Priest

6 · Oswald transitions to the third priestly function—entering God's presence—and establishes this as the most dangerous task requiring the most courage

It wasn't that long ago that we were looking at the golden calf passage. And at the end of that passage, when Moses has to deal with a whole mass of people who had let themselves run wild into heathen, you know, heathen insanity, he calls upon the Levites to grab their swords. Levites were a protector of God's worship of God's temple. And finally presence, that's the third way to describe the priests presence. They were responsible for entering the presence of the Lord, which under the old covenant was a really risky thing. I don't think it's any coincidence that God chose some of the most hard headed masculine Machismo kind of guys to do this one thing, to willingly enter into the presence of the Lord, which at that time was seen as a potential suicide mission. If you'll remember, at the end of the book of Exodus or at the end of Exodus chapter 20, the people see God as he is represented in lightning and thunder on a smoking mountain. And they say to Moses, you speak to God, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die. And so these masculine priests were in charge not only of protecting the temple, but even more riskily, they were in charge of entering the presence of God. If you do a search of the word die in the book of Exodus, a bunch of them have to do with what the Levites must do in order to enter God's presence and not die. The presumption was, if you entered God's presence as a sinner, you would die. And so Exodus 28:35, and it shall be on Aaron when he ministers, and its sound shall be heard. And when he goes to the holy place before the Lord, and when he comes out, so that he does not die, Exodus 28:43, they shall be on Aaron and his sons when they go into the tent of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister in the holy place, lest they bear guilt and die.

7 · Oswald recaps the three priestly functions (priority, protection, presence) and then signals a major theological move—the tabernacle and temple are intentional recreations of Eden

This is sort of the interesting thing. You can ask about your job. Is there any part of the training manual that includes, do this or you'll die, do that or you'll die, do this or you'll die? You know, that's an important aspect of the priesthood that you need to understand. So priority. They were serving the Lord alone, protection. They were meant to use their tendency toward violence to protect the temple and the people and presence. They were to regularly, at least once a year, enter the holy of holies, the high priesthood. And this was a very, very risky thing. Now, while we're talking about this idea of entering the holy of holies, I want to make a little side quest with you in a moment, because I think there's something important that's here that I think maybe a lot of us don't know. And that is, I don't think most Christians understand that the tabernacle and the temple were really designed by God to be echoes of Eden. The tabernacle and the temple were really just a recapitulation, a revisiting of what Eden was originally. We can see this through at least three clues that are in the text. The first one I've already referenced, there's this phrase, garden Keep. The Hebrew is Abad and Samar. And what garden keep means when it appears together like this, it goes all the way back to Genesis, when God put Adam in the garden in Genesis 2:15, to guard and keep the garden and to work it. Eden was a place of God's localized presence. And the reason that sinful man had to leave was that sinful man cannot stay in God's localized presence and not die. So one of the indicators we see that the temple and the tabernacle, which is all kind of the same thing, is a revisiting of Eden, is that the priests are given the exact same language, a highly specific language in their job description, that hearkens back to Adam.

8 · Oswald presents the second piece of evidence for the temple-as-Eden thesis: the cherubim guarding Eden after the fall are deliberately recreated on the temple veil, signaling that passing through the veil is symbolically re-entering Eden and God's presence

There's a second piece of evidence that we can use to see this connection. If you'll remember what happened when Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden. What did God do? He placed two cherubim in front of the garden with flaming swords to prevent entry. Now, let's say you're a priest and you walk into the temple and you're nearing the holy of holies. Everything is separated, the holy of holies and everything else, through this mighty thick veil. And past that point is where the presence of God is said to dwell. And this is the place where you die if you haven't prepared yourself properly. Do you know what was on that veil, what God instructed? We didn't read this in Exodus, but it's in there. What God instructed to be embroidered on that veil was two flaming cherubim so that the priest would be entering back into Eden, symbolically back into man's original state, back into the presence of God.

