Lord's Supper as Covenantal Renewal

Matthew Mason and I have been collecting some quotes and thoughts on the Lord's Supper as Covenantal Renewal:

The Lord’s Supper as Covenant Renewal

Biblical basis– this really needs work!

What do we learn from the OT about covenant renewal? What role do assemblies, meals and sacrifices play in it?

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1 Cor 11:25 – “This cup is the New Covenant (diathe_ke_) in my blood; do this as often as you drink for my remembrance (anamine_sin)” – remember / call to mind – check out LXX usages? - Memorial? (I take it Renewal would be an illegitimate translation?)
(cf 1 Cor 4:17 – Timothy will remind you of my ways in X)
anamne_sis: remembrance - LXX: Ps 37 (38), 69 (70)
Someone more competent than me in the languages needs to beaver away at these!

Though they don’t talk about the Lord’s Supper, Hebrews 9 & 10 could be important passages for all this (esp. what the Lord’s Supper is not!)
– covenant / will in effect through death (9v16), blood (9v17) – 9v20, blood of the covenant – X not offered repeatedly, once for all sacrifice for sin (9v25f)
sacrifices, (burnt) offerings etc. - new covenant of Jer 31:34 (10v16) no sacrifices for sin (10v18)

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The idea of the sacraments as covenantal signs / seals would be v. common (?):

E.g. John Preston: the Eucharist as “nothing else but a Seal of the Gospel of the New Covenant. The Gospel is an offer of Christ to all who will take him for the remission of sins. In the sacrament there is an offer of Christ to us. The Gospel presents it to us under audible words, and the sacrament presents it to us under visible figures; this is all the difference. If we would know what the sacrament is, consider what the Gospel is and the covenant, and you shall know what it is, for it is but a seal, but a memorial of the Gospel.” (quoted in Cocksworth, Christopher J., Evangelical Eucharistic Thought In The Church of England (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993), p58)

John Owen: “The administration of the seals of the covenant is committed unto them [pastors], as the stewards of the house of Christ; for unto them the authoritative dispensation of the word is committed, whereunto the administration of the seals is annexed; for their principal end is the peculiar confirmation and application of the word preached.” (Works, The True Nature of a Gospel Church (Volume 16), Chapter 5: The Especial Duties of Pastors of Churches, p79)

Perhaps Pictet’s “confirm” is not a million miles from “renew”?
“Such is the goodness of God towards the church, that not content with entering into a covenant of grace with it, he has condescended to confirm that covenant by the sacraments, as seals, for the greater faith of the church.” (Pictet, Benedict, Christian Theology trans. Reyroux, Frederick, (London, Seeley and Burnside, MDCCCXXXIV=1834), p468)

John Calvin:
In Institutes 4.18.13, Calvin speaks of a whole class of non-propitiatory OT sacrifices including those: “… to renew the confirmation of the covenant…” (FB, vol 2, p1441) - among a load of other ones - and says that likewise in the New Covenant the non-propitiatory sacrifice of the Eucharist is analogous to that class of OT sacrifices - the death of Jesus being the antitype of the propitiatory OT sacrifices. (see also Gerrish, Grace & Gratitude, p154)

So, even if Calvin doesn't call the LS covenant renewal sacrifice, I don't suppose it would have surprised him too much?

Supper as covenantal renewal for Calvin (???) – no supporting evidence:
R Scott Clark: http://www.the-highway.com/supper_Clark.html
It's also in The Compromised Church: The Present Evangelical Crisis, ed. John H. Armstrong

Zacharius Ursinus (principal author of the Heidelberg Catechism):‘The covenant entered into with God in baptism, is renewed in the observance of the Lord's supper.’
Again:
'The Lord's supper testifies that we are to be perpetually nourished by Christ dwelling in us, and that the covenant once entered into between God and us shall ever be ratified in regard to us, so that we shall forever remain united with the church and body of Christ... Baptism is to be received but once, because the covenant once entered into with God is always ratified in the case of those who repent; the Lord's supper is to be often received, inasmuch as it is necessary for our faith that we frequently renew that covenant and call it to mind.’ (Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, pp. 429, 434)

John Owen:
It is a federal ordinance, wherein God confirms the covenant unto us, and wherein he calls us to make a recognition of the covenant unto God. The covenant is once made; but we know that we stand in need that it should be often transacted in our souls, - that God should often testify his covenant unto us, and that we should often actually renew our covenant engagements unto him. God never fails nor breaks his promises; so that he hath no need to renew them, but testify them anew: we break and fail in ours; so that we have need actually to renew them. And that it is which we are called unto in this ordinance; which is the ordinance of the great seal of the covenant in the blood of Christ. (Sacramental Discourse 2, on 1 Cor 10:16; Works IX.528).

