and having given thanks broke [it], and said, This is my body, which [is] for you this do in remembrance of me.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
In like manner also the cup, after having supped, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood this do, as often as ye shall drink [it], in remembrance of me.
The Lord speaks these words over the cup at the end of a meal. They tie a covenant promised to Israel centuries earlier to His own blood. Why name a covenant here, and why repeat the call to remember Him?
The Lord did not drink the cup He handed over, and what He says over it is a command, not a suggestion.
What the Lord lays down is not only a permission; it is also a command... So too with the cup. Supper was ended, and with it the Master's share in the former things. He hands us the new covenant of life and peace, for each of us to accept, in this new and special cup of blessing. The Master would not drink it... But He cannot drink the cup of the new covenant. His blood is not shed for Himself, but for His saints.
Calling the cup a covenant is a figure of speech. The covenant it names is one a prophet had announced long before.
A "cup" is a common picture in Scripture, where the cup stands for what is in it. "This cup," that is, the wine, "is the new covenant in My blood." The Lord is pointing here in particular to the new covenant promised long ago through Jeremiah. God will make it with His repentant earthly people. Then their sins will be put away, and Jehovah will write His laws in their hearts (Jer. 31:31-34). The foundation blessings of that future covenant with Israel are ours now through the blood of Christ.
Jeremiah announced the covenant but left much unsaid. In the upper room the Lord filled in what was missing for the Twelve, His closest disciples.
At last, in the upper room in Jerusalem, the Lord spoke of it to just the Twelve. He spoke of it in a way that showed heaven had not forgotten it... But He added two important things to what Jeremiah had revealed. First, the covenant would rest on the blood of a sacrifice. Second, that blood was to be His own.
The covenant still awaits Israel. The Lord has already shed the blood it rests on.
The Lord's supper then is to remind us of Christ, of His death; not of our sins but of our sins forgiven and ourselves loved. It is in no way the old covenant of condemnation. It is the new covenant: God known in grace, wrongdoing forgiven, and sins remembered no more. It has not yet been made with the houses of Israel, settled for ever in the land under the reign of Messiah. But the blood that is its foundation has been shed, and we who believe, Jew or Gentile, have it in spirit, not in letter... Of this the cup especially is the pledge.
The Lord did not hand out one emblem but two, and their separation is itself the message.
No mystery surrounds this feast such as men delight to import into it. All is simplicity. It is the simple, but touching, memorial of the death of Christ. The bread speaks of His body — Himself. The cup speaks of His blood — His work. The symbols of the body and the blood are separate, speaking of a dead Christ.
The wine is not blood still flowing in a living body.
And so with the cup "after the supper," who could hesitate about what that cup set forth? He Himself says, "In My blood." It is not the blood in the body but apart, separated from it — that is, in death.
The Lord gives the same instruction over the cup as over the bread, and He points to Himself.
Notice how the instruction, "This do in remembrance of Me", is repeated for the cup as well as for the loaf. The Lord Himself is speaking, so He seeks the remembrance of Himself — "of Me." It is very important to remember that the Lord Jesus Christ is the central figure of this Supper. He is there!
A church can keep the ceremony and still forget the Person.
They had observed the appointed ceremony, but had forgotten Him. They shared the bread and the wine, but the Lord Himself was not before them. They thought only of themselves and of their "own supper".
The verse sets no gap between one Supper and the next.
At the institution of the Supper, the Lord Himself made no restrictions... He laid down nothing about how often to take part. Later He gave a special revelation to the apostle to the Gentiles, and even there He did not fix the gap between one feast of remembrance and the next. His silence on this point tells us with the greatest certainty that He has left it to the love and faithfulness of our hearts.
- Blood — the covenant Jeremiah promised needed a sacrifice, and the Lord said the sacrifice would be His own.
- Cup — the wine stands for that blood, poured out and separate from the body; it sets a death before us, not a living Christ.
- Covenant — its terms are grace, forgiveness, and sins remembered no more, and the cup pledges that its foundation is already laid.
- Reach — the covenant itself still awaits Israel, yet its first blessings are ours now through the blood of Christ.
- Remembrance — the Lord repeats it over the cup and points to Himself: never keep the form and forget Him, and keep it as often as love decides.