The communion service is one of the strongest examples of what this series is exposing: symbolic “obedience” invented to replace commandments that God Himself made impossible to keep when He removed the Temple, the altar, and the Levitical priesthood. The Law of God never commanded a recurring bread-and-wine ceremony in place of sacrifices or Passover. Jesus never canceled the Temple laws, and He never instituted a new ritual to replace them. What people today call “the Lord’s Supper” is not a commandment from the Torah and is not a Temple-independent law of God. It is a human ceremony built on a misunderstanding of what Jesus did on His last Passover.
The Law’s pattern: real sacrifices, real blood, real altar
Under the Law, forgiveness and remembrance were never tied to symbols without sacrifice. The central pattern is clear: sin is dealt with when real blood is presented at a real altar in the place God chose for His Name (Leviticus 17:11; Deuteronomy 12:5-7). This is true for daily sacrifices, sin offerings, burnt offerings, and for the Passover lamb itself (Exodus 12:3-14; Deuteronomy 16:1-7).
The Passover meal was not a free-form remembrance service. It was a commanded rite with:
- A real lamb, without blemish
- Real blood, handled exactly as God ordered
- Unleavened bread and bitter herbs
- A specific timing and order
Later, God centralized the Passover: the lamb could no longer be sacrificed in any town, but only at the place He chose, before His altar (Deuteronomy 16:5-7). The whole system depended on the Temple. There was no such thing as a Passover “symbol” without sacrifice.
How Israel remembered redemption
God Himself defined how Israel should remember the exodus from Egypt. It was not through a simple meditation or a symbolic gesture; it was through the yearly Passover service He commanded (Exodus 12:14, 12:24-27). Children were to ask, “What do you mean by this service?” and the answer was tied to the blood of the lamb and to the acts of God on that night (Exodus 12:26-27).
When the Temple stood, faithful Israel obeyed by going up to Jerusalem, having the lamb slaughtered in the sanctuary, and eating the Passover as God commanded (Deuteronomy 16:1-7). No prophet ever announced that, one day, this would be replaced by a simple piece of bread and a sip of wine in buildings scattered across the nations. The Law does not know this replacement. It knows only the Passover as God defined it.
Jesus and His last Passover
The Gospels are clear: when Jesus ate with His disciples on the night He was betrayed, it was the Passover, not a new Gentile ceremony (Matthew 26:17-19; Mark 14:12-16; Luke 22:7-15). He was walking in full obedience to His Father’s commandments, keeping the same Passover appointed by God.
At that table, Jesus took bread and said, “This is my body,” and He took the cup and spoke of His blood of the covenant (Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20). He was not abolishing the Passover, nor canceling the sacrifices, nor writing new laws for Gentile religious services. He was explaining that His own death, as the true Lamb of God, would give the full meaning to everything the Law had already commanded.
When He said, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19), the “this” was the Passover meal they were eating, not a brand-new ceremony cut off from the Law, the Temple, and the altar. There is no command from His lips instituting a new, Temple-independent rite with its own schedule, its own rules, and its own clergy. Jesus had already said that He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, and that not even the smallest stroke would fall from the Law (Matthew 5:17-19). He never said, “After my death, forget the Passover and instead create a bread-and-wine service wherever you are.”
The Temple removed, not the Law abolished
Jesus foretold the destruction of the Temple (Luke 21:5-6). When this happened in the year 70 A.D., the sacrifices stopped, the altar was removed, and the Levitical service ended. But none of this was the abolition of the Law. It was judgment. The commandments about sacrifices and Passover remain written, untouched. They are simply impossible to obey because God removed the system in which they operate.
What did men do? Instead of accepting that some laws must be honored but cannot be kept until God restores the sanctuary, religious leaders created a new ritual—the communion service—and declared that this invention is now the way to “remember” Jesus and “participate” in His sacrifice. They took the bread and the cup from the Passover table and built an entirely new structure around them, outside the Temple, outside the Law, outside anything commanded in the Torah.
Why the communion service is symbolic obedience
The communion service is presented almost everywhere as a replacement for Temple sacrifices and for the Passover. People are told that by eating bread and drinking wine (or juice) in a church building or in any building, they are obeying a command of Christ and fulfilling what the Law pointed to. But this is exactly the kind of symbolic obedience that God has not authorized.
The Law never told anyone that a symbol, without altar and without blood, could replace the commanded sacrifices. Jesus never said that. The prophets never said that. There is no law that defines:
- How often this new communion must be done
- Who must preside
- Where it must take place
- What happens if someone never participates
All of these details have been invented by men. Entire theologies have been built on this ceremony—some call it a sacrament, others a covenant renewal—but none of this comes from the Law of God or from the words of Jesus in the Gospels, understood in their context.
The result is tragic: multitudes believe they are “obeying” God by taking part in a ritual that He never commanded. The true Temple laws still stand, impossible to be kept because God removed the Temple; and instead of honoring this fact in fear and humility, people insist on pretending that a symbolic service can stand in their place.
Remembering Jesus without inventing new laws
The Scriptures do not leave us without guidance on how to honor the Messiah after His ascension. Jesus Himself said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). He also asked, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46).
The way to remember Him is not through invented ceremonies, but through obedience to everything His Father had already spoken by the prophets who came before the Messiah and by the Messiah Himself.
We obey what can be obeyed, and we honor what cannot
The Law remains untouched. Passover and the sacrificial system remain written as eternal statutes, but their obedience is now impossible because God Himself removed the Temple, the altar, and the priesthood. The communion service does not change this reality. It does not turn symbolic bread and symbolic wine into obedience. It does not fulfill the Temple laws. It does not come from the Torah, and Jesus never commanded it as a new, independent ordinance for the nations.
We obey what can be obeyed today: the commandments that do not depend on the Temple. We honor what cannot be obeyed by refusing to invent substitutes. The communion service is a human attempt to fill a gap that God Himself created. True fear of the Lord leads us to reject this illusion of obedience and to return to what He actually commanded.
