As this passage shows, the Passover lamb did much more than just provide blood - it was a distinctive meal. God begins with instructions to ensure that every person would have enough, but also that it would not be wasted. He continues with specific details, including when it should be eaten, how it should be prepared, what should be eaten with it, what should be done with the remains, and even how the Israelites should be dressed. The bulk of God's instructions concern the specially prepared lamb they were to eat. The repeated emphasis in both Old and New Testaments is on the eating of the Passover (Exodus 12:43, 48; 34:25; Numbers 9:11; II Chronicles 30:18; Ezra 6:21; Matthew 26:17, 26; Mark 14:12, 14, 22; Luke 22:8, 11, 15, 19; John 13:2; I Corinthians 11:23-26; see John 6:31-58), and this begins to set it apart from a sin offering, which was not generally available for eating.
Jesus Christ's body is a multi-faceted symbol. Sometimes Christ's body is a symbol of His death, but at other times it is a symbol of life. So, it says here that the Passover bread represents Christ's body. When Jesus uses bread as a symbol for His body, it is a symbol of life, even eternal life. We won't turn to it, but John 6 explains this symbol very clearly. There, Jesus speaks of bread that endures to everlasting life. He speaks of the bread of God, the bread of life, and the living bread. When Jesus says that He is the living bread (John 6:51), it means that His flesh is not merely something that leads to eternal life, but He indicates a body that is alive. As we partake of the bread, we become one with the living Savior.
The concept of death is not entirely absent, because Christ's life in the flesh ended - horrifically. As I said, it is a complex symbol. But the bread itself is a symbol of the sinless life that Jesus lived, up through its awful end, rather than just the end. It is not a symbol of a broken body. When we symbolically partake of Christ's flesh, we are joined to His sinless life. God accepts us into His presence on the basis of Christ's flesh, as it says in Hebrews 10:20. The new and living way is through His flesh. In the peace offering, man in shown accepted by God. Our acceptance is based on Christ's sinless life, and only a body undefiled by sin has blood that is worthy to pay our death penalty. But He had to live flawlessly in order for the sin offering to be effective, and we partake of that perfect life at Passover. And just as bread strengthens mankind physically, so the bread of life strengthens us spiritually because we are partaking of the sinless life of the Creator.
Next, the symbol of the wine represents the covenantal relationship with God:
All three synoptic gospels describe the cup as containing the blood of the covenant, as do Paul's Passover instructions in I Corinthians 11. Matthew adds here that the blood also accomplishes the remission of sins. Notice, though, that the remission of sins does not stand on its own, but it comes through the New Covenant. That covenant contains the forgiveness of sins, but also includes much more (Jeremiah 31:33-34; Hebrews 8:10-12; 10:16-18).
In His Passover prayer in John 17, Jesus includes another aspect of the New Covenant, that of knowing the Father and Him. This covenant allows for those entering the covenant to have a relationship far beyond what the previous covenant offered - to actually know the Father and the Son. Jesus calls this relationship eternal life. It is a life of abundance - foremost spiritual - that continues past the grave in the resurrection.
Biblically, blood is a symbol for life. The best-known application of this is that blood provides atonement, where one life symbolically pays the life-debt of another. However, the various covenants show a second application, where blood represents life given as a pledge of faithfulness. God ratified the covenant with Israel with blood, and those sacrificial animals gave their lives to symbolize life … . . .
