Matthew 26:29

But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(29) I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine.—Literally, product of the vine. It would be better, perhaps, to translate, I shall not drink, as implying the acceptance of what had been ordained by God rather than an act of volition. The words carry us into a region of mystic symbolism. Never afterwards while He tarried upon earth was He to taste of the wine-cup with His disciples. But in the kingdom of God, completed and perfected, He would be with them once again, and then Master and disciples would be alike sharers in that joy in the Holy Ghost, of which wine—new wine—was the appropriate symbol. The language of Proverbs 9:2 and Isaiah 25:6, helps us to enter into the meaning of the words. Even the mocking taunt of the multitude on the day of Pentecost, “These men are full of new wine” (Acts 2:13), may have recalled the mysterious promise to the minds of the Apostles, and enabled them to comprehend that it was through the gift of the Spirit that they were entering, in part at least, even then, into the joy of their Lord.

MacLaren's Expositions

Matthew

THE NEW PASSOVER

‘UNTIL THAT DAY’

Matthew 26:29.

This remarkable saying of our Lord’s is recorded in all of the accounts of the institution of the Lord’s Supper. The thought embodied in it ought to be present in the minds of all who partake of that rite. It converts what is primarily a memorial into a prophecy. It bids us hope as well as, and because we, remember. The light behind us is cast forward on to the dimness before. So the Apostle Paul, in his solitary reference to the Communion-which, indeed, is an entirely incidental one, and evoked simply by the corruptions in the Corinthian Church, emphasises this prophetic and onward-looking aspect of the backward-looking rite when he says, ‘Ye do show the Lord’s death till He come.’

Now, it seems to me that those of us who so strongly hold that the Communion is primarily a simple memorial service, with no mysterious or magical efficacy of any sort about it, do rather ignore in our ordinary thoughts the other aspect which is brought out in my text; and that comparative ignoring seems to me to be but a part of a very lamentable and general tendency of this day, whereby the prospect of a future life has become somewhat dimmed and does not fill the place either in ordinary Christian thinking, or as a motive for Christian service which the proportion of faith, and the relative importance of the present and the future suggest that it ought to fill. The Christianity of this day has so much to do with the present life, and the thought of the Gospel as a power in the present has been so emphasised, in legitimate reaction from the opposite exaggeration, that there is great need, as I believe, to preach to Christian people the wisdom of making more prominent in their faith their immortal hope. I wish, then, to turn now to this aspect of the rite which we regard as a memorial, and try to emphasise its forward-looking attitude, and the large blessed truths that emerge if we consider that.

I. First, let me say just a word about the twin aspect of the Communion as a memorial prophecy, or prophetic remembrance.

Now, I need not remind you, I suppose, that according to the view which, as I believe, the New Testament takes, and which certainly we Nonconformists take, of all the rites of external worship, every one of them is a prophecy, because every act in which our sense is brought in to reinforce the spirit-and by outward forms, be they vocal, or be they manual, or be they of any other sort, we try to express and to quicken spiritual emotions and intellectual convictions-declares its own imperfection, digs its own grave, and prophecies its own resurrection in a nobler and better fashion. Just because these outward symbols of bread and wine do, through the senses, quicken the faith and the love of the spirit, they declare themselves to be transitory, and they point onwards to the time when that which is perfect shall absorb, and so destroy, that which is in part, and when sense shall be no longer necessary as the ally and humble servant of spirit. ‘I saw no temple therein.’ Temples, and rites, and services, and holy days, and all the external apparatus of worship, are but scaffolding, and just as the scaffolding round a building is a prophecy of its own being pulled down when the building is reared and completed, so we cannot partake of these external symbols rightly, unless we recognise their transiency, and feel that they say to us, ‘A mightier than I cometh after me, the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to unloose.’ The light that shines in the dark heralds the day and its own extinction.

So, looking back we must look forward, and partaking of the symbol, we must reach out to the time when the symbol shall be antiquated, the reality having come. The Passover of Israel did not more truly point onwards to the true Lamb of Sacrifice, and to the true Passover that was slain for us, and to its own elevation into the Lord’s Supper of the Christian Church, than the Lord’s Supper of the Christian Church points onwards to the ‘marriage supper of the Lamb,’ and its own cessation.

