A New Way

One could say that the wine is still waiting for an interpretation, since none is contained in the Old Testament. (In fact, the wine itself is not prescribed in the Old Testament.)

 I tell you; I won’t drink wine again until that day when I drink it in a new way with you in my Father’s kingdom.” Mt 26:29 (Common English Bible, 2011.) 

But I tell you, from this moment I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it in a new way  in My Father’s kingdom  with you.” ( Holman Christian Standard Version 2009) 

And I am saying to you, I will positively not from now on drink of this product of the vine until that day when I drink it new in quality with you in the kingdom of my Father.(Kenneth S. Wuest, The New Testament: An Expanded Translation 1961) 

the “new” wine of the kingdom, Matt. 26:29; Mark 14:25, is kainos, since it will be of a different character from that of this world.(Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words 1996 431) 

‘this’ contrasts the earthly wine of this world with the new wine of the world to come

W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 3, International Critical Commentary (London; New York: T&T Clark International, 2004).

in the sense that what is old has become obsolete, and should be replaced

William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 497.

καινός is what is new in nature, different from the usual, impressive, better than the old, superior in value or attraction Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 447.

“an old order which no one observes …, a new which all run to meet.”

Once again we will do well to note that the terms new heaven and new earth describe a renewal, not an abolition, of the old creation.

 This is emphasized by Peter’s choice of the word kainos, new in nature or quality, rather than neos, new in time or origin.

 Paul confirms this in his treatment of the creation’s hope for which it “waits in eager expectation”; it waits to be “liberated from its bondage to decay”; it groans “as in the pains of childbirth” (Rom. 8:19, 21–22). Its prospect is birth, not death, liberation not obliteration! cf. Gal. 4:19 (Robert Harvey and Philip H. Towner, 2 Peter & Jude, ed. Grant R. Osborne, vol. 18, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL; Nottingham, England: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 130.)

In Paul hope has an apocalyptic specificity. It centers on a happening in time and space that is the object of the yearning and sighing of the Christian, that is, the victory over evil and death in the Parousia of Christ or the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 15:24). Paul’s apocalyptic dualism is not a Gnostic dualism of contempt for this world, or otherworldliness.

 It is determined by the event of Christ, an event that not only negated the old order but also initiated the hope for the transformation of the creation that has gone astray and is in travail because it longs for its redemption from decay (Rom. 8:20).

 Although the glory of God will break into our fallen world, it will not annihilate the world but only break off its present structure of death, because it aims to transform the cosmos rather than to confirm its ontological nothingness.

The resurrection of Christ marks the beginning of the process of transformation, and its historical reality is therefore crucial to Paul because it marks the appearance of the end in history and not simply the end of history. It is not an intrapsychic event; rather, it appeals to the Christian’s solidarity with the stuff of creation that God has destined for “resurrection” glory. (J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984), 149.)

The new covenant is not only or mainly a question of definition, or an exegetical conclusion based on a proof-text in Jeremiah; the new covenant is a new act of God, to which scripture bears witness

The words speak of a new era in religious access to God. Hebrews 10:19–22, Luke 23:42–43

 Paul Ellingworth, The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 1993), 417–418.

Rather, “heaven” is a word that allows us to speak about God’s nearness and availability without pinning Him down to a specific geographical address. Because God’s life is not bodily, He is not limited by the categories of time and space that mark our human existence. God is not part of “the metaphysical furniture of the universe.” (Wesley Hill, The Lord’s Prayer: A Guide to Praying to Our Father, Christian Essentials (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 15.)

The most frequent references to a temple in heaven are in the visions of John of Patmos in the Book of Revelation: “Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple” (Rev.11:19 and frequently). Here not merely is there a temple in heaven, but a heavenly liturgy takes place there (Rev.8:3–5).

 But, as is well known, in the new Jerusalem that will descend from heaven there is no temple because access to God is direct (Rev.21:22).

  (George W. MacRae, “Heavenly Temple and Eschatology in the Letter to the Hebrews,” ed. William A. Beardslee, Semeia 12 (1978): 183.)

Revelation pictures the messianic consummation in terms of a wedding (Rev. 19:9). In our Gospel, the wedding at Cana symbolizes the presence of the messianic salvation; wine symbolizes the joy of the messianic feast (see Mk. 2:19ff.); the six stone jars used for Jewish rites of purification symbolize the Old Testament era that is now ending; and Mary’s statement, “they have no wine,” becomes a pregnant reflection on the barrenness of Jewish purification, much in the vein of Mark 7:1–24. (Ladd, G. E. (1993). A Theology of the New Testament (D. A. Hagner, Ed.; Rev. ed., p. 267). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.)

