Matthew 26:26-28
And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is My body.
"Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new (kainos = of a new kind, unprecedented) covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Up until that time, a covenant was a binding agreement between two people, in which each would benefit the other by providing or giving up something for the other. For example, a purchase agreement is a covenant in which one person provides goods – they relinquish them to the other person; the other person provides monetary payment – they give up some of their wealth. In the agreement they sign, both promise to keep the covenant. Similarly, in a marriage covenant: both husband and wife covenant together to enter a relationship in which each esteems the other to the point of giving up their independence to become one. In the vows they make, both promise to be true to the covenant.
But Jesus says in Matthew twenty six that God’s relationship with man was, from the time of his death, become established on a covenant of a new, unprecedented, not encountered before, kind. This covenant was new because only one party gave something up, and only one party made a promise! In Romans 4:3 we read that Abraham believed God and that was counted to him as righteousness. He believed the promise and God said, that’s it, you’re righteous, you’re saved!
This was a covenant where one person promises and the other person believes the promise – and it predated the old law covenant by 430 years. (Galatians 3:17-18 NLT) The agreement God made with Abraham could not be canceled 430 years later when God gave the law to Moses. God would be breaking his promise. For if the inheritance could be received only by keeping the law, then it would not be the result of accepting God's promise. But God gave it to Abraham as a promise. Two thousand years before Jesus, Abraham believed a promise, and now Paul uses this to say – that’s the essence of the new covenant. Our Christian life is not based on you and God, it’s based on God and God alone. He made the promise AND he provided the sacrifice!
Jesus said his blood is shed for many for the remission of sins. Shed means “pouring, gushing out denoting generosity and completeness” – we can add nothing.
Remission is the Greek word aphesis and means “liberty or release from bondage or imprisonment; letting sins go as if they had never been committed; remission of the penalty; complete removal”. This is a much stronger word than ‘forgiveness’ - The stumbling block of the gospel is it’s ease, that there’s nothing for us to do or to strive for. The gospel is not just forgiveness, it’s freedom!
There was a day in Israel’s year called The Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16). On this day the priest would bring two goats to the door of the Tabernacle. One goat was chosen to be killed as a sin offering for all the people. The other goat was kept alive and called the scapegoat.
We read in Leviticus 16:21-22 that Aaron, the High Priest, was to lay both of his hands on the goat's head and confess over it all the sins and rebellion of the Israelites. In this way, he will lay the people's sins on the head of the goat; then he will send it out into the wilderness, led by a man chosen for this task. After the man sets it free in the wilderness, the goat will carry all the people's sins upon itself into a desolate land. What happened here is a shadow, it tells the story of our atonement, of our salvation. Jesus is our goat of sacrifice as well as our scapegoat.
Jesus blood was offered once and for all as payment for our sins. That’s the first goat. Secondly, Jesus was our scapegoat upon whom who all our sin and sinfulness was laid. Lit = the goat of the removal – disappearance / evaporation. who went away, disappeared. Sent away to a desolate place (not inhabited).
It’s a complete removal of, not just my sin, but of my sinfulness – that which caused me to sin in the first place! Paul said we are dead to sin ... the body of sin has been done away with (Romans 6). He removed from in us that which caused us to sin in the first place. A whole removal of that which was imperfect, of that which was fallen, of the curse. Why would I expect anything less?
Religion tells us we’re going to be a sinner all our lives! It says you can only come to us to mediate that sin, it keeps us in bondage to a church – we’ve got to go! The truth is that Jesus is the mediator between God and man, and if we sin – he forgives on the basis that he’s removed it – whereas, religion will give you something to do (rather than something to believe). So the Church becomes a community of people needing a place where their sin can be dealt with and their hope of eternal bliss continually reaffirmed . . . But God’s design for Church is a community of people who are living in the reality that their sin and sinfulness has disappeared! Living in eternal bliss day by day, being (not going to) – being the house, the habitation of God, wherever they go, and coming together to celebrate and eat and drink of Christ through the Word and the Spirit, and encourage one another in a brand new reality.
The word Sins is the Greek ‘hamartia’, this is a noun; that is it’s not what we did, but what we were – a state we were born into (like being born into a country). An inward element producing evil acts. That’s what has been remitted – sent away, evaporated, disappeared. Paul never gives a process of how we can be free from sin, he simple declares this gospel of unmerited favour (grace) and says to stop sinning.
The gospel is not merely forgiveness, it’s freedom.
1 Corinthians 11:23-24 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me." Remember me affectionately. (Jesus told us to have a table of remembrance, not an altar of offering – there is no more sacrifice!)
Jesus didn’t come to help us with our sin, our sickness, our curses – he became them – he bore them in his own body. And everything was crucified with him. And they were buried with him.
And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight (Colossians 1:21-22)
And that body of flesh that bore our sin, our sickness, our curse – never came back. It disappeared! Jesus was raised with a different body – an incorruptible, glorious, powerful, spiritual body.
So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. 1 Corinthians 15:42-44
So how do we renew the covenant of our salvation? By affectionately remembering Jesus our sacrifice and our scapegoat, and by believing!
Some people once asked Jesus this question. What shall we do, that we may work the works of God? Here’s Jesus’ answer - This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent. (John 6:28-29)
