Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 26:1 (Spring 2022)
Article: The Lord’s Supper As A Proleptic Covenant Ratification Meal And Inaugurated Kingdom Feast
Author: Dallas W. Vandiver

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The Lord’s Supper As A Proleptic Covenant Ratification Meal And Inaugurated Kingdom Feast

Dallas W. Vandiver

Dallas W. Vandiver is Assistant Professor of Christian Studies for the Graduate School of Ministry at North Greenville University in Greenville, South Carolina. He earned his PhD in Systematic Theology from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. He is the author of Who Can Take the Lord’s Supper? (Pickwick, 2021). He has served in various pastoral roles in Mississippi and Texas, as well as a chaplain and Bible teacher at a Christian school. He serves as a member at Roebuck Baptist Church, Roebuck, SC. He is married to Emily, and they have three children.

Introduction

At the Last Supper, Jesus took the cup filled with the fruit of the vine and told the disciples, “The cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). Jesus had earlier explained “From now on I will not drink ... until the kingdom of God comes” (v. 18). Thus, at the Last Supper, Jesus claims that the new covenant would be established before the kingdom would be consummated. In their work Kingdom through Covenant, Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum propose that God ushers in his saving reign (i.e., kingdom) through successive covenants over time that culminate in the new covenant (i.e., progressive covenantalism).1 This paper extends

SBJT 26:1 (Spring 2022) p. 69

their project by exploring the relationship of the Lord’s Supper to both the new covenant and the kingdom of God. This paper argues that the Lord’s Supper is a proleptic (i.e., forward-looking and anticipatory) covenant ratification meal and an inaugurated kingdom feast, given that it points forward to the consummation of God’s new covenant promises in the eschatological kingdom of God.

After a brief exegesis of Luke 22:14–20 this paper will briefly survey the relationship of covenant meals to the particular covenants to which each meal is attached—the old covenant meals of Passover (Exod 12) and covenant ratification on Sinai (24:1–11) and the new covenant meals of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 10:16–17; 11:17–34) and the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev 19:6–10).2 These meals re...