Communion Through Shed Blood

The undercurrent of the latter half of Exodus 4 is the theme of the shedding of blood. True justice, communion, and victory will only be achieved through the shedding of blood, for “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb 9:22 ESV). At the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ shed his own blood and thereby brought about true justice, communion, and victory for his people. What Exodus 4 foreshadows, Christ realizes at the culmination of his earthly work.

And it is this culmination that we remember, celebrate, and enjoy each week when we observe the Lord’s Supper. It is beneficial, therefore, to reflect on the connection between the shedding of blood, the Lord’s Supper, and our communion with the living and true God. And we can begin with the fact that “the Lord’s Supper was a meal in which bread and wine were used as food and drink for strengthening the body, and served above all as signs and seals for the exercise of communion with the crucified Christ. It is both an ordinary natural meal and an extraordinary spiritual meal, in which the host, Christ, offers his own crucified body and shed blood as nourishment for our souls.”[1] Specifically with respect to the shed blood of Christ, Bavinck writes,

The blood of Christ, of which the wine is the sign, is sacrificial blood, the blood of atonement that has been shed for many and is therefore the beginning and initiation of a new covenant. Just as Passover and the old covenant are connected, so also the Supper and the new covenant belong together. The cup, therefore, is ‘my blood of the covenant’ or ‘the new covenant in my blood,’ that is, covenant blood (Exod. 24:8), which as sacrificial blood is necessary and serviceable for the fulfillment of the covenant with God; or the covenant itself that comes into being because this blood effects and carries with it the forgiveness of sins and is grounded in that reality.[2]

Importantly, Bavinck notes that Jesus does not stop with merely presenting wine as a sign of his shed blood. Rather, he “not only offered an explanation of his death in the signs of bread and wine but also gave them to his disciples to be eaten and drunk. … He did not keep them in his hands but distributed them and told his disciples to take and eat them.”[3] In this distribution, we then recognize how communion is connected with the shed blood of Christ.

Consequently, Bavinck summarizes the significance of the Lord’s Supper in several observations. First, “the communion between Christ and believer, while it is so intimate and unbreakable that it can scarcely be expressed in words and can only be somewhat made clear by images (such as head and body, vine and branch, bridegroom and bride), it is still … no consubstantial oneness like that of the three persons of the Trinity.” In the Lord’s Supper, we have communion without confusion. Second, “this communion is brought about by the Holy Spirit… Only the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, can so unite people with Christ that they share in his person and benefits and cannot be separated from him by death or the grave, by the world or by Satan. For that reason this communion is always spiritual in nature.” Third, “the communion with Christ, which is strengthened in the Supper, is nothing other than that which is brought about by the Word as a means of grace. The sacrament does not add any grace to that which is offered in the Word. It only strengthens and confirms that which has been received by faith from the Word.” This then means that “Christ is truly and essentially present with his divine and human nature in the Supper, only in no way other than he is present in the gospel. … Those who believingly accept the sign also, according to the divine ordinance, receive true communion with the whole Christ.” Finally, “faith, accordingly, is the indispensable requisite for the reception of the sacrament.”[4]

So, then, as we receive Christ through both verbal and visible word, let us always remember that our communion with him has come through the costly sacrifice of his own blood. But because Christ’s blood has been shed for us, we enjoy communion with him and all the benefits of our union with Christ.

[1] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 4:575.

[2] Bavinck, 4:547.

[3] Bavinck, 4:547-548.

[4] Bavinck, 4:576-578.