LS-26-Eternal Life
Eternal Life Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.--John 6:54. Our Saviour was not thinking of the communion of the Lord’s Supper when He used these remarkable words. The passage has no reference to literal eating and drinking. To eat His flesh and drink His blood mean to receive by faith the blessings that come to men through Christ, both in His sacrifice on the cross and through the power of His living presence. The whole purpose of the Master was to help those who heard Him, to think less of the bread that perishes and more of the food that endures unto life everlasting.
Christ is speaking in a figure therefore. When we receive Him in this way we have eternal life--a present possession which involves a future blessing, "I will raise him up at the last day." The connotation of the word eternal is such that we naturally understand that everlasting duration of life is meant, yet it can hardly be doubted that Jesus was not thinking so much of duration as of a quality of life which we may possess now. It is a life which begins at the new birth, and is sustained and developed by contact with the Lord of life. In touch with Him, we become partakers of the Divine nature, we "have eternal life."
We may seem to speak in paradox when we say that this blessing of eternal life which we may now possess is subject to certain influences that may weaken and even destroy it. Yet so it is. This life eternal needs sustenance. When the flame burns low it needs renewal, and every contact we make with our Lord contributes to this work of renewal. This is why it is appropriate for us to think of these words of the Master when we come to eat and drink at His Table, though the text has no reference to this feast. For it is here that we are helped to enjoy a closer intimacy with Him than that which is our normal experience. Here we may lay aside for the hour our worldly interests, the distracting thoughts that are related to business life, and all the varied obligations of the social round, and for a little while give ourselves to communion with Him, aided by these symbols of the broken body and shed blood-the emblems, too, of that spiritual food which nourishes the soul, and gives eternal life.