But then, again, let me remind you that this prophetic aspect is inherent in the memorial aspect of the Communion, because what we remember necessarily demands the coming of what we hope. That is to say, if Jesus Christ be what the Lord’s Supper says that He is, and if He has done what that broken bread and poured out wine proclaim, according to His own utterance, that He has done, then clearly that death which was for the life of the world, that death which was the seal of a covenant, that body broken for the remission of sins, that wine partaken of as a reception into ourselves of the very life-blood of Jesus Christ, do all demand something far nobler and more perfect than the broken, incomplete obedience and loyalties and communions which Christian men here exercise and possess.

If He died, as the rite says that He did, and if dying He left such a commentary upon His act as that ordinance affords, then He cannot have done with the world; then the powers that were set in motion by His death cannot pause nor cease their action until they have reached their appropriate culmination in effecting all that it was in them to effect. If, leaving His people, He said to them, ‘Never forget My death for you, My broken body, and My shed blood,’ He therein said that the time will come, must come, when all the powers of the Cross shall be incorporated in humanity, and when the parted shall be reunited. The Communion would stand as the expression of Christ’s mistaken estimate of His own importance, if there were not beyond the grave the perfecting of it, and the full appropriation and joyful possession of all which the death that it signifies brought to mankind.

Therefore, dear brethren, it seems to me that the best way by which Christians can deepen their confidence and brighten their hope in the perfect reunion and blessedness of the heavens, is to increase the firmness of their faith in, and the depth of their apprehension of, the sacrifice of the Cross. If the Cross demands the Crown, then our surest way to realise as certain our own possession of that Crown is to cling very close to that Cross. The more we look backwards to it the more will it fling its light into all the dark places that are in front of us, and flush the heavens up to the seventh and beyond, with the glories that stream from it. Hold fast by the Cross, and the more fully, believingly, joyously, unfalteringly, we recognise in it the foundation of our salvation, the more gladly, clearly, operatively, shall we cherish the hope that ‘the headstone shall be brought forth with shoutings,’ and that the imperfect symbolical communion of earth will grow and greaten into complete and real union in eternal bliss.

Let me urge, then, this, that, as a matter of fact, a faith in eternal glory goes with and fluctuates in the same degree and manner as does the faith in the past sacrifice that Christ has made. He, and He alone, as I believe, turns nebulae into solidity, and makes of the more or less tremulous anticipation of a more or less dim and distant future, a calm, still certainty. We know that He will come because, and in proportion as, we believe that He has come. Keep these two things, then, always together, the memory and the hope. They stand like two great piers, one on either side of a narrow, dark glen, and suspended from them is stretched the bridge, along which the happy pilgrims may travel and enter into rest.

II. And now, let us turn for a moment to the lovely vision of that future which is suggested by our text.

The truest way, I was going to say the only way, by which we can have any conceptions of a condition of being of which we have no experience, is to fall back upon the experiences which we have, and use them as symbols and metaphors. The curtain is the picture. So our Lord here, in accordance with the necessary limitations of our human knowledge, contents Himself with using what lay at His hand, and taking it as giving faint shadows and metaphorical suggestions as to spiritual blessedness yonder.

There is one other way, as it seems to me, by which we can in any measure body forth to ourselves that unknown condition of things, and that is to fall back upon our present experiences in another fashion, and negative all of them which involve pain and limitation and incompleteness. There shall be no night-no sorrow-no tears-no sighing, and the like. These negatives of the strong and stinging griefs and limitations of the present are perhaps our second-best way of coming to some prophetic vision of that great future.

Remembering, then, that we are dealing with pure metaphor, and that the exact translation of the metaphor into reality is not yet possible for us, let us take one or two very plain thoughts out of this great saying-’Until I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.’

