I spent some considerable time
this week contemplating what it was for the Lord Jesus to
go from that meal, that Passover meal, and that last Passover
meal. There never was another one. The Jews have been carrying on
for the last 2,000 years having them, and not one of them is
a Passover meal. It's a religious ceremony, a
religious activity completely devoid of all spiritual meaning
and any saving power whatsoever, because it completely ignores
the whole purpose of that sacrifice. Religious ceremonies without
the Lord Jesus truly brought to life in His Gospel are just
meaningless rituals. The world is full of them. We
are, as a race of people, compulsively religious. And there is nothing
more dangerous and nothing more damning than to be involved in
religion, which is just a ceremony. just a human activity. You might have noticed, as we
read through that story in Exodus 12 of the Passover, that it was
the Lord's Passover. It's His Passover. I wanted us to spend some time
today looking at the Lord's Supper. I've been much thinking about
the Lord Jesus as he left this meal. He went and took his eleven,
Judas absent, betraying him. He took this eleven and he went
to Gethsemane. And there Luke's Gospel says
that he was in agony. Being in agony, he prayed more
earnestly and he sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood
falling to the ground. This was on a cold night. When
Peter and John go to the courts of the high priest, they find
that the people there are warming themselves around a fire. And
here's the Lord Jesus in this garden. And he's sweating, and
he's sweating great drops of blood. The first blood that our
Saviour shed was that blood that was shed in Gethsemane. And of course, his blood continued
to be shed, didn't it? He gave his face to those who
plucked out his beard. I've never had a beard. I don't
know what it's like, but if we held Graham down and plucked
out his beard, I imagine he would look a mess and it would be incredibly
painful. And of course, they whipped him
and brought him almost to death. by scourging him with that cat
and nine tails. The whole purpose of it was to
cut away the flesh and often people being scourged they would
find their spine was exposed and their organs were exposed.
And then this blood was shed on Calvary's tree. A blood that
was shed until He died, our Saviour died. Every blessing, every spiritual
blessing, and we read in Ephesians 1 that we have been blessed with
every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus and blessed in the Hebraean
realms. Every spiritual blessing we have,
just like the blessings of those people on that first Passover
morning are blood-bought blessings. I'm just going to read a list
of them and then I'd like to look at some aspects of the Lord's
Supper which we participate in each week and which I have yet
to bring a message on even though we speak about it. quite regularly. The Lord Jesus says, isn't it,
He said, this is my blood of the New Testament, the New Covenant,
which is shed for many for the remission of sins. And we saw
that that blood was as great drops falling to the ground.
And I'll just read some of these blessings. You don't have to
follow me through the scriptures. You can come and get notes later
on. But this blood represents life eternal. He says in John
6, 54, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life
eternal. And I'll raise him up at the
last day. This life eternal is a life that
God's people have because there's a mutual indwelling. He goes
on to say in John 6.56, he says, He that eats my flesh and drinks
my blood dwells in me. Dwelleth in me. It means he dwells
and he remains dwelling and always dwelling. Remarkable. He dwells
in him and I in him. So we dwell in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and He dwells in us. And it was a church that was
purchased. We keep reminding you again and
again that the scriptures talk about our Saviour as a substitute,
but as a successful and sovereign Saviour. And it's this church,
this family of His, His body, it's the church, according to
Acts 20, 28, which He has purchased. It's His. The Church is His. It doesn't belong to men. It's not to be ruled over in
that way by men. It belongs to Him. He purchased
it. God's children, we have propitiation,
we have, as we saw in Exodus 12, we have the wrath of God
appeased when God says, when I see the blood, I'll pass over. That blood goes into that mercy
seat and God's people go into the Holy of Holies. Romans 5
says that we are now justified by His blood. We have, Ephesians 1, we have
redemption. This is mentioned many times
in the scriptures. We have redemption. We are bought
back to Him with the payment of an appropriate price. And
the only appropriate price is the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it's this blood that causes His people to draw near, Ephesians
2.13. We were far off, far off, far,
far off, and now we draw near by the blood of the Lord Jesus. And we have peace. He has made peace through the
blood of His cross. Not only has He made peace but
He's reconciled all things to Himself. And not only do we have,
because we have peace with God and because we draw, we are able
to draw near, we have entrance into the holy of holies. He's
entered in once into the holy place and we enter into that
holy place in Him and with Him. God's children have purged consciences. That makes you to be cleansed,
a conscience that is clean. How much more shall the blood
of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without
spot to God, purge, cleanse, purify your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God? We have in His blood remission
of sins. And this blood is the blood that
is sprinkled. It speaks of better things than
that of Abel. It speaks of the Lord Jesus being
a mediator of the New Covenant. But it's sprinkled, it's applied
to the hearts of God's people. And we are sanctified, we are
separated to Him and made holy by Him, that He might sanctify
the people with His own blood, Hebrews 13, 12. He brings His people not just
to sanctification, but He brings them to obedience, through sanctification
of the spirits unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood
of Jesus Christ. This blood We have fellowship
with God and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all our
sins, cleansed completely, cleansed by Him. What blessings, brothers
and sisters. He's redeemed us to God. They sing in heaven, we are redeemed
to Him. We are brought back at the payment
of a ransom price, and we brought back to Him. We washed, Revelations
1.5, washed from our sins. These people in Revelation 7.14
were singing, aren't they? And these are they which came
out of the great tribulation and have washed their robes and
made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They've overcome
Satan. How did they overcome Satan?