Jesus’ proclamation of the dawning “kingship of God” (βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ). The linguistic parallel itself, not to mention the fact that for Mark both Jesus’ kingship and the dawning divine kingship he preaches are hidden and paradoxical realities, points to the organic unity of these conceptions in Mark’s mind. Theological presuppositions aside, the natural explanation for this is that Jesus’ “coronation” vindicates his proclamation of God’s approaching kingship. 

That is, Jesus’ accession to kingship in his passion must represent for Mark the inauguration of that same kingship of God whose imminent arrival Jesus had earlier announced. If so, then the one whose enthronement is “hidden under contradiction” (Jesus) is in Mark’s eyes none other than the one whose coming kingship Jesus promised (God)! Mark must be intending his kingly imagery to depict Jesus not as the royal Messiah, but as the promised divine King.

It is only in the depths of his passion that Jesus’ full identity becomes manifest. It is in his death on the cross, where he may no longer withhold the truth about himself, that Jesus is finally perceived by human-kind, in the person of the centurion, to be the divine υἱὸς θεοῦ-Son of God (Mk.15:39).

Mark’s description of the position of the centurion vis-à-vis the dying Jesus, ἐξ ἐναντίας αὐτοῦ-facing Him (Mk.15:39), may possess a subtly cultic force. It utilizes, at any rate, one of the idiomatic expressions for entering the temple, for standing “in the presence” or “before the face” of God. Here the expression which the OT used for visiting the temple is transferred to the heavenly sanctuary Heb. 9:24. cf. Heb. 10:19-20

In Mark’s mind, the torn veil describes the ultimate theophany. The God whose whose “face” or “presence,” was veiled within the sanctum sanctorum-Holy of Holies (Exod. 33:11, 14) himself rips away the veil and shows his “face,” manifests his “presence.” By inserting Mk. 15:38 so as to bring it into immediate juxtaposition with Mk. 15:37, Mark intends not only to report a real consequence of Jesus’ death, but also and especially to draw out metaphorically the self-revelatory force of Jesus’ death.

 Jesus manifests his true identity; and the effect, according to Mark, is equivalent to God himself showing his “face.” This, of course, explains why the centurion, in recognizing Jesus’ true identity, makes the climactic confession that Jesus is divine (υἱὸς θεοῦ-Son of God): he finds himself on holy ground, in the “true temple,” in the “real sanctum sanctorum.” Standing in the presence of the dying Jesus, he feels himself to be standing in the divine “presence.” Looking into the face of the crucified Jesus at the instant of his death, he sees (as it were) the very “face” of God.

Even before but especially after the passion, the “true temple” is wherever Jesus “goes before” (προάγω, Mk.14:28; 16:7) his disciples—much as the “face” or “presence,” “went before” the people in the wilderness, and as Yahweh was to “go before” them again, according to (Deutero-) Isaiah (Isa. 40:3; 42:16, 24; 43:16, 19; 45:13; 48:15, 17; 49:9, 11; 51:10; 53:6; 55:3, 7, 8, 9.). right worship—formerly characterized by racial exclusiveness and false priorities—is redefined for all human-kind as taking up the cross and following Jesus. (Mark.1:2, 3; 2:23; 6:8; 8:3, 27; 9:33, 34; 10:17, 32, 46, 52; 11:8 12:14.) 

The presence of Gentile centurion in the “real sanctum sanctorum” may capture Mark’s disdain for a clericalism caught up in false priorities (cf. Mk. 2:15–17, 23–28; 3:1–19; 7:1–13) as much as it does his ethnic inclusivism (Harry L. Chronis, “The Torn Veil: Cultus and Christology in Mark 15:37–39,” Journal of Biblical Literature 101 (1982):101- 111.)

Revelation is the light of this new world which God has called into being. The light needs the reality and the reality needs the light to produce the vision of the beautiful creation of His grace. To apply the Kantian phraseology to a higher subject, without God’s acts the words would be empty, without His words the acts would be blind. (Geerhardus Vos, Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2001), 10.)

And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. Heb. 10:19–22 NLT 

Further, it is not obscurely intimated, that the new order of affairs, so far from being in its turn again subject to change or abrogation, is of final significance. It reaches over into the eschatological state, which of itself makes it eternal. 

