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Subject 16 : The Gospel According to JOHN
[Chapter 6-9] We Must Eat the Bread From Heaven by the Faith In the Gospel of the Water And the Spirit (John 6:28-58)
(John 6:28-58)
“Then they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.’ Therefore they said to Him, ‘What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ Then they said to Him, ‘Lord, give us this bread always.’ And Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.’ The Jews then complained about 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 have come down from heaven’?’ Jesus therefore answered and said to them, ‘Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.’ The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, ‘How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to 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 him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.’”
The Souls That Were Lost before God
When our Lord was on this earth, the people of Israel were so poor that they did not have enough food to feed themselves, as they were exploited by the Roman Empire as a colony. Our Lord met the sick and healed them, and performed the miracle of five loaves of bread and two fish for the poor to feed them with the food of the flesh.
Seeing the people of Israel, our Lord had pity on them. He felt compassion for them because He saw them as lost sheep, a flock without a shepherd. When the people of Israel followed Jesus all the way to the wilderness, Jesus had compassion for them, for even as they needed to be fed, as they had the flesh, they had nothing to eat. So the Lord said to His disciples, “You give them something to eat” (Luke 9:13). Philip then said to Jesus, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may have a little.” It was impossible for the disciples to feed all those people.
However, our Lord fed them full. He performed the miracle of five loaves of bread and two fish. As Jesus took two fish and five barley loaves, and blessed this food that was enough for only a single lunch, over 5,000 men were fed. If women and children are included, perhaps as many as 15,000 people were fed. Our Lord performed such a miracle.
When the people met Jesus, many of them were healed from their sicknesses, were fed with the bread of the flesh, saw amazing miracles, and heard the marvelous Word of the heavenly Truth. So a great multitude began to follow Jesus and tried to take Him by force to make Him the king of Israel. These people thought, “If You would just become our king, we wouldn’t have to worry about food. You could just bless a bag of wheat once and it would be enough to feed the whole nation and still have leftovers to fill seven barns.” So the smart ones tried to make Jesus their king, thinking that they would have nothing to worry about the nation’s economy and food supply if only Jesus would be made king. However, Jesus refused firmly. “I will not become your carnal king.” Jesus kept running away from them, and the people tried to take Him by force and make Him their king.
Then, Jesus went to Capernaum with His disciples crossing the Sea of Galilee by boat. The multitude of followers who were standing at the shore of the Sea of Galilee saw that Jesus had crossed to the other side, and so they followed Him there. As they tracked to the other side of the sea to find Jesus, they must have gotten hungry again. When the mealtime came around, they were thinking, “Wouldn’t the Lord give us something to eat again?” At that time, our Lord said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him” (John 6:26-27).
So the people asked Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus then answered them and said, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent” (John 6:29). Jesus already knew what was in their hearts. He was telling them to believe in “the gospel of the water and the Spirit” given by Jesus Himself. They then asked Him, “What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat’” (John 6:30-31).
Jesus wanted to feed them with the bread of life. However, since the people of Israel believed in God, they related this to the Old Testament’s manna from heaven that God had given to their forefathers to eat while living in the wilderness. So they asked, “Can you then give bread like the manna to all of us, like Moses in the Old Testament?” Our Lord then answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:32-33). The people said, “If You have the power, give us this bread. Feed it to us. Then we will believe.” And Jesus replied, “It was not Moses who brought down the manna in the Old Testament, but it was God, and to give you life, I also give you My flesh. So eat My flesh and receive everlasting life.”
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life,” and told the people to eat this bread from Heaven, for it would give them life. What kind of bread is this? As Jesus said that His flesh was the bread of life, the people gathered there could not help but wonder about it. They could understand the bread of the flesh, but what was this bread of life that He spoke of all of a sudden? Here, we need to know the fundamental reason why Jesus spoke of the bread of life.
The people of Israel wanted the bread of the flesh from Jesus when they were following Him around. Jesus, on the other hand, wanted to give them the bread of life. These two desires did not correspond with each other. What Jesus wanted to give to them was not what the people of Israel were looking for. So referring to Himself, when Jesus said, “I am the bread of life,” and “Eat My flesh,” the people of Israel could not understand Him.
