that must be for a number of
poor wretches shut up, as they were, in the Black Hole of Calcutta,
raving through those little windows at the guard outside for drink and
stretching out their hands and beseeching them to turn their carbines
upon them and shoot them, rather than let them die there a lingering
death of suffocation and of thirst! How, when a little water was passed
in, they fought and struggled for it, if so be a man might but get a
drop, or suck a handkerchief that had been dipped into it, and linger
on a little longer. Now, nobody can have a greater need than an actual
need of bread and water, but that is what you need, my dear Friends.
You need Christ! Your soul needs this very bread and water. Think not
that you are rich and increased in goods if you have not got Christ,
for in truth you are naked, and poor, and miserable! If you do not
trust Him, love Him, serve Him, your poor soul has not even a drop to
drink! What can it do but die? And oh, what must be its wretchedness
when your soul shall ask for a drop of water to cool its tongue,
tormented in that flame? While others are feasting, you shall have the
gnashing of your hungry teeth to be your endless portion. God grant you
may not be so cruel to your souls as to starve them by going without
Christ.
Yes, and if Christ is meat and drink, what need there is of a real
reception of Him. If you get meat and drink, you cannot make any use of
them unless you eat and drink them. Take meat to a hungry man–hold it
out on your finger and ask him, "Don't you feel better?" "No," he says.
"Look at it, Man; look at it!" "No, I feel more hungry." "But cut it!
Here is the knife." "Oh," he says, "what is the use of that? You mock
me! I need to get it between my teeth! I need to get it worked into my
system, or else it is of no use to me." Hearer, of what service is it
to you that you come and listen, Sunday after Sunday, some of you, but
never decide to trust Christ and take Him into your soul? Why, you do
but hear me, as it were, pour out the water, and you do not drink! You
see it sparkle as I speak of it, but you do not receive it. What is the
good of it to you? Oh, you will perish, some of you–you will perish
with the bread within your reach–with the clean brook of Eternal Life
flowing at your feet! Oh, why this folly? It is not so in other things.
Men are not satisfied with seeing gold–they want to take it home and
put it in their pockets! And how is it that they are content with
hearing about Christ–with talking about Christ–but never asking for
real faith, and for vital union with the Lord Jesus Christ? See to
this, I pray you–and see to it soon–or death will see to you!
Moreover, Beloved, if Jesus Christ be both meat and drink–Beloved in
the Lord, I speak to you now–what reason there is for giving thanks! I
said, in the reading, that a man is very unmannerly, very beastlike,
who sits down to his meat and his drink without thanks. Well, then my
Soul, whenever you come to feed on Christ–whenever you think on Him–
and that should be always, always give thanks! The true spirit of a
Christian is perpetual thankfulness. I like the remark of a dear friend
who is present now, who, when the November fogs began, said to me on a
Sunday morning, "I tell all my family to be more cheerful than ever,
now the dreary weather has come, so as to shake off all these things
that are around by keeping up cheerfulness within." Now, you are always
feeding on Christ, and so every time you feed, you ought to give
thanks! Therefore, as you are always feeding on Christ, "rejoice in the
Lord always, and again, I say, rejoice." They used to call this Supper
in the ancient Church, as we sometimes do now, "the Eucharist"–the
giving of thanks. Well, let the life of the Christian be a constant
Eucharist, and as he feeds on Jesus always, let it always be with this
tribute of praise, "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable Gift."
Yes, and if Jesus Christ is meat and drink, then here is a reason why
you Christians should be very earnest to tell of Him to others–to hand
Him out. Oh, if we had this house full of bread, tonight, and there
were a famine all over Lon-don–in the East End, the West End, and the
North, and the South–and men were dropping down dead in the streets,
and they were crowding outside there, out at the Elephant and Castle
and down Newington Causeway, I know what I would say if the bread
belonged to me–"Brothers and Sisters, come and help me out of the
windows with it! Let them come in at every door! Let them crowd at
every window and let them have something to eat!" And if they were
thirsty, and we had the mains laid on here, and there was no water to
be had anywhere else, oh, I am sure there is not a little child here
that would not be glad to take his little tin can and hand out a
draught of water to the thirsty people! Well, you then, with little
abilities, who love Christ–tell about Him to others! He is meat and
drink to the famished, thirsty ones! If He were merely a dainty, I
could not press it, but as He is a very necessity to the dying sons of
men, tell them about Him! And if they despise Him, well, then, you have
done your part. But if they perish without your telling them of Christ,
their blood may lie at your door! Oh, think, while you are going home
tonight, walking down the streets, whether there is any house you pass
where there is a man living who can charge you with having neglected
him! Do not let it be so any longer, but seek that, as Christ's flesh
is meat indeed and His blood is drink indeed, you may hand out Jesus
Christ to the famishing crowds that they may be satisfied! The Lord
bless you richly, for His name's sake.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN6:41-66.
