- 2009 North American Bible Conference, December 30, 2009And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” Then He took the cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And He said to them, “This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many.  Mark 14:22-24     Jesus’ Blood: the Aim of the Creation and the Law First we took a look at the creation on the grand scale. We have considered the events of the six-day creation in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth and we saw how the dry land appeared and the seeds grew out of the earth that had been without form and void. We have also seen how that creation relates to the history of mankind, and how the many events that occurred within one nation by the name of Israel and the laws that were given to that nation mesh together with the creation. And we have considered the relationship between Israel and one Man by the name of Jesus whose birth is celebrated every Christmas as people sin, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.” We have also seen how within the commandments, referred to as the law, that God gave to the Israelites, the blood plays an extremely important role and holds tremendous weight. The Levites were separated out so they might deal with the issue of the blood. Unlike the other tribes, the Levites were not allotted a specific territory in the land of Israel; they were scattered amongst the twelve tribes, much as blood circulates throughout the whole body. They served in the tabernacle, observing the words of the law, and they performed the duties of the priesthood in order to enable the people to fulfill the statutes of the law. In this respect, too, it was the task of the Levites to deal with the issue of the blood.The Levites were the descendants of Levi, one of the sons of Jacob. The people who were entrusted with the duties of the high priest were descendants of Aaron, the elder brother of Moses, who was of the tribe of Levi. On the Day of Atonement, the high priest would enter the Most Holy Place?a place where no one else could go and a place that could not be entered without blood?taking with him the blood of an animal. There he would first make an offering to God for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. When he did this, God would accept the offerings. This is what was recorded in the law and was carried out within the history of Israel. It did not just happen one day for no apparent reason that the Israelites came to deal with the matter of blood. When it comes to the many people and events recorded in the Old Testament, these, too, were not made up on a whim without any plan. Before the nation of Israel existed, before Abraham, the father of the Israelites, had even been born into this world, there was something in God’s heart that was far greater than the words of the law, something that included and was implied in all the many incidents that took place within the history of Israel. The law is temporary and fragmentary. In order to understand the Bible, we need to know the beginning of things, the end of things and the history in between. We need to know the framework that God has designated for history and for truth and then we need to know the events that took place within this framework. Only then are we able to understand the blood of the everlasting covenant that was ultimately shed by Jesus on the cross.Of course, since we have been saved having believed the words, “Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12), we have the absolute truth in our hearts. Let’s consider, however, the framework of history about which the Bible speaks, the purpose of the creation, and what the creation is moving towards. There is one most important issue that underlies God’s heart in every one of His actions: He was making the preparations for one Man to shed His blood in this world. As a result, before the Israelites received the law?even before the Israelites entered the Sinai wilderness?through the events of the Passover, God dealt with the matter of the blood and commanded that this feast be observed as an everlasting covenant (see Exodus 12:1-14).If the law provided the answer to all things, if it were the ultimate aim that God desired, then everything would have to begin with the law and be founded on the law. If that were the case, the significance of the events beginning with Adam in the book of Genesis might seem to be diminished and we could just start reading the Bible at Exodus. Yet, we have been given the book of Genesis, which records events before the time of the exodus which marked the beginning of the law being given to the Israelites. We might think that the content of the book of Genesis is vast, with its fifty chapters, but it is actually quite a short book compared to the scale and scope of the history with which it deals. Genesis contains an account of matters that might be seen as a seed. When a small seed is provided with light, water and nutrients from the soil, the power of life is manifest as the seed grows into a large tree. In a similar way, God had all the incidents that would occur in history as well as the details of the incidents that would arise within the history of Israel recorded in the book of Genesis as though it were a seed, and these matters are also evident through the characters that appear in Genesis. God shows us such matters not only in Genesis, but also in Exodus: in the case of the passover, for example. What are the priests saying to us? If the priests who appear in the Bible and at times are also hidden had been the ones to carry out the tremendous plan before the foundation of the world, there would have been no reason for Jesus Christ to have been born into the world. Yet the blood that God saw at the time of the passover (the blood of which God was speaking when He said He would pass over them when He saw it) held good only on that particular day. Even the Levitical priests, who were provided according to the law to carry out the sacrifices and deal with the blood, had only a limited role. The reason I am saying this is that human history is limited and so are our lives that we live under the sun. Everything has a beginning and an end. The history of Israel also has a starting point and there was a point when the Levites were separated out to become priests. Everything happened within the sphere that man could understand and foresee and that could be estimated to some extent within the mind of man. The blood with which the Levitical priests dealt (which is not the blood of the eternal covenant of which the Bible talks), the duties of these priests, and the many matters related to the law were all used in a very limited form to demonstrate the eternal power and deity within the God who created the heavens and the earth. Such is the history of Israel. Sacrifices were offered continually for about 1,500 years?from the time of Moses to the birth of Jesus?and the tabernacle and the temple were constructed for the sake of these sacrifices. The history of Israel unfolded in this way. Nevertheless, as Jesus, who was born of a woman, passed the cup around to His disciples, He 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” (Matthew 26:27-28). We think of this blood of the everlasting covenant as the blood of which the Old Testament bears witness. This is true. We firmly believe this truth. Also, we know that Jesus was born into this world and died in accordance with the words recorded in the Old Testament. Yet, the plan that God had in His heart, a plan that had been worked out through His power and divine nature, a plan that was far greater and much older than His plan for the creation of the world, has been set out in this world in a diminutive form through everything that appertains to the Israelites, who had the first covenant, and in a form that man is able to see. This is what Jesus was talking about as He held that one cup in the very humble physical form of a man. Also, when the blood was shed from Jesus’ body, God raised from the dead that great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant (see Hebrews 13:20). Just as, in accordance with His promise related to the blood, God protected the Israelites on the day of the passover when He saw the blood of the lamb in Egypt, when God saw Jesus’ blood of the everlasting covenant flowing in this world, He was satisfied because through this blood, His tremendous love which He had had in His heart before the history of the Israelites and the creation of the world had been fulfilled on this earth. It was because of this that He first raised up Jesus from the dead. When we put our trust in the death of Jesus Christ and believed in His blood, our hearts turned back to God, and because we had come to believe this truth, we received baptism. We cannot explain all these things simply in just a short time, but actually the conclusion of the gospel is simple. It is accomplished in a moment in time and once for all. Once we have realized the truth of the gospel, we can know easily what has become of us. Also, if we endeavor to know more about the gospel through the Bible and through the Israelites, the depths of the gospel become even clearer to us. It is not that we pack up the gospel that God has granted to us and go in search of something more. This would be akin to taking the one mina and wrapping it up in a handkerchief. Faith?the life that has been implanted in me?grows, being supplied by the nutrition provided by the words of the Bible. Yet there are limits to the growth an individual can experience on his own. The Bible tells us that when we entrust ourselves to what is referred to as the Church, we all grow together.   He Took Bread, Blessed and Broke It, and Gave It to Them and Said, “This is My Body”Let’s go back to the matter of the blood. The Bible talks about the blood in very definite terms. In the evening He came with the twelve. Now as they sat and ate, Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you, one of you who eats with Me will betray Me.” And they began to be sorrowful, and to say to Him one by one, “Is it I?” And another said, “Is it I?” He answered and said to them, “It is one of the twelve, who dips with Me in the dish. The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had never been born.” And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” Then He took the cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And He said to them, “This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many. Assuredly, I say to you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”  Mark 14:17-25 Before Jesus was crucified, He had his final meal with His twelve disciples in an upper room. Let’s think about the bread and wine here. Jesus broke bread and gave it to His disciples. When we have communion, we also break bread and eat it together. I am not suggesting that we should turn this into a religious ceremony. The important point is that it was Jesus who broke the bread and gave it to His disciples; it was not the disciples who broke it and ate it. In the bread, the body of Jesus Christ is made manifest to us. In Old Testament times, there was the tabernacle. When you went into the Holy Place, on the righthand side there was the table for the showbread on which were placed twelve pieces of bread. These twelve pieces were arranged in two lines, six in each line, which signifies the twelve tribes.This can all be found in the books of the law, but while Jesus was in the world in the form of a Man, as He made His final request to His disciples, He broke the bread Himself and gave it to them. The fact that He did this Hi

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