Jesus then explained to them in John 6:35-40: “He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Jesus Is the Bread of Life
As Jesus described Himself as the bread of life, the Jews began to complain about Him, saying, “As we know, You are Joseph’s son, and so how can You say that You are the bread from Heaven? The bread of life? Nonsense! We know all about your family. Your father Joseph and Your mother Mary are our neighbors, and we saw You growing up. Your father is our friend, and so how dare You say that You are the bread of life from Heaven? Our forefather ate the manna; will You give us this manna also? If so, then bring down the manna for us now.”
Jesus then said to them, “No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him to Me; I will raise him on the last day.” In other words, our Lord was talking about how God the Father had sent Him to the world to save its people. Yet the people were asking Him only for the food of the flesh. So, He said, “I am the bread of life and you will be saved and receive everlasting life if you believe in Me, but you do not believe in Me even as you see Me.”
“How can we believe in You? We know that You are Joseph’s son, and so how can we believe in You?” There had to be some meaningful dialogue between Jesus and the people of Israel, but we see that this was impossible, with both sides only advocating their own point.
Our Lord said that He was the bread of life. He said, “Even though your forefathers ate the manna in the wilderness, they all died, but what has come down to that wilderness was not given by Moses, but came from Heaven.” He then said, “The bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world” (John 6:51). In other words, Jesus was saying, “I am the bread from Heaven, and if one eats this bread, he will live forever.” The Lord said that His flesh was the bread of life for the world. And Jesus said that the people had to eat His flesh.
The Jews then began to argue amongst themselves in a great commotion, as they simply could not understand what Jesus was saying. So they said, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” Jesus then said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to 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 him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:53-58). However, the people of Israel still could not understand Him to the very end.
The Flesh of Jesus Is Food Indeed
We have been born again by eating the flesh of Jesus and drinking His blood. The born-again can realize that Jesus’ flesh is food indeed and His blood is drink indeed. In fact, the born-again people are eating the flesh of Jesus everyday and drinking His blood everyday. This Jesus, who said that His flesh was food indeed, is still feeding the righteous to fullness with His flesh. The righteous are eating the flesh of Jesus by faith. This flesh of Jesus refers to the gospel of true salvation, that Jesus has washed away all our sins by receiving baptism on His body from John the Baptist and thereby taking upon Himself all the sins of the world.
The Blood of Jesus Is Drink Indeed
Jesus said that His blood is drink indeed. That Jesus bore all the condemnation of all our sins is the drink that quenches us. If we eat His flesh, we are filled, and if we drink His blood, we are quenched. As those who believe in the baptism and blood of Jesus feed on Him by faith, His flesh has truly become the bread of life from the Kingdom of Heaven, and His blood has become drink indeed. The flesh and blood of Jesus have become the true bread of life for the believers. You and I who believe in Jesus know and believe that the flesh of Jesus is the bread of life.
Here, we need to be very careful not to misunderstand. We shouldn’t believe that Jesus’ death on the Cross is His flesh, that this alone is the food of life. That Jesus died on the Cross is indeed drink to us, but it is not food. Are you filled when you believe in just the Cross of Jesus? No. When you believe only in Jesus’ blood on the Cross, you may feel quenched as if you are freed from the condemnation of your hearts’ sins, but there is no fullness of the heart.
Jesus accepted all our sins through His baptism in the Jordan River, and He has washed away all our sins through the water of His baptism. This flesh of Jesus therefore continues to be food for you and me. Is this true for you also? Because the people of Israel at that time were carnal, they did not realize this fact while they were following Jesus, but when we the born-again read this passage, we understand what it means.
It is written, “For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:55-56). Anyone who does not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood has no life in him. But those who eat the flesh of the Lord and drink His blood have everlasting life. What about you, then? Have you had the flesh of Jesus and His blood? How did you have them? Did you rip out an arm from Jesus’ body, cooked and gnawed at it? Did you draw the blood on a bowl when you ripped out Jesus’ arm and drink it? Just how much flesh did Jesus have that all these people ate it?
