The Lord’s Supper

Notes on the Lord’s Supper.

New Passover meal

The foundational Jewish festival that celebrated Israel’s rescued from slavery in Egypt was transformed into a new Passover where a new people would be rescued from sin and death.
As the new Passover lamb, Jesus’s substitutionary role was highlighted. The people of Israel were saved from the destroyer by the blood of a lamb that was slaughtered. Jesus died for the new community so that they would be spared from eternal death.

The term “blood of the covenant” is a reference to the ratification of the covenant between God and Israel at Sinai (Exodus 24:8).
There, the people asserted that “All that Yahweh has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient”, after which Moses sprinkled the blood from burnt offerings and peace offerings on them (Exodus 24:7-8).
- The burnt offering was an atoning sacrifice signifying that the worshiper had surrendered their life to Yahweh and that Yahweh has completely accepted them.
- The peace offering was a meal in which the participants celebrated being at peace with God.
In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul is concerned with the Corinthians participating in ritual meals to “demons”.
- He quotes Deuteronomy 32:17, clarifying that he’s referring to other gods.
- Paul’s point is that participation in the Lord’s Supper means being loyal to God alone, who established a new covenant with us through the blood of Jesus.

Matthew explicitly links the Last Supper with the sin offering with the phrase “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28).
This draws on Leviticus 4:7, which states the priest should pour out the blood of the sin offering at the base of the altar.
Notably, those who made sin offerings were required to confess the sins they had committed (Leviticus 5:5).
- 1 John 1:7-10 captures this idea.

In Luke, Jesus instructed his followers to take the bread and cup, representing his body and blood in “remembrance” of him.
Remembering is not simple recall in the Bible. It means “to be mindful, to pay heed, signifying a sharp focusing upon someone or something. It embraces concern and involvement and is active not passive, so that it eventuates in action”.
When God remembers, he takes action to resolve a situation. God enacted his plan to rescue Israel from Egypt when he remembered.
Israel was instructed to remember how Yahweh rescued them from Egypt during the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Exodus 13:3-10).

The Lord’s Supper was established by Jesus the evening before his death at the celebration of the Passover meal and Feast of Unleavened Bread with his disciples in the upper room of a house in Jerusalem, the Last Supper.
In the context of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), it marks the inauguration of the kingdom of God, a new community that identifies with Jesus’s death which forgives them of their sins.
Paul indicated that the Lord’s Supper is a unifying, communal meal.
In 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, he takes issu with the Corinthian community failing to share their food within one another during their “love feasts” (see Jude 1:12).
It’s “unworthy” to take the Lord’s supper in a context where the wealthy are well-fed and the poor go hungry.
This deepened social stratification in the Corinthian church and therefore when they gathered it was not for the better, but for the worse.
Jesus inaugurated a new community at the Last Supper which was to be united through the rescuing sacrifice of Jesus, together “proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes”.