This definition appears and reappears, first in metaphor, then in interpretation: My Father is giving you the true bread, which is coming down from heaven. I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; he that believeth on me shall never thirst. This coming is not a literal physical coming; it is a coming of the spirit; a coming drawn by divine influence; a coming of those who are taught of God. To thus believe in me, to thus eat my flesh and drink my blood, is to have everlasting life; for to thus eat my flesh and drink my blood is to dwell in me and have in me an indwelling life. Finally, to guard his followers against that literalism which has since converted this metaphor into a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, Christ adds to his discourse the decisive words of ver. 63, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth, _the flesh_ profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.” 3. _Meaning of the metaphor._ I believe then that the key to the metaphors of this sermon is to be found in the question and answer of verses 28, 29; that it is Christ’s metaphorical interpretation of the declaration that faith is a condition of spiritual life; that it is mystical, because experience is always mystical except to those that know it experimentally; that it is expressed in metaphor, because a spiritual experience can never be expressed in any other way; and that Christ has emphasized the importance of the metaphor by subsequently making it a permanent symbol in the Lord’s Supper. To eat his flesh and drink his blood is to have faith in him, to come unto him; to partake of his character and imbibe his spirit (verses 35, 40, 47, 54, 57). Faith, according to Christ, is not then merely believing what is revealed in the Word (_Westminster Confession_); nor merely receiving what God says to be true and resting on it (_George Muller_); it is feeding on Christ. It is interpreted (_a_) by the physical phenomenon of eating and drinking. The food enters into us, becomes a part of us; builds us up; makes us what we are; different food going to different parts of the body--some to brain, others to muscle, etc.; different natures and different avocations needing different food. It is Christ _in_ us who is the hope of glory. (_b_) By our own use of the same metaphor. We recognize in common language a higher than mere physical feeding; other gateways to the nature than the mouth and the stomach; other means that modify, develop, and make the character. Men are made by what they receive through interior faculties. So Christ’s metaphor constantly reappears in the language of our common life; we drink in a picture; imbibe ideas; devour books; _e. g._, “My ears have not yet _drunk_ a hundred words Of that tongue’s uttering.”--(_Shakespeare._) “Longing they look, and gaping at the sight, _Devour_ her o’er and o’er with vast delight.”--(_Dryden._)