9 · Oswald presents the third piece of evidence for the temple-as-Eden thesis: the priest's jeweled garments reflect how God viewed Adam before the fall

And there's one more piece of evidence. We didn't read a lot of this either, but you might have remembered, if you were reading through Exodus, that the priests were supposed to be, you know, decked out in jewels. They were supposed to be decked out in glory and grandeur. This is really how God viewed Adam before the fall. We have a text that tells us that the way that God viewed Adam was as a man clothed in jewelry. Not that he was literally clothed in jewels, but that that was the glory that human beings had before they fell. When God looked at mankind before the fall, he saw a glorious being, a crown of the crown of creation. We have a text for this in Ezekiel 28, where God is talking to the King of Tyre, but he is reminding himself or hearkening back to how he viewed Adam in the garden. Thus says the Lord God. Ezekiel 28:11. You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was your covering. Sardius, topaz, diamond, beryl, onyx, Jasper, sapphire, emerald, carbuncle. And crafted in gold, were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created, they were prepared. You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you. You were on the holy mountain of God. In the midst of stones of fire, you walked. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till unrighteousness was found in you.

10 · Oswald explicitly connects the Ezekiel description of Adam to the Exodus description of the priestly garments, showing the verbal and material parallels between Adam's prelapsarian glory and Aaron's ceremonial clothing

How did God view Adam and Eve in the garden? They weren't literally clothed with jewels, at least not yet. But what he's talking about here is this is what a human being looks like who isn't a sinner. This is what you and I were created to be. We were created to be kings and queens of creation. We were created to wear a kind of glory and walk in the presence of God. Well, that description of Adam in Ezekiel maps on pretty well to what God says Aaron and his priests should wear. In Exodus 28:2, you shall make holy garments for Aaron, your brother, for glory and for beauty. In Exodus 28:15, you shall make a breastpiece of judgment and skilled work in the style of an ephod. You shall make it of gold, blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twine linen. You shall make it a row of sardis and topaz and carbuncle shall be the first row and the second row, emerald, sapphire and a diamond, and so on and so forth.

11 · Oswald synthesizes the temple-as-Eden argument into its theological payoff: the annual priestly entry into the holy of holies is God giving his people a glimpse of the curse being temporarily undone and reminding them of their original created destiny

You see, what's happening with the priestly action is that he is essentially temporarily undoing the curse. There is a temporary once a year glimpse that God is showing when the priest re enters the presence of God. This is what you have lost in the fall. This is who you all were before the fall. God is sending this priest into the Edenic presence of God once a year to show the people what their destiny always was and who they were created to always be. They were always created to be in the presence of God.

12 · Oswald tells a personal story about catching catfish and how they slowly suffocate while trying to breathe air

This is kind of a disturbing story for some of you, I suppose, but when I was fishing a lot years ago, I would sometimes catch these big catfish and I would take them home and cook them, and only I would eat them because no one else in my family likes fish. And, you know, I had a decent little bit of a drive and I wanted them to stay fresh, so I would just throw them in the back of the pickup truck. After I caught him, I'd drive home Back of the Jeep. And one thing about catfish is they don't suffocate quickly. They kind of groan and croak as they are trying to breathe air they're not supposed to breathe. And so they kind of gurgle. It takes them a while to suffocate. A regular fish will suffocate pretty quick. A catfish. There's some other fish like this too. They kind of hang on for a while. They can kind of half breathe air, I suppose you might say.

13 · Oswald applies the catfish illustration to human existence: Christians are living in a suboptimal state, suffocating outside our created environment (God's presence), and many of our struggles with sin stem from trying to substitute for what we were designed for

Listen, friends, one key to the priesthood is just knowing who you are and who you're made to be. This is a key of understanding Genesis as well. And let me just be simple about it. You were made to live in the presence of God like a fish was made to breathe water. You were made to live in an Edenic localized presence of God. That's what you were made for. And what you're doing right now is at best hanging on. What you're doing right now is at best a sort of suboptimal existence that won't have its complete reversal until you die and are with Christ in heaven. You and I were made to live in the presence of God. Now you've gotten used to gurgling. You've gotten used to wheezing through this half kind of half appropriate situation. You were not made for this. I was not made for this. We were made to walk with God. We were made to be in God's presence. And our fundamental design is all tilted in that direction. And a lot of the problems we encounter with sin and why people go to idols and substitutes has to do with this problem. But what we see in the priesthood is that God is, even after man has been sinning for quite some time, God is still progressing forward in a plan to reverse the curse and bring all mankind back into the garden.

