Simply Lutheran

A Lenten Devotion on The Last Will and Testament of Christ
Text – Luke 22:14-20 NKJV 14 When the hour had come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him. 15 Then He said to them, “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; 16 for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves; 18 for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” 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.” 20 Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you."

Dear friends: Martin Chemnitz (the second "Martin" of the Reformation), in his book, The Lord’s Supper, speaks of Luther’s “golden chain” that is simply “the command of Christ (Luther says) lays hold of the wine in the cup; the wine by virtue of the words of Christ embraces the blood of Christ; the blood lays hold of the covenant (i.e. Testament), because it is the blood of the covenant, which is shed for the remission of sins.” You may often hear people say “I have Jesus in my heart” and so forth, but they are only speaking figuratively and by speaking this way they do not have the real power of Jesus’ real and true blood, only figuratively.

Yet within the Lord’s Supper we receive these blessings and power, since the ministers do as Jesus commanded them to do in His Last Will and Testament. As Christ said, “This do in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19b). Therefore, the elements of bread and wine are consecrated by Christ’s own words as recorded by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11. Jesus has communed His blood with the wine in the same way He communed His body with the bread…that is the real action of the Lord’s Supper, and then He distributed His body and blood to those who desired to commune with Him in reality and in truth.

Question: Does anyone have the right to change a person’s Last Will and Testament? So why give another meaning to the very words of Christ and thus change our Lord and Savior’s words written down in Holy Scripture? You may believe in a literal physical resurrection from the dead, but what is easier to believe: the resurrection from the dead or that our Lord Jesus Christ could distribute His own body and blood within the bread and wine in His Holy Supper as He had spoken?

The Psalm for this coming Sunday is Psalm 54 which aptly states in vv. 1 and 3, “Save me, O God, by Your name and judge me by Your strength…Behold, God is my helper.” We know that God will judge us in this matter and that He continually helps us to do His will accordingly.

We keep and guard Christ’s own words, as revealed in Scripture, and do what we are commanded to do for the remission of sins, namely, eat and drink. These two imperatives are simple evangelical commands telling us what to do according to Jesus’ New Covenant or Testament. Judge for yourselves whether or not we do as our Lord tells us, or if we have it within our own judgment to change what amounts to Christ’s Last Will and Testament. If it is changed, is it invalidated?

We do what we do for the reason that our Savior means, by this method, to have an intimate, personal relationship, and to do us good, both in body and in soul. As we meditate upon the Scriptures, prior to the passion of Christ, we should ever be mindful that the New Covenant was literally cut (Hebrew karath berith, literally to cut a covenant) into Christ’s body, for without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22).

As the prophet Jeremiah (31:31ff NKJV) spoke: “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— 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, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” In other words, the New Covenant is to be the New Testament of Christ that is known only in the forgiveness of sins. And, as the Evangelist Luke (20:22) recorded Jesus as saying: “Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.”

Therefore, you should be ever more attentive to the words of St. Paul to the church at Corinth when he wrote, “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Corinthians 5:7-8 NKJV) And, of course, that unleavened bread of sincerity and truth is…Jesus! Amen.

We pray: “O Jesus, blessed Lord to Thee my heartfelt thanks forever be, Who hast so lovingly bestowed on me, Thy body and Thy blood.” Amen