True Communion [circa 2003] (Part 1) | Ep. 186

A startling line—“eat my flesh, drink my blood”—can feel like a wall. We turn it into a doorway. We follow the thread from Deuteronomy to John and discover how manna, meat, bread, wine, and living water all point to one lived reality: hearing, obeying, and receiving the life of God. Along the way, we explore why the natural mind stumbles while the spiritual mind sees, how Jesus defines “meat” as doing the Father’s will, and how the Bread of Life is not a metaphor to admire but a meal to practice.

I share how a season of questions about communion led me to see Scripture’s unity: God humbled Israel with hunger to teach dependence on His word; Jesus, the manifest Word, calls us to labor for food that endures; and the Spirit, promised as living water and new wine, fills new vessels who repent and believe. We unpack John 4–7, trace the language of bread and blood through the Old Testament, and connect abiding, light, and good works to a daily table where trust becomes action. The goal is clarity without shortcuts: flesh and blood as spirit and life, not shock and stumble, but invitation and transformation.

If you’ve wrestled with communion as mere ritual, this conversation reframes the table as alignment: eat His words, do His will, drink His Spirit. Expect practical guidance, scripture-rich insight, and a call to live a life of trust and obedience.

Transcript

Vision Of Blood And Purpose

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 0:03

The vision received was that of blood cells traveling throughout the body, supplying the much-needed oxygen and other nutrients to the differing members of the body to fulfill their purpose. Once the blood cells are spent, they must return back to the heart to be refilled before being sent out again and fulfill their purpose. Twenty plus years ago, early in my faith walk, I had questions. I had lots of questions. God was just getting my attention, and I was hungering and thirsting for knowledge, for understanding. What I didn't know was eventually wisdom in many areas, and early in the 21st century, something was bugging me. I can't remember why. I can't remember what prompted it. I don't know if I was visiting a church or something, but I just started wondering why do we take communion? I mean, I thought, what's the big deal? Why do we have this solemn reverential moment every Sunday, or for some people the first or second Sunday of every month, to remember the Lord's broken body and the blood that was shed? I didn't understand the importance. I mean, we certainly didn't need to eat bread and drink wine to remember it. His sacrifice and his subsequent resurrection is our message to others. The gospel that we preach is not just his death, it's not just his burial. It's the sum total of his death, burial, and resurrection. That's straight from 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the first four verses. And I was just I I was just pondering during that time, and I just decided, well, let me look into this, because I was hungry for the word, and I I sort of had a focus. I I had something I was questioning and desiring and wanting to have an understanding. Uh, so I started looking into this and I started asking the Lord about it. And that's what this podcast is here to share with you, what I found. And hopefully, as you listen and partake of what I share, you'll see the greater spiritual significance of taking the bread and the wine. His was he said his words are spirit and life. And a very dear brother spoke to me over twenty plus years ago who just a few months ago recently passed away. He was eighty plus something. He said to me, You must think spiritually. And when he said that to me, I really didn't understand what he meant, but it caught my attention. And as I grew from early 2000s in the Lord to the present point in time, I've come to better understand what he meant when he said you must think spiritually. Everything that we receive by knowledge and hopefully in turn turns to understanding. Hopefully that in turn turns to wisdom in regards to the kingdom. It must be received by revelation from the Spirit of Jesus Christ. We must understand and discern spiritually. It's contrary to our natural process of understanding and discerning, because normally that's done through the mind. But the the Bible teaches us that there's a carnal mind and there's a spiritual mind. Or as the scripture says, there's a natural man. And this very dear brother of mine showed me in the scriptures, or it reminded me, maybe he didn't show it to me, he just told me that, but it reminded me of in the scriptures how 1 Corinthians chapter 2, 12 through 13 said the following. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual things, or with spiritual. But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, because they're foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. Now we don't really use that word discern nowadays, not not I mean maybe not unless you're in religious circles, but in normal everyday talk, I don't think we talk about discerning, but it means to examine, it means to judge or to determine maybe the value of something, but it really is an understanding. And when we spiritually discern, we're trying to find out the proper understanding of events, what is really being meant by what is said, and what is the truth. And so let's just kind of talk about the idea of the natural versus the spiritual. The scriptures speak to us clearly that, and especially Paul again, he writes to the Galatians in chapter 5, he says this, he tells them, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. So if you read the scriptures enough and you start looking for the comparisons between the flesh and the spirit, you'll see, or it gives you the impression, that there's this constant battle raging within all of us, between our flesh and our spirit, especially for Christians. I think we can all readily admit that daily there is a struggle in our lives. The battle wages between the mind of our flesh and the mind of our spirit. And logic, it's good, but it must submit itself to the supremacy of the ways, the will, and the word of God. His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. And so when we try to understand him, we must do so on a higher level than just our carnal mind. It must be done so spiritually. Now in Matthew and Luke the two gospels concerning or recording the events of the temptation of Jesus, when he was tempted the first time of the adversary, he answered him, It is written Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. So when Jesus rebuked Satan during his hour of temptation, those forty days that he was in the wilderness, Jesus quoted himself from the old covenant. Where did he get that from? It's actually in Deuteronomy chapter eight. It says in Deuteronomy chapter eight in the first three verses that all the commandments which I command thee this day you will observe to do that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore unto your fathers. And you will remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness to humble you, and to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you, and suffered you to hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, neither did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth does man live. It says if we skip to verse six of Deuteronomy eight, this is why or therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God to walk in his ways and to fear him. And in verse eighteen, you will remember the Lord your God, for it is he that gives you power to get wealth, so that he can establish his covenant which he swore unto your fathers as it is this day. Now if you read all of chapter eight, you'll find that this chapter is one of tremendous exhortation to hearken, hear, listen to the word of God and do it. God led the Israelites forty years in the wilderness, and he purposely allowed them to suffer hunger, to see if they would keep his words, if they would remain faithful to him. But not only was it for them, he also used their situation to teach something for all generations, and all generations need to understand that man, humans, should be living by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. Now, if we go back to the new covenant, Paul said to the to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 15 at the end of the of the letter, in verse 46, he says, How be it that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. Countless of times, the Lord teaches us something spiritual. But first, he does it through the natural. The manna, that that bread, that that strange thing that found itself like the dew on the grass every morning that they ate from was simply a natural illustration used to represent a very important principle that he was highlighting. This whole chapter is to remind us to keep his word and be faithful to him. And he, in um fulfilling his part of the covenant, will do us good at the latter end. That's verse 16. See, the true people of God are fed by his word, the manna bread. And we're sustained by his word, we're healed by his word, we're nourished by his word, we're kept clean by his word, we're strengthened by his word, and so on and so forth. And this is confirmed in verse 4 when we read of the natural consequences of them obeying his word. It says, and we can all read this in the scriptures, your wain, your raiment, your garments didn't get old upon you, and neither did your foot swell these forty years. Even he kept their physical strength, their physical endurance. He kept them physically, he kept their raiments physically. So this reference is given to us to show us the power and the ability of his word to care for all of our natural needs. But this also holds true for our spiritual needs. The word of God is given to feed the people of God. Psalms speaks of this. If you look at Psalm chapter 81, verses 10 and 11, it says, I am the Lord thy God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. But what? My people would not hearken to my voice, they would not listen, they would not heed the things that I said of them, and Israel would have none of me. That was the unfortunate reality of the people that were recorded in the Old Testament, the Israelites. God's desire, his heart's desire, was to fulfill to fill his people with his words. He desired that they would just open their mouth wide and be filled, but they would not hearken to his voice, his word. And so they would not be filled with his word. And so they rejected his word, and subsequently he rejected them. But it says in John 1, 1 and 4, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Skipping to verse 4, it says, And the Word that was just spoken of was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. These scriptures that I just read, along with Revelation 19: 13, they identify Jesus as the manifest word of God. When Jesus came