Richard Baxter
In Christian Directory pp. 532 and 930, Baxter explicitly states that the Lord's Supper is given by God, and received by Christians "to signify and solemnize the renewal of his holy covenant with them" (among other things)
(Mt Mason)

Herman Witsius:
[Supper as a solemn engagement to a marriage covenant:]
“… on receiving this earnest of the covenant of grace, in which Christ joins himself to us in a marriage-covenant, we, by that very thing, promise and openly declare and avow, by an oath, that we shall fulfil every duty of a chaste faithful and loving spouse towards him…. this public and solemn feast… is appointed for confirming this mystical marriage…. Partakers… say to Christ… “… I deserve to have my body, no less than this bread, broken and torn in pieces… , if, in the renewal of this covenant, I shall, with an evil and perfidious heart, break my word to thee.”” (Economy of the Covenants vol 2, bk 4, ch 27, p463)

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Modern writers

Also of some kind of relevance may be:

Jordan on covenant making in OT sacrifices & LS involves “dividing”:
“Jesus restructured the bread by breaking it. In terms of the Old Covenant sacrificial system, when the sacrifice was slain and divided into pieces, the blood was always separated from the flesh (Leviticus 1:5, 9). Thus, Jesus gave them the wine in an act separate from His giving the bread, and it should be partaken of in a separate act. Jesus gave new names to the products of his actions, calling the bread His body, and the wine His blood.” (Jordan, James B., Through New Eyes: Developing A Biblical View of the World (Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene, Oregon, 1999), p125f)
Also: Jordan, op. cit., Note 7 p299, “Covenant-making in the Bible always entails the act of dividing and restructuring. Thus, Eve was divided from Adam, and then rejoined to him in the one-flesh relationship. Similarly, when covenant was made with Abraham, animals were divided in half (Genesis 15). See O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants (Grand Rapids, Baker, 1980) esp. pp127ff”

Leithart on rites in the New Covenant:
Reformers attacked RC as return to Old Covenant (Leithart, Peter J., Against Christianity (Canon Press, Moscow, 2003), p79)
“… the redemptive-historical move that the New Testament announces is not from ritual to non-ritual, from an Old Covenant economy of signs to a New Covenant economy beyond signs. The movement instead is from the rituals and signs of distance and exclusion (the temple veil, cutting of the flesh, sacrificial smoke ascending to heaven, laws of cleanliness) to signs and rituals of inclusion and incorporation (the rent veil, the common baptismal bath, the common meal.” (p80)
“Rituals are as essential to the New Covenant order as to the Old; they are simply different rituals.” (p80)

“In a number of works, Augustine describes the New Covenant sacraments as “conjunctions” of the Old, …” (Leithart, Peter J., The Priesthood of the Plebs: a theology of baptism (Eugene, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2003), p249)

Doug Wilson would emphasise the Lord’s Supper as covenantal (renewal):
“The world we live in is covenantal… the sacrament is not a covenantal island in the middle of a noncovenantal world. Rather, everything around us must be seen in covenantal categories… with the Table of the Lord at the centre of the believing covenantal world.”(Wilson, Douglas, Mother Kirk: Essays and Forays in Practical Ecclesiology (Moscow, Canon Press, 2001), p100)
“We signify our loyalty by partaking of the Lord’s Table. This is our covenant oath” (p101)
blessings and curses from partaking of the Supper (1 Cor 10:15f; 11:27ff)
cf Levites partaking of the altar – covenant identification with the Lord – blessing – no magical transformation of the meat
“… participation in the Supper is an act of covenant allegiance… covenant renewal.” (p103)

And of course there’s Myers:
Meyers, Jeffrey J., The Lord’s Service: The Grace of Covenant Renewal Worship (Moscow ID, Canon Press, 2003)
Part 1: The Divine Service of Covenant Renewal
Ch 2: Covenant and Worship (p33ff)
“Simply stated, the purpose of the Sunday Service is covenant renewal. During corporate “worship” the Lord renews His covenant with His people when He gathers them together and serves them.” (p33)
“… the end or goal of God’s covenant is always a feast. God invites us to a meal. We come to church on Sunday to eat with Jesus and one another, to feast in his presence…. at a common Table.” (p34) (Rev 19:6-10) [The MARRIAGE covenant feast might be worth exploring further]
“The ritual of the Lord’s Supper is explicitly identified by Jesus as a covenant renewal rite”(p49) citing Lk 22:19f [Is Myers going too far here?]

Stevenson, Kenneth, Do This: The Shape, Style and Meaning of the Eucharist (Norwich, Canterbury Press, 2002)
“The Eucharist is what the People of God gather to do because it is the way in which we renew our covenant with the Lord” (Preface)

Melvin Tinker:
Messianic expectation of the gathering of followers round him – intimacy and acceptance signified in a communal meal (p143) – c.f. gathering to hear wd of God at Sinai ( Ex 19 c.f. Dt 4) and the covenant ratified by shedding of blood (Ex 24:4-8) a meal in the presence of God (Ex 24:9-11) (p143)
Tinker, Melvin, ‘Language, Symbols and Sacraments: Was Calvin’s View of the Lord’s Supper Right?’ Churchman 112 no 2 1998 pp131-149

It would be good to have a look at :

Holifield, E. Brooks, The Covenant Sealed: The Development of Puritan Sacramental Theology in Old and New England, 1570-1720 (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1974)

Stevenson, Kenneth, Covenant of Grace Renewed: A Vision of the Eucharist in the Seventeenth Century (London, Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd., 1994)