“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 covenant,
which is shed for many for the remission of sins. “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 26:26-29 NKJV
Passover arrives in Israel this
coming week and because of that I thought it would be a good time to talk for a
moment concerning something often overlooked about the Passover dinner Jesus
shared with His disciples. Specifically,
something Jesus said, and did, which differed from the norm of the Passover
Seder which most people would not be aware of if not Jewish or knowledgeable
about the rules regarding it.
First of all, in Israel this event is called the Pesach
Seder. Pesach is the Hebrew word for
Passover, and Seder is derived from the Hebrew word for order. The dinner is an intricate part of the
Passover celebration in which the memory of the deliverance of the children of
Israel from their bondage in Egypt is recalled.
“‘For I will
pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn
in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I
will execute judgment: I am
the LORD. ‘Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see
the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike
the land of Egypt. ‘So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep
it as a feast to the LORD throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast
by an everlasting ordinance.” Exodus
12:12-14 NKJV
In the traditional Seder, there
are fifteen steps, or observances which each signify and relate to the
deliverance on that first Passover in Egypt.
I am not going to examine all of these today but will encourage you to
do that on your own to better understand why this is such an important
event. What I am going to discuss today
is four of those fifteen steps which I will call the Four Cups of Wine. This is because during the entire Seder, there
are four instances where the participants drink a cup of wine in remembrance of
the promises God made to them when they were still in bondage in Egypt.
“Therefore say to the children of Israel: ‘I am the LORD; I
will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you
from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with
great judgments. ‘I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then
you shall know that I am
the LORD your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
‘And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage: I am the LORD.’ ”
Exodus 6:6-8 NKJV
The four cups of wine are taken to recall the four promises
made in this passage which are referred to as the “four I wills”. The first
cup is called the cup of Sanctification…”I will bring you out from under the the
burdens of the Egyptians”. The
second is called the cup of Blessing…” I will rescue you from their bondage”. The third is the cup of Redemtion…” I
will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.”,
and the fourth cup is the cup of Acceptance…”‘I will take you as My people,
and I will be your God.”
In the passage from Matthew 26, according to many scholars
it is believed that when Jesus said “Drink from it, all of you. “For this is My
blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” during
the Seder with His disciples, He was referring to the 3rd cup of the
Passover, the Cup of Redemption. Jesus
was saying that by His shed blood we can be redeemed from our bondage to sin
just as the Israelites were redeemed from their bondage in Egypt. He then went on to say, “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.”
Why? In essence Jesus
said He would not drink the Fourth Cup, the Cup of Acceptance, until He could
do so with those who have chosen to believe in Him when we are together with
Him in Heaven. Since this will occur
after the rapture of the Church, is Jesus somehow giving us a clue as to when the
season of the rapture might happen? Additionally,
the fourteenth step in the order of the Seder is the recital of the Hallel,
traditionally recited on festivals, followed by drinking the fourth cup of
wine. The Hallel is Psalms 113-118, with
chapters 113-114 recited before the meal and chapters 115-118 recited now. Take a closer look if you will at what we
find in the last chapter;
“Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will go through
them, And I will praise the LORD. This is the gate of the LORD,
Through which the righteous shall enter. I will praise You, For You have
answered me, And have become my salvation. The stone which the builders
rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD’s doing; It is marvelous in
our eyes.” Psalms
118:19-23 NKJV
According to the Mishnah, a collection of Jewish oral laws
and traditions, Jesus is waiting for the marriage feast before He drinks from
this cup. (Mishnah, Pesahim 7:13) Since we know that the marriage feast must
take place after the rapture, is it possible that Jesus’ statement to His
disciples about waiting to drink the Fourth Cup of Passover is actually His way
of telling us that we will drink this cup with Him on a future Feast of
Passover?
“Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the
marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” And to her
it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine
linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed
are those who are
called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he said to me, “These are the
true sayings of God.” Revelation
19:7-9 NKJV
In all honesty, my favorite part of a wedding is not the
ceremony but rather the food waiting in the reception hall. Now it isn’t that I don’t appreciate
the importance of the wedding vows, and making a public commitment before
witnesses to love, honor, and forsake all others until death do you part. In fact, as we all know the Bible holds
marriage to be one of the most sacred and important commitments an individual
can make. Yet one thing I noticed when I
began to study the elements of a Jewish Wedding many years ago was that even
though the steps might be a little different than those we are familiar with,
they do save the best for last just as we do with something they like to call
the Wedding Feast.
If you are not familiar with a Jewish Wedding, let me give
you just a brief summary of the steps involved.
First of all the father pays for the bride and establishes the marriage
covenant. Second the son returns to his
father’s house and prepares the bridal chamber.
Third at a time determined by the father, the groom
fetches the bride to bring her to his father’s house. Because the bride does not know when this
might occur, the groom’s arrival was preceded by a shout, which forewarned the
bride to be prepared for his arrival.
The bride then undergoes ritual cleansing prior to the wedding ceremony,
the private wedding ceremony is held, and then in the privacy of the bridal
chamber the bride and groom consummate the marriage. It is after this time that the Wedding Feast
is held where all who have been invited can join in celebration with the bride
and groom.
By looking at this outline, it isn’t very hard to see the
steps of a Jewish wedding are the same as those spelled out for the Church, the
bride of Christ, and our covenant with Jesus.
Why is this important? One reason
takes us back to what we talked about concerning the Fourth Cup of
Passover. We know from what Jesus said
that we will drink of this cup along with Him at some future time, but is it
possible for us to know when exactly that might be? Although most of us understand that it is
virtually impossible to get everyone to agree, the majority of scholars I have
studied believe this event will take place at the Wedding Feast that follows
the ceremony of Christ taking His Church as His Bride.
I thought I would share the thoughts of just three of those
individuals with you this morning who believe this is the proper interpretation
of the scriptures. Dr. John Walvoord,
who served as president of Dallas Theological Seminary for many years said this
about Jesus’ words at the Last Supper;
“The new
ceremony, instead of relating to the lamb slain in Egypt, now was referring to
Christ as the new Passover Lamb, the one who would be slain on the cross.
Although it was a new ceremony, it was also their last meal together, and He
concluded the introduction of the Lord’s Supper with the words of verse 29,
“But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine,
until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” Here He
was referring to the millennial kingdom, when Christ will return to the earth
with His resurrected disciples and participate once again in the earthly scene.”
Dr. Thomas Ice, the executive director of the Pre-Trib
Research Center at Liberty University writes;
“We read in
Luke 22:16-18 the following: "for I say to you, I shall never again eat it
until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And when He had taken a cup and
given thanks, He said, "Take this and share it among yourselves; for I say
to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom
of God comes." This is called the Lord's Supper, which Jesus inaugurated
for the soon to be born church to practice until His return to get His bride.
Christ's promise not to not eat or drink again until He does it when the
kingdom comes, means that He will not be celebrating His marriage supper in
heaven before He descends at His second coming with His bride. Here He says the
next time he eats and drinks will be at the coming of the kingdom, which will
start at the beginning of the thousand years of His reign upon earth.”
Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum, founder and Director of Ariel
Ministries also agrees saying;
“The
resurrection of the Old Testament saints will take place following the Second
Coming in preparation for the Messianic Kingdom. …the Old Testament saints are
to be the friends of the bridegroom at the marriage feast, but the marriage
feast will take place on earth as an inauguration of the Messianic Kingdom. It
is the wedding ceremony that takes place in Heaven before the Second Coming,
but the wedding feast itself will take place on earth and will kick off the
Messianic Kingdom.”
Weddings have always been the most happy of celebrations and
a big part of that day is the opportunity to share a feast with the bride and
groom as they begin their new life together.
Who can forget that Jesus’ first miracle was at a wedding feast when
they ran out of wine? It doesn’t take a
lot of imagination to realize that the Wedding Feast we are going to attend as
the bride of Christ will be one we will never forget. Especially when you consider we will finally
get to drink the cup of acceptance, the fourth cup of Passover, with our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ.
“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.” In the same manner He
also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant
in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread
and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.” 1 Corinthians
11:23-26 NKJV
Keep Watching.
