Charles Ellicott Commentary John 6:53

"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." — John 6:53 (ASV)

Then Jesus said to them.—This is hardly strong enough for the original. It is, rather, Jesus therefore said to them. The words follow what He has heard from them.

Some of them have spoken of eating His flesh. Others may even have pressed this to the reductio ad horribile. Eat His flesh! Shall we, then, drink His blood too? In no less than seven passages of the Pentateuch, the eating of blood had been forbidden (Genesis 9:4; Leviticus 3:17; Leviticus 7:26–27; Leviticus 17:10–14; Leviticus 19:26; Deuteronomy 12:16; Deuteronomy 12:23–24; Deuteronomy 15:23); and we find in later times the strength of the feeling of abhorrence, as in 1 Samuel 14:32, Ezekiel 33:25, and in the decree of the first Judeo-Christian Council (Acts 15:29).

In the fullest of these passages (Leviticus 17:10–14), the prohibition is grounded on the facts that the blood is the physical seat of animal life and that the blood makes atonement for the soul. It was the life-element poured out before God instead of the life of the soul that sinned. Such would be the thoughts of those who strove among themselves about what His words could mean; and to these thoughts He speaks with the “Verily, verily,” which ever expresses a spiritual truth that He alone could reveal.

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man.—The words point more definitely than those which have gone before to His death. The blood is spoken of as distinct from the flesh, and in this, physical death is involved. Eating the flesh would itself involve, as we have seen above, the thoughts of sacrifice and sustenance, the removal of the death-penalty attached to sin, and the strength of life sustained by food.

But the spiritual truth is fuller and deeper than this; and the true element of life in the soul depends on such communion with Christ as is expressed by drinking the blood itself: that is, by receiving into the human spirit the atonement represented by it, and with this, the very principle of life.

They may not receive into the human frame the principle of animal life, but no man really has spiritual life who does not receive into the inmost source of his being the life-principle revealed in the person of Christ.

This principle is to pass through and through his moral frame, like the blood which traverses the body: hidden from sight, but passing from the central heart through artery and vein, bearing life in its course to muscle, and nerve, and tissue.

It is to traverse the soul, passing from the Eternal Life and Love, which is the heart of the universe, through the humanity of Christ, and carrying in its course life and energy for every child of man.

Life in you.—More exactly, life in yourselves. This is more fully expressed in John 6:56-57.