At the end of His earthly ministry the Lord Jesus established His table for the believers to remember Him (Matt. 26:26-28). “As they were eating, Jesus took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is My body” (v. 26). The bread of the Lord’s table is a symbol signifying the Lord’s body broken for us on the cross to release His life that we may participate in it. By participating in this life we become the mystical body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27), which is also signified by the bread of the table (1 Cor. 10:17). Hence, by partaking of this bread we have the fellowship of the body of Christ (1 Cor. 10:16).
In Matthew 26:27 the Lord Jesus took the cup, gave thanks, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Drink of it, all of you.” The cup is related to the Lord’s blood, which has redeemed us from our fallen condition back to God and back to God’s full blessing. Concerning the Lord’s table (1 Cor. 10:21), the bread signifies our participation in life, and the cup, our enjoyment of God’s blessing. Hence, it is called the cup of blessing (1 Cor. 10:16). In this cup are all the blessings of God and even God Himself as our portion (Psa. 16:5). In Adam our portion was the cup of God’s wrath (Rev. 14:10). Christ has drunk that cup for us (John 18:11), and His blood has constituted the cup of salvation for us (Psa. 116:13), the cup that runs over (Psa. 23:5). By partaking of this cup we also have the fellowship of the blood of Christ (1 Cor. 10:16).
In Matthew 26:28 the Lord goes on to say, “For this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.” The “fruit of the vine” (v. 29) within the cup of the Lord’s table is also a symbol, signifying the Lord’s blood shed on the cross for our sins. His blood was required by God’s righteousness for the forgiveness of our sins (Heb. 9:22). The Lord’s blood, having satisfied God’s righteousness, enacted the new covenant. In this new covenant God gives us forgiveness, life, salvation, and all spiritual, heavenly, and divine blessings. When this new covenant is given to us, it is a cup (Luke 22:20), a portion for us. The Lord shed the blood. God established the covenant, and we enjoy the cup, in which God and all that is of Him are our portion. The blood is the price Christ paid for us, the covenant is the title deed God made to us, and the cup is the portion we receive from God.
In John 10:10 and 11 the Lord Jesus says, “I came that they may have life and may have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” In these verses two different Greek words are used for life. In verse 10 the Greek word is zoe, which is the word used in the New Testament for the eternal, divine life. In verse 11 the Greek word is psuche, the same word for soul, which means the soulish life, that is, the human life. These verses indicate that the Lord Jesus has two kinds of lives. As a man He has the psuche life, the human life, and as God He has the zoe life, the divine life. He laid down His soul life, His human life, to accomplish redemption for His sheep so that they may share His divine life, the eternal life.
The Lord’s divine life could not be slain. What He laid down and what was slain in His crucifixion was His human life, His soul life. In order to be our Savior, He, as a man, laid down His human life to accomplish redemption for us so that we may receive the divine life. He laid down His soul life in order that we, after being redeemed, may receive eternal life.
When Christ was dying on the cross, He replaced all the offerings (Heb. 10:5-9). The various offerings in the Old Testament are types, prefigures, of Christ. God’s unique will was to send Christ to replace all these offerings. This He did when He offered up Himself once for all (Heb. 10:10). This surely was a great work.
From the time of man’s fall, lambs, sheep, calves, and bulls were used by God’s chosen people as types pointing to Christ, the real Lamb foreordained by God (John 1:29; 1 Pet. 1:19-20). In the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4) God sent forth the Son to come in incarnation to take a human body (Heb. 10:5) that He might be offered to God on the cross (Heb. 9:14; 10:12) to do the will of God (Heb. 10:7). God’s will was that Christ replace all the offerings, which were types, with Himself in His humanity as the unique offering for the sanctification of God’s chosen people (Heb. 10:9-10). Therefore, as the conclusion of His earthly ministry Christ accomplished the great work of replacing all the offerings with Himself.
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