“This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.”

(Luke 22:20)

When Jesus shed His blood on the cross, He was making a holy and unbreakable covenant with each one of us. The shedding of blood was God’s ordained means to redeem us by scouring away all traces of sin and separation, and by pouring His Very Life into us.

So the blood has a two-fold purpose: to obliterate sin and death, and to impart the Life of God into every one of His children. The life is in the blood – as we see in the following verse in Leviticus:

The Lord says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement” (Lev. 17:11). Under the Old Covenant, atonement meant forgiveness of sins.

For us today, under the New Covenant, it still means forgiveness of sins but we can also understand it as “at-one-ment”. Meaning that it makes us one with God.

The powerful meaning of the word “covenant” – whose original Hebrew root word conveys cutting (ie the shedding of blood) – has been watered down by the use of the words New and Old “Testaments” instead of “Covenants”. The problem is that the modern understanding of testament has evolved to mean simply “last will and testament”. This weakened meaning does not clearly convey the full significance and impact of the shed blood of Jesus.

Why is it so important to be aware of this, though? Especially now that we’re no longer living under the old sacrificial system for the removal of sins?

It is because an understanding of the gravity of covenant gives us a two-pronged, rock-solid basis for our faith which convinces our minds as well as our hearts: Firstly, it provides our minds with the evidence of an unbreakable foundation for our full acceptance as children of God (because – astoundingly – God has chosen to bind Himself to us through the legal transaction of His covenant on Calvary).

Secondly, it assures us of God’s ongoing desire to engage in deeply intimate, heart-to-heart relationship with us because it was for Love – and Love alone – that Jesus went to the cross: “For God so greatly loved … the world that He even gave up His only begotten Son” (John 3:16, AMPC).

As we’ve just seen, a vital part of Jesus’ sacrifice was to shed His blood on our behalf for the forgiveness of all our sins - which in itself is staggering beyond words. But He also did something else for us on Calvary, which was to bring us into a life of undiluted union with Himself.  This is a mind-bending truth and it’s useful to have some metaphors to help it to penetrate our hearts.

So let’s look at a visual depiction of what it means to become one through covenant, as seen in the story of David and Jonathan (the son and heir of King Saul). To a certain extent – although of course not fully – they foreshadowed Jesus’ covenant with His Bride, the Church.

We read in the first book of Samuel: “Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own life. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his armor, even his sword, his bow, and his girdle.” (1 Sam. 18:3-4, AMPC).

[The context is that David had just killed Goliath, the Philistine giant, with a simple sling and a stone. It’s striking to note that he was not trusting in material weapons at all, but wholly upon the truth that he (David) was an Israelite who belonged to God through covenant … and that the Philistines did not. His faith in this covenant identity released the power he needed to overcome Goliath.]

The first thing that Jonathan did, as a sign of his own personal covenant with David, was to take off his robe. By giving it to his friend, he was actually bestowing on David – who was still a shepherd – his own royal position, full authority and power as the son of a king.

In other words, their identities were now completely blended together.

This is what Jesus has done for us. He actually went much further than Jonathan for He clothed Himself with our rags to identify completely with us. 

Jesus stripped Himself of everything in order to clothe us with His own garments of salvation and His robes of Righteousness. He now sweeps us up into Himself and imparts to us His very own life, His love, healing, provision and protection. Jesus’ perfect DNA is now vibrating in every cell of our bodies and our bloodstream.

So, continuing with the story of Jonathan and David … After gifting his robe, Jonathan then handed his sword and his weapons to David. He was bestowing all his power to David as well as indicating that he, Jonathan, would henceforth fight every challenge that came against his friend.

Likewise, Jesus gives us His own armour, power and ability. Not just to work with us to fight off challenges and assaults, but to work and to fight on our behalf as we rest in Him. An essential part of the armour that He gives us is the sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:17) which is His powerful Word. We live in new covenantal authority now, and so we can fully trust God to back us up as we declare His Word.

Jesus gives us everything … because we are in Him and He is in us. We are truly in union with the Creator of the universe!  What's more, He longs for us to come into ever-deeper experience of this wondrous truth.

That’s why Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper which is much more than a symbol because, through it, we partake of Christ’s Nature: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation  in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16, RSV).

Jesus confirms this very clearly when He says, “My flesh is true and genuine food, and My blood is true and genuine drink” (John 6:55, AMPC).

 Oh! How we long to experience more and more of this overwhelming truth in the depths of our beings. Let’s pray together that the eyes of all our hearts be flooded with light, “so that we can know

and understand … how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints - His set-apart ones” (Eph. 1:18, AMPC*). 

Amen and Amen!  We praise you, Lord!

* Based on Apostle Paul’s beautiful prayer for the church in Ephesus. (Text in quotation marks has been changed to read “our/us” instead of “your/you”.)  

Photo credits:

The main image is a painting by James Tissot entitled "The Last Supper: Judas Dipping his Hand in the Dish". Reproduced with permission from Brooklyn Museum / FreeBibleimages.org

Rainbow image courtesy of Pixabay.com

By Ann Shakespeare 26 September 2023