The Deeper Meaning of the Symbols

Good afternoon, brethren. It’s good to see you all on the Sabbath day.

Well, we just heard in the first message today, we just heard about the foot washing from Dr. Viljoen. Well, I’ll be covering the other symbols, or the other parts of the Passover service. I’ll be covering the bread and the wine. It’s something we do regularly. We have articles in The Pillar magazine, or we may have messages that cover the parts of the Passover service. I remember as a child, I would always be curious about it. I grew up in the Church, as some of you may know, and I was curious. My parents would go off this one evening before The Night to Be, before the Days of Unleavened Bread. They were maybe a little more serious that evening. They were a little more sober. They had much to contemplate. They had much to think about.

And I heard that they would eat this bread, they would take this wine. Didn’t always know what it was about or what the purpose was. Of course, I’ve learned all of that by now, and all of you, many of you have. But it’s very helpful as we prepare ourselves to keep the Passover, as we prepare for the Spring Holy Days, for us to review what those two symbols mean. What the bread means to us, and what the wine means to us.

Let’s go to Mark fourteen. I’ll just read one of the three passages in the Gospel to start, where it begins to explain these two symbols. Yes, it’s one of those things, of all that we do in God’s way, it’s a little different, it’s a little peculiar. It’s like the foot washing. Why do we do it? It has great importance to us. Let’s go over in Mark fourteen. Let’s read this passage about it. In verse twenty-two, “And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat, this is my body.”

In verse twenty-three, “And He took the cup, and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them: and they all drank of it. And He said unto them, This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many.” Those three verses explain what the two symbols are. The bread is His body, and the wine is His blood that is shed for many. We are going to look at them and understand their great meaning for us, to understand what God was teaching us, what Christ was teaching us, in the Passover service by these two symbols, and how they apply to our lives today. How we can be encouraged by them. Well, these two physical symbols are part of God’s creation.

Let’s go over to Romans one. Because I want to consider this afternoon, in a way, we’ll go to the scriptures that describe it as well. But we take these two symbols. And these two symbols are very physical. And God teaches us by His word, and we’re going to read this in a moment, how important some of the physical things are, and what we can learn from them. We turn to the scripture often for other reasons. Let’s read it now.

We’re over in Romans one. And we’ll begin reading in verse eighteen. In verse eighteen, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest to them,” is obvious to them, to those in the world, “for God hath shewed it unto them.” How has He done that? Verse twenty. “For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.”

Why do I turn to the scripture? As we’re going to look at the two symbols of the Passover service. Well, yes, the world. Does the world read these scriptures? No, they don’t. We read the scriptures. So there’s much for us to learn. But what I want to focus on is in verse twenty: “being understood by the things that are made.” So if we understand the things that are made, if we understand these two symbols deeply, we can see the invisible things of God. We can see the spiritual things of God. We can see His power, His almighty majesty through these two symbols, by meditating on and reviewing their physical aspects. They are extremely important.

Let’s go over to First Corinthians eleven to get a bigger description of this part of the Passover service. But keep that in mind; that we can see and understand God better when we look at His physical creation. We look at the physical parts of these two symbols. Now let’s go over to First Corinthians eleven where Paul expounds out the service a little bit, gives us more instruction; and instruction that I want to remind us all of.

Verse twenty-three. We’re in First Corinthians eleven and verse twenty-three. “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.” Keep that in mind.

And verse twenty-five. “And after the same manner also he took the cup, which He had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do you, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.” The part that I want to focus on here with these verses, “It’s in remembrance of me.” Paul lays out when to do it, the night that Christ was betrayed. The evening before night to be, we are to partake of the two symbols, and we’re supposed to do it in remembrance.

A remembrance is a memorial. We have many memorials in our culture. Wherever we are around the world, there are many memorials that we keep, and often they’re once a year. In Canada, those with a British tradition, keep Remembrance Day. Here in the U.S. I think we call it Veterans Day. It’s a memorial once a year. Here at the Passover service, Paul is laying out reminding the Corinthians that it’s a memorial, to be kept in remembrance once a year on the night before Christ was crucified.

Now let’s continue reading in verse twenty-six. Before I do that, the reason that I mentioned it’s a memorial, it’s a reminder to all of us because the world will sometimes they’ll keep it every Sunday, or they’ll go to the other extreme and don’t keep it at all. Just keep it in their hearts. God’s word is clear, how often and when.

