The Lord’s Supper, as instituted by Jesus Christ and elaborated in the Epistles, has its roots in the ancient rite of covenant, a practice that predates Abraham. Indeed, the covenant forms the basic structure of Yahweh’s relationship with Israel and is, for this reason, the underlying motif for the establishment of Christ’s relationship with the new people of God.
The cutting of covenants (karat brit) appears to have been a universal practice in the ancient world. Complete covenant documents pertaining to the Hittite peoples, neighbors of the patriarch Abraham, have been excavated in the Near East, and traces of covenant rituals are to be found in ceremonies of the Native Americans of the Western hemisphere. Treaty covenants are known to have regulated relationships among the various city-states and empires of Mesopotamia. The king of a defeated army entered into such an agreement with his conqueror, who specified the terms of the pact. Usually these stipulations included a vow of total loyalty to the great king, or “lord,” as the covenant initiator was called, and a payment of annual tribute.
In some cases, less powerful rulers requested a treaty with a stronger king to secure his protection from invading armies. The weaker king, the vassal or “servant,” agreed to assist the great king in battle, to make no friendships with nor provide safe harbor for his lord’s enemies, and to appear in the courts of the lord at specified times to pay the required tribute.
Terms of the treaty covenant were written in two copies—one for the vassal king to read periodically to his people and the other to be placed in the shrine of the major god of the territory, who acted as a witness to the agreement and also enforced it.
A treaty between two nations was not in force until it was ceremonially ratified, usually with the blood of a slain animal. After cutting the sacrifice into pieces, the parties to the agreement walked between them as an identification with the animal, making the symbolic vow “The gods do so to me and more also if I break the terms of this covenant.” Then they shared a meal of the animal’s flesh and drank its blood in a sealing ritual.
The covenant meal is a frequent occurrence in the Old Testament. Isaac hosted Abimelech and his commanders at a meal that verified an agreement about the use of some wells that had been dug by Abraham (Gen. 26:26–31). Likewise, Laban and Jacob ratified their nonaggression pact with a sacrificial meal (Gen. 31:43–54).
Israel’s covenant with Yahweh followed the prescribed pattern of covenants between tribal leaders. The covenant meal was first eaten in Egypt, when the Hebrews accepted Yahweh as their God and prepared to follow him out of Pharaoh’s clutches and into the Promised Land. At the Passover meal, all Israel ate and drank their commitment to this new relationship: “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God” (Exod. 6:7), and they were commanded to repeat the ceremony in a recommitment to the covenant every year thereafter (Exod. 12:21–24).
At Mount Sinai the terms were written on tablets of stone, which were later deposited in the ark of the covenant under Moses’ direction. As leader of Israel and covenant mediator, Moses read the covenant text to his people (Exod. 24:7) and sacrificed burnt offerings to Yahweh, sprinkling their blood on the people (Exod. 24:8) as a means of identification with the animals. Following this part of the ritual, Moses and the elders of Israel ate and drank in the Lord’s presence (Exod. 24:9–11). Since the drinking of blood was prohibited for the Hebrews, wine was used as a substitute.
This practice of confirming a covenant with a sacrificial meal is the background for the words of our Lord as he sat at the Passover table with his disciples. In his death he would become the sacrifice that ratifies the covenant between God and the new covenant people. Paul identifies Christ as the Passover Lamb who makes possible the feast, or covenant meal (1 Cor. 5:8), an assertion based on the words of Jesus himself. Breaking the bread and offering it to the Twelve, he said, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Lifting a cup of wine he continued, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:26–28; Mark 14:22–24). Luke records that Jesus said “This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you.” (Luke 22:20, emphasis added). Paul testifies to having received the same from the Lord (1 Cor. 11:23), as he writes to the Corinthian church, “In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood’ ” (1 Cor. 11:25).
The concept of Jesus as the covenant sacrifice underlies his “hard saying” recorded in John’s Gospel. The day following Jesus’ miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fish, he initiates a discussion with his disciples on the subject of manna. Moses was not the source of that bread, he tells them, but the Lord God was. He then moves the focus of the conversation to his own role as the bread given by God which brings life to the world. “I am the bread of life,” he explains. “He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). The Jews, overhearing this extraordinary statement, begin to complain, and Jesus becomes even more explicit:
I am the living bread that came down from heaven.… Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.… For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. (John 6:51, 54–56)
“Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus instructs his disciples at the Passover table. But he does not intend the act as a sentimental or maudlin ceremony in which the disciples mourn the loss of their leader. Jesus has just informed them that the bread and wine, his body and blood, comprise the meal that ratifies the new covenant. They are to recall this truth each time they participate in the ritual. In eating the flesh of the sacrifice and drinking the blood these disciples commit themselves afresh to the covenant formula, “I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Jer. 31:33). And in so doing they become the body of the Lord, his covenant people. Paul stresses this truth in his discourse to the Corinthians concerning abuses at the Lord’s Table. In committing themselves to the covenant, Christians must recognize the Lord’s body if they do not wish to incur judgment (1 Cor. 11:29).
The purpose of the Lord’s Supper, then, is to remember his death—not the agony in the garden or the beatings or the crown of thorns or even the nails in his hands and feet. Rather, the recalling is to be of Jesus’ sacrifice, which ratifies the covenant between himself as representative man and God the Great King of the covenant.
For the amazing truth is that Jesus fulfills the symbolism of all parts of the covenant ceremony. As the Son of man, he assumes the role of the servant king who represents the people of God; he is also the covenant lord, or Great King; as the Word of God, he is the covenant text, deposited in God’s temple, the church; he is the sacrifice, which is eaten and drunk, completing the covenant agreement. To be “in Christ,” as Paul says (2 Cor. 5:17), is to be in the covenant he represents. It is this relationship that God’s people affirm when the church eats and drinks with the Lord at his table.