My fellow believers, we know that Jesus did not say this passage in carnal terms. The Word of the Lord is spirit and life to us (John 6:63). Jesus has given us His flesh and blood. Anyone who does not eat His flesh and drink His blood has no life. No matter who, anyone who does not have Jesus’ flesh and blood has no life. No matter how someone might be the wisest and greatest theologian, if he did not have the flesh and blood of Jesus by faith, then he is far removed from everlasting life.
Jesus took all the sins of mankind upon His body, and He bore all our condemnation by shedding His blood on the Cross. By giving His flesh and blood to all human beings, He has given life to those who believe that He has saved His believers. No one can be saved from sin unless he believes with the heart that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Nor can he receive everlasting life. Only those who believe in the Word of Truth, that the baptism of Jesus, which is His flesh, has washed away all the sins of mankind can receive true life from God through faith.
Have you received this life? Have you become of those who have eaten the flesh of Jesus and drunk His blood? It is by faith that we have become such people, having eaten the flesh of Jesus and drunk His blood. From what Jesus said, “My flesh is food indeed,” we can realize clearly that this Word of God is indeed an amazing truth. When one gets tired and weary in spirit from living in this world, if he realizes that he lacks spiritual food and thinks about the baptism of Jesus, then this baptism will become the food of life that will fill him spiritually.
The food that Jesus has given to us with His flesh never perishes and lacks nothing, so that we may have it forever, day and night, today and tomorrow. That Jesus received baptism on His body means that He has washed away all the sins of mankind with the water, and this flesh of Jesus that bore all sins through His baptism has become fullness and true food for souls. Anyone who believes in Jesus’ flesh gets his heart filled. This fullness is not of the flesh, but of the heart. His soul is filled and strengthened. It is strengthened so much that those who are not born again simply cannot understand or experience this Word of Truth.
During the Early Church period, Christians carried on with their lives of faith underground, hiding in the catacombs to escape from persecution. Seeing this, many Romans accused them of being cannibals who ate the flesh of Jesus and drank His blood literally. Not knowing the Word of God, the Romans mistakenly believed that Christians gathered together everyday to slaughter human beings and devour them, eating the flesh of their victims and drinking their blood. So they violently persecuted them. For those who are not born again, it is just impossible to comprehend that the flesh of Jesus constitutes food.
The Catholic Church has its own false doctrine regarding the flesh of Jesus. According to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, when someone eats the wafer, he is eating the flesh of Jesus. Catholics believe that when a priest blesses the wafer during their Holy Communion, this wafer is literally transformed into the flesh of Jesus, and that this is how they eat the flesh of Jesus. So during Mass, by eating this wafer, they believe that they just ate the flesh of Jesus. This, however, is not eating the flesh of Jesus.
The flesh of Jesus is eaten only by faith. One eats the flesh of Jesus only when he believes in His baptism and His Cross. It is by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that we can eat the flesh of Jesus and drink His blood. It is when we believe in this Word that it becomes food and life for us. Jesus is the Son of God who came down from the Kingdom of Heaven. Only when we believe this and thus receive Him into our hearts may Jesus become life in our hearts and God’s everlasting life shall come to us. Let us then all receive this everlasting life by faith!
When Jesus came to this earth, He received baptism on His body, died on the Cross, and has thereby blotted out all the sins of mankind. To believe in the Word of God that took away the sins of the world is the very faith that enables us to eat the flesh of Jesus. You cannot eat the flesh of Jesus just by holding the ritual of Holy Communion and eating a piece of bread. To eat Jesus’ flesh is to believe in your redemption from sin that was fulfilled by Jesus, that He came to this earth to deliver you from sin, was baptized by John the Baptist and accepted all the sins of mankind, and has thereby washed away all your sins. This faith is the faith that enables you to eat the flesh of Jesus. It is by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit with our hearts that we eat the flesh of Jesus. When we believed with our hearts that all the sins of mankind were passed onto Jesus when He was baptized, and that He was vicariously condemned in mankind’s place when He died on the Cross, Jesus became the food of life for us, our Savior from sin, and thereby made it possible for us to receive everlasting life through faith.
