Under the Old Covenant of Moses, all Israel had to eat the lamb during Passover. Should it, then, have seemed so strange to the Jews of Jesus’ day for him to have declared, “You must eat my flesh and drink my blood or you have no life in you” (to paraphrase John 6:53)? John the Baptist had already announced, “Look! The Lamb of God which is taking away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). And by what mechanism, if you please, were sins taken away? Why, by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Lamb of God, for that is agelong life!
That price which he paid, that cost of our liberation from sin, that ransom, we must ingest and let it become an intrinsic, inextricable element of our own body and blood. We are the ones to whom the Son of Mankind paid his ransom price! The precious blood of Jesus belongs rightfully to us who trust him! The Father doesn’t need it. The Devil doesn’t want it. The Law doesn’t claim it. It’s ours, with all its life-making nourishment! We’re alive!!!
The entry of the body and blood of Jesus into our body and blood cleanses us by reversing the necrotic deterioration of our existence toward death. Of course, as Jesus clarified, “the flesh benefits nothing,” literally. Rather, his “declarations are Spirit and are life,” so as we hear and believe and obey all his explanations, promises, and directives, his Spirit is given more room within us to find housing and bear fruit.
Thus our participation in the Master’s Dinner should always be associated with feeding on his Explanations. At the very same service we should be practicing our analyzing and memorizing and reciting of Jesus’ teaching among ourselves. Then we should digest this feast by meditating on this nourishment. Later, we should gather and discuss what the Wholesome Spirit is teaching us through it. Then we should arrange to proclaim and teach what we have learned to all nations, including our own. And, moreover, we should develop plans and programs and methods and institutions to implement God’s desire in every sphere of activity on earth, bringing his Kingdom with power! [5/14/04]
In overcompensating Jesus for the sacrifice of his body of flesh on our behalf, the Father gave him back a much larger body than he gave up. And that’s what we eat in communion…and that’s what we become as a consequence—his new body (!), with his resurrection-life-giving blood coursing through us, cleansing, nourishing and energizing us to do even greater acts than Jesus, who returned to the Father. [5/21/04]
It is well worth contemplating that God’s superabundant graciousness is the divinely demanded rightful overcompensation for the viciousness perpetrated against the whole human race by Satan, the fearsome Alien, but especially against the perfectly innocent and sinless Son of God. Graciousness in exchange for viciousness. Worth pondering. [5/31/04; 9/30/25]
The shedding of Jesus’ innocent blood justified God in avenging him immediately…not by destroying his executioners—the perpetrators—but by actually reversing the sentence and then proclaiming a pardon instead to all who criminally executed him! What graciousness! [9/15/04]
All who put themselves voluntarily under Messiah’s authority by faith benefit from the spoils of his victory over Satan! For he won the right/authority and sovereignty, to give anything which (consequently!) is his to all who are his because they trust him and believe this testimony that God gave about His Son. Thereby we, too, get adopted as sons to inherit allotments in his Kingdom so that we get to live and reign together with him as priests to God on our restored planet! [9/29/04; 9/30/25]
The Premial Atonement 