LIVING BREAD AND HIS FLESH

 Some of these hearing Jesus were shocked when he spoke if giving his "flesh in behalf of the life of the world." Did they think that he was going to give them his literal flesh to eat, which would be a form of cannibalism? (John 6:52) Note this startling detail that Jesus added: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves." - JOHN 6:53.

Back in Noah's day, God prohibited humans from consuming blood. (Genesis 9:3, 4) Jehovah repeated that restriction in his Law to Israel. Anyone eating blood was to "be put to death."  (Leviticus 7:27, ftn.) Jesus upheld that law. (Matthew 5:17-19) So it is unthinkable that he would urge a crowd of Jews to consume his actual flesh or drink the blood in his veins. Nonetheless, with this striking statement, Jesus was, in fact, teaching the people how to gain life-"everlasting life." -JOHN 6:54. 

What was Jesus' point? Clearly, Jesus was speaking in a figurative sense, as he had done earlier when he told a Samaritan woman: "Whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty at all, but the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water bubbling up to impart everlasting life." (John 4:7, 14) Jesus was not suggesting that the Samaritan woman would get everlasting life by drinking certain literal water.  Similarly, he was not saying that the crowds he spoke to in Capernaum would live forever if they ate his flesh and drank his literal blood. 

Next time: DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TWO OCCASIONS

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