They overcame him, Revelation 12, 11, by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony. They loved not their lives unto death. Blood-bought blessings. Blood-bought blessings. And so I want for us to answer
the question that's in Exodus 12, 26. It says, when the children
or your friends say, what do you mean by this service? What do you people mean? What do you mean when you take What's the meaning of it? That's
the question that others were there. The whole purpose of Passover,
in a sense, was a perpetual remembrance, wasn't it? And people were to
ask that question. I want to answer that question
as simply as I possibly can this morning. But I want to do what
is called in 1 Corinthians 11.23, he says, for I received of the
Lord that which I also delivered unto you. I want what is said
about this blessed ordinance I want what is said about this
precious blood to be something that is received from the Lord
and delivered to us. It goes on in 1 Corinthians 11,
it says, that same night in which he was portrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks,
he broke it and said, take, eat, this is my body which is broken
for you, do this in remembrance of me. After the same manner
also he took the cup and when he had stopped saying, this cup
is the New Testament in my blood, this do ye, as often as you drink
it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this
bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death until
He comes. As I said at the beginning, This
is the Lord's Supper, isn't it? 1 Corinthians 1.20. It says it's
the Lord's Supper. It's His ordinance. He has instituted
it. It's His to direct. It's His to bring into existence.
It's His to use as He ordained to bless His Church. It's not
man's. It's not man's ordinance. Christ's
ordinance. It's His way of bringing His
people to remembrance. Do this in remembrance of Me. What a remarkable thing that
the Lord Jesus, and what a humbling thing it is, that we would need
to be reminded It shows me how quickly we forget,
but it also shows that as much as we shamefully forget Him,
He knows our frames. He knows what we're made of.
He knows that we are dust. And so it's a gracious blessing
from Him to give us something which is so simple and so symbolic
and yet so profound to remind us of His body and His blood. And while we're in 1 Corinthians,
just look, He is the one who broke the body. He's the one
who gave the body and he's the one who broke it. It's broken. He says, take it, this is my
body which is broken for you. I'd just like to look at seven
aspects of the Lord's Supper and may the Lord bless His Word. May that blood and that body
be made by Him precious, precious to us. Firstly, it's about His
incarnation, isn't it? This is real bread that we have,
and it's real wine. And the bread represents a real
body, His flesh. If you were there 2000 years
ago, you could have touched Him, you could have felt Him, you
could have felt His touch upon you. And that's how the apostles
are identified, isn't it? John describes himself in 1 John,
he and the other people who are witnesses. That which was from
the beginning, he was from the beginning, he is God over all,
God in human flesh. That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which
we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word
of Life. This life was manifested and
we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal
life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us. He had a real body. He was a
real man. This bread represents real human
flesh. It was a body that was prepared
for him by his father, a body you have prepared for me. It
was a body that came miraculously into being as the Holy Spirit
came over Mary. It was a body that grew into
the full stature of a man. And it was a real body. It was
a real man. And he was touched with the feelings
of our infirmities. He was in all points tempted
as we are, yet without sin there is nothing that has ever happened
in your life. and nothing that ever will happen
in your life about which you can say the Lord Jesus doesn't
understand this and the Lord Jesus hasn't experienced this. Sin excluded. He's a real man. It speaks of His incarnation. If He was just some spirit and
not a real man, we couldn't remember Him. We couldn't remember Him. We remember Him with real elements. This is a broken body. It is
shed blood. There is a reality. There is
a human, physical, historic reality about it. It's a meal in which
we are remembering things and you can't remember someone that
you've never known. You can't remember something
that you've never experienced. You have to have had it. You
have to have experienced it. before you can remember it. That's
what he's saying, isn't it? You people of God, you who know
him, who love him, who trust him, who believe him, who look
to his life as your life, his death as your death, people who
are resting on his sacrifice, resting on his finished work,
they come and drink, in fact, They're commanded to come and
