The Lord’s Supper 2020

The Lord’s Supper 2020.pdf

Announcement of the Lord’s Supper 2020

Why is it so important to celebrate the Lord’s Supper?
This article summarizes all the relevant events that have to do with Jesus’ supper.

In paradise, the disobedience and sin of the first people began by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which would surely cause them to die (Gen. 2:17).
The Divine plan for the first people to live eternal in paradise on earth was then over:

NKJV (Romans 5:12) 12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned

The announcement to Satan

Immediately after the sin of Adam and Eve, the very first announcement to Satan of a very radical event:

CSB (Genesis 3:15) 15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

The (heavenly) woman is a depiction of heavenly Jerusalem (Rev. 12: 1, Matt. 25:31), a heavenly organization with its very large number of angels (Rev. 5:11, Heb. 12:22).
The seed of the woman means the offspring belonging to her. Those are the children of God, where we yet will come back to.
Jesus comes in picture here as the Son of God for the first time, Satan will crush Jesus in the heel.

With choosing Abraham came the solution for hopelessly lost humanity.
At a very old age, Abraham was 99 years old and Sarah was 90 years old, Abraham received the assurance from God that Sarah would give birth to a child (Gen. 17: 1-2, 15-19):

NKJV (Genesis 17: 7) 7 And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.

God later asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, which was prevented by an angel at the very last minute (Gen. 22: 2, 10-12).
The sacrifice that Abraham had to make was a foreshadowing of the sacrifice of God’s only Son that God (YHWH) should bear as Father:

NKJV (Genesis 22: 16-18) 16 and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son– 17 blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. 18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

Abraham’s descendants would become very numerous and in someone from Abraham’s descendants (Jesus) all the nations of the earth would be blessed.
By order of God, Moses delivered the Jewish people from slavery.
Every Jewish family in Egypt had to slaughter a male lamb (without defect) and eat the meat that night, also they had to put some blood of the sacrificial lamb on the doorposts for their protection.
The faith in the blood and flesh of the slaughtered lamb was the foreshadowing of the faith in the blood and flesh of Jesus:

NKJV (1 Corinthians 5: 7) 7 ….For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
NKJV (1 Peter 1:19) 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

The made promise for a posterity

According to Galatians, the promise to Abraham of a posterity is ultimately meant for all who have ‘put on’ Christ. So the promise applies to all baptized Christians:

NKJV (Galatians 3: 26-29) 26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

With the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in the 1st century with its sacrificial altar, the place was destroyed for the Jews where the Jewish population had to have their annual Passover Lamb slaughtered. After Jesus’ perfect sacrifice as the Lamb of God, that sacrifice was no longer necessary:

NKJV (Hebrews 10: 12,18) 12 But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God…. 18 Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.

Jesus assured us that He is with us all the days until the end of the age.
For that reason, Jesus is also our Head of the body of Christians, the Christian community:

NKJV (Matthew 28:20) 20….and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
CSB (Colossians 1:18) 18 He is also the head of the body, the church….

All Christians together form the body of Christ

Together Christians form the body of Christ, every Christian is a part of this:

NKJV (1 Corinthians 12: 12,27) 12 For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ…. 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. (See also Romans 12: 5)

Baptized Christians represent all Jesus qualities and love for our fellow human beings, and Jesus is the head of this Christian body.
It is just like a literal body, where the head controls all the limbs.
But as for the use of the symbols, some Christians will say;
‘We are not allowed of using the symbols. That is only meant for priests or pastors or elders or saints. That’s what our teachers told us.’

Jesus is the greatest prophet, the greatest saint and the greatest teacher who has been on earth. The following did Jesus say about wanting to be important:

NKJV (Luke 22: 24-26) 24 Now there was also a dispute among them, as to which of them should be considered the greatest. 25 And He said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called ‘benefactors.’ 26 But not so among you; on the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves.

The memorial celebration therefore has nothing to do with privileged tasks of the saints, pastors, prophets or teachers. The taking of the symbols has to do with the sins of the first humans and the promise made to Abraham.
The celebration is a remembrance of the ransom sacrifice that has been brought for all humans, who otherwise could all be considered completely lost by their sins:

NKJV (1 Cor. 15:22) 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.

Eating Jesus ‘symbolic flesh’ gives eternal life (John 6:51) and drinking His ‘symbolic blood’ gives salvation or resurrection at the last day:

NKJV (John 6: 53-56) 53 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.

Eating Jesus flesh and drinking His blood

In Jesus’ days on earth, many disciples understood from His words that Jesus asked them to ‘literally’ eat Him:

NKJV (John 6: 60, 66) 60 Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?”…. 66 From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.

But Jesus spoke in John. 6: 54, 56, however, not about ‘literally’ eating His body. At the Last Supper, it became clear that Jesus was talking about eating His ‘symbolic’ body by sharing and eating the unleavened bread:

Rev. (Luke 22:19) 19 And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

Jesus also spoke in John. 6: 54,56 not about ‘literally’ drinking His blood.
During the last supper, also here it turned out that Jesus was talking about drinking His ‘symbolic’ blood:

NKJV (Matthew 26: 27-28) 27 Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

The New Covenant

Jesus speaks of the blood of the New Covenant and with His symbolic blood refers directly to the prophecy of Jeremiah, which was about the New Covenant:

NKJV (Jeremiah 31: 31-33) 31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah– 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke,…. (See also Hebrews 8: 8-10)

All consciously baptized Christians are the descendants of Abraham, children of the promise and thus children of God:

NKJV (Romans 9: 8) 8 That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.

And though we are sinful people, our Heavenly Father loves all His children so much.

Jesus’ perfect blood is needed so that we can be saved

Jesus is the means of salvation for lost humanity, the means of propitiation:

CSB (Romans 3:25) 25 God presented Him as a propitiation through faith in His blood…

Without the perfect blood of Jesus there is no forgiveness possible of our sins:

NKJV (Hebrews 9:22) 22 And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of (Jesus perfect) blood there is no remission.
NKJV (Colossians 1:14) 14 in whom (Jesus) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

During the annual celebration, Christians commemorate Jesus sacrifice, Jesus who knew in advance what kind of torture He had to undergo. But He gave His life out of love for us. We commemorate Jesus sacrifice and death, until His second coming:

NKJV (1 Corinthians 11:26) 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.

The date 14 Nissan according to the Hebrew Calendar:

In 2020, the Lord’s Supper (14 Nissan) is on Wednesday, April 8, 2020, after sunset.

God’s blessing for all our Christian brothers and sisters to participate together as ‘the body of Christ’ in the Lord’s Supper, in prayer and in deep respect.

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