Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or Sabbath days, things which are a shadow of what is to come; but the body is of Christ. Colossians 2:16-17.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Everything is summed up in Jesus. Everything in the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New. And everything in the New Testament is explained by the Old. They are integral parts of a whole. And together they weave the beautiful tapestry of the salvation story that I have walked out with you.
In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. Ephesians 1:8-10.
Everything in the life of Jesus was significant. Every part of it had been spoken and released into the earth by My prophets in preparation for His being birthed forth into the earth from His conception (Genesis 3:15, Isaiah 14:7), to His birth (Micah 5:2-5; Isaiah 9:6-7), to His childhood (Malachi 3:1; Hosea 11:1; Isaiah 11:6), to His baptism (Isaiah 11:1-3; Isaiah 42:1) to His ministry (Isaiah 61:1-2; Isaiah 42:1-7; Isaiah 35:4-6; Psalm 146:8), His teaching (Psalm 78:1), His entrance to the city on Palm Sunday (Zechariah 9:9, Psalm 118:22-27), to His betrayal (Psalm 41:9-10; Zechariah 11:11-13), to His suffering and death for the sins of mankind (Isaiah 53; Psalm 22, Zechariah 13:6; Zechariah 12:10), to His resurrection (Hosea 6:1-3), His ascension and return to Me (Daniel 7:13-14), and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit (Joel 2:23–29), and many other incidents and events that were forthtold and foretold, all of which were fulfilled to the smallest detail. Even to the drawing of lots for His clothing at the Cross (Psalm 22:16-18) and His being counted among the wicked but being with a rich man at His death (Isaiah 53:9).
But everything is contained in and summed up in the fulfillment of Passover in the eternal memorial of His body and blood as the sealing of the New Covenant—redemption incarnate from earthly to heavenly in the first born-again man that is My gift to you so that you might live through Him. Because He lives, you live. And all you who are in Him by faith and set apart as sanctified in Him, I have raised up with Him in the Spirit and in your born-again spirit, and seated you with Him at My right hand even though in your earthly bodies you are still doing His works upon the earth as members of His body, the Church.
So let us look again, at the conversations of that evening at the last Passover He celebrated before His death and resurrection, but this time we will concentrate only on one part, the jewel of the evening, the institution of the New Covenant in the Covenant meal. Now remember, this night Jesus made covenant with you. He made Covenant with Me as your representative, as Son of Man, the next day on the Cross. You must understand that in Him you are sealed in a double Covenant that will never be broken. The Old Covenant made between Me and Moses and the people, the people broke though I was a husband to them.
But when My people broke the covenant I had made with them and Moses, I told them that there would be a day when I would cleanse them from all their idols and remove their stony dead hearts and give them living hearts and then put My Spirit in them and write My law in their hearts and their sins and offenses I would remember no more. And they would all know Me from the least the greatest. A redeemer would come to Zion and My Spirit would be upon them and I would put My Words in their mouths. Isaiah 59:20-21.
The New Covenant has two tiers. First, it was made between Me and Jesus with Jesus as your representative as Son of Man and as your great High Priest. He sealed the Covenant in His own blood at the Cross. He kept the Law given to Moses perfectly and never sinned. He is the only man that ever could do that. He gave His life to Me for you and thus My Will prospered in His hand. He was the seed given to Abraham’s line that took the gate of the enemy, as I promised Abraham by oath, and He was the Lamb for the burnt offering that I Myself provided as foretold by Abraham on Mt. Moriah.
Jesus fulfilled and consummated both the Abrahamic and the Mosaic Covenants, put you at the finish line of both, and from there went on to take you to a whole new level. The level of living eternal life starting now in this world and continuing with no interruption of unity between us as you step from this life to the next.
Of His fullness you have all received, grace upon grace.
My Covenant with Jesus began when I named Him as “My Beloved Son” at the Jordan River and it was sealed when He shed His blood and died upon the Cross, reconciling Me and mankind in Him, the true God and true Man united in one seamless life with no strife between Us, in One perfect man who was also perfect God.
And Jesus not only made Covenant with Me but also with you as His disciples, those present at its inauguration at the Passover supper the night He has betrayed, and those who would believe down the ages by their words and partake of the bread and the wine of the Covenant meal.
And all the elements required for a valid Covenant He fulfilled for you. He made promises to you, walked the bloody path to Calvary for you by Himself in My presence (as We had walked the bloody path of Abraham’s sacrifices of old). And He opened a new and living way by His blood for you to the very Holy of Holies.
And He swore these to you in Himself. And He gave you His Name and all His Covenant Names (the Light of the World, the Bread of Life, the door, the good Shepherd, the Resurrection and the Life, the Way, the truth and the life, the vine). And He gave you gifts: His authority, His robe of righteousness (His identity and His authority), His weapons (the armor of God), His blood, the Holy Spirit, eternal life, healing, health, and every one of My magnificent promises and Covenant Names as “yes” to you in Him. And it was established in the Covenant meal now referred to as “Holy Communion” and this also became the memorial by which others also enter the Covenant with Him.
And He emptied Himself of His riches and gave all He had to you. 2 Corinthians 8:9. This is Covenant.
This is the wondrous relationship of Covenant that puts you back in My family and makes you an heir of all that is Mine. And it is Jesus I sent to give you this.
Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Ephesians 2:12-13.