Verse twenty-six is an interesting verse. Let’s read it. “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup,” it’s what we’re going to study more, “you do show the Lord’s death till He come.” Like the translators or how the word is, the verse is, you read it quickly. You just “show the Lord’s death till He come.” You just show it. To us, in our modern English, show isn’t that big of a word. Isn’t that important of a word. Maybe to remind you. Make a little bit light of it. It’s like show and tell. It’s just show and tell in kindergarten or grade one. It’s not a big deal. You just show the Christ’s death till He come.

Let’s look at the Greek word. And keep in mind, yes. We’re not all in the ministry. That, we do know. We’re not all behind the lectern or the table officiating Passover. But this verse is instructed to all of us. You do show the Lord’s death till He come. Let’s look at the word show. The word show is to teach, to preach, to declare, to proclaim. So each and every one of us, those that are baptized members in God’s Church, go to the Passover service. That is what we are doing.

When we keep the Passover service, when we partake of these two symbols, we’re teaching, we’re preaching ourselves. By our actions, we’re declaring and we’re proclaiming Christ’s death, our Lord’s death. How much more, in many ways, you stop and think? How much more meaning does that have than, “Let me just show it.” No. You’re proclaiming it. You’re teaching it. You’re declaring it.

Yes, our family members, our neighbors must wonder because we may dress a little differently when we go out that evening. Our co-workers may leave early from work. But what about the single member that’s by themselves, that’s keeping the Passover. And maybe there’s an unbelieving mate in the house, and they’re keeping quietly in a room because they can’t travel far enough to meet with others, and they’re keeping the Passover service.

What an example they are to those around them, to maybe the rest of their family members, the unbelieving mates. What an example they are. What an example you and I are when we keep these symbols, when we keep the service. It is so much more than we’re just showing our Lord’s death until He come. Our action of being there that evening, each and every one of us, is declaring it, is proclaiming it to all those that see, all those that see us do it, hear us do it. How important the evening is? How important those two symbols are?

Yes, in First Corinthians eleven further on the verses describe and show how important it is to take those symbols after examining ourselves. We recently had a sermon about that that showed us how we must do that before we come in to these days ahead of us. Those verses are very important.

Now let’s consider the bread. Let’s get into the details of the matters at hand this afternoon. We’ve all often heard, as children, growing up, I’m sure we heard this, I heard this from my parents, often times we are what we eat. And if you study nutrition, you study health, you study many of the things that the Church teaches as well, the laws of healthful living, you learn that truly we are what we eat. Whatever we eat becomes part of us. And how important that is? Keep that in mind as we take the bread. During the Passover service, as we’re learning about the importance of this symbol, keep that in mind. We are what we eat. What we eat becomes part of us. Literally it does.

As we consider this, why did God choose bread? Let’s look. If you look around the world, in almost every culture, every society has some form of bread in their meal. Whatever they eat, they have some form of bread. We may be most familiar. Here in this part, in the US, in North America, those in Europe, and in the Middle East, origin, we’re used to having wheat bread. That’s common. That’s what we understand. That’s what is common to us.

If you’re from Asia, you have rice cakes and other types of meal that are enjoyed that are types of bread. The America has corn tortillas, or North America. The Native Americans had corn bread. It’s common, so it’s in every culture. It’s extremely relatable. In Africa, they had millet or sorghum, cakes and meals.

Anciently, fifty to seventy percent of the calorie, the energy intake for mankind was from breads. How important that is? How crucial that is to society? They would say that empires rise and fall on their ability to produce bread, to feed their people. God chose this knowing. That it’s not just relatable to one culture. It’s relatable to all of us around the world. We all have our own forms of bread. We all have our own forms of this meal that feeds us and provides for us.

What does bread do, or rice cake, or other meals similar? Provides carbs. A primary source of energy. It keeps us going. Keeps the fire burning in our proverbial furnaces, in our proverbial ovens. It keeps our fire going. The protein that is provided through breads, it builds us and repairs our tissues, so it becomes part of us. It not just only gives us energy. If there’s parts of our body that need to be repaired or parts of our body that need to be built, that’s what the bread provides. That’s what the bread becomes a part of.

The fiber helps keep things clean, helps keep things moving, as they would say, the fiber within breads. The B vitamins help us with our energy production. The minerals, the iron, the calcium, the magnesium. The iron makes our blood work. Amongst many other things. The calcium becomes part of our bones. The magnesium helps us balance the salts in our body and our electric systems that run our hearts and our nervous system. That’s all that the bread provides. That’s all the physical part of the bread that becomes part of us, provides for us.

