What is the context?
During the Passover meal, Jesus takes bread, blesses and breaks it, and gives it to the disciples in relation to His body. He gives them a cup and explains it in relation to His covenant blood, poured out for many. With His death approaching, He gives them a way to understand what He is about to give for them.
The language recalls the covenant made at Sinai, where Moses presented the blood of the covenant to the people. Jesus now speaks about His own blood. His words also look ahead: He will drink the fruit of the vine anew in God’s kingdom. The scene holds His coming death and the promised future together. (Exodus 24:3–8)
After a hymn, they leave for the Mount of Olives. Mark does not name the hymn or number the cups. Paul’s account adds the instruction to remember Jesus and explains that sharing the meal proclaims His death until He comes. (1 Corinthians 11:23–29)
How is this passage commonly understood?
Christians agree that Jesus connects the meal with His body and blood and His saving death. They differ over how He is present when believers share it.
The Catholic Church teaches that the bread and wine become Christ’s body and blood while their outward appearance remains. It calls this change transubstantiation. The Mass makes His one sacrifice present; Catholic teaching does not describe Jesus as being killed again. (Catechism 1362–1367, 1374–1377)
Lutheran teaching also affirms receiving Christ’s true body and blood, under the bread and wine. Luther’s Small Catechism ties the gift of forgiveness to Christ’s promise and calls for faith in His words. The meal is more than thinking back to an absent event. (Small Catechism, Sacrament of the Altar)
The Orthodox Church in America’s teaching guide likewise affirms genuine communion with Christ’s body and blood through the Holy Spirit. It stresses that this is a mystery and that its use of symbolic language does not mean the meal is merely an act of mental recollection. (OCA, Holy Eucharist)
The Westminster and 1689 Baptist confessions say that the bread and wine remain bread and wine while believers truly receive Christ and the benefits of His death spiritually, through faith. Methodist teaching similarly describes receiving Him in a heavenly and spiritual manner through faith. These teachings describe participation in Christ, with important differences from the explanations above. (Westminster 29.5–7; 1689 Baptist Confession 30.5–7; Methodist Articles XVIII)
Other explanations emphasize the bread and cup as signs that remember His death. Wesley’s note on Mark calls the cup a continuing sign and memorial of the blood establishing the covenant. His wording should be read alongside Methodist teaching about spiritual participation, rather than used to make every Protestant view identical. (Wesley, note on Mark 14:24)
Where does this fit in God's plan?
Jeremiah’s promise of a new covenant includes God’s instruction written within His people and forgiveness of their sins. Hebrews connects that promise with Jesus’ once-for-all offering and describes Him as the mediator of the new covenant. His death brings cleansing and access to God that repeated animal sacrifices could not secure. (Jeremiah 31:31–34; Hebrews 9:11–15; Hebrews 10:10–18)
The meal also keeps the church looking forward. Paul says it proclaims the Lord’s death until His coming, while Jesus promises future sharing in the kingdom. Remembering the cross and awaiting the kingdom belong together in the life of the people He gathers. (1 Corinthians 11:23–26)
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.