About this sermon
At the Passover, Jesus took bread and said, “Take, eat; this is my body,” and gave the cup as “my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” The Lord’s Supper is a covenant meal: God sets the terms of the covenant of grace, and his people receive them. It reminds them that they are sinners whose debt Christ paid with his blood. It is also a consummation feast, pointing ahead to the day when Jesus will drink it new with his people in his Father’s kingdom.
Sermon transcript
Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. Our directory for public worship states that it is appropriate for suitable preparatory sermons on the subject of the Lord’s Supper to be preached periodically, and that’s what we’re doing this morning. We’re considering Matthew’s account of our Lord’s institution of the Lord’s Supper. And so my sermon text this morning is Matthew 26, verses 26 through 29. I’m going to begin reading in verse 17 to fill out the context a bit. Let us hear God’s Holy Word. You’ll find this on page 989 in your Pew Bible. Now on the first day of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus saying, Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover? He said, Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, The teacher says, My time is at hand.
I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples. And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover. When it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve, and as they were eating, he said, Truly I say to you, one of you will betray me. And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him, one after another, Is it I, Lord? He answered, He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me. The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been better for that man if he had not been born. Judas, who would betray him, answered, Is it I, Rabbi? He said to him, You have said so.
Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom. Dear ones, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of his word. Our Lord and Father in heaven, what an amazing privilege it is that we have access to your word, that you have spoken to us, you’ve spoken clearly, and you’ve given to us your word and your spirit, who illuminates the word and helps us to know and understand it.
We would ask that your spirit would be powerfully at work in our hearts and in our midst this day, as we consider this portion of your holy word. And we would ask, O Lord and Father in heaven, that you would set a guard over my lips, that I, your unworthy servant, would declare and speak forth only that which is faithful and true to your word, edifying to your people and glorifying to your holy name. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, Amen. Amen. You may be seated. There are sermon outlines available in the foyer. And if you have your sermon outline, you’ll notice there’s a number of words that you can be listening for in my sermon today if you find that helpful for following along. And five words in particular, the words sacrament, covenant, consummation, lamb, and feast.
Well, dear ones, if you study the history of the Christian church, one of the things that you will notice is that there have been great controversies and even tragic divisions within the church over the subject of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. And that is indeed a tragic thing. On the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ instituted and gave this Holy Supper to his church as a gift, as a blessing, a sacred feast intended to cement and strengthen our union and communion with the Lord Jesus Christ. A sacrament meant to signify our spiritual unity as brothers and sisters in the body of Christ and also meant to spiritually nourish us in the church as we together make our pilgrim journey in this life to our heavenly home in glory.
However, it is a sad and grievous feature of church history that this very sacrament, which our Lord Jesus intended to signify among other things, our unity, our oneness as fellow members of Christ’s body, the church, this very sacrament of unity has tragically become a major source of dispute, dissension, and even division among the professed people of God. And dear ones, as I said, that is indeed a spiritual tragedy, a spiritual tragedy indeed. Just leave it to sinful fallen man to distort, to corrupt, and even to destroy the good gifts of God and to turn that which God has intended as an occasion for unity and the church’s strengthening and unification, to turn that into an occasion for the weakening and division of Christ’s church. However, while some of the divisions in the church over the Lord’s Supper can be blamed in part at least upon human sin and stubbornness and hardness of heart, let me suggest to you brothers and sisters that another major cause of the church’s divisions over the subject of the Lord’s Supper have to do with the fact that many Christians are simply not well instructed in what the scriptures actually teach about the meaning and the significance of the Lord’s Supper.
In other words, friends, many Christians, and sadly even many Christian leaders, are not well versed or well taught on what the Lord’s Supper actually is and what place the Lord’s Supper should have in the life of the church and in our lives as followers of Jesus Christ. Likewise, many professing Christian churches and denominations have fueled the fires of this disunity by teaching a distorted, unbiblical, and in some cases even heretical doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. And of course, few things can destroy true unity in the church of Jesus Christ more than heresy and false doctrine. And that is why on this Lord’s Day morning, I would like to have us briefly consider some important truths that we learn about the nature and purpose of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. And we do so today by considering what we can learn about this Holy Sacrament from Matthew’s account of our Lord’s institution of the Holy Supper.
