CRITICAL NOTES
Luke 22:7. The day of unleavened bread.—Strictly speaking, the first day of unleavened bread was the 15th Nisan (i.e., beginning from the evening of the 14th), when the paschal lamb was killed. But the day here spoken of was evidently the 14th, as the Passover was not yet slain. On this day it was usual, though not necessary, to abstain from leaven; and by including it the feast was sometimes reckoned as lasting eight days (Josephus, Ant., II. Luk. 15:1). If, then, we take the 14th day at its legal beginning (i.e., after sunset on the 13th), it is possible that our Lord and His apostles celebrated the Passover a day before the usual time. This would harmonise the narrative of the synoptical Gospels with that of St. John. The former speak most definitely of the Passover being celebrated by our Lord, and the latter as definitely of the Passover as still to be observed by the Jews. The whole question is an extremely difficult and perplexing one, but probably the above is the simplest solution of it. The passover.—I.e., the paschal lamb. Killed.—Rather, “sacrificed” (R.V.).
Luke 22:8. Peter and John.—“It was a solemn message, and for it were chosen the two chief apostles” (Alford).
Luke 22:10. A man.—The secrecy with which the place of celebration was pointed out was probably occasioned by a desire to prevent Judas being acquainted beforehand with it. It would seem that Christ Himself had, without His disciples’ knowledge, made arrangements, perhaps with one friendly to Him, for celebrating the feast in his house. Bearing a pitcher.—Probably the significance of this sign is to be explained by the fact that it was the custom for the head of a family to draw a pitcher of pure water for kneading the unleavened bread. It was a formal piece of ritual
Luke 22:11. Goodman.—I.e., as in Luke 12:39, the paterfamilias. Guest-chamber.—The same word which is translated “inn” (Luke 2:7).
Luke 22:14. The hour.—I.e., appointed for the paschal supper. Sat down.—I.e., reclined the custom of standing at the paschal feast having been long given up by the Jews. Twelve apostles.—Omit “twelve”; omitted in R.V. Probably the word is taken from Matthew 26:20; Mark 14:17.
Luke 22:15. With desire, etc.—A Hebraism for “I have earnestly desired.”
Luke 22:16. I will not any more, etc.—“He should hold no more social converse with them on earth up to the period when the work of redemption by His blood (that sacrifice of which the Passover was the type) should be accomplished, and the kingdom of God established” (Bloomfield).
Luke 22:17. And He took.—Rather “and He received a cup” (R.V.)—i.e., the first cup of the Passover-meal, of which Christ evidently drank. Gave thanks.—As was usual before partaking of this cup. The formula of thanksgiving was, “Blessed be Thou, O Lord our God, who hast created the fruit of the vine.” To this Christ evidently alludes in Luke 22:18.
Luke 22:19. Which is given for you.—This clause is not found in the parallel passages in St. Matthew and St. Mark. In some MSS. the phrase that corresponds to it in 1 Corinthians 11:24 is “which is broken for you.” In the R.V. this last is relegated to the margin, and the text is, “which is for you”—which seems a mutilated sentence. New Testament.—R.V. “new covenant.” The word means both a will and an agreement. In the new relation between God and man there is both an absolute element (will), and a conditional (covenant).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Luke 22:7-20
The Lord’s Supper.
I. The preparation.—Peculiar to this Gospel are the names of the disciples sent to make ready the Passover and the representation of the command as preceding the disciples’ question, “Where?” The selection of Peter and John indicates the confidential nature of the task, which comes out still more plainly in the singular directions given to them. How is the designation of the place which Christ gives to be understood? Was it supernatural knowledge, or was it the result of previous arrangement with the “goodman of the house”? Most probably the latter, for he was in so far a disciple that he recognised Jesus as the Master, and was glad to have Him in his house, and the chamber on the roof was ready “furnished” when they came. Why this mystery about the place? Because Judas was listening, too, for the answer to “Where?” thinking that it would give him the “opportunity” which he sought “to betray Him in the absence of the multitude.” Jesus takes precautions to delay the cross. He takes none to escape it, but rather sets Himself in these last days to bring it near. The variety in His action means no change in His mind, but both modes are equally the result of His self-forgetting love to us all.
