I will not drink of the fruit of the vine. — Better, of the product. (See Notes on Matthew 26:29; Mark 14:25.) Here the words precede, in the other Gospels they follow, the institution of the Lord’s Supper. It is not probable that the same words were repeated both before and after. The position which it occupies here, as standing parallel to what had before been said of the Passover, seems on the whole in favour of St. Luke’s arrangement. On the other hand, it is noticeable, whatever explanation may be given of it, that St. Matthew and St. Mark omit (in the best MSS.) the word “new” as connected with the “covenant,” and emphasise it as connected with “the fruit of the vine,” while he omits in the latter case, and emphasises it in the former. It is, perhaps, allowable to think of him as taught by St. Paul, and possibly by Apollos, to embrace more fully than they did, in all its importance, the idea of the New Covenant as set forth in Galatians 3:4, and Hebrews 7-10.

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