Christians often practice a tradition known as communion, which involves eating bread and drinking wine in a symbolic ritual of remembrance of what Jesus did for us. This was based on his last supper, and the communion elements reveal the true meaning of the Passover story. Transubstantiation, the idea that the communion bread turns into Jesus’ literal flesh, and the wine transforms his literal blood, is not supported by biblical evidence. Blood drinking is not only forbidden in the Noahide covenant (Gen 9:3-4) and the Sinaitic covenant (Lev 7:26-27, 17:24, 19:26, Deut 12:16-25, 15:23), but also in the Messianic covenant (Acts 15:19-21). This is a sin for everyone, both Jew and Gentile, for all time from the beginning to the end.

In the Passover (Pesach) story, the Israelites put the blood of sacrificed lambs (or goats) on the door to protect them from death, and they ate the lamb along with unleavened bread. In the New Testament, Paul offers a glimpse into the meaning of unleavened bread when he compares false teaching to leaven, which spoils the whole lump (Galatians 5:9, 1 Corinthians 5:6). Leaven represents sin. Jesus is the only human “bread” who didn’t have a sinful nature, qualifying him as our sacrifice. The punishment for sin is death (Rom 6:23), and the blood of the Passover Lamb covered the Israelites and protected them from the messenger of death (Ex 12:23). Likewise, the blood of Jesus makes us right with God and washes away sin, protecting us from damnation. Also, Passover was the last plague on Egypt, ushering in the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Likewise, Jesus’s sacrifice is the beginning of the New Covenant, where he delivers the believers from slavery to sin.

Jesus’ comparison of himself to bread is not literal but symbolic. The bread and leaven analogy of sin is an idiom that preexisted Jesus’s time on earth, and the blood of animals protecting the Israelites was a foreshadowing of the Messiah’s method of saving the world. Jesus revealed what the Old Testament symbolism was pointing to: that he is the Passover lamb. According to Heb 10:1-18, Jesus fulfills the need for sacrificing so that, under the New Covenant, there wouldn’t need to be animal sacrifices or a Temple since Jesus was sacrificed. Believers’ bodies are the New Temple (1 Cor 6:19-21) because the Holy Spirit (God’s presence) dwells in the bodies of God’s people, rather than in a man-made Temple. 

Lev 6:18, regarding the grain offering, and Lev 6:27, regarding the sin offering, both say, “Anyone or anything that touches the offering will become holy.” Jesus was the “anointed one,” which means he was holy. When he touched a ceremonially unclean person, like a leper (Matt 8:1-3) or a person with a discharge disorder (Matt 9:18-26), he made them clean. Normally, people in these conditions would make others unclean, and it was a sin for an unclean person to make others unclean (Lev 5:2-3). However, Jesus functioned as the sin and grain offering mentioned earlier, and anyone who “ate” the grain or sin offering was made holy or ceremonially clean. There is a principle that holiness is transferable, as stated in Exodus 29:37, Exodus 30:29, Ezekiel 44:19, and Ezekiel 46:20. The phrase “Eat my flesh” is used in the context of Jesus being a living sacrifice for us, making us holy. Jesus functions as the ultimate sin-offering since he died for our sins.

As for the grain offering, he called himself the bread of life (John 6:35), and bread is made of grain. Unless they were the first fruit offerings, the grain offerings had to be unleavened bread. Even then, a first fruit offering made with leaven would be given to the priest because leaven couldn’t be burned on the altar (Lev 2:4-5, & 11-12). Only unleavened bread and clean (or kosher) animals, like lambs, with no blemishes, could go on that altar, at the Temple or Tabernacle in the Old Testament. Remember that the word consume is used in reference to a fire. The fire on the altar consumes a portion of the grain and meat offerings. In the New Testament, the bodies of believers are the new temple since believers have the Holy Spirit (God’s presence) inside of them so, the “eating of his flesh and blood” functions as a reference to us receiving his unleavened bread (sinless flesh) and blood (as the unblemished lamb of God) on “our altar” because we (our bodies) are the new temples. We don’t consume flesh and blood, we metaphorically do as a temple altar consumes literal sacrifices by fire. In 1 Kings 8:1-11, when Solomon had the Ark of the Covenant brought to the Temple he had just finished building, the people offered sacrifices. Once the Ark was placed in the Holy of Holies, God’s presence entered the Temple and filled it with smoke. Likewise, when a person reiceives Jeuss as their Lord and Savior, they receive the Holy Spirit, which is comparable to God’s presence filling the Temple. The sacrifices on the altar preceded God’s presence filling the Temple, and likewise, the receiving of Jesus as Lord by faith precedes receiving the Holy Spirit of God.

Lastly, the Bible states multiple times that it is forbidden to drink blood in the Noahide (Noah), Sinaitic (Moses), and Messianic (Jesus) covenants. Gen 9:4, Leviticus chapter 17, Lev 19:26, Deut 12:16, and 25, Ezekiel 33:25, and Acts 15:20 and 28. So why would God have us do something so sinful? Leviticus 17 explains that the blood belongs on the altar, poured out for our sins. The blood of a sacrifice is to be splashed on the altar, or on its horns, or poured on the ground in front of the bronze altar, which was at the entrance of the Temple and Tabernacle (Ex 29:12, Ex 30:10, Lev 4:7-34, Lev 8:15, Lev 9:9, Lev 16:18, Deut 12:16-27, Deut 15:23). Hebrews 9:11-12 tells us that Jesus took his blood to the altar in heaven because the Tabernacle of God in heaven is superior to the earthly one. Hebrews say the earth’s Tabernacle/Temple was only a replica of God’s Tabernacle in heaven. Furthermore, Genesis 9 and Acts 15 show that all humans (including non-Jews) were never supposed to drink blood. Jesus said in Matthew 5:17-19 that He did not come to abolish the law (the Torah) and that not one jot or tittle would pass away, even if heaven and earth passed away. Therefore, Jesus would never break the law, nor teach us to break it by having us do something forbidden for everyone throughout the Bible. So this cannot be what he meant in John 6:54 when he says, “But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day.” We are not drinking his blood, since it has been poured out on the altar in heaven. The wine simply reminds us of the blood on the altar, so that we can know that we are redeemed from the debt of our sins by His sacrifice.