Christ became the Life-giving Spirit and the Word to give us Life: we can Eat Him!

The Lord Jesus is the bread of life, and He gave His flesh for us to eat and His blood for us to drink; however, the physical flesh profits nothing – it is the Spirit who gives life, and the words the Lord speaks to us are spirit and life, for Christ has become the life-giving Spirit! Amen! Hallelujah!

In our human life, we need to eat daily, at least three meals a day, so that we may sustain our human existence; we need to not only eat but also make sure we eat proper food, healthy food, and food that is good for us.

In our spiritual life, it is the same; we need to make sure we have regular spiritual meals, that is, that we take time day by day to enjoy the Lord in His word so that we may eat Him as the bread of life.

Our Lord Jesus is not only our God, our Lord, our Savior, and our King; He is also the bread of life.

He has come to the earth through incarnation and went through the processes of human living, death, resurrection, and ascension so that He may become a life-giving Spirit.

Now as the life-giving Spirit, He comes to us to be our food, our very bread.

But who knows Christ as the bread of life, and who knows how to eat Him as the bread of life?

When we read John 6, a very mysterious chapter in the Gospel of John, we will see that the Lord Jesus again and again said that He is the bread of life, the living bread, the true bread, the bread of God, and the bread that came down out of heaven.

This is quite mysterious, for the Lord continued to say that He gives His flesh to be our bread and His blood to be our drink.

What is this? When some of His disciples heard this, they thought this was a hard word, even too hard to bear, so they stopped following the Lord.

Today we as believers in Christ may read the Bible, pray, fellowship with the saints, and attend Christian meetings, but do we know how to eat Christ’s flesh and drink His blood?

The Lord Jesus said that, if we don’t eat His flesh and drink His blood, we have no part with Him, but if we do, we have life within ourselves.

We can have life today only if we eat the Lord’s flesh and drink His blood.

How can we do this? Did the Lord speak of this in a literal sense or in a spiritual sense?

John 6:63 explains this: the flesh profits nothing, for it is the Spirit who gives life, and the Spirit who gives life is embodied in the words the Lord speaks to us. Amen!

We eat the Lord’s flesh and drink His blood by eating His word, for His word is the embodiment of spirit and life.

Christ became the Life-giving Spirit and the Word to give us Life: we can Eat Him!

John 6:63 is the key for us to understand and experience what it means to eat the Lord’s flesh and drink His blood.

In this chapter of John the Lord Jesus spoke many times to those around Him that they need to eat Him, or else they have no part with Him.

And He said that He gives His flesh for us to eat and His blood for us to drink.

But in v. 63 He says that it is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words He has spoken to us are spirit and are life.

This is very mysterious yet so wonderful.

The Lord Jesus did not want us to eat His physical flesh or drink His physical blood; the flesh profits nothing – it is the Spirit who gives life. Amen!

This shows us that the Lord gave His flesh and shed His blood for us on the cross, and in resurrection, He has become the life-giving Spirit.

The Lord Jesus became flesh (John 1:14) and then, after resurrection and through resurrection, became the Spirit who gives life.

1 Cor. 15:45 clearly says that, just as Adam – the first man – became a living soul, so Christ – the last Adam – became a life-giving Spirit.

It is not the physical flesh of Jesus that gives us life and causes us to have life within ourselves; rather, it is the Spirit – whom Christ became through His resurrection – who gives life. Amen!

This is the secret to our experience and enjoyment of Christ: the fact that Christ became the life-giving Spirit.

If we as believers in Christ do not see that Christ became a life-giving Spirit, our Christian life will be very difficult, for it will be filled with striving and struggling.

Without Christ being the Spirit, the Christian life is impossible to live, for we as Christians can live the Christian life only in the Spirit and by the Spirit.

When we receive Christ as our Lord and Savior at the time of our repentance and faith in Him, we receive Him as the Spirit who gives life.

Becoming a Christian is not merely adhering to the precepts and doctrines of the Christian faith as outlined in the Bible; becoming a Christian is receiving a new life, that is, receiving Christ as the life-giving Spirit into our spirit. Amen!

Now every genuine Christian, every believer in Christ, has the life-giving Spirit in their spirit and can enjoy this Spirit who gives life to them constantly.

May the Lord have mercy on us and enlighten us, remove all the veils from our eyes, and show us clearly that today He has become the life-giving Spirit who is with our spirit.

