Let us turn for a few moments to that solemn night in which our blessed Saviour bequeathed to His apostles and to us the precious legacy of His love. Oh, what tones of perfect love, grace, patience, goodness, and wisdom were heard that night, the atmosphere of which was saturated with the leaven of Satan’s and men’s wickedness! May that night more constantly be present to our consciences and to the memory of our hearts! Then indeed, when sitting down at the table then prepared for us by our Good Shepherd, we shall better understand the meaning of His tender dying injunction, “This do in remembrance of Me.”
It was the darkest of all nights—a night the like of which had never been on this earth, nor ever will be again. It was that night when Judas went out to betray his Master with a kiss for the price of thirty pieces of silver. The Holy Spirit Himself distinguished that night from all the dark and terrible nights that had been in this world before, by those words, “And it was night” (John 13:30). We are also reminded of this by the words of the Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul: “The Lord Jesus, in the night in which He was delivered up, took bread” (1 Cor. 11:23 JND).
What a moment when Jesus sat down with His apostles to eat the last Passover with them before He died! Richer blood had to be shed now—the blood of the Lamb of God— to procure for them and for us the blessings founded upon it. Before Him was placed the roast lamb, of which He Himself was the blessed antitype. What was the train of His thoughts when the Holy Lamb of God looked at the type before Him? Was it His own sufferings? Yes, but in what way?
The one who sat at the table with the twelve was the same who made the world. Before the foundations of the earth were appointed, He was His Father’s daily delight, and His delights were with the sons of men (Prov. 8:30,31). That which now engrossed His mind and heart was, not the anticipation of His sufferings (the hour of Gethsemane had not yet come), but those for whom He was about to suffer and to die. It was not the travail of His soul, but those that were to be the fruit of it, all whom the Father had given Him out of this world, whom He was going to redeem by His blood. They and we, fellow believer, filled the foreground of His mind and heart before He suffered. And they—and we—are the first of whom He thought and spoke after He had been heard from the horns of the unicorns. “I will declare Thy name unto My brethren; in the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee” (Psa. 22:21,22). “Go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God” (John 20:17).
And did not Jesus know what manner of men they were for whom He was going to suffer? As to that nation for whom He was to die, “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:11). As to His disciples—His apostles—He knew that one of them, who was eating His bread at that very table, had lifted up his heel against Him. And He was aware that the chief of His apostles, with whom He had entrusted the keys of the kingdom of heaven, would in that night deny Him three times. And He knew that all His disciples, the one “whom He loved” and who was then leaning on His bosom, along with the rest, would forsake Him in the hour of deadly peril. He knew it, and He told them. He knew and foreknew every thought and movement of their treacherous, proud, deceitful, and inconstant hearts—and of ours. He knew it all and He felt it too, as only He, perfect God and perfect Man, could know and feel it. But His hand, in the perfect knowledge of all this, did not hesitate even for a moment to take the bread and break it, and likewise also the cup after supper.
And what came next? “And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest” (Luke 22:24). What wretched hearts we have that betray themselves even at such a table and at such a moment, in the very presence of Him who made Himself of no reputation, but humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross!
But the purposes of the obedient Son could not be shaken by the treason and pride of men’s rebellious hearts. When He came into the world He said, “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God” (Heb. 10:9). When in service on earth, it was, “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work” (John 4:34). And at the end, in Gethsemane, it was again, “Nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done” (Luke 22:42).
Such an obedience could not be turned from its path by the defection of His own all around. Nor could His purposes of divine love be shaken or modified by the wretched selfishness in the hearts of His disciples—or in ours, Christian reader. No, His obedience was as unswerving toward His Father as His love was unchanging toward those whom the Father had given Him. His love had its motive in Himself who is love, not in anything in us or in our hearts, which are the opposite of love—selfish. Not that we loved Him, but He loved us, and gave Himself for us (Gal. 2:20).
(From “The Gospel and the Church” in The Bible Treasury, Vol. 19.)