Holding a cup before His disciples, Jesus said, “This is My blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28).
The Gospel of Luke says Jesus called the cup “the new covenant in My blood which is poured out for you” (Luke 22:20).
The irony of Jesus’ words must have filled the room where the disciples had gathered. They had assembled to observe Passover, the holiest of Jewish remembrances. On that night hundreds of years earlier their kindred had been protected by blood swabbed on the doorposts of their homes while the death angel claimed the firstborn of all not under the safety of the blood.
The writer of Hebrews described the event as “the sprinkling of blood so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch Israel’s own firstborn” (Heb. 11:28).
The disciples understood sprinkling of blood. It was part of the Jewish sacrificial ritual. The Torah, specifically the Book of Leviticus, provided detailed instruction about the sprinkling of sacrificial blood.
On the Day of Atonement the blood of bulls and goats was spread on the covering of the Ark of the Covenant (the Mercy Seat) seven times as a sacrifice for the sin of the people. Part of the ceremony involved sprinkling the sacrificial blood on the people to show they were covered by the sacrifice (Lev. 16).
The Book of Leviticus also outlined in Chapter 14 how the blood from an individual’s sin offering was to be sprinkled by the priest on the one offering to show that person’s sin was covered by the blood.
And the disciples understood sprinkling of blood to seal a covenant. Exodus 24 describes how Moses sealed the covenant between God and the Hebrews with blood. Half of the blood from the animals offered as sacrifices was reserved for God. Moses sprinkled the other half on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words” (v. 8).
The disciples understood blood offerings were a part of their covenant with God as well as their individual forgiveness of sin.
But the night Jesus spoke, the disciples had trouble understanding what He meant by a new covenant, about His blood being poured out for the forgiveness of sin. That would come only after Jesus died on Calvary’s cross, was buried, raised to new life through the resurrection and ascended to the right hand of the Father.
The apostle John would write, “The blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7) and add in Revelation 1:5 that Jesus had freed us from our sins by His blood.
The apostle Paul would declare God presented Jesus “as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of His blood — to be received by faith” (Rom. 3:25).
The writer of the Book of Hebrews developed the analogy most completely. There Jesus is called “the Mediator of a new covenant” (Heb. 12:24). Entrance to the Most Holy Place is “by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. 10:19). Jesus is described as the Christ “sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people” (Heb. 9:28).
In Hebrews 9:14 the writer recalls the work of the Jewish sacrificial system and then asks, “How much more then will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, cleanse our conscience from the acts that lead to death?”
Twice the writer of Hebrews uses the imagery of sprinkled blood to refer to the sacrifice of Jesus. In Hebrews 12 he writes, “You have come … to Jesus the Mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood” (v. 24).
In Hebrews 10:22 he writes, “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience.”
The apostle Peter uses similar imagery when he writes that Christian believers have been “sprinkled with His blood” (1 Pet. 1:2).
Each reference to Christians being sprinkled by the blood builds off the Jewish sacrificial system. Just as those offering sacrifices were sprinkled by the blood of the sacrifice, so all who accept the Father’s invitation to salvation are sprinkled by the blood of the Son for the forgiveness of sin.
Because of His love for lost humankind, the Father chose to make the sacrifice for sin through His Son. And now the blood of that sacrifice is sprinkled on the hearts of all who believe in Jesus. The imagery signifies the believer’s sin is taken away by the blood sacrifice of the Son.
Still the words of Jesus remain. Holding the cup He said, “This is My blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Just as Jesus’ sacrifice was a once-for-all sacrifice (“He sacrificed for their sins once for all when He offered Himself” — Heb. 7:27), so His blood is sprinkled on the hearts of believers once for all for the forgiveness of sin.
One is not made right with God by partaking of the elements of the Lord’s Supper again and again.
But the Lord’s Supper does commemorate the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary’s cross. It is through the elements that sacrifice is re-enacted and remembered. Taking the bread and the wine speaks of a sealed relationship between God and the Christian believer.
In that way, every time the cup is taken it is a public testimony that the one partaking of the cup has been sprinkled by the blood sacrifice of Jesus for the forgiveness of sin.
The sacrificial system of the Old Testament is fulfilled in every way. The cup symbolizes a new covenant not based on the blood of bulls and goats or the ashes of heifers. No, Jesus entered the presence of God “once for all by His own blood thus obtaining eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12).
That is the message of the cup.
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