I am the living bread which came down from heaven. It was not possible that he should be held by death in the bondage of the grave. God would not leave his soul in Hades, nor suffer his Holy One to see corruption. As there is a necessary connexion between natural life and its food, so also between spiritual life and the means by which it is sustained. Mortality and corruption depend upon food that is itself perishable.
Eternal life is equally dependent upon that food which endures forever.
For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. The true sense is thus quite lost. Life is thus declared to be an essential attribute of the divine nature, and it becomes an essential attribute of all who become partakers of that divine nature through Christ. Hence, using the very same expression, our Lord affirms by necessary implication, that all who eat his flesh and drink his blood, have life in themselves. Its first book appearance was as Chapter IV .