Dr Paul Allen

  Jesus repeats the truth of v. 51c, but now puts it in a conditional form: unless you can eat the flesh of the Son of Man … you have no life in you. Verse 54 puts the same truth positively, Whoever eats my flesh … has eternal life ; and again, Jesus promises to raise such a person up at the last day. In addition to the repetition of a basic theme, several fresh points are added. (1) The one whose flesh is eaten bears the title the Son of Man (cf. notes on 1:51; in this discourse, vv. 27, 62). In one sense, he is simply a man, i.e. someone with flesh and blood; but he is also the one on whom God has set his seal of approval (v. 27), the bread from heaven, the one who descends and then ascends ‘to where he was before’ (v. 62). ‘Son of Man’ is thus a title that speaks of Jesus as the man where God is supremely revealed, and the flesh of this ‘Son of Man’, unlike the flesh of any other, must be eaten if one is to gain eternal life. (2) The words and drink his (my) blood are added ...

Of all the misconceptions we have about Heaven, which is the most destructive? That’s a difficult and important question to tackle. Once, while preaching about the New Earth, I cited passages about feasting together in our resurrection bodies. Afterwards, a veteran Bible student asked if I believed we would eat and drink in the afterlife. I told him yes since Jesus said so. Visibly shaken, he replied, “Engaging in physical activities in heaven sounds terribly unspiritual.” Standing there with a body God promised to raise, he was repulsed by the thought of living forever as a physical being in a material world. And he’s not alone. Many Bible-believing Christians would die before denying the doctrine of the resurrection—yet they don’t fully believe it. I’ve dialogued with lifelong evangelicals who don’t understand what resurrection means. They really believe they will spend eternity as disembodied spirits. God’s revelation concerning the resurrection and the New Earth—our forever home—el...