This may be gathered from Jesus’ solemn declaration about not expecting to drink of the fruit of the vine again, until He shall drink it new (Matthew adds ‘with you’) in the Kingdom of God (Luke, ‘until the Kingdom of God shall have come’). What we call the ‘New Covenant’ here appears at the outset as an eternal covenant. Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2003), 300,301

This reign of God, this kingdom of Christ, a place of blessedness (Luke 14:15), is also eschatological and will have no end (Luke 1:33), is an unshakable kingdom (Heb. 12:28), paradise (Luke 23:42), or heavenly glory (Matt. 20:21; Mark 10:37). Inaugurated by the resurrection of Jesus, this life in the kingdom is comparable to an eternal banquet where guests beyond number from East and West (Matt 8:11) celebrate at Christ’s table. Mark 14:25; Matt 26:29; Luke 22:16, 18, 29, 30. Jesus, in announcing his imminent death, uses this eschatological logion to express the certainty of his triumph over death and his exaltation, perhaps also “the new paschal rite, i.e., the Church” 

According to Acts 1:3 (cf. Acts 1:6) Jesus discussed the reign of God with his apostles between the resurrection and the ascension, and this kingdom is also the theme of Philip’s preaching (Acts 8:12) and of Paul’s (Acts 19:8; 20:25; 28:23, 31). The latter points out that “it is through many tribulations that we must enter the kingdom of God.” 

His epistles add nothing to the Synoptic theology, but they insist forcefully on the holiness of the members of the basileia, which cannot be inherited by the unjust.1 Cor. 6:9–10; Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5; cf. Col. 1:13. 

The kingdom is completely spiritual: God reigns in our midst through the virtues and his gifts (Rom. 14:17); 1 Cor. 15:50, Christ’s scepter is a scepter of righteousness (Heb. 1:8). 

Ceslas Spicq and James D. Ernest, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 269.

   This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12 The night is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here. So remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes, and put on the shining armor of right living. 13 Because we belong to the day, we must live decent lives for all to see. Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarreling and jealousy. 14 Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires. (Rom.13:11–14 NLT)

The thought is a fundamental one in Paul’s moral teaching. The ‘time’ (kairos) is the eschatological era or ‘Last Days’, introduced by Christ’s death and resurrection and co-extensive with the age of the Church on earth, the age of salvation, 2 Co 6:2a. It is opposed to the era that preceded it by a difference not so much of time as of nature. The Christian, henceforward a ‘child of the day’, emancipated from the wicked world, Ga 1:4, and from the empire of darkness, belongs to the kingdom of God and of his Son, Col 1:13, is already a citizen of heaven, Phil. 3:20. This entirely new status dominates the whole moral outlook, see Rom. 6:3ff. (Henry Wansbrough, ed., The New Jerusalem Bible (New York; London; Toronto; Sydney; Auckland: Doubleday, 1990), 1887.)

    It was Jesus’ mission to bring the world to its consummation in two steps: humility and glory. In his humility, Jesus appeared with the claim that with his coming, the consummation of the world has broken in. The Spirit had once more become active among men, the new creation had begun (Luke 4:1ff.; Matt. 11:4–5), the new wine—a symbol of the era of salvation—was offered.

George Eldon Ladd, The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism, Revised Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1974), 26. 

Jesus used the occasion of the Passover meal to inaugurate the New Covenant.  The symbolism of the Passover meal under the Old Covenant was about to be fully satisfied through Christ’s crucifixion.  In this historic moment, Jesus transformed the meaning of the elements of the Passover meal into New Covenant thought.

The bread now represented His body, which would be given, and the cup His blood, which would be shed for the forgiveness of sins.  The holy requirements of God and the Old Covenant were about to be forever satisfied.  A new and living way into the presence and provision of God was being prepared through Christ, the Lamb of God.  A new and eternal bond was being established by the blood of Jesus Christ.  God was sovereignly inaugurating the new and ultimate covenant. Mt. 26:26-28 (Jack W. Hayford, ed., Spirit Filled Life Study Bible, electronic ed. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1997), Mt 26:26.)

More strongly than either Mt. or Mk., Lk. brings out the Paschal character of the Lord’s Supper and emphasizes the fact that the OT festival here finds fulfilment in salvation history. As in Judaism the festival which begins with the Passover ends with Pentecost, so in Lk. the events which begin in Jerusalem at the Passover come to an end at Pentecost. cf. Acts 2:12–16 (Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, eds., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–).)

 The period of the old dispensation was the period of night, the Sun of Righteousness having not yet arisen: for divine mysteries were covered with the veil of ceremonies; the face of Moses had a veil over it, and therefore the Apostle says that “the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest.” (Heb. 9:8.) But the period of the new dispensation is that of the day, the veil of ceremonies and types being withdrawn; whence we are said “with open face to behold the glory of the Lord.” (2 Cor. 3:18.) The one had the shadow of future good things, the other the substance;... Benedict Pictet, Christian Theology, trans. Frederick Reyroux (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, n.d.), 283.                                                

This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Ps. 118:24

O God of light, Father of life, Author of grace, who gives to the weak-hearted who trust in you those things into which the angels desire to look; who has raised us from darkness to light, has given us life from death and freedom from bondage, and has dissolved in us the darkness of sin by the coming of your only begotten Son; illuminate the eyes of our understanding by the visitation of your Holy Spirit, that we may without condemnation partake of this heavenly food. MARVIN R. VINCENT

Elliot Ritzema, ed., 400 Prayers for Preachers (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012). 

