In the night in which Jesus was betrayed after supper He took bread and He broke it. And He said, “This bread is My body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.” You might remember that earlier in John chapter six, Jesus offended a lot of His disciples and told the multitudes, “Unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood, you have no life in you.” Now He was obviously speaking in a metaphor. The eating and the drinking was consuming Him or taking Him into yourself by a simple act of faith. All of us eat. All of us drink. It’s something we’re all capable of. Anyone who can eat and drink is also capable of believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So as we look at this bread now as that human body that He took on Himself by means of the virgin birth, so that He can enter into this world, so that He could live among us, so that He could know our tests, our trials, our pains, our sorrows, our sufferings, and then ultimately, that He could go to the cross in our place and pay the penalty for our sin. Jesus said, “As often as you eat this bread, do it in remembrance of Me.”
After Jesus had passed the bread, He took the cup. It was the third cup that they drank. They actually drank four cups during the course of the Passover supper that night. The third cup was called the Cup of Redemption, and it was this cup that Jesus passed to His disciples. And it’s fitting, of course, because He said, “this cup represents My blood which is given for you.” That blood, of course, is what we speak of when we talk about the blood of Christ. Oftentimes we don’t stop to think and realize when we speak of the blood of Christ, we’re actually talking about much, much more than the blood that ran in His veins, or even the physical suffering that He went through. The blood of Christ is really a spiritual term, a theological term that encompasses the totality of the penalty. “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of His blood to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate His righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand and punished (Romans 3:25.)”
He paid the penalty for every sin of every member of the human race. That penalty not just includes God’s judgment on the sin; it includes what sin does to us. Sin injures the sinner, but it injures those around. It causes grief. It causes pain. It causes shame. It causes brokenness in relationships. All of these things Jesus embraced willingly and took on Himself and paid the penalty for them so that you and I could have the free gift of eternal life. So as we take the cup, I always like to do this as a toast. I like to toast The King and the use the words of the apostle Paul. “Now to the King, eternal, immortal, invisible. To God, Who alone is wise, be honor and glory and dominion forever.” To the King! To the King!
Great Song by Micheal W. Smith: Hymn for Communion
https://youtu.be/tCaTbPsO5Y8
Learn about “The Simplicity of Salvation” here:
https://basictraining.org/simplicity-of-salvation/
Download or order the free booklet “The Gift” here: https://basictraining.org/the-gift/