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Bread, Wine, and Crown of Thorns.
While they were eating,
Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said,
"Take, eat; this is my body."
Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying,
"Drink from it, all of you;
for this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."
Matthew 26:26-28 NRSV
The key to understanding the realtionship between animal sacrifice and the bread and wine is the timeline and the changing perspective on Calvary. Prior to Jesus, people were looking ahead to the upcoming event. Jesus' contemporaries saw Jesus and the events surrounding his death. After Jesus' resurrection and return to His Father in Heaven, people are looking back at historical events.
With the change in perspective from that of expection to that of historical event, a change in the Covenant ritual was necessary.
Note, too, that Jesus is explicitly mentioned in the Mosaic Covenant as being a party, and as an offerer of the Rescue Contract (Representation of Jesus).
Bread of Display - aka Shewbread or Showbread.
The Scriptures mention the Bread of Display without explaining it:
23 You shall make a table of acacia wood, two cubits long, one cubit wide, and a cubit and a half high. 24 Overlay it with pure gold, and make a gold molding around it. 25 Make a rim of a hand's breadth around it, and make a gold molding for its rim round about. 26 Make four gold rings for it, and attach the rings to the four corners at its four legs. 27 The rings shall be next to the rim, as holders for poles to carry the table. 28 Make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold; by these the table shall be carried. 29 Make its bowls, ladles, jars and jugs with which to offer libations; make them of pure gold. 30 And on the table you shall set the bread of display, to be before Me always. (Exodus 25:23-30 (Tanakh))
5 You shall take choice flour and bake of it twelve loaves, two-tenths of a measure for each loaf. 6 Place them on the pure table before the LORD in two rows, six to a row. 7 With each row you shall place pure frankincense, which is to be a token offering for the bread, as an offering by fire to the LORD. 8 He shall arrange them before the LORD regularly every sabbath day—it is a commitment for all time on the part of the Israelites. 9 They shall belong to Aaron and his sons, who shall eat them in the sacred precinct; for they are his as most holy things from the LORD's offerings by fire, a due for all time. (Leviticus 24:5-9 (Tanakh))
That Jesus is, in fact, the Bread of Life is the corollary to the Bread of Display and His representation in Covenant Law.
The ritual of animal sacrifice never accomplished the forgiveness of sin. Neither was this the Lord's intention!
Animal sacrifice was an instructional visual aid - used by the Lord in much the same way as we would use a video clip today. See: representing the sinner.
Jesus unlocks the meaning of the 'Cup of Wine':
[27] Then he took a cup, and after giving 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 the forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 26:27-28 NRSV)
Technically, Jesus offers His disciples the Cup of Wine, which they were then free to reject or to receive.
The new-covenant church are sloppy in their thinking and careless in their research - not to mention blind - because they map the contents of the cup, the wine, to Jesus' shed blood at Calvary as part of their 'new covenant'. To cap that, they then ascribe their sin and error to the authority and guidance of the Lord Spirit - a sure-fire way of being Blacklisted!
Jesus, on the other hand, is being precise and, with regard to Covenant Law, technically correct when He maps the cup of wine to the bowl containing the Blood of the Covenant. The mapping becomes explicit when the two references are placed side-by-side:
| Exodus 24:6-8 (Tanakh) | Matthew 26:27-28 NRSV |
|---|---|
| 6 Moses took one part of the blood and put it in basins, and the other part of the blood he dashed against the altar. 7 Then he took the record of the covenant and read it aloud to the people. And they said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will faithfully do!" 8 Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD now makes with you concerning all these commands.” | [27] Then he took a cup, and after giving 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 the forgiveness of sins. |
The problem for us is that the translators/printers do not understand the Scriptures. Consequently they do not capitalise 'blood of the covenant' (underlined) correctly.
'Covenant' is a proper noun, and therefore needs to be capitalised.
The term 'blood' can be used as a common noun or as a proper noun. In the references in the table above, 'blood' is a common noun, since Jesus actual blood has yet to be shed. Hence: 'the blood of the Covenant'.
However, at Calvary, His shed blood was, in Covenant Law, the 'Blood of the Covenant'.
Hence the play on words which helps with understanding and explaining the narrative.
See: Representation of Jesus in Covenant Law.
Version: 18-Feb-2024