LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Concordia Lutheran Seminary

WILLIAMS: THE EUCHARIST IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 99
officially displaces the old one of Moses. As Moses inaugurates his covenant
by means of blood, (9:19) so also the New diaqh,kh cannot be put into effect
without blood. Such blood puts the diaqh,kh into effect because it is the
official evidence that the testator has, in fact, died. Therefore, what the blood
of Christ does is to officially “proclaim, present,” and “officially make
known” the fact that Christ had died, so that His New diaqh,kh is in effect.
Those to whom the blood needs to be made known are the Christians as its
beneficiaries. Although Attridge claims the force of fe,resqai to be nothing
more than a “technical legal sense of ‘to be reported’ or ‘registered’ and thus
officially recognised”, 28 the description of the attestation of the first diaqh,kh
by Moses appears to suggest something more. In the Exodus 34 account as
described in 10:19-22, Moses did not just report to the people the existence
of the attesting blood. He, in fact, “made” the blood “known to them”, and
“sprinkled all the people” with it. That implications from this can be drawn
concerning the Lord’s Supper is suggested by the fact that the wording of
Moses’ words are made to conform exactly to the Eucharist words of
Institution according to the Gospel of Matthew. 29 Indeed, “the whole passage
9:11-28 is a carefully woven fabric of themes involving blood, testament,
and forgiveness, with the old and the new dispensations being contrasted in
all three points in the context of cult”, with “the cultic blood of the old
‘testament’ … compared with Christ’s Eucharistic blood, the cultic blood of
the new testament.’ 30 In the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, each
believer has the attesting blood of the new diaqh,kh not merely talked about
to them, but shown, presented, and made known to them.
A look at the parallel use of the term “tent” appears to offer more
evidence for this conclusion. Since the term “tent” is used within a context
of a comparison between the temple of the Old covenant and Christ, and that
“New Testament catechesis attests to the close relationship between the earth
and Resurrection of Christ and the theme of the temple”, 31 it seems plausible
that “tent” in 9:11 refers to Christ’s glorified body. 32 9:8 indicates that the
28
Attridge 256.
29
It is perhaps also significant that Matthew, more than any of the other Gospels, pictures
Christ as the fulfilment the Old Testament and, in fact, as “the New Moses”.
30
Swetnam, “Tent” 99.
31
Swetnam, “Tent” 94.
32
Swetnam demonstrates that there is ample evidence to show that Hebrews would have
adopted the “New testament catechesis” which “attests to the close relationship between the
death and resurrection of Christ and the theme of the temple: the early Christians were aware
that the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem would not affect their access to God, for they
could approach him through the risen body of Christ” (Swetnam, “Tent” 94). A most serious
argument against referring to the tent as Christ’s body is that the tent is said to be “not made
with hands, which would obviously not be the case with Christ’s body which is ‘in every way
just as we are’” (4:15). However, Swetnam cites Mk 14:58 as one other place where Christ