If you think, the plant, whatever the plant is, it’s a rice plant, it’s a corn plant, it’s a wheat plant, takes the energy of the sun, it mines the soil for the minerals, it takes the carbon from the air to produce sugars and energy to build us, to become part of us. In a sense, if we look at our little pinky finger, the cells in that pinky finger, parts of them, ultimately came from the bread you ate. The bone, maybe the calcium that you ate in the bread. It’s part of you. It’s inside you. We are, you could say, it’s a broad-sweeping statement, it’s a generalization, we are made of bread. We are made of that symbol that God uses at His Passover.

Let’s go to Luke twenty-two and verse nineteen. We read a verse specifically about the symbol. Keep all the physical parts in mind. Every culture uses bread in some form or the other. The importance of how it drives us, how it helps us sustain, how it gives us life, how it becomes a part of us. That’s something that I don’t often think about when, a personal comment, when I eat. I eat for energy. I eat to keep myself going. I don’t often think that what I’m eating is going to actually become a part of me. I eat it because I’m hungry. Take a moment and pause and think. What you eat becomes a part of you, becomes an integral part of you that helps you live. That makes the symbol extremely important.

We’re over in Luke twenty-two. Let’s read in verse nineteen. This is Christ describing Christ’s actions. “And He took bread and He gave thanks and broke it, and He gave unto them saying, This is my body which is given for you: Do this in remembrance of me.” Christ says, “This is my body. Do this in remembrance of me.” He’s making an analogy, a symbolism that this bread symbolizes Christ’s body. Now just keep in mind what we just read about the bread that we eat and what it does and what it becomes a part of us, the importance of that. And as we keep the Passover service, we always use unleavened bread. That’s extremely important.

Let’s go over to Galatians five and verse nine. I’m sure we may have read this recently in our preparation for Passover. Galatians five and verse nine. I know that leaven symbolizes sin. We’re over in Galatians five and verse nine. “A little bit of leaven leavens the whole lump.” Verse nine. “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” We can’t have in the bread we use, the bread that signifies the Christ’s body, signifies Christ’s life, signifies how He live, can’t have any leaven in it because the leaven will puff up and fill the whole of the bread. Leaven symbolizes sin.

How did Christ live? Let’s go over to First Peter two. How did Christ live? Looking at the bread that we eat at Passover, it’s flat, it’s unleavened. We know it’s without sin. Let’s remind ourselves, how did Christ live? We’re over in First Peter two and verse twenty-one. “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow his steps.” As an example, we should follow His steps. That may have become more important later as we consider the bread. “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.”

Simply, we’re looking at why unleavened bread. Leavened pictures sin and leavened will puff up the whole of the bread. But Christ did no sin. Christ was completely unleavened. He did no action of sin. Nothing He ever did was sinful. That’s amazing. That’s inspiring. That’s why we’re here in so many ways. But how much more?

Let’s go over to Second Corinthians. So He did no sin. And you know, in our struggles, when we work and we walk in God’s way, we try to do that. And oftentimes we stumble, we fall. We’re physical, and sometimes our actions are not according to God’s law. But Christ never did that. But He raises the bar for us as an example, example we are to follow, example we are to walk. Because over in Second Corinthians five, we hear more on what Christ did and why He’s pictured by unleavened bread, why He is pictured as being sinless.

In verse twenty-one, “For He has made Him to be sin for us, for who knew no sin; that He might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” “Who knew no sin,” that’s what I want to focus in to break into the context of the end of the chapter. But really focus in on those four words, “Who knew no sin.” Yes, oftentimes we can do better at making sure our physical actions don’t cross the line, don’t become sin. We can do better at that generally as humans.

But to keep our thoughts clean, that not any of our thoughts are without sin, that’s harder. That’s much harder. That’s the example that Christ gave us; the example that we must follow. How important it is that Christ is pictured by unleavened bread, bread without sin in both ways. Without sin, without action. Without sin, without thought. No sin at all. That’s why we use unleavened bread. And that adds the importance to the bread that we take.

Let’s go over to John six. John six verse forty-seven, the example that we’re supposed to follow, Christ’s example. Christ showed that His body is pictured by the little piece of bread we take each Passover. We’re to follow this example. Take the physical aspects of bread as we eat. Throughout the years, it becomes part of us. Keep that in mind.