drink. It's a real picture of a real
incarnation. We have real flesh and real blood. And these elements show His holiness,
don't they? Not just a man, but a holy man. That's what we read in Exodus
12, wasn't it? They used, at the Passover, they
used unleavened bread. Leaven, the leaven, the yeast
in the pictures is a picture of sin and evil and deception. And so in Egypt they made unleavened
bread for that whole week and they were to search their houses
and to find if there was some in there. And if people used
yeast, they were to be killed. It was a serious business, they
were to search. And it's remarkable that as they
left Egypt, you can read on in Exodus 12, that they didn't even
bother to take any with them. They left Egypt without any of
the yeast of Egypt, and their first meal outside of Egypt was
a meal of unleavened bread. And the Lord Jesus warns us,
doesn't he, that Egypt typifies this world, Satan and this world,
in opposition to God and his people. And the Lord Jesus then
expounds it to say that you beware of the yeast of the Sadducees
and the Pharisees. You beware of the leaven of false
teaching. You beware of the little grains
of false teaching which fester into an amazing thing and spoil
the whole batch. They go through the whole batch.
So little things, little things according to God, are big deal
things. There are no little things. When it comes to the Lord Jesus
and His blood and sacrifice, all of them are incredibly important.
Ask Cole, who's a chef, was a chef, about yeast. He tells that story
of the time he left a little bit too much yeast in his batch
of dough one evening and he came back the next morning and not
only has it filled the bowl, but it filled the bench and half
filled the kitchen he was working in. The Lord Jesus warns us that
a little bit of poison, a little tiny deviation from the Lord
Jesus and him crucified is dangerous. There are no little
things. It was unleavened bread. They
were to take all the leaven out of the house and they were to
search. This bread has no leaven in it. It's unleavened bread
which is a picture that our Lord Jesus' body was a body without
sin. His was a perfect body and a
perfect flesh. And the wine, the pure wine,
the fruit of the vine, it shows the purity of our Lord's blood. His blood wasn't Adam's blood. His blood was precious blood. And as grapes ferment, they naturally
have a yeast on the outside of them and when the grape is broken
and the yeast from the outside on the skin and the leaves and
things gets in there, then there is a fermentation process that
goes on and the yeast on the grapes is turned into carbon
dioxide and alcohol until the alcohol consumes the yeast. So one of the pictures of wine
is of pure blood, isn't it? There is no yeast in it. The
yeast has done its work and the yeast has been consumed and there
is none. It speaks of His incarnation.
It speaks of His holiness. untainted by leaven, untainted
by yeast. And of course it speaks so plainly
of His suffering and death. If the Lord would allow us times
to meditate on our Lord Jesus and His sufferings and death,
just go away. and be quiet by yourself and
contemplate what happened to him, what went through him, what
brought him to that place where he is in agony in that garden,
what brought him to that place where that blood fell as great
drops to the ground. As I said, the Scriptures is
a book about substitution, wasn't it? It was about him becoming
sin for us. The one thing that was just incompletely
abhorrent to God was sin, and yet the Scriptures say, the Lord
made him who had no sin to be sin for us. And remarkably in
Isaiah 53, it pleased the Father to crush him. I remember a few years ago when
we were still in Mark's Gospel, I was reading Mark's Gospel and
Mark's Gospel It just unpacks, as the New Testament does, it
unpacks the Old Testament prophecies about the Lord Jesus. And I spent
a whole week meditating on that verse out of Zechariah 13, verse
7. And I still can't get to the
end of it. I remember there's a story of Luther sitting there
at his desk and he spent almost a whole day there. He wouldn't
eat or he wouldn't drink and he was just studying that verse.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And Luther finally
gave up and he said, God forsaking God, who can understand it? The Lord Jesus came to die, didn't
he? But the Father says in Zechariah
7, He says, Awake, O sword, against my shepherd. against the man
that is my fellow, against the man who is my companion, says
the Lord of hosts. Smite the shepherd, my companion,
my fellow. Smite my son. Arise, O sword
of divine holy justice, and slay the shepherd. Our God in the Incarnation shows
us the reality of these things are beyond human understanding
and yet they were suffered in the body of a man, a real man. The wine and bread are separated,
aren't they? If you have the flesh over here
and you have the blood over here, you have death, don't you? When
they are together, there is life. The Lord Jesus takes the bread
