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Luk_22:19-20. See on Mat_26:26-28; Mar_14:22 f.; 1Co_11:23 ff. Luke agrees with Paul, not, however, repeating, in the case of the cup, the expression τοῦτο ποιεῖτε κ . τ . λ ., which is not found at all in Matthew and Mark.
τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν διδόμενον ] which for your advantage (to procure your reconciliation and justification, and your Messianic salvation, comp. on Mat_20:28) is given up. The entire context suggests the qualifying clause εἰς θάνατον . Comp. Gal_1:4; Rom_8:32; 1Ti_2:6; Tit_2:15. In respect of the expression, Wetstein justly compares Libanius, Orat. 35, p. 705: καὶ τὸ σῶμα ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἐπέδωκεν , and similar passages.
τοῦτο ποιεῖτε ] to wit, the breaking of the bread after thanksgiving, and the distribution and partaking of the same. On ποιεῖν , occupying the place of more definite verbs, which the context suggests, see Bornemann, and Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. iii. 8. 2; Schoemann, ad Is. de Ap. her. 35.
εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμν .] for the remembrance of me.[249] See Winer, p. 138 [E. T. 192]. It is a mistake to say that this purpose of the Lord’s Supper must be appropriate only to the partaking of the real body and blood of Christ (see Kahnis, Lehre v. Abendm. p. 87). Rather in respect of such a partaking that statement of purpose appears too disproportioned and weak,[250] since it would already certify far more than the remembrance; in opposition to which the idea of the ἀνάμνησις of that which the symbols represent, is in keeping with the symbolic character of the celebration (Plat. Phaed. p. 74 A: τὴν ἀνάμνησιν εἶναι μὲν ἀφʼ ὁμοίων ). Comp. Justin, Ap. I. 66, where it is said of the cup: εἰς ἀνάμνησιν τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ .
Luk_22:20. ὡσαύτως ] to wit, λαβὼν εὐχαριστήσας ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς .
τὸ ποτήριον ] the cup before them.
μετὰ τὸ δειπνῆσαι ] “facto transitu ad majora et ultima,” Bengel. It was, to wit, the fourth cup which made the conclusion of the whole meal. See on Mat_26:27.
τοῦτο τὸ ποτήριον κ . τ . λ .] this cup is the new covenant by means of my blood, i.e. it is the new covenant by the fact that it contains my blood, which is shed for your salvation. Comp. on 1Co_11:25. In the wine which is poured into the cup Jesus sees His (atoning, Rom_3:25; Rom_5:3) blood, which is on the point of being shed; and because through this shedding of His blood the new covenant is to be established, he explains the cup, by virtue of its contents, as the new covenant—a symbolism natural to the deeply-moved, solemn state of mind, to which no greater wrong can be done than is perpetrated by the controversies about the est, which Luke has not at all! Paul, in 1Co_11:25, inserts ἐστίν after διαθήκη , and consequently also, in so far as the passage before us is concerned, forbids the affixing ἐν τῷ αἵματί μου to ἡκαινὴ διαθήκη , as many of the older (not Luther[251]) and of the more recent writers (not Kahnis, Osiander, Rückert, p. 232) do. So also even Ebrard (d. Dogma vom heil. Abendm. I. p. 113), who, besides, lays an emphasis upon μου not belonging to it, at least according to the expression of Luke, when he interprets the passage: “the new covenant made in my blood, not in the sacrificial blood of the Old Testament.”
ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη ] opposed to the old Mosaic covenant, whose condition was the fulfilling of the law (in the new: faith). See on 1Co_11:25.