14 · Oswald pivots from the Old Testament priesthood to Jesus as the fulfillment, identifying Christ as both the new Adam and the great high priest

Now that's where we come. That's kind of how the Old Testament ends. And then we get to Jesus and we see that he is both the new and perfect Adam and he is the great high priest. He's doing both of these things throughout all of his ministry. And sometimes it's explicit and other times it's not. But Jesus is the new Adam. He's come to be the new king of creation and to be a priest before the most High God.

15 · Oswald reads John 17:1-5 and demonstrates the first priestly characteristic (priority) in Jesus—his entire life was devoted solely to the Father's work with no earthly inheritance or competing allegiance

Now, a text that I think shows this to you pretty clearly is John 17. So if you'll turn in your Bibles to John 17:1, I want you to see the priesthood of Jesus at work. The priesthood of Jesus at work. Remember, we had three kind of descriptors for what a priest does. They are prioritizing God. He is their only thing. That's what they're there for. That's what they're there to do. Serve God, protection and presence. So let's go through John 17, which is Jesus high priestly prayer, and let's see if we can see Jesus doing these three things. Look at John 17. 1. When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted his eyes up to heaven and said, father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all you have given him. And this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had before the world existed. Well, one thing we know pretty clearly if we've read our Gospels, is that Jesus really only was about the Father's business. His priority was to do the work of the Father. And in this prayer in verse 4, we see Jesus say, I have done all the work you've called me to do. In a number of other passages in the Gospel, Jesus is explicit. I only do what I see my Father doing. I have only come to do the works of the Father. So he is aligned in that priestly priority. He has no inheritance other than that which God has given him. He did not take a wife, he did not own land. He is aligned in this sense.

16 · Oswald shows Jesus fulfilling the second priestly characteristic (protection) in John 17:10-19, but with a New Covenant development—Jesus guards and keeps the people themselves (who are now the temple) rather than a physical building, protecting them from the world, the flesh, and the devil

Number two, protection. Do we see Jesus guarding and keeping the temple? Well, now this is where things get a little interesting with the New covenant wrinkles, right? We see development here. Who is Jesus guarding and protecting in John 17? Well, look at verse 10. And I am no longer in the world. But they are in the world. And I am coming to you, Holy Father. Keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them. And not one of them has been lost, except for the Son of destruction, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. Now we do see. He's guarding and keeping. What is he guarding and keeping? The people. Because through the ministry of Jesus Christ on the cross, the people are the temple. Now you, my friend, are a dwelling place between God and man. You, your heart is a temple. Paul tells us very clearly that our Bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. So Jesus has shifted from guarding and keeping a localized expression of God's presence to guarding and keeping the invisible church. All the saints of God, not only those who existed at that moment when he prayed, but all those who would exist. And yeah, he's guarding and keeping them. There are three enemies we see typically in scripture that oppose God's temple. People, the world, the flesh, and the devil. And in this passage, we see Jesus praying that God would take care of them in each one of those aspects. He says, they're not of the world. Please guard them from the world. Please guard them from the evil one. And then he says, sanctify them, which is handling our flesh. So is Jesus exercising the protective role as a priest? Yes, he is.

