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Thread: The Fourth Cup: Unveiling the Mystery of the Last Supper and the Cross

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    The Fourth Cup: Unveiling the Mystery of the Last Supper and the Cross

    Sounds interesting...



    What Did Jesus Mean When He Said on the Cross, ‘It is Finished’?

    This Book Gives Us a Clue.

    The Fourth Cup: Unveiling the Mystery of the Last Supper and the Cross

    By Joshua Charles Published on March 2, 2018
    https://stream.org/jesus-mean-it-is-finished/

    It is rare to read a book that both illuminates your minds and emboldens your heart. Let alone when it’s by a professor. But that’s just what Dr. Scott Hahn’s book, The Fourth Cup: Unveiling the Mystery of the Last Supper and the Cross, does. Now, it isn’t exactly a secret that Dr. Hahn is a Presbyterian convert to Catholicism. He is a passionate, learned, and staunch defender of the Catholic Church and Her teachings. However, The Fourth Cup provides insights and wisdom that all Christians can benefit from.

    What Did Jesus Mean When He Said ‘It is Finished’?

    If you ask most Christians what Jesus meant when, just before dying on the Christ, he said “It is finished,” you’ll get an answer like “He finished our salvation.” “He finished His work of redemption.” “He finished His saving work on the Cross.”

    According to Dr. Hahn, all of these are good guesses, but ultimately wrong.

    The reasoning goes like this. All Christians would acknowledge that “justification” is a critical component of how we are brought into right-standing with God. Obviously there is a wide array of opinions on the specifics. But no one doubts the key importance of justification.

    And that is why Dr. Hahn contends that when Jesus said “It is finished,” he could not have been referring to his complete work of redemption. The reason is pretty straightforward.

    In Romans 4:25, Paul says that Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses, and raised for our justification.” This concurs with Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15, when he says: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain … if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”

    Thus, when Jesus said “it is finished” on the cross, he could not have been referring to the completed work of salvation, because our justification/salvation wasn’t complete until the Resurrection. The Cross, as vital as it is, required the Resurrection to be fully effective.

    The Passover Meal

    So what was Jesus referring to then? This is where Dr. Hahn’s book, written with his typical enthusiasm, good-nature, and impressive learning, shines through. As Dr. Hahn shows, most scholars today acknowledge that the “Last Supper” recorded in the Gospel accounts was a Passover meal. Jesus and His disciples were faithful Jews. They came to Jerusalem for the Passover feast, and appropriately celebrated the festival of Unleavened Bread (the other name for the Passover).

    This is where it gets very interesting. The Passover “Seder” (the meal) is a ritualized, liturgical meal, and has been among Jews for thousands of years. In Jesus’ time, the various rituals that were eventually written down in documents such as the Mishnah, etc. were largely in place. One of the most important of these was the drinking of four glasses of wine....





    ...The Meaning of the Fourth Cup

    The fourth cup of the Passover meal was also known as the “Cup of Praise,” and commemorates the covenant God made with the Jewish people at Mount Sinai — the culmination of the Exodus. Thus, in the context of Jesus, who informs the disciples with the third cup that he is inaugurating a new covenant, the fourth cup would represent the consummation of that new covenant, and the formation of a new holy people: the Church.

    But when did Jesus consume this fourth cup? The Gospel of John tells us. Jesus says to the Roman soldiers, “I thirst.” And what do they give him? “A jar full of sour wine [“the fruit of the vine”] stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.”

    John points out something that none of the other Gospel writers do, namely that Jesus received the wine from a hyssop branch — the very same plant by which the Israelites applied the blood of lambs to their doorposts in Egypt. And in the very next verse, we arrive at the famous words: “It is finished.” (John 19:30) The fourth cup was the final cup of the new Passover, which is what Jesus finished on the Cross....











    This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity (futility) of their mind, having the understanding darkened...
    (Ephesians 4:17-18)

    Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly...
    (Psalm 1)

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    And that is why Dr. Hahn contends that when Jesus said “It is finished,” he could not have been referring to his complete work of redemption. The reason is pretty straightforward.

    In Romans 4:25, Paul says that Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses, and raised for our justification.” This concurs with Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15, when he says: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain … if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”

    Thus, when Jesus said “it is finished” on the cross, he could not have been referring to the completed work of salvation, because our justification/salvation wasn’t complete until the Resurrection. The Cross, as vital as it is, required the Resurrection to be fully effective.
    Don't know about what he's saying, but this is the argument I always use against "It is finished" meaning redemption. It wasn't finished. As he said, Jesus still had to be raised from the dead (among other things). And not only that, had to offer His blood on the heavenly mercy seat.

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