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The analogy between Christ and corporal meat stands in these three particulars:

1. Sustentation. Corporal meat is for the preservation of the natural life. The natural life is maintained by meat, through the concurrence of God's blessing. It is pabulum vitae. Hence bread, under which all other provision is comprehended, is called the staff of life (Isaiah 3:1). Keep the strongest man from meat but a few days, and the life will extinguish and go out (1 Samuel 30:12). Jesus Christ is the maintainer and preserver of the spiritual life. As He give it at first, so He upholds it. It is by continual influences from Him that the life is kept from expiring. If He withdraw His influx never so little, the soul is at the giving up of the ghost, even half-dead.

2. Vegetation. Corporal meat is good for growth. It is by meat that the body is brought from infancy to childhood, from childhood to youth, from youth to a perfect man. Jesus Christ is He that carries on a Christian from infancy to perfection. All the soul's growth and increase is from Christ. So the apostle, "From Him the whole body having nourishment ministered," etc. (Colossians 2:19), The branches live and increase by virtue of the sap which is derived from the root. Christians grow by virtue of the sap which is to them derived from Jesus Christ. Every part grows by Christ.

3. Reparation. Meat is a repairer of nature's decays. When by some violent sickness the spirits are consumed, the body wasted, the strength lost, meat, fitly and seasonably taken, helps, through the Divine blessing, to recall all again: "his spirit came to him again " (1 Samuel 30:12). Jesus Christ is the repairer of the soul's decays. Sometimes a believer, through the neglect of his duty, through surfeiting upon sin, brings spiritual languishings upon himself; his strength is decayed, his vigour is abated, his pulse beats very weakly, he can scarcely creep in the ways of God. In such a case Jesus Christ recovers him, repairs his breaches, and renews his strength, as in former times, The Psalmist speaks of this: "He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake" (Psalm 23:3). The saints have every day experience of this restoring virtue of Christ.

(Ralph Robinson.)

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KJV: Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.

WEB: Most certainly, I tell you, he who believes in me has eternal life.