Article June 20, 1908 Issue

Jesus said, "I am the bread of life: he that cometh to...

Rev. G. A. Kratzer

Fitchburg (Mass.) Sentinel

Jesus said, "I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.... but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." A thought contained in these verses may be very simply illustrated. If a man partakes of material food and drink, he is very soon hungering and thirsting after more. But suppose a man learns the multiplication table. Having once thoroughly learned it, it becomes an everlasting possession. He does not hunger or thirst after it any more, because he continually has it, although he may need to apply it now and then to meet certain of his wants. So, when one wakes up to the fact revealed in the Scriptures, that man is the imperishable and changeless likeness of the everlasting God, he has at that time taken into his consciousness a part at least of that eternal truth which is expressed as Christ. This fact, once assimilated in his consciousness, becomes an eternal possession; he does not hunger and thirst it any more, because he constantly has it. Very frequently he may have occasion to apply this truth, this "bread from heaven," to cast errors of sin and sickness out of his consciousness; nevertheless, "he that eateth of this bread shall live forever."

We thus see what the true communion is. It is to acquire that Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus." It is to learn to know what God knows, to love what God loves, to choose what God chooses, and thus to be mentally or consciously at one with God and His Christ. Thus we see that material bread and wine have no offices in the Church except as symbols. And to those who are able to take the higher, spiritual sense of communion, material bread and wine are not necessary. Jesus said, "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." As God expresses or sends forth the truth in the Christ, and the truth or the Christ-idea is, or lives, because it originates in God; so the man whose consciousness feeds on and assimilates this truth, even he mentally lives forever by it. "This is that bread which came down from heaven:... he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever."

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