Communion; The Model Worship

When Jesus gave His disciples what we call the Lord's Supper, or Communion, he was giving them a new model for worship, just as he did with the model prayer. The old covenant had a prescribed way to worship which Jesus fulfilled. The new covenant likewise has a new way to worship which Jesus modeled and taught his followers in the upper room that Passover Eve.

It was out of the Passover meal that Jesus formed the new pattern. The Passover was the first corporate worship experience the nation of Israel was given. Before it, individuals worshipped God with sacrifice, but now God was creating a nation for himself, from which all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Their first activity as a nation of God and for God was worship, according to his word. Jesus, the promised offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was now on the scene and the new covenant was now inaugurated.

With the new covenant being created, a new worship was also begun, in line with old, but new. Like the old, it would be based on the ground of redemption. The old was established with the blood of a lamb which believers applied to their door posts, according to God's Word. The sacrificial death and flesh (the lamb was eaten) of that lamb liberated the believers from the bondage of slavery and led them out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. Hallelujah!

The new covenant worship is also based upon the blood of the Lamb, the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his blood that we are set free from the penalty of our sins and the power of sin. But we do not leave a land, we leave a bloodline, the bloodline of Adam, to a new humanity, to Christ Jesus, the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45). And like the old, we too eat the Lamb, we receive Jesus Christ. His life becomes your new life, and you are born from above, like him. It is in him that you now walk toward the Promised Land, the resurrection.

Like the old, all of this is by faith in what God has said. The slaves in Egypt heard the word of God, believed, and obeyed. The slaves of sin hear the gospel, believe, and receive Christ. The old covenant worship was by faith in what God had said and the new covenant worship is by faith in what Christ has said. God the Son has given us the foundation upon which all new covenant worship rests. It rests upon him and his death and resurrection from the dead. Our response, the first act of worship, is to believe.

More on this tomorrow.