| The Christian Life | March 1943 |
The Body, the Blood, the Covenant
“This do in remembrance of Me.”—Luke 22:19
WHEN Jesus met with His disciples on that eventful night just preceding His arrest and crucifixion, He instituted what we may now properly speak of as the Memorial Supper, which this year will be celebrated by many of the Lord’s people Sunday evening, April 18. His instructions concerning the manner in which this Memorial should be conducted emphasize three important things; namely, His broken body, His shed blood, and the New Covenant. His body, represented by the bread, He said, was broken for us. His blood, represented by the cup, He invited His followers to drink, and in doing so explained that it was the blood of the New Covenant.
In John 6:51 Jesus is quoted as saying, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Again, in the 54th verse we read, “Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” Thus, the symbolic eating of the body of Jesus and the drinking of His blood, show the manner in which we get life through Him. The whole human race lost life because of sin, and, in the divine program, there can be no remission of sin, hence no life, except through the shedding of blood. It is, furthermore, true that only upon the, basis of the shed blood of Christ can any member of the fallen race be restored to covenant relationship with the Creator.
When Jesus said of the bread which He gave His disciples to eat, “This ‘is’ My body,” He of course meant that it represented His body—not that in some mysterious way, as claimed by the Roman Catholic church, the bread was transformed into His actual body. This particular manner of expression is quite common in the New Testament, yet only in this one instance have distorters of the Word of God attempted to change its real meaning. We have examples in the parable of the wheat and the tares, ‘where Jesus says the field “is” the world, also, that the good seed “are” the children of the Kingdom, and the reapers “are” the angels. (Matt. 13:38,39) Another interesting example of this use of language is that of Revelation 5:8, where we read that the odors “are” the prayers of saints; and in 1st Corinthians 11:25 we read, “This cup ‘is’ the New Testament.” In all of these instances “represent” or “represents” is unmistakably implied, and this is no less true in connection with the Master’s statement concerning the fact that the bread “is” His body, and the cup “is” His blood.
John 6:48 quotes Jesus as saying, “I am that bread of life.” In the following verses He continues to explain, “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.” (Verses 49 and 50) The manner in which the followers of Jesus symbolically eat His flesh and drink His blood is explained by the Master later in this same chapter. His disciples, at the time, found it very difficult to accept this statement, saying, “This is an hard saying; who can hear it?” (Verse 60) The Master, seeing that they were puzzled over what He meant, explained the significance of the symbolism, saying, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”—Verse 63
A proper paraphrase of these words of the Master would be, “When I speak of eating My flesh, do not misunderstand Me to mean My literal flesh, for the eating of that would profit nothing. What I really mean is that the words which I speak unto you, they are spirit and. they are life. That is, if you receive and obey My teachings, it will mean that you are appropriating to yourself the life that is provided through the sacrifice of My humanity.”
To accept, and to be guided by, the teachings of Jesus, involves much. First of all, it implies a recognition of the fact that as members of the fallen race, we are sinners under condemnation to death, hence in order to have favor with God we must repent, and accept the merit of Christ’s atoning blood, but this is not all. There is then the privilege of accepting the Master’s invitation to deny ourselves and take up our cross to follow Him. (Matt. 16:24; 10:38) To carry out the terms of this invitation means the laying down of our lives sacrificially, being planted together in the likeness of Jesus’ death. In no other way can anyone, during this age, eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, and consequently, have the hope of being raised up with Him in the first resurrection, at the “last day.”—John 6:54; Romans 6:3-5
The Broken Body
Jesus broke the bread which, He said, represented His body. Thus we have illustrated the thought that His humanity has life-giving value to us only by virtue of the fact that it was broken, or sacrificed, in death. “My flesh … I give for the life of the world,” Jesus said. Had He not given His flesh in death, neither the church nor the world could have received life. Therefore when, on the night of the Memorial Supper, we partake of the broken bread, it pictures more than the glorious fact of the Master’s own sacrificed life, which we are, by faith, appropriating to ourselves. In addition to this, it is a reminder of our own privilege of being broken, or sacrificed, with Him; that is, of being planted together in the likeness of His death. The Apostle Paul tells us about this further significance in 1st Corinthians 10:16, where we read, “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?”
The word “communion” in this text is a translation of the Greek word koinonia, which, according to Prof. Strong, signifies “partnership.” Here, then, is the fuller and very precious meaning of the bread to us, namely, that it represents our partnership in the sacrificial work of Christ. This being true, it is appropriate that when we partake of the symbolic bread, we not, only do so with the spirit of thankfulness for what the Master has done for us, but with renewed determination that we will continue to show our appreciation by greater zeal in following His example of sacrifice faithfully until the end of the way is reached in death.