The Bible says, “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:10). How, then, can we eat the flesh of Jesus and drink His blood? It is by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that we can eat the flesh of Jesus and drink His blood. It is by nothing else but only by faith that we can have them.
Jesus said, “For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:55-56). The Lord Jesus said that there is life in His flesh. Our Lord has offered His own flesh to sinners. He has fed His flesh to all those who believe in Him and filled them. This flesh refers to none other than the baptism that Jesus received. And Jesus has given us the drink of life too. In other words, Jesus was condemned for us by being crucified. In doing so, He has quenched our hearts, for He has made us never to be condemned for our sins.
It is because our Lord has given to the whole of mankind His flesh (His baptism), the spiritual food of life, that we have been filled from eating this flesh called the baptism of Jesus. Even at this very moment, there still are many souls on this planet who are starving to death in a spiritual famine, even as they are eating the food of the flesh, for they are unable to eat the food of life called the baptism of Jesus.
By accident, I came to listen to a certain pastor’s sermon on TV a few days ago. The gist of his sermon was that we had to attain everlasting life and receive the remission of sin by believing in Jesus. However, after raising this critical issue to his congregation, this pastor did not give any answers as to how one should believe in Jesus. He was using John 6:28-40 in his sermon, but he had no idea how to interpret this passage. While he preached for half an hour, he was able to raise only questions and provide no answers. That’s because he himself did not know the answer. A real sermon is to explain and answer how one can receive the remission of sin, how he can lead his life of faith properly, and how he can live an upright life. Yet the pastors who are not born again do not know what the food of Jesus’ flesh is like. That’s why this pastor just kept throwing questions at the congregation while preaching for half an hour, asking, “How should we live? What should we believe?” Such a sermon is likely to make Christian sinners even more sinful binding them with the legalistic faith.
When a preacher gives a sermon, he must provide answers to what he is preaching, for only then can the listeners eat the spiritual food and be filled. If he preaches without even knowing the answer himself, how could his sermon be called a sermon? Isn’t it so, my fellow believers? Far too many people are starving now.
There are two kinds of food available to us: one is of the flesh, and the other is spiritual. As you and I know quite well, the food of the flesh is the edible produce we can get from the earth. But the spiritual food can be had only when we eat the flesh of Jesus. What the earth yields cannot constitute spiritual food. The spiritual food from Heaven is the flesh of Jesus. Only when we eat the flesh of Jesus do we eat this spiritual food, and only when we have the flesh and blood of Jesus do we receive everlasting life.
However, there are far too many Christians who do not even realize why Jesus came to this earth. By being baptized, Jesus became the Savior who has remitted away people’s sins, and by offering His own flesh to us, He has given us everlasting life. The very fact that He has saved us from sin by receiving baptism on His body and shedding His blood constitutes our spiritual food. Despite this, many people do not believe in the baptism that Jesus received when He came to this earth. On the contrary, they only know that Jesus was condemned to death on the Cross and rose from the dead again. Even to this day they are still suffering, not realizing that Jesus, by being baptized when He came to this earth, has washed away all the sins of the sinners who believe in Him. How could this have happened?
People are hungry. Do you realize just how hungry they are spiritually? What about yourselves? Have you had the flesh of Jesus, the food of life, through your faith in His baptism? You must eat this flesh of Jesus. I am so thankful for the flesh that Jesus has given to us; it is food indeed. Had Jesus not been baptized, then no matter how sincerely we might believe in Jesus, we could not have received the remission of our sins, nor could our souls and hearts have been at peace.
Reading today’s Scripture passage, I realized how the flesh of Jesus (His baptism) is food indeed. And it saddened me deeply that the people of Israel could not recognize Jesus as who He really was. When Jesus said that His flesh was the food of life, I wish they would have just believed in Him and said, “Oh! So You are indeed the Messiah, the Savior, and the Lamb of sacrifice that came to this earth, was baptized, and would be condemned on the Cross.” Their conversation with Jesus would not have been a dialogue of the deaf then. If they knew that Jesus was the Savior and believed so, then today’s Scripture passage wouldn’t have needed to be so long.