Verses 41-44. The Jews then murmured at Him because He said, I am the
bread which came down from Heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus,
the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that
He says, I came down from Heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said
unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to Me except He
who has sent Me, draw him. And I will raise him up at the last day.
Christ never retracted a Truth of God or diminished its force because
it was rejected, but He rather seemed to say, "You refused this Truth.
I knew you would. You need not murmur: you are none of Mine. If you had
been, the Father would have drawn you. You will not come. So you are
set against the Truth of God that you cannot see it. So blind are your
eyes that you do not behold it. No man can come to Me, except the
Father, who has sent Me, draws him."
45. It is written in the Prophets, And they shall be all taught of God.
Every man, therefore, who has heard, and has learned of the Father,
comes unto Me. Beware, dear Friends, of any learning of Christ except
by Divine teaching, for what we learn merely from the lips of our
fellow men will never be vitally learned or really understood. We must
be all taught of God–and so we shall be if, indeed, we are among these
whom the Father draws towards Christ. All His teachings draw that way,
and when they are taught into the inner man–not so much to the mind as
to the soul and heart– then do we know the Truth, indeed!
46, 47. Not that any man has seen the Father save he which is of God,
he has seen the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that
believes on Me has everlasting life. One of the richest passages surely
of all holy Scripture! It is all marrow and fatness, but here you seem
to have the quintessence! We have eternal life if we are Believers–not
shall have it, but have it now! We have a life which is eternal. It is
idle to talk of our losing it, because it would not be eternal if we
did! We have a life within us which can by no possibility ever die, but
must live on forever. "He that believes on Me, though he has many
tremblings–though he may be the subject of many infirmities–yet he
that believes on Me has everlasting life." O my Soul, exult in that
glorious Truth of God! You have everlasting life as surely as you have
faith in Christ!
48. I am that bread of life. The food on which that everlasting life
lives–living bread for living souls. O Brothers and Sisters, the dead
letter is of no use to us! All the truth in the world, unless it be
quickening, cannot feed our quickened natures. It is Incarnate Truth,
even Christ, that we must feed upon! "I am that bread of life."
49, 50 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This
is the bread which comes down from Heaven, that a man may eat thereof
and not die For that manna of theirs was corruptible. We read that it
bred worms and stank, and though it was an angels' food for a time, yet
it was but temporary. It only fed a temporary life and, like that life,
it passed away. But Jesus Christ is incorruptible, and they that live
on Him live on incorruptible food which nourishes the incorruptible
seed which lives and abides forever!
51, 52. I am the living bread which came down from Heaven: if any man
eats of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will
give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The
Jews, therefore, argued among themselves, saying, How can this Man give
us his flesh to eat?They misunderstood the Master. They tarried in the
letter, and did not reach to the spirit–the meaning–and that letter
killed them, for "the letter kills: the spirit gives life." The inward
meaning is that on which the soul feeds. And so the unhappy Humanist
believes that he can literally eat the flesh of Christ, which, if it
were true, were monstrous and could be of no service to him! Of what
value is one flesh more thananother flesh, if it is to be considered
carnally? He loses the inner meaning. Blessed are they who are drawn of
the Father and taught of the Lord–who spy out what is, after all, so
little concealed beneath the thin veil of the metaphor.
53. Then Jesus said unto them.What? Do you think He explained it? No,
He did not explain to these Jews. They were given up to judicial
blindness. They had so long refused to see, that now they must not see,
for on them was come the curse that, seeing they should not see, and
hearing they should not perceive. Oh, how terrible this is when this
falls on a man! And I think I know some upon whom it must have fallen.