Then, we have to think of the completion of the Christian life beyond, which is also the completion of the results of Christ’s death on the Cross, as being, according to the very frequent metaphor both of the Old and the New Testament, a prolonged festival. I do not need to speak of the details of the thoughts that thence emerge. Let me sum them up as briefly as may be. They include the satisfaction of every desire and the nourishment of all strength, and food for every faculty. When we think of the hungry hearts that all men carry, and how true it is that even the wisest and the holiest of us are ‘spending our money for that which is not bread, and our labour for that which satisfieth not’; when we think of how the choicest foods that life can provide, even for the noblest hunger of noble hearts, are too often to us but as a feeding on ashes that will leave grit between the teeth and a foul taste upon the palate, surely it is blessed to think that we may, after all life’s disappointments, cherish the hope of a perfect fruition, and that yonder, if not here, it will be fully true that ‘God never sends mouths but He sends meat to feed them.’ That is not so in this world, for we all carry hungers which impel us forward to nobler living, and which it would not be good for us to have satisfied here. But, unless the whole universe is a godless chaos, there must be somewhere a state in which a man shall have all that he wants, and shall want only what he ought.

The emblem of a feast suggests also society. The solitary travellers who have been toiling and moiling through the desert all the day long, snatching up a hasty mouthful as they march, and lonely many a time, come together at last, and sit together there joyous and united. Deep down in our hearts some of us have gashes that always bleed. We know losses and loneliness, and we can feel, I hope, how blessed is the thought that all the wanderers shall sit there together, and rejoice in each other’s communion, ‘and so shall we ever be with the Lord.’

But besides satisfaction and society the figure suggests repose. That rest is not indolence, for we have to carry other metaphors with us in order to come to the full significance of this one, and the festal imagery is not all that we have to take into account; for we read, ‘I grant unto you a kingdom, and ye shall sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel,’ as well as ‘ye shall eat and drink with Me at My table in My kingdom.’ So repose, which is consistent and coexistent with the intensest activity, is the great hope that comes out of these metaphors. But for many of us-I suppose for all of us elderly people-who are about weary of work and worry, there is no deeper hope than the hope of rest. ‘I have had labour enough for one,’ says one of our poets. And I think there is something in most of our hearts that echoes that and rejoices to hear that, after the long march, ‘ye shall sit with Me at My table.’

But besides satisfaction, society, and rest, the figure suggests gladness. Wine is the emblem of the joyous side of a feast, just as bread is the emblem of the necessary nourishment. And it is new wine; joy raised to a higher power, transformed and glorified; and yet the old emotion in a new form. As for that gladness, ‘eye hath not seen, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the things that God hath prepared for them that love Him.’ Only all we weary, heavy-laden, saddened, anxious, disappointed, tormented people may hope for these festal joys, if we are Christ’s. The feast will last when all the troubles and the cares which helped us to it are dead and buried and forgotten.

These four things, brethren-satisfaction, society, rest, new gladness-are proclaimed and prophesied to each of us, if we will, by this memorial rite.

Again, there comes from this aspect of the Communion the thought that the blessed condition of the Christian soul hereafter is a feast on a sacrifice. We must distinguish between the sense in which our Lord drinks with us, and the sense in which we alone partake of that feast of which He provides the viands. But just as in the symbolic ordinance of the Communion the very essence of it is that what was offered as sacrifice is now incorporated into the participant’s spiritual being, and becomes part of himself, and the life of his life, so, in the future, all the blessedness of the clustered and constellated joys of that life, which is one eternal festival, shall arise from the reception into perfected spirits with ever-growing greatness and blessedness of the Christ that died and ever lives for them. That heavenly glory, to its highest pinnacle of aspiration, to its most rapt completeness of gladness, is all the consequence of Christ’s death on the Cross. That death, which we commemorate, is the procuring cause of man’s entrance into bliss, and that death is the subject of the continual, grateful remembrance of the saints in the seventh heaven of their glory. Life yonder, as all true life here, consists in taking into ourselves the life of Jesus Christ, and the law for heaven is the same as the law for earth, ‘He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me.’

Lastly, the conception of the future for Christian souls arising from this aspect of the Lord’s Supper is that it is not only a feast, and a feast on a sacrifice, but that it is a feast with the King.