What happened when the Jews in today’s passage failed to understand the flesh of Jesus, that the baptism of Jesus saved them from all their sins? When Jesus told the people to believe in Him, they said, “How can we believe in You?” to which Jesus said, “I am the bread of life from Heaven.” Jesus said, “He who eats My flesh (Jesus’ baptism) by faith eats the food of everlasting life, and he who drinks My blood drinks true drink.” But the Jews retorted, “Are You then telling us to eat You literally?”
It was not just the Jews that were engaged in a dialogue of the deaf like this. Far too many Christians today who believe in Jesus without being born again are all engaged in such a dialogue of the deaf. They read today’s Scripture passage, but they do not understand what it means. So not knowing the meaning of this Word of God, they only insist that we should live virtuously and piously. But what a flawed teaching is this? They speak of faith in Jesus only in terms of ethics and morals, saying, “You ought to live this way and that way.” That’s why Jesus cannot become their food even as they believe in Him, and why those who are not born again of water and the Spirit cannot feed souls with spiritual food.
Once I ate the flesh of Jesus by believing in the baptism of the Lord, my heart has always been full. Once I believed in the baptism of Jesus and His blood on the Cross, Jesus’ baptism became the food of life in my heart, and His precious blood became true drink. When I read about the baptism of Jesus from the Word, this baptism became the food of the true remission of sin, and whenever I looked at the Cross, I thanked God for the fact that there truly is no longer any condemnation for me. When I believed in His salvation, that all the believers’ sins were washed away through His baptism, and that their hearts are quenched by the bread of Jesus, the flesh (Jesus’ baptism) and blood of Jesus became the true food of life for me. I am so thankful for this.
If One Believes in Only the Blood of Jesus, What Are the Consequences of This Faith?
Before I encountered the gospel of the water and the Spirit, I, too, had the faith that prevented me from eating the flesh of Jesus. I was drinking only the blood of Jesus at that time. During this time, for ten years I professed to believe in Jesus, but I only believed in His blood. So I had no food and was starving at that time. I was so bereft of spiritual food that I lived my life of faith based on my own emotions.
In those days, when I did not have true peace in my heart, singing hymns plainly was no fun. It was not exciting to sing solemnly. I was so starved and thirsty that I sang fanatically like a revivalist. Then without realizing myself I got immersed in my own emotions, and while I sang hymns like a fanatic, I felt a burning desire to serve the Lord. However, this lasted only a short while, and as soon as I stopped singing, I felt empty and was hungry again. Even while I worshipped, I wasn’t filled at all, only feeling empty all the time. If we believe only in Jesus’ blood, He cannot become food for our souls. So when I came to church to be fed, far from being fed I became even hungrier, and looking for satisfaction, I ended up going from one prayer retreat to another, from this revival meeting to that meeting. The result of believing only in the blood of Jesus was slightly quenching at best, if not continuously empty. That’s because there was neither true faith nor the true water of life in my heart.
However, now that I ate the flesh of Jesus (the Word of Truth that Jesus has washed away all my sins by being baptized), the emptiness in my heart has disappeared. Now, true life overflows in my heart. Now, I can share the water of life with everyone else.
Jesus Has Washed Away Our Sins with His Flesh
From the moment I realized that all my sins were passed onto Jesus when He was baptized, my heart’s thirst was quenched. From the moment I realized that Jesus was condemned on the Cross in my place, and from the moment I believed that Jesus accepted not only my sins, but all the sins of the entire mankind when He was baptized, I became full. That’s because I truly received life at that time.
It is written, “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters” (Psalm 23:1-2). My fellow believers, as we have eaten the grass to our hearts’ content and drank the water at the riverside, we are filled and quenched, and being satisfied, we lie on green pastures and say, “I am so full. I am so full that I have nothing more to wish for!” My fellow believers, we have become such a contented people who are always smiling, happy beyond all description and lacking nothing.