B. Jacob, He also notes that this was the origin of “the Day of the LORD” (“the Day of Yahweh”), which the prophets predicted as the day of the divine battle. On it the enemy would be wiped out Exod.12:14 The NET Bible, Second Edition.page 139

Therefore, if those who lived in ancient customs came to newness of hope, no longer keeping the Sabbath but living according to the Lord’s day,  on which our life also arose through him and his death, (which some deny) through which mystery we came to believe, and because of this we endure so that we may be found to be disciples of Jesus Christ, our only teacher.

And coming together on the Lord’s day of the Lord, break bread and give thanks,  confessing beforehand your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure. And everyone having a quarrel with his fellow member, do not let them gather with you until they have reconciled so that your sacrifice may not be defiled.  For this is what was said by the Lord: Malachi 1:11

“In every place and time, offer me a pure sacrifice because I am a great king says the Lord, and my name is great among the nations.” 

Didache 14.1 Rick Brannan, trans., The Apostolic Fathers in English (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012).

IT is not that I know that there is anything of this kind among you, but I warn you because you are dear to me, and I foresee the snares of the devil. Therefore adopt meekness and be renewed in faith, which is the flesh of the Lord, and in love, which is the blood of Jesus Christ. Let none of you have a grudge against his neighbor. Give no occasion to the heathen, in order that the congregation of God may not be blasphemed for a few foolish persons. For “Woe unto him through whom my name is vainly blasphemed among any.”

Pope Clement I et al., The Apostolic Fathers, ed. Kirsopp Lake, vol. 1, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge MA; London: Harvard University Press, 1912–1913), 219–221.

We give you thanks, holy Father, for your holy name which you have made to dwell in our hearts, and for theknowledge and faith and immortality which you have made known to us.

Through Jesus, your servant, to you be glory for ever.

You are the mighty ruler of all who has created all for your name’s sake, and you have given food and drink  to human beings for their enjoyment so that they might give thanks to you. But to us, from your generosity, you have given spiritual food and drink, and life eternal, through your servant. Didache 10.2–3         

 It is easy, however, to see the main principle according to which the Jewish berakot for wine and bread have been modified in Didache 9. The Jewish prayers thank God for the physical drink and nourishment enjoyed by the body through wine and bread; the Didache prayers thank God for spiritual gifts conveyed through the cup and the bread. These spiritual gifts, however, are described in such a way as to keep the reference to wine and bread intact: the “fruit of the vine” becomes “the holy vine of David”, and “bread out of the earth” becomes “life and knowledge”. The basic idea behind this is well stated by Justin Martyr, some fifty years later than the Didache, in his comments on the bread and wine of the Eucharist: “Not as ordinary bread or as ordinary drink do we partake of them” (First Apology 66.2)     

“We give Thee thanks, Our Father,
for the Holy Vine of David Thy servant,
which Thou hast made known to us
through Jesus, Thy Servant.”
“To Thee be the glory for evermore.” 

Then when it comes to the broken loaf say:
We give thanks to you, our Father,
for the life and knowledge which you have made known to us.
Through Jesus, your servant, to you be glory for ever.

Thomas O’Loughlin, The Didache: A Window on the Earliest Christians (London; Grand Rapids, MI: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; Baker Academic, 2010), 167. Didache 10.2–3:Didache9.3 

“Life and knowledge” are the gifts associated with the bread. In Jewish parlance, life and knowledge are considered gifts of salvation imparted by God’s Wisdom, normally identified with the Torah. As this theme recurs in the birkat ha-mazon of Didache 10, we shall be content to point out in this context the very close parallel to this motive in John 6:1ff.Jesus said, “I am the bread of life” (Jn. 6:35–50), meaning the bread that gives eternal life. This seems to echo Wisdom Christology: in Proverbs 9:1–4  Wisdom invites to a meal of wine and food, which must mean that eating is a metaphor for gaining knowledge from Wisdom, and this knowledge imparts life. Pr. 9:1–6

  Wisdom has built her house, (1 Cor 3:9, 10; Eph. 2:20–22; 1 Pet 2:5

       She has hewn out her seven pillars; (Matt.22:4,Ps.23:5) 

       She has slaughtered her cattle, she has mixed her wine; (1 Co 5:7, 8)

       She has also prepared her table; (Luke 14:16, 17)

       She has sent out her maidens, she calls  (Ps 68:11; Matt 22:3,4,9.)