‘With you I will drink it.’ Brethren, we pass beyond metaphor when we gather up and condense all the vague brightness and glories of that perfect future into this one rapturous, overwhelming, all-embracing thought: ‘So shall we ever be with the Lord.’ I could almost wish that Christian people had no other thought of that future than this, for surely in its grand simplicity, in its ineffable depth, there lie the germs of every blessedness. How poor all the material emblems are of which sensuous imaginations make so much, when compared with that hope! As the good old hymn has it, which to me says more, in its bold simplicity, than all the sentimental enlargements of Scriptural metaphors which some people admire so much-

‘It is enough that Christ knows all,

And I shall be with Him.’

Strange that He says, ‘I will drink it with you.’ Does He need sustenance? Does He need any external things in order to make His feast? No! and Yes! ‘I will sup with Him’ as well as ‘He with me.’ And, surely, His meat and drink are the love, the loyalty, the obedience, the receptiveness, the society of His redeemed children. ‘The joy of the Lord’ comes from ‘seeing of the travail of His soul,’ and His servants do enter into that joy in deep and wondrous fashion. We not only shall live on Christ, but He Himself puts to His own lips the chalice that He commends to ours, and in marvellous condescension to, and identity with, our glorified humanity drinks with us the ‘new wine’ in the Father’s kingdom.

Benson Commentary

Matthew 26:29. But I well not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, &c. — He had made the same declaration concerning the passover-cup, Luke 22:18; and therefore, it is probable, his meaning upon the whole was, that he would neither partake of the passover nor of the sacrament, till he had the satisfaction to see the things signified by these institutions fulfilled in the gospel dispensation, which therefore was nigh at hand. Or we may interpret the words in a more general sense, thus: that he would not partake of any joy till he rejoiced with them in the communications of the Holy Spirit, which were to be bestowed plentifully on them as soon as the gospel dispensation began. Others, however, understand the words thus: I will taste no more wine till I drink wine of quite another kind in the glorious kingdom of my Father; and of this you also shall partake with me.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

26:26-30 This ordinance of the Lord's supper is to us the passover supper, by which we commemorate a much greater deliverance than that of Israel out of Egypt. Take, eat; accept of Christ as he is offered to you; receive the atonement, approve of it, submit to his grace and his government. Meat looked upon, be the dish ever so well garnished, will not nourish; it must be fed upon: so must the doctrine of Christ. This is my body; that is, spiritually, it signifies and represents his body. We partake of the sun, not by having the sun put into our hands, but the beams of it darted down upon us; so we partake of Christ by partaking of his grace, and the blessed fruits of the breaking of his body. The blood of Christ is signified and represented by the wine. He gave thanks, to teach us to look to God in every part of the ordinance. This cup he gave to the disciples with a command, Drink ye all of it. The pardon of sin is that great blessing which is, in the Lord's supper, conferred on all true believers; it is the foundation of all other blessings. He takes leave of such communion; and assures them of a happy meeting again at last; Until that day when I drink it new with you, may be understood of the joys and glories of the future state, which the saints shall partake with the Lord Jesus. That will be the kingdom of his Father; the wine of consolation will there be always new. While we look at the outward signs of Christ's body broken and his blood shed for the remission of our sins, let us recollect that the feast cost him as much as though he had literally given his flesh to be eaten and his blood for us to drink.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

But I say unto you ... - That is, the observance of the Passover, and of the rites shadowing forth future things, here end.

I am about to die. The design of all these types and shadows is about to be accomplished. This is the last time that I shall partake of them with you. Hereafter, when my Father's kingdom is established in heaven, we will partake together of the thing represented by these types and ceremonial observances - the blessings and triumphs of redemption.

Fruit of the vine - "Wine, the fruit or produce" of the vine made of the grapes of the vine.

Until that day - Probably the time when they should be received to heaven. It does not mean here on earth, further than that they would partake with him in the happiness of spreading the gospel and the triumphs of his kingdom.

When I drink it new with you - Not that he would partake with them of literal wine there, but in the thing represented by it. Wine was an important part of the feast of the Passover, and of all feasts. The kingdom of heaven is often represented under the image of a feast. It means that he will partake of joy with them in heaven; that they will share together the honors and happiness of the heavenly world.

New - In a new manner, or perhaps "afresh."