The Blood
The Memorial cup symbolizes the shed blood of the Redeemer, and when the Scriptures tell us that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins, we are again given a further symbolic use of language in that shed blood itself is symbolic of life poured out, or sacrificed. “The blood is the life.” (Deut. 12:23) Of Jesus we read in Isaiah 53:12 that “He hath poured out His soul [life] unto death.” As in the case of the Master’s broken body, the merit of His blood, or life, is in the fact that is was sacrificed, or poured out. It is, in fact His perfect life as a human being, poured out in death, that becomes a substitute for the condemned life of Adam. “As in Adam all die,” explains Paul, “even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (I Cor. 15:22) No one could have been made alive in Christ but for the fact that He poured out His life in sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.
Early in the Scriptures, God began to indicate the necessity for the shedding of blood as a prerequisite to the redemption and recovery of man from the result of sin. Soon after the disobedience of our first parents and the pronouncement upon them of the sentence “Dying thou shalt die,” God calls our attention in a pictorial way to the fact that an atonement for sin would ultimately be made through the shedding of blood. His statement that the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head, was a veiled way of saying that in some manner the result of the tragedy that had just occurred in Eden would be set aside, and that the sentence of death there imposed upon our first parents would be removed. It was shortly after this that God, by emphasizing so definitely His approval of the flesh and blood sacrifice of Abel, began to illustrate the vital truth later to be clearly enunciated, that without the shedding of blood there could be no remission of sins.—Heb. 9:22
Isaac a Type
Sometime after the flood, in His dealings with Abraham, God again gives us a reminder of the necessity for the shedding of blood in order that His promised blessings to all mankind may be realized. He does this in connection with His request to Abraham to offer up his son, Isaac, in sacrifice. When Abraham demonstrated his faith in God by showing his willingness to offer up his son as requested, an angel of the Lord intervened, and a lamb was provided for sacrifice as a substitute for Isaac. (Gen. 22:13) In this experience Isaac represents Christ, and also the church, who suffer and die with Him, for the apostle says, “Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.” (Gal. 4:28.) The lamb that was substituted for Isaac on the altar would, therefore, first of all, represent Jesus who, as the Lamb of God, “taketh away the sin of the world,” and also His body members who, according to the apostle, like Isaac, are the children of the promise, because they, too, lay down their lives in sacrifice. —John 1:29; Rom. 12:1,2
The Passover Lamb
Then we have the shed blood of the Passover Lamb as a further reminder of the importance of the sacrifice of life as a basis for God’s program for the deliverance of the church and the world from the thralldom of sin and death. The significance of the Passover Lamb is very closely associated with the Memorial Supper celebration as instituted by Jesus. It was while Jesus and His, disciples were met together in the upper room to partake of the Passover Supper, commemorating the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb, that He instituted the Memorial for His followers. The Memorial Supper, however, is not a continuation, in a new form, of the original Passover Supper as celebrated by the Jews, because in God’s sight the necessity for the continuance of this ceremonial ceased when Jesus, the real Passover Lamb, was slain. The Memorial Supper, on the other hand, is in memory of the death of the antitypical Passover Lamb, and a reminder of the church’s partnership in His suffering and death.
The blood of the passover lamb figured very prominently in connection with the deliverance of God’s people from slavery in Egypt. This deliverance foreshadowed the deliverance of all mankind from sin and death. However, those in Israel who were immediately affected by the blood of the passover lamb, were the firstborn. These firstborn ones were delivered from death by virtue of the fact that they were under the protection of the blood of the passover lamb. In the 12th chapter of Hebrews the apostle identifies the church of Christ as the antitypical firstborn class. (Heb. 12:23) The Scriptures show that through this church of the firstborn, under the leadership of their Head, Christ Jesus, deliverance from death is to come to all mankind, hence in the type of the Passover and Exodus we find that following the deliverance of the firstborn on the night of the passover, all Israel was delivered, foreshadowing the promised and yet future deliverance of the world.—I John 2:2; Rom. 8:17,19,21,22
In 1st Corinthians 5:7,8, we read, “Christ our Passover [Lamb] is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast.” It is as members of the antitypical firstborn class that we can appreciate the value of Christ’s blood as a protection from death. When, on the night of the Memorial Supper, we partake of the cup, which symbolizes the blood, it is, therefore, in appreciation of our need of such protection, and of all the blessings of divine grace that are thereby vouchsafed to us. And what marvelous blessings! We marvel, indeed, when we think of the love which takes hold of us as sinners condemned to death, and through the merit of the shed blood of the Redeemer, cleanses us from sin, and invites us to present our redeemed bodies in sacrifice, with the assurance that they will be holy and acceptable unto God.