17 · Oswald shows Jesus fulfilling the third priestly characteristic (presence) by flipping the script on glory—Jesus doesn't wear external vestments but possesses inherent glory, and unlike the Old Testament where robes were passed down, Jesus passes down his actual righteousness to believers, making them priests forever

Now, what about the presence of God? How is Jesus entering the presence of God? Well, I think it's important to remind us all that, that the whole idea of Christmas is that he who was rich became poor so that in him we might become rich. Like he left the glorious richness and presence of God. And Jesus was indeed the presence of God on earth. One of the interesting wrinkles in the New Testament, or I say wrinkles, but development in the New Testament is that God flips the script on beauty. See, the Old Testament priests had an outward superficial designation of Adam's former glory, right? That it was on the outside. Jesus comes in the form of a servant born in a manger with no glory or majesty that any should desire him. Isaiah 53. All of his glory is on the inside. He's actually the glorious one who gave Adam his original glory. Jesus doesn't need to wear a vestment of jewels to portray his beauty before the Lord. He simply is glorious before the Father. Jesus has an inherent glory. Now, another wrinkle in all this is that in the Old Testament, this clothing design, you know, they made this outfit and they would pass it on to each high priest each new year. By the way, John the Baptist's dad, where do we find him? He's one of. He's one of these high priests. That's, that's. That's where he gets the vision for the coming Messiah and his son's role in all of this. But the robes were passed down. Okay, that's, that's the thing I want you to remember. The robes were passed down. They didn't make a new outfit every, every year. They just, you know. Okay, I guess. I guess there's probably some kind of fitness routine because you didn't want any, you know, anybody to get too fat, couldn't fit into the wardrobe. But they would pass this down year after year. And then the next high priest would come in, he'd put the jewels on and put the headdress on and everything, and he would enter past the flaming cherubim into the presence of God. What about. What about Jesus? Like, how do we get his glory? Well, Jesus actually says in verse 22, the glory that you have given me, I have given to them. So Jesus is actually passing down his righteousness to. to us. Jesus is actually giving us his righteousness, which isn't a superficial righteousness. It's a righteousness that God accounts as coming from the inside out. Father, I desire verse 24 that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. So what we see in Jesus is that he is actually the one who makes us all the priests that we will be forever and ever. In Revelation 5, 9, 10, Jesus is seen as the great curse reverser. He is not just the redeemer of your soul, he is actually redeeming mankind's original glory and original destiny to rule the earth with him. Revelation 5, 9, 10. And they sang a new song saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain and by your blood. You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.

18 · Oswald synthesizes the christological exposition into a transitional claim and begins moving toward application

So what Jesus has done in coming as the great final Adam and great final high priest is he's restored you and I to the original design we were created to do, and that is to be priests before the Lord and serve the Lord as our only priority. Now, there are three applications to this idea. We've covered these three ideas that the priest did three things. His priority was the Lord's. He would protect the temple and he would enter into God's presence. We see Jesus doing those three things in a much more extraordinary and glorious way. So now there are three pieces of application that I want to leave you with. Because of all that we've said. Because all that we've said is true. The following is also true. Number one. All of my life belongs to the Lord. All of my life belongs to the Lord. I'm like a priest in that way. You are like a priest in that way. You're not supposed to have anything else going on. Your whole point is to serve the Lord with Every little bit of your being.

19 · Oswald addresses a pastoral problem—people using the priesthood of the believer doctrine to avoid accountability—and corrects it by insisting the doctrine actually means total surrender of all of life to God

You know, sometimes over the years I'll see a certain kind of person, typically rather defiant and struggle a bit with submission. They will often throw up the priesthood of the believer. The reformed doctrine of the priesthood of the believer saying like, I don't need anybody to tell me what to do. I'm a priest before God. It's like, well, okay. But the main thrust of the priesthood of the believer is that your whole life belongs to him and you have to serve him with every fiber of your being every minute of your day. And that's the real implication. What I typically see people doing is they're using it for this one thing, so I don't have to listen to anybody. But then I look if they're using it the way it's really intended to be used. And you don't usually see that. You don't usually see that. My whole life belongs to the Lord. I'm a priest to the Lord. My whole life belongs to the Lord.