In my Father's kingdom - In heaven. The place where God shall reign in a kingdom fully established and pure.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Mt 26:17-30. Preparation for and Last Celebration of the Passover Announcement of the Traitor, and Institution of the Supper. ( = Mr 14:12-26; Lu 22:7-23; Joh 13:1-3, 10, 11, 18-30).

For the exposition, see on [1362]Lu 22:7-23.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

See Poole on "Matthew 26:30".

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth,.... From whence it seems natural to conclude, that Christ had drank of the cup in the supper, as well as at the passover; and it is reasonable to believe, that he also ate of the bread; since it appears from what has been observed before; see Gill on Matthew 26:26, that none might eat, till he that blessed and brake the bread had tasted of it (f): the reason why wine is here called

the fruit of the vine, and not wine; see Gill on Matthew 26:27. The design of this expression is to show, that his stay would be very short: the cup he had just drank of, was the last he should drink with them: he should drink no more wine at the passover; he had kept the last, and which now of right was to cease; nor in the Lord's supper, for though that was to continue to his second coming, he should be no more present at it corporeally, only spiritually; nor in common conversation, which is not contradicted by Acts 10:41. Since, though the apostles drank with him in his presence, it does not necessarily follow, that he drank with them; and if he did, it was not in a mortal state, nor in the ordinary manner and use of it, but to confirm his resurrection from the dead, nor can it be proved that he drank of the fruit of the vine: the design of the phrase, as before observed, is to signify his speedy departure from his disciples. The allusion is to an usage at the passover, when after the fourth cup, they tasted of nothing else all that night, except water; and so Christ declares, that he would drink no more, not only that night, but never after,

Until the day I drink it new with you, in my Father's kingdom: Mark says, "in the kingdom of God", Mark 14:25; and Luke, "until the kingdom of God come", Luke 22:18; and both the Syriac and Persic versions read it here, "in the kingdom of God"; by which is meant, something distinct from the kingdom of the Son, or of the Messiah, which was already come; and appeared more manifestly after the resurrection of Christ, upon his ascension to heaven, and the effusion of the holy Spirit, and the success of the Gospel, both among Jews and Gentiles; and which will be more glorious in the latter day: and when all the elect of God are gathered in, and have been presented to Christ by himself, he will then deliver up the kingdom to the Father, and God shall be all in all; and then the kingdom of the Father will take place here mentioned, and which is no other than the ultimate glory; so called, because it is of the Father's preparing and giving, and in which he will reign and dwell, and the saints with him, to all eternity; which must not be understood to the exclusion of Christ, for it is called his kingdom also, Luke 22:30, in this state, Christ will drink new wine, not literally, but spiritually understood; and which designs the joys and glories of heaven, the best wine which is reserved to the last: which is sometimes signified by a feast, of which wine is a principal part; by sitting down as at a table, in the kingdom of heaven, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Matthew 8:11, and expressed by "wine", because of its refreshing and exhilarating nature, in God's presence is "fulness of joy"; and by "new wine", because these joys are the most excellent, because they are always new, and never change; they are "pleasures for evermore": to "drink" hereof, denotes the full enjoyment of them, which Christ, as man and mediator, and his people with him, shall be possessed of; and is different from the superficial "taste of the powers of the world to come", Hebrews 6:5, which hypocrites have, and those real prelibations of glory which saints have in this life; there being a difference between drinking and tasting, Matthew 27:34, and this will be social; Christ and his true disciples shall be together; and drink this new wine together; or enjoy the same glory and felicity in the highest measure and degree, they are capable of; and which society therein will yield a mutual pleasure to each other, as the words here suggest. The Jews often express the joys of the world to come, by such like figurative phrases: they make mention of, , "the wine of the world to come" (g); and of , "a spiritual drink", in the last days, which is called the world to come (h): and so they explain (i) after this manner, Isaiah 64:4. "Neither hath the eye seen, O God", &c., , "this is the wine", which is kept in the grapes from the six days of the creation; of which they often speak in their writings (k).