in the flesh, he expected the Jews to hearken to his voice, to eat of his manna, as it says in the old covenant. But just as he expected the Israelites to do in the old covenant, if they did that, they would receive the blessings and the promises of God. Unfortunately, it says in verse 11, He came unto his own, and his own received him not. In other words, they rejected him. Just as Psalm 81 said, the Israelites rejected him. This is a generation of people, even though they're called the people of God, but this is a generation that were faithless in their part of the covenant. They didn't trust him. They didn't believe. Keep that in mind, because that's going to be our interpretive base, and we're going to apply it to what we read, Jesus said. So in John chapter 6, verse 26 to 27, Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily I say unto you, you seek me, not because you saw the miracles, but because you ate the loaves, and you were filled. But labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for the meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you. For him hath God the Father sealed. He used the fact that the people kept following him, kept pursuing him, because he had fed them naturally food. And they kept coming or following him because they thought, oh man, he gave us this bread and this fish, so let's keep on following him. But what he really wanted was for them to not work for, pursue him just for meat, for natural food. He wanted them to pursue him for a meat. Now he's speaking spiritually, a meat that endures to everlasting life. There is no natural meat that endures to everlasting life. But if you remember that his words are spirit and life, and if you remember we're to think spiritually, not carnally, then we come to realize that he was talking about something far more important and higher than just natural food. So just as he had fed 5,000 people with bread and fish, and they came after him the next day for more food, he kind of rebuked them, that they should not seek after bread, natural, natural bread, naturally speaking, but rather for a meat that endures to everlasting life, a food that he was speaking of spiritually. This meat that Jesus spoken of is not natural. Natural meat perishes. He was speaking about a spiritual meat. So let's keep reading and find out what was he really referring to. So we can go to John chapter 6 to verses 29 and 38, 29 through 38. Jesus answered, he said unto them, This is the work of God, that you believe on him whom he hath sent, meaning God hath sent someone, and God wants you to believe on him whom he sent. And they said therefore unto him, Well, what sign showest thou that that we can see, that we can believe? I mean, what what are you working here? What are you doing? Our fathers ate man in the desert, as it is written, Ye gave them bread from heaven to eat. And Jesus said to them, Verily, verily I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. So he's saying that the bread that our heavenly Father gives us, that's that he calls the true bread from heaven, is a he. He said it again. Let me repeat it at verse 33. For the bread of God is he, which comes down from heaven and gives life unto the world. And then they said unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. They didn't get it. They were still thinking about some some you know eating bread type of thing. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He that comes to me shall never hunger, he that believes on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you, that ye also have seen me, and you don't believe. All that the Father gives me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. So right here we see that Jesus identifies himself as the bread of God, the bread of life that comes down from heaven to give life. Those who come to him, they're never gonna hunger. Those who believe on him, they're never gonna thirst. These statements indicate to us that we come to him by believing on him. And if we do that, then we will no longer hunger or thirst. But remember the John 1 scriptures. Jesus was identified previously as the Word of God in the New Covenant. The same principle found in Deuteronomy 8 is still expected. To hearken is to eat, to believe, to receive, to trust the words of God, which is the bread of heaven. The word of God is the bread of heaven, and he was in the flesh the manifest word of God. Now, what was the meat though? See, we we we went to bread and we were you know talking about meat. So let's go back just a little bit to find out what he was referring to when he spoke of meat. We were in John chapter six, let's just go back two chapters, and we might get an indication of a record that transpired between Jesus and a woman at the well. In John chapter 4, about 31 through 34, 39 through 42, in the meanwhile, his disciples prayed to him, saying, Master, eat. But he said to them, I have meat that you don't know of. The disciples said to one another, Did any man bring him something to eat? And Jesus said to them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish the work. And then we skip to verse 39. And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, This is. The whole woman of the well incident, which testified. The woman testified concerning Jesus that he said all my life and he said everything about me, and and I he doesn't know me, or excuse me, I don't know him, but he knew everything about me. And she testified of him in the