1 Corinthians 11:25

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I Corinthians 11:23-26
Excerpted from: Passover: An Extraordinary Peace Offering

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 … . . .

I Corinthians 11:25-29
Excerpted from: The Awesome Cost of Salvation

Notice back in verse 25, He says, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood." The word 'cup' is a metonymy—it is figurative. The cup is put for what is in the cup. What was in the cup was wine. The wine symbolized or represented His blood. So He says that, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood."

A covenant is an agreement, a contract; a pact; a treaty; a bargain between two parties. A covenant—or a treaty or a bargain or a pact—is a device that brings people into a relationship. This covenant is unusual in that it is in His blood.

[William] Barclay, in his commentary, makes a very interesting comment in regard to this. He changes the words. He paraphrases it, but I think that the paraphrase is accurate because he really did not do anything more than what is done with the word 'cup'—cup representing what was inside the cup.

What Barclay did is he changed the words into saying, "This covenant cost Me My life." The agreement was made at the cost of the most precious, the most expensive life that has ever lived on the face of the earth. It did not come cheap.

The overall sense of I Corinthians 11:25-29 has to do with people not properly discriminating what the symbols represent. I think that you understand somewhat of the background as to why the apostle Paul had to write these things. These people were making a mockery of the Passover service. They had a meal and during this some of these people were even getting drunk. Some of the people ate in a gluttonous manner. Others hardly got anything at all to eat because others were hogging all the food. It hardly served to edify the body at all. Very little of the right kind of fellowship—and they were going in exactly the opposite direction of the way of God.

So the apostle was writing to correct a very corrupt situation. This is his point: in doing what they were doing, they did not discern the body and the shed blood of Jesus Christ. If they had truly discerned it they would not had done what they did. They were not properly interpreting the meaning to their own lives. The application went awry. They were taking the Passover, but they were taking it without appreciating the reality that the symbols represented.

The word 'unworthy' means, "lacking in merit or worth." What these people were doing was they then took the Passover in an unworthy manner, that is, they really did not appreciate what they were doing. They were not discriminating. They were not really judging the character of what it was they were doing. They did not understand the act behind what they were doing. They really were profaning the body and shed blood of Jesus Christ.

The word 'profane' has its roots in a word that means "far from the temple." In other words, these people were anything but spiritual in what they were doing. They were treating the bread and the wine as something common.

It really was just common unleavened bread and common wine. There is no doubt about it. They were not looking beyond as to what these things represented—that they represented the body of the Creator of everything. They were not looking at the most precious Life that has ever been lived; had shed its blood so that they could have a relationship with God, so that the covenant might be made.

If they had understood, then they would not have done what they did to their brother. They would not have acted in a gluttonous manner! They would not have gotten drunk! But they were treating in a profane manner the shed blood and broken body of Jesus Christ.

It is not thoroughly judging the Lord's body until it forms a conviction that profoundly affects conduct. This is what we want to aim for here. If we are not thoroughly judging, then we stand a chance of profaning the sacrifice, and thus, we then eat and drink condemnation on ourselves.

The Sabbath During the Ministry of the Apostles
The Sabbath in the Time of Christ Cont'd.

Articles
An Unpayable Debt and Obligation
Are You Drinking of the Master's Cup?
Born of a Woman
Christ, Our Passover
Did Israel Offer the Wavesheaf in Joshua 5?
Fully Accepting God's Sovereignty (Part Four)
Is the Passover Just a Sin Offering? (Part Two)
Passover, Obligation, and Love
The Awesome Cost of Love
The Awesome Cost of Love
What Is the Passover Anyway?
When Was Jesus Born?

Bible Studies
Holy Days: Passover  (2)
Pagan Holidays

Essays
'Unto Us a Son Is Given'
Celebrating a Lie
Evaluating the Price of Redemption
Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God (Part Two)
Passover and Friends United in Truth (Part One)
Remember Me (Part One)
The Crazy in Christmas
What Does 'Discerning the Lord's Body' Mean? (Part One)
What Is This 'Advent'?
Without Bitterness

Sermons
Remember: Truth and the Real Torch of Freedom
Never Forget
The Rest of the Story
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part 3)
Christ Our Passover
Easter: Origins and Implications
Debt and Obligation
According to His Pleasure
Unity
Unity and Unleavened Bread
Are God's Holy Days To Be Kept Today?
The Failure of Miracles to Produce Righteousness

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