(f) Maimon. Chametz Umetzah, c. 8. sect. 10. Piske Toseph. Pesach. art. 328. (g) Zohar in Lev. fol. 17. 2.((h) Tzeror Hammor, fol. 3. 4. En Israel, fol. 30. 1.((i) T. Bab. Berncot, fol. 34. 2, & Sanhed. fol. 99. 1.((k) Targum in Cant. viii. 2. Zohar in Gen. fol. 81. 4. Tzeror Hammor, fol. 30. 3.

Geneva Study Bible

But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Matthew 26:29. The certainty and nearness of His death, which had just been expressed in the symbolism of the wine, impel Jesus to add a sorrowful but yet comforting assurance (introducing it with the continuative autem).

ὅτι οὐ μὴ πίω] that I will certainly not drink. According to the synoptic conception of the meal as being the one in connection with the Passover, this presupposes that the cup mentioned at Matthew 26:27 f. was the last one of the meal (the fourth), and not the one before the last. For it may be held as certain that, at this feast above all, and considering His present frame of mind, He would take care not to give offence by omitting the fourth Passover-cup; and what reason, it may be asked, would He have had for doing so? The cup in question was the concluding one, during the drinking of which the second portion of the Hallel was sung (Matthew 26:30).

ἀπάρτι] from this present occasion, on which I have just drunk of it. To suppose that Jesus Himself did not also partake of the cup (Olshausen, de Wette, Rückert, Weiss) is a gratuitous assumption, incompatible with the ordinary Passover usage. We are to understand the drinking on the part of Jesus as having taken place after the εὐχαριστήσας, Matthew 26:27, before He handed the cup to the disciples, and announced to them the symbolical significance that was to be attached to it. Comp. Chrysostom. Matthew does not mention this circumstance, because he did not regard it as forming part of the symbolism here in view. Euthymius Zigabenus correctly observes: εἰ δὲ τοῦ ποτηρίου μετέσχε, μετέλαβεν ἄρα καὶ τοῦ ἄρτου. Comp. on Matthew 26:26.

ἐκ τούτου τοῦ γεννήμ. τ. ἀμπ.] τούτου is emphatic, and points to the Passover-wine. Mark and Luke are less precise, not having τούτου. From this it must not be assumed that Jesus never drank any wine after His resurrection. Acts 10:41; Ignat. Smyrn. 3. For γέννημα as used by later Greek writers (likewise the LXX.) in the sense of καρπός, see Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 286. For the reasons for rejecting the reading γενήματος (Lachmann, Tischendorf), notwithstanding the far greater number of testimonies in its favour, see Fritzsche on Mark, p. 619 f. The use of this term instead of οἶνος has something solemn about it, containing, as it does, an allusion to the form of thanksgiving for the Passover wine: “benedictus sit, qui creavit fructum vitis.” Comp. Lightfoot on Matthew 26:27.

καινόν] novum, different in respect of quality; “novitatem dicit plane singularem,” Bengel; not recens, νέον. This conception of the new Passover wine, which is to be the product of the coming aeon and of the glorified κτίσις, is connected with the idea of the renewal of the world in view of the Messianic kingdom. Luke 22:16, comp. Matthew 26:30. To understand the new celebration of the Passover in the perfected kingdom only in a figurative sense, corresponding somewhat to the feasts of the patriarchs, alluded to at Matthew 8:11 (“vos aliquando mecum in coelo summa laetitia et felicitate perfruemini,” Kuinoel, Neander), would, in presence of such a characteristic allusion to the Passover, be as arbitrary on the one hand as the referring of the expression (Chrysostom, Euthymius Zigabenus, Münster, Clarius) to the period subsequent to the resurrection of Jesus (Acts 10:41) would be erroneous on the other, and that on account of the τούτου and the words ἐν τῇ βασιλ. τ. π. μ., which can only be intended to designate the kingdom of Messiah. It is wrong to take καινόν, as Kuinoel and Fritzsche have done, in the sense of iterum, for it is a characteristic predicate of the wine that it is here in question; besides, had it been otherwise, we should have had anew: ἐκ καινῆς, Thuc. iii. 92. 5, or the ordinary πάλιν of the New Testament.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Matthew 26:29 contains an express statement of the fact implied in the preceding actions, iz., that death is near. It is the last time I shall drink paschal (τούτου τ. γ., etc.) wine with you. I am to die at this passover. The second half of the sentence is not to be taken prosaically. It is the thought of meeting again, brought in to brighten the gloom of the leave-taking (“so tritt zu dem Lebewohl ein Gedanke an das Wiedersehen,” Holtz., H.C.). To disentangle figure from fact in this poetic utterance about the new wine is impossible. Hence such comments as those of Bengal and Meyer, to the effect that καινὸν points to a new kind of wine (“novitatem dicit plane singularem,” Beng.), serve no purpose. They turn poetry into prose, and pathos into bathos.