τὸ … ἐκχυνόμενον ] belongs, although in the nominative, to τῷ αἵματί μου , as an epexegetical clause. The abnormal use of the case is occasioned by the fact that, according to Luk_22:19, the idea prevails: that the cup (in respect of its contents) is the blood of the new covenant which is shed. Consequently τὸ … ἐκχυνόμενον is applied to τῷ αἵματί μου because τὸ αἷμά μου has floated before the mind of the speaker as the logical predicate, even although it did not become the grammatical predicate. Thus the nominatival expression more emphatically brings into prominence what is declared of the blood ( τὸ … ἐκχυν .) than would be the case if it were joined on in the dative. Comp. Jam_3:8 (where μεστὴ ἰοῦ is joined to the logical subject γλῶσσα , which, however, is not the grammatical subject); Rev_3:12; Rev_8:9; Mar_12:40; Joh_1:14; Kühner, § 677; Winer, pp. 471, 473 [E. T. 668–670 f.]. According to Baur’s view, τὸ … ἐκχυνόμ . comes back to a very awkward transposition of the words from Mat_26:28. Comp. also Rückert, p. 208, and Bleek and Holtzmann. Erroneously Euthymius Zigabenus, Calovius, Jansen, Michaelis, and others, including Bornemann, read: “poculum, quod in vestram salutem effunditur.” What is this supposed to mean? Calovius answers: “Dicitur effusum pro nobis propter sanguinem, quem Christus mediante poculo praebebat.” A forcible dislocation which, moreover, occurs in other old dogmatical writers, Chemnitz, Gerhard, and others. See Kahnis, Abendm. p. 103. This reference to the cup appeared to give a support to the explanation of the actual blood.
[249] To lay a contrasted emphasis on ἐμήν (not in remembrance of the deliverance from Egypt; so Lindner, Abendm. p. 91 f., and Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 218) is mistaken, because not suggested in the context. See Rückert, Abendm. p. 200 f.
[250] Kahnis says: “Only when body and blood are essentially present and essentially living can the remembrance of the death which they have passed through and swallowed up in victory and life be made prominent as a separate point, without giving rise to a feeble and bungling tautology.” But the point on which stress is laid in this assertion, “which they have passed through and swallowed up in victory and life,” does not in reality appear at all there, but is added in thought and read into the passage. Rightly does Keim bring forward in the Jahrb. f. Deutsche Theol. 1859, p. 94, that the significance of the last supper as a remembrance cannot be maintained together with the orthodox interpretation of the words of institution. He aptly shows that the symbolical understanding of the words of institution, “this is,” etc., is the correct one, and comes to the conclusion that the essential actual body was spiritually represented by the word to faith, but was not bodily given in corporeal presence to every recipient. Comp. on Mat_26:26, and on 1Co_11:24. How even Kahnis subsequently gave up the orthodox doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, see in his Dogmat. I. p. 616 ff. But how even to this day the Catholics make out the continuity of the sacrifice of Jesus by the priests, see in Döllinger, Christenth. und Kirche, p. 38, and Schegg.
[251] In his Gr. Bekenntn.: “for the reason that Christ’s blood is there.”
REMARK.
In the words of institution all four narrators vary from one another, although not essentially, which serves to prove that a mode of formulating them had not yet taken any fixed shape. Luke agrees the most closely with Paul, which is explained by his relation to him. The Pauline narrative, however, attains great weight, indeed, through his ἐγὼ γὰρ παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου , 1Co_11:23 (see on the passage), and the ministry of the apostle makes it conceivable how his formula might fix itself liturgically; this, however, does not prevent our recovering the most primitive form of the words of Jesus in the simple narrative of Mark, which gradually underwent expansions. Wilke, Urevang. p. 142, is wrong in regarding Luk_22:20 in Luke as a later addition. The first distribution of the cup, Luk_22:17, does not indeed yet belong entirely to the Lord’s Supper, and as yet has no symbolism. According to Ewald (see his Jahrb. II. p. 194 f.), the agreement between Luke and Paul is explained by the fact that both have in this particular used one source (the oldest Gospel, probably composed by Philip the evangelist). But in general there is no proof of Paul’s having made use of a written Gospel; neither in particular is the passage in 1Co_11:23, ἐγὼ γὰρ παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου , in any way favourable to that supposition.