3. The Basal Accounts

For the understanding of the purpose and meaning of the institution, consideration is limited to four accounts, the scantiness of which is in inverse ratio to the importance which the sacrament held from the beginning in the Christian assemblies, but is, on the other hand, a proof that the primitive community was untroubled by doubts as to what the Lord had left behind . him. No part of the New Testament offers an exposition of the meaning of the Lord's Supper. What Paul gives in I Cor. a. 122, xi. 23 sqq., is not an exposition, but a reminder of what was self-evident to the Church, though perhaps in other places than Corinth (as is so often the case with self-evident truths) it was not sufficiently borne in mind. According to all the sources, the institution stands in immediate actual, not merely chronological, relation tb the death of Christ. He gathers his disciples about him for the last time to celebrate the Passover. He stands face to face with death, which he has all along foreseen as in a special sense the purpose of his mission. He has repeatedly told his disciples, not only that they must not on that account lose faith in his Messiahship, but that they should have begun to understand something of the counsels of God (Matt. xvi. 23). They have not, however, understood. The hour of the Passover has come; of that sacred feast which pointed not only backward to the deliverance from Egypt, but also forward (as Pa, esvi.-exviii., sung at the feast, show) to the fulfilment of prophecy in the final redemption. What is to become of their hopes if Jesus dies? Where is the promised "new covenant" (Jer. xxxi. 31)? This is the last Passover of the old; one day he will celebrate it with them in a new manner in his kingdom (Luke xzcii. lfi-18, 29, 30). But they do not understand what lies between-his death; they do not believe it possible, as their strife for precedence shows. They are simply straining their eyes for the dawn of the new covenant. Jesus avails himself of a symbol. He takes the bread used in the paschal supper, gives it to them, and speaks words which lend it a new meaning. At the end of the supper, before the singing of the Halted, he takes in like manner the cup of wine, which was passed from hand to hand four times during the paschal meal, and gives it to them with similarly significant words. Amid the variants, what were the ipsisaima verbs of Christ can not be determined; the only question is whether the more extended forms correspond to his thought, or whether they add something to it or depart from it. This question may be answered by considering the undoubted connection of the two distributions. If they are taken together, the mention of a covenant which is common to all the accounts in connection with the giving of the cup supplies a key. This, term connects the institution with the Passover, which is closely connected with the old covenant, as this with the new. The giving of the body will thus have the same relation to the foundation of the new covenant as that of the blood, and both together will have reference to the sacrificial death (see Heb. a. 10) of Christ. The foundation of the new covenant is indicated by the shedding of the blood for many, for the remission of sins. In it the expression " my body given for you " finds its completion. No different thought is expressed in I Cor. g. 17 (taken in connection with aii. 27), where the words " for we being many are one bread, and one body" rest on the participation in the one bread; and this bread is (verse 16) "the communion of the body of Christ," as the cup is "the communion of the blood of Christ" -a community with the body and blood of Christ answering to that which those who ate of the Saorificea of the old law had with the altar, and that which those who took part in heathen sacrifices had with demons. The sacrificial conception dominates the whole Pauline doctrine on the subject, and contains the same interpretation of " my body given for you " which is to be taken from the connection of the bread and the cup and their relation to the "covenant." Thus what Jeans wished to symbolize for his disciples-and not to symbolize alone-was his coming death; but that death is not, as they suppose, a misfortune; it is to nerve the purpose of the "covenant," to be a sacrifice. Promises and hopes have not come to naught; as the old covenant comes to an end, the new (Jer. xxxi. 31) is instituted.