EATING THE FLESH AND DRINKING THE BLOOD OF CHRIST

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Jesus took five barley loaves and two fishes. He gave thanks and this small amount of food was multiplied. By a miracle five thousand men were fed with five loaves and two fishes that day. He crossed the Sea of Galilee and then came back. The people gathered together again and Jesus gave His sermon on the Bread of Life. At the end of it He said,

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (John 6:51-52).

What Christ said astonished them. Jesus said that He was the true and living bread. Then He said that His flesh was the bread He would give, and if people ate it they would live forever. Was Jesus saying they had to eat parts of His body?

The people began to argue with each other. Most of them were against Him. They cried out, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ The very thought seemed impossible. “Who does Jesus think He is? He wants us to eat His flesh?”

Jesus did not back down. He did not explain what He meant. He left His words as they were. Then Jesus went even farther! He said,

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:53-54).

Jesus said they had to eat His flesh and drink His Blood, or they had no life in them. If they ate His flesh and drank His Blood, they would have eternal life and He would raise them up at the last day.

Again, Jesus did not back down. He did not explain what He meant. The people did not understand. “Jesus wants us to eat His flesh and drink His Blood? Who does He think He is? What is He talking about?” Jesus gave no interpretation. He left His words as they were. Take it or leave it!

This is one of the “hard sayings” of Christ. A “hard saying” was something hard to understand, hard to handle, hard to do. Some of His disciples said just that, “This is an hard saying; who can hear it?” (John 6:60). Jesus did not explain what He said. He said to them, “Doth this offend you?” (John 6:61). They had to believe Him, or not believe Him. This was a “hard saying.” This evening I will tell you what it means.

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I. First, eating His flesh and drinking His Blood does not mean
carving up His body and draining His Blood.

It is interesting how this teaching of Jesus has often been twisted and perverted. The pagan Roman emperors accused the early Christians of being cannibals. “They meet secretly at night and eat the flesh of a man and drink his blood,” some said. “They eat the body of a dead Jew and drink his blood,” said others. They never saw the Christians do that. None of the Christians ever said they did that. But the pagans said it anyway to make the Christians look bad. Then as now, people with critical, hostile minds will say anything to attack the Christians. They will tell outright lies, and twist the words of a partial truth. They’ll say anything to smear Christ and His followers. They don’t want an answer. They can’t be reasoned with. They’re just against the Bible-believers.

Of course that isn’t what Christ meant! The Disciples didn’t cut off pieces of His body. He was still living! If they had done that, Jesus would have died. They didn’t drain out His Blood. Even at the Last Supper, when the Disciples were in a private room with Jesus, that didn’t happen. When Christ spoke of His body and His Blood, He held up the bread and the cup. Nobody cut pieces out of Jesus’ flesh. Nobody drained out His Blood. They ate the bread and drank the cup. That was all.

II. Second, eating His flesh and drinking His Blood does not mean taking the Lord’s Supper – Holy Communion.

As the years went by, unconverted pagans came into the churches. Even some Christians were confused. Many missed the true spiritual meaning of what Jesus said. Some began to teach that the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper actually turned into the body and Blood of Christ. That’s what the Catholic Church believes today. Our text says,

The Catholic Church teaches that the bread in the Mass actually becomes the body of Christ, and the wine becomes His Blood. Catholics believe that taking the bread in the Mass means eating the body of Christ Himself. That is called “transubstantiation.” Many think they can be saved by going to Mass and taking Communion. As Dr. Thiessen said,

This Church [the Catholic Church] holds that by the priest’s consecration the bread and wine are changed into the literal body and blood of Christ; that this consecration is a new offering of Christ’s sacrifice (Henry C. Thiessen, Ph.D., Introductory Lectures in Systematic Theology, Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1949, pp. 427-428).

But is that what He meant? No. When Christ spoke our text, He did not tell His Disciples to take Communion! They didn’t do that until Christ ate with them at the Last Supper, the night before He was crucified – two years later!

When Christ instituted the Lord’s Supper that Passover night, He did not mean that the bread turned into His body and the cup into His Blood. How could that be? Yes, “Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body” (Matthew 26:26). Again, He said, “Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you” (I Corinthians 11:24). But Jesus was sitting there all the time! His body was there. He had no wounds. His body had not been broken. The disciples saw His body. The bread was in their hands. Those were two different things. The bread was not His body. There was another meaning to what Christ had said.

Yes, Jesus “took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:27, 28). But His Blood was still inside His body. Where else would it be? None of it had been shed yet. He had not even gone to the Garden of Gethsemane, much less the Cross! Christ’s Blood was inside His body. The Disciples held the cup in their hands. Those were two different things. The cup was not His Blood. There was another meaning to what Christ had said.

The Lutherans and Anglicans see it a little differently than the Catholics. They say that “consubstantiation” takes place in the Lord’s Supper. Luther believed that

The communicant partakes of the true body and blood of Christ in, with, and under the bread and wine. The elements themselves remain unchanged, but the mere partaking of them after the prayer of consecration communicates Christ to the participant along with the emblems. This is known as consubstantiation…the body and blood, in some mysterious way, are actually received by the communicant, whether he is a believer or not…[But] Jesus lays down this principle: “It is the spirit that [quickeneth] giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing”…, John 6:63 (Thiessen, ibid., pp. 428-429).

