The Eucharist: Part 1

The Meal That Finished the Sacrifice

Introduction

The Eucharist is one of the most controversial teachings in Catholicism. Catholics do not merely say that Communion is sacred—we claim it is Christ Himself: His Body and Blood, made present under the form of bread and wine. To many non-Catholics, this is not just mistaken—it’s offensive. The charge is old: Catholics “worship a wafer.” At worst, we are idolaters. At best, just strange.

But beneath the objections lies a deeper tension—one rarely acknowledged directly. The debate isn’t just about how literally we should interpret Christ’s words at the Last Supper—it’s about something deeper: What we think sacrifice actually is. Most Christians speak confidently of Jesus’ death as a sacrifice, but few consider what that meant in the biblical world. Sacrifice, in Scripture, is not transactional; it's structural.

Instead of arguing a narrow interpretation of Christ's words, this article will reveal why it is necessary for the Eucharist to be the body and blood of our Lord, because it is essential to covenantal and relational theology. In other words: The Eucharist must be Christ if we want to personally experience the benefits of the Lord's crucifixion.

God Works Through Covenants

The word “covenant” appears throughout Scripture, but not every Christian tradition gives it the same weight. Some—like Presbyterians or Lutherans—have long recognized it as central to how God works. Others, especially Evangelicals, may encounter the word only occasionally, without a strong sense of what it means or why it matters. Yet whatever one’s background, the Bible remains a covenantal book. From Genesis to Revelation, the relationship between God and His people is shaped through covenants. This is not a theological filter placed over Scripture—it is how Scripture reveals the story of salvation.

At its core, a covenant is not just a promise. It is the formal establishment of relationship. More than a contract or agreement, a covenant creates a bond—real, lasting, and often familial. When God makes a covenant, He is not merely expressing goodwill or offering forgiveness; He is binding Himself to a people in a cosmic relationship. This may sound foreign to some readers, but understand: Whenever we use the terms "saved", "adopted", "the family of God", we are using covenantal language.

This becomes clearer in Scripture: God saves Noah from the flood—and makes a covenant (Genesis 9). He calls Abraham—and forms a covenant that will extend to generations and nations (Genesis 15, 17). He delivers Israel from Egypt—and binds them to Himself at Sinai through the covenant given in blood (Exodus 24). When He chooses David as king, He doesn’t simply establish a throne—He promises a dynasty through covenant (2 Samuel 7). These are not side details. They are the very structure of salvation history. The Bible does not give us a list of truths to believe or rules to obey. It gives us a narrative of how God enters into covenant with humanity—and what that covenant demands.

And on this point, nearly all Christians agree: Christ has established a New Covenant. His words at the Last Supper leave no doubt:

“This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (Luke 22:20).

The author of Hebrews builds the entire logic of the Gospel on this claim: that Christ has inaugurated a better covenant—one that replaces the old and accomplishes what the law could not (Hebrews 8–10). Even the phrase “New Testament” literally means “new covenant.” This isn’t marginal doctrine. It’s the heart of the Gospel.

And this leads us to the real questions: If we all agree that Christ established a New Covenant, then how does His death actually do that? What makes a Roman execution a divine sacrificial act? Does the shedding of blood, in itself, create the bond?

Before we can explore how Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross establishes a new covenant, we first need to understand what sacrifice actually is. If we get that wrong, we risk misunderstanding the rest of Christ's passion.

What is Sacrifice?

The word “sacrifice” is used frequently, especially in Protestant circles, but rarely defined. It often becomes a catch-all term for “atonement” or “substitution,” with little attention to what Scripture actually presents when it speaks of sacrifice. And yet, if Christ’s death fulfills a sacrificial act, we must first ask: what makes something a sacrifice in the biblical sense?

In many Christian circles, sacrifice is imagined along pagan lines:

1. A god is angry

2. A victim is chosen, and its blood is shed

3. The god’s wrath is appeased

The structure is familiar—whether an Aztec priest offers human hearts to end a famine or a Greek general slaughters animals for victory in war. The logic is transactional: the god demands blood, the worshiper provides it. Though rarely stated this bluntly, the framework has shaped how many Christians view the Cross:

1. God the Father is angry at humanity’s sin

2. Christ, the innocent victim, is slain on the Cross

3. God forgives those who believe

But despite how common this model is, it is not how Scripture presents sacrifice. In the Bible, sacrifice is not a divine outburst or a spiritual payment—it is an act of worship. It is ordered, priestly, and relational. In Leviticus, when someone became unclean through sin, a sacrifice was required—but not to appease an angry deity. The animal’s death played a role, but it was never the goal. The act of sacrifice included the slaying, the offering, and the application of blood—and it was this full ritual, not the moment of death, that mattered.