II. The revelation of Christ’s heart (Luke 22:14-18).—He discloses His earnest desire for that last hour of calm before He went out to face the storm, and His vision of the future feast in the perfect kingdom. That desire touchingly shows His brotherhood in all our shrinking from parting with dear ones, and in our treasuring of the last, sweet, sad moments of being together. But the desire was not for Himself only. He wished to partake of that Passover, and then to transform it for ever, and to leave the new rite to His servants. We shall best conceive the course of events if we suppose that the earlier stages of the paschal ceremonial were duly attended to, and that the Lord’s Supper was instituted in connection with its later parts. There is no need to discuss the exact stage at which our Lord spoke and acted as recorded in Luke 22:15-17. It is sufficient to note that in them He gives what He does not taste, and that, in giving, His thoughts travel beyond all the sorrow and death to reunion and perfected festal joys. The prophetic aspect of the Lord’s Supper should never be left out of view. It is at once a feast of memory and of hope, and is also a symbol for the present, since it represents the conditions of spiritual life as being participation in the body and blood of Christ.
III. The actual institution of the Lord’s Supper (Luke 22:19-20).—Note its connection with the rite which it transforms. The Passover was the memorial of deliverance, the very centre of Jewish ritual. It was a family feast, and our Lord took the place of the head of the household. But this memorial of deliverance He transfigures—He calls upon Jew and Gentile to forget the venerable meaning of the rite, and remember rather His work for all men. He must have been clothed with Divine authority to abrogate a Divinely enjoined ceremony. The separation of the symbols of the body and blood plainly indicates that it is the death of Jesus, and that a violent one, which is being commemorated. Both parts of the symbol teach that all our hopes are rooted in the death of Jesus, and that the only true life of our spirits comes from participation in His death, and thereby in His life. Jesus declares, by this rite, that through His death a new “covenant” comes into force as between God and man, in which all the anticipations of prophets are more than realised, and sins are remembered no more, and the knowledge of God becomes the blessing of all, and a close relationship of mutual possession is established between God and us, and His laws are written on loving hearts and softened wills. St. Luke alone preserves for us the command to “do this,” which at once establishes the rite as meant to be perpetual, and defines the new nature of it. It is a memorial: “in order to My remembrance.” Jesus knew that we should be in constant danger of forgetting Him, and therefore, in this one case, He enlists sense on the side of faith, and trusts to these homely memorials the recalling to our treacherous memories of His dying love. He wished to live in our hearts, and that for the satisfaction of His own love and for the deepening of ours. The Lord’s Supper is a standing evidence of Christ’s own estimate of where the centre of His work lies. We are to remember His death. Surely no view of the significance and purpose of the cross but that which sees in it a propitiation for the world’s sins accounts for this rite. A Christianity which strikes the atoning death of Jesus out of its theology is sorely embarrassed to find a worthy meaning for His dying command, “This do in remembrance of Me.”—Maclaren.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luke 22:7-20
Luke 22:7-38. Outline of The Narrative.—
1. Preparations for the Last Supper (Luke 22:7-13).
2. The Last Supper itself (Luke 22:14-23).
3. The conversation following it (Luke 22:24-38).
Luke 22:7. “When the Passover must be killed.”—The example of Christ in observing the outward ordinances of the Jewish religion should suggest to us the duty of a like scrupulousness in keeping those of our religion.
Luke 22:8. “Sent Peter and John.”—This errand was
(1) an exercise in faith and obedience; and
(2) the result of it was calculated to encourage them to believe in His hidden greatness, in spite of His humiliation.
Luke 22:9-10.—The mystery with which Christ surrounded His procedure on this occasion:
1. By concealing the information of the place from Judas, it was a measure of precaution for Himself.
2. It impressed upon the minds of His disciples the fact of His absolute foreknowledge of all events.
Luke 22:10-12.—A Sign Given to The Disciples:
1. To impress them with the dignity and solemnity of this Passover celebration.
2. To convince them of His own Divine foreknowledge and almighty power—in predicting what was to happen and in making provision for celebrating the feast.
Luke 22:10. The Man Bearing a Pitcher.
I. The Passover was observed in the midst of ordinary life and its familiar surroundings.—This was a specially solemn and significant occasion. And yet, peculiarly holy and full of world-wide, time-long meaning as it was, it took place among the common details of family life. It was not held in a court of the Temple, but in the upper room of an unknown citizen. It was not ushered in by pomp and ceremony and portent, but by a humble servant carrying a pitcher of water for household purposes. Our Passover—the Lord’s Supper—ought not to be dissociated from our ordinary life, and made an unearthly, unnatural experience. Too much superstitious feeling still clings to the ordinance. Many are afraid to partake of it. They practically disobey Christ’s loving command.
II. The Lord’s Supper is, after all, but a household service, a family meal, linked most closely with all the familiar things of our common life.—Bread and wine are common things. The Communion Service is a part of the common worship of the sanctuary. Only here the symbols appeal to the eye, and to the touch and taste. The Communion Table is only the upper chamber of the familiar Church. This is no high mystic service, no exclusive channel of grace. There is no sacramentarianism about it.
