Discussing Our Differences on the Lord’s Supper

On the night before his arrest and crucifixion, Jesus inaugurated the new covenant by giving bread and wine to his disciples saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Lk 22:19–20). But how are we to interpret these words? When we partake of communion, are we literally feeding on Christ’s body and blood, or is this meal simply a way to celebrate and remember all that Jesus accomplished for us? On this program, we’re continuing to discuss our differences as we continue our series on The Ministry of Word & Sacrament.

SHOW QUOTE

“Covenant meals are replete in the Old Testament. They celebrated and ratified treaties and that was true in Ancient Near Eastern politics. You find that mysterious priest-king from the city of Salem who brought out bread and wine and then pronounced Yahweh’s blessing on Abraham on Genesis 14. The annual Passover festival was a way for Israel throughout their generations to participate in that night of safety in which you pass under God’s sword because of the blood of the lamb on the door post. The prophets also spoke of God’s judgment as the cup of wrath and so we should assume the same covenantal background when Jesus says, ‘This is my body and this is the blood of the new covenant,’ especially when he speaks of his own crucifixion as the drinking of the cup of wrath to its dregs in the place of those for whom he stands as covenant mediator.

“To the Western mind, remembering typically means recollecting or recalling to the mind something that’s absent but nothing could be further from a Jewish conception. For example, in the Jewish Passover liturgy, those who eat the unleavened bread, bitter herbs and roasted lamb, are not merely reminded of the time in which their fathers were liberated and redeemed from slavery. But the meal itself was a means of participating in those defining events so that together with their forebears, those who share in the Passover Seder, invoke the name of their rescuer and deliverer saying, ‘I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of Yahweh.’

“On the night before his arrest and crucifixion, Jesus inaugurated the new covenant by giving bread and wine to his disciples saying, ‘This is my body which is given for you. This cup that is poured out for you as the new covenant in my blood.’ This covenant meal, therefore, was the sign and seal of this new covenant which means that it has binding, legal authority. It is Jesus Christ’s last will and testament. Unlike the covenant made in Sinai in which the people swore, ‘All this we will do.’ In the new covenant, believers simply come as beneficiaries and inheritors of an estate.”

Michael Horton