town where she came from. He told me all that I ever did. And so when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them, and he abode there two days. And many more believed because of his own word, and said unto the woman, Now we believe because of thy saying, for we heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world. So we need to be laboring for the meat which endures to everlasting life, and if we do that, it will lead us to do the will of God. So chapter four is an example of exactly what he spoke in chapter six. The meat is to do the will of God. You do the will of God by hearkening to his word. That's really no different than what we read in the old covenant account of eating, hearkening, believing, receiving, trusting the manna, which is the word of God. And the result of listening and heeding and hearkening to the voice of God, what did it do? It caused people to believe on him, Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. And so let's look at what Jesus said in between the chapters. That was chapter four. We went before and talked about chapter six. And now look at what he said in chapter five. Jesus said, I can of mine own self do nothing. As I hear, I judge. And my judgment is just, because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father who sent me. This verse here confirms again that we are to hear and obey the Word of God. Thereby we do his will and not our own. If you haven't noticed, that has been our downfall from the garden, from the very beginning. We decided to do what we thought was right in our own eyes. And God is trying to rescue us, redeem us, and restore us, but it can only happen if we refuse to eat from the tree, what's called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That's you deciding for yourself what's right and wrong and doing what you think you should do. Rather, from the very beginning, we should have always just eaten from the tree of life, which is to eat from him, to hear him, to obey him. That's it in a nutshell. It's really that simple. Now Jesus said that the Son of Man would give this meat to his disciples. What would happen to them? Well, if we look at Ephesians 1:13 and Ephesians 4.30 and 2 Corinthians chapter 1, 21 and 22, what would happen is they would be sealed with the seal of God, just as Jesus was sealed. That it said in John 6.27. So now let's go back to John 6. Look at in verse 47 through 58. Verily, verily I say unto you, he that believes on me has everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers, yeah, they certainly did eat man in the wilderness, but they're dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. So he's contrasting this idea that, oh, you know, we were so blessed, we were so special, God had blessed us with man, and we ate bread from heaven. And Jesus is like, okay, you did on a natural level eat bread from heaven, but the true bread from heaven is he. And then he later says, I am that bread of heaven, or I am that bread of life. And if you eat of me, you will not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Ooh, you think of that carnally, and you'd be like, wait, what did he just say? So when Jesus speaks of this bread that he will give, which is his flesh for the life of the world, he's not referring to cannibalism. That's thinking carnally. Spiritually speaking, he's referring to his sacrifice on the cross for the sins of the world. We can get that from Galatians 1:4. We can get that from 1 John 2 verse 2. But notice, Jesus uses terms he has previously used in the old covenant to get his message across. He's using bread to symbolize, like a metaphor, his flesh. But from Deuteronomy, we have seen what this bread truly represented. So in verse 52 of John chapter 6, the Jews therefore they were striving among themselves, and they were saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? You see, that's thinking carnally. And when you come to the Lord and you hear his words, there's two ways to think about it. If you think carnally, you're gonna lead to the wrong conclusion because he's not speaking carnally. He speaks his words, let me repeat it again. His words are spirit and life. The things of God must be spiritually discerned. And they were not doing that. So this is a good example of the importance of we have to think spiritually in order to properly understand the message of the kingdom. So the Jews were confounded at this, and they could not see that he was speaking spiritually, but using natural terms to natural men. They interpreted his words naturally, and so therefore that led to their confusion. They could not understand what he was truly saying. This should tell us that the words of Jesus spoken in this context are not to be interpreted naturally, but otherwise, spiritually. So then he says, in response to their confoundedness, Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Can you imagine in their in their consternation, in their struggle to understand, he doesn't just say you got to eat my flesh. He then talks about, hey, you need to drink my blood. And then he says, Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. Holy moly, if I was there, I would probably think the same way that they did. I would be like, This guy's nuts. This guy is absolutely nuts. He wants us to eat his flesh and drink his blood. That's crazy. Unbelievable that he pressed in. He didn't, he didn't hang back because he knew he who he was talking to. He knew the type of people that