Matthew 26:27–28 — And when He had taken a cup and given 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 forgiveness of sins.
We are thinking about how the Lord's Supper proclaims His death. We have looked at the subject generally and last time, we considered the broken body of Jesus more specifically. In this meditation, we want to focus on His poured-out blood.
Throughout the Old Testament, the Lord declares that in His sight there is something special about the blood of His creatures - because the life is in the blood (see Genesis 9:4; Lev 17:11,14; Deuteronomy 12:23). It follows that when a man or an animal loses its blood, it loses its life. Indeed, "life" and "blood" are almost used interchangeably in the Old Testament and shedding blood is equated with killing (Proverbs 6:17). In Psalm 72:14, we read that the blood of the needy (i.e. their lives) will be precious in the sight of the King Who will come, and we also find that the responsibility for the death of another is spoken of as having his or her blood on the hands (Ezekiel 23:37).
So when blood is poured out, death is symbolized. We reflected earlier on how the blood of an Old Testament sacrifice was often poured out at the base of the altar of burnt offering in the Temple, so in our text, as He inaugurates the Supper, Jesus takes the wine and says it represents His blood, about to be poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Can it be clearer that we are meant to see in the wine at the Table an emblem that Christ poured out His life for His people, dying sacrificially in their place?
Did Christ in fact shed blood in the course of giving up His life? We know that He did. His back was torn open with a scourge. His head was beaten with fists and with a reed. A crown of cruel thorns was pushed down on His head. His hands and His feet were pierced with nails to hang Him up on the cross, and at the end a spear was thrust into His side, bringing a flow of blood and water (John 19:34). His blood, His life, was poured out on behalf of those He would save from sin.
Wine is a very suitable choice for this emblem, too. In Jacob's prophecy concerning Judah (and the Christ Who would be his descendant) we are told that He would wash His garments in wine and his robes in the blood of grapes (Genesis 49:11). In Deuteronomy 32:14, wine is again referred to as the blood of grapes. Why is this? It is because in order to make wine, the grapes have to be crushed and to give up their juice.
Furthermore, there are passages where the wrath of God against the wicked is represented as the crushing of grapes, with their blood flowing out, or spattering garments. Isaiah 63 (below) gives one example, but see also Revelation 14:18-20.
Isaiah 63:1–6 — Who is this who comes from Edom, With garments of glowing colors from Bozrah, This One who is majestic in His apparel, Marching in the greatness of His strength? “It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” 2 Why is Your apparel red, And Your garments like the one who treads in the wine press? 3 “I have trodden the wine trough alone, And from the peoples there was no man with Me. I also trod them in My anger And trampled them in My wrath; And their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, And I stained all My raiment. 4 “For the day of vengeance was in My heart, And My year of redemption has come. 5 “I looked, and there was no one to help, And I was astonished and there was no one to uphold; So My own arm brought salvation to Me, And My wrath upheld Me. 6 “I trod down the peoples in My anger And made them drunk in My wrath, And I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”
So Christ's use of wine at the Supper foreshadows the fact that He was to be crushed by God in the winepress of His wrath, provoked by the sins Jesus would bear on the cross, until His blood would flow out, satisfying the justice of God and securing the redemption of His people.
So then, blood and wine (and God's wrath against sin) are tied together in Scripture, and poured-out, or shed blood is synonymous with death, and is pictured graphically for us at the Table. Why should all this make us want to participate in the Lord's Supper? We are so forgetful of what Jesus went through for us. We can dismiss it in five words, "He died on the cross". Yet the thought of His shed blood, and the recollection this should bring of His physical and spiritual agonies for us, must draw us out in love to Him, or we have no Christian life worthy of the name. We should long to "sit beneath the cross, and gladly catch the healing stream" as Charles Wesley put it (O Love Divine, What Hast Thou Done!).