Its purpose was not to satisfy wrath, but to restore communion. The blood was applied not as a payment, but to sanctify—to cleanse the altar, the tabernacle, and the people. Sacrifice, in this light, is not about calming God’s anger. It is about transforming the sinner. And this movement—from death, to offering, to restored relationship—is how God draws His people into covenant. Nowhere is that pattern more clearly revealed than in the Passover.

The Passover is a Sacrifice

Many Christians are familiar with the title given to Jesus: the “Lamb of God.” Paul calls Him our “Passover Lamb” (1 Corinthians 5:7), and John the Baptist echoes it as Christ approaches: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). These aren’t poetic flourishes. They are scriptural identities. The Passover is treated not as an image of salvation, but as its blueprint. Only by understanding the Passover fully, will Christ's sacrificial act be uncovered.

Beginning in Exodus 12, God is preparing to judge Egypt and free His people. In other words, God is about to bring salvation to the people of Israel. However, God doesn't merely "snap his fingers" to instantly cause Pharaoh to release the Hebrews. Instead, God creates this very high-stakes, very dramatic scenario that will require the utmost trust and faith in God.

In order to be saved from the Angel of death, the Israelites have to follow a liturgy, or ritual:

1. A lamb must be chosen—unblemished, male, set apart.

2. The lamb must be killed

3. It's blood must be applied to the doorposts of every household

4. The lamb must be eaten

The household would not be spared if any part of this liturgy was neglected. And what stands out is not just the rituals themselves, but their order. The slaying of the lamb is not what completes the sacrifice. In fact, the shedding of blood is not the offering to God at all. The offering is the meal.

This is what the Passover reveals: God chose to save His people through a ritual sacrifice—but He made the meal its climax. If the lamb had been killed and its blood applied, but the people had not eaten it, the ritual would have failed. Not because God was enforcing a list of chores, but because He was doing something far greater. He was drawing His people into communion. He was preparing to dwell with them. He wanted to be received.

The Institution

If it hasn’t clicked for you yet, your alarm bells should be going off—this is where the Eucharist comes into the picture— We’ve just seen that the sacrifice of the Passover was not complete until the lamb was eaten. This isn’t a clever theological theory imposed on the text. For early Jewish-Christians, the parallels were unmistakable. This theological convergence comes fully into view at the Last Supper.

It is widely known that the Last Supper took place over the celebration of Passover. What’s lesser known today is how structured and sacred the Passover meal had become by the time of Jesus. The meal followed a set order—what came to be known as the Haggadah. Four cups of wine were blessed and consumed throughout the evening, each one corresponding to a specific promise from God in the Passover narrative:

1. The Cup of Sanctification: Marks the beginning of the meal, it sets apart the people and the evening as holy

2. The Cup of Deliverance: Taken during the retelling of the Exodus story, and associated with teaching

3. The Cup of Redemption (or Blessing): Drunk after the main meal, it recalls the blood of the lamb

4. The Cup of Consummation: Concludes the celebration and seals the covenant with God

This wasn't a casual or informal dinner—it was a covenantal act, a liturgy the disciples would have known by heart. And yet, during the Last Supper, Christ inserts himself into the ritual. First, he takes the bread and says:

"This is my Body, given for you."

Then, when it came time for the third cup, the cup of the blood of the lamb, Christ says:

“This is my Blood, the Blood of the new covenant."

This would not only have been controversial—it would have been shocking. Jesus doesn’t just center the ritual on Himself; He declares the arrival of a New Covenant.

But here’s what’s critical to understand: in Scripture, covenants are never formed by words alone. Every biblical covenant involves both the presentation of blood and the sharing of a sacred meal. These two components are not optional—they’re what make it a covenant.

But notice something: Christ has spoken the words. The meal is underway. Bread and wine have been offered and identified as His Body and Blood. And yet—the offering itself is still missing. Because while Christ declares what the bread and wine are, He has not yet poured out His Body. The sacrifice has not yet occurred. Which is why, at this climactic moment, He pauses. He says:

“I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”

This is not random. The final cup—the Cup of Consummation—was the one that sealed the covenant. It concluded the Passover. And Christ refuses to drink it. The covenant has been announced. The pattern has begun. But it has not been sealed. The ritual is left open. And with that, Christ leaves the table, and walks into the night.