       From the tops of the heights of the city: (Jn. 7:37. 18:20. Re. 3:20.)

       Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!”  (Mt 11:25. Re 3:17, 18. 22:17. Ge 3:7.) 

       To him who lacks a heart of wisdom she says, (Pr. 1:20-23. 8:1-3. Jn. 7:37. 18:20. Re 3:20.)

      “Come, eat of my bread  (Is 55:1; John 6:27)

       And drink of the wine I have mixed. 

      “Forsake your simplicity and live, (Prov. 8:35; 9:11, Ho 7:11. Ac 2:40. 2 Co 6:17. Jam. 4:4. Re 18:4.)

       And step into the way of understanding.” (Ezek. 11:20; 37:24: Pr. 4:11.10:17.Mt.7:13,14.Lk.13:24  

She will feed him with the bread of understanding and give him the water of wisdom to drink (Jn 4:10, 14; 7:38) Sir 15:3. 

Very likely we have a close parallel to this part of the eucharistic prayer in 1 Clement 36:2, where also Wisdom Christology and eucharistic context seem evident:

 “Jesus Christ, the High Priest of our offerings … through Him the eyes of our hearts were opened, through Him our foolish and darkened understanding blossoms toward the light, through Him the Master willed that we should taste immortal knowledge.”

Oskar Skarsaune, In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish Influences on Early Christianity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 408–409.

Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ Mt 9:13
For I desire mercy and not sacrifice,
And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. Hos. 6:6 NKJV

Give us today our daily bread. variant reading. Or our bread for tomorrow Mt 6:11. 

“Our Father, you who are in heaven.… With these words God wants to entice us, so that we come to believe he is truly our Father and we are truly his children, in order that we may ask him boldly and with complete confidence, just as loving children ask their loving father” (Martin Luther, The Small Catechism). cf. (Heb. 2:10–18)

As Karl Barth puts it,

  Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God, who has made himself our brother and makes us his brothers and sisters … takes us with him in order to associate us with himself, to place us beside him so that we may live and act as his family and as the members of his body.… Jesus Christ invites us, commands us, and allows us to speak with him to God, to pray with him his own prayer, to be united with him in the Lord’s Prayer. Therefore he invites us to adore God, pray to God, and praise God with one mouth and one soul, with him, united to him.(Wesley Hill, The Lord’s Prayer: A Guide to Praying to Our Father, Christian Essentials (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 13–14.)

Jesus thus spoke with God as a child speaks with his father, simply, intimately, securely. But his invocation of God as Abba is not to be understood merely psychologically, as a step toward growing apprehension of God. Rather we learn from Matt. 11:27 that Jesus himself viewed this form of address for God as the heart of that revelation which had been granted him by the Father.

In this term Abba the ultimate mystery of his mission and his authority is expressed. He, to whom the Father had granted full knowledge of God, has the messianic prerogative of addressing him with the familiar address of a son. This term Abba is an (ipsissima vox =Jesus’ own original way of speaking) of Jesus and contains in nuce his message and his claim to have been sent from the Father.

The final point, and the most astonishing of all, however, has yet to be mentioned: in the Lord’s Prayer Jesus authorizes his disciples to repeat the word Abba after him. He gives them a share in his sonship and empowers them, as his disciples, to speak with their heavenly Father in just such a familiar, trusting way as a child would with his father. Yes, he goes so far as to say that it is this new relationship which first opens the doors to God’s reign: ‘Truly, I say to you, unless you become like children again, you will not find entrance into the kingdom of God’ (Matt. 18:3).

In the Jewish conceptions taken up by Jesus in this saying, the child is one who must submit to the wisdom, will, and rule of his parent. He is not one who does anything on his own, much less anything as momentous as “entering the kingdom,” but rather one who lives his life under the dominion, and relies on the activity, of another. Joel Marcus, “Entering into the Kingly Power of God,” Journal of Biblical Literature 107 (1988): 672.

This the apostle Paul also understood; he says twice that there is no surer sign or guarantee of the possession of the Holy Spirit and of the gift of sonship than this, that a man makes bold to repeat this one word, ‘Abba, dear Father’ (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6).(Joachim Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus, trans. John Bowden, Christoph Burchard, and John Reumann (SCM Press Ltd, 1967), 97–98.)

