Does This Offend You?
When the Scriptures, or Yeshua, or the apostles say things you do not understand or even agree with, what do you do?
At that point, we are either going to listen to the voice of the Ruach (Holy Spirit) who tells us to trust and exercise faith. If we don't, we will walk away. The Ruach will be whispering in our ear, “It’s true. Seek out the truth. Don’t walk away.” We, today, are Messianics because we listened and learned. For multitudes of people, when it comes to eternal and spiritual truths that are outside the framework of their understanding and learning and have no relevance or connection to their previous and current beliefs, they will just reject it out of hand as false teaching and walk away. But what they don’t realise is that they have just rejected Yeshua, the Father, the Word, the Kingdom, the Good News and eternal life at the first resurrection. That is blindness and rebellion at its worst.
The Abandonment Of Truth Leads To False Faith
John 6:47-71. Here are a large group of followers of Yeshua who believe in Him and are called disciples of His. He is now about to test their hearts and the strength of their conviction and loyalty to Him above their present level of their understanding of the truth. Y’Hovah Elohim doesn’t put us into a difficult situation because you like it or want it, but because you and I need it to learn and grow. It is preparation ground, to ready us for what we are being called into. What is happening to us in the natural is making us stronger in the spiritual. We must always be ready to repent, change and take on the challenge to be what we are called and chosen to be. Just like Moses at the burning bush. Yeshua issues a challenge, and gives an understanding of how He saw many of His followers. John 6:10-15, 24-27.
They were about to be put to the test. His number of followers were about to be drastically reduced, and the apostles themselves would have their faith challenged. My guess is these followers whom Yeshua accused of following Him just because He fed them and met their needs were the “prosperity gospel believers” of yesterday. Satan hasn’t changed a bit. But the truth is that deeper teachings, meat instead of milk, given in parables, metaphors, riddles and hard sayings, separate those from the “many called” and the “few chosen.” It separates the true disciples from followers of convenience, of tickled ears and full tummies.
Eat My Flesh and Drink My Blood
John 6:47-61. The message here from the lips of the Messiah is eternal life. He outlines what is necessary to enter into eternal life. All we have to do is eat His flesh and drink His blood. Take notice that in each instance He puts eating His flesh ahead of drinking His blood. He also said He is the Bread that came down from Heaven, and that you have to eat of this Bread in order to live forever. This emphasis is very important. You will be aware that Christianity puts a lot of emphasis on the blood of the Lamb. They also teach the nonsense of “pleading the blood” to get miraculous results, provisions and answers to prayers. But you hear practically nothing about eating His flesh to enter into eternal life. But Yeshua says it is essential. Let’s look at why.
We will look at four truths represented in Yeshua’s command to eat His flesh if you want His blessings and eternal life. Miss these things and you miss out on the Kingdom here on earth.
One: The Sacrifice Lamb
Exodus 12:1-8; Leviticus 22:17-25. The Lamb selected for their sacrifice offering of salvation had to be perfect, without blemish, disease or injury, and it had to be whole. Of course this is an exact representation of Yeshua as the Lamb of Elohim, who takes away the sin of the world. But this not only represents Yeshua as our acceptable sacrifice for our sin, but it also represents the one who brings and offers the sacrifice to Y’Hovah. Leviticus 21:16-24.
Anyone who comes before Y’Hovah in worship, bringing sacrifices, prayer, vows or offerings is seen as part of the New Covenant type priesthood. That is another way of saying we must be like Yeshua, with a life that fully represents Him in integrity, truth, character and a keeper of righteousness. That is one who seeks first the Kingdom and is not idolatrous. We are walking as He walked. That is eating His flesh.
Two: The Bread Of Life
Exodus 12:8; John 6:35-38. Yeshua is the Matzot, the Unleavened Bread from Heaven. There is no leaven in him, no sin that spreads like poison throughout the body. Pesach, or Passover, is a seven day celebration of Unleavened bread which we all must keep. At Pesach, we are dealing with the leaven of sin in our lives. The Feasts are the bread of life. 1 Corinthians 5:6-8. That is eating His flesh.
Three: Keep The Commandments
Matthew 7:12-14, 21-29. Yeshua also said “I am the bread of life. I am the living bread… If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. This bread is My flesh…” He also said, “Man shall not live by (natural) bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
This bread, which we must eat if we are to have eternal life, is the Torah or the Law. Yeshua is the Living Torah, the One who lived it out perfectly without any leaven whatsoever. The perfect sinless sacrifice. And as Yeshua said, we must eat of this bread also. Just as His life was lived according to the Law and its righteousness, so must we. This is called eating His flesh. We are either eating His Unleavened Bread of the perfect Law of Liberty, or we are eating of our own flesh of sin and bondage. That is our own dogmas, doctrines, traditions and interpretations. Most believers are only eating the natural bread of this life, living like the world around them and not like Yeshua.