Now we’re in John six and verse forty-seven. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believes on me has everlasting life.” It’s not where it ends. It’s where some in the world will say, “That’s it. All you got to do is believe on Christ and you’ll have it. You’ve made it.” There’s more. There is more. God’s way of life is more than that, more than that. Ultimately, the reward is better than what they teach in the world.

What we understand, become part of God’s family. Let’s continue in verse forty-eight as we focus on the topic at hand. “I am that bread of life.” Christ is declaring, “I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die.” Christ is alluding to, and we’ll talk about it when we look at the wine and the blood, the fathers that eat manna in the wilderness and are dead.

God provided bread for them to eat. That bread was physical bread alone. There was no life attached to it. Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection was not attached to that bread. There is no spiritual symbolism to it that drives us. Those that ate of it ultimately are dead. Yes, they will have their moment, their time to learn God’s truth in a greater way as we have, and they’ll have the same opportunities that we have today.

But Verse fifty, “This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.” What is Christ referring to? And is it just that we just eat that bread at Passover and that’s it, we have eternal life? Yes, we must partake of the symbols. Yes, we must ingest them and partake of them, but there’s the example that we must follow. Verse fifty-one, “I am the living bread which come down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I give you is my flesh, which I give you for the life which I give.” He’s going to give His life for the life of the world.

Let’s reread that. “I am the living bread which comes down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.” Do we need it literally? Of course, we’ll get there with the Jews. It’s not literally eating Christ. Of course not. It’s partaking of the symbols at Passover. Of course it is as well. “And the bread that I give in my flesh is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world.” So Christ gave His life so the whole world could have life.

Verse fifty-two. let’s look at this. The Jews sometimes, just thinking completely physically, thinking completely, not getting to the point, not getting the connection. “The Jews therefore strove among themselves saying, How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” How is that possible? The human nature, not led by God, not with God’s Holy Spirit, has no understanding of what is being said here. Strives among themselves, how is this possible? And the example we’re supposed to follow, that is what, furthermore, that I want to stress here.

Yes, Christ is the bread of life. Yes, we must partake of that little piece of matzo every Passover, but is that all that Christ wants us to do? Is that it? We read over in First Peter that He’s our example. We are to follow His example. We know that Christ is the word. We know that the Bible is the words of God, all of it. What does ultimately Christ want us to do? He wants us to take all of God’s teachings, all of God’s way, and internalize it in us, to live it, to make His words, God’s words, all the words of the Bible, as the bread we eat each day becomes part of us, as the bread we eat each day gives us energy to live.

Do we eat God’s word in the same way in our Bible study to give us energy to live? To become part of us? That it’s like the calcium in our bones. It’s so ingrained in us. It’s such a part of us. That Christ’s teaching’s, God’s teachings, God’s way of life throughout the Bible become so ingrained in our being. That is the calcium in our bones. It’s the protein in our cells and our little pinky fingertip. That’s how far Christ wants us to take it, how far He wants us to internalize that little piece of bread we take each Passover and become a part of our bodies, become a part of a way of life that we’ve been called to.

That’s where the Jews couldn’t understand. How is that possible? It’s the symbolism. It’s the importance of taking the bread of life. If the word of God is the word of life, and the bread is a bread of life, connect those two together. Eating the word, consuming God’s instructions, making it a part of our lives as a symbolism of the bread we eat each day and the more important symbolism of the Passover bread we partake of. Let’s all of us make sure we internalize it that we have it in us that closely the calcium in our bones, the protein in our cells.

Let’s talk more about the bread. Why is it broken? This is one part of the service. For those, and I’ve talked with other ministers about it, those have performed the service, have come to this point in the service where we’ve blessed the bread, and then with our hands we break it. It is most sobering. It hits the heart. It slams into you in a way that, when I’ve done it, never has hit me in any other way since or before. But how important it is that that bread is broken?

Let’s go to a few verses and read about it. Because as your hands, as you are officiating the Passover service, and you’re breaking the bread, it becomes real in a physical action in a way that is hard to explain, but it’s a way that we must all internalize, a way we must all meditate on.