and separates it from the wine. He says, this bread is my body,
my body broken. And he says, this here, separate
from it, is my blood. So the bread is broken. It represents
his body. And the wine is poured out and
it represents his shed blood. And the only way you can take
blood from a body is by the suffering, which leads to death. And so that's what Paul says
in 1 Corinthians 11, isn't it? For as often as you eat this
bread and drink this cup, you show the Lord's death to Leeukanen. You individually show it. We
show it together. We show his death. And it speaks of incarnation,
it speaks of His holiness, it speaks of His suffering and death,
and it speaks of substitution, glorious substitution. The Lord
Jesus says, this is my body broken for you, broken on your behalf,
broken for all of those blessings that I read out before. All of
those blessings flow to us because His body was broken. Broken in
your stead, broken for you, broken in your place, broken as a substitute. This is my blood, shed for you. The Eternal God gives us this
glorious gift. It is for you. For you, His blood brought people,
on your behalf and for you. speaks of incarnation and holiness
and death and substitution, but also speaks of this living union
with the Lord Jesus Christ. When I actually eat the bread
and drink the wine, I'm showing a living union with the Lord
Jesus Christ. We read those verses in John,
didn't we? that he indwells, there is this
mutual indwelling. Let's turn to John 6 and just
read this magnificent passage of scripture. Verse 47 he says,
he that believeth on me has everlasting life. It talks about him being
the teacher of his people. And he talks about the fact in
verse 48 he says, I am that bread of life. This bread, this bread
of life, verse 50, which cometh down from heaven that a man may
eat thereof and not die. What a remarkable word. A man may eat and not die. I am the living bread which came
down from heaven. If any man eateth this bread,
he shall live forever. promises from our great and glorious
Saviour, sealed with His life's blood. Live forever, and the
bread which I give is my flesh, which I will give for the life
of the world. The Jews therefore strove among
themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except
you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you
have no life in you. Whosoever eats my flesh and drinketh
my blood has in his hands, he possesses eternal life, and I
will raise him up at the last day, for my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed. And he that eats my flesh and
drinks my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father has sent
me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he
shall live by me." This is the bread which came down from heaven. Christians, where is your life?
Your life's in Him. It's the only life that matters. Live by Me. Live by Me. The Lord Jesus is
our life. The Lord Jesus is eternal life. The Lord Jesus is true life. The Lord Jesus is spiritual life. And it's a life that God's children
have. It's a life that God's children
have now. Eternal life now, brothers and
sisters, because of Him. The bread and wine plainly set
forth that the Lord Jesus became a real man. And the type of this
bread, they show His holiness and purity. And they show His
suffering. And they show why this blood
was shed. But it plainly shows a living
union. We are not just to admire the
bread and look at the wine. We are to eat it. Just as real
bread becomes life for us and real drink becomes life for us,
we are to eat it and to drink it. So you're not just to stand
back and admire the Lord Jesus, the great preacher, the Lord
Jesus the great healer, Christ the great moral teacher, but
God's children They are to embrace Him. They are to receive Him. They are to feed upon Him, to
live upon Him. They are in that amazing eternal
communion with Him and union. It's a heart faith and a heart
union with the Lord Jesus Christ, which is why religious ceremonies
and rituals are so meaningless, aren't they? They're so destructive
and so damaging to people because they think that they have something
by them. Real Christiganti is a heart
relationship. a real heart living relationship
with a real living God, indwelling his people and them living in
him. So when we take the wine and
take the bread, we show, don't we, show to myself and show to
others that Christ's body was broken for me. His blood was
shed for me. And I'm saying that in Him is
my confidence. In Him is my faith. In Him is my hope. We sang that song. My hope is
built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare
not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. It's to show my fellow believers,
isn't it, they, after the Lord's resurrection, after those great
days after Pentecost, they spent their time together, sitting
under the Apostles' teaching and sharing communion and having
all things in common. It's to show my fellow believers
that this is where my hope lies. My hope's not in what I do. My hope's not in what I preach.