he was uh addressing. And knowing their confusion, he continued to push the issue by telling them that they must now eat of his flesh and drink his blood, or else they will not have life. Now, to the natural man, that sounds bizarre, cannibalistic, when you interpret it naturally. And this is exactly how the Jews thought. His words are true. He's not lying, but they must be discerned spiritually. This is the perfect example of a natural man, the Jews, being unable to receive the things of the Spirit of God, his words, because in their mind and their understanding, they're complete and utter foolishness. But the words of God must be spiritually discerned. So we continue in verse 55. Jesus says, For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him. He doesn't relent. He doesn't he doesn't. I mean, he he uh it's almost as if he was speeding, and it's like you know, the police sign was going off, and instead of him, you know, taking his foot off the gas, he puts the peddle to the metal. It's just unbelievable that he does this. And then he says, as the living father hath sent me, and I live by the father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is the bread which came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He were he reiterates that point again. You think your fathers ate the manna from heaven, but yet they're dead. But he that eateth of this bread that he's speaking of, he's gonna live forever. He just doesn't take his foot off the gas. He it's a good thing we're living in the new covenant because we get the opportunity to understand his words by the spirit that indwells us if we've been born again of the spirit, of the water and of the spirit. So since we now realize that these words are not to be interpreted naturally, we've got to seek a spiritual understanding. It isn't that they should not be taken literally, they should be taken literally, but with a spiritual understanding or interpretation, because these words that he's presently speaking to the Jews at this time were used thousand years before Deuteronomy is talking about the Exodus, so maybe a thousand to fifteen hundred years before, they had already been, there was a context made using those Hebrew idioms or figures of speech. And it's only within those contexts by the Spirit that we can get a proper understanding. So Jesus here emphasizes, he's emphasizing the literalness of his flesh is meat indeed, and the literalness of his blood is drink indeed. But we have addressed above that the meat referred to the will of the father, doing the will of the father. My meat is to do the will of the father. Now, the blood, that's akin to his Spirit. And I'm gonna expound on that later, but I'm just gonna drop that seed right now because we're focused on this meat. Okay? So let's look closely at this phrase, dwelleth in me and I in him. Jesus said, Whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood would dwell in him, and he would dwell in them. And the next time Jesus uses this phrase in John chapter 10, he says, But if I do, though you believe not me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I am in him. Jesus told the Jews that if they believed the works that he did, they would know. They would believe that the Father was actually in him, and he was in the Father. So if we eat of his flesh, which is to say, we hear and obey his words, others will know that the Father is in us, and we are in the Father. Jesus spoke of this again when he spoke of the vine and the branches in John chapter 15. Notice I haven't really left John. I started in John 1, I went to John 6, and I went to John 4 and John 5, and now I'm back in John 6, and I'm talking about stuff that he said in John 10 and John 15. So if you reread John, you're gonna follow the crimson thread that's going on in this particular letter because John wrote it with a certain perspective in mind, and it's this perspective of the spirit that, like I said, I'm gonna address later, but we're talking about the flesh, the meat, the bread, the hearing of his words and obeying him. And so it's said in John 15: if we abide in him, he abides in us, and what's gonna be the result? We will bring forth much fruit. It's a repetitive principle that he keeps just expounding on again and again. It's an analogy. Like the eating of his flesh was an analogy of hearing and obeying his words, and we abide in him, and he abides in us when we hear and obey his words, because he said, Without him, without his spirit, I'm gonna put in parentheses, we can do nothing. Jesus used the same type of reference when he spoke to the Almighty, the Alpha Omega in Revelation. He said, Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if any man hear my voice and open the door, isn't that what he wanted to do in Deuteronomy? He wanted to fill them with his words, he wanted their mouths to be wide open so that he could fill them with his words. And this is just another way of describing that same type of idea that he's standing at the door, he's knocking, he wants you to open so that he can fill you with himself, so that he can fill you with his words, like he wanted to fill the Israelites with his word, his will, his ways. And then he says, If you open the door, I will come into him and I will sup with him and he with me, and we will have intimate fellowship with one another. We feed off of his words, and his life is lived through us as we obey him, as we yield ourselves to his spirit. You can't be disobedient to his word and walk according to the spirit. That's it's antithetical to each other. It's a contradiction. It's impossible. John the Apostle speaks John the Apostle, excuse me, speaks of walking in the light as he is in the light. You see that? You can't walk in darkness and be in the light. They're contradictory to each other, they're antithesis to each other. So in Psalms, it says the word, remember what it says about the word, the word is represented as a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. We need to walk in the light of his word, and that's simply done by hearing and obeying the voice of God. Says it in Psalm 119, 105 to 107. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. I have sworn and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments. I am afflicted very much. Quicken me, O Lord, according unto thy word. So the eating of his flesh and the drinking of his blood, it was a hard saying to accept, because they were thinking naturally. And you would think, after putting his pedal to the metal and and hitting it even further, you know, just going from my, you know, just eating my flesh to then eating my flesh and drinking my blood, and then not, you know, backing off of that, but putting his pedal to the metal. Look at what he says in verse 61. When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Does this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. But there are some of you that don't believe. Hmm. I wonder who he was intimating there in that comment. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. So we don't have to think too hard about what he was thinking when he made that comment. He was talking about Judas. He knew he was going to betray him. So here Jesus solidifies the interpretation of his words by saying that it is the Spirit that gives life. Even he even goes to so far as to say, the flesh profits nothing. Seemingly contradictory to what he just said previously, that you must eat his flesh. But all along, he was speaking spiritually them, because they interpreted what he said naturally, they could not understand. So Jesus said, The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit. They are life. Spirit and life. And then to finish off the thought, he says, There are some of you that believe not. What does that mean? In other words, some of you are not eating. So just like the Israelites of old would not open their mouths wide to be filled to hearken to his voice and chose to have nothing to do with him, so too the Jews, their descendants, did not listen to the words of Jesus. And from that moment the scriptures say that many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. They did not believe they would not eat of his words. So we should ask, observing these events and occurrences, how do we eat this spiritual bread? Again, I'm not leaving John. John chapter 7 now, verses 16 through 18. Jesus said, My doctrine is not mine. It's his that sent me. My teaching is not mine. If any man wills to do his will, he's gonna know the teaching. And he's gonna understand whether it's of God or whether I speak of myself. He that speaks of himself, well, he's only seeking his own glory. But he that seeks the glory of him that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. So by doing his will and seeking his glory, we eat this spiritual bread. So let me remind you of some scriptures that I think kind of fall in line with this theme that I'm going over right now. Luke 8, 11. Remember now the parable is this the seed is the word of God. That was from the parable of the sower. You remember that? Or Luke 8, verse 21, he said in answer to them, My mother and my brethren are those who hear the word of God and do it. Remember, people were telling me, hey, your mom and your brothers and sisters are looking for you, and they're trying to talk to you and all this stuff. But he said, My mother and my brethren are those that hear the word of God and do it. And first John chapter 2, verse 5 said, Whoso keepeth his word in him verily is the love of God perfected. So for all of this that I just shared, I believe that when Jesus spoke of eating his bread or his flesh in these passages, he was spiritually speaking of hearing, believing, receiving, and doing his word. And if this is so, well then what does the blood and the wine represent? Let's go back a little bit further, back into Leviticus. When we start in Leviticus, it says something very interesting about blood. It says in Leviticus 17, verses 11 and 14. For the life of the flesh is in the blood. I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul. It says in verse 14, For it is the life of all flesh. What is he talking about? The blood of it is for the life thereof. Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, you shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh, for the life of the flesh is the blood. Whoso eateth it is going to be cut off. See, naturally speaking, the life of the flesh is in our blood. And he said, You will not eat the blood of any manner of flesh. Whether it's the blood of someone or some animal that was shed, it referred to the taking of its life. Because naturally speaking, the life of the flesh is in the blood. Can't live without blood. James speaks of this, but he uses this as an analogy. Look at what he says in James. James 226. For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also spiritually. The life of the body is our spirit. Since the blood is representative of the life of the flesh, let us look and see what is said of the spirit. John the apostle wrote of the man Jesus Christ that in him was life, and the life was the light of men. Well what was life? Or what was life that was in him? Do you think it's referring to his blood? Remember, it is the spirit that quickens the flesh profits nothing. So what is in man or what is in the body? Well, the spirit of a man is his life. And the same was true for the man Jesus Christ. We all know that the spirit that gave him life was the very spirit of God. Hence the scripture says God was in Christ. It also says God is a spirit. So let's consider some other scriptures. Romans 8, verse 10. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin. But the spirit is life because of righteousness. Look at what Paul said to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 6, who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Consider also what Paul said to the Galatians. I know this is all from Paul, but he was the main writer of the New Covenant. Galatians 6, verse 8. It says, He that sows to the flesh shall reap corruption, but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. So eternal life is connected to the Spirit. So let's look at what Jesus said when he told the listeners to come unto him and drink. This is in John chapter 7. He said some crazy thing, seemingly crazy if you think of it naturally, but he said, on the last day of that great feast, Jesus stood up and he cried out, saying, If any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, so he's already defining what he's talking about. He that believeth on me, as the scriptures has said, out of his belly, his spirit, shall flow rivers of living water. Because belly is an internal component of man. That's what they thought, and that's why I said spirit, even though it doesn't say that, but you get the idea, because in verse 39 it says, But this he spake of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given. Why? Because Jesus was not yet glorified. Aha. So remember when Jesus spoke to that Samaritan woman in John chapter 4? He spoke of living water in verse 10. And Jesus used the same terms in chapter 4 of John, just like he did right now in chapter 7 of John. And he expounded further by stating that the water that he would give would become a well springing up to everlasting life within a person. These terms, water, fountain, life, these were not introduced in the scriptures at this point for the first time. Again, we have to go back to previous Old Testament scriptures to get a better understanding, to get it in its proper light and context, so that we could understand spiritually. So let's look at a couple of them. Psalm 36, verse 7. How excellent is thy loving kindness, O God. Therefore, the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. Verse 8. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house, and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. For with thee is the fountain of life. In thy light shall we see light. All those components, trusting in him, drinking of his river, uh, because he is the fountain of life, and in his light we shall see light. It's all uh under the umbrella of what we've been talking about, principally speaking, is receiving his words and walking in it, obeying. In Jeremiah chapter 2, 13, look at what it says. For my people have committed two evils. Oh, they have forsaken me. Uh, that's how the Israelites were described. That's right, that's right, and that's how we saw the Jews were acting. What they forsook me, the fountain of living waters. Oh, so God in the old covenant, who's actually Jesus, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, said, They forsook me, I am the fountain of living waters. And what didn't what did they do instead? They hewed them out their own cisterns, broken cisterns, and they can't hold water. And then it says in Jeremiah 17, verse 13, O Lord, the hope of all Israel, all that forsake thee, they're gonna be ashamed. And they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord. Well, who's the Lord? Oh, he's the fountain of living waters. Ha ha. You see, all of these uh terms, Hebrew idioms that Jesus was using came from the old covenant, from what he had told the people of God in the old covenant. He was just quoting himself, and he was giving a spiritual understanding to them. Jesus quoted himself time and time again, just like he quoted himself in reference to the manna, the bread, the flesh, he was bringing these terms into a greater light. The living waters he spoke of referred to what John coined as the gift of God. Paul coined it as the blessing of Abraham. Luke coined it as the promise of the Father. Let me repeat that again. The living waters that he spoke of referred to what John coined as the gift of God in John chapter 4.10. Paul spoke of it as the blessing of Abraham in Galatians 3.14, and Luke used the phrase the promise of the Father. All of these referred to, and he did it in several places. He did it in Luke 24, 49. He also wrote Acts, so it happened in Acts chapter 1, verse 4, and in chapter 2, verse 33, the promise of the Father. All of these referred to the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. Or our KJV translating brothers, the Holy Ghost. So since Jesus said, Come unto me and drink in John chapter 7, and we have seen in the previous chapters that Jesus kept referring to drinking his blood, that was John 6, verses