As we noted in our previous post, Jesus’ Last Supper was a Passover meal of unleavened bread, without a lamb, at evening, at the beginning of the Day of Passover (Nisan 14). The Gospel writers described it as the day “when they killed the passover” (Mark 14:12), the day “when the passover must be killed” (Luke 22:7). They were referring to the 14th of Nisan, the day on which the Law prescribes the Passover lamb to be sacrificed in the afternoon, toward the end of the day (Exodus 12:6). The fact that Jesus’ Last Supper occurred on the day they killed the Passover lamb does not mean that His final meal was a Passover lamb. It only means His last meal took place on that day. In fact, His last meal at the beginning of the day was a supper of unleavened bread as the Law required for that time of day, which is why the Gospel writers called it “the day of unleavened bread” (Mark 14:12; Luke 22:7).

His Last Supper was Unleavened Bread

As unfamiliar as that conclusion may be to the reader, it is plainly what the Scriptures teach. The Law requires that a Passover lamb  be sacrificed on the afternoon of the 14th of Nisan, or literally, “between the evenings,” referring to a 3 PM afternoon sacrifice just before the day ended at sunset (Exodus 12:5-6). The lamb was then to be roasted with fire and eaten “at night” on the evening of the following day, that is the 15th of Nisan (Exodus 12:8). But Jesus sat down to eat His Passover at evening on the 14th.

We affirm, of course, that Jesus’ last meal was a Passover Supper, for He attests to this Himself when He says, “With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15). That Passover consisted of unleavened bread without a lamb, as the Law and the Prophets prescribe:

“In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even.” (Exodus 12:18)

“In the first month, in the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall have the Passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten.” (Ezekiel 45:21)

Thus, as both Exodus and Ezekiel attest, this was to be a meal of unleavened bread, without a lamb, at evening. And that is exactly when Jesus and His disciples sat down to eat the unleavened bread Passover meal:

“Now when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve.” (Matthew 26;20)

“And in the evening he cometh with the twelve.” (Mark 14:17)

Clearly, Jesus sat down with His disciples at evening, the beginning of the day, on the 14th of Nisan, and ate a meal of unleavened bread without a lamb. This is what the Law and the Prophets prescribed, and He did not come to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17).

Lest we have not made the point sufficiently clear: in accordance with the Law, Jesus consumed a Passover meal of unleavened bread on the evening of the 14th, a meal that, according to the Law, would not have included a lamb. It would have been a violation had He consumed a Passover lamb at that meal, for the lamb was not to be slaughtered until the following afternoon, and then was not to be eaten until the following evening. Jesus did not violate the Law.

His Last Supper was not a Passover Lamb

As noted, we affirm that His Last Supper was a “Passover,” and that His Last Supper occurred on the day the Passover lamb is sacrificed, and that He consumed unleavened bread for that meal as prescribed by the Law. We deny emphatically, however, that Jesus ate a lamb at that meal. And because He commanded his disciples, “this do in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24), He was not instructing His disciples to memorialize a violation of the Mosaic Law by eating a lamb. There was no lamb in that meal, and He did not instruct His disciples to add one.  We cannot emphasize enough how important it is to understand the gross error of representing Jesus as eating a lamb for His Last Supper.

Nevertheless, the fact that no Passover lamb is mentioned in the Last Supper narratives has led to all manner of ambitious and haphazard guesswork by Protestants, Orthodox and Catholics alike. Most assume that Jesus’ last meal is that which was prescribed for the evening of the 15th, lamb and all. And then, because the Gospel writers for good reason omit a lamb from His Supper, modern scholars have tried in vain to write a lamb back into it. They wonder what the Gospel writers must have meant by omitting the lamb from the narrative, leading to unwise and futile attempts to put a lamb back on the menu.

Brant Pitre of the Roman Catholic St. Paul Center tries to get the lamb back into the Last Supper by insisting that “both Mark and Luke … explicitly testify that there was a Passover lamb (Gk pascha) at the Last Supper.” In what way are they alleged to “testify”? Mark and Luke both use the Greek word “pascha”:

“…and they made ready the passover (πάσχα, pascha)” (Mark 14:16; Luke 22:13).

This, Pitre says, must refer to the lamb. But such language does not refer either implicitly or explicitly to the lamb itself. For example, in the Greek Septuagint, Ezekiel 45:21 refers to the unleavened bread meal as “the pascha” when referring to the eating of unleavened bread: “In the first month, in the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall have the passover (πάσχα, pascha), a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten” (Ezekiel 45:21). Certainly the Gospel accounts say His Last Supper was the pascha, but that does not mean the Last Supper was a lamb.