As we contemplate this richness of divine grace, and partake of the Memorial cup which symbolizes it, we are reminded further that in addition to the fact, that we receive life through the shed blood, we are also privileged to lay down life, acceptable to God through its merit. Thus, when Jesus invited His disciples to partake of the symbolic cup which represented His blood, it was an invitation not only to themselves partake of the life-giving virtues of that blood, but also to participate with Him in the sacrifice which it represented. The Apostle Paul confirms this, saying, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?” (I Cor. 10:16) Here again the Greek word, koinonia, meaning partnership, is used. By its use, the apostle is telling us that in drinking of the Memorial cup we symbolize the partnership which we have in the sacrificial work of Christ.
Under the Jewish law, it was unlawful to drink blood, the penalty therefore being death. We see, then, that when Jesus invited His disciples to drink His blood, as represented by the cup, it was an invitation to do that which would result in their death. The full significance of this, however, can be appreciated only when we realize that as members of the Adamic race the followers of Jesus were by nature under condemnation to death, and had no life which they could lay down sacrificially. This means that in order to have life which we can sacrifice, we must, first of all, appropriate to ourselves the life of Christ, as represented in the cup.
By doing this, we can be “crucified with Christ.” The term “crucifixion” symbolizes the thought of dying. Were it not for the life of Christ, which by faith we appropriate to ourselves, there would be no way for us to die except as condemned sinners in Adam. But because we drink of Jesus’ blood, and therefore have His life in us, we can, from the divine standpoint, die sacrificially with Him. Paul confirms this, saying, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”—Gal. 2:20
That which is symbolized by the drinking of Christ’s blood, namely, the double thought of receiving life from Christ, and also sacrificing life with Him, is explained by Jesus when He said, “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and for the Gospel’s, the same shall save it.” (Mark 8:35) Our hope of future life with Christ in the Kingdom is, therefore, dependent upon our faithfulness now in laying down our redeemed human life with Him. This is further emphasized by Paul in Romans 8:10, where we read, “And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of [Greek, ‘for’] sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”
The death of the body because of sin referred to in this text is not the Adamic death under condemnation because of sin. If so, it would read, “If Adam be in you, the, body is dead because of sin.” If we have the life of Christ in us, the body is dead because, in answer to the call, we have presented it as a living sacrifice to God. (Rom. 12:1.) By thus presenting our bodies, reckoned alive through the indwelling life of Christ, we are authorized by the inspired apostle to “reckon” ourselves as being dead unto sin, that is, as a sin-offering, even as Jesus died unto sin, or as a sin-offering. Note further on this point the words of Paul in Romans 6:10,11, “For in that He died, He died unto sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
It should be observed in the passage just quoted, that our death unto sin is explained to be the same as was Jesus’ death unto sin, which was that of an offering for or on account of sin. We know that in our flesh dwelleth no good thing which God could consider an acceptable sacrifice to Him, but the depth of this precious truth is made understandable by the apostle’s explanation that it is merely something that we are authorized to “reckon” thus to be so. (Rom. 7:18) Being thus authorized to reckon ourselves as dying sacrificially for sin, we should not hesitate to accept the Scriptural philosophy of the church’s share in the sacrificial work which is associated with the recovery of man from death.
The Blood of the Covenant
When Jesus invited the disciples to partake of the cup at that first Memorial Supper, explaining not only that it represented His blood, but also that this blood was the blood of the New Covenant, He was saying, in effect, that His blood constituted the basis upon which all the willing and obedient of mankind were to be brought into covenant relationship with Him during the thousand years of His coming Kingdom. It was appropriate that Jesus should thus explain the ultimate objective of His sacrificial work which precedes the covenant, and that His followers would be co-workers with Him as mediators of that covenant during the thousand years in which it is being made effective.
In Jeremiah 31:31-34, we are given the promise of the New Covenant, and told with whom it is primarily to be made. Here it is also explained that the covenant will be made at a time when it will no longer be said, “The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” (Jer. 31:29,30) This clearly shows that the period for the making of this covenant with the people is during the Millennial Age.
In making this promise of the New Covenant God explains that it takes the place of the original Law Covenant made with His typical people Israel, which covenant they failed to keep. This warrants us in thinking of the covenant as being typical of the New Covenant. As Moses was the mediator of the Law Covenant, Christ, Head and body, will be the mediator of the New Covenant. Prior to the inauguration of the typical Law Covenant, Moses sacrificed animals in order to provide blood for the sealing of that covenant. Prior to the inauguration of the New Covenant, Christ provides blood for its sealing, therefore, the blood of Christ is the blood of the New Covenant. But we must keep in mind that first of all, the church drinks that blood, or appropriates His life, in order that they might become co-sacrificers with Him, and thus together with Him be able ministers or servants of the covenant.—II Corinthians 3:6
In the entire lesson of the typical and antitypical covenants, and the church’s part therein, as set forth by the apostle in II Corinthians 3:3-12, our relationship to the New Covenant is made very clear. In the third verse the apostle compares the tables of stone on which the Law Covenant was written, with the fleshly tables of our hearts on which the law of the New Covenant is written. A moment’s reflection on the fact that the law of the typical covenant was written on those tables of stone before the covenant itself was established with the people, should be sufficient to convince us that the antitypical covenant cannot be inaugurated until the antitypical tables of stone, namely, the church, are prepared to appear with Christ in glory—as was represented by Moses coming down from the Mount bearing the typical tables of stone.
