A friend asks what is meant by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ, and wishes to know if it has any connection with the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper. In reply we would say that it evidently has the closest connection. Christ said: "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoso eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in him." (John 6:53-56)
Now it is evident that no man can literally eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ, and this caused the unbelieving to choose to stumble. But Christ meant that by faith we should appropriate Him to ourselves, and thus live godly lives for Him, just as one lives physically by what he eats. Says Paul: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
So Christ continues: "As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eats me, even he shall live by me." (John 6:57)
It is by faith that we have that close communion with Christ which enables us to live as He himself would live; for "The just shall live by faith." (Romans 1:17)
The Lord's Supper is the visible manifestation of this faith which thus appropriates Christ. When Christ broke bread, He said, "This is my body, which is broken for you." (1 Corinthians 11:24)
Then He took the cup and said, "This cup is the new testament in my blood: for, as oft as you drink it, in remembrance of me." (1 Corinthians 11:25)
And Paul immediately adds: "For as often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup you do show the Lord's death." (1 Corinthians 11:26)
It is in the death of Christ, and our death and burial with Him, that we are united to Him. It is only in His broken body that we partake. And in partaking of the bread and the wine of the Lord's Supper, we are fulfilling John 6:53-57 as literally as it is possible for us to fulfill it.
Of course this is true only so far as the Lord's Supper is partaken of understandingly, and not as a mere form. He who partakes of it as a mere matter of form, not discerning with the eye of faith, the Lord's body, "eats and drinks damnation to himself." (1 Corinthians 11:29)
Such a person does not eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ, but eats and drinks simply bread and wine, and of course does not comply with the divine command.
Let no one, however, imagine that Christ's words in John 6:53-57 can be fulfilled only when the Lord's Supper is eaten. If the Christian is to live by Christ, and he can live in no other way, he must continually feed on Christ. A man cannot live a year, a month, or even a week without spiritual food anymore than he can live and grow physically without daily partaking of literal food.
The true Christian abides in Christ, and Christ abides in him; there is daily and hourly communion. He does not receive Christ on fixed or varying occasions, but Christ dwells in him; and so when he partakes of the Lord's Supper, he indicates outwardly that union which always exists, and by that act his union by faith is strengthened.
And thus living by Christ who lives by the Father, the Christian becomes "filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:19)--Signs of the Times, September 2, 1886--Timeline: IV-40 (Sermon on the Bread of Life)--John 6:53-57.