Jerome tells us even more. He adds a remark telling how the phrase, ‘bread for tomorrow’ was understood. He says: ‘In the so-called Gospel according to the Hebrews [i.e., the Nazarenes] … I found maḥar, which means “for tomorrow”, so that the sense is, “Our bread for tomorrow—that is, our future bread—give us today.” ’As a matter of fact, in ancient Judaism maḥar, ‘tomorrow’, meant not only the next day but also the great Tomorrow, the final consummation.

Accordingly, Jerome is saying, the ‘bread for tomorrow’ was not meant as earthly bread but as the bread of life. Further, we know from the ancient translations of the Lord’s Prayer, both in the East and in the West, that in the early church this eschatological understanding—‘bread of the age of salvation’, ‘bread of life’, ‘heavenly manna’—was the familiar, if not the predominant interpretation of the phrase ‘bread for tomorrow’.

Since primeval times, the bread of life and the water of life have been symbols of paradise, an epitome of the fullness of all God’s material and spiritual gifts. It is this bread—symbol, image, and fulfilment of the age of salvation—to which Jesus is referring when he says that in the consummation he will eat and drink with his disciples (Luke 22:30) and that he will gird himself and serve them at table (Luke 12:37) with the bread which has been broken and the cup which has been blessed (cf. Matt. 26:29).

This word ‘today’, which stands at the end of the petition, gets the real stress. In a world enslaved under Satan, in a world where God is remote, in a world of hunger and thirst, the disciples of Jesus dare to utter this word ‘today’—even now, even here, already on this day, give us the bread of life. Jesus grants to them, as the children of God, the privilege of stretching forth their hands to grasp the glory of the consummation, to fetch it down, to ‘believe it down’, to pray it down—right into their poor lives, even now, even here, today.

If one ventures to summarize in one phrase the inexhaustible mystery of the few sentences in the Lord’s Prayer, there is an expression pre-eminently suitable which New Testament research has especially busied itself with in recent decades. That phrase is ‘eschatology becoming actualized’ (sich realisierende Eschatologie).

This expression denotes the age of salvation now being realized, the consummation bestowed in advance, the ‘in-breaking’ of God’s presence into our lives. Where men dare to pray in the name of Jesus to their heavenly Father with childlike trust, that he might reveal his glory and that he might grant to them already today and in this place the bread of life and the blotting out of sins, there in the midst of the constant threat of failure and apostasy is realized, already now, the kingly rule of God over the life of his children. (Joachim Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus, trans. John Bowden, Christoph Burchard, and John Reumann (SCM Press Ltd, 1967), 101-102,107.)

 Partaking of the Supper Unworthily

 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. 1 Cor. 11:27–29

The thought is similar to the idea expressed in 1 Cor. 8:12: “When you sin against your brothers in this way …, you sin against Christ.” By mistreating other members of the church, the Corinthians repeat the sort of sin that made the death of Christ necessary; they place themselves “among those who were responsible for the crucifixion, and not among those who by faith receive the fruit of it” (Barrett, 273). They are like the lapsed Christians decried in the letter to the Hebrews who continue to sin, who are “crucifying again the Son of God and are holding him up to contempt” (Heb. 6:6). Richard B. Hays, First Corinthians, Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1997), 201. 

Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. Ro 6:4.

the comparison of the believers’ walk with that of Christ’s resurrection proves that believers are presently walking in newness of life just as surely as Christ has been raised from the dead;

 Jonathan R. Pratt, “The Relationship between Justification and Spiritual Fruit in Romans 5–8,” Themelios 34, no. 2 (2009): 173.

Paul’s point is that the mystery of death and resurrection celebrated in the meal means that they are to die to an old way of life and rise to a new way of living (Rom 6:1–11). It is measured by the “law of Christ,” that is, the messianic pattern of “bearing one another’s burdens” (Gal 6:2). The “Lord’s Supper,” if it is really to be the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor.11:20), must demonstrate this new way of living, which involves respecting the needs of others more than one’s own (1 Cor.11:21). Note the pertinence of 1 Cor.15:32 in this connection: “If the dead are not raised, ‘let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’ Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals.’ ”

Luke Timothy Johnson, Religious Experience in Earliest Christianity: A Missing Dimension in New Testament Studies (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), 176.

The Corinthians are behaving as if the age to come were already consummated, as if the saints had already taken over the kingdom (Dan. 7:18); for them there is no ‘not yet’ to qualify the ‘already’ of realized eschatology. In this they are simply mistaken. ‘They misinterpret Gospel and faith, and change both into gnosis and enthusiasm, by believing that the consummation is already realized’ (Wendland). It is true that the Holy Spirit has already been given as an earnest (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5) of their inheritance, but even so they must still live by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). The End (1 Cor. 15:24) has not yet arrived, and the time for fullness and wealth is not here (cf. Rev. 3:17).