We’re over in Isaiah fifty and verse six. “And I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, and I hid not my face from shame and spiting.” That’s Christ describing what He was going through. We’ll read a few verses here. We won’t read all of it. That whole chapter is helpful to review before the Passover. Let’s go to Isaiah fifty-two and verse fourteen. “And many were astonished at you; His vision was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men.” That’s what Christ endured, and why did He endure it?

Let’s go to Psalm fifty-three. Psalm fifty-three. I meant Isaiah fifty-three. We just read how Christ was marred more than any man. I have a hard time understanding that. I believe it. We’ve seen real videos from war. We’ve seen what man does to each other. And that statement is in God’s word. God’s word refined seven times. And we read that, and we need to understand that Christ was marred more than any man.

And the things we see on the news or the things we’ve seen in the movies depicting horrible actions of man, what man does to each other, but Christ was worse. No matter how bad we’ve ever seen it, Christ was worse. How is that? That’s hard to wrap our physical minds around. With God’s Holy Spirit, we can be sobered by it and inspired by it, ultimately.

We’re over in Isaiah fifty-three. I want to read verse four to seven. “Surely He has borne our griefs,” These are two previous verses we read. Well, why? Why is the bread broken? “Surely He has borne our griefs, carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep,” verse six, “have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

As we’re breaking the bread, as we hear the bread broken, be reminded, that’s us. That’s all that we’ve done in our lives, that all that mankind has done. We broke His body. No bone was ever broken. We marred His body by our actions. He took all of our iniquity upon Him. That’s verse seven. “He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth. He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and a sheep before the shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth.”

Ultimately, He took all the sins of mankind upon Him so we could have life. We read about the bread, we read about Christ, believing on Christ, so ultimately, so we could have life, so we could live. Christ took that all on Him. But in verse five, “And with His stripes we are healed.” Let’s go over to First Peter two and verse twenty-four. That’s why earlier in Corinthians we skipped it, where we need to take, evaluate ourselves, examine ourselves, look at ourselves, and take the bread with the right attitude. After doing all of that, the right sobriety, soberness, awe, so that we can claim that promise.

Let’s read it again in First Peter two and verse twenty-four. We were earlier in this chapter, earlier in the message. First Peter two and verse twenty-four, this almost repeats what we just read in Isaiah. “Who His own self bare our sins in His body, on the tree, that we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness.” That’s why Christ went through all of that. So we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes we are healed.

Broken bread is to remind us the stripes that Christ endured, and by those stripes we are healed. By those stripes we can claim the promises of God to heal us. That’s why the bread is broken. That’s why we must consider it and take it soberly, but even more so, just to be reminded what Christ brought upon Himself so we could have life.

We’re in First Peter again. “That we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness.” We’re dead without Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection, without partaking of the Passover symbols, without having God’s Holy Spirit work within us and being forgiven of our sins. We can’t have that life without Christ enduring what He endured and taking all of our sins, paying the penalty for our sins. We could not have life. But I’m sure the importance of the symbol of bread is enlarged in your minds and is more clear.

Now let’s consider the wine. We’ve read that the wine is a symbol of Christ’s shed blood. What does the blood do? Let’s go over to Leviticus seventeen and verse eleven. Leviticus seventeen and verse eleven. We’ll just read the first statement in the verse. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood.” Simply, the blood that is in us, it’s the life of the flesh. It’s our life. God taught that to the ancient Israelites. Medically, it took us a while to figure that out as mankind, but God made it clear. The life that is in us, it is the blood, it’s the life.

What does blood do for us? As a reminder, as we consider the physical aspects of it, it transports oxygen throughout our bodies. Without it, our brains stop working very quickly. Oxygen does not come to our brains. It transports the nutrients. Think of the bread that we were talking about. It transports that through our bodies. It regulates our temperature and our balance. The blood clotting stops us from bleeding out. In a sense, it helps us to heal. It heals itself. It protects us against infections.

The most important part of blood, the most important part of the analogy, it removes waste products from our body. It’s something that works, and we don’t think about it often. At least I don’t, unless I cut myself. I don’t think about the blood in my body. It works all day long, twenty-four/seven. It’s doing the job that God created it to do in all of us.

Unless we cut ourselves, it may not cross our minds. If we’re not bleeding, it doesn’t cross our minds. Bu it’s constantly removing waste products from our body. If that didn’t happen, our bodies would fill with toxins. Our bodies would stop functioning. We’d be in immense pain and death, obviously, would quickly follow. But the blood that is in us is constantly cleaning us. It’s constantly removing the toxins from our body.

