In the original words of the institution our Lord Himself makes reference to the future; ’till I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.’  And in the context here, the Apostle provides for the perpetual continuance, and emphasises the prophetic aspect, of the rite, by that word, ‘till He come.’  His death necessarily implies His coming again.  The Cross and the Throne are linked together by an indissoluble bond.  Being what it is, the death cannot be the end.  Being what He is, if He has once been offered to bear the sins of many, so He must come the second time without sin unto salvation.  The rite, just because it is a rite, is the prophecy of a time when the need for it, arising from weak flesh and an intrusive world, shall cease.  ’They shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord; at that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord.’  There shall be no temple in that great city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the Temple thereof.  So all external worship is a prophecy of the coming of the perfect time, when that which is perfect being come, the external helps and ladders to climb to the loftiest shall be done away.

But more than that, the memorial and symbol is a prophecy.  That upper chamber, with its troubled thoughts, its unbidden tears, starting to the eyes of the half-understanding listeners, who only felt that He was going away and the sweet companionship was dissolved, may seem to be but a blurred and a poor image of the better communion of heaven.  But though on that sad night the Master bore a burdened heart, and the servants had but partial apprehension and a more partial love; though He went forth to agonise and to die, and they went forth to deny and to betray, and to leave Him alone, still it was a prophecy of Christ’s table in His kingdom.  Heaven is to be a feast.  That representation promises society to the solitary, rest to the toilers, the oil of joy for mourning, and the full satisfaction of all desires.  That heavenly feast surpasses indeed the antitype in the upper chamber, in that there the Master Himself partook not, and yonder we shall sup with Him and He with us, but is prophetic in that, as there He took a towel and girded Himself and washed the disciples’ feet, so yonder He will come forth Himself and serve them.  The future is unlike the prophetic past in that ’we shall go no more out’; there shall be no sequences of sorrow, and struggle, and distance and ignorance; but like it in that we shall feast on Christ, for through eternity the glorified Jesus will be the Bread of our spirits, and the fact of His past sacrifice the foundation of our hopes.