C
cj
Guest
John  6 : 54, "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood......... has eternal life,......... and I will him up in the last day."
Is preceeded by,
John  6 : 47, "Truly, truly, I say to you, He who believes has eternal life."
And therefore, John 6 : 54 must be understood in the light of John 6 : 47.
Believing is what gains us eternal life, but believing in what?
The death of Jesus, the seperation of flesh and blood.
Can anyone eat flesh without also taking in the blood of this flesh?
No.
Yet the Lord speaks of the two elements of life as seperate aspects to our receiving eternal life.
Why?
Because it is in our belief in these two seperate aspects of His death that we are saved.
First Jesus spoke of Himself as the bread of life, then He spoke of this bread being His flesh. After this Jesus introduced the matter of His blood, and then a few verses later He spoke of life coming from the Spirit and the words He has given being spirit and life,....
John 6 : 63, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life."
This sequence of His speaking tells us the sequence of what would be necessary for a man to receive so that he may gain eternal life.
First we must believe that Jesus is the bread of life sent by God for men. Then we must believe that Jesus shed His blood so that we could receive forgiveness of our sins. When we have believed these two things, Jesus in His resurrection, comes into us as the Spirit of life that we may have eternal life.
No believer eats the flesh and drinks the blood of Jesus, but as we believe in Him (coming from God, God incarnate) and believe in what He did (shed His blood for the forgiveness of our sins), in our believing we receive Him as the Spirit in our spirit.
So what does all of this have to do with what we read in Matthew 26?
Well, we can know that Jesus did not consider what was in the cup to be His blood, for if He did He would not have said in verse 29,......
"But I say to you,....... I shall by no means drink of this product of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in the kingdom of My Father."
Is Jesus going to drink His own blood in the kingdom of His Father?
No.
The truth is, the cup and what was in the cup was simply symbolic of what a believer must believe, that Jesus would shed His blood for our redemption.
Yet Jesus did say that He, on "that day" would drink "this product of the vine" new with us in the coming kingdom. What did He mean?
The answer is found in the phrase found in the prior verse, verse 28,.... "of the (new) covenant,"......
According to scriptural typology, a covenant is enacted by the shedding of blood (not the drinking of blood, which in typology was considered a sinful thing to do).
And what do we know of this "(new) covenant"?
Luke  22 : 20, "And similarly the cup after they had dined, saying, This cup is the new covenant established in My blood, which is being poured out for you."
So here we see that it is the "cup" that is being referred to as the new covenant, and not the blood.
So what is this cup?
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians  10 : 16,
"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the fellowship of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the fellowship of the body of Christ?"
So, from this we can know that the cup is a cup of blessing, and is the fellowship of the blood of Christ.
But what is this blessing? The answer is found in the term "fellowship of the blood of Christ. For the scripture tells us that there is only one way to have fellowship with the blood of Christ........
1 Peter 1:2, "Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father..... in the sanctification of the Spirit....... unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ:..... Grace to you and peace be multiplied."
Our fellowship of the blood of Christ is found in the sanctifying work of the Spirit.
But what of the matter of the cup being a blessing?
Galatians  3 : 14, "In order that.... the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith."
Ephesians 1 : 13-14, "In whom you also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in Him also believing, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise, Who is the pledge of our inheritance unto the redemption of the acquired possession, to the praise of His glory."
The blessing is simply Christ in us as the Spirit of life in our regenerated spirit.
God is Spirit, and those who serve Him do so in spirit and truth.
Participating in the rembrance of who He is and what He has accomplished is not a matter of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, rather it is a matter of gathering together according to the leading of the Spirit inwardly, and participating outwardly in the symbolic remembrance of what took place between the Lord and those who believed, on the night before His death.
If you want to "eat" the Lord just turn to your regenerated spirit where He is and receive all that He is to us. And if you want to "drink" His blood, just allow the Holy Spirit to work out the reality of the cross in you, seperating/sanctifying you unto God.