C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, Black’s New Testament Commentary (London: Continuum, 1968), 109.

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest is still open, let us take care that none of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For indeed the good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened (Heb.4:1-2)

The “rest” spoken of in this passage is related to the Sabbath rest of God (Heb. 4:3–4); but, it is more closely related to the concept of salvation. It is a spiritual reality that is achieved by turning from our own empty works and trusting in the finished work of Christ (Heb. 4:10).

It is God’s “rest” into which all persons are encouraged to enter. The weekly day of rest is a reminder and a reflection of that rest. The “rest” of the Israelites in the Promised Land after their wilderness wanderings is a symbol of God’s eternal rest that His people will share. The rest that Christ gives to those who come to Him (Matt. 11:28) is a foretaste and a guarantee of “the divine rest” that awaits them.

Eugene E. Carpenter and Philip W. Comfort, Holman Treasury of Key Bible Words: 200 Greek and 200 Hebrew Words Defined and Explained (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000), 377.

 For the apostle Paul, Sabbath was a foreshadowing of the eternal realities of the Lord and the church (Col. 2:16–17). The old signs of circumcision, dietary laws, and sabbath observance were set aside as “boundary markers for the people of the covenant” (cf. Gal. 4:10). Christians are circumcised in heart (Rom. 2:29), undefiled by foods (John 15:3), and free to treat every day as sacred (Rom. 14:5, 12; 1 Tim. 4:3–5).

 Sabbath has given way to the realities of the “Lord’s day”—the resurrection of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:1; 1 Cor. 16:1–2). The church set aside the first day of the week as a special day for worship and proclamation. By the first day the Christian community proclaims the new creation, the era of messianic redemption (K. A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11:26, vol. 1A, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 181.)

By faith Abel offered to God a better 

By faith Enoch was taken up so that he

And without faith it is impossible to

By faith Noah, being warned by God

By faith Abraham, when he was called,

By faith he lived as an alien in the

By faith even Sarah herself received 

By faith Abraham, when he was tested,

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau,

By faith Jacob, as he was dying,

By faith Joseph, when he was dying,

By faith Moses, when he was born, was

By faith Moses, when he had grown up,

By faith he left Egypt, not fearing

By faith he kept the Passover and the

By faith they passed through the Red

By faith the walls of Jericho fell ( Heb. 11:4-30)

Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. Heb. 11:2 Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect. Heb. 11:39–40

For OT saints Christ’s sacrifice and entrance into heaven were only things hoped for. For us they are a blessed present reality, although not seen. Both they and we grasp them by faith.

After the same sort the scripture speaketh in many places, when it sometimes saith that Christ is to come, sometimes that he is come, although he always hath been, and is in all the elect; howbeit because he hath not before his resurrection come to all by public preaching, the scripture speaketh diversely of his coming; for because of his public preaching he came in the flesh, being made man, for his incarnation had not been profitable to any, if the gospel had not thereupon been preached, by which he came into the whole world, and whereby it is commonly known why he was made man, whereby that blessing promised to Abraham is now published, and made common to all which by the gospel believe in Christ. 

Hereupon Paul saith very well, Rom. 1:2. that the gospel was promised of God &c. as though he would say, although God hath promised every where in the writings of the prophets his Son in the flesh, yet forasmuch as all that should be done, that the gospel might be preached abroad in the world, whereby he cometh spiritually to the minds of the believers, (which coming only bringeth salvation, and is far to be preferred before that coming in the flesh, inasmuch as it was done because of this) 

I say rather that God promised by the prophets in scripture the gospel concerning his Son; for God considered the gospel and our faith in all these things; for which he would also have him to be made man, that the gospel might be preached of him, that being made man, he hath saved us by his death, and that the salvation which he hath wrought, might go into the whole world and be made near unto all. 

Some have taught for comings of Christ, according to the four Sundays in Advent, as they call it, but this coming of Christ by the gospel, which is most necessary of all, and of which all do depend, of which Paul here speaketh; this coming I say they could not see, inasmuch as they are ignorant both what the gospel is, and to what end it was given. 

They babble many things of the coming of Christ, and nevertheless they drive him further from themselves, than heaven is distant from the earth; for what can Christ profit any man which doth not possess him by faith? Or how can any man possess him by faith, where the gospel is not preached?

The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” His meaning in effect, is, that salvation is at hand; for by the day Paul understandeth the gospel, namely, that it is that day whereby our hearts and minds are enlightened; therefore such a day being sprung, our salvation is certainly at hand, that is, Christ and his grace promised in time past to Abraham, hath shined forth by preaching in the whole world, giveth light unto all men, raiseth all out of sleep, sheweth true and eternal good things, wherein we may be hereafter occupied, and may walk honestly in this day.

