The Daily Word of Righteousness

Living by His Body and Blood, continued

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. (John 6:51—NIV)

"He will live forever" is referring to immortality in a flesh and bones body. Jesus Christ is God's Tree of Life and the only tree of life. As we eat consistently of His flesh we are preparing ourselves for the redemption of our body at His appearing. Our body now is dead because of the sin that dwells in it. If we are faithful in sowing to the Spirit of God in our inward nature, when the Lord appears He will cast all sin from our flesh and bones so they may be filled with eternal life and thus attain immortality.

This is the salvation that is to come with the Lord Jesus. This is the redemption to which we have been sealed by the Spirit of God, and is the blessed hope of the Christian Church.

Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. (John 6:53-55—NIV)

Can you see in the above the relationship of the body and blood of Christ to attaining the resurrection from the dead, the first resurrection of those who are asleep in death?

Apart from the flesh and blood of Christ we have no true life in us. We have not as yet eaten and drunk of real food and real drink. Maybe at some point in the past we made a profession of faith in Christ. It is necessary that we make a profession of faith, but if we do not continue to eat of His flesh and drink of His blood we have no life in us. We are living in the flesh and will not be raised from the dead when He appears. The door will be closed in the face of those who have the lamp (doctrine) but no Divine Life to keep the lamp shining.

It is the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ that will raise us in the last day—not doctrine no matter how accurate.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. (John 6:56—NIV)

When the Lord Jesus appears it is the dead in Christ who will be resurrected—the dead in Christ!

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. (I Thessalonians 4:16—NIV)

To be in Christ means we are eating the flesh of Christ and drinking His blood. We are continuing in intense interaction with the living Jesus. We do not refer to any previous point in time as when we were saved. "I was saved fifty years ago," and so forth.

To be continued.