20 · Oswald cites Wilberforce at length to reinforce the first application point—Christians must unreservedly devote their entire lives to God, holding nothing back, because they were bought with a price and brought into perpetual priesthood

In his classic work, Practical Christianity, William Wilberforce writes the it is the grand, essential, practical characteristic of true Christians that relying on the promises to repenting sinners of acceptance through the Redeemer, they have renounced and abjured all other masters and have cordially and unreservedly devoted themselves to God. Christians are become the sworn enemies of sin. They will henceforth hold no parley with it. They will allow it no shape, they will admit it to no composition, the war they have denounced against it. It is universal and irreconcilable. But this is not all. It is now their determined purpose to yield themselves without reserve to the reasonable service of their rightful sovereign. They are not their own. Their bodily mental facilities, their natural and acquired endowments, their substance, their authority, their time, their influence, all these they consider as belonging to them not for their own gratification, but as instruments to be consecrated to the honor and employed in the service of God. This must be the master principle to which every other must be subordinate. Whatever may have been hitherto their ruling passion or leading pursuit, whether sensual or intellectual of science, taste, fancy or feeling, must exist only at the pleasure and be put altogether under the control and the direction of its true and legitimate superior. Give your life, all of your life to the Lord Jesus. You're not your own. You were bought with a price. You've been brought into a perpetual priesthood. God doesn't get a segment of your life. God gets it all. And if there's something in your life right now that is pretty clearly reserved not for him. Well, friends, this is the Holy Spirit speaking through the preaching of God's word, putting his finger on it right now and letting you know you cannot live in antithesis to your fundamental design. And your fundamental design, my friends, if you were bought by the blood of Jesus, is to give your whole life to him and serve him and him only. That's one point of application. Because of the working of the priesthood through the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the work of Jesus, my whole life belongs to God.

21 · Oswald introduces the second application point—Christians are called to guard and protect God's temple people—and issues a prophetic challenge to the culture's rejection of protective love, insisting that warning, admonishing, and guarding others is a fundamental expression of Christian love

Number two, the second application. I am called to guard God's temple people. I am called to guard God's temple people. I am very eager for a return to the cultural respect once held toward those who express love through the act of protection. I am so weary of a world that has forgotten to esteem protectors as godly, kind, generous people. We want love to be a doting kind of thing, an affirming kind of thing. And we've lost all respect for this fundamental expression of love, which is, I will give my life to keep you safe. Well, friends, because you are a priest and because I am a priest in Christ, we are called to guard and keep God's precious temple people. You look to your left, you look to your right, you see brothers and sisters in Christ who are themselves being attacked by the world, the flesh, the devil. And friends, it's your job and my job to guard and keep these temple people. We're to bear one another's burdens. We're to look eagerly after other people's interests and not only our own interests. And we're even to warn and admonish people when they start to cross into a dangerous line. We've got to get back to seeing Christian love as essentially a protective love, a love that guards and keeps the things it cherishes. And we've got to get familiar and comfortable with the fact that people love us enough to guard and keep us and to warn us and to admonish us and to exhort us. So, number one, all my life belongs to the Lord. Number two, a big part of how I should show love as a priest is to guard and keep God's temple people.

22 · Oswald introduces the third application point—prayer should be central to Christian life—and cites Spurgeon to establish the claim

Number three, third application. Prayer is supposed to be a big part of my life. Prayer is supposed to be a big part of my life. Spurgeon said. If any of you should ask me for the epitome of the Christian life, I would say that it is in one word, prayer. Is that how your Christian life is? Is prayer the epitome of your Christian life? Why would Spurgeon say that. Why would he say that? Prayer is the epitome of the Christian life? Because, friends, you were made to live in God's presence. And what Jesus has done in offering himself for you is he has made it possible for you to boldly approach the throne of grace. How will you express the protective care over those that you love? You'll pray for them? How will you get back in touch with your original, you know, original design to be in God's presence? You'll go into God's presence with prayer. That's what the book of Hebrews says. Prayer is an incredible privilege. It's an incredible privilege. Hebrews 4:14. Since then, we have a great high priest who passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

23 · Oswald diagnoses why Christians struggle with prayer—a fundamental misunderstanding of their nature as designed for God's presence—and issues a pastoral exhortation that learning to pray without ceasing will make them feel truly alive for the first time

