His Everliving Living Flesh And Blood At The Lord's Table (1.3.15)

The Risen Lamb's Blood Still Flows-Still Sprinkled At The Table

The Lord is showing me the everliving quality of Jesus' blood at the table and elsewhere. Yes praise Jesus, the word reveals itself to us by way of the Spirit.

At the table our faithful blessing (a priestly act by all the holy, fulfilling Exodus19,6) of the bread and wine draws down His freely given blessing, draws down his "sprinkling." (Isaiah52,15)

All of us have heard the phrase "pleading the blood of Jesus." This is not just church-speak to gin up some hoopla at a service where nothing much is happening. This is to engage the Lord's power and mercy in the invisible spirit realm, to invoke His blessing.

The main priestly blessing of the Hebrew priests is summed up by God himself honoring their obedient blessing with His blessing. Numbers 6,27: "So they shall put my name on the sons of Israel, and I myself will bless them." (Interlinear bible)

When we plead the blood and invoke the Name of Jesus God's supernatural blessing power is put on us!

At the supper, we priestly Christians are commanded to bless in that Jesus said "do this in memory of me." "This" is celebrating the supper blessing like he blessed. "This" is  putting the name and power and presence and consecration on the bread and wine (1Corinthians10,16). "This" is putting the life of the blood, and the name of Jesus on the bread and wine.

"This" is Him sprinkling down his everliving Spiritual blood (propehsied at Isaiah52,15), him putting  his very life in the bread and wine. "This" is Him sealing our consecration with His consecration.

Nothing happens of any import until we step up in faith and do our part of the blessing, and then he consecrates the cup and the bread.

This decisively moves us away from both Vatican dogmatism and Protestant symbols, and out of the old miry argument of church or man mediating "sacraments." The Lord's supper is just as the word describes it, a commanded biblical blessing for all the born again faithful, a Spiritual memorial, wherein we enjoy actual communion with our risen Lord through his ascended "flesh" (John6,62 table meditation n. 33).

Scriptures and teaching that prove this point:

1. "Elect [same as the "dispersion" of v. 1, all Israel as priests fulfilling Exodus 19,6] according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, to obedience and [Greek kai] sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied to you."  1Peter1,2 KJ

Study of the Greek word "kai", "and" in English, reveals that as a conjunctive it sums up what has come before, like our  "so." (n.2532 "d." at Thayer's Lexicon of NT, Baker, 2000, p.316)

So at 2Corinthians11,9 Paul says "I was a burden to no one, for what I lacked the brethren from Macedonia supplied. And in everything I kept myself  from being burdensome to you, and so [kai] I will keep myself." This use of kai makes clear that nobody has to take care of Paul (unlike those "Super Apostles" raising his blood pressure).

Likewise at Hebrews 3,18-19: "And to whom did He swear that they would not enter into his rest, but to those who did not obey? 19 So ['kai'] we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief." This sum-it-up, get-to-the-point use of kai is also found at 1John3,19 and 2Peter1,19.

We notice that 1Peter1,1 addresses "pilgrims of the dispersion" (KJ), referencing the priestly people of Israel made holy, priestly.

What's the primary thing Jewish priests did in their cult?

Sprinkle the blood.

The first people physically sprinkled blood.

We grafted in Christian people, spiritually sprinkle.

This is why the "kai" of 1Peter1,2 is important. It tells us that "sprinkling the blood" is our first priestly activity.

And this is what we and the Lord do at His supper.  

Canadian Pentecostal pillar H.A. Maxwell Whyte (1908-1988)  ably expounds on this biblical logic of sprinkling, though not fully applying it to the supper which we are now. This power to sprinkle the blood is good news and changes us from a passive pew sitters to dynamic men or women of God, made in the Spiritual image of our Lord:  

"Peter also gives some good teaching in this subject. We are "elect... unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" (1Peter1,2). It is not a passive faith in the blood that brings victory, but an active sprinkling of it in faith by each elect believer. In Chapter 2, Peter continues the theme by telling us that we are holy priests to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ (1Peter2,5). As the priests offered up daily sacrifices on behalf of the people in Old Testament times, so also we also today in New Testament times we offer the Blood od Jesus Christ to God as our plea on behalf of ourselves, our children, our loved ones, and even our cattle."   

