It’s been a while, but in our last post, we talked about Jesus as the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:29).
Jesus, is “the lamb of God,” because Jesus is the one in whom we celebrate God’s mighty act of deliverance. Jesus is the ultimate Passover lamb who is a sign of our liberation, not merely from the imperial oppression of Pharaoh and Egypt, but from the cosmic powers of Sin and Death.
And Jesus is the one who “takes away the sin of the world,” because Jesus as the Word of God exercises the divine prerogative to forgive. It is not about his death satisfying God’s wrath, but simply that in Jesus God has deemed it time to “let go of” the sin of the world.
In this post, we want to look at what Jesus says about himself at his last meal, what we commonly know as “the Lord’s Supper.” In particular, we’ll look at Matthew 26:26-28:
Matthew 26:26-28
26 While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” 27 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Our focus will be on verse 28 and the relationship between blood and forgiveness.
Just as with John 1:29, we make a whole host of unhelpful assumptions about what is happening here:
- We hear blood and think of God requiring the death of some living thing in order to appease his wrath.
- We assume Jesus is giving his blood (pouring it out) as a sacrificial offering to God.
- And this is what allows God to forgive us.
The Blood of the Covenant
The first thing to recognize is the language of covenant. Jesus says, “this is my blood of the covenant.” This is a reference (again) back to the Exodus story:
Exodus 24:3-8
3 Moses went and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances, and all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.” 4 And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning, built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and set up twelve pillars, corresponding to the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 He sent young men of the Israelites, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed oxen as offerings of well-being to the Lord. 6 Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he dashed against the altar. 7 Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” 8 Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people, and said, “Here is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” (Exodus 24:3-8, NRSVUE)
These verses describe a covenant making ceremony. This is not something we are familiar with. The closest thing we have is a wedding ceremony, in which two people make vows to live together in the covenant of marriage. Here, the covenant is made between God and Israel.
It may sound like a broken record, but it must be repeated: God is not making a covenant with Israel because he is angry at them. The blood is not about satisfying God’s wrath. Rather the blood represents the way in which a covenant is sealed, much like what Beyoncé means when she says, “Put a ring on it.”
The way the Bible puts it is, “Put some blood on it.”
In fact, we sometimes still hear the term “blood brothers,” in which two (or more) people, not related by birth, promise undying loyalty to one another. The promise is ratified through a blood oath. In movies, we see them cut the palm of their hand and as the blood flows out they shake on it to solemnize their bond.
This is how Jesus describes his blood — the blood of the covenant. It is Jesus making us his “blood brothers (and sisters)” so to speak.
Again, this has nothing to do with blood needing to be shed in order for forgiveness to happen.
For the Forgiveness of Sins
And yet, of course, Jesus does talk about “the forgiveness of sins” — “this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins (Mt. 26:28).”
Admittedly, there is a lot packed into this dense phrase. It helps to keep two things in mind.
First, Jesus makes clear, as we’ve discussed above, that what he means by “my blood” is that it is the blood of the covenant — the blood that serves the purpose of sealing a covenant.
Second, the language of blood poured out is best understood as framing Jesus’ death as a murder. Matthew in fact uses the same phrase earlier to talk about the murder of the prophets (Matt. 23:34-36). To say Jesus’s blood was poured out (sometimes translated as shed) is to say that his death was not a justified execution for a capital crime (what the religious leaders and Roman officials claimed), but rather it was an unjust act of murder.
The blood of Jesus “poured out” is not about God taking out his wrath on Jesus so that he is then able to forgive our sins. Jesus’ death is not at the hands of God at all. Rather it is the disciples, the religious leaders, the state, and ultimately us, who are all inculcated in Jesus’ death — in his murder.
If we put these two together, here is what Jesus is saying through this highly stylized and compact statement:
“My blood, poured out as a result of your rejection of me, is not what you think it means. While you may think my death is the final straw that breaks the back of God’s faithfulness to you, I am telling you, here and now, that it is not. The worst thing you could do — to side with Caesar over and against God’s Anointed — you indeed will do. But even that will not stand as a barrier that cancels you out from God’s commitment to you. Receive my blood, which is given to you for you to know your sins are forgiven — that God has taken the worst you can do, the murder of his own Beloved Son, and made it the very means by which he is making a new covenant with you.”
Conclusion
There is a kind of theological poetry at work in what Jesus is communicating at his last supper. And that poetic logic can best be expressed by how Joseph sums up his life’s story in Genesis 50:20.
If you are familiar with the story you know that Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him and sold him into slavery to get rid of him. But in the end, what resulted, was that Joseph ended up in a position where he was able to help not only his family, but an entire nation survive a severe famine. And so years later when Joseph is united with his brothers he tells them, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today,” (Gen. 50:20, NRSVUE)
This is essentially what Jesus is saying when he talks about his blood: “What you intended for harm (my blood poured out), God has worked out to accomplish his good intentions for you (the forgiveness of sins and the start of a new covenant).
In Jesus, God takes what ought to mark the final nail in our coffin to be the very thing through which a new way is opened up — God establishes a new covenant with us sealed by the blood that was shed by us and yet miraculously becomes for us.