PRAYER + PRAISE
His Blood Seals the New Covenant
- Adam Cole // April 3, 2010
Matthew 26:27-28 —Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Jesus’ final moments with His disciples are amazingly intimate and profound in the way He paints a perfect picture for the symbolism of His death/resurrection in the days that would follow that final meal.
In a house specially prepared for this last meal, at a time when Jews throughout Jerusalem were observing the Passover, Jesus chose bread and wine to forecast His fate and the meaning of life in Him that would follow for each of them and the world. For the bread, He explained that it was His body. For the cup of wine, He described it as the blood of the ‘new covenant.’
God had always bestowed a covenant with His people, from the days of Noah to Abraham to Moses and David, calling His people to follow Him and through their faithfulness He would bless them.
In the days of the prophet Jeremiah, God spoke through Him to foretell a day of a new covenant, where His law would be written in their hearts, and a time in turn when the Lord would forgive His people’s sins (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
Blood as wine is a powerful element of this symbology, for blood—specifically of animals—would be used to cleanse the people of sin, particularly on an annual Day of Atonement. The blood of a slaughtered lamb was applied to the doorframes of the Jews’ homes when they were captives in Egypt to spare them of the wrath of God as He killed every firstborn as part of the plagues brought on Pharaoh; that period was Passover, to which they were commemorating that night.
Jesus, in that sense, became the Passover lamb for us. In the “new covenant” the blood that was sacrificed would be His own, on the cross, one day after that meal.
We partake in the covenant through His body, being one in Him, to cling to the everlasting true vine. And through this new covenant, the veil is torn down between us and our Creator (2 Cor. 3:15), allowing not only our sins to be forgiven but for our lives to come closer to the All Mighty.
Praise: That He has restored us with the Eternal Father through His blood.
Prayer: That we take in His body and blood of the new covenant with a honest and humble heart.
Prayer for Today: Lord, we thank You for who You are, we thank You for everything that You are. That You died and rose again – that You gave us everlasting life by shedding Your blood. May we take hold of this new covenant and walk with You in broken world. You give us life and may our cup overflow with that life. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.