The Power Of The Blood, Whitaker House, 1973, p. 43-44

2.  "To the general assembly and the church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 To Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel." Hebrews12,23-24.

Again Whyte:

"Some may argue that this is not a scriptural practice for New Testament Christians. But let me refer you to Hebrews 12,24 where we read that that 'we are come to the blood of sprinkling.' This does not refer back to the past, but is a present tense experience. 'We are come,' or in more modern English, 'We have come...' . It is our privilege now as New Testament priests of the church of the firstborn to sprinkle the blood of Jesus- not merely to believe that Jesus did it for us in the past (which he certainly did), but to do it now. We must now battle the principalities and powers and wicked spirits of the devil; therefore we sprinkle that precious blood once shed for us." Ibid p.43.

This blood speaks better things than the blood of Abel, which cried for justice, but which dried up and dissapeared. Whereas Jesus' everliving risen blood, is present when we plead it, and present at the supper by our mutual blessing, and still speaks salvation and mercy and a new covenant and relationship with God. 

3.   "And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth." Revelation 5,6 

We notice here that the risen Jesus, as king of the cosmos, defines Himself as a risen lamb. This risen lamb is the same source of  his prophesied everflowing blood of John19,34, that John saw by way of a vision, same as the Spiritual blood from the table.  We have access to this blood in that Jesus is willing to sprinkle it down (Isaiah52,15).

If Jesus defines Himself as an eternal lamb, then by the strong biblical logic of Revelation 5,6, this lamb has everflowing, everliving blood for our access via various acts of faith, like our mutual blessing, our mutual sprinkling, of the bread and wine at the supper.

17th century English Baptist John Gill, oft quoted here, also notes this everliving quality of Jesus' blood per Revelation5,6:

"and he was as a lamb that had been newly or lately slain: and it may denote the continued efficacy of his blood to cleanse from all sin, and of his sacrifice; and he will be, on the same account, the Lamb as it had been slain, unto the end of the world."  (biblehub.com)

It is interesting that this verse also equates the risen lamb Jesus, with the fullness of the Spirit, "the seven Spirits of God" which He sends down to earth on behalf of His people. This correlates with what we teach about the supper. There is no physical blood in heaven (1Corinthians15,50), but the risen flesh of our eternal lamb-king is the source of what He propehesied at the supper: 'This is my body-This is my blood."

This risen lamb enjoyed at the table correlates to the pre-resurrection "bread come down from heaven" of John 6,51. If Jesus as God is depicted as eternal bread some down from heaven, then why not eternal Spiritual blood come down to the table? cf John6,63: "It is the Spirit that makes alive. The [physical, over which Jesus' Jewish brothers are stumbling] flesh does not profit anything."

4. "This is He who came by water and blood [at his physical birth as a baby, and at his consecratory death-birth on the cross, when per John19,34 out  flowed the eternal everflowing spiritual blood of Revelation5,6 and at the table and the everflowing cleansing water of baptism]- Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit  who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth." 1John5,6   

At Jesus' baptism He was identified as God's eternal son, as having God's "blood" so to speak, born of God's seed, of God's life "blood." This Spiritual life, this resurrection life, this eternal "blood" got into "the bloodstream of Jesus." (cf Whyte p.17 and John 6,63)

At his death we see Jesus fully consecrating himself in his physical form, the grain of wheat that falling to the ground. In this baptism on the cross, his physical blood in death, gave ripe Spiritual fruit, his everliving risen blood of our risen lamb and king (John19,34; Revelation5,6 and 12,11).

5. "And they overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death." Revelation12,11.

The context of Revelation 12 is the ongoing and ever present spiritual warfare that challenges all God's elect to persevere. It is the ongoing  word of our testimony and the ongoing active use of his everliving blood, pleading it and sprinkling it, here and now, that defeats Satan.

Where's Our Faith Courage To Do Our Part Of The Supernatural Blessing?

So why do we hesitate to bless the bread and wine at the table in Jesus Name and thereby allow Jesus to bless them, ie sprinkle them, when this is the clear ordinance of his word?

For a short video of the supper:

http://vimeo.com/63572579

http://www.zionpentecostmission.com/table-of-the-lord-meditation-n.-33.html