“MY BLOOD OF THE NEW COVENANT”

Hugo McCord

A cup of “the fruit of the vine” Jesus called “my blood of the new covenant” (Matthew 26:28-29). Some Greek manuscripts omit the word “new,” but that Jesus spoke of “the new covenant” is in all the manuscripts of Luke 22:20 and 1 Corinthians 11:25.

A covenant is a binding agreement of two people. As “recorded in the Bible” (Webster) a covenant is “the promises of God to man, usually carrying with them conditions to be fulfilled by man.” The covenant God made with Noah and “all flesh that is upon the earth” that there would never be another universal flood had no conditions to be fulfilled by man (Genesis 9:8-17).

But the covenant between God and Israel at Mt. Sinai had many conditions to be fulfilled by the Israelites (Exodus 19:5). The ten commandments, “written by the finger of God on both sides” of “two tables of stone,” were the foundation of “the book of the covenant” (Exodus 24:7, 12; 31:18; 32:15; 34:1).

When Moses sprinkled the blood of oxen on the people he said that it was “the blood of the covenant” (Exodus 24:8). As the “first” and “old” covenant was dedicated by animal blood (Exodus 24:8; 2 Corinthians 3:14; Hebrews 9:15, 20; 10:29), so in contrast Jesus spoke of “my blood of the new covenant” (Matthew 26:28).

A beautiful curtain, a veil (paroketh), of blue and purple and scarlet and fine twined linen, separated the compartment called “the Holy of Holies” in the tabernacle from the “Holy Place” (Exodus 25:8-9; 26:31, 33; Hebrews 9:1-3). To turn the veil aside and to enter the “Holy of Holies” meant death (Leviticus 16:2), except for the high priest “once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins” of the people (Hebrews 9:7).

The blood of a bull and of a goat, which the high priest brought into the Holy of Holies, was called “the blood of the covenant” (Exodus 24:8; Leviticus 16:11-19). Figuratively Christ entered “the Holy of Holies, not with animal blood, but with “his own blood,” calling it “my blood of the new covenant” (Matthew 26:28; Hebrews 9:12).

The “way into the Holy of Holies” (representing heaven) “had not yet been revealed while the” earthly Holy of Holies was “yet standing” (Hebrews 9:8). But when Jesus’ blood had been “poured out,” the God of heaven saw to it, by an earthquake, that the earthly Holy of Holies had lost its meaning (Matthew 26:28).

On crucifixion day, at three o’clock in the afternoon, after Jesus had “poured out his life” (Isaiah 53:12), God’s timed earthquake not only broke “rocks” and opened “tombs,” but especially the veil in the temple was torn into two pieces “from the top to the bottom” (Matthew 27:45, 51; Mark 15:38). If directly the earthquake did not split the curtain, God did so miraculously when Jesus died.

The tearing of the veil meant that no longer was animal blood to be offered, and it meant that the earthly Holy of Holies was forever more meaningless. The earthly Holy of Holies had been made with human hands, but the heavenly Holy of Holies is “not made with hands” and is “eternal in heaven” (2 Corinthians 5:1; Hebrews 9:11).

As Jesus died, he figuratively nailed the “first covenant,” the “old covenant,” “to the cross” (2 Corinthians 3:14; Colossians 2:14; Hebrews 9:15). Likewise figuratively, Jesus tore away “the veil” by the blood of “his flesh” (Hebrews 10:20), giving world-wide access to the heavenly Holy of Holies. In this way Jesus “became a high priest after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 6:20), “not after the order of Aaron” (Hebrews 7:11). Also God swore to him, saying, “You are a priest forever,” and in “this way, Jesus became the guarantee of a better covenant” (Hebrews 7:21-22).

The original tabernacle, a tent, in the days of Moses, housed the veil, which was the door, so to speak, into the Holy of Holies. In Jesus’ day, the original tabernacle had been replaced, first by Solomon’s magnificent temple, then by Zerubbabel’s, and then redecorated by Herod (1 Kings 6-8; Ezra 6:15; John 2:20), all containing the veil as the entrance into the Holy of Holies.

As long as the “old covenant” (2 Corinthians 3:14) was still “standing” (Hebrews 9:8) as God’s law for Israel, the veil blocked the way into the Holy of Holies. But God’s splitting the veil signified the end of the “old covenant,” and Jesus, as stated above, nailed it to the cross.

Thayer’s lexicon, after saying that the Holy of Holies is “used of heaven,” says that “in a similar way the body of Christ is called katapetasma,” a veil (Hebrews 10:20), “because as the veil had to be removed in order that the high priest might enter the most holy part of the temple, so the body of Christ had to be removed by his death on the cross that an entrance might be opened into the fellowship of God in heaven” (P. 335).

This divinely ordered procedure is in the hearts of Christians as they drink what Jesus called “my blood of the new covenant,” that is, “the fruit of the vine” in the Lord’s Supper (Matthew 26:28-29).

Christians rejoice in “the hope that is placed before” them “as an anchor of the soul, both safe and reliable,” the hope of going “where Jesus, our forerunner,” has already gone, “having become a high priest after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 6:19-20).

8-8-2000