The remarkable transaction narrated in Matthew 26:26-29 was an acted parable proclaiming at once the fact and the epoch-making significance of the approaching passion. It sets in a striking light the personality of a Jesus; His originality, His tenderness, His mastery of the situation, His consciousness of being through His life and His death the inaugurator of a new era.—Was Judas present? Who can tell? Lk.’s narrative seems to imply that he was. Mt. and Mk. give no sign. They cannot have regarded his absence as of vital importance.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

29. when I drink it new with you] The reference is to the feast, which is a symbol of the glorified life, cp. Luke 22:30. The new wine signifies the new higher existence (ch. Matthew 9:17), which Christ would share with His Saints. The expression may also symbolize the Christian as distinguished from the Jewish dispensation, and be referred specially to the celebration of the Eucharist, in which Christ joins with the faithful in the feast of the Kingdom of God on earth.

Bengel's Gnomen

Matthew 26:29. Λέγω, I say) Concerning the order of these words, and those that immediately precede them: cf. Luke 22:15-17, etc.[1136]—ἀπʼ ἄρτι, from henceforth) A phrase suitable to taking leave.—γεννήματος τῆς ἀμπέλου, of the produce of the vine) A periphrasis for wine, somewhat different from the common language of the inhabitants of earth, and therefore the more suitable to the meaning of the Saviour who was about to leave the earth.—γέννημα and γἑνημα occur in the LXX., also promiscuously, when wine and the vine are spoken of.—ἓως τῆς ἡμέρας ἐκείνης κ.τ.λ., until that day, etc.) Which had been foretold: see Luke 22:16; Luke 22:18; Luke 22:30. Hence St Paul (1 Corinthians 11:26) draws the inference that “as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye show forth the Lord’s death till He come.”—αὐτὸ, it) referring to the produce of the vine, i.e. wine, evidently of heaven.—καινὸν, new) sc. in the full consummation of the New Testament. This new is placed above the new spoken of in Matthew 26:28. See the Prelude to this in John 21:12.[1137] The Jewish Passover was superseded by the Lord’s Supper, this will be again succeeded by further things of a heavenly nature. Elsewhere, in ch. Matthew 9:17, instead of “καινὸς,” we find “νεός,” οἶνος, new wine [where νέος denotes newness of vintage, not novelty of kind]; but καινὸν in this passage evidently implies a newness in nature, not in age.[1138]—ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ Πατρὸς Μου, in My Father’s kingdom) see 1 Corinthians 15:24; Luke 22:16; Luke 22:30. Thomas Gataker considers new (καινὸν) wine to be the same as ἕτερον, different (cf. Mark 16:17, with Acts 2:4),[1139] so as to denote wine of a kind entirely different from that which the Lord was then taking with His disciples.

[1136] If you compare the order of the events narrated, as contained in Luke, with that which we have in Matthew and Mark, our Lord seems to have combined the promise of eating in the kingdom of God (Luke 22:16) with the lamb of the Passover supper; and the promise of the drinking anew in the kingdom of God with the cup of His (the Lord’s) Supper (Matthew 26:29; Luke 22:18), and, therefore, to have closely joined to one another these mysteries [i.e. the symbolical institutions, the Passover and the Lord’s Supper].—Harm., p. 509.

[1137] Our Lord’s dining with them after the resurrection is a prelude to their hereafter eating and drinking at His table in His kingdom, Luke 22:30.—ED.

