Is the Eucharist foreshadowed in the Old Testament?

Answer 1

The Eucharist (or mass, Holy Communion, Lord's Supper) was instituted by Jesus Christ in the New Testament (not Old) on the night before he was crucified when he broke bread with his disciples and instituting a new covenant between God and humanity. According to what Paul recounted in Corinthians 11:23-26, in the course of the Last Supper, and with specific reference to eating bread and drinking from a cup, Jesus told his disciples, "Do this in remembrance of me". Other accounts of the event are recorded in the four gospels. The Last Supper itself was believed to be a commemoration of the Passover - a meal held to commemorate the time when the Israelites were released from slavery in Egypt as recorded in Exodus. After many plagues, and broken promises made by the Egyptian pharaoh the final plague was the killing of the firstborn - when every firstborn child - including the firstborn of all animals, and even the Pharaoh's own son, died. The Israelites, however, escaped death as the 'angel of death' "passed over" their houses. As a result of this the Israelites were freed, God making his covenant with them. So the Eucharist is based on the Covenant between God and Humanity through Jesus, although the events surrounding this covenant had their roots in the Passover as recorded in Exodus in thhe Old Testament. Answer Other events worth mentioning that foreshadow the Eucharist include Melchisedech, whom Abram met. Melchisedech was both priest and king of Salem, as Christ was both priest and king through David's line. Melchisedech offered bread and wine to God as Christ did at the Last Supper.

The Passover, as outlined in Exodus 12, involves that a lamb without blemish be sacrificed. John the Baptist called Christ, "…the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29) who was killed without blemish, as declared by Pilate "I find no guilt in him" (John 18:38). As at the Passover, the Faithful are called to eat the lamb by Christ "…Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you" (John 6:53). Before the Passover, the community was to gather to publicly sacrifice the lambs, so too is the Eucharist a public act of the Church. The feast of unleavened bread was to be kept as a "perpetual institution" and indeed its elements, charged with deeper significance and meaning by Christ who instituted the Eucharist during the Passover, continue in the Eucharist when Christ asked, "Do this in memory of me" (Luke 22:19).

As well, the manna and quail from heaven (Exodus 16) is yet another telling symbol of the Eucharist. The manna was miraculous, and was meant not only to fill their bellies but also to renew their Faith. So too is the Eucharist primarily a spiritual food that comes down from heaven. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No, There IS an old testament event. When God's people were trying to escape Egypt, they put the blood of a lamb on their doors, and ate the rest of the lamb and a dry loaf of bread. This was where the Eucharist was symbolized/rooted. God's people then gave thanks to the Lord, and soon, they escaped.

Answer 2

No, the Eucharist is not foreshadowed in the Old Testament. However Burton L. Mack describes a trick that can be used to make any Old Testament book say what you want it to say. Mack says in Who Wrote the New Testament that at first the study of a text may not seem to support a traditional Christian conviction, or the answer one hopes to find in The Bible. But with a little ingenuity, one can set up the comparison again with other emphases and make the answer come out right. This trick seems to come naturally when studying the Bible, and Mack sees it happen all the time in the classrooms of the School of Theology at Claremont.

Relying on Mack's advice, some of the passages we can make appear to foreshadow the Eucharist include:

• Genesis 4:10, "The voice of your brother's blood is crying to Me from the ground."
• Genesis 14:18, "Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High"

Notice that in 4:10, God was merely angry that Cain had killed Abel and sprinkled his blood on the ground. It takes imagination and Mack's advice to turn this into a foreshadowment of the Eucharist. Similarly, it could be expected that a high priest would have offerred bread and wine: this was a cultural necessity. But here we can make it appear to foreshadow the Eucharist.

In some cases Jesus, or the authors of the gospels, quoted from the Old Testament, using much the same form of words. We can turn this around to say that the Old Testament actually foreshadowed those words. So, when (Exodus 24:8) Moses threw the blood of sacrificed oxen on the people, saying "Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you," Matthew more or less repeated the words at verse 26:28, "This is my blood of the covenant." Mack says this can be portrayed as a prefigurement, although it is clear that the author of Exodus did not really have Jesus in mind.