Four: Healing Of Our Bodies
Isaiah 53:4-5; Matthew 8:14-17; 1 Peter 2:21-25. We are well taught that by Yeshua’s sacrifice and shed blood we find forgiveness of sin and eternal life. We have put our faith or belief in the efficacy of His blood on our behalf. This is Yeshua saying we must drink His blood.
But as we have read, “by His stripes (wounds) we are healed.” Yeshua also made the statement that healing is the children's bread. Manna was the bread that came down from heaven. Eating that manna never guaranteed them entrance into the Promised Land. But that bread from Heaven sustained the children of Israel physically for 40 years in the wilderness and kept them healthy. Yeshua said that He is that Bread from Heaven. The exercise of faith and trust that hears the promise for our healing is called eating My flesh.
Drinking His blood meets our spiritual needs of forgiveness of sin and eternal life, and eating His flesh meets our physical needs in this life. It’s all about the exercise of our faith in all areas of life. Together, flesh and blood meets the whole requirements of man. Now, I have separated these two things as independent of each other for the sake of examination. But in reality they are both essential; the drinking of His blood and the eating of His flesh for entering the Kingdom of Heaven. For this is the truth of grace and law, or the free gift and Torah.
Christianity says that one, grace, (the free gift) does away with the other, the law. But that is false doctrine. Both are essential.
Grace and Law In Perfect Harmony
James 2:8-26. Here is James, the brother of Yeshua, spelling it out so clear we can’t get it wrong if we want to be honest seekers of the truth. Here we have the grace, or free gift part of our salvation.
Ephesians 2:1-9. Here we have the truth of what it means to live by the fruitless deeds of the flesh and the ways of the world. They are the ways of satan and death. The answer is salvation by faith, as the gift of Elohim. Through the exercise of faith, trust or belief in Yeshua, Elohim gifts us an undeserved favour (grace) of salvation. That is called drinking His blood.
Now we must eat His flesh. This is expressed in Ephesians 2:9-10. As transformed, changed and cleansed believers, we have become Elohim’s workmanship, “created in Messiah Yeshua.” That is, only as long as we are in Him, walking like Him in the good deeds or works which have been established in times past, “prepared beforehand” for us to walk in now.
James 2:8-12. Torah or the Law convicts of sin. Break one Law or reject one Law, and the judgement or punishment is the same for one as if you broke them all. “So speak and act as those who will be judged according to Torah that gives freedom.” Keeping the Torah or Law brings us freedom from its judgements and death. That's called eating His flesh. Now James turns up the screws, he asks, “If someone says he has faith, but does not have works, can faith save him?" (James 2:14). What good is that? Of course the answer is no, to his salvation.
In James 2:17 James says “So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.” James 2:20, “...faith without works is dead.” James uses Abraham as an example; “That faith worked together with his works, and by the works, his faith was made complete.” (James 2:22) James goes on to declare that without works, there is no righteousness in our lives. That is saying the same as what Yeshua said; you are therefore lawless or unrighteous. James 2:23-26.
“...a man is proved righteous by works and not faith alone.”
That’s the same as Yeshua saying, you must eat My flesh and drink My blood.
The Devil Believes The Same As You
James 2:19-12. These are very troubling verses by James, and very forthright.
He says, you believe that God, Father and Son, is Echad, or one. You do well. But, the demons also believe that – and shudder. James 2:20. “But do you want to know, you empty person, that faith without works is dead?” Empty means living in vain. James is saying that if you only believe in Yeshua as God and don’t believe in doing the works of the Law, then you are no better than demons, and are therefore of your father the devil.
We also remind ourselves of the words of Yeshua in John 6:61 to His followers when He said “Does this offend you?
It is required of all Yeshua’s followers to Eat His Flesh and Drink His Blood, to enter into salvation and the Kingdom by faith and keep the Law.
Does this offend you?
To not eat His flesh is to live in the excesses of our own flesh, which is idolatry and the ways of the world. Galatians 5:13:26. In verse 25, to live by the Ruach is to have found newness of life or eternal life – that’s drinking His blood – but we must also walk by the Ruach – that’s eating His flesh. Galatians 5:21. Both are required to inherit God’s Kingdom.