The material blood of Jesus was no more efficacious to cleanse from sin, when it was shed upon “the accursed tree,” than when it was flowing in his veins, as he went daily about his Father's business. His spiritual flesh and blood were his Life; and they truly eat his flesh and drink his blood who partake of that Life.
The spiritual meaning of blood is sacrifice. The efficacy of Jesus' spirit-offering was infinitely greater than can be expressed by our sense of human blood.
In ancient Rome a soldier was required to swear allegiance to his general. The Latin word for this oath was sacramentum, and our English word “sacrament” is derived from it. Also it was an ancient custom, among the Jews, for the master of a feast to pass to each guest a cup of wine. But the Eucharist neither commemorates a Roman soldier's oath, nor the wine used on convivial occasions and at Jewish rites the cup of our Lord. The cup was to show forth his sufferings, — the cup which he prayed might pass from him, then bowed in holy submission to divine decree.
The Passover that Jesus ate with his disciples in the month Nisan, on the night before his crucifixion, was a mournful occasion, a sad supper, taken at the close of day, in the twilight of a glorious career with shadows fast falling around it; and this supper closed forever his ritualism, or concessions to matter.
What a contrast between our Lord's Last Supper and his last spiritual breakfast with his disciples, in the bright morning hours, at the joyful meeting on the shore of the Galilean Sea! His gloom had passed into glory, and his disciples' grief into hope, hearts chastened, and pride rebuked. Convinced of their fruitless toil in