And among the things that we learn in this passage, we learn two things that I want us to focus on today. First of all, we learn that the Lord’s Supper is a covenant meal, and we’re going to spend some time kind of fleshing that out and talking about that. But beyond being the covenant meal that our Lord has appointed for his church in this new covenant era, we learn also here in this passage that the Lord’s Supper is a consummation feast. It is a covenant meal, and it is a consummation feast. Let’s first of all, as we turn our attention to our text for today and consider verses 26 through 28, let’s consider first the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper as a covenant meal, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper as a covenant meal. Now, you’ve heard the saying, a text without a context is a pretext.
You’ve probably heard that more times than you’ve wished to hear it from this pulpit. But it is true. We always have to situate what we’re reading in the text within its context. And what is the context within which our Lord instituted this sacrament of the Holy Supper? Well, we learn from our passage that Jesus our Lord instituted the Lord’s Supper within the context of celebrating his final Passover meal with his disciples. It says in verse 26, now as they were eating, let’s pause there, as they were eating what? Well, it’s very clear from the previous passages, the previous verses that they were eating together the last supper, the final Passover meal together as master and disciples. And our passage makes it clear again that it was while Jesus and his disciples were gathered together in covenant communion around the table and were eating their final Passover together that our Lord instituted the Lord’s Supper.
Now, of course, this is significant because the Passover was the sacramental covenant meal that was celebrated by God’s people under the old Mosaic covenant. It was the old covenant equivalent to what we celebrate today in the Lord’s Supper. It was a covenant meal that commemorated an event of immense redemptive historical significance, namely the event of the Lord, Yahweh’s, passing over the homes of the Israelites during the final plague against the Egyptians, that final plague being the death of the firstborn. And that final plague was, that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. That was the plague that finally motivated Pharaoh and his supporters and the Egyptians to say to the people of Israel, get out. They finally said, we need to let these people go. And so the Passover was a commemoration of the Lord’s mighty deliverance of his people from slavery in Egypt and his deliverance of them from that slavery ultimately into the promised land.
And the blood of the Passover lamb that the Israelites were to smear on the two doorposts and the lintel of their homes would shield them from the Lord’s destruction of the firstborn, which would be visited upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians, causing, again, causing the Lord to pass over and spare the Israelites from the destruction of the firstborn. And if you’re interested in reading more about that, you can consult Exodus chapter 12, which explains this in greater detail. Again, friends, the Passover was an old covenant sacrament. It was a covenant meal that commemorated not only the final plague, but the Lord’s gracious deliverance of his people from their slavery in Egypt. So from a redemptive historical standpoint, it’s highly significant that it was during this final Passover meal with his disciples that our Lord Jesus instituted this new covenant meal that we call today the Lord’s Supper.
And the context of our Lord’s institution of this Supper shows both continuity with the symbolism and meaning of the Passover, but also distinction. Because Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of the old covenant Passover meal. Indeed, as John the Baptist had testified of Jesus back in John chapter 1, verse 21, verse 29 rather, John 1, 29, what does John the Baptist testify of the Lord Jesus when he sees Jesus? He says what? Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The implication, my friends, of this setting is that Jesus Christ, the true and final Passover Lamb, the Lamb of God who takes away our sin, he is giving us a new covenant meal to replace the old covenant meal of the Passover. And think about who is gathered there at that final meal.
It’s Jesus and his twelve apostles. Jesus had a broader group of disciples that followed him beyond the twelve apostles, but here he is celebrating this final Passover meal, this last supper with his twelve apostles. And that’s significant. The number twelve is significant because, again, our Lord’s twelve apostles gathered around the table with him. They represent the foundation of the church in its new covenant expression, just as the twelve tribes of Israel served as the foundation of the church under the old covenant. And so by celebrating this, by instituting rather, this sacrament during the celebration of the Passover with his disciples, this represents the church of the new covenant, the reconstituted Israel of God. And therefore, how appropriate that our Lord Jesus, the true Passover Lamb, the Passover Lamb who gives us his broken body and his poured out blood of the new covenant for the forgiveness of our sins, how appropriate that he should institute this new covenant meal, a covenant meal that would be appropriate for this new redemptive situation that Christ would bring about by his atoning sacrificial death on the cross of Calvary, by his glorious bodily resurrection and ascension into heaven, and by his pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon his church on the day of Pentecost.
