We have been looking at the meaning of the blood of the covenant. Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, called his disciples together and instituted the Lord’s Supper as a permanent memorial. As we have been studying the scriptures we have been seeing that the blood of the covenant has a rich meaning for God’s people. This will be our final lesson in our study as we look at the fourth dimension of the meaning of the blood of the covenant. Please open your copies of God’s word to Hebrews 10.
Profaning the Blood of Covenant (Hebrews 10:26-29)
For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:26-29 ESV)
Did you catch what the writer of Hebrews said about the actions of the person who will deserve punishment? It is surprising but it is also easy to quickly pass over. How much worse punishment will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God? I think this is an easy answer to give. If I am taking Jesus trampling over him then I am certainly worthy of judgment. But now look at the next picture. How much worse punishment will be deserved by the one who has profaned the blood of the covenant?
We do not really talk about things being profane. So it might be a little difficult to understand the picture. But this word means “common, defiled, unclean.” Now I think it is very interesting that the writer of Hebrews does not say that we consider Jesus common and ordinary. I am sure we would agree that this would be a major problem to consider Jesus ordinary and common rather than holy and elevated. But the writer chooses to say that we consider the blood of the covenant common. How much worse punishment should come on the one who considers the blood of the covenant ordinary and defiled? The writer says that it is a great problem to not highly value the blood of the covenant.
Why? Why would it be a worse punishment to count the blood of the covenant as common and ordinary? Look at how that statement ends in verse 29. The problem is that you have treated common the blood of the covenant by which you were sanctified. The blood of the covenant is how you were made holy before the Lord. You are taking the very thing that made you holy before God and calling it unholy and common. So the writer of Hebrews says that the one who does this is worthy of judgment (Hebrews 10:30-31).
Return to the beginning of this paragraph and notice how a person tramples the Son of God underfoot, profanes the blood of the covenant by which they were made holy, and outrage the Spirit of grace. Hebrews 10:26 says, “If we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth.” Now we know that this cannot mean that if we choose to sin because we read the apostle John teaching 1 John that if anyone says they have not sinned, then we are deceived, we make God a liar, and his word is not in us (cf. 1 John 1:8-10). Rather, we have received the knowledge of the truth and we disregard it. We choose to not care about what God has told us to do. This fits the picture of Exodus 24 where we started this study. To belong to the covenant we are making a declaration that all the Lord has spoken we will do. We do not come into the covenant saying that all the Lord has spoken we will disregard. We do not belong to the covenant by saying that all the Lord has spoken we will take under advisement and choose which laws we agree with. If we do, there is not a sacrifice for sins but a fearful expectation of judgment. We are taking what Jesus has done and trampling over him and counting the blood of the covenant as a common thing. I believe the apostle Peter captures the picture and the problem well.
For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.” (2 Peter 2:20-22 ESV)
If you return to the mud after being washed, then we are counting our cleansing as nothing. If we go back to the vomit that Jesus freed us from, then we are trampling him underfoot and completely disregarding the covenant he made to make us holy.
Unworthy Memorial (1 Corinthians 11:27-34)
I think this idea can help us understand what Paul is talking about when he writes to the Corinthian Christians about partaking in an unworthy manner. What we read in 1 Corinthians 11:27-34 can be disturbing. Paul says in verse 27 that a person can eat or drink in an unworthy manner and so be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. In verse 29 Paul says that if we eat and drink without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on themselves. In verses 31-32 Paul says that these Christians were being judged by God because of what they were doing with the Lord’s Supper. So everyone wants to know what it means to eat and drink in an unworthy manner.
