John vi. 48, we find the words of the Lord, “I am the bread of life.” The Lord adds the remark to the Jews, “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.” It had no power to perpetuate life only for a short time; but he continues, verse 50, “This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.” It will be noticed that _his flesh_ did not come down from heaven, and that bread which came down from heaven is that of which if a man shall eat he shall not die. Then he follows with the remark, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread” (which came down from heaven) “he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Here he uses the _flesh_, as that which they saw and dealt with in crucifying him metonymically, or a part for the whole. The Jews, however, understood him to mean his flesh literally, and so does the Romish church, and the Jews inquired, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” The Lord did not explain the matter to them, but added, verse 56, “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” They were looking at it in the literal sense, and did not see how they could eat his flesh, or how the eating of it could give life. The doctrine of transubstantiation had not yet been born, and the idea of the bread and wine being changed, in the ceremony of consecration, into the _real flesh_ and _blood_, so that they could eat the flesh and drink his blood in the communion, had not yet entered into the minds of men. Nor did our Lord mean any such thing, but _he himself_, who came down from heaven, is that bread of life which if a man shall eat he shall never die. But the _eating_ is not literal, any more than the _bread_ is literal or the flesh. We partake of that bread, or of him who came down from heaven by hearing of him, believing on him, and being united with him. In becoming his disciples, learning of him and following him in all things, we eat or partake of that bread, or of him who is the way, and the truth and the life.