Luke 22:20 Meaning and Explanation
“Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →A meal that had recalled Israel's rescue from Egypt for centuries suddenly receives new words at this table. Jesus does not explain them at length. He hands over a cup, states what it is, and leaves His followers holding something they will keep doing for the rest of their lives. Understanding this sentence shapes how we understand His death and every gathering since.
After the passover meal Jesus takes a cup and names it: the new covenant sealed in His own blood, poured out for those who share it. His coming death becomes the ground of a new relationship with God.
The Context of Luke 22:20
The setting is a furnished upper room in Jerusalem on the day of unleavened bread, when the passover lamb was killed. Peter and John had prepared the meal at Jesus' direction. Verse 15 records His longing to eat this passover before He suffered, and verse 16 looks ahead to its fulfilment in the kingdom of God. A cup is passed in verse 17, bread broken and given in verse 19 with the words 'this do in remembrance of me.' Verse 20 follows the supper itself. Immediately afterward Jesus speaks of the betrayer at the table, and the disciples fall into an argument about greatness.
What Does Luke 22:20 Mean?
'Likewise also' ties the cup to the bread just given, so the two acts belong to one deed. 'After supper' places this moment at the close of the passover meal, at the point where the last cup was customarily taken. 'This cup is the new testament in my blood' uses the language of covenant making, where blood ratifies a binding relationship. The word rendered 'testament' means covenant, a sworn arrangement between God and a people. 'Shed for you' points to a death still hours away, spoken in the present as though already accomplished. The phrase 'for you' makes the disciples recipients before they have understood anything of what is coming.
Covenants in Israel were sealed with blood. Moses sprinkled the people at Sinai and called it the blood of the covenant, and the sacrifices at the altar carried that pattern forward for generations. Jeremiah 31 promised a new covenant written on the heart, with sins remembered no more. Jesus takes the cup of the passover, the feast that celebrated deliverance by the blood of a lamb, and speaks of the covenant Jeremiah foretold as arriving through His own blood. The night unfolds accordingly: within hours He is arrested, and by the next afternoon the temple veil is torn. What Israel had kept in figure now reaches its intended substance.
Notice who receives this cup. The betrayer is at the table, Peter will deny Him before morning, and the whole company will scatter. Jesus hands the covenant cup to them anyway, in advance of their failure and in advance of His own suffering. The gift arrives from His side first. Later that same night He prays about another cup He would rather have removed, and He drinks it in obedience to the Father's will. The cup He gives and the cup He takes belong to the same act of self giving, which is why the cup He left with His followers carries the weight of His death.
Luke 22:20 in the Original Language
diatheke (διαθήκη), 'testament' -- covenant; a binding arrangement established by one party and received by another. The same Greek word covers a settled disposition and a will, which is why English versions render it sometimes as testament and sometimes as covenant.
Bible Verses Related to Luke 22:20
“And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words.”
- Exodus 24:8
“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:”
- Jeremiah 31:31
“For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”
- Matthew 26:28
“Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,”
- Hebrews 13:20
Where Luke 22:20 Echoes in Scripture
Paul repeats these words in 1 Corinthians 11:25, telling the Corinthians he received them from the Lord and delivered them onward, with the added charge to do this as often as they drink it in remembrance of Him. That letter was written within a few decades of the upper room, to a congregation far from Jerusalem, and it shows the saying already fixed in the church's practice. A sentence spoken at a private meal in a borrowed room had become the common possession of gathered believers across the Mediterranean world.
How to Apply Luke 22:20 Today
Communion tables are ordinary places: a small cup, a quiet room, familiar people. This verse asks us to bring the weight of what is said there back into the week that follows. A covenant has two sides, and living inside one shapes how we treat money, promises, and the people who disappoint us. We can come to that cup with sins named honestly, and we can leave it with a settled sense that the covenant rests on what Christ has done and given. When gratitude fades into routine, returning to the plain words 'shed for you' restores the sense of it.
Reflection & Prayer
What would change this week if I treated the covenant as something Christ initiated toward me before I could offer anything back? Sit with that question before the next time the cup is passed. A prayer: Lord Jesus, You gave the cup before anyone at the table deserved it. Teach me to receive what You offer, and to keep faith with the God who binds Himself to His people.
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