Andrew Abernethy, in Eating in Isaiah, argues that food plays a vital role “in Isaiah’s aim of establishing YHWH’s kingly supremacy, envisioning Zion’s judgment and restoration, and creating a community of obedience” (185). Expanding on Abernethy’s