But let us carry this thought a little further.  Jesus said to the Jews, “Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man, ye have no life in you.”  By blood here the Lord does not mean natural blood:  he means the blood of the covenant by which we are united with him; the redeeming blood which Peter speaks of in the text.  But we must drink it:  otherwise we have no life in us.  Now how is it possible for any one to drink the blood of Christ?  I will tell you.  Christ’s blood is his life, and he says:  “My words are spirit, and they are life.”  His blood, then, is his Word in its spirit and life.  Now when we believe what he tells us with our heart, and do what he commands us because we love him, we are truly drinking his blood.  When we forsake our sins by turning unto the Lord from a heart-felt faith in his Word and belief of the truth he tells us, we are drinking his blood; his blood, which is his gospel truth, becomes our life.  “And because he lives, we shall live also.”  “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  My word is truth.”  All this and much more is signified by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus.  “Whosoever looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”  God’s truth is called the law of liberty.  Why?  Because it tells men how they may become free.  It redeems them when they obey it.

Peter calls this change from bondage to liberty a new birth.  Notice here in the chapter I read:  “Born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.”  We are naturally born unto sin, into the love of things that please our natural sight, our natural appetites and inclinations.  Through these we love ourselves and the world to a degree that holds us in bondage, a kind of slavery.  This is meant by Paul in these words:  “To whomsoever ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.”  Peter means about the same by these words:  “Of whom a man is overcome, by the same is he brought into bondage.”  And in the book of Hebrews we read of such “who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”  Being born again spiritually, into a new state of heart and life, we are set free from our bondage to sin.  In this newborn state we love to do the will of God, and love the company of good people, and desire to be in the church with the people of God.  The Lord Jesus says:  “If the truth shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”  It is by and through the truth that men are redeemed.  “Verily, verily, he that committeth sin is the servant of sin.”  These are the Lord’s own words.