The Bread He Broke at the Threshold

The chapters of Part Three have shown when the Last Supper was eaten and what bread was on its table. That is a matter of dates and words, but dates and words lead somewhere. Once we see what kind of meal it was, the act of Yeshua at that meal comes into deeper focus. His holding of a final leavened meal on the evening of the thirteenth was not incidental. It stood at the very edge of the whole festival.

The Threshold Meal

The Passover, which begins with the evening of the fourteenth, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread form one continuous festival. From the moment the daytime of the thirteenth passed into the evening of the fourteenth, to the evening of the twenty-first, no leaven could be eaten or found in the house; in practice none was eaten even through the whole evening of the twenty-first. Within that structure, the evening that began the thirteenth was the time when every household ate the last of its leavened food, the meal that cleared out the leaven, with leavened bread and wine, as Chapter 20 showed. That final leavened meal stood at the threshold between the old and the new.

Leaven has a meaning in Scripture. Yeshua warned His disciples, “beware of the zyme ζύμη dzoo'-may(leaven, corruption) of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” and Matthew explains that He meant “the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matthew 16:11-12). Paul speaks of “leaven of malice and wickedness,” and warns that “a little zyme(leaven, corruption) leavens the whole lump” (1 Corinthians 5:6, 8). In these places leaven stands for corrupt teaching and for malice and wickedness, for what spreads through the whole and spoils it. So the last leavened meal was eaten at the very boundary where the old was to be put away, in readiness for the unleavened state of purity that the feast required.

He Took Ordinary Bread

It was at this meal, on this evening, that Yeshua took bread, as Matthew records (Matthew 26:26). The bread He took was the leavened artos ἄρτος ar'-tos of that evening, and over it He said, “Take, eat — this is My body.” In Greek, touto estin to soma mou.

Yeshua Himself was without sin. Scripture says of Him plainly:

1 Peter 2:22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth;

He had no corruption in Him. Yet within the timetable of the feast, at the meal where the old leaven was being finished, He took the ordinary leavened bread and said of it, “this is My body.” He identified Himself with what had to come to an end and be removed from the house before the feast could begin.

Luke records what He added: “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19). The body was given, and in the daytime of that same thirteenth day it was given on the cross.

Clean Out the Old Leaven

Paul’s words, which we read in Chapter 23, fit that table: “Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are unleavened; for Messiah our Passover has been sacrificed for us.” The physical death of Yeshua is the removal of the leaven: the end of the old, and the threshold into the new lump. That is why Paul can say to believers “you are unleavened” and in the same breath tell them to clean out the old leaven. What the Messiah has done is the foundation; it is given, not earned. The walk that follows is the keeping of the feast “with the unleavened bread of sincerity and aletheia ἀλήθεια al-ay'-thi-a(truth).” Grace comes first, and those who have received it are called to walk in it.

The Sequence Fulfilled

The meaning of the supper becomes clearest when it is set in the whole sequence of those days, which the parts ahead will open one by one.

This sequence could not have been devised by human skill. The appointed times of the Torah were given to Moses many centuries before, and they were fulfilled to the hour in the life of Yeshua. That is evidence that all of it was accomplished within the plan of God, prepared from the beginning.

The End of Part Three

This part began with a claim that most Christians have never questioned: that the Last Supper was the Passover meal. We have tested it against the Torah and the Gospels.

The Torah commands unleavened bread from the evening of the fourteenth, and it gives no command for the thirteenth (Exodus 12:18; Leviticus 23:5-6). In a household without refrigeration, the evening that began the thirteenth was naturally the last leavened meal. The Gospel writers knew the two Greek words for bread, and they used azumos ἄζυμος ad'-zoo-mos when they named the feast and artos for the bread at the table. All four witnesses, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul, wrote artos. John marked the supper “before the Feast of the Passover” (John 13:1), noted that on the morning of the trial the leaders had not yet eaten the Passover (John 18:28), and named the day of the judgment “the preparation day for the Passover” (John 19:14). And at that threshold meal, Yeshua took the ordinary bread of the evening and said, “this is My body.”

Paul adds one more line to the account he handed on: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). The bread of the threshold meal points forward to the death that followed it.

Part Four follows the hours from that table to the tomb. It begins where the supper ended, in the night in which He was betrayed.