[1138] Καινὸς, new, is opposed to that which has existed long and been in use, ex. Gr. ἱμάτιον παλαιόν, Matthew 9:16. But νέος, recent, is opposed to that which was originated some time back, as οἶνος παλαιός, Luke 5:39. Καινὸν is in Matthew 26:29, applied to γέννημα τῆς ἀμπέλου, because He refers to another wine than that then poured out—a wine not recent but different. See Tittm. Syn.—ED.

[1139] For the γλώσσαις λαλήσουσιν καιναῖς of Mark answers to the λαλεῖν ἑτέραις γλωσσαις of Acts.—ED.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 29. - I will not drink henceforth (ἀπ' ἄρτι) of this fruit (γεννήματος) of the vine. He is about to die. From this moment forward he tastes not the cup. It does not follow that he had partaken of the consecrated wine which he gave his apostles. Probability is against his having done so (see on ver. 26). He used the same words with the first cup at the commencement of the supper (Luke 22:18). Of this he probably partook, but not of the latter. The offspring of the vine is a poetical way of describing wine (cf. Deuteronomy 22:9; Isaiah 32:12, etc.). It is absurd to find in this term an argument for unalcoholic grape juice. Wine, to be wine, must undergo fermentation, and if it is not to putrefy or to become vinegar, it must develop alcohol. When I drink it new (kaino/n) with you in my Father's kingdom. This mysterious announcement has been variously interpreted, and its meaning must remain uncertain. Some refer it to Christ's intercourse with his disciples after he rose from the dead, when e.g. he partook of food with them (Luke 24:30, 42, 43; John 21:12; Acts 1:4; Acts 10:41). But this seems hardly to meet the requirements of the text, though it has the support of Chrysostom, who writes, "Because he had discoursed with them concerning Passion and cross, he again introduces what he has to say of his resurrection, having made mention of a kingdom before them, and by this term calling his own resurrection. And wherefore did be drink after he was risen again? Lest the grosser sort might suppose that the resurrection was a phantasy To show, therefore, that they should see him manifestly risen again, and that he should be with them once more, and that they themselves shall be witness to the things that are done, both by sight and by act, he saith, 'until I drink it new with you,' you bearing witness. But what is 'new'? In a new, that is, in a strange manner, not having a passible body, but now immortal and incorruptible, and not needing food." Some explain it of the Passover, of which he then partook for the last time, the type being fulfilled in him. The solution does not explain the new participation in the kingdom of God. It seems, on the whole, best to understand it as a prophecy of the great marriage supper of the Lamb, and the joys that await the faithful in the new heavens and the new earth. The wine is (he token of the felicities of this dispensation, and it is called "new" in contrast with the obsolete character of that which it superseded. "Novitatem dicit plane eingularem" (Bengel). Matthew 26:29

Vincent's Word Studies

New (καινὸν)

Another adjective, νεόν, is employed to denote new wine in the sense of freshly-made (Matthew 9:17; Mark 2:22; Luke 5:37, Luke 5:38, Luke 5:39). The difference is between newness regarded in point of time or of quality. The young, for instance, who have lately sprung up, are νείοι, or νεώτεροι (Luke 15:12, Luke 15:13). The new garment (Luke 5:36) is contrasted as to quality with a worn and threadbare one. Hence καινοῦ. So a new heaven (2 Peter 3:13) is καινὸς, contrasted with that which shows signs of dissolution. The tomb in which the body of Jesus was laid was καινὸν (Matthew 27:60); in which no other body had lain, making it ceremonially unclean; not recently hewn. Trench ("Synonyms") cites a passage from Polybius, relating a stratagem by which a town was nearly taken, and saying "we are still new (καινοί) and young (νέοι) in regard of such deceits." Here καινοί expresses the inexperience of the men; νέοι, their youth. Still, the distinction cannot be pressed in all cases. Thus, 1 Corinthians 5:7, "Purge out the old leaven that ye may be a new (νέον) lump;" and Colossians 3:10, "Put on the new (νέον) man," plainly carry the sense of quality. In our Lord's expression, "drink it new," the idea of quality is dominant. All the elements of festivity in the heavenly kingdom will be of a new and higher quality. In the New Testament, besides the two cases just cited, νέος is applied to wine, to the young, and once to a covenant.