The Fourth Cup

It’s easy to read about the unfinished Passover and wonder, Why isn’t it more explicit in the text? But that question only arises because modern Christians have lost sight of the structure of Second Temple Judaism. For Jesus and His disciples, what happened at the Last Supper was not vague. It was radical. To declare a new covenant and then leave the Passover ritual incomplete was unthinkable. And yet, that’s exactly what Jesus did. He refused the fourth cup—the Cup of Consummation. In order to seal the covenant, Christ first had to become the offering of sacrfice, he needed to go out and prepare for his execution.

This is why the Crucifixion must not be seen as a separate event, but the continuation—and completion—of what began at the table. The covenant spoken in the upper room moves forward, carried by Christ Himself.

As Hebrews details quite clearly, Christ performs the act that the Old Covenant couldn't: He becomes the perfect offering. As both High Priest and sacrificial lamb, He establishes the covenant in His blood.

Then, if it wasn't obvious enough, The Gospel of John reveals what Christ says while on the cross:

"After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the scripture), 'I thirst.'" (John 19:28)

The soldiers lift sour wine to His lips—on a branch of hyssop, the same used in Exodus to mark the doorposts—and He drinks the Fourth Cup, the Cup of Consummation.

“It is finished.”

With these last words, Christ declares the Covenant sealed. What started at the table has not been finished with His blood.

The Lamb Must Be Eaten

At this point, you may be wondering: “Okay, I’ve learned something new about the sacrificial and covenantal nature of Christ’s crucifixion—but what does any of this have to do with the Eucharist?” It’s a fair question, and the answer lies in what the covenant requires. At the Last Supper, Jesus didn’t insert Himself into the Passover for symbolic effect. He wasn’t offering poetry—He was establishing something real. Just as the original Passover involved not only a lamb but a meal, Christ declares the bread and wine to be His Body and Blood. He begins a new covenant with the same pattern: a sacrifice, and a shared meal.

But didn’t the covenant end at the Cross? Yes—Christ sealed the covenant with His blood, and with His final cry, “It is finished,” the Passover was complete. The offering had been made. But as the original Passover shows us: A sacrifice is not effective for the believer, if it's not received. If the lamb was slain and its blood applied, but the people refused to eat it, the ritual failed.

This is why the Eucharist is not a new sacrifice. It is not a repetition of Calvary. As Hebrews tells us:

“We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).

The sacrifice is finished. But now, it must be received. Just as the Israelites entered into God’s covenant by eating the lamb, we enter the New Covenant by receiving the Lamb who was slain. Not symbolically. Not metaphorically. But sacramentally—in the very way Christ Himself declared: “This is my Body. This is my Blood. Take and eat.”

This is why the Eucharist must be what the Church claims it is. If Christ is the true Passover Lamb, then the sacrifice is only complete when the Lamb is consumed. That’s not a poetic flourish—it’s the structure God Himself established. It is only covenantal, it is only sacrificial: If the Lamb is eaten. That’s why the Eucharist is necessary—not as a symbol, but as the meal that makes the sacrifice ours.

Conclusion

At the heart of this entire discussion is a simple but staggering claim: that God did not just save us from afar—He drew us into covenant. That covenant was not abstract, but structured. And that structure, established through Scripture, required more than words, more than death. It required a meal. It required the Lamb to be received.

If the Eucharist is not truly Christ, then the entire structure falls apart. The covenant is declared, but not sealed. The lamb is offered, but never received. The Passover begins, but is never finished. And the Cross, though real, becomes isolated—an altar without a meal, a sacrifice without participation.

But if the Eucharist is Christ—if the bread and wine are truly His Body and Blood—then everything holds. The pattern is fulfilled. The offering is extended. The covenant is not just made visible, but made present. And the Church’s claim—that Christ gave Himself once for all, and gives Himself still—is not strange. It is scriptural. It is sacrificial. It is necessary.

In Part 2, we will ask the next question: Did the early Church believe this? Because if everything we’ve seen holds, then this belief should not be a medieval invention or a later theological flourish. It should be there from the beginning—recognized, received, and lived.