No words of Scripture are more familiar to the Christian than those describing the institution of the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, as they are variously recorded in the New Testament. Matthew, for example, writes: “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (26:26–28).
The occasion was that Passover feast our Lord so desired to keep with his disciples before he suffered. But the teaching the words contained was not new. A year had passed since the feeding of the five thousand. At that time Jesus had sought most earnestly to point his hearers to the deeper meaning of that mighty work. When they likened the bread received then to the manna, the bread from heaven with which their fathers had been fed in the wilderness, he pointed out that the manna fed only their bodies. They ate of that bread for forty years, but died there in the wilderness for their disobedience and unbelief. “I am,” said Jesus, “the living bread which came down from heaven.” And he added, “If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:51). Then we read that “the Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (John 6:52). It was a strange, even horrible and horrifying doctrine. Yet Jesus repeated it in the most impressive terms: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you” (John 6:53). No statement could be stronger than this. What did it mean?
By his words about the manna Jesus pointed out two things: the close connection between the two Testaments, and the great superiority of the New. This appears clearly in the emphatic words: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat.…” Let us look first at the resemblance. When Jesus spoke of the eating of his flesh, he was—like John the Baptist, who had said of Jesus, “Behold, the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), and like Isaiah, who also had used the figure of the lamb in describing the work of the Suffering Servant—referring his hearers to the ritual of the Passover and also to the sacrifice of the peace offering. At the Passover feast, each household of Israel was to eat of the lamb which had been slain and whose blood was sprinkled at the door of the house. Similarly, when the peace offering was presented, after the Lord’s portion and the priest’s portion had been removed the offerer and his family and friends were to partake of the remainder. In both rites there was the solemn reminder of the forgiveness of sins through the shedding of blood, and also and especially the fact of union and communion with the God of Israel who had ordained these feasts. It was through the shedding of the blood and the partaking of the sacrifice that the believing and obedient Israelite partook of the joy of his Lord. And if these Jews had pondered Jesus’ words in the light of those Old Testament institutions that were so familiar to them, they might have gained at least some intimation of the true meaning of what he said. For he was pointing forward to the Last Supper and to Calvary. It was in them that the types of the Old Testament were to find their true and glorious fulfillment. To eat of his flesh was in Old Testament symbolism to enjoy the benefits of the redemption they received from him.
But now we come to something quite different that seems utterly out of harmony with the types and shadows of the Old Testament. It is the words, “… and drink his blood.” Throughout the whole Old Testament, from Noah (Gen. 9:4) to Malachi (Mal. 4:4), eating with the blood is strictly prohibited. This is most emphatically stated in Leviticus: “And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (17:10, 11). This was the Law, and there is probably no requirement of the Mosaic law that has been more strictly observed by the Jews unto this present day than this. Every Jewish butchershop today with its “kosher” sign is a witness to it. Yet Jesus said to the Jews, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you” (italics added). How are we to understand this seemingly amazing reversal of the law as required by One who has declared that he came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it?
It would be strange that what seems to be so remarkable a change in the New Testament teaching should be made without warning or explanation. This can only mean that the reason will be apparent to us, if we will only seek it. It is not enough to say that the “drinking” commanded in the New Testament is only figurative. What is unlawful in actuality should also be unlawful even as symbol. To “eat the flesh” as used of the partaking of the bread of the Holy Supper is entirely appropriate as a fulfillment of the Old Testament ritual of sacrifice. To “drink the blood” is exactly the reverse of appropriate.
The solution to the problem is apparently to be found in the two different meanings of the word “blood” as it is used in the Old Testament. Basically “blood” means life; the life is in the blood of the one through whose veins it flows. But in the Old Testament ritual of sacrifice, it is the blood that makes atonement for the life of another. Therefore the blood speaks especially of atonement for sin and is sacred. It is the type of the precious blood of Christ, the blood shed once for all on the Cross. The atoning work is done. The blood of bulls and of goats shed on Jewish altars for centuries has had its antitypical fulfillment at Calvary. It is finished, never to be repeated. Consequently, when the believer comes to the Lord’s table, he does not come to an altar of sacrifice to secure forgiveness through the repetition of the sufferings of Christ—that is the tragic error in the Romish sacrament of the Mass; rather, he comes as one who has been forgiven, whose sins have been washed away, to partake of this Christian feast of remembrance, of communion, of union with the risen and all glorious Lord, and of anticipation of his Coming. And the highest expression of this union is found in the new life that the believer has in him. Hence the Apostle declares, “When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:4). Christ our life! Since therefore, as the Old Testament tells us, the life is in the blood, the blood of Christ as symbolized by the cup becomes the most precious sign of the Christian’s union with Christ and of the fact that Christ is truly in him as the hope of glory. And that something forbidden in the Old Testament becomes a most precious symbol in the New indicates how far the reality set forth in the New Testament transcends the types and shadows of the Old.
Perhaps the text of Scripture that most clearly illustrates the truth we are considering is this: “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life” (Rom. 5:10). So for the Christian the “blood of Christ” that is the life of Christ speaks both of atonement and of sanctification, of death and of life, of the passive and of the active obedience of Christ.