Dr. Guy Prentiss Waters of Reformed Theological Seminary insists that even though the Gospels “make no mention of a lamb,” we can be sure that a lamb “was part of the meal that Jesus and his disciples celebrated together on the eve of his death.” He hypothesizes: “The reason that there is no lamb in the Lord’s Supper is that Jesus Christ himself is the Passover Lamb of God.” Certainly Jesus is the Lamb of God. But that is not why there is no lamb mentioned at the Last Supper.

Dr. Timothy Yee of Carmel Presbyterian Church in Carmel, CA, insists that “the Last Supper was originally a full Passover meal with meat, bread, herbs and wine.” So why is the lamb not mentioned? Because, he theorizes, “a sacrificial lamb is no longer needed,” and “Jesus is the ultimate sacrificial Lamb.” We agree both that Jesus is the Lamb of God, and that a sacrificial lamb is no longer needed. But that is not why there is no lamb at the Last Supper. 

Greek Orthodox apologist, Steven Christoforou, insists that Jesus intentionally omitted the lamb from His last Passover, and substituted Himself:

“Therefore, the Last Supper was after sundown on Thursday evening which was the beginning of 14 Nisan. However, Jesus imitated the characteristics of the Passover meal with the exception of the lamb. He was the sacrificial lamb, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1:29).”

We agree that Jesus is the Sacrificial Lamb of God. And we agree that He sat down to eat at “evening which was the beginning of 14 Nisan.” But we deny that He attempted to “imitate” the Passover meal by making Himself the Lamb of that meal. The meal prescribed by the Law for that time of day did not include a lamb, and Jesus would not have “imitated” it by including Himself as the Lamb.

The Old Testament meal simply did not call for a lamb. Jesus neither included a lamb (as some have suggested), nor substituted Himself as the “missing” Lamb (as others have insisted), nor “imitated” the roasted lamb from the 15th of Nisan for a Supper that was occurring on the 14th. It would have been unlawful for Jesus to eat or serve a lamb at that time, and it would have been unlawful for Him to substitute Himself for the Lamb.

Wrongly adding the Lamb’s Flesh to the Menu

Unfortunately, the many guesses as to the meaning of the Last Supper implicitly require Jesus to violate the Law and the Prophets in order to institute a new unlawful ritual—either by sacrificing and eating the Passover lamb on the wrong day (Exodus 12:8), or by adding a lamb to a meal that was supposed to be a Passover meal of only unleavened bread (Exodus 12:18). Neither can possibly be true. Yet Roman Catholic interpretations of the Last Supper are riddled with cavalier suggestions that Jesus deliberately disobeyed the Law. For example, Brant Pitre, in his book, The Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, claims that Jesus altered the Passover intentionally to make it into a proto-medieval Roman Catholic Eucharist:

“[I]t doesn’t take much imagination to figure out his point. By means of his words over the bread and wine of the Last Supper, Jesus is saying in no uncertain terms, ‘I am the new Passover Lamb of the new exodus. This is the Passover of the Messiah, and I am the new sacrifice.’ … Jesus not only kept the Jewish Passover, he deliberately altered it, thereby instituting a new Passover.” (pg. 72)

Such is the teaching of Rome’s popes, as well. They insist that Jesus changed the law to institute a new ritual:

Pope Francis, (Wednesday, 29 June 2022):

“He knows that he is the Lamb of that Passover meal. This is the absolute newness, the absolute originality, of that Supper, the only truly new thing in history, which renders that Supper unique.”

Pope Benedict XVI (Thursday, 5 April 2007):

“…the Last Supper of Jesus was instead a Passover meal into whose traditional form he integrated the innovation of the gift of his Body and Blood.  … Jesus celebrated the Passover without a lamb — no, not without a lamb: instead of the lamb he gave himself, his Body and his Blood.”

Such revisionist history is the means by which Roman Catholicism turns Jesus’ obedience into disobedience, creating the appearance that Jesus instituted, and the apostles passed down to us, a liturgical Eucharistic sacrifice of the Lamb of God as His Last Supper. The centerpiece of Roman Catholic liturgy and worship is to add a lamb to the Lord’s Supper—the literal flesh and blood of the Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ—and to sacrifice that lamb and to serve that sacrificed lamb as the memorial meal, the very thing Jesus did not do, would not have done, could not have done, and which the Law itself prohibited Him from doing. Such a liturgical abomination had not even entered His mind.