The Disciples did not receive Christ’s body and Blood when they ate the bread and drank the cup. Christ’s Body was right there with them. His Blood was inside His body. So that idea wasn’t right either.

So what is the Lord’s Supper? The correct view is that of the Baptists, most of the Reformers, and Zwingli – that the

…bread and wine are mere memorials of the body of Christ absent in Heaven. His [Zwingli’s] view at first prevailed in the Reformed churches…The Biblical view [represents] the Lord’s Supper as a memorial to the death of Christ (Thiessen, ibid., pp. 429, 431).

“This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me” (I Corinthians 11:25).

God’s Word tells us that the Lord’s Supper is a memorial. Dr. John MacArthur, though wrong on some things, was right when he said,

Jesus’ reference here to eating and drinking was not referring to the ordinance of communion [the Lord’s Supper] for two significant reasons: (1) Communion had not been instituted yet, and (2) if Jesus was referring to communion, then the passage would teach that everyone partaking of communion would receive eternal life (John MacArthur, D.D., The MacArthur Study Bible, Word Publishing, 1997, p. 1593; note on John 6:53-58).

Eating Christ’s flesh and drinking His Blood was not the Lord’s Supper. What was it?

III. Third, eating His flesh and drinking His Blood was a “hard saying” that caused many people to quit.

“Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:53-54).

Jesus told them they had to eat His flesh and drink His Blood to have eternal life. He did not explain it. It was a test of what people thought about Christ. Did they have confidence in Him? Many of His disciples did not. They said, “This is an hard saying; who can hear it?” (John 6:60). Jesus did not explain Himself. He simply said, “Doth this offend you?” (John 6:61). Many disciples left Jesus. The Bible says, “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him” (John 6:66).

What Jesus said tested the disciples. It was what politicians call a “vote of confidence.” Did they have enough confidence in Him to stay, even though they couldn’t understand what He said? Many did not! They “went back, and walked no more with him.”

Then Jesus asked the Twelve, “Will ye also go away?” (John 6:67). “Will you leave too?” Peter was not yet converted (click the title to read “The Conversion of Peter” for an explanation of this). Although he was not yet converted, Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God” (John 6:68, 69). Peter said, “Where else could I go? You have the words of eternal life, no one else. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. I don’t understand what you said. But where else could I go? I’m staying.” The unsaved Peter passed the vote of confidence. On that point Peter was absolutely right, and I commend him for it!

In the Christian life there are tests. You won’t understand everything that happens. You won’t understand everything you hear. Some of it comes to you as a “hard saying.” The tests of the Christian life are a “vote of confidence” for you. Do you have confidence – enough confidence to keep going? Some did not. They walked away. But my vote stays here!

Jesus said, “If you eat my flesh and drink My Blood, you have eternal life.” That’s plain and clear. Just a little earlier, in verse 47, Jesus said,

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (John 6:47).

Eating His flesh and drinking His Blood means believing on Him. It means trusting Him. If you trust Jesus you will have eternal life.

Eating His flesh and drinking His Blood does not mean thinking about Jesus or believing something in your head. That’s dry and empty. No eating flesh and drinking Blood there! It does not mean having a feeling. No eating flesh and drinking Blood there! You can come to church and sit in your chair. No eating flesh and drinking Blood there! You need something real!

If you trust Jesus, you won’t physically eat His flesh and drink His Blood. Jesus is up in Heaven, at the right hand of the Father. So what does it mean? If you trust Jesus – who is a real Person – you will receive the benefit of His flesh and His Blood. You will get what the body and Blood of Jesus were given to do. Your sin will be paid for by His death on the Cross. Your sin will be washed away by His Blood and God’s wrath will be satisfied. That’s what it means!

His flesh and Blood are real. Christ Himself is real. And you can have a real trust in Him. The Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible says,

He used the figures of eating and drinking His blood to illustrate the surpassing intimacy of Christ and the believer. This spiritual union, by which Christ imparts new life and sustenance to the believer, is portrayed later as the union of the vine and branches (15:1-8). It is sometimes called a “mystical union,” because its nature transcends comprehension (Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible, Zondervan Publishing House, 2003, p. 1713; note on John 6:51-58).

“As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God” (John 1:12).

Receiving Him means that you experience a “union” with Christ Jesus. You are united with Christ in trust. I can remember the time I trusted Jesus.

I can remember, down to the exact couple of seconds, when I trusted Him…It seemed that I was immediately facing Him…I was definitely in the presence of Jesus Christ and He was definitely available to me…At that moment, in just a few seconds, I came to Jesus. I “crossed over” to Jesus Christ…I turned around and came directly and immediately to Jesus Christ. My journey was complete. Faith was real. It was the greatest proof of all (C. L. Cagan, Ph.D., From Darwin to Design, Whitaker House Publishers, 2006, p. 19).

That was when I received Jesus. That was when I trusted Him. That was when I got the benefit of the death of His body and the shedding of His Blood. That was when I ate His flesh and drank His Blood!

I wish that you would trust Jesus, and eat of His flesh and drink of His Blood. Don’t wait. Trust Jesus today. If you would like to speak with us about trusting Jesus, please come and sit in the first two rows. The others will go and have dinner, but you stay for a few minutes. Amen.

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