As we know the Passover service commemorates the death of Jesus Christ. By participating in the service, we personally proclaim the death of our Savior (1 Corinthians 11:26). We acknowledge that His dying paid the death penalty for us (Ephesians 5:2). While the "blood" and "body" of Christ refer to the same sacrifice, Jesus Christ shows there is a clear distinction in the meaning attached to each of the two words. Representing that differentiation are the two specific symbols: bread and wine.
We previously looked at “the Bread”. In this message we consider; why did Jesus command His disciples to drink wine as a symbol of His blood? What meanings are wrapped up in this extraordinary analogy that are vital to our understanding when we drink the wine at Passover?
Notice the meaning Jesus gave to the Passover wine: "Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, 'Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom'" (Matthew 26:27-29).
What does Christ want us to understand about His shed blood? First, Christ knew that our drinking wine as a symbol of His shed blood would impress indelibly in our minds His death for the forgiveness of our sins. "This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me" (1 Corinthians 11:25).
God forgives our sins through Jesus' blood. We are taught that "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). Jesus Christ "loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood" (Revelation 1:5). Christians normally understand this basic tenet of faith, that our sins are forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ. But not all professing Christians fully comprehend how this is so. We must be sure we understand.
Paul explains that "according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission" (Hebrews 9:22). In the context of the Old Testament, God instructed the priesthood to foreshadow the shedding of Christ's blood by a system of cleansing and purification through the blood of sacrificed animals.
He commanded the nation of Israel to undertake this temporary system of the ritualistic cleansing from sins. Hebrews 9:9-10 clearly indicates; “It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience— concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation”.
Animal sacrifices served as types of the one and only future sacrifice, Jesus Christ, who would pay the penalty for the sins of everyone once and for all. In reality, the sins of the people under the old covenant were not forgiven through the blood of the animals they sacrificed. Those sacrifices only reminded them that they were sinners; “For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins”. (Hebrews 10:1-4).
All those sacrifices, with their emphasis on blood, looked forward to the real "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). Further, the ancients understood that life is in the blood (Genesis 9:4). When a person loses his blood, he dies. Therefore, it is appropriate that blood make the atonement for sin (Leviticus 17:11). Jesus' blood was shed, or poured out, while He hung on the cross (Luke 22:20; Colossians 1:20). His life drained from Him when He lost his blood (Isaiah 53:12). By allowing sinful humans to shed His blood, He gave His life for us.
When we drink the wine at the Passover service, we are to carefully consider the gravity of its meaning. It represents the very life's blood that flowed from Jesus Christ's dying body so we may have complete forgiveness of our sins. “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7).
The shed blood of the righteous Jesus Christ for our sinful life should powerfully motivate us never to want to sin again. Our wanting never to sin against our Savior is not the same as our acquiring the means to overcome sin. To effect the necessary change within us, God provides us the help of the Holy Spirit. However, the blood of Christ deals a powerful blow to sin because His undeserved death for us is one reason we should not want to sin again. It is the realization of the magnitude of Jesus' sacrifice for us that should bring us to repentance (Romans 2:4). Upon our repentance and baptism for the removal of those sins, God imparts the Holy Spirit to enable us to change.
The second point Christ wants us to understand about His shed blood is that not only does it cover our sins, but makes it possible for us to be rid of guilt. Notice Hebrews 9:12-14: "Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"
When God grants us a pardon, we are no longer guilty in His eyes, but we still need to solve the problem of our guilty feelings-our guilty conscience. That is why Paul declares that the blood of Christ cleanses our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. How can this be?
The word conscience comes from "conscire," meaning "be conscious of guilt.". Our conscience is our awareness of right and wrong. When a person has no sensitivity to or awareness of right and wrong, we say he has no conscience. Paul said the consciences of some people are seared (1 Timothy 4:2); that is, they have suppressed their awareness of right and wrong and have no desire to alter that tragic situation.
When God calls a person, whose conscience is still sensitive to right and wrong, and that person is faced with the understanding that someone else had to die for him-and all along he has been unaware of or ignored this truth-his conscience is affected (Acts 2:36-37). The realization of this truth brings home to him how ungodly he is, how far he falls short of the goodness of God (Romans 5:6-8). He becomes acutely aware of his own guilt; his conscience plagues him.
His awareness of the awesome meaning of the death of Jesus Christ for his sins awakens in his conscience a desire to obey God (Romans 7:20-21). He can then accept Christ's sacrifice for his sins and have faith that Christ took all his guilt upon Himself. Now he can rest assured that he can continue in "newness of life" (Romans 6:4) with a clean conscience; he can be confident that all his guilt has been erased.
When our conscience is purged, we are freed from guilt. We were all guilty because we all violated God's holy law and fell short of His glory (Romans 3:19, Romans 3:23). Sin is breaking God's law (1 John 3:4). When our sins are removed after we repent (Psalms 103:12), there should be no more self-inflicted guilt or self-reproach.