Jesus was eager to release you from your sins to bring you into oneness with Me. At the night of the Last Supper He knew He would have the joy of entering into Covenant with His disciples and by giving the sacred trust to them to preserve and bring others into the same everlasting Covenant the same way they would enter—the same precious faith that they were to teach to all peoples and all nations.
When the hour had come, He reclined at the table, and the apostles with Him. And He said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” Luke 22:14-16.
He desires earnestly to give you His Body and His Blood for they are your very life, My life, coming into you. And they put you in covenant with Him and He is in covenant with Me so that puts you in Him in Me for a perfect unity of God and man with every spiritual blessing in Heaven as yours in your account.
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” Jeremiah 31:31-34.
The New Covenant includes all the promises of the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants and is built on even better promises—the promise of the Spirit by faith. The gift of My own deepest self, living in you to fill you with all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
You have blessed assurance in Jesus for the New Covenant is guaranteed to you. It has double security. When you make covenant with Jesus you are in His hand and He, having made covenant with Me, is in My hand, so you are also in My hand by being in His hand.
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” John 10:27-30.
The Covenant Meal of Communion is so important to Me that I told you to keep doing this until Jesus returns and then you will do it in Heaven at His table. And it is so important that even though Paul was not at the Last Supper, Jesus taught it to Paul personally so he would teach it and do it with others.
So you are to continue this covenant meal, you must do it just as Jesus showed you. For it is His Words that changed the substance from earthly to heavenly and by the power of the Holy Spirit present within you it responds to His same words every time you do it in remembrance of Him.
So let us look again at the night when the Passover was fulfilled and the memorial became not only temporal but eternal as planned from all eternity.
“As for God, His way is perfect; the Word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him.” Psalm 18:30.
In came the first day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. And Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, so that we may eat it.” They said to Him, “Where do You want us to prepare it?” And He said to them, “When you have entered the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him into the house that he enters. And you shall say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, “Where is the guest room in which I may eat the Passover with My disciples?”’ And he will show you a large, furnished upper room; prepare it there.” And they left and found everything just as He had told them; and they prepared the Passover. Luke 22:7-13.
The disciples had learned that when Jesus told you to do something and told you just how to do it, it would be just as He said. Like Peter catching a fish to pay the temple tax and the finding of the donkey and the colt for riding to the city on Palm Sunday, and numerous other strangely wonderful occurrences and events, not to mention the healings, multiplication of supplies, calming of storms, and casting out of demons.
When the hour had come, He reclined at the table, and the apostles with Him. He opened the Passover with the first cup of wine, the cup of sanctification, as He invoked the first blessing. 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.” The disciples wondered on this, but they did not question it, but later, after His resurrection and ascension, they understood.
And then they proceeded with the order of the Passover that had been developed over the years since the first Passover in Egypt. And when they had eaten the meal, Jesus took the unleavened bread, the remaining matzah, and gave the final blessing of the meal over the bread and gave thanks, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” And giving thanks, He took the cup of redemption, also after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you and for many for forgiveness of sins is the new covenant in My blood, do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
At these sacred and immortal words of consecration a change took place by the power of the Holy Spirit that was in Him and on Him. It was resurrection power, and it raised that bread in anticipation to a whole new level for in time the cross was the next day but in eternity it was already an event conceived in Me since before the foundation of the world. And just as you are transformed by the renewal of your mind with My Word, so was the bread and wine that night. And it is these same Words spoken by My royal priesthood won for Me by Jesus that this same change continues where you gather in His Name for He is there in your midst.
And after this the singing of the psalms took place and the final cup of praise. And after singing the final great hymn of praise, Psalm 136, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
The depths of the oneness with Jesus and through Him and in Him with Me in this communion of Covenant is beyond human reasoning and understanding. It is a matter of Spirit and life. And every time you partake that bond is renewed and strengthened and the healing of body and soul and the cleansing from sin takes place each time the communion meal is partaken. It is a never-ending fountain of resurrection life joining you as the branch in the vine of Christ ever more deeply. And it is a time for you to eat that bread of His body and take up the cup of salvation in His blood and remember all that it signifies from My prophetic utterance of the Messiah in the Garden of Eden to every incidence of sacrifice, redemption, sanctification, and life that were the shadows of the true body that was to be given for you and of which you are now a member, part of His eternal work on earth and raised up to be as He is in the world by the remarkable oneness of Covenant, where the weaker is always raised up to enjoy the benefits, power, and protection of the stronger. And it is time to remember My great love for you that took all your sins off you and accounted them to Jesus and thus gave you My righteousness as if you had never sinned. Sin is gone and the eternal wedding feast is on.
What shall I render to the LORD for all His benefits toward me? I shall lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the LORD. Psalm 116:12-13.
Jesus asked you to “Do this in remembrance of Me.” Remembering what? Your redemption. He took up the third cup of redemption for a reason of course. He told you to remember Him, your Redeemer. Remember who He is and what He did for you and what you inherit from His bloody scourging, broken body, pierced hands and feet, His pierced heart, and His death that took away all your sins, iniquities, illnesses, pains, offenses, shame, and guilt and made you holy, blameless, and beyond reproach before Me. He released you from your sins by His blood—you are free—and made you a kingdom, priests unto Me, your Father.
It is a matter of remembering, and never forgetting, all your benefits and actively taking possession of the inheritance that is already yours in Jesus.
I love you. And every time you partake, you, just as He did the night before He died, proclaim His death for you until He comes. And He will come, but remember, you who have eaten His body and blood have eternal life in you and there is no snatching out of His hand. I have sealed you in Him. You are covered and beloved.