Jim,
Great post, thanks for sharing. Here is an excerpt from a book by Jacob Lorber written in the mid 1800's. It gives a great definition of (flesh and blood) and (bread and wine).
 

41. EXPLANATION OF THE LORD ABOUT ‘EATING HIS

FLESH AND DRINKING HIS BLOOD’

NOW the disciples said: “Lord and Master, this lesson that

You gave us can be well understood, but once in

Capernaum where so many people from all regions

around Jerusalem followed You and when You gave a similar

instruction about eating Your flesh and drinking Your blood, it

was clearly a hard teaching, namely for those people who did not

understand Your simple, clear word as it should be understood

according to its true meaning, and that is why many disciples of

that time left You. We ourselves did not understand it at first, but

the innkeeper, who has never been a disciple of You, gave us its

interpretation. And if we now compare that teaching with this one,

it means the same as what You have now very understandably and

very clearly explained to us. Are we right or not?”

[2] I said: “Indeed, because bread and flesh are one and the same,

as well as wine and blood, and whoever will in My word eat the

bread of the Heavens and will drink the wine of life by acting

according to that word, thus by doing the works of the true, most

unselfish love for God and his fellowman, will also eat My flesh

and drink My blood, for as the physical bread that is eaten by men

is changed in man into flesh and the wine that is drank changed

into blood, so will also in the soul of man the bread of My word

be changed into flesh and the wine of the active love be changed

into blood.

[3] But when I say: ‘Whoever will eat My flesh’, then by that is also indicated that he has not only taken My word into his memory

and into his brains, but at the same time also into his heart, which

is – as I already said – the stomach of the soul, and he also did the

same with the wine of the active love, which is by that no more

wine but already the blood of life, because the memory and the

reason of man are in relation to the heart, just like the mouth is in

relation to the physical stomach. As long as the physical bread is

still between the teeth in the mouth it is still no flesh but bread, but

when it is chewed and comes into the stomach and is there mixed

with the stomach juices, then it is, what concerns its fine feeding

particles, already flesh, because it corresponds to the flesh. So also

with the wine or with water, which certainly contains also wine

substances, because without water, which is carried by the Earth to

feed all plants and animals, the grapevine would die. As long as

the wine is kept into the mouth it will not change into blood.

However, in the stomach it very soon will be changed into it.

[4] So whoever hears My word and keeps it into his memory,

keeps the bread in the mouth of the soul. When he seriously begins

to think about it with his reason, he chews the bread with the teeth

of the soul, because the reason is for the soul what the teeth in the

mouth are for the physical man.

[5] When My bread, thus My teaching, is chewed by the reason, or

has been understood and accepted as the full truth, it also has to be

accepted in the heart by the love for the truth, and by the firm will

it has to be changed into deeds. When this happens, then the word

is changed into flesh and by the serious decisive will into blood of

the soul, which is My Spirit in him, without which the soul would

be as dead as a body without blood.

[6] The serious decisive will corresponds to a good digestive

capability of the physical stomach by which the whole body is kept

healthy and strong. When the digestive power of the stomach is

weak, then the whole body is already sick and weak and will even

become sick from the best and purest food.

[7] It is the same for the soul in whose heart the will to transform

the teaching into deeds has become weakened. He does not achieve the full, healthy, spiritual power, is divided, falls easily

into all kinds of doubts and objections, and tastes one time this and

then again another kind of food to see if perhaps that one may have

a better and more strengthening effect. But with that the soul, who

once has become somewhat sick, is still not completely helped.

‘Yes’, you ask yourselves, ‘can a sick soul then not be helped at

all?’ O yes, I say. But how?”

42. THE MEANING OF ACTING

ACCORDING TO GOD’S WORD

LISTEN, when someone has a weak stomach, he once takes a

drink of herbs that is well known to you, by which the

badly digested foods are moved away from the stomach

and the intestines along the well-known natural way. Those badly

digested foods can be compared with the objections that are

absorbed in the soul, namely if he should believe this or that

completely and should act accordingly.

[2] Once the physical weak stomach is cleansed, then what has to

be done to make it strong again and that it should remain strong?

Such a person should become really active, and at the same time

take good exercise in the fresh, pure air. By that, the stomach will

in the first place regain its full and healthy strength. Look, this

is what the soul should do also. He must cleanse his heart of

all false doctrines, wrong notions and ideas. Then he should

absorb the truth as I am teaching you, with love, willfully and in

full faith, and should be busy and active with it, then by that

he will soon become much stronger and also become fully and

permanently healthy.

[3] Therefore, none of you should only be listeners, but should also

seriously and zealously act according to My word. Then in a very

short time all objections and doubts will have disappeared from

his soul.

[4] The physical stomach of the body, being in a healthy, strong

condition, can take up all kinds of clean and if necessary also unclean food into itself without suffering damage, because through

its activity it removes all that is unclean from itself or transforms

it into something clean. And this is also what the strong and

completely healthy stomach of the soul does. And thus for the pure

everything is pure. And even the most impure spiritual stench of

pestilence of Hell cannot cause any damage to him.

[5] When you will completely possess My Kingdom in yourselves,

you will be able to walk over snakes and scorpions and drink

poison from Hell without causing you the least of damage.

[6] If you all have well understood this now and have grasped it,

you will now also perceive according to the full living truth what I

wanted you to understand in Capernaum with ‘eating My flesh’

and ‘drinking My blood’, and from now on you surely will not call

it a hard teaching anymore.

[7] Already in the visible natural world the deeper causes of things

and of many phenomena are so difficult to explain for the pure

human reason in such a way that it can remain free from all

possible errors that feeds the bad superstition, and that it can in

this way walk the way of the truth. How much more difficult will

the pure reason of the brains understand the heavenly spiritual

things, powers, actions and phenomena which are invisible for the

physical eye of man and to make it perceptible for the soul.

[8] Therefore I always say to you: you will only be initiated in all

wisdom related to the spiritual, heavenly life’s conditions and its

power and might when you will be completely newly born in My

Spirit in the manner that I have extensively and clearly shown to

you. And ask yourself now if you also have completely understood

the correct, full truth of all that.”

 

 

Mike M.