From this standpoint, we can see that the work of this Gospel age is the writing of God’s law in the hearts of those who, in glory with Christ, are to serve as “able ministers” of the New Covenant. This does not mean that the church is developed under that covenant, but rather is now being prepared to administer the laws of the covenant. Thus, when Jesus invited His disciples to drink of the cup which represented the blood of the New Covenant, He was inviting them to participate in the sacrificial work preparatory to the establishment of that covenant. The blood is therefore seen to be the meritorious thing which not only makes acceptable the sacrificial work of the church, but in doing this, prepares the way for giving life to all mankind by bringing them, during the thousand years of the mediatorial Kingdom, into covenant relationship with the Heavenly Father.
Further Confirmation
A further confirmatory explanation of the two-fold manner in which the blood of Christ prepares for—and ultimately takes away—the sin of the people under the terms of the New Covenant, is set forth in Hebrews 9:14,15. Although Paul’s lesson in this 9th chapter of Hebrews has often been misapplied to prove that the church is now under the New Covenant, a close analysis of these two verses definitely refutes this thought, and at the same time shows why Paul mentions the New Covenant as a part of his effort to establish the faith of the back-sliding Hebrews to whom and for the benefit of whom this epistle was written.
Paul wanted the Hebrews to realize that all the promises which God made to the House of Israel, including the promise of the New Covenant, would be fulfilled through Christ, and by virtue of His shed blood. He wanted them also to realize that as brethren of Christ and members of a priesthood over which He was the Head (Heb. 3:1) they, first of all, could have their sins purged away, and thus be made acceptable sacrifices to God. Verses 14 and 15 of the 9th chapter read, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause He is the Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.”
Note the declaration of the 14th verse, namely that the offering of Jesus, which, of course, is represented by His shed blood, is efficacious “to purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” According to 2nd Corinthians 3:6, this “service” of the living God is as servants of the New Covenant, and we can be acceptable servants of the New Covenant, as Paul shows, through the blood of Christ. Now notice verse 15 (Heb. 9) which follows, “and for this cause.” That is, for the purging of sins, as in the 14th verse, “He is the Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” The lesson here is plain. Not only does the blood of Christ purge the church so that its members can be acceptable servants to God, but for this same cause, namely, the purging of sins, Jesus will mediate the New Covenant, in order that transgressions under the first covenant may also be purged. Thus, those who were called under that covenant may receive the fulfillment of the promise of eternal inheritance.
That this 15th verse is not describing blessings of the church under the New Covenant, should be obvious, for the reason that the followers of the Master are not those that transgressed under the old covenant. The expression “those which are called,” is a reference to the natural House of Israel, who were a called-out people, called to receive, as Paul says, an eternal inheritance. In Romans, the 11th chapter, verse 29, Paul speaks of this in connection with the natural House of Israel, saying, “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” In this same chapter Paul also says that the promise of Jeremiah 31, to the effect that God would take away the sins of Israel under the New Covenant, will be fulfilled following the time when “the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.” We quote, “There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is My Covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.” (Romans 11:26,27) In Hebrews 9:15, therefore, the apostle is explaining that the blood of Christ which first purges the church, is the same blood that will later accomplish the fulfillment of God’s promises concerning the taking away of Israel’s sins when He establishes a New Covenant with them—and all of this because the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
The more we study the words of the Master to His disciples on that last Passover night, the more we should be impressed with the depth and breadth of meaning contained in the Memorial emblems. The fact that they represent the broken body and shed blood of Jesus on behalf of His church and the whole world, should call forth from us the deepest expressions of gratitude for the divine love that is thereby revealed to us. What divine mercy, indeed, is thus manifested on behalf of a sin-cursed and dying world, and what a privilege is extended to us who believe, in accepting the invitation, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”—Romans 12:1
As we appreciate the significance of this invitation to lay down our lives with that of the Master, we realize the additional symbolism of the bread and the cup, namely, our share in Christ’s sacrifice. Not only do they represent that which divine love has provided for us, but the opportunity of reciprocating with the little we have, in the assurance that God accepts our sacrifice as a part of Christ’s. Yes, the bread and the cup picture our share in the better sacrifices of this age which are leading up to the blessing of all mankind by and by. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!”—Romans 11:33