The Twin City star. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1910-19??, 1917-08-25
THE BREAD OF LIFE
Eating the Flesh and Drinking
the Blood of the Son
of Man.

II am the living bread which came
down out of heaven; If any man eat
Of this bread, he shall live forever;
yea, and the bread which will give
Is my flesh, for the life of the world"
"EXcept We eat the flesh of the Son
| Of Man, and drink his blood, We have
| no life in yourselves" ''He that eat
eth my flesh. and drinketh my blood,
hath eternal life, and will raise him
| up at the last day."
The Jews stumbled at this eating
and drinking, as did Nicodemus at be-
ing "born again." It may be that
some Of us, too. are stumbling, for this
very remarkable way in which the
Master stated very great truth has
caused not little confusion in the re-
| ligious world, some Of it even in our
own day.
! Whatever strangeness may have
been fastened to these wonderful say.
ings Of our Lord by those who would
mystify his statements, or who would
hide from the less intelligent the great
ideas the Master had in mind, nothing
in all his teachings is more practical
or more important than the very
thing he is here saying, and he Ger.
tainly intended them to be understood.
He Is saying some very intelligent
things to very materialistic people,
and divine wisdom prompted him tn
clOthe his ideas in this very striking
language.
| It is necessary for u.s. also. to think.
If we shall grasp the spiritual truths
the Master intended to teach. And
so, first of all, let us think Of eating.
But we must not confine our thinking
simply to taking food into the stom'
ach. While this is the literal, 1t is
the limited idea. Much more In IN
volved. else eating fails the purpose
Of eating We must think OF 1t in the
| more comprehensive sense as the proc
ess Of appropriating the life element
in physical food to the building up Of
the physical body; utilizing the vital
energy inherent in physical food in the
construction of physical manhood.
This process, in its entirety, Is won
derful thing, absolutely necessary to.
| physical existence, whether ut low or
high cost of living. We may think OF
| eating, and not think of all that Is in
'volved. but eating must mean the proc
css in its entirety, or its purpose
fails.
| What is true of eating is equally
true of drinking, and the same things
may be said concerning It, 1t Is the
| same principle of utilization or APP
,propriation. the only difference being
that in eating we supply one require
Iment Of the physical body, while in
drinking we supply another. Differ
Ient elements enter into the process OF
bodybuilding, and these are appropri-
ated, in part, by eating and drinking.
| Now, If we carry this idea of eat
| ing over into the realm of redemption
and If we will consider that the spir.
Iitual man must have food as well as
the physical man, and then, If we UNI
Ilerstand that this Is just what Jesus
was talking about, and will allow him
to use the familiar form of the physi-
cal to express the spiritual, we will
ut once see the logic Of his statements.
We will readily understand how we
are to "eat his flesh and drink his
blood" in just the way in which Jesus
used this language. Let us see how
reasonable and how important his
thought He said: "NO man cOmeth
unto the Father but by me-" There
is no solution Of the problem without
him. Then, without the shedding OF
| blood there is no remission Of SIM"
and his blood cleanseth from all SIM"
Jesus and his blood are the absolute
first essentials. He, therefore, must
make the sacrifice necessary unto the
remission Of sin. And when that sac
,rifice Is made for us, it must be
utilized by us, If its benefits are to be
realized in us. Or, to state K other
wise, we must appropriate unto our
salvation the sacrifice which was es-
entail in his broken body and shed
blood. To "eat his flesh and drink his
blood" Is q logical form Of statement.
II we give to eating it's full meaning
that of appropriating his sacrifice unto
our redemption, or to our spiritual life.
And this must be actual or real, and
just as practical, as to appropriate
physical food to the use Of our phys
lcal bodies.
1t was after this manner the Savior
was speaking. He simply used the
form of statement familiar in the
physical to express the less familiar
truth concerning the spiritual. If we
will do our thinking after the manner
Of his speaking, we will find that he
was not saying such a strange thing,
nor saying that thing in such strange
way, after all. The difficulty thrown
around these statements has been In
trying to make our Lord say what he
was not trying to say, and not trying
to understand what he was clearly say
ing.-A. L. Orcott, in Christian Stand
, ard.
Life Pilgrimage.