uh 53 through 54. I don't think it's a stretch at all to believe that when Jesus referred to drinking his blood, he was spiritually referring to his spirit. He wasn't naturally referring to his flesh's blood. So it's also said of Jesus that he was the true light, which lights every man that comes into the world. Jesus was the true light because in him there was no darkness, no sin. He was perfect, pure, without spot, blemish, or wrinkle, exactly as he's making his body to be today, and he was and is the true light. Not only is he the light of the world, but he says to us, we are the light of the world. Why? Because when we hear and obey, we begin to partake of the divine nature that's spoken of. When we hear and when we obey, we become that restored image of God we were meant to be from the beginning. Those created humans on earth who were to rule and reign and take dominion, and they were supposed to be the images of God in the earth. And that's what it means to be an image of God. Those who obey and manifest Him, His Word, His will, His ways, His Word in the earth. Our spirit is the candle or the light that is referring to. Let me show you. Proverbs chapter 20, verse 27. It says, The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly. Look at what it says in Matthew chapter 5, verse 14 through 16, because it it connects to what it said about in Proverbs 20, 27. You are the light of the world. You are a city that is sent on a hill that cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and gives light unto all that are in the house. So let your light so shine before men that they may see your what? Good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. So the light is the spirit of man, but it's also the expression of our spirit in good works. And hopefully our works are not darkness, because that would be a very, very unfortunate thing. We don't want our expression to not be light, because our expression could also be darkness, which means we're walking in the ways of darkness. So the light refers to our good works that we may glorify your Father. See, we can't show good works without hearing and obeying his word. And as Jesus said, doing his will. Look at what it says in Matthew chapter 16, verse 22 through 23. The light of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye be single, the whole body shall be full of light. But if your eye be evil, uh-oh, the whole body shall be full of darkness. Therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, oh, how great is that darkness. You see, when it used the word the eye, like the light of the body is the eye, that term I, that's our spirit. This verse is saying that if our spirit is single or singly devoted to light, to good works rather than darkness, that's where we want to be. The good works are those that follow in the footsteps of the one who is the true light, meaning Jesus Christ, our God, who is light, first John 1 5. Let's read again in John chapter 12. Man, I keep I keep hitting John. Jesus said to them, Yet a little while the light is with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest the darkness come upon you. For he that walks in darkness doesn't know whither he goes. While you have the light, believe. See that word, believe in the light, that you may be children of light. You can't be children of light if you don't walk in belief in him. And when you walk in belief in him, it means that you're listening, hearkening to his words, and you're obeying. So these things spoke Jesus, and he departed, and he did hide himself from them. So remember, light also refers to his word, right? His word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. He speaks of walking in the light as he is in the light. The word is regarded as that lamp unto our feet and light unto our path. We need to walk in the light of his word. And that's simply done by hearing and obeying the word of God. What did Jesus say about this new wine in Matthew? In Matthew chapter 9, he said, Neither do men put new wine into old bottles, else the bottles break, and then the wine runs out, and then the bottles perish. But what did they do with new wine? They put it into new bottles, and both are preserved. So to receive the new wine, which is the Holy Spirit, we must become new bottles. What does that mean? New bottles means we need to be new men, repentant, ready, holy vessels, in order to receive the Spirit of God. He's not going to pour out his spirit into those that are willfully walking in sin and have no inclination to change. But if we show forth the sign of true repentance and he sees that in our heart, then he is not going to withhold himself, because it's been his desire from days of old that if you open your mouth wide, then he wants to fill you with him. So we're told by Paul that we have been made to drink into one spirit. Says in 1 Corinthians 12 13, for by one spirit we are all baptized into one body. Whether we be Jews, whether we be Gentiles, whether we be bond, whether we be free, we've all been made to drink into one spirit. But when did that happen? When we were baptized into one body through the born-again experience. This is what he spoke about to Nicodemus in John chapter 3. A man must be born again. A man must be born again of the water and of the spirit to see and hear the kingdom of God. So when Jesus spoke of drinking his blood, he was spiritually referring to receiving his spirit. 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