May we see further that Christ as the life-giving Spirit is now in His word, embodied in the Word, and we can come to the Word of God with the exercise of our spirit to receive spirit and life for our nourishment.

The Jews around the Lord Jesus could not understand at His time how could He give His flesh for them to eat; they thought that He would give them His physical body, the meat of His physical flesh (v. 52).

But praise the Lord, today we can see that the Lord doesn’t give us the meat of His physical flesh to eat, for the flesh profits nothing; He gives Himself to us as the Spirit who gives life and as the Word for us to eat!

The last part of John 6 is the section about Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit and the Word.

Today, since Christ is the Spirit, we can contact Him as the Spirit within us.

We have a spirit, Christ has become the life-giving Spirit, and He has come in us as the Spirit who gives life; we are now one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17).

Whenever we exercise our spirit and call on the name of the Lord, pray-read His word, and fellowship with Him in prayer, we contact the Lord as the life-giving Spirit, and we receive spirit and life.

Thank the Lord that we have a practical way for us to eat the Lord’s flesh and drink His blood by exercising our spirit to call on the name of the Lord, pray-read His word, and fellowship with Him through prayer and prayerful consideration of His word!

Hallelujah, Christ as the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit! Praise the Lord, as the life-giving Spirit, Christ today is in our spirit, joined to us as one spirit! Wow, Lord, we praise and thank You for being the Spirit who gives life! Thank You for being embodied in Your word so that You may give us life whenever we exercise our spirit in coming to Your word. Hallelujah, we believers in Christ have received Christ as the life-giving Spirit and we can eat Him in His word! Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit today to contact You. We exercise our spirit as we come to Your word so that we may receive spirit and life in the Word. Thank You, Lord, the flesh profits nothing, but the Spirit gives life! Speak to us in Your word. May Your words become living and operative in us to impart spirit and life into our inner being! We take You as our life and life supply, for You are the Spirit who gives life! Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit to eat You in Your word so that we may receive more life!

Call on the Lord and Pray-read His Word to Receive Christ as the Life-giving Spirit

The Gospel of John is the gospel of life; in this Gospel, we see Christ as the God-Savior coming to be incarnated, tabernacle among us, live and express God, speak the Word of God, and give Himself for us so that we may receive Him as life.

What God wants is not just for us to see that we’re sinners and He is holy and righteous, so we need to humble ourselves before Him; there is this aspect, but what God desires is to be food to us, to be our very life and life-supply.

Christ as the Word of God was incarnated to be man, lived a perfect human life, and declared that He came so that we may have life and may have it abundantly (John 10:10).

He also said that He gives His flesh for us to eat and His blood for us to drink; however, the flesh profits nothing – it is the Spirit who gives life.

Then, in the evening of the day of His resurrection, Christ came to His disciples, breathed into them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22).

Before His death and resurrection, the Lord spoke again and again that we need to eat Him, receive Him, believe into Him, and take Him as life.

Now after His resurrection, He came to His disciples and, as the life-giving Spirit, breathed Himself into them as life.

Through His death, the Lord’s human shell was broken, and in His resurrection, He became a life-giving Spirit; He was transfigured into the Spirit.

Today, Christ is no longer in the flesh as He was before His crucifixion; He still has the flesh, but He has been transfigured to be the Spirit who gives life.

We need to realize that Christ today is the life-giving Spirit, and as such a Spirit, He can come into us to regenerate us and even more, to daily and continually impart the life of God into us.

Living the Christian life is a daily matter, and it has nothing to do with our striving and struggling to please God or fulfil His word; it has everything to do with contacting the Lord in spirit and living in the mingled spirit, where Christ lives.

A very simple way for us to contact the Lord as the life-giving Spirit and enjoy Him as life is to call on the name of the Lord.

Whoever says, Jesus is Lord, is in the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3).

We call on the name of Jesus Christ and we receive the Spirit; this shows us that Christ is the life-giving Spirit, for today the Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17).

Jesus is the name we call, and the Spirit is the person we receive, for Christ today is the Spirit.

The Lord Jesus said about this in John 14:26, The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and remind you of all the things which I have said to you. Wow!

So the Lord Jesus was about to go to the Father through His death and resurrection, but He promised that He would send the Spirit, whom the Father will send in His name, and He will return to His disciples as the Spirit to be with them, even to be in them.

This Spirit, the Spirit of reality, whom Christ became through His resurrection, came to dwell in us and to guide us in all things, reminding us of the things that Christ has spoken to us.