Let’s go over to Matthew twenty-six and verse twenty-eight. Matthew twenty-six and verse twenty-eight. I’ll cover the third, the one that we haven’t read yet. Twenty-six and verse twenty-eight. “For this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remissions of sin.” Christ’s blood was shed for many for the remissions of sins, for the forgiveness of sin, for removing from our lives, spiritually, the toxins from our lives, the iniquity from our lives, the sins that we have done. We take the wine as a symbol of Christ’s blood each Passover to set the slate clean, to recommit ourselves to God’s way of life, to have our sins forgiven again.

Let’s go to Exodus twenty-four. Actually, let’s go to Hebrews ten and verse four. Let’s go over to Hebrews ten and verse four. In Exodus, we could have read where the old covenant was ratified by blood. That old covenant, that physical Israel, the church in the wilderness and in the promised land, those physical sacrifices, ultimately, they were lacking a part. They were lacking something that wasn’t there.

Hebrews ten and verse four. Let me read. “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away any sins.” There’s only one thing that can take away sins, and that’s Christ’s blood. Christ’s shed blood for us is the only thing that can take away our sins, the only thing that can wipe us clean, can forgive us. Yes, the blood of the bulls and the goats, as sin offerings, were there as an example, were there as physical actions, but it was missing the price that needed to be paid for all of us, the price of death that Christ did for us.

Let’s go to Hebrews nine. Let’s read a little bit more about this and the importance of the wine and the symbolism of being Christ’s blood. Verse thirteen of Hebrews nine. “For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctified to the purifying of the flesh.” If it sanctified at least the physical Israelites, if it purified the flesh at least of the physical Israelites, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the internal spirit offered Himself without spot,” we learned how Christ was sinless, how Christ did not sin in action or sin in thought at all, so He was without spot, “purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” Verse fourteen.

So Christ’s blood, how much more important? How much more this Christ’s blood and the symbol of the wine cleanse us, purge our conscience, purge our dead works, and purge our sin from us? Yes the sacrifice of ancient Israelites physically sanctified them, physically purified the flesh, but did not ultimately forgive them of their sins in the way that Christ’s sacrifice did.

Let’s go over to First Peter one. A little bit more about First Peter one and verse nineteen. “But with the precious blood of Christ,” looking at the symbolism, looking at the importance of the blood that is in us, the physical properties that it does, removes the toxins from our body. How much more so when we read this verse now. The precious blood of Christ, how precious is it? It’s without value. It gives us life. It has forgiven our sins. “As a lamb without blemish and without spot.” He was ultimately the Passover sacrifice that had no blemish, no spot that could pay for all the sins of mankind. Could forgive us of all our wrongdoings.

Let’s go to Hebrews eight and verse six. Hebrews eight and verse six. “But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also He is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon you better promises.” Let’s consider. The old covenant, the physical sacrificing of bulls, goats, and other animals was physical. It didn’t ultimately forgive the sins. It didn’t ultimately pay the price that was demanded by the sins of mankind, but how much better by Christ shedding His blood for us for the remission of our sins? How much better of a covenant do we have? How much better of a calling do we have?

Let’s reread Hebrews eight and verse six. “But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also He is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.” To better promise ultimately we take that cup of wine, we reflect on a whole that Christ has done for us, we reflect on how His blood has washed us clean. The better promise that brings for all of us. The promise of eternal life, the promise to be a part of God’s family.

Let’s go over to John six and verse fifty-four. John six and verse fifty-four. We’ve studied the two symbols: The bread and the wine. We’ve considered their physical attributes and what they do for us, what they do for us daily and what we eat, how the bread builds us, gives us life, gives us energy. The example we are to follow, Christ’s example. What He did for us. All that He bore on His body and was beaten and marred and took upon us so we could have eternal life, so He could pay ultimately the price for our sins. And His blood was shed.

Let’s read John six and verse fifty-four as we close, as now we understand what this verse means. We understand more deeply. We’ve reviewed it. Let’s read it. “Whoso eats my flesh and drinks my blood,” whoso partakes of the bread at Passover, whoso partakes of the wine at Passover soberly and with awe of what God has done for us through His Son, “has eternal life. And I will raise him up in the last day.” Let’s reread that. And keep in mind what we’ve reviewed and reminded ourselves of the two symbols of the Passover. Let’s read this again. “Whoso eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, And I will raise him up at the last day.”