Unfortunately, many people still feel guilty after they have repented and have asked God to forgive their sins. While our conscience should rightly convict us if we sin again, we should not continue in self-condemnation over the sins God has forgiven but be able to operate confidently in the freedom from guilt God provides (1 John 1:9; 1 John 3:19-20).
We express our faith, our confidence, that through the blood of Christ we are truly forgiven when we partake of the wine at the Passover service. The taking of the wine should impress upon us that we are free from sin and guilt, and that we do not stand condemned before God or ourselves (John 3:17-18). This is what it means to have "our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience" (Hebrews 10:22).
The third point Christ wants us to understand about His blood is that it makes it possible for us to come before the very throne of God. Under the old covenant, only the priest could enter the area of the tabernacle known as the "Holiest of All" (Hebrews 9:6-10). In it was the "mercy seat," which represented God's throne. In Leviticus 16 is explained a ceremony that took place each year on the Day of Atonement, when the high priest sprinkled the blood of a goat, representing the future sacrifice of Jesus Christ, on the mercy seat so the Israelites could be symbolically cleansed of all their sins (Leviticus 16:15-16).
Because the blood of Jesus Christ has cleansed us and made us pure, each of us enjoys direct access to the Father (Hebrews 9:24). Jesus, as our High Priest, has entered into the Most Holy Place by His own blood (Hebrews 9:11-12). In fact, we can approach God without hesitation or fear of rejection, but with confidence and assurance because of the blood of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:19-22). We rejoice, when we take the wine of the Passover, that the blood of Christ has made us worthy to experience an intimate relationship with our Father!
The fourth point to understand is that the blood of Christ signifies that He has entered into a covenant with us. When Jesus instituted wine for the New Testament Passover, He said: "Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant..." (Matthew 26:27-28). Why is taking wine, symbolic of His blood, called the "blood of the new covenant"? Once again, we go to the Old Testament for background information. Paul explained that both parties under the old covenant manifested their agreement by the ceremony of sprinkling of blood. The Bible writers called this blood the "blood of the covenant" (Hebrews 9:18-20; Exodus 24:3-8).
It is of utmost importance that we understand that our repentance of our sins, our baptism and acceptance of the blood of Jesus Christ to redeem us from the penalty of eternal death-coupled with our belief in His promise to forgive our sins constitute a covenant. By accepting the blood of Christ for the remission of our sins, we enter into a covenantal relationship with the God of the universe. The terms of this covenant are absolute, because it was sealed with the shed blood and death of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 9:11-15). We renew that covenant every year when we partake of the Passover. Let us understand the terms of that covenant relationship.
"'This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,' says the LORD: 'I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,' then He adds, 'Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more'" (Hebrews 10:16-17). We have already seen a major difference between the old and new covenants. Cleansing from sin is no longer accomplished by the sacrifice of animals, but by the blood of Jesus Christ.
There is another major difference. Under the new covenant, we learn that God will write His laws in our hearts and minds. Under the old, God simply gave His laws on tables of stone. The Israelites agreed to obey His laws without understanding that, by their own human efforts, they were unable to do this (Exodus 24:7-8). This shows us the chief weakness of the old covenant (Hebrews 8:7-10). Israel did not have the heart to faithfully keep God's commandments (Deuteronomy 5:29). Under the new covenant, God is writing His law in our hearts and minds. Not the laws of physical purification contained in the system of sacrifices, washings and service in the tabernacle; instead, He is adding to our very being His holy and righteous laws, which define right behavior and attitudes toward Him and our neighbor (Romans 7:12).
When we partake of the wine, we acknowledge the covenant relationship ratified by the blood of Jesus Christ. We are in effect saying we will allow God's Spirit to work in our hearts and minds, meaning that we will keep God's laws out of a deeply thankful attitude for His forgiveness of our sins. Without the gift of the Holy Spirit, we cannot muster up the spiritual strength to obey His laws.
The apostle Peter refers to us as the "elect...for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:2). The Passover wine is a yearly renewal of our agreement to this covenantal relationship. As we can see, the Passover is one of the most meaningful events of the year in the life of a Christian. We have seen that some in the early Church who were partaking of the Passover symbols of bread and wine were guilty of the blood and body of the Lord because they never understood or bothered to learn the real meaning and significance of their actions.
They allowed neither the depth of spiritual understanding nor the appreciation of the sacrifice of Christ to effect a spiritual change in their lives (1 Corinthians 11:27-29). I will continue this series next week by looking more closely at “in an unworthy manner” to focus us clearly on what this means as there is indeed more that what we’ve covered in the last two weeks. It is important for us to fully understand the spiritual implications of our participation in the Passover.