flesh and drink His blood he
shall have eternal life. The listening crowd takes the words literally and
of course is perplexed. Clearly enough it is not meant to be taken
literally. Read in the light of the after events it is seen to be an
allusion to His coming death. Such a thing as actually eating His flesh
and drinking His blood would necessitate His death.

We men are under doom of death written in our very bodies, assured to us
by the unchangeable fact of bodily death. Now if a man take Jesus into his
very being so that they become one in effect, then clearly if Jesus die
the man is freed from the necessity of dying. Through Jesus dying there is
for such a man _life_. That is the statement Jesus makes.

In five distinct sentences He attempts to make His meaning simple and
clear. The first sentence puts the _negative_ side: there is no life
without Jesus being taken into one's being. Then the positive side:
through this sort of eating there is _life_. And with this is coupled the
inferential statement that they are not to be spared _bodily_ death,
because they are to be _raised up_. The third sentence, that Jesus is the
one true food of real life. The fourth sentence gives a parallel or
interchangeable phrase for eating and drinking, _i.e._, "_abideth_ in me
and I in Him." A mutual abiding in each other. The food abides in the man
eating it. The man abides in the strength of the food He has taken in.
Eating My flesh means abiding in Me. The last sentence gives an
illustration. This living in Jesus, having Him live in us as closely as
though actually eaten, is the same as Jesus' own life on earth being lived
in His Father, dependent upon the Father. And when the crowds take His
words literally and complain that none can understand such statements, He
at once explains that, of course, He does not mean literal eating--"The
flesh profiteth nothing" (even if you did eat it): "it is the _Spirit_
that gives life:" "the _words_ ... are _Spirit_ and _life_." The taking
of Jesus through His words into one's life to dominate--that is the
meaning.

A few months later, in Jerusalem, He speaks again of His purpose, in
John's tenth chapter, "The good shepherd layeth down His life for the
sheep." "I lay down my life for the sheep." The death was for others
because of threatening danger. "Other sheep I have which are not of this
fold: them also I must lead." Here is clear foresight of the wide sweep of
influence through His death