Wrongly adding the Lamb’s Blood to the Menu

But Roman Catholicism has taken that lawlessness to new levels by turning Jesus’ Last Supper into not only a meal of the lamb’s “literal” flesh, but also adding a drink of Christ’s “literal” blood. According to the Mosaic institution of Passover, the lamb’s blood was not to be part of the meal, but rather was to be displayed on the doorposts: “they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses” (Exodus 12:7). Only the flesh of the lamb was to be consumed: “they shall eat the flesh” (Exodus 12:8). Under no circumstances would Christ have prescribed the eating of the lamb’s literal blood to commemorate the original Passover or to fulfill the Law. This, too, the law forbade. The blood goes on the altar for atonement. Only the flesh is to be eaten:

“the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls … therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.” (Leviticus 17:11-14)

But Rome not only requires that both the lamb’s “literal” flesh be eaten and “literal” blood be imbibed as the “new Passover,” but now also requires that the lamb’s “literal” flesh be eaten with the “literal” blood still in it. According to the Council of Trent, “the whole Christ,” flesh and blood, “is contained under each species” (Trent 13th session, Canon III on the Holy Eucharist, October 11 , 1561), and the bread is alleged to be both the Lamb’s flesh and blood together. This, too is condemned by the Law:

“But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.” (Genesis 9:4)

“Only be sure that thou eat not the blood: for the blood is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh. Thou shalt not eat it; thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water.” (Deuteronomy 12:23)

Imagine taking the Law of God, which prescribed only the eating of unleavened bread on the evening of the 14th of Nisan, and prohibited the consumption of any blood at all, much less the eating of flesh with the blood still in it, and teaching that Jesus instituted violations of that Law as the foundational liturgical precept of His new religion. Imagine alleging such unlawful behavior of Him Who, “made under the Law” (Galatians 4:4) “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8)! Only a diabolical organization would institute such lawlessness as “the religion of Christ” in His memory, but that is precisely what Roman Catholicism has done from its illegitimate founding late in the 4th century.

The Illicit “Memorial” of Christ’s Lawlessness

The revisionism by which the unleavened bread Passover meal is turned into lawlessness dates back to the late 4th century when writers began to see the Lord’s Supper as a sacrifice of Jesus’ body and blood rather than a memorial meal of unleavened bread. At that time His Last Supper became imbued with the language of a sacrificial offering of the Passover Lamb, something that would not have been included in the Supper, and would not have been sacrificed during it.

Gregory of Nyssa (AD 382) proposed that Jesus had really sacrificed Himself for our sins at that Supper, offering Himself as the Lamb: “He offered himself for us, Victim and Sacrifice … [w]hen He made His own Body food and His own Blood drink for His disciples” (On the Space of Three Days I).

Gregory of Nazianzen (383 A.D.) asked his friend to loose him from his sins by “the Sacrifice of Resurrection … when you draw down the Word by your word [the Epiclesis], when with a bloodless cutting you sever the Body and Blood of the Lord, using your voice for the glaive [sword]” (Epistle 171, to Bishop Amphilochius of Iconium).

John Chrysostom (387 A.D.), describing the Supper, said we “see the Lord sacrificed, and laid upon the altar, and the priest standing and praying over the victim, and all the worshippers empurpled with that precious blood” (Treatise on the Priesthood III.4).

Ambrose of Milan (389 A.D.), insisted, though Christ be not seen, “nevertheless it is He himself that is offered in sacrifice here on Earth when the body of Christ is offered” (Psalms, Psalm 38, paragraph 25).

Early in the 5^th century, Augustine (408 A.D.) had fallen for the error as well: “… is He not likewise offered up in the sacrament as a sacrifice … daily among our congregations; so that the man who, being questioned, answers that He is offered as a sacrifice in that ordinance, declares what is strictly true?” (Letters 98.9).

As Roman Apologist Scott Hahn stated in his 2011 video on the Paschal Sacrifice (29:24-31:09), at the Last Supper Jesus was adding the Lamb’s flesh and blood to the ancient unleavened bread meal:

“He was celebrating the Passover of the Old Covenant one last time. But that’s not all He was doing. He was fulfilling it as the Lamb.”