My soul became full once I met our Lord in His Word. Whenever I feel slightly hungry, I always think about our Lord. I read the Word and meditate on it. I always remember that my sins were passed onto the Lord when He was baptized. He took upon Himself all of my sins. So my heart is always full. “Thank You, Lord, thank You so much. I am wholeheartedly grateful to You. I am so thankful that You have made me sinless. Lord, words cannot express just how grateful I am.” I think about how truly insufficient I am on my own, and how our Lord bore all my sins; and believing in this with the heart, I eat the flesh and drink the blood everyday, and thereby rest with joy and peace in my heart.
We are living by feeding on the food of life for our souls. Not only I, but you have also attained salvation by believing in the flesh of the baptism of Jesus. By offering His own flesh and blood, Jesus has fed us with the food of life, bringing us back to life from sin. We believe in this. We believe that with His baptism and blood, Jesus has saved us all, who had been at the verge of dying of starvation. Is this not the case? By believing in the baptism of Jesus and His blood, we have eaten of His flesh and drunk His blood. If one does not eat and drink them by faith, he will surely die, but if he does eat and drink by faith, then he will surely attain everlasting life.
We must continue to eat the baptism of Jesus, that is, His flesh. Eating it once leads you to everlasting life, eating it twice leads you to fullness, and eating it thrice a day leads you to become people of faith. By having the flesh and blood of Jesus everyday, we gain new strength and are filled everyday. Do you believe this? We must indeed eat the food of life everyday.
My fellow believers, Jesus said, “For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven--not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:55-58). Do you believe this? My fellow believers, those who have Jesus’ flesh and blood will live forever. The flesh of Jesus does not just fill us for only a short while. Jesus’ flesh enables you to be washed from your sins and to receive eternal life, and it has become the food of everlasting life.
It is such an amazing miracle and a thankful blessing that we have come to eat the flesh of Jesus. What have we done to deserve this, to have both the flesh and blood of Jesus, when so many people only drank the blood? Today’s sermon has addressed this point, highlighting how fortunate it was for us to be saved by a laser-thin margin. I have spoken about how we have made it through by a single difference and attained everlasting life, and how some others are bound to hell because of this slight difference.
What love and what grace is it that the Lord has saved us and met us, when there are so many people in this world who are smarter and more esteemed than us? I am so thankful for this, beyond any words. The flesh of Jesus is indeed the grace of God. It is the God-given food of Heaven. All that I did was just accepting by faith the gift that the Lord gave me all on His own. For all of us, too, there is nothing else to do but to just believe in the flesh and blood of Jesus, in His baptism and blood.
What we have received is everlasting life; we have come to have faith in the flesh of baptism and the blood of the Cross that Jesus has given us. This, we confess to our God, is not because of our own goodness, nor because of the virtues of our deeds, nor because we are particularly more talented than the rest in any way.
We believe that it is because God had mercy for us and loved us that He gave us the gift of salvation and everlasting life, all on His own. God the Father led us to be saved, as it is written, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” God the Father has drawn us to the way of eternal life, to the Church that has the proper teaching on the flesh and blood of Jesus, and He has made us eat the flesh of Jesus and receive everlasting life. When destruction comes to this earth, Heaven will come to us. We now have nothing to worry.
The Bible says, “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). That God has made us live forever means that He has made us not to end as ephemeral beings, when our lives in this world were like the morning mist to disappear in no time. So that we would enjoy everlasting life and live forever, Jesus has made us God’s people by feeding us with His flesh and blood. All those who believe in the flesh and blood of Jesus, who eat this flesh and drink this blood, will live forever. My fellow believers, we can eat and drink Jesus’ flesh and blood at any time by faith. In God’s Church, we can always eat the spiritual food and drink.
That our Lord gave us His flesh and blood was to give us everlasting life and eternal food. The flesh of Jesus was the baptism of Jesus who washed away all our sins, and the blood of Jesus was the punishment of the sins that He had borne through His baptism. By believing in the flesh and blood of Jesus, the Son of God from Heaven, we have received the remission of our sins and attained everlasting life.
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