Eucharist and Lord's Supper

EUCHARIST AND LORD'S SUPPER 75
But this interpretation is only implied in the first three gospels, and
plainly stated for the first time in the apostolic writings. He saw His own
office as Messiah and foresaw His own death as its direct consequence.
But during the ministry the bare fact of His Messiahship is treated as a
deadly secret; its mode of achievement, by His own death, was spoken of
only towards the end and with great reserve. Sacrificiallanguage of indisputable
plainness about that death is attributed to Him only at the last
supper. At the supper and even after the supper the apostles did not yet
understand. But at the supper He had taken means that they would understand
in time. And the place of understanding would be at the table of the
eucharist, which He then fore-ordained.
For the last supper was not strictly a eucharist, but its prophecy and
promise, its last rehearsal. It was only the last of many meetings of His
old chaUirah held in the same form; it was still outside the Kingdom of
God, which He Himselfhad not yet entered until after the next day's final
taking of it by violence.! But at this meeting the old accustomed rite is
authoritatively given, not a new institution, but a new meaning; a meaning
it cannot bear on this occasion, but will hereafter. There could be no 'recalling'
before God of an obedience still lacking complete fulfilment; no
Body sacramentally given or Blood of the New Covenant, until Calvary
was an accomplished fact and the Covenant-Victim slain; no 'coming again
to receive them unto Himself' until He had 'gone away' in humiliation 'to
prepare a place for them'; no entering into the Kingdom of God and 'the
world to come', until the 'prince of this world' had found that he 'had
nothing in Him', even when His life was sifted to the uttermost by death.
But though our Lord at the supper gives the present rite an entirely
future meaning, His whole mind and attention is riveted neither on the
present nor on the future, but on something altogether beyond time, which
yet 'comes' into time-the Kingdom of God, the state of affairswhere men
effectivelyacknowledge that God is their King. 2 Kingship to that oriental
mind meant oriental despotism-as David or Solomon or Herod were
kings, absolute unfettered masters of men's lives, limited only by their own
natures and characters and purposes, and not by any rights that others
might have against them. The goodness of God is the only law and constitution
of God's Kingship, and because that goodness is absolute the
Kingship is absolute too. Jesus lived and died in unflinching and conscious
obedience to that despotic rule of goodness,-as the 'slave' of God, the
pais theou, or as we translate it, the 'servant' of Isaiah lii.-liii. As such He
knew the goodness of that Kingly rule; into that slavery He will initiate
His own, for that is what the coming of the Kingdom of God among men
means. In that Kingdom He will drink new wine with them, and eat with
I Luke xxii. 16, 18.
" This is always of 'the age to come' in this world; for in no individual is it ever
complete while he is in this world, except only in Him.