I Was Just Thinking … About the Supper and the Covenant

Remembering the significance of events is important in our culture. So we invent slogans and ceremonies to help us. “Remember the Alamo!” Fireworks on the fourth of July. “Never again!” Memorial Day. God gave the nation of Israel similar ways to remember. The most important of these was the observance of Passover.

The Lord Jesus too was concerned that we, his subjects, correctly remember him and the significant aspects of his death. So he gave us a way to accomplish this remembering called “The Lord’s Supper.” When Paul wrote to correct problems involving the celebration of the supper, he reminded his readers of the instructions the Lord had given him to pass along to the churches he served. They are still relevant for us today. The Lord’s instructions center around the meal that symbolizes our unity with him and with one another, and they highlight both aspects of what he accomplished when he died.

Just as the priest-king Melchizedek brought bread and wine to symbolize God’s fellowship with Abraham,[1] Jesus our priest-king offers us bread and wine to symbolize our fellowship with him in the Kingdom of God, and to celebrate his role in making it possible. “The Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed took bread and, when he had given thanks, he broke it, saying, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this as a way to remember me.’ In the same way he took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, as a way to remember me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”[2]

The first accomplishment the supper highlights is the fact that when Jesus died, he absorbed in his body God’s wrath toward our sin. So now when we break this bread together in the Lord’s Supper, we remember that he bore our sins in his body on the cross. The bread reminds us that God has released us from our guilt. Through this reconciling work God has ceased being hostile toward us.[3] The bread we break symbolizes our participation in the body of Christ. Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.[4]`

But the supper is about more than just the forgiveness of sin. When we drink the cup together, we celebrate the new covenant Jesus inaugurated by shedding his blood. Because forgiveness of sins is secured and available, God offers us a new and significant advantage in this covenant.[5] The good news is that God will give his people a “heart” inclined to obey the covenant’s rules for living. According to Jeremiah, God said, “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers … I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their deity, and they shall be my people.”[6] And through Ezekiel he promised “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.… And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”[7] So the new covenant is better because by it we receive a desire to follow God’s instructions through the work of his Spirit, and then God exerts his supernatural wisdom and power on our behalf. For he becomes “our deity” and we become “his people.”[8]

When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we are engaging in a covenant renewal ceremony. So let us all, regardless of our social status, intellectual capabilities, or cultural background, acknowledge the greatness of Jesus our Lord and recommit ourselves to live worthily of all he does for us.[9] Let us eat together the bread that reminds us of the Lord’s death for our sin. Let us bless and drink the cup that reminds us of our participation in all of the new covenant benefits Christ secured for us with the blood he shed.

[1] Genesis 14:18.

[2] 1 Corinthians 11:23–26.

[3] Ephesians 2:16; 1 Peter 2:24.

[4] 1 Corinthians 10:16–17.

[5] Jeremiah 31:34; the causal clause at the end of the verse applies to the entire promise of the preceding three verses.

[6] Jeremiah 31:32–33.

[7] Ezekiel 36:26–27.

[8] Jeremiah 31:32–34; 32:38–41; Ezekiel 11:19–20.

[9] 1 Corinthians 11:26–29; Ephesians 4:1–6; Philippians 1:27–28; 2 Thessalonians 1:11–12.