The Father sends the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, in the name of the Son, and the Spirit is the person of the Son coming to us to impart the divine life into us.

When we call on the name of the Lord, Oh Lord Jesus! we receive the person of the Spirit who gives life.

When we call on the name of the Lord Jesus, we receive the Spirit, the Spirit who gives life! Amen!

Furthermore, as we read and pray over His word, we feed on the Lord as the Spirit and we receive life.

If we see that Christ is the life-giving Spirit and that this Spirit is embodied in the Word today, we will realize that we can feed on the Lord as the bread of life by coming to the Word of God and pray-reading the Word.

What the Lord gives us today is the Spirit who gives life; this Spirit is the Lord Himself in resurrection, and this Spirit is embodied in the word.

May we daily come to the Lord’s word with our heart turned to Him and our spirit exercised so that we may receive Him as spirit and life!

Amen, may we practice calling on the name of the Lord and pray-reading His word until this becomes our habit and we are persons full of spirit and life!

May we learn to eat the Lord in His word day by day so that we may eat Him as the bread of life and live because of Him!

Lord Jesus, we want to call on Your name and pray-read Your word to receive spirit and life! Amen, Lord, we believe into You and we believe that You have become a life-giving Spirit! Hallelujah, Christ as the life-giving Spirit is in our spirit and He is also embodied in the Word of God! We come to Your word, dear Lord, to eat You and drink You. We want to contact You as the Spirit within us and as the Word without. Oh Lord Jesus, we love to call on Your name! Hallelujah, whoever says, Jesus is Lord, is in the Spirit! Amen, Lord, keep us calling on Your name today! We want to call on Your name to enjoy You and be filled with You! Thank You for being in us, right within us as the Spirit who gives life. We open to You. Impart more of Your divine life into our being. We want to eat You as the bread of life to be nourished with You. We come to You in Your word to eat You. Amen, Lord Jesus, keep us calling on Your name and pray-reading Your word to receive You as spirit and life!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ray Mulligan in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of John, msg. 16 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ (2024 July Semiannual Training), week 7, The Bread of Life.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – Do You Know How to Exercise Your Spirit? More via, Bibles for America blog.
  – Three Foundational Truths and Why They Matter, via, Shepherding Words.
  – The Life-giving Spirit, pdf outline via, LSM webcast.
  – In resurrection Christ as the last Adam becoming the life-giving Spirit and entering into His believers as the Holy Spirit, a portion from, The Economy and Dispensing of God, Chapter 5, by Witness Lee.
  – Remaining in the Indwelling Spirit, via, Living to Him.
  – Christ as the last Adam becoming the life-giving Spirit, a portion from, Enjoying the Riches of Christ for the Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ, Chapter 7, by Witness Lee.
  – Glossa – Christ, the life-giving Spirit, via, Affirmation and Critique.
  – Dealing with the matter of resurrection, a portion from, Life-Study of 1 Corinthians, Chapter 68.
  – Now Christ is the life-giving Spirit, new song via, Hymnal.net.
  – The reproduction of the God-man, a portion from, Life-Study of Luke, Chapter 62.
  – The Last Adam, Christ, Became a Life-giving Spirit, via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – The Last Adam Became a Life-Giving Spirit for Life to bring forth New Jerusalem, via, New Jerusalem blog.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Christ is the Word and Spirit too, / And as the Spirit in the Word; / And all the words He speaks to us / Are life and spirit thus conferred… / When we the Word in spirit touch, / As life the Spirit it becomes; / The Spirit, when expressed from us, / As words of life to others comes. / Our spirit we must exercise / To take the Word most inwardly, / And then to give the Spirit forth; / The two as one with us should be. (Hymns #815 stanzas 1, 5-6)
  – Thy Word in Scripture is expressed, / Thy Spirit, the Indwelling One; / Thy Word is spirit and is life / When to my spirit it doth come. / If I Thy Word would understand, / I must Thy Holy Spirit touch; / Not only grasp it with my mind, / But with my spirit, praying much. (Hymns #802 stanzas 6-7)
  – Life-giving Spirit Thou, as well as Word, / Now e’en the Spirit in the Word Thou art; / When thru the Spirit giv’n, I touch the Word, / Fulness divine to me Thou dost impart. / In Thee I may with God have fellowship, / And thru the Scripture I on Thee may feed; / Thru study of the Word with prayer to God / Thy glorious riches fully meet my need. (Hymns #801 stanzas 4-5)