III. Let the significant lesson of the man carrying the pitcher of water, pointing the way to the upper room, teach us that so every circumstance of our ordinary life, however homely, should have reference to and prepare for the Holy Supper as often as we are called upon to observe it.—We should so live that no special preparation need be made for our sitting down at the Lord’s Table—that wherever we are, and however engaged, we may always be in a suitable frame of mind to enjoy the Holy Communion. Let our whole life, religious and secular, be of one piece, and so our daily carrying of the pitcher of water for household purposes, the daily business of our life, will lead to and prepare for the perpetual communion feast of heaven.—Macmillan.
Luke 22:11. “The goodman of the house.”—As there was among His friends a secret enemy, so was there among His enemies a secret friend.—Braune.
Luke 22:12. “Upper room.”—The usual place of resort for large gatherings in a Jewish house; probably the very room which also witnessed the appearance of the risen Christ to the twelve, and the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost.—Farrar.
The Best to be Offered to Christ.—The man who is to lend the room knows Jesus, and is, in some measure, a disciple. He had, apparently, already been told by some one that such a room would be required. But the “upper room” was not the “guest chamber” which the Master asked for. It was a quieter place, not on the ground floor, but upstairs. Christ asked merely for the lower room, the common guest-chamber, but was supplied with a better reserved for special purposes and occasions. When Christ makes any demand on us, let as give Him even more and better than He asks for.
I. It was an upper room.—A private room above the hall or guest-chamber. The “best” room in the house. He could have privacy there with His disciples. He wants it all, and all for Himself. Do we offer to Christ the best we have?
II. It was a furnished room.—It was supplied with couches and table, with cups and vessels. Are our hearts furnished and ready with what Christ loves—prayers, hymns, thanksgivings, holy thoughts, good deeds, kind words? There He can rest and abide.
III. It was a large room.—Of ample accommodation. A party of thirteen needed more room than a tiny chamber. Are we niggardly to Christ? Do we put Him in the smallest room? Have we place in our hearts for His disciples? He will come to bless. Give Him room to work.—Plummer.
Luke 22:13. “Found as He had said.”—The directions had been given with great circumstantiality—the entrance of the city, a man, meeting them, carrying a pitcher of water, entering a house. Had any one of these particulars been found wanting, the prophecy would have proved untrue, and the disciples would have failed in their errand.
Luke 22:14 to Luke 23:1. The words of Jesus introductory to the Supper (Luke 22:14-18).
2. The Supper itself, with the institution of the new rite (Luke 22:19-20).
3. The announcement of the treachery of one of the disciples.
Luke 22:14. “The twelve apostles with Him.”—The presence of Judas at this Last Supper in distinctly asserted here, as well as in Luke 22:21. The fact that Christ, who was acquainted with his secret villainy, did not exclude him is very significant. It implies that a man who makes profession of religion, and in whose outward life there is nothing scandalous, cannot reasonably be denied the external privileges of religion. The endeavour to secure, by rigid scrutiny and long probation, that none but the regenerate are in the visible Church finds little to countenance it in the New Testament. It is calculated to discourage the timid and self-distrustful, and as a matter of fact it does not keep out hypocrites.
The First Word at The Supper.—
I. An utterance of human tenderness.—A consecration of all that is purest and loftiest in the brotherhood of men. Christ craves to eat with His brother men. He anticipates the responsive love of those whom He has called to Himself—“With you.” This is beautifully, unselfishly human. The heart of God is human, and longs to find itself welcomed, understood, and responded to.
II. An utterance full of the purpose and travail of the Redeemer.—There is an element in the longing of Christ above and beyond the feeling of the Israelite towards the national festival. It is the last Passover of the true Israel of God. The time of the Re-formation has arrived. The kingdom is coming. The complete ingathering of the redeemed is in view. And, till then, he takes farewell of all earthly rite and ordinance.—Lang.
Luke 22:15-16. “With desire,” etc.
I. For the sake of His disciples to whom, on this occasion of farewell, He was to reveal the intensity of His affection for them.
II. For His own sake, because immediately after this Passover He was to enter into His glory.
Luke 22:15. “I have desired.”—Very vehement desire is on no other occasion attributed to our Lord, either by Himself or by others. So great was this occasion, when, before He left His disciples, He had to give to them the new covenant of His Body and Blood.
“Before I suffer.”—This is the only instance in the Gospels in which the word “suffer” is used in its absolute sense, as in the creed—“He suffered under Pontius Pilate.”
Reasons why Christ Desired so Earnestly to Eat this Last Passover.
