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The Lord’s Death
“He took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it … Likewise also the cup” (Luke 22:19-20).
“For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till He come” (1 Corinthians 11:26).
Our taking the bread (a symbol of the body of Christ) before the cup (a symbol of the blood of Christ) may be called reversing the natural order of the Old Testament sacrifices in which the blood was always dealt with first. This was because the shedding of the blood is what slew the victim.
However, in “the Lord’s death,” God’s Lamb, it was not so. He gave up his life voluntarily. He could say, “I lay down My life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again” (John 10:17-18). After death, His blood was shed. “One of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith came there out blood and water” (John 19:34). The separation of the blood from the body was the proof of death. His death was miraculous and divine as was His person — God and man in one.
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