THE KING’S BUSINESS
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though men ate this bread, and though it was God-given, nevertheless they died. But the manna was only a type' o f Him who was the real bread which came down out o f heaven, and this real bread that one xould find in Him not only gave life for a day,'or a few days, but gave eternal life, and those that ate thereof would never die. Wednesday, May 24 . John 6 : 52 - 59 . The Jews did not understand these words o f Jesus and it was little wonder that they did not for they are among the most puz zling words that He ever uttered. They can only be rightly understood in the light o f what took place later, and what is writ ten elsewhere in the Scriptures. W e are told elsewhere (Heb. 2:14) that Jesus took part o f flesh and blood that through death He might destroy (or rather, render inop erative or ineffective) him that hath the power o f death, that is, the devil. It was by His-death, by the offering o f His body and the shedding o f His blood, that He put away our sins by making full atonement for them, and thus obtained remission o f sin and life for ùs (Gal. 3:10, 13; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 10:5, 10, 12-18; 9 :28, 22; 1 John 1:7). In order to obtain the life thus secured we must appropriate to ourselves this offering o f Himself and this shedding o f His blood. W e appropriate food and make our own the strength and life there is in it by eat ing it, and so Jesus says in a' strong and remarkable figure, that we must eat His flesh and drink His blood, that is, we must make our own the life-giving value there is in them. This we do by simple faith in Him (vs. 40, 47). This great truth o f appropriating to ourselves the atoning life- giving value there is in Jesus’ body and blood is set forth in'the Lord’s Supper, in which the bread and wine are symbols of His body and blood, and by eating the bread and drinking the wine we set forth the truth that we appropriate to ourselves what there is for us in the body and blood o f Jesus. But Jesus in the passage before us does not refer directly to the Lord’s
Supper, but rather to the truth which the Lord’s Supper sets forth. -Any . one who really does appropriate to himself the sac rificed body and shed blood o f Christ eats His flesh and drinks His blood, and there fore “hath eternal life.” Not only does he have eternal life, but Jesus will “ raise'him up at the last day.” That is to say, there will be a resurrection for his body as well as eternal life for his spirit. Further than this,-by -continual feeding upon Christ we abide (or, continue) in H im1and He in us (v. 56; cf. John 15:1-10). It was the living Father, the eternal God who sent the Lord Jesus, and He lived because of the Father, deriving His life from Him, and the one who appropriates to himself by faith what there is in Christ (thus, eat ing Him) lives because o f Christ. Thursday, May 25 . ' John 6 : 60 - 65 . To many o f Jesus’ disciples His words about the absolute necessity o f feeding upon Himself if they were to have life, and about the- never ending life that should come to all who did eat, were “a hard saying.” They were hard to understand, and the doctrine was hard for their proud hearts to receive. But He tells them that there was to be something harder yet to understand, i. e., His visible ascension in apparent violation o f every law o f nature, and in contradiction o f all previous experi ence and. history. But hard as it was to understand it they must believe it; for they would behold it with their own eyes (v! 62). In this passage as in many others; Jesus Himself gives an unmistakable testi mony to His previous existence in the words, “ascend up where He was before” (v. 62, R. V .). The kind o f exegetical juggling by which some scholars try to read out o f Jesus’ words their plain meaning is not only unworthy o f scholars but o f honest men. The One who lived on this earth in the person o f Jesus o f Nazareth had been with the Father in heaven before He appealed on earth. The Spirit alone giveth I f M M g i mere outward reading o f the Word o f God, nor even any merely
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