13/08/2021
What the first Christians knew as the “New Testament” was not a book, but the Eucharist.
In a cultic setting, at a solemn sacrificial banquet, Jesus made an offering of his “body” and “blood.” He used traditional sacrificial language. He spoke of the action as his memorial. He told those who attended to repeat the action they had witnessed: “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). Thus he instituted the Christian priesthood and established the Church’s liturgy. He authorized clergy to do what he was doing: to make a memorial offering of his body and blood.
He called his action the “new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). He declared it to be the New Testament— and the Testament was not a text but an action. He did not say “read this” or “write this,” but rather “do this.” By the time the Gospels and Epistles were written, the Church had already been faithful to Jesus’s instruction for decades. The New Testament was a sacrament at least a generation before it was a document. We learn this from the document itself.
- From My Book “CONSUMING THE WORD” Available at https://goo.gl/iztpZi
