Here at LifeWay, we come together and have communion as a body of Christ, once a month. We do this in remembrance of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. During communion, we firstly eat the bread. Then secondly, we drink from the cup. When we take the cup each month, however, have you noticed that Billy, more often than not, recites from Luke 22.20? He says, “Jesus took a cup and said, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.’” What does this mean? What is the new covenant? Why did Jesus bring it up right then? And how is the cup the new covenant in his blood?
If Jesus mentioned about a new covenant, then does that mean there was an old covenant? Yes, it does. Was the old covenant referring to the covenant God made with the Israelites long ago in the Old Testament? Yes, again. God commanded the Israelites to keep the commandments under the old covenant, and to obey them. As long as the they continued to do this, they would be within God’s blessing and safe. God would protect them. But if they failed to keep, and obey the old covenant, they would be outside of God’s blessing. Israel would perish.
Deuteronomy 30.15–16
See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
Keeping and obeying God’s commandments was not a walk in the park for the Israelites. It was hard work. Very soon, the Israelites realized it was not only hard work, but impossible work. The Israelites failed again and again. No one could measure up to God’s standards. Then one day came the new covenant. Not that the old covenant was no more, and we never have to bring it up again. But the old covenant was fulfilled in Christ. Did you catch what I said? Everything that the Israelites were unable to keep and obey under the old covenant, Christ fulfilled them all. Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Some Christians say that the old covenant is obsolete, and irrelevant, therefore we, living in the 21st century, don’t need to understand it. By no means! Let it be not so! Understanding the old covenant is of paramount importance. Christians of every generation need to understand it. The covenant showed us that while the Israelites found it impossible to keep all the commandments under the old covenant, we have a Savior who fulfilled all of it. For argument’s sake, if God were to skip over the old covenant he made to the Israelites, and jumped to send Christ to atone for sin, something would be taken away from us. We would not capture all that is in Christ that we were meant to capture. Something of great significance would be missing in you and me.
The new covenant is that faith in the shed blood of Christ brings forgiveness of sin. While the old covenant was based on keeping the commandments, the new covenant is based on faith. The new covenant is many other things. For example, while the old covenant was a conditional covenant, the new covenant is unconditional. While the old covenant required the Israelites to offer repeated sacrifices, the new covenant is sufficient to atone for sin once and for all. For many reasons indeed, the new covenant is a “better” covenant than the old covenant.
Galatians 3.24–26
So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.
But how is the cup that Jesus lifted during the Last Supper with his disciples the new covenant in his blood? To answer this question, allow me to take you back to the Old Testament. There was one day during the exodus when Moses gave the Lord’s commandments to the Israelites, and they replied with one voice, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.” Moses read the Book of the Covenant to them, and they replied a second time, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” The Bible said at this moment, Moses took the blood from the sacrificed oxen, and sprinkled it over the people, and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” In other words, the blood of the oxen sealed and inaugurated the old covenant between the Israelites and the Lord. Many years later one day, Jesus said to his disciples, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.’” In the same way the old covenant was sealed and inaugurated by oxen blood, the new covenant would be sealed and inaugurated, not by animal blood, but this time, by the actual blood of Christ himself.
This Sunday, when Billy says, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (and I am pretty sure he will say it again), he means that the cup we hold up symbolizes the shed blood of Christ that sealed and inaugurated the new covenant that brings forgiveness of all sin. We drink from this cup in remembrance of Christ’s excellent work on the cross, and we proclaim Christ’s death until he returns. Thank you, God. Hallelujah, What a Savior!