Saying above, [He here says,] Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein [as if in themselves sufficient] (the which are offered according to the Law); then [also] hath he said, Lo I am come to do thy will. He taketh away the first [the symbolic], that he may establish the second [the real].”[605] He was here, in the body of his blood and flesh, for the yielding of his blood and the sharing of his flesh, in order to make partakers of his nature, whosoever would seek a divine-human inter-union and a divine-human inter-communion, through the sacrifice made by him, “once for all.” “Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed [is true meat], and my blood [my life] is drink indeed [is true drink]. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him [Herein is communion through union]. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven: not as the fathers did eat, and died: he that eateth this bread shall live forever.”[606] “These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum”--toward the close of the second year of his public ministry. The fact that he did speak thus, so long before he had instituted the Memorial Supper, has been a puzzle to many commentators who were unfamiliar with the primitive rite of blood-covenanting, and with the world-wide series of substitute sacrifices and substitute forms of communion, which had grown out of the suggestions, and out of the perversions, of the root symbolisms of that rite. But, in the light of all these customs, the words of Jesus have a clearer meaning. It was as though he had said: “Men everywhere long for life. They seek a share in the life of God. They give of their own blood, or of substitute blood, and they taste of substitute blood, or they receive its touch, in evidence of their desire for oneness of nature with God. They crave communion with God, and they eat of the flesh of their sacrifices accordingly. All that they thus reach out after, I supply. In me is life. If they will become partakers of my life, of my nature, they shall be sharers of the life of God.” Then, he added, in assurance of the fact, that it was a profound spiritual truth which he was enunciating: “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life.”[607] The divine-human inter-union and the divine-human inter-communion are spiritual, and they are spiritually wrought; or they are nothing.