My hope's not in my deeds. It's not in my works. It's not
in a decision. It's not in experiences or anything
else. Christ is my hope. Christ dying for my sins. Christ rising again. We show it to each other and
we show it to the world. And that's why it's a church
ordinance, isn't it? We eat together as they did. A common union created by His
broken body and His shed blood. We speak much of it because the
scriptures speak so much of it. It is a sealing and a ratification
of that eternal covenant. The eternal covenant, all of
what transpires in time, brings glory to God because it's the
fulfilment of His eternal promises. What He has determined in eternity
takes place in time. He promises and He keeps His
promises. He's faithful to His promises. And you can mark it down from
the scriptures, you can read about it in 2 Corinthians 3.
If you want to find out whether a church is teaching the gospel
or not, faithfully declaring who the Lord Jesus and Him crucified
is, ask them about the Eternal Covenant. Ask them what they
know of the Eternal Covenant. Because God says that he makes
his ministers, he makes his servants, he makes them ministers of the
new covenant, the eternal covenant, the everlasting covenant. And
it's that covenant in his blood. Turn quickly to Hebrews 13.20
and just look at these amazing verses. a great description of
our God, a great description of the death of His Son, a great
description of His Son, a great description of what He achieved
in His death, and a great description of what it means in the lives
of His people. This is the eternal covenant.
Now the God of peace, Hebrews 13.20, that brought again from
the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep. He is the great shepherd. He
is the good shepherd. He doesn't lose one of his sheep. No one will pluck them out of
his hands. But that great shepherd of the
sheep threw the blood of the everlasting covenant. The blood was shed. The lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. Every piece of blood
shed in this book. speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. But see, it's not ineffectual
blood. We have in this religious world today, don't we, we have
a Jesus who tries and a Jesus who fails. This book doesn't
know that Jesus and God's people don't know that Jesus and we
don't have Him blasphemed that way here, Lord willing. He makes
you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you
that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ. To whom be glory for ever and
ever. Amen. great God, a great God of peace,
a great Saviour. What a shepherd, a great shepherd. I am the good shepherd. He lays
down His life for the sheep. He lays it down and He takes
it up again. Read John chapter 10 about our
great and glorious shepherd. And finally, this is an ordinance that has a time
limit on it. It's just to be celebrated for
a set time by our God. 1 Corinthians 11 20 thinks, for
as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show
the Lord's death until He comes. It's a declaration of His glorious
resurrection. The work is finished. God is honoured, His law is magnified,
His people's sins are put away and will never be remembered
again, and our Saviour sits and reigns over this universe and
rules all things in this universe, and He's coming back. He's on
His way back right now, brothers and sisters. He has a time, just
as those people in Exodus 12 had a time, 430 years. When did the Lord take them out? To the very same day promised. When will the Lord Jesus come
back? It's hidden in the counsels of God. But we are to look for
Him. We are to look to Him. We are to expect His return,
to declare Him until He comes back. You see, you show, according
to 1 Corinthians 11.26, you show the Lord's death. In a sense,
we are in taking communion or preaching. We're proclaiming
the Lord's death until he comes back. He's coming back, a glorious
saviour. A glorious saviour, finished
his work. I love what Daniel 9 describes
with him and we'll finish here. He's finished. He's finished transgression by
his work. He's made an end of sin. He's
made reconciliation for iniquity. He's sealed up the vision and
prophecy. He's to anoint the most holy.
This Messiah is to be cut off, but not for himself. He shall
confirm the covenant. He shall cause sacrifice and
oblation to cease. Come ye sinners, poor and needy,
weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus ready stands to save you,
full of pity, love and power. I will arise and go to Jesus. He will embrace me in His arms,
in the arms of my dear Saviour. Oh, there are ten thousand charms. Come, you thirsty, come and welcome
God's free bounty glorifier, true belief and true repentance,
every grace that brings you near. Come ye weary, heavy laden, lost
and ruined by the fall. If you tarry, if you wait till
you're better, you'll never come at all. View him prostrate in
the garden. On the ground your maker lies,
on the bloody tree behold him. Sinner, will this not suffice? Lo, the incarnate God ascended,
please the merit of his blood. Venture on him, venture wholly,
let no other trust intrude. Let not conscience make you linger,
not the fitness fondly dream. All the fitness he requires is
to feel your need of him. Let's pry.