So this is a new covenant meal to fit a new covenant, the new covenant situation that Christ would bring about by his death and resurrection and by the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. But that raises the question, okay, well what is a covenant? If this is a covenant meal that we celebrate in the Lord’s Supper, we need to have at least a basic understanding of what a covenant is. So what is a covenant, biblically speaking? What is it, what is God’s covenant with his creatures? Well it has been said that trying to define a biblical covenant between God and his people is sort of like trying to define the word mother. The word mother does have a technical definition to it. It can be defined in the technical terms of biology, but who can deny that a mother, especially a loving, nurturing mother, is much more than simply the biological female who happened to give you birth?
And likewise, when it comes to God’s covenants with man, certainly God’s covenants of man can be defined in technicalities, but a covenant of God with us is something that establishes a relationship, a relationship that goes beyond, in a sense, goes beyond the technicalities of definition. However, in Scripture we can say at least a few things about God’s covenant relationship with man. Such a covenant relationship implies a number of things. First of all, when we’re talking about a covenant between God and mankind, a covenant between God and man involves the voluntary self-commitment of God to his people in response to which his people are expected to commit themselves to God. It’s voluntary. God doesn’t owe it to you or to me as his creatures to enter into a covenant relationship with us, but he chooses voluntarily to come down to our level and enter into a covenant relationship with us.
And of course, in such a covenant arrangement, God is always the one who initiates the covenant relationship and establishes its terms, and man’s appropriate response to God’s covenant initiative is to agree to those terms, to submit to the terms of the covenant. In other words, when we’re talking about God’s covenants with man, God is the one who takes the initiative. And in a divine covenant, God and man are not equal parties in the covenant, as is the case with some human covenants. There are some, for example, there are some business agreements or covenants where the two parties of the covenant are equal parties and can negotiate the terms of the agreement. Not so with God. When God initiates a covenant, he sets the terms, and our role is simply to accept the terms as his creatures, and especially if we’re talking about the covenant of grace as his people.
Now in terms of God’s covenantal dealings with man, after humanities fall into sin with the fall of Adam and Eve, a covenant may be described, in terms of God’s redemptive covenant with us, a covenant can be described as a bond in blood sovereignly administered. A bond in blood sovereignly administered. That’s how the reformed theologian and biblical scholar Dr. Opalmer Robertson defines it in his helpful book, The Christ of the Covenants. Now in our text for this morning, Jesus references his body and his blood, and what he is in essence saying in this passage is that his atoning sacrifice of himself establishes a covenant relationship between God and his church, his church being represented by the twelve apostles. So let’s dive in and let’s consider the elements of this covenant meal, and the significance of those elements, the covenantal significance of those elements.
It says in verse 26, now as they were eating, again they’re eating the Passover meal together, and this probably takes place toward the end of their eating of the Passover meal. As they were eating, what does Jesus do? He brings in what is to their perspective as Jews, he brings in an innovation. It says he took bread, and what does he do with the bread? After blessing it, he broke it and gave it to the disciples, and then he explains to them what he wants them to do. Take, eat, and then he interprets the significance of this broken bread. He says take, eat, this is my body. Here friends we have what the theologians and scholars call the sacramental actions. Here Christ performs these simple yet deeply profound acts, these acts that convey rich spiritual and saving truth.
He took the bread, and remember Jesus himself is the bread of life who sustains our souls and feeds us unto life eternal by his word and spirit. He took this bread and he blessed it, and that was the custom for the head of the household, the husband and father in the house at a meal, a Jewish meal, the man would offer a blessing, he would offer thanks for the food that the Lord had provided. And so Jesus is serving as the host at this covenant meal. He takes the bread, he blesses it, and then he breaks it. And he gives it. And thus the minister of the word and sacrament also takes and blesses and breaks and gives. You may wonder why when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper together I follow certain protocols and basically do the same thing every time that we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.
Well because it’s my responsibility as a minister or servant of the word and sacrament to follow Christ’s lead, to undergo the same sacramental actions that our Savior underwent in order to, because ultimately Jesus is the host of the Lord’s Supper, this covenant meal. And so he performs these simple actions. And then he gives a command. He says take, eat. If you’re a disciple, a follower of Jesus Christ, you are obligated to make sure that you are able to partake of the Lord’s Supper. It is for your spiritual good and edification and building up. But you are commanded to take and eat it. And then Jesus interprets the significance of this action. He says this is my body. Now again I mentioned church history at the beginning of this sermon. A lot of ink has been spilled by theologians in the history of the church over the meaning of the term the word is.