They have indulged the philosophical vein, always spiritualizing and
cutting out the soul of Truth, and they are given up to spiritualizing
as many of the great German philosophers evidently have been, who
cannot now receive a plain statement, however simple are the words, but
from their natural habit of continually twisting and tearing to pieces,
they do so with everything! And a man may be an unbeliever so long that
it will never be given to him to be a Believer again! God grant we may
never make scales for our own eyes, and so plug up the soul's mental
vision with the miry clay of sin, that henceforth, even though the
eternal Christ flashes the Divine Truth into our eyes, we shall only be
dazzled by it into a greater darkness! So it was with these men. Jesus
did not explain to them. He just repeated the Truth more emphatically
and made it more offensive to them than before. May a preacher
sometimes be offensive in his preaching? He must be! He must sometimes
feel that such a truth will only move men's wrath if he preaches it.
Nevertheless, we are not to put the Truth of God to the verdict of a
jury–neither is Truth to be submitted to what is called, the "inner
consciousness" of a set of sinners whose consciousness is all defiled!
As well make a company of highwaymen a jury about theft as make
unconverted men to be a jury about what is the Truth of God! It cannot
be. Christ does not condescend to that. He tells them the Truth more
fully and more offensively than before.
53. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son
of Man, and drink His blood. Which He had not said before, and was more
startling still!
53-57. You have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh, and drinks My
blood, has eternal life: and I will raise him up at the last day. For
My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eats My
flesh, and drinks My blood, dwells in Me, and I in him. As the living
Father has sent Me, and I live by the Father: so he that eats Me, even
he shall live by Me.You see here three living persons–the living
Father, the living Son and the living Believer–and truly, these three
live one life which comes from the Father by the Son into us, and we
are made partakers of the Divine Nature, according to the Apostle's
wondrous language, "having escaped the corruption which is in the world
through lust." This is a great mystery which only he understands who
feels it within himself.
58-60. This is that bread which came down from Heaven: not as your
fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eats of this bread shall
live forever These things said He in the synagogue, as He taught in
Capernaum. Many, therefore, of His disciples, when they had heard this,
said, This is an hard saying: who can understand it?It was not merely
the blinded Jews, but even His disciples who did not understand. Now,
Brothers and Sisters, the test of a true disciple of Christ is that he
is willing to believe what he does not understand! If you will only
follow Christ's Words as far as you can comprehend them, the spirit of
discipleship is not in you. You are the disciple of your own
understanding! Christ is not Master, but your judgment is. But he that
submits himself to the Words of Christ, often finds it profitable not
to understand. Say you so? How is that? It is profitable to feel that
we have come to the end of our own understanding. I have no doubt that
a wise father's talk is good to his children, even though the child
does not as yet understand him. He will lay it up in his memory. He
will understand, one of these days, but the child–the true child's
heart–says, "I believe you, Father, though you do puzzle me. You have
given me a paradox which I cannot grasp, but I believe you: you are
true." We say that of Christ and may we have even more of that spirit
of a little child, without which we cannot receive the Kingdom of God!
The other spirit is very rife in the world–the spirit that makes man,
virtually, his own teacher. And, truly, I wonder not at it because
there was originally so much of submission of the judgment to the
dictum of the Catholic Church, or the dictum of the Pope, which is
degrading! But to submit to Jesus and to His teaching–that is
ennobling! May we have the same sacredly blind faith with regard to
Christ which some have had to human authority, believing everything He
speaks! But some of these disciples did not.
61-62. When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples murmured at it, He
said unto them, Does this offend you? What and if you shall see the Son
of Man ascend up where He was before?What will you say then?
63. It is the spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing: the
words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."You
are not to take them as if they were flesh, and understand them
carnally. They do but embody My words– do but embody a living soul of
meaning, which it will be for you to receive if you are, indeed,
quickened. And then it will quicken you, and you will understand Me,
and live in Me."
64. But there are some of you that believe not. And if they do not
believe, then they miss the whole soul of the thing! 64, 65. For Jesus
knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should
betray Him. And Hesaid, Therefore said I unto you that no man can come
unto Me, except it were given unto him of My Father. No, not even
though he were an Apostle–though he came so near to Christ as to pray
to Him and hear His secret and most private communications, and to see
His singular and special miracles–yet he would not understand, except
the Father gave it as a special act of Grace.
66. From that time many of His disciples went back and walked no more
with Him. Did He need them? I think not. He desired not to have around
Him a mass of chaff, but the pure winnowed corn. Consequently He used
His own Word as the winnowing fan. And I believe, Brothers and Sisters,
that wherever Christ is faithfully preached, preaching is the best form
of Church discipline. Somehow or other, carnal minds get weary of it,
and they go away–and those that have not a longing and a love for the
Truth of God drop off of themselves–so they walk no more with Him.