Martin Luther and Philip Melancthon, “Concerning Good Works, the Fruits of Faith,” in Thirty-Four Sermons on the Most Interesting Doctrines of the Gospel (London: Gale and Fenner, 1816), 182–183

How will we be able to live without him, who even the prophets, being disciples in the Spirit, expected him as their teacher? And because of this, the one whom they rightly awaited, when he came Literally “arriving”  he raised them up from the dead  (IMag 9.1) 

Lightfoot comments on this last clause: “This refers to the ‘descensus ad inferos’(the descent to hell), which occupied a prominent place in the belief of the early Church. Here our Lord is assumed to have visited (παρὼν) the souls of the patriarchs and prophets in Hades, and to have taught them the truths of the Gospel and to have raised them either to paradise or heaven.” Ignatius of Antioch, “The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians,” (Rick Brannan, trans., The Apostolic Fathers in English (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012).)

When the abode of blessed spirits is designated as the bosom of Abraham, it is plain that, on quitting this pilgrimage, they are received by the common father of the faithful, who imparts to them the fruit of his faith.(John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 1997). 

Those who are invited (hoi keklemenoi). Men cannot find access to the marriage feast on their own merits; they must receive a divine invitation (see Matt. 22:3; Luke 14:17; Rev. 17:14). The initiative to salvation is always the call of God. The angel says to John, “These are true words of God.” In the face of all the evil that the church experiences on earth, the angel adds a solemn assurance that this promise of blessing in the messianic feast is the unfailing word of God. Revelation 19:9

George Eldon Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation of John (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1972), 250.

For the Christian, the ultimate rest is found in Christ. He invites all who are “weary and burdened” to come to Him and cast our cares on Him (Matthew 11:28; 1 Peter 5:7). It is only in Him that we find our complete rest—from the cares of the world, from the sorrows that plague us, and from the need to work to make ourselves acceptable to Him. 

We no longer observe the Jewish Sabbath because Jesus is our Sabbath rest. In Him we find complete rest from the labors of our self-effort, because He alone is holy and righteous. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). We can now cease from our spiritual labors and rest in Him, not just one day a week, but always.

Got Questions Ministries, Got Questions? Bible Questions Answered (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2002–2013).

It is the last victorious act of faith, wherein it hath its final conquest over all its adversaries. Faith is the leading grace in all our spiritual warfare and conflict; but all along while we live, it hath faithful company that adheres to it, and helps it. Love works, and hope works, and all other graces,—self-denial, readiness to the cross,—they all work and help faith. But when we come to die, faith is left alone.

Now, try what faith will do. The exercise of other graces ceases; only faith comes to a close conflict with its last adversary, wherein the whole is to be tried. And, by this one act of resigning all into the hand of God, faith triumphs over death, and cries, “ ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’ Come, give me an inlet into immortality and glory; the everlasting hand of God is ready to receive me!” This is the victory whereby we overcome all our spiritual enemies.(John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 9 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.), 340.)

No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore “it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over for our trespasses and was raised for our justification. Ro 4:20–25

Rabbi Shammai, in the third century of the present era, noted that Moses gave us 365 prohibitions and 248 positive commands in the law. David in Psalm. 15 reduced them to eleven; Isaiah 33:14–15 made them six; Micah 6:8 binds them into three; and Habakkuk 2:4 reduces them all to one, namely, “The just shall live by faith.”

Faith is the gift of God. So is the air, but you have to breathe it. So is bread, but you have to eat it. So is water, but you have to drink it. So how do we accept this gift? Not by a feeling, for “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom. 10:17). It is not for me to sit down and wait for faith to come upon me with a strong feeling of some kind. Rather, faith comes when we take God at his word.

Michael P. Green, 1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 133,139

Faith is the reality of what is hoped for in exactly the sense in which Jesus is called the (χαρακτήρ-authentic representation, as expression in person of God’s essential being and identity) of the reality of the transcendent God in Heb.1:3 "He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being".

The one formulation is as paradoxical as the other Heb. 11:7 "By faith Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir to the righteousness that is in accordance with faith". "By faith he left Egypt, unafraid of the king’s anger, for he persevered as though he saw him who is invisible" Heb. 11:27)

to the degree that the presence of the divine reality is found in the one case in the obedience of a suffering and dying man ("In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death" Heb. 5:7.) and in the other in the faith of the community. But this is the point of Heb.

 Only the work of this Jesus and only participation in this work (== faith) are not subject to the corruptibility of the merely shadowy and prototypical.

Helmut Köster, “Ὑπόστασις,” ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 587.