“Drink of it, all of you. This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”
These words of our Lord Jesus Christ proclaim the gift of the Lord’s Supper for the forgiveness of sins.
But what makes this covenant “new”? What was the old one? And what exactly is a covenant?
To understand this, let’s go back to Genesis 15 and God’s covenant with Abram (later Abraham). A covenant isn’t merely a promise or contract, it’s actually something deeper.
The original Hebrew word for “making” a covenant actually translates as “cut.”
If you break a promise, you damage trust. If you break a contract, you face legal consequences. But if you break a covenant, blood must be shed because it was cut in blood.
In Genesis 15, God instructs Abram to gather animals and birds, cutting the animals in half and laying out the halves in rows with blood between them. Normally, both parties making a covenant would walk together through that blood. But God puts Abram into a deep sleep and passes through the blood alone.
This means when the covenant between God and man is broken, human blood isn’t sufficient to pay the cost and only God’s blood can redeem us.
This is what Jesus accomplishes on Maundy Thursday.
His blood both pays the penalty for the broken old covenant and cuts the new one.
As God and man united, Jesus walks through blood on his way to Golgotha. He’s flogged and beaten with blood dripping from his face to the ground as he steps forward.
Jesus cuts a new covenant for us. In this covenant, Christ’s words are simple and his burden light: “Take, eat, drink of it, all of you.”
It’s not a command to keep the law perfectly, but simply to receive.
He has given us all that is good including forgiveness of sins in his own body and blood shed for us.
The new covenant in Christ is a beautiful thing. He has forgiven us.
Steve Andrews Jr is pastor of St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Lee’s Summit, MO.
#higherthings #lcms #lutheran #covenant
If you have questions or topics that you’d like discussed on Higher Things, email them to content@higherthings.org
Subscribe to our channel to get notifications when we go live: http://youtube.com/@HTgospel4all
To support the work of Higher Things®, visit https://higherthings.org/morehi/giving/
For more information about Higher Things, go to http://higherthings.org
——
Join the conversation on Social Media:
http://facebook.com/higherthings
http://instagram.com/higherthings
https://www.tiktok.com/@higherthings
