The Bread and Wine

The Scriptural Context of The New Covenant

Jun 25, 2024

This is the second post from Chapter 4 of Friends With God: Living The Life Of Jesus In Us.

In the first post we saw that God expects us to be a living sacrifice, in the same way that Jesus was our example of living that we should follow. This is expressed by Jesus using the very graphic expression of to eat his flesh and drink his blood.

The Historical Context Of The Bread and Wine

Jesus also used the analogy of eating his flesh and drinking his blood when he instituted the New Covenant:

Jesus took bread, and gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them, (to eat) saying, “This is my body which is given for you: this do (eat this bread) in remembrance of me.”
Likewise, also the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the New Testament (covenant) in my blood, which is shed for you.” (Luke 22:19-20)

This event is also recorded in Matthew 26:26-29, and Mark 14:22-25. These scriptures are why Christians regularly partake of the “Communion” of bread and wine.

The context of when this ceremony was conducted, however, was not a weekly event, as in most Christian churches today, but the annual festival of Passover. (Matt 26:17-20, Mark 14:12-17, Luke 22:7-13)

Passover is first mentioned as a festival that was initiated at the time when God brought Israel out of Egypt. (Exodus 12:1-48) Israel was a slave nation in Egypt, where they were treated very badly, including having their male babies routinely murdered!

It was only by inflicting ten plagues on Egypt that God forced them to allow the Israelites to leave. The final plague was at the Passover, when God passed over Egypt, and every person who was the first born in each family died, unless the family had killed a lamb, put its blood on their door posts, and eaten the lamb that evening.

The Israelites did what God required, and none of their people died in this last plague. However, in every Egyptian house the first born males died, which reflected what the Egyptians had been doing in murdering the male Israelite children.

After this last plague, the Egyptians let the Israelites leave, as they were greatly afraid that everyone in Egypt could be killed by God! (Exo 12:30-33)

The Blood Of The Lamb

On this first Passover, the Israelites were required to eat a sacrificial lamb, in a family meal, inside their houses. On the anniversary every year, on the 14th of Nisan, they were to re-enact this Passover meal, in remembrance of God’s deliverance from Egypt. However, at subsequent Passover meals they were not required to put the blood on their door posts of their houses, as the Lambs were to be slaughtered at the temple, not at their own houses as in the first Passover. (Deut 16:5-7)

The significance of the blood of the Lamb on the door posts at this first Passover is only fully understood in light of the New Covenant Passover, where we are to symbolically drink of the blood of New Covenant.

Blood was not to be consumed in Israel, as it was in the pagan nations. (Deut 12:23-24) They were told not to eat it because “the life of the animal is in the blood”, but, as discussed in this previous post, we are to partake of the blood of Christ which gives eternal life:

Then Jesus says to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you do not have (eternal) life in you.
Whosoever partakes of My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:53-54)

By putting the blood of the Passover Lamb on the door posts and lintel of the houses in the first Passover, Israel was symbolically showing that it is only through being protected by the blood of Christ (which is the New Covenant) that they could be protected from not only physical death, but also be granted eternal life.

Such symbolism inextricably links the Old and New Covenants, showing the continuity of God’s plan for all mankind. All this meaning and deep spiritual significance is totally lost when people partake of the bread and wine outside of the annual Passover on which it is based.

Jesus In The Old Testament

When Jesus kept the festival of Passover, he was commemorating this important event. It was on Passover that Jesus established the New Covenant, at what is commonly called in Christian circles “the last supper”. Yet that term is never used in scripture.

Unleavened Bread was to be eaten at the Passover, and wine was normally consumed with any meal. (Exo 12:8) So Jesus did not change the Passover, but added to its symbolism by identifying the unleavened bread as representing his body, and the wine as representing his blood.

By providing this symbolism for the bread and wine he was incorporating all the food eaten at the Passover meal as being representative of him.

He is the Lamb of God and He is the Bread and the Wine.

Jesus is the complete meal; we don’t need anything else.

In instituting the New Covenant at the Passover meal, Jesus provided a clear statement on the continuity between the Old and New Covenants. And that continuity is the Passover meal.

We are told that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. (Heb 13:8)

We are also told that Jesus was with Israel in the wilderness, and it was he who established the Passover:

And (Israel) did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. (1Cor 10:4)

The Last Supper

The term “the last supper” is not used in scripture. It’s a term that is deliberately used by Christian preachers to hide the fact that this meal, in which the New Covenant was instituted, was the festival of Passover. If you read the scriptures yourself, you will see that clearly enough. (Matt 26:17-20, Mark 14:12-17, Luke 22:7-13)

He told us to keep this annual Passover meal in remembrance of him and his sacrifice, which we should symbolically partake of. (Luke 22:19-20)

To symbolically drink this wine and eat this bread annually at the Passover, is to remember the New Covenant agreement, which we have entered into with Christ. In doing so, we also remember his willingness to lay down his life for us, which he did at the Passover.

Understanding that the Passover is part of the New Covenant highlights the fact that Christians are called to become Spiritual Israel, called out of the world to develop a loving relationship with God as their Father, as was Physical Israel:

For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. (Rom 2:28-29)