And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words.
~ Exodus 24:7-8
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.
~ Leviticus 17:11
As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water.
~ Zechariah 9:11
After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
~ 1 Corinthians 11:25
Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
~ Matthew 20:28
This Is My Blood Shed for Many, by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. 1887. The following contains an excerpt from his sermon.
For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
—Matthew 26:28
The Lord Jesus Christ was then alive, sitting at the table; yet pointing to the cup filled with red wine, He said, “This is my blood, which is shed for many.” This proves that He could not have intended that the wine was literally His blood. Surely it is no longer necessary to refute the gross and carnal dogma of transubstantiation, which is obviously absurd. There sat the living Lord at the supper with His blood in His veins; therefore, the wine could not literally be His blood. Value the symbol, but to confound it with the thing symbolized would draw into the idolatrous worship of a piece of bread.
Our Lord spoke of His blood as shed when as yet the nails had not pierced His hands and feet, and the spear had not broached His side. Is not this to be accounted for by the fact that our Lord was so taken up with the thought of our redemption by His death that He speaks of that as done, which He was so resolved to do? Enjoying loving intercourse with His chosen disciples, He spake freely; His heart did not study accuracy so much as feeling; so, in speech as in feeling, He antedated His great work of atonement and spoke of it as done. To set forth the future intent of the blessed ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, He must treat His death as an accomplished fact; and His complete absorption in His work made it easy and natural for Him to do so. He ignores moods and tenses; “his work is before him” (Isa 40:10; 62:11).
By the use of such language, our Lord also shows us the abiding presence of the great sacrifice as a power and an influence. He is the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8), and therefore He speaks of His blood as shed. In a few hours, it would be literally poured forth; but long ages before, the Lord God had regarded it as done. In full confidence in the great Surety that He would never draw back from the perfect fulfilment of His engagements, the Father saved multitudes in virtue of the future sin offering. He communed with myriads of saints on the strength of the purification that would, in the fulness of time, be presented by the great High Priest. Could not the Father trust His Son? He did so, and by this act set us a great example of faith. God Himself is in very deed the Father of the faithful, seeing that He Himself reposed the utmost confidence in Jesus, and because of what He would yet do in the pouring out of His soul unto death, He “opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.” What, my soul! Canst thou not trust the sacrifice now that it has been presented? If the foresight of it was enough for God, is not the consummation of it enough for thee? “Behold the Lamb of God” (Joh 1:29, 36), Who even before He died was described as taking away the sin of the world. If this was so before He went to Calvary, how surely is it so now that He has said in verity and truth, “It is finished” (Joh 19:30)!
Dear friends, I am going to preach to you again upon the corner-stone of the gospel. How many times will this make, I wonder? The doctrine of Christ crucified is always with me. As the Roman sentinel in Pompeii stood at his post even when the city was destroyed, so do I stand to the truth of the atonement though the church is being buried beneath the boiling mud-showers of modern heresy. Everything else can wait, but this one truth must be proclaimed with a voice of thunder. Others may preach as they will, but as for this pulpit, it shall always resound with the substitution of Christ. “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal 6:14). Some may continually preach Christ as an example, and others may perpetually discourse upon His coming to glory: we also preach both, but mainly “we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1Co 1:23-24).
You have before you a cup filled with wine, which Jesus has just blessed and presented to His disciples. As you look into its rosy depths, hear Him speak of the cup as His blood; for thus He would teach us a solemn lesson.
Note, first, the importance of the precious blood of Christ. The vital importance of the great truth of the death of Christ as a [substitutionary] sacrifice is set before us in this cup, which is the memorial of His blood shed for many.
Blood represents suffering, but it goes further and suggests suffering unto death. “The blood is the life thereof” (see Gen 9:4; Lev 17:14); and when blood is too copiously shed, death is suggested. Remember that in the sacred supper you have the bread as a separate emblem of the body, and then the wine as a separate symbol of the blood; thus, you have a clear picture of death, since the blood is separated from the flesh. “As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death” (1Co 11:26). Both acts are essential.
You are invited to fix your attention upon the death of Christ, and upon that only. In the suffering of our Lord unto death, we see the boundless stretch of His love. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Joh 15:13). Jesus could not be more loving to us than to yield Himself unto death, even the death of the cross. O my Lord, in Thy bloody sweat, and in the piercing of Thy hands, feet, and side, I see the highest proof of Thy love! Here I see that Jesus “loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). Beloved, I beg you to consider often and lovingly the sufferings of your Redeemer, unto the pouring out of His heart’s blood. Go with Him to Gethsemane, thence to the house of Caiaphas and Annas, then to Pilate’s hall, and [to] Herod’s place of mockery! Behold your Lord beneath the cruel scourges and in the hands of the executioners upon the hill of shame. Forget not one of the sorrows that were mingled in the bitter cup of His crucifixion—its pain, its mockery, its shame. It was a death reserved for slaves and felons. To make its deep abysses absolutely bottomless, He was forsaken even of His God. Let the darkness of “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” (Mar 15:34) bear down upon your spirit until, as you sink in awe, you also rise in love. He loved you better than He loved Himself ! The cup means love, even to the shedding of His blood for you. It means something more.
In our hymn, we have called our Lord, “Giver of life for life,” and that is what this cup means. He gave up His life that we might live. He stood in our place and stead in the day of Jehovah’s wrath, receiving into His bosom the fiery sword that was unsheathed for our destruction. The pouring out of His blood has made our peace with God. Jehovah made the soul of His only-begotten an offering for sin that the guilty might be cleared. “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2Co 5:21). That is what the wine in the cup means: it means the death of Jesus in our stead. It means the blood poured out from the heart of the incarnate God that we might have fellowship with God, the sin that divided us being expiated by His death.
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