Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1971
“For this is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” Matthew 26:28.
THE Lord Jesus Christ was then alive, sitting at the table and yet, pointing to the cup filled with red wine, He said, “This is My blood, which is shed for many.” This proves that He could not have intended that the wine was literally His blood. Surely it is no longer necessary to refute the gross and carnal dogma of transubstantiation which is obviously absurd! There sat the living Lord at the supper, with His blood in His veins and, therefore, the wine could not literally be His blood! Value the symbol, but to confound it with the thing symbolized would draw into the idolatrous worship of a piece of bread!
Our Lord spoke of His blood as shed when as yet the nails had not pierced His hands and feet. And the spear had not broached His side. Is not this to be accounted for by the fact that our Lord was so taken up with the thought of our redemption by His death that He speaks of that as done which He was so resolved to do? Enjoying loving communion with His chosen disciples, He spoke freely. His heart did not study accuracy so much as feeling and so, in speech as in feeling, He antedated His great work of Atonement and spoke of it as done. To set forth the future intent of the blessed ordinance of the Lord’s Supper He must, of necessity, treat His death as an accomplished fact. And His complete absorption in His work made it easy and natural for Him to do so. He ignores moods and tenses. “His work is before Him.”
By the use of such language, our Lord also shows us the abiding presence of the great Sacrifice as a power and an influence. He is the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” and, therefore, He speaks of His blood as shed. In a few hours it would be literally poured forth, but long ages before, the Lord God had regarded it as done. In full confidence in the great Surety, that He would never draw back from the perfect fulfillment of His engagements, the Father saved multitudes in virtue of the future Sin-Offering! He communed with myriads of saints on the strength of the purification which would, in the fullness of time, be presented by the great High Priest. Could not the Father trust His Son? He did and by this act set us a great example of faith. God is, in very deed, the Father of the faithful, seeing that He, Himself, reposed the utmost confidence in Jesus! And because of what He would yet do in the pouring out of His soul unto death, He “opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers.” What, My soul? Can you not trust the Sacrifice, now that it has been presented? If the foresight of it was enough for God, is not the consummation of it enough for you? “Behold the Lamb of God,” who even before He died was described as taking away the sin of the world! If this was so before He went to Calvary, how surely is it so now that He has said in verity and truth, “It is finished”!
Dear Friends, I am going to preach to you again upon the cornerstone of the Gospel. How many times will this make, I wonder? The doctrine of Christ Crucified is always with me. As the Roman sentinel in Pompeii stood to his post even when the city was destroyed, so do I stand to the truth of the Atonement though the Church is being buried beneath the boiling mud showers of modern heresy. Everything else can wait, but this one Truth of God must be proclaimed with a voice of thunder! Others may preach as they will, but as for this pulpit, it shall always resound with the Substitution of Christ. “God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Some may continually preach Christ as an example and others may perpetually discourse upon His coming to Glory—we also preach both of these, but mainly we preach Christ Crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness—but to them that are saved Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God!
You have before you a cup, filled with wine, which Jesus has just blessed and presented to His disciples. As you look into its rosy depths, hear Him speak of the cup as His blood, for thus He would teach us a solemn lesson!
I. Note, first, THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST. The vital importance of the great Truth of God of the death of Christ as a vicarious Sacrifice is set before us in this cup, which is the memorial of His blood shed for many.
Blood represents suffering, but it goes further and suggests suffering unto death. “The blood is the life thereof” and when blood is too copiously shed, death is suggested. Remember that in the sacred Supper you have the bread as a separate emblem of the body and then the wine as a separate symbol of the blood—thus you have a clear picture of death, since the blood is separated from the flesh. “As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord’s death.” Both acts are essential.