The 4 Cups of the Passover

For the Attention of Don Adams

Fax: 001 718 560 xxxx

April 6th 2006.

Greetings my brother in faith and love,

Re: The Memorial Celebration

Firstly please accept my apologies for sending this information so near to the date. Although actually I suppose it is rather appropriate that you will not have time properly to bake these ideas, this being a feature of the festival of unfermented cakes!

As you know millions of brothers and sisters will put on their best clothes and turn up at the memorial in faith and out of gratitude to Jesus. It therefore is the duty of the slave to make every possible endeavour to ensure that the celebration is carried out with a doctrinal competence that matches the faith and the attire of those who turn up. Further it would be a good idea to celebrate it in the precise way that the scriptures dictate, in order that our sacrifices are accepted. For Abel’s sacrifice was accepted not because he had great faith but because he brought along the correct sacrifice. Whereas Cain’s sacrifice was rejected not because he had no faith but because he brought along the incorrect sacrifice.

Sacrifices are very simple. You bring what God asks you to bring. You bring it on the day he chooses. You bring it to the place that he stipulates. Now Abel bought two sacrifices, two firstlings, which represent the sacrificial validations of 2 covenants. He got it right, so his sacrifice was accepted. And that is one of the things I want to get across herein. I want you to get it right too.

Here are the 4 texts we must consider…

[1AC] is the First Abrahamic Covenant of Genesis 12
[1NC] is the First New Covenant mediated by Jesus at the last supper
[PARC] and [ARC] are two other covenants which are beyond the scope of this fax.

26 As they continued eating, Jesus took a loaf [1AC] and, after saying a blessing, he broke it and, giving it to the disciples, he said: Take, eat. This is my body.
27 Also, he took a cup [1AC] and, having given thanks, he gave it to them, saying: Drink out of it, all of you;
28 for this is my 'blood of the covenant,' which is to be poured out in behalf of many for forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26).

22 And as they continued eating, he took a loaf [1AC], said a blessing, broke it and gave it to them, and said: Take it, this is my body.
23 And taking a cup [1AC], he offered thanks and gave it to them, and they all drank out of it.
24 And he said to them: This is my 'blood of the covenant,' which is to be poured out in behalf of many (Mark 14).

17 And, accepting a cup [PARC], he gave thanks and said: Take this and pass it from one to the other among yourselves;
18 for I tell you, From now on I will not drink again from the product of the vine until the kingdom of God arrives.
19 Also, he took a loaf [ARC], gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to them, saying: This is my body, which is to be given in your behalf. Keep doing this in remembrance of me.
20 Also, the cup [1NC] in the same way after they had the evening meal, he saying: This cup is the new covenant by virtue of my blood, which is to be poured out in your behalf (Luke 22).

23 For I received from the Lord that which I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was going to be handed over took a loaf [ARC],
24 and, after giving thanks, he broke it and said: This is my body which is in your behalf. Keep doing this in remembrance of me.
25 He did likewise respecting the cup [1NC] also, after he had the evening meal, saying: This cup is the new covenant by virtue of my blood. Keep doing this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me (1.Corinthians 11).

I am going to keep this simple and restrict the explanations to things that can be fixed before Wednesday. We are going to play spot the difference on the 4 descriptions of the last supper above. For we know that God wastes not a drop of bio matter in nature, and not a particle of a letter in the holy book. Each account by its slight difference from the next, tells us more information about the Passover and how Jesus celebrated it and how we should celebrated it today. 

The hard part of this and the Big Picture is that the Jews back then and even today drink 4 cups at the Passover. So Jesus and the disciples being Jews under law would have drunk 4 cups on the night of 33Nisan14. And the New Covenant was the last of these 4 cups, the one drunk after the meal, and the 3 other cups also stand for covenants. But the Watchtower presently only understands 2 of these covenants. So let us address these 2 cups.

The loaf and cup of Matthew and the loaf and cup of Mark were eaten and drunk during the meal. They were taken: As they continued eating. Whereas the cup of Luke 22:20 and 1 Corinthians 11:25 was taken after the meal. The cup of Matthew and Mark was said to be: My blood of the covenant, which is to be poured out in behalf of many for forgiveness of sins. Whereas the cup of Luke 22:20 and 1 Corinthians 11:25 was said to be: The New Covenant by virtue of my blood, which is poured out in your behalf. Putting this in tabular form we have:

Cup of Matthew and Mark             Cup of Luke and 1 Corinthians

Drunk during the meal                                 Drunk after the meal
My blood of the covenant                             The New covenant by virtue of my blood
Poured on in behalf of the many                  Poured out in your behalf

The good thing is that the Watchtower know that Jesus was the Angel Michael. So when Jesus died, a human died and an angel died. So God had two souls at his disposal to act as ransoms, a human soul and an angelic soul. The Angel Michael ransomed Adam angelically and so the new covenant is not actually the blood of Michael but exists by virtue of his blood (since his blood ransomed Adam for everyone, not just for the 1NC saints). The human body of Jesus ransomed Abraham actually as the validation sacrifice for the 1AC, this being the lamb provided by Jehovah – Jehovah Jireh.