I. The Passover had now reached its end, and found its full meaning.
II. He desired it for the support of His own soul in the approaching struggle.—“Before I suffer.”
III. Because His friends needed special support. “To eat this Passover with you.”
IV. Because this Passover looked forward to all the future of His Church and people.—Ker.
Luke 22:16. “Until it be fulfilled.”—Jesus has in view a new banquet, which will be held after the consummation of all things. The Holy Supper is the bond of union between the Jewish Passover, which is now nearing its end, and the heavenly banquet yet to come, just as the salvation of the gospel, of which the Supper is the monument, forms the transition between the external deliverance of Israel and the salvation, at once spiritual and external, of the glorified Church.—Godet.
Luke 22:17-20. The Lord’s Supper is a Monument Sacred to the Memory of Jesus Christ.—
1. It refers to the death of Jesus.
2. Its significance does not depend upon the tragic circumstances of that death, or to its glorious character as an act of martyrdom.
3. Jesus represents His death as a sin-offering; His blood is shed for the remission of sins.
4. The sacrament of the Supper represents Christ, not merely as a Lamb, to be slain for a sin-offering, but as a Paschal Lamb, to be eaten for spiritual nourishment.—Bruce.
The Last Supper.—The Supper brings before us—
I. A Saviour.—Every part of it fixes our gaze, not on it, but on Him.
II. A human Saviour.—He sits, eats, drinks, speaks, has a body and blood, dies.
III. A suffering Saviour.—The bread is broken through and through. The wine is poured out. These acts symbolise and emphasise His sufferings. His death is the central fact.
IV. A willing Saviour.—He gave thanks, though He knew of all that was in “the cup”—Gethsemane, Calvary, and the grave. With more than willingness—with positive joy—He gave Himself for our salvation.
V. A sin-bearing Saviour.—This is Christ’s explanation of His own death. Let us be content with it. He came to “give His life a ransom for many.”—Wells.
Luke 22:17. “He took the cup.”—I.e., the Paschal cup, of which Christ now partook for the last time: in Luke 22:20 it is the eucharistic cup of which He did not partake.
Luke 22:18. “I will not drink.”—As Luke 22:16 means, “This is My last Passover,” so this means, “This is My last meal”—My last day. To the reference here to a future banquet, in which Christ Himself will participate, corresponds the saying of St. Paul, “until He come” (1 Corinthians 11:26).
Luke 22:19-20. The Lord’s Supper is
(1) a memorial of Christ;
(2) a standing evidence of the truth of Christianity;
(3) an act by which we profess our faith in His atoning sacrifice;
(4) an act of communion with God, and with our fellow-believers; and
(5) one which is intended to lead us to anticipate our Lord’s second coming.
Divine Object-Lessons.—“This bread.’ “This cup.”
I. “This bread.”—God does not separate sign and thing signified. Nor should we.
1. Take.—Christ is to be taken as we take the bread. He comes to us from without. He is offered to us.
2. Eat.—The bread is ready for eating. It is not grain, but food. Eating is a perfect illustration of appropriation, assimilation, incorporation. Eaten bread makes brain, heart, hand. Christ should thus create and nourish convictions, affections, activities.
3. Divide it.—Pass it round. It is a family meal. A reminder of brotherly love. It is free to all. There is enough for all.
II. “This cup.”—
1. It is filled. You are not offered an empty cup. He gave Himself to fill this cup with His life-blood for you.
2. It is offered to you. Not a far-off, vague uncertainty, like the Holy Grail. It is brought near, it touches your hand, your lip. Not to take it were an outrage.
3. It is to be partaken of. Untouched, it mocks your thirst as the cup of Tantalus did. It cheers you only when you taste its contents.
4. It is passed on. It is a social, not a solitary cup. The Divine order is from Christ through His disciples. A symbol of fraternity. Let all taste of it.—Wells.
Luke 22:19. “Gave thanks.”—
1. For the higher food symbolised by it.
2. As ordaining it to be a means of spiritual nourishment.
Old and New.—
I. An old feast.—The Passover feast.
II. A new feast.—Christ the Passover Lamb.
III. The new command.—Do this.—W. Taylor.
“In remembrance of Me.”—The word used is more emphatic than remembrance (which may be involuntary); it is a deliberate, inward act of the will, showing itself by external signs.
Luke 22:20. “This cup.”—The fact that Jesus took in His hands a portion of bread and a cup of wine forbids that literal identification of the bread and wine with His body and blood upon which both Roman Catholic and Lutherian divines have insisted. The distinction between the two was evident at the time. If such literal identification were intended, the words of institution would virtually mean, “This, in time to come, will be My body, My blood.” Is it possible that such an idea entered into the minds of those who were present at that Supper?
“New Testament.”—A new covenant between God and man, based upon the sacrifice of Christ.
I. The free gift of salvation on the part of God.
II. The acceptance of it, by faith, on the part of man.—This is symbolised by the cup which Jesus hands to His disciples, and which they may freely take and raise to their lips.