We men are under doom of death written in our very bodies, assured to us by the unchangeable fact of bodily death.  Now if a man take Jesus into his very being so that they become one in effect, then clearly if Jesus die the man is freed from the necessity of dying.  Through Jesus dying there is for such a man life.  That is the statement Jesus makes.

In five distinct sentences He attempts to make His meaning simple and clear.  The first sentence puts the negative side:  there is no life without Jesus being taken into one’s being.  Then the positive side:  through this sort of eating there is life.  And with this is coupled the inferential statement that they are not to be spared bodily death, because they are to be raised up.  The third sentence, that Jesus is the one true food of real life.  The fourth sentence gives a parallel or interchangeable phrase for eating and drinking, i.e., “abideth in me and I in Him.”  A mutual abiding in each other.  The food abides in the man eating it.  The man abides in the strength of the food He has taken in.  Eating My flesh means abiding in Me.  The last sentence gives an illustration.  This living in Jesus, having Him live in us as closely as though actually eaten, is the same as Jesus’ own life on earth being lived in His Father, dependent upon the Father.  And when the crowds take His words literally and complain that none can understand such statements, He at once explains that, of course, He does not mean literal eating—­“The flesh profiteth nothing” (even if you did eat it):  “it is the Spirit that gives life:”  “the words ... are Spirit and life.”  The taking of Jesus through His words into one’s life to dominate—­that is the meaning.

A few months later, in Jerusalem, He speaks again of His purpose, in John’s tenth chapter, “The good shepherd layeth down His life for the sheep.”  “I lay down my life for the sheep.”  The death was for others because of threatening danger.  “Other sheep I have which are not of this fold:  them also I must lead.”  Here is clear foresight of the wide sweep of influence through His death.  “I lay down my life that I may take it again.”  The death was one step in a plan.  There is something beyond.  “I lay it down of myself.  I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it again.  This commandment I received from my Father.”  The dying was voluntary and was agreed to between the Father and Himself.  To the disciples He speaks of the need of taking up a “cross” in order to be followers, and to the critical Pharisee asking a sign, He alludes to Jonah’s three days and nights in the belly of the sea monster.  Neither of these allusions conveyed any definite idea to those listening.

Then the last week when the Greeks came; “Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.”  The dying was to have great influence upon others.  “And I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto myself.”  The dying was to be for others, and to exert tremendous influence upon the whole race.