This is why, Hahn says, He turned the bread into His flesh—because He was substituting Himself as the Lamb of that meal:

“He said what He meant, He meant what He said. ‘This is My body which will be given up for you.’ That’s how He was fulfilling the Passover of the Old as the true Lamb.'”

Unfortunately for Orthodox and Roman Catholic alike, this view of the Last Supper is of late 4th century origins, and is not the religion of Christ. It is an abominable novelty in which the true Church has never participated. The true church has always understood the Lord’s Supper to be a memorial meal in which bread and wine are understood as symbols, and eating them is to symbolize the preached Gospel of His death and resurrection in our mouths and hearts.

“That the Lord’s law be in thy mouth”

We do ourselves no favors in trying to understand Jesus’ words at His Last Supper by first forcing His words into a Passover meal of a roasted lamb. Rather, to understand what Jesus meant by “Take, eat, this is My body,” we need only understand the actual Passover meal He was eating. And that day, at that hour, in accordance with the Law and the Prophets, Jesus was eating a Passover meal of unleavened bread. Not a Passover meal of roasted lamb, but a Passover meal of unleavened bread. And to understand what that unleavened bread signified, we need look no further than the Law that required unleavened bread to be eaten in the first place. We are told in Scripture what the bread meant: it was a symbol of the written and preached Word of God “in thy mouth”:

“Unleavened bread shall be eaten … it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the LORD’s law may be in thy mouth” (Exodus 13:7-9)

Eating unleavened bread is a sign, a symbol, a metaphor, signifying hearing the written Word as well as the oral profession of belief in that preached Word. It is a token, a remembrance, of the covenant promise that the Lord “sware unto thee and to thy fathers” (Exodus 13:11), a remembrance that His people pass on to their children, generation to generation.

Just as the Hebrews were to eat unleavened bread as a token to prompt the remembrance of the Lord’s faithfulness to His promise—”This is done because of that which the LORD did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt”—Jesus now instructs His disciples to eat that same bread in remembrance of Him:

“Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11:24).

The Passover bread was a token of the Law of the Old Covenant “in thy mouth.” Under Jesus’ administration it becomes a sign of the Gospel of the New Covenant “in thy mouth,” for which reason Paul exhorts us, “For as often as you eat this bread … you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). Under the Old Covenant the bread had been—and under the New Covenant it remains—a metaphor for the “proclaimed” Word of the Covenant “in thy mouth.”

If we assume that Jesus was substituting His body for the Lamb, we concede the high ground to Rome who then turns the Lord’s Supper into a sacrificial offering of a lamb with the blood still in it. This Jesus did not do. When we understand rather that Jesus applied the Old Covenant meal of bread—a token of the preached Law—we understand from His Supper that the bread becomes for us a New Covenant meal of bread as a token of the preached Word of God “in thy mouth.”

“The Covenant … concerning all these words”

As with the bread, we do ourselves no favors in trying to understand Jesus’ words of institution by first forcing His words into a Passover meal of a lamb’s blood. Rather, to understand what Jesus really meant by “this cup is the new testament in my blood,” we need only understand His reference to the blood of the Old Covenant. Its use in the Old Testament refers to the Words of the Lord’s Covenant oath:

“And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words.” (Exodus 24:8; c.f. Zechariah 9:11)

What is important about that particular mention of covenant blood in the Old Testament is that Moses spoke those words in reference to a portion of blood that had been set aside “in cups” to serve as a sign or symbol of the Words of the Covenant.

The Scripture teaches that only the blood poured on the altar serves to accomplish atonement:

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11).

It is the blood poured upon the altar that atones. As Exodus 24 shows, Moses sacrificed oxen as a peace offering, but only poured half of it on the altar. “Half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.” (Exodus 24:6b). That is the blood of the atonement (c.f. 2 Chronicles 29:24).

But what of the other half? “And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basons” (Exodus 24:6a). Notably, that word for “basons” refers to bowls, cups or goblets, making Jesus’ use of the cup at the Supper a transparent allusion to the Blood of the Covenant in Exodus 24. This half of the blood was not for the atonement but to serve as a sign or symbol of the Words of the Covenant. As Moses continues, he sprinkles the other half of the blood upon the people, noting conspicuously that this half of the blood, as with the bread of Exodus 13, attests to their hearing of the Words of the Covenant:

“And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words.” (Exodus 24:7-8)

As with the bread, “the blood of the covenant” was a symbol, a metaphor, indicating the hearing of the written Word and the oral profession of belief in that Word. This half of the blood was not applied as an atonement but as a reminder of the covenant promises Moses had just read to them, and which the people claimed to believe and obey. It is notable that when Jesus referred to the blood of the covenant, He invokes a term that, in the Old Testament, referred to the half of the blood that had not been poured out upon the altar, and therefore was not propitiatory, but rather served as a figure for hearing and believing the preached word of God. That is to say, the half that was sprinkled on the people is not the half that was poured out upon the altar, but rather signified “the covenant concerning all these words.”

