The Power of the Lord's Supper

Blood Prohibition

Blood is Life - Deut 12:23

The life of any flesh is its blood - Lev. 17:14b

The Blood is it’s life - Lev. 17:14a

Cannot Drink it - Lev 17:11

Blood for Atonement

It was to be used for the rite of Atonement. The Lord had forbidden any other human use for the blood of animals, so that it could be used only by Him for the benefit of His people.

Leviticus 17:11

Leviticus 17:11 ESV

11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.

The Lord does not grant the blood of animals to the Israelites as food for them. Instead, He institutes the ritual use of blood as the means by which both they and He made atonement for their lives. He granted them atonement through the blood that was placed on the altar by them.

By this passage the Lord founded the rite of atonement as a sacramental enactment. What this means, it didn’t just announce what He would accomplish for them in that rite; it actually empowered the rite, so that, thereafter, he worked atonement for His people through their faithful performance of it.

Atonement was granted by means of the blood that was place on the altar. So then, by Divine decree, the blood of sacrificed animals could no longer be used directly by the Israelites to boost their vitality, but was reserved exclusively for the enactment of atonement and the delivery of its benefits.

Blood That Speaks

In the heavenly sanctuary Jesus now represents us and leads worship on our behalf in the presence of the Father. (Heb 6:20; 8:1-2, 8; 9:24).

He not only intercedes for us there and leads us in our prayers (Heb 7:25) and praises (Heb 2:12; 13:15), but He also SPRINKLES us with His blood (Heb 9:14; 10:22; 12:24).

Since He has taken up that blood into His Father’s presence, it is not most holy and powerful.

Jesus doesn’t sprinkle our bodies, like the priest who served in the earthly tabernacle (Heb 9:13); that only purified the body. He sprinkles it on our CONSCIENCE (Heb. 9:14), our heart (Heb 10:22), so that we can serve the living God in the heavenly sanctuary (Heb 9:14). That blood ransoms and redeems us; like the blood of the Passover lamb, it protects us from the evil one (Heb 11:28).

This blood cleanses us entirely, through and through, body and soul, for all impurity and makes us perfectly holy, even as Christ is holy ( Heb 10:24; 2:11; 10:10, 14; 12:14).

We can therefore now approach our Heavenly Father — with unrestricted access — all through the blood of Jesus. We can now approach Him with faith and hope and serve Him by our love for each other.

However, there are many people today who have great difficulty with this sprinkling of blood. You see, they maintain that all the references to Christ’s blood speak about his past work - rather than His present ministry today in the heavenly sanctuary.

Blood in Hebrews speaks about something real and available to its readers. This blood truly cleanses God’s people, and we now have freedom and access to the heavenly realm here and now through the blood of Jesus (Heb. 10:19).

When we drink the blood of Jesus, He sprinkles us not only outwardly, but inwardly in our heart and conscience, thereby removing all guilt.

If guilt is gone, then its byproduct — shame — is also gone.

This blood “speaks” because in the Supper the blood of Christ speaks God’s grace to us (Heb 13:9).

Apart from that blood - including if it is just a symbol — our worship would be merely earthbound, local, human, and ineffectual.

But by the power of that blood, it is heavenly catholic, divine, and effectual.

The blood of the covenant we receive in Holy Communion, God the Father equips us with everything good, so that we can offer pleasing service to Him and glorify His Son together with all the angels in the heavenly realms (Heb 13:20-21).

What could be greater than that?