So the blood poured out for the many is the blood of the 1AC, the blood of Jesus the human. And the blood poured out for the apostles is the blood of Michael, the blood of Jesus the angel. The 1NC exists by virtue of this blood.

What does this all mean in practice? It means that the regular JWs should drink the cup of the 1AC and eat the loaf of the 1AC during the meal. And the remnant should drink the cup of the 1NC and eat the loaf of the 1NC after the meal. The remnant would also drink the cup and eat the loaf of the 1AC since they have faith too. In truth sons of Abraham, i.e. sons of faith, take the first cup, and sons of Jesus, the sons of the 1NC take the last cup.

That was the most difficult thing for me to get across to you and it is not the whole story but it is doable with present JW understanding, since the ‘great crowd’ know that they are saved by the 1AC. They should therefore drink it!!!!

Now we come to the easy part…

[1]  The blood flows round the body, the body does not flow round the blood. So the cup should be passed from one to another but not the loaf. The loaf should be given to each partaker by the priest directly, not passed around the room. The body does not move, the blood moves.  Please get this right or you miss the symbolism of the festival.

[2]  The cup was passed from one to another ‘among themselves’. It was not passed via anyone else. Only the sons of the 1NC, the remnant, can touch the cup of the 1NC. If a member of the great crowd touches that cup he or she defiles it. Please do not permit this. The remnant should congregate in an inner circle and each of them should be given personally their loaf and then the cup of their blood should flow around them, as they define Jesus’ body having eaten the loaf. It should flow around them alone.

This is what happened in the old days in the Watchtower before the great crowd came along. Rutherford correctly identified the great crowd but failed to make the appropriate allowance for their participation in the memorial. Please do not have Jesus’ blood flowing all over the great crowd in the memorial celebration. It flows around his body, not around anywhere else. His body is the remnant, his fiancé, the first new covenant saints. Please observe this correctly.

That is enough for this fax. The bottom line is this. If you love God you will make the effort and not care how embarrassing such an effort might be or how difficult it might be to implement. In fact you should rejoice in any embarrassment and in any difficulties it should cause you and leap for joy. Abraham went to a country he knew nothing about because God asked it of him. He made the effort to venture into the unknown because he trusted God. This again is unknown territory for the JWs, but what matters is that if you see it you try and implement it. For then you are a true son of Abraham, a son of the 1AC, a son of his faith. It matters less if you screw up having at least tried.

So this would be the new celebration…

[1] Every JW who attends and in fact anyone else who attends with faith eats the loaf of the 1AC. This loaf is given to everyone by the priest, it is not passed around

[2] Once the loaves have been eaten and the body of Abraham has been defined, then the cup of the 1AC is passed around the whole JW congregation together with all other who attend who have faith. They all drink from this cup and the priest tops it up as necessary from the several bottles of wine that he blessed to be or to symbolise or to represent the blood of the 1AC, poured of for the many. This priest does not have to be a 1NC saint. He merely needs to be a JW.

[3] After this the 1NC saints, the remnant, form an inner circle and the priest who must himself be a 1NC saint, a remnant brother, blesses the bread of the 1NC and breaks it himself and hands it to the 1NC saints individually (notice that Jesus broke the bread himself in every account), he offered himself up. We cannot have other people breaking the bread. They did not offer Jesus up. So all the remnant and only the remnant eat this bread, one piece each, given to them by the priest. That now defines the body of the Christ.

[4]  Then the priest blesses the cup and passes it to the first remnant brother and the blood flows round the body. And they all drink. In fact the cup can flow round the body as many times as it likes as our blood does every day. They carry on until all the wine is drunk. This is supposed to be a celebration, not a funeral service.

There is more to consider, but if you attempt to implement this you will be blessed. I do not speak here from emotion, I speak from hard scriptural knowledge, although I could just as well speak from emotion since we both know the love of God.

May God Bless his children

Agape

 

Gordon Ritchie

P.S. We feel that this is so important that it should be discussed face to face. We stand ready to send a representative from the LWs to do this with you ASAP.

My fax number is (44) 207 288 7473

My direct line is (44) 207 424 5398
Our Switchboard is (44) 800 027 2002 (This is a commercial company – HyperOs Systems)

Email: helpdesk@lordswitnesses.net

P.P.S Have a look at 2 Chronicles 30.

Between April 11th and April 16th I, and most of the LWs, will be in the Holliday Inn Countryside Lagrange in Chicago, Front Desk: 1 708 354 4200.

Gordon Ritchie
The Lords’ Witnesses

First Floor

93 Shepperton Road
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England