What is the significance of is in this passage? And some have insisted, well Jesus means that the bread literally is his body. That it miraculously is turned into the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ through an act of supernatural transubstantiation. That’s what our Roman Catholic friends believe about this. But my friends, this would not have even entered the thoughts of our Lord’s disciples gathered there around the table with him because Jesus’s body was right there with them. They clearly would not have understood the term is to mean that the bread literally is the body of Christ. It’s reading into the text that which is not actually there. It’s Isagesus to interpret this overly literalistically as our Catholic and our Lutheran and other high sacramentalist friends do. Instead what Jesus means is this represents my body.
If I meet someone who finds out that I’m a pastor they might ask me, pastor what is your church? What church do you pastor? And I might pull out a business card and say to them, here this is my church. Is that business card Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church? No. That card represents the church. The term is has a wide semantic range. And so again we need to avoid getting into silly disputes over what the word is signifies. It means here clearly represents the body. And then verse 27, there’s another aspect of this covenant meal. Jesus gives them the bread which represents his body which was to be broken for us and for our salvation. And then in verse 27 he took a cup. This was probably the third cup in the Passover celebration, the cup of blessing.
And when he had given thanks, he does what? He gave it to them. It’s a gift. It’s not something they earn or deserve. It’s given to them saying drink of it all of you. Some translations say drink ye all of it as if Jesus is saying make sure you don’t leave any. Make sure you drink it all up. But I think the ESV is more correct in representing the meaning that our Lord is trying to convey. In other words, all of you drink of it. And this is one of the reasons by the way that the Protestant churches have stood firmly against the withholding of the cup from the laity. It was practiced by the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation. I think in some cases it still is practiced today. And it disturbs me that in some even Presbyterian and Reformed churches have revived the practice of intinction where you take the bread and you dip it into the cup.
Jesus didn’t say dip it all of you. He said drink of it all of you. And this is a command. We don’t have the right to change what our Lord is commanding in terms of sacramental actions. In any case, notice again the simple yet profound actions, sacramental actions. Jesus took the cup and after he had given thanks he gave it and then he issued a command. Drink of it all of you. All of you drink of it. Because Jesus’ blood was shed for all of his people all who trust in him for salvation. And then in verse 28 our Lord further interprets the significance of the cup. He says, for this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Now this is likely an allusion or a reference to Exodus 24 verse 8.
I invite you to turn there briefly. Exodus chapter 24 verse 8 Exodus 24 verse 8 The prophet Moses confirms the old covenant with the people of Israel. And it says this in Exodus 24 verse 8 And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said behold the blood of the what? The blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. That same language the blood of the covenant. Jesus uses that language when referring to the cup where he says drink of it all of you for this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Now some ancient manuscripts there’s a textual issue here because some ancient manuscripts speak about the blood of the new covenant.
Whereas other manuscripts lack the term new. Although Luke’s account of the institution as well as Paul’s account in 1 Corinthians 11 includes a reference to the blood of the new covenant. But whether or not that term new was in the original reading here in Matthew. It is clear that there is at least an implicit reference or allusion here to Jeremiah’s prophecy of a new covenant. In the background of what Jesus is saying here in verse 28 is Jeremiah 31 verses 31 to 34 and I’d invite you to turn there as I read that passage briefly to you. I just want you to see what’s going on here in the background. There’s so much going on. The prophet Jeremiah writes under the spirit’s inspiration in Jeremiah 31 beginning at verse 31. Behold the days are coming declares the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt my covenant that they broke though I was their husband declares the Lord for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days declares the Lord.
I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people and no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother saying no the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest declares the Lord and notice what he says here for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. One of the blessings of the new covenant in Christ is full free forgiveness of sins and Jesus makes this clear when he explains the symbolic significance of the cup he says this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for what? For the forgiveness of sins. How are sins remitted? How are sins forgiven?
Only by the blood of Jesus as the hymn writer says what can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. And furthermore this poured out language that Jesus uses here may also be an allusion to the suffering servant prophecy found in Isaiah chapter 53 particularly Isaiah 53 verse 12 again I’m just going to read that briefly to you Isaiah 53 verse 12 where it says therefore I will divide him this is a prophecy of the sufferings of Christ very clear prediction of the sufferings that Christ would endure in his crucifixion Isaiah writes therefore I will divide him a portion with the many and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he did what? Because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.
