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The institution of the Lord's Supper:
v. 19. And He took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is My body, which is given for you; this do in remembrance of Me.
v. 20. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you.
The meal proper was drawing to a close. The Lord had fulfilled the obligations and responsibilities of the old law and its worship. He had observed the sacrament of the Old Testament for the last time. But now Jesus instituted anew and wonderful meal, in which the glorious fruit of His suffering was bequeathed to His disciples and all believers of the New Testament. While they were still at the table, the Lord took some of the bread which had remained, consecrated it with a prayer of thanksgiving, broke it, and gave it to them with the words: This is My body, which is given for you; this do for My remembrance. In going from one to the other, He varied the formula, but the content, the substance of His words, remained the same. Then He took the cup, very likely the third cup of the Passover meal, the cup of thanksgiving, saying: This cup is the new covenant, or testament, in My blood, which is shed for you. In and through the blood of the Savior the New Testament is established. He has removed the wall of separation between the holy, righteous God and the sinful world by the shedding of His blood, and wants to give the glorious benefits of His atonement to all that believe on Him, in the Sacrament. Through the eating and drinking of His body and blood the forgiveness of sins is assured, sealed to the believers. We Christians believe and confess that the Sacrament of the Altar is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the bread and wine, for us Christians to eat and to drink, instituted by Christ Himself. Our reason indeed cannot understand how the miracle is possible; it is inclined to believe either in the transubstantiation of the Catholics, according to which the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ, or in the reasonable explanation of the Reformed churches, according to which the body and blood of Christ are not at all present, but are merely pictured symbolically. But the words of Christ are clear and true, and we know from Scriptures that the body of Christ, the vessel of His deity, even in the days of His humiliation, in addition to the circumscribed existence, had a higher, super sensual being, Joh_3:13, and that the exalted Christ, who has ascended to the right hand of God, is not confined to one certain place in heaven, but as the God-man has the fullness that filleth all in all, Eph_1:23. Therefore we take our reason captive under the obedience of Christ and do not rack our brains over the difficulty, but rather thank the Lord for the blessing of this Sacrament, out of which we gain ever again the certainty of the forgiveness of sins.