And I think that if I had to say why so many people struggle with prayer, it is mostly, I believe, a fundamental misunderstanding about their own nature. I just think that we just don't realize how much we were designed to be in the presence of God. And there's really no way of telling someone who has spent their whole life suffocating that they're not breathing well. They've become completely desensitized to that which should have been normal. And friends, as Christians, we're the only people on Earth who get to do this. We're the only people on Earth who get to draw near, boldly approach the throne of grace and spend time in God's presence, not just once in the morning, but all day. To pray without ceasing is an incredible privilege. And if you want to learn to feel as alive as you were made to feel, at least as alive as you can feel on this earth before the new creations. And then if you want to learn what to feel alive, you've got to learn how to pray without ceasing. You've got to learn how to repeatedly, all the time, throughout the day, conversate with your God friends, you will notice development, a difference. You will. And you'll look back to all of those times you spent barely communicating, barely spending any time in the presence of God, and you'll look back at that and think, how did I ever get along? Some of you have discovered some kind of food allergy or Something that was really wreaking havoc with your health. And you unplugged from this one thing and suddenly a new level of life emerges in your body. This is what it will be if you learn to pray.

24 · Oswald offers a second reason Christians don't pray—they don't understand that when they approach God they are clothed with Christ's glory, not superficial vestments, which is what Jesus prayed for in John 17

So I think when most people don't pray, I think they don't understand how badly they need it and how much their entire being was designed to be in the presence of God. I suppose there's another thing I could cover just quickly, and that is a lot of people probably don't pray because they don't understand the gloriousness that Christ has put on them. I don't understand that when they enter the throne of grace, when they enter the presence of God, they aren't clothed with mere jewels, they are clothed with the very glory of Christ. That which Jesus asked to be given to us in his high priestly prayer in John 17 has been given to us

25 · Oswald transitions to communion by offering a vivid priestly imagery of substitutionary atonement—Jesus entering the holy of holies wearing our sin and dying so we could wear his righteousness and enter God's presence

as we move to communion. I think I would tell you this. I think that if you want to understand the sweeping story of the Old Testament, New Testament through the lens of priests, I would suggest this might be one way to conceive of it. Imagine that Jesus put your sin on him and entered into the holy of holies. What would happen? He would die. So what is the death of Jesus under the wrath of God? What is substitutionary atonement? How does Jesus receive the wrath of God upon us? If we cobble together the imagery and I think a biblically appropriate way, we can just imagine this. Jesus puts on your 40 years of sin. Some of you are only 20, but you've sinned. 40 years worth. He puts it all on you, all of the disgusting. And he walks in past the flaming cherubim into the holy presence of God, destroyed. Why did he do that? He did that so that that death might be endured on him and not on you. But he also did that so that he could give you his garments, so that now when you enter the throne room of grace, when you go to pray, you're wearing the garments of Christ, the glories of Christ. So I suppose that some people don't pray because they don't understand how desperately they need to. But I suppose others don't pray because they don't understand how God sees them now that they are in Christ. And how God sees them now is not through some superficial costume that you put on. This isn't role playing. This isn't larping you, my dear saint, based solely on the gift of grace that Jesus made possible by his coming, living, dying and being raised, has given you his glory so that you may boldly approach the throne of grace and you may begin to experience the life that you have always been designed to live. Not simply going somewhere to spend some time with God, but to go throughout your day, just like Adam was supposed to, in the presence of God, ruling and subduing in your own individual life. So maybe it'll help you, as you come to communion, to think of this. This idea that Jesus took on your sin knowing that that sin would kill him. And he did that so that he could give you his own righteousness.

26 · Oswald closes by reading 2 Corinthians 5:21 and 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, the words of institution for communion, connecting the sermon's priestly substitutionary imagery to the sacrament and inviting the congregation to the table

So now you can come and taste and see from the table that the Lord Jesus has made provision for your sin for our sake. He made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. I pray that you'll come now and taste and see that the Lord is good.