Jesus said, I am the living bread, which cometh down out of heaven; if anyone eat of this bread he shall live forever; and the bread which I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews, therefore, strove one with another, saying, How can this one give His flesh to eat? Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood ye shall not have life in yourselves. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day; for My flesh is truly food, and My blood is truly drink. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me and I in him. This is the bread which cometh down out of heaven (John 6:51-58). It is clearly evident that "flesh" here means the own [proprium] of the Lord's Divine Human, which is the Divine good of the Divine love, and is that which is called in the Holy Supper the body. (That the "body" there, that is, the "flesh," is the Divine good, and the "blood" is the Divine truth, may be seen above, n. 329.) And as "bread and wine" have the same signification as "flesh and blood," "bread" meaning the Divine good, and "wine" the Divine truth, therefore these were commanded in place of flesh and blood. [3] Divine good from the Lord was signified also by the flesh of the sacrifices that Aaron, his sons, and those who sacrificed, and others who were clean, might eat:

And that this was holy (may be seen in Exod. 12:7-9; 29:31-34; Lev. 7:15-21; 8:31; Deut. 12:27; 16:4);

Consequently if an unclean person ate of that flesh he would be cut off from his people (Lev. 7:21). That those sacrifices were called bread (Lev. 22:6-7). That that flesh was called the flesh of holiness (Jer. 11:15; Hag. 2:12), And the flesh of the offering, which was to be upon the table in the Lord's kingdom (Ezek. 40:43). The Lord's Divine Human is also called "flesh" in John:

The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father (John 1:14). [4] That "flesh" signified also the good with man can be seen from the following passages. In Ezekiel:

I will give them one heart, and I will give a new spirit in the midst of you, and I will take away the heart of stone out of their flesh, and I will give them a heart of flesh (Ezek. 11:19; 36:26). "Heart of flesh" means the will and love of good. In David:

O God, Thou art my God, in the morning I seek Thee; my soul thirsteth for Thee; my flesh longeth for Thee in a land of drought and weariness without waters (Ps. 63:1). In the same:

My soul longeth for the courts of Jehovah; my heart and my flesh cry out unto the living God (Ps. 84:2). The "flesh" that longeth for Jehovah, and that crieth out unto the living God, signifies man as to good of the will, for the "flesh" of man corresponds to the good or evil of his will, and the "blood" to the truth or falsity of his understanding; here "flesh" means the good of the will, because it longeth for Jehovah and crieth out unto God. [5] In Job:

I have known my Redeemer, He liveth, and at the last He shall rise upon the dust; and afterwards these things shall be encompassed by my skin, and from my flesh I shall see God (Job 19:25-27). To see God from one's flesh signifies from one's own voluntary made new by the Lord, and thus good. In Ezekiel:

Upon the bones seen in the midst of the valley, I will put sinews, and I will cause flesh to come up upon them, and I will cover them with skin, and I will give spirit unto them that they may live (Ezek. 37:6, 8). Here, too, "flesh" signifies what is one's own [proprium] of the will made new by the Lord, and thus good. What "bones" and the rest signify here may be seen above (n. 418, 419, 665). In Revelation:

Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God, that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of commanders of thousands, and the flesh of the mighty, and the flesh of horses and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all, free and bond, small and great (Rev. 19:17-18; Ezek. 39:17-19). That "flesh" here does not mean flesh but goods of every kind, is clearly evident. [6] But on the other hand, that "flesh" signifies man's own voluntary, which regarded in itself is evil, is evident from the following passages. In Isaiah:

They shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm (Isa. 9:20). In the same:

I will feed thine oppressors with their own flesh (Isa. 49:26). In Jeremiah:

I will feed you with the flesh of their sons and with the flesh of their daughters; and they shall eat every man the flesh of his companion (Jer. 19:9). In Zechariah:

The rest shall eat everyone the flesh of another (Zech. 11:9). In Moses:

I will chastise you sevenfold for your sins, and ye shall eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters (Lev. 26:28-29). [7] In Jeremiah:

Cursed is the man who trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm (Jer. 17:5). Here "flesh" signifies what is man's own [proprium] which in itself is evil; to appropriate this to oneself is signified by eating and feeding upon it. Again, "flesh" signifies what is man's own [proprium] in Matthew:

Jesus said, Blessed art thou, Simon, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee (Matt. 16:17). In John:

As many as received, to them gave He power to become sons of God, who were born, not from bloods nor from the will of the flesh, but from God (John 1:12-13). In Ezekiel:

Jerusalem committed whoredom with the sons of Egypt her neighbors, great in flesh (Ezek. 16:26). In Isaiah:

Egypt is man and not God, and his horses are flesh and not spirit (Isa. 31:3). In John:

It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing (John 6:63). In the same:

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is begotten of the spirit is spirit (John 3:6). In David:

God remembered that they were flesh, a breath that passeth away and returneth not (Ps. 78:39). The evil of man's will, which is what is his own [proprium] from birth. is what is signified in these passages by "flesh"; also by:

The flesh that the sons of Israel lusted after in the desert, and on account of which they were smitten with a great plague, and from which the place was called graves of lust (Num. 11:4-34). Moreover, in the Word the expression "all flesh" is frequently used as meaning every man (as in Gen. 6:12, 13, 17, 19; Isa. 40:5, 6; 49:26; 66:16, 23, 24; Jer. 25:31; 32:27; 45:5; Ezek. 20:48; 21:4, 5; and elsewhere).

(Continuation respecting the Word)

[8] The spiritual by influx presents what is correspondent to itself in the natural, in order that the end may become a cause, and the cause become an effect, and thus the end through the cause may present itself in the effect as visible and sensible. This trine, namely, end, cause, and effect, is given from creation in every heaven. The end is the good of love, the cause is truth from that good, and the effect is use. That which produces is love, and the product therefrom is of love from good by means of truth. The final products, which are in our world, are various, as numerous as the objects are in its three kingdoms of nature, animal, vegetable, and mineral. All products are correspondences. [9] As this trine, namely, end, cause, and effect, exists in each heaven, there must be in each heaven products that are correspondences, and which in form and aspect are like the objects in the three kingdoms of our earth; from which it is clear that each heaven is like our earth in external appearance, differing only in excellence and beauty according to degrees. Now in order that the Word may be full, that is, may consist of effects in which are a cause and an end, or may consist of uses, in which truth is the cause and good is the end and love is that which produces, it must needs consist of correspondences; and from this it follows that the Word in each heaven is like the Word in our world, differing only in excellence and beauty according to degrees. What this difference is shall be told elsewhere.