The Secret Codes in Matthew: Examining Israel’s Messiah, Part 20: Matthew 26:1-30, by Kevin M. Williams
At the Council of Yavneh, one of the issues was “without the temple, how shall we partake of the Paschal lamb?” It was decided that until the temple was restored, lamb would not be served at any Seder meal. Instead, the matzah bread would symbolically become one with the Passover lamb. Anyone eating the Passover matzah would—from the Jewish perspective—also partake of the Passover lamb.
Yeshua—the Passover Lamb—said prophetically to His disciples during the Last Supper, “Take, eat; this is My body.” The Lamb of God and the Bread of Affliction, as matzah was known during the Feast, became one and the same, and for those of us who participate in communion, we share a common link, though with two symbolic meanings.
And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:27-28).
In the Tanakh—the Hebrew Scriptures—blood is the common ratification of a covenant. This was true with Noah, with Abraham, with Moses, and with David. Only one promised covenant had not been ratified: the New Covenant of Jeremiah 31:31—“‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.’”4
That which had not been confirmed had not been forgotten. Through the cup of the Messiah’s Passover, already known in the Seder as the “Cup of Redemption,” came the ratification the people of Israel had so long awaited.
The New Covenant carries with it certain promises which, when contrasted with the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants have amazing similarities. “‘But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people’” (Jeremiah 31:33). These bear a striking resemblance to promises in the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants. In fact, a closer look into those three previously ratified covenants will show a progressive expansion of each covenant, reiterating many of the terms and requiring the pre-existence and continuance of each previous covenant to uphold and substantiate the next.
It should come as no surprise then, that the term “New Covenant,” or B’rit Chadashah, in Jeremiah shares the same root with the Hebrew word “renewed.” We find the same word chadash, in two other places in Scripture; Isaiah 61:4 and Lamentations 5:21. The first is translated as “repair,” and the second as “renew.”
For some, the “New Covenant” of Jeremiah 31:31 is in fact the “Repaired Covenant,” or “Renewed Covenant,” and not entirely new at all, but a spiritual renewal incorporating some of the previous covenant’s promises in a demonstration of divine continuity and progressive revelation.
But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom (Matthew 26:29).
Some have suggested that in this verse Yeshua binds himself to a Nazarite vow. This may be so. The conditions of a Nazarite vow are that the man must abstain from grape products or wine and that he not cut his hair.
Category: Biblical Studies, Pneuma Review, Spring 2006
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