Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:25
“In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’” (1 Corinthians 11:25, NIV)
The symbolism in this verse has to be understood before the mind and heart of Christ can be seen in it. So try something. Replace the word “blood” with the word “life.” Scripture gives us that right: “the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11).
“This cup is the new covenant in my life.”
Read that way, the verse becomes a personal revelation from Christ, given the night before His death, of the gift He was giving and the impact He knew it could have on a life. He is saying: Remember my life. The life I lived to show you who I truly am. The life I freely allowed to be taken by my own creation, so that you and all intelligent beings could see me, see the Love I have always had for you, and see clearly my Father, who in every way shares my heart for you. Do this, and remember me.
Why the Blood
God explained this all the way back in Leviticus. The life of the animal was in the blood, and the blood was never to be eaten (Leviticus 17:10–14). We were not to take in the life of an animal so that it became part of who we are. Whatever you take into your body becomes a part of you.
So when Christ hands His disciples the cup, He is offering them, and us, His life to take in, so that it becomes a part of us. This is absolutely necessary for salvation and healing to happen in a life. The perfect life He lived, He now offers to us as the antidote for the broken humanity we were born with.
We are not guilty from birth; we did not choose to sin. But we were born with a sinful nature passed down from Adam. When he broke faith with God, he damaged his own nature, and that was all he had to pass on to his children. All of humanity has inherited it. We were born not with guilt, but with a lethal condition, one that must be healed or it will destroy us. Christ lived the perfect life and restores to humanity what we could not receive any other way. “We shall be saved by his life” (Romans 5:10).
That is what drinking the cup represents: taking His life into ours. And it is a real healing that must take place in us, by our own choice.
A Promise Kept
As I compared translations this morning, one word stopped me. Goodspeed and Moffatt say the new covenant was “ratified” by His blood; others say “sealed.” About half the translations add a verb like that. But Paul’s Greek has no verb there at all. It simply says, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.”
The word ratified doesn’t sit well with me. To ratify something is to make it binding, as if God had not fully put His heart behind the plan of salvation until the blood was shed. But God made His promise to Adam right after the fall, before he ever left the garden (Genesis 3:15). What Christ presented at that table was the next step, the final thing that needed to be done so fallen humanity could be restored and all God’s promises kept. It was not ratifying anything. It was finishing what He began.
Even the surrender was settled before the cross. In Gethsemane, Christ prayed, “not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39), and salvation was won for us there. He could have died right then; He had nothing left to give. But there was still so much that needed to be revealed, so the Father sent an angel to strengthen Him (Luke 22:43). He went on to show the onlooking universe, the angels, and one day all of humanity, when we finally open our eyes, what God is truly like.
The cup is not a contract being signed. It is a promise being kept.
The Weekend That Changed Everything
The Last Supper was pointing to the resurrection. That weekend the battle would be won, and healing and redemption would be completed for humanity. Everything was going to change. Even at the table, Jesus looked past His death: He would not drink the cup again “until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29).
When He cried out, “It is finished,” all creation shook. Graves were rent open by the earthquake, and after He arose, many of the saints came forth (Matthew 27:51–53). Prophets once murdered for carrying God’s message came out to continue their God-given mandate, now proclaiming a risen Savior in and around Jerusalem. I personally believe John the Baptist was among them. The loving heart of Christ would not have left that faithful friend and servant in the grave.
That weekend, the truth changed from a Savior to come to a Savior has come. Not another animal need be sacrificed. All that death of innocent creatures met its fulfillment at the cross.
What They Could Not Yet Hear
That same evening, the God of all creation knelt and washed His disciples’ feet, an act He did not consider beneath His dignity. I am sure that, in His loving wisdom, He would not have missed the chance for a private word with each man. Yet their quarrel over who was the greatest (Luke 22:24) kept them from hearing understandings that would have spared them a world of grief that weekend. Their hearts were not yet ready to know the true character of the One they had walked with for three and a half years. “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now” (John 16:12).
Christ walked alone. No one but His Father understood the depths of humility He would be subjected to by those He came to heal, men who had no idea of the brokenness within their own hearts and minds. But Love saw more. It saw the chance, the hope, of a restored life in all who would choose it. So He gave them the Last Supper, and asked them to remember Him.
Milk and Meat
This is milk for the newborn in the faith, and meat for the most mature in Christ’s army. What Christ revealed, and what Paul received directly from the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:23), is simple enough for a child to grasp, yet the pool of knowledge here goes deep enough to stretch the deepest minds.
The next time you take the cup, hear it the way He meant it: This is my life. Remember me.