Do you see that there’s a really there’s a lot going on in the background here of Jesus’s words to his disciples as he institutes this new sacrament this sacrament of the Lord’s Supper this sacrament of the new covenant. So what are some of the implications or what are some of the lessons that we can glean from what we’ve considered so far? Well one of the things we learn from passages like this is that we are sinners. We are those in other words who’ve missed the mark and fallen short of perfectly obeying the holy law of God. We all fall short. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And because God is holy and cannot simply wink at or ignore or turn a blind eye to our sin therefore our sin needs to be punished it needs to be paid for we need an atonement that is capable of remitting our sins lest the angel of death the angel of the messenger of God’s holy wrath against our sin be visited upon us.
We need beloved a Passover lamb that will spare us from the judgment that we deserve for our sins and our rebellion against our creator. Where do we get such a Passover lamb? Well hallelujah Christ Jesus is our Passover lamb as Paul writes I think it’s in 2 Corinthians of Jesus. Behold the Passover lamb let us keep the feast. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us therefore let us keep the feast. Dear listener is the Lord Jesus Christ your Passover lamb? Has he applied his blood to the doorposts of your heart? That is have you trusted in his sacrifice alone to save you from your sins or are you trying to work your way into heaven? The Bible says if you try to earn your salvation by your good works guess what you have to be perfect.
You have to love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself all the time without interruption. And you have to do that your entire life from your birth till the end of your life. And the fact is none of us can do that because all of us were born with the sin nature. We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we’re sinners. We’re born with a fallen nature in Adam. And so friends we need a Passover lamb. Praise God God has provided for repentant believing sinners a perfect Passover lamb. His name is Jesus. Is he your Passover lamb? If you’re not sure come to him today in faith and prayer turn to Christ in faith and repentance receive and rest upon Christ alone for your salvation and you will be saved your sins will be forgiven and you will receive the gift of eternal life.
And so we see the Lord’s Supper is a covenant meal. But in conclusion we also learn here in verse 29 that the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is a consummation feast. The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is a consummation feast. It says this Jesus says I tell you and by the way when Jesus says I tell you he’s saying you really need to listen to this. Of course everything that Jesus says we really need to listen to but in particular when he emphasizes it he says I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until when? Until that day when I drink it new with you in my father’s kingdom. He’s talking about the final consummated kingdom. You see friends for us in the church today the Lord’s Supper is a covenant meal that commemorates what our Lord did on the cross by dying for our sins.
But it not only points us back to the redemption that Christ accomplished for us on the cross of Calvary. It also points us forward to the messianic banquet to that eschatological marriage supper of the lamb that we read of in the book of Revelation. It points us forward to the feast of the consummation of our eternal salvation which we will enjoy with Christ when he returns in glory at the end of this age and ushers in the consummated kingdom. As Dr. D.A. Carson writes just as the first Passover looks forward not only to deliverance but to settlement in the land so also the Lord’s Supper looks forward to deliverance and life in the consummated kingdom. In other words friends the Lord’s Supper is not only a covenant meal that commemorates our Lord’s redeeming work on the cross.
It is also a feast that points us forward to the ultimate consummation of our eternal salvation which will be accomplished at the return of Christ at the end of this age. So what’s the take away? Well many lessons we can learn from this. But I would suggest to you in closing friends that the Holy Supper should impact us in many ways but in two ways in particular at least. First of all the Lord’s Supper should fill our hearts with gratitude for what Jesus did for us on the cross. He poured out his lifeblood to redeem us to save us from our sins. Remember the Bible says that the blood represents the life and when it says that Christ poured out his blood for us that means he sacrificed his life that our lives might be spared that we might be redeemed.
He poured out his life for us knowing that should fill our hearts with gratitude and awe. But secondly the Lord’s Supper should whet our appetite for eternity. It should result in both gratitude and with a longing for our heavenly home as it points us forward to that marriage Supper of the Lamb that messianic banquet that we will celebrate with our Savior when he returns in glory. May we take these truths to heart and may the Lord bless us as we embrace these truths by faith. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father we thank you that Christ our Passover is indeed sacrificed for us and we pray that as we remember and fellowship with him today in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper that your spirit would impact our hearts that you would apply these truths to our hearts and lives and we would ask Lord that you would cement and deepen our union and communion with Christ and our union and communion with one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.
We ask these things in Jesus name and all of God’s people said amen. As we prepare to celebrate the Lord’s Supper together let’s rise and we’ll sing number 202 here oh my Lord I see the face to face 202.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.