Under Jesus’ administration, therefore, “the blood of the covenant” becomes a sign of the Gospel of the New Covenant “in thy mouth” as it were, for which reason Paul exhorts, “For as often as you … drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). Under the Old Covenant, “the blood of the covenant” had been, and under the New Covenant it remains, a metaphor or figure for the “proclaimed” Covenant “concerning all these words.”

To Eat and to Drink the Word of God

Both bread and cup are therefore about the preaching of God’s Word. We see that eating unleavened bread was a sign for proclaiming and remembering the Law of God “in thy mouth,” and “the blood of the covenant” was a sign for professed belief “concerning all these words” of the Covenant. Both were signs for “proclaiming” the Words of the Covenant. Unsurprisingly, Jesus applies them both again as a sign for “proclaiming” the words of the New Covenant, as Paul himself expresses (1 Corinthians 11:26). To eat and drink the bread and cup is to “proclaim” the gospel of His death until He comes.

And so the ancient writers also understood Jesus’ commands to “eat” and to “drink” His flesh and blood:

“Elsewhere the Lord, in the Gospel according to John, brought this out by symbols, when He said: Eat my flesh, and drink my blood; (John 6:34) describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith and the promise.” (Clement of Alexandria, Pædagogus, 1.6).

“as Paul says; ‘Being nourished by the word of truth‘ [1 Timothy 4:6] … And as our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, being heavenly bread, is the food of the saints, according to this; ‘Unless you eat My flesh, and drink My blood [John 6:53] … He commands them to be nourished with the food of virtue; namely, humbleness of mind, lowliness to endure humiliations, the acknowledgment of God.” (Athanasius of Alexandria, Festal Letter 1.5)

“He that eats me, He says, he also shall live because of me … For all His mystic sojourn among us He called flesh and blood, and set forth the teaching consisting of practical science … and of theology” (Basil of Cæsarea, Epistle 8.4).

Is the Supper a Sacrificial Lamb or a Figure for Preaching?

Obviously in this light the Last Supper is a menu of figures, signs, and symbols of “proclamation” or preaching of the Word of God “in thy mouth.” This we discern by understanding which Passover meal Jesus was eating on the night before He died. As we noted in our previous post, the traditional understanding that Jesus was eating a Lamb leads to the invalid conclusion that the New Testament writers omitted mention of the Lamb because Jesus was substituting Himself as the Sacrificial Lamb in that meal. But He had not done so, and would not and could not have done so, for such an act would have been a violation of the Law. Such a conclusion we must rule out.

In ruling out a Last Supper of a roasted lamb, we are left with a Passover Supper of unleavened bread. As the Old Testament confirms, eating unleavened bread was a symbol for “the Lord’s law in thy mouth,” and Jesus applies the figure of the cup the same way. Both were figures for the preached word, which is why Paul reaffirms the meaning of eating and drinking the loaf and cup in the supper: “you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.” And to “proclaim” requires Words.

If the unleavened bread and cups of the blood of the covenant are Old Testament symbols for the preached, heard and believed Words of the Law and the Covenant, we are not left wondering how Jesus applied those Old Testament symbols under the New Covenant. In His administration of the Last Passover Supper, He loaded those Old Testament signs and symbols with New Covenant meaning, and most importantly, with new Words, referring not to the Law but to the Gospel, a Gospel sealed in His death and resurrection:

“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:8-10)

This, which is to say, the New Covenant concerning all these words, we proclaim each time we eat the bread and cup, for they have been declared by Christ to figure the preaching of the Gospel of the New Covenant. For so the Spirit of Christ Himself had already imbued these words with similar meaning under the Old Covenant when He “testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ” (1 Peter 1:11). As bread and cup were once symbols of the preaching of the Law, the bread and cup are now symbols of the preaching of the Gospel.

And they most certainly are not an offering of the flesh and blood of a Lamb.