A sign you could see
The Cup of the New Covenant
On the night before He died, Jesus lifted a cup and named it the new covenant in His blood. Every earlier sign had been pointing toward this table.
“Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.”Luke 22:20
The sign
The sign. In the upper room, keeping the Passover with His disciples, Jesus took bread and then a cup and gave them a new meaning. "Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you" (Luke 22:20). Matthew records His words over it, "For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matt 26:28). The cup was the sign, and it was given at the very feast that had remembered the exodus for centuries, so that the old sign of deliverance opened directly into the new. Paul hands the same tradition to the church: "This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come" (1 Cor 11:25-26). The Lord's Supper became the standing sign of the new covenant, kept at Christ's own command until He returns.
What it sealed
What it sealed. The cup seals the new covenant that the prophets had promised. Jeremiah had foretold it: "Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel... I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts... for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more" (Jer 31:31-34). That covenant is sealed not in the blood of bulls and goats but in the blood of Christ, poured out for the remission of sins. The Supper seals to the believer everything the new covenant promises: forgiveness that is full and final, the law written on the heart, God for His people and they for Him. To take the cup is to receive again the pledge that one's sins are remembered no more. It also binds the church together, for "we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread" (1 Cor 10:17). The sign both assures the individual and gathers the people.
How it points to Christ
How it points to Christ. This sign does not merely point to Christ; it is His own institution, given by His own hand, naming His own blood. Every covenant sign before it had reached toward this moment. The rainbow held back judgment; here the judgment is borne. Circumcision and the Passover blood and the covenant of salt all whispered of an enduring covenant sealed in blood; here the blood is named, "my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matt 26:28). The book of Hebrews gathers it up: Christ is "the mediator of the new testament" (Heb 9:15), and "by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified" (Heb 10:14). The cup is the last of the signs and the fullness of them all, for in it the Lord gives not a shadow of redemption but its very substance, His blood shed, and bids His people take and remember until He comes.
Questions people ask
What did Jesus mean by "the new testament in my blood"?
He was naming the cup as the sign of the new covenant promised in Jeremiah 31, sealed by His blood shed for the remission of sins (Luke 22:20; Matt 26:28). The Lord's Supper becomes the standing sign of that covenant, kept by His command until He returns (1 Cor 11:25-26).
How is the cup connected to Passover?
Jesus instituted it during a Passover meal, so the old sign of deliverance opens straight into the new. Where the Passover blood on the door turned death aside, the cup names the blood of Christ, "our passover" (1 Cor 5:7), shed for the forgiveness of sins. The feast of remembrance becomes the feast of fulfillment.
Why is this called the fulfillment of the other signs?
Because the earlier covenant signs pointed toward a covenant sealed in blood, and here that blood is named by Christ Himself. Hebrews calls Him the mediator of the new testament who has perfected His people by one offering (Heb 9:15; 10:14). The cup gives not a shadow but the substance the others foreshadowed.