The Desire of Ages (Revised Edition) by E G White

that gift when compared with the blessings He had come to bestow. The manna could sustain only this
earthly existence; it did not prevent the approach of death, nor insure immortality; but the bread of
heaven would nourish the soul unto everlasting life. The Saviour said, “I am that bread of life. Your
fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from
heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven:
if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.” To this figure Christ now adds another. Only through
dying could He impart life to men, and in the words that follow He points to His death as the means of
salvation. He says, “The bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
The Jews were about to celebrate the Passover at Jerusalem, in commemoration of the night of
Israel’s deliverance, when the destroying angel smote the homes of Egypt. In the paschal lamb God
desired them to behold the Lamb of God, and through the symbol receive Him who gave Himself for
the life of the world. But the Jews had come to make the symbol all-important, while its significance
was unnoticed. They discerned not the Lord’s body. The same truth that was symbolized in the paschal
service was taught in the words of Christ. But it was still undiscerned.
Now the rabbis exclaimed angrily, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” They affected
to understand His words in the same literal sense as did Nicodemus when he asked, “How can a man
be born when he is old?” John 3:4. To some extent they comprehended the meaning of Jesus, but they
were not willing to acknowledge it. By misconstruing His words, they hoped to prejudice the people
against Him. Christ did not soften down His symbolical representation. He reiterated the truth in yet
stronger language: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink
His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso 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, and My blood is drink indeed. He
that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him.”
To eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ is to receive Him as a personal Saviour, believing
that He forgives our sins, and that we are complete in Him. It is by beholding His love, by dwelling
upon it, by drinking it in, that we are to become partakers of His nature. What food is to the body,
Christ must be to the soul. Food cannot benefit us unless we eat it, unless it becomes a part of our being.
So Christ is of no value to us if we do not know Him as a personal Saviour. A theoretical knowledge
will do us no good. We must feed upon Him, receive Him into the heart, so that His life becomes our
life. His love, His grace, must be assimilated.
But even these figures fail to present the privilege of the believer’s relation to Christ. Jesus said,
“As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by
Me.” As the Son of God lived by faith in the Father, so are we to live by faith in Christ. So fully was
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