In love,
cj
Is preceeded by,
John  6 : 47, "Truly, truly, I say to you, He who believes has eternal life."
And therefore, John 6 : 54 must be understood in the light of John 6 : 47.
Believing is what gains us eternal life, but believing in what?
The death of Jesus, the seperation of flesh and blood.
Can anyone eat flesh without also taking in the blood of this flesh?
No.
Yet the Lord speaks of the two elements of life as seperate aspects to our receiving eternal life.
Why?
Because it is in our belief in these two seperate aspects of His death that we are saved.
First Jesus spoke of Himself as the bread of life, then He spoke of this bread being His flesh. After this Jesus introduced the matter of His blood, and then a few verses later He spoke of life coming from the Spirit and the words He has given being spirit and life,....
John 6 : 63, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life."
This sequence of His speaking tells us the sequence of what would be necessary for a man to receive so that he may gain eternal life.
First we must believe that Jesus is the bread of life sent by God for men. Then we must believe that Jesus shed His blood so that we could receive forgiveness of our sins. When we have believed these two things, Jesus in His resurrection, comes into us as the Spirit of life that we may have eternal life.
No believer eats the flesh and drinks the blood of Jesus, but as we believe in Him (coming from God, God incarnate) and believe in what He did (shed His blood for the forgiveness of our sins), in our believing we receive Him as the Spirit in our spirit.
So what does all of this have to do with what we read in Matthew 26?
Well, we can know that Jesus did not consider what was in the cup to be His blood, for if He did He would not have said in verse 29,......
"But I say to you,....... I shall by no means drink of this product of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in the kingdom of My Father."
Is Jesus going to drink His own blood in the kingdom of His Father?
No.
The truth is, the cup and what was in the cup was simply symbolic of what a believer must believe, that Jesus would shed His blood for our redemption.
Yet Jesus did say that He, on "that day" would drink "this product of the vine" new with us in the coming kingdom. What did He mean?
The answer is found in the phrase found in the prior verse, verse 28,.... "of the (new) covenant,"......
According to scriptural typology, a covenant is enacted by the shedding of blood (not the drinking of blood, which in typology was considered a sinful thing to do).
And what do we know of this "(new) covenant"?
Luke  22 : 20, "And similarly the cup after they had dined, saying, This cup is the new covenant established in My blood, which is being poured out for you."
So here we see that it is the "cup" that is being referred to as the new covenant, and not the blood.
So what is this cup?
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians  10 : 16,
"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the fellowship of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the fellowship of the body of Christ?"
So, from this we can know that the cup is a cup of blessing, and is the fellowship of the blood of Christ.
But what is this blessing? The answer is found in the term "fellowship of the blood of Christ. For the scripture tells us that there is only one way to have fellowship with the blood of Christ........
1 Peter 1:2, "Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father..... in the sanctification of the Spirit....... unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ:..... Grace to you and peace be multiplied."
Our fellowship of the blood of Christ is found in the sanctifying work of the Spirit.
But what of the matter of the cup being a blessing?
Galatians  3 : 14, "In order that.... the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith."
Ephesians 1 : 13-14, "In whom you also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in Him also believing, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise, Who is the pledge of our inheritance unto the redemption of the acquired possession, to the praise of His glory."
The blessing is simply Christ in us as the Spirit of life in our regenerated spirit.
God is Spirit, and those who serve Him do so in spirit and truth.
Participating in the rembrance of who He is and what He has accomplished is not a matter of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, rather it is a matter of gathering together according to the leading of the Spirit inwardly, and participating outwardly in the symbolic remembrance of what took place between the Lord and those who believed, on the night before His death.
If you want to "eat" the Lord just turn to your regenerated spirit where He is and receive all that He is to us. And if you want to "drink" His blood, just allow the Holy Spirit to work out the reality of the cross in you, seperating/sanctifying you unto God.
In love,
cj