Let’s begin by starting with a clear truth. We can never be worthy of what Jesus has done for us. We can never come to the table and proudly say that we are worthy of Jesus’ sacrifice. So when Paul is talking about eat and drinking in a worthy manner, he cannot be referring to us working to make ourselves worthy. I want to also add that Paul cannot mean that you need to come to the table sinless. We are liars if we say that we have not sinned. We are liars if we say that we have not sinned this last week. If God was asking us to come to the table perfected and without blemish, no human would ever get to partake. So what is the problem with the Corinthian Christians as they are guilty of the Lord’s body and the Lord’s blood that established this covenant (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:27)? I want to focus on verse 29.
For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. (1 Corinthians 11:29 ESV)
Now the big question is this: what does it mean to discern the body? The CSB and NASB 2020 reads “recognizing the body.” The NET reads “careful regard for the body.” The NLT reads “honoring the body.” The NASB 1995 reads “judge the body rightly.” What body are we talking about and how are we to discern and judge it? There are a couple of possible answers. So I want us to consider these in regards to the body and the blood of the covenant.
First, Paul could be instructing us to judge the actual body of Jesus. We need to honor and recognize the body of Christ that was given for us. This is what Jesus even says when he instituted the Lord’s Supper. In Luke’s account Jesus said that the bread represented his body “which is given for you” (Luke 22:19). We need to be focused on Jesus when we come to the table. The Corinthian Christians had lost that focus. They had made the Lord’s Supper a common meal. They were coming to worship, not for the purpose of remembering Jesus, but for eating. The bread represents Jesus’ body and the cup represents Jesus’ blood of the covenant. Make sure that is where you are at when you come to the table. This is one reason why we have a talk and scripture reading before we partake. The scriptures do not command us to give a short talk before partaking. So why do we do it? We do this to get our minds in the right place. We do this to give us time to examine ourselves and prepare ourselves to recognize Christ’s body and blood of the covenant. We do not want to take this lightly. I believe this is what it means to discern the body. What are we to discern? What are we to recognize? This is where our earlier study today comes in. We are discerning if we are treating Jesus and his covenant as ordinary and common or important and sacred. Do we care about what Jesus did in his body and the effect it has on us today? If we care, then we will come to the table with a commitment to serve the Lord because of his body and his blood of the covenant.
But there is another to think about the body in 1 Corinthians 11:29. The body of Christ can refer to Christ’s own body. But the body of Christ can also refer to us. In fact, this has been the focus of this paragraph. Why are these Christians being judged? Verse 17 says that the way they are coming together for worship is for the worse, not for the better. They are not considering each other. There are divisions (11:18). Some have too much and some have too little (11:21). They are not waiting for each other (11:33). They have turned the Lord’s Supper into selfishness and not consider that they are the body of Christ. We are to partake together (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:16-17). Do not make the Lord’s Supper about me. Make the Lord’s Supper about us. We are profaning the blood of the covenant when we only look at the sacrifice of Jesus and how it affects me. We are not seeing that we all have been called into covenant relationship. I think Paul likely had both ideas in mind and so he used the generic term “the body” so that we would think about both of these elements.
The Four Dimensions
So let’s bring this series to a close by remembering what we have covered in regards to the blood of the covenant. First, when we hold the cup in our hands we are thinking about the covenant that was ratified through Christ’s blood so that we can be in relationship with him. We are saying with this cup that we belong to the covenant and we will do all that the Lord has asked us to do. Second, when we hold the cup in our hands we are thinking about the covenant setting us free from sins. We are saying with this cup that the old self is crucified and we are now free to live for Christ because of the covenant he established. Third, when we hold this cup in our hands we are thinking about the extensive forgiveness that was achieved in Christ. Our forgiveness required more than animal blood. Our forgiveness required the blood of the Son. His blood cleanses our guilty consciences. Jesus had to die to put us into this new covenant that forgives so that we may received the promised eternal inheritance. Finally, when we hold the cup in our hands we are thinking about not treating the blood of the covenant as a common thing. The blood of the covenant has made us holy. So we will not be brazen as we partake of it, having no intention of changing our lives. We will think about the effect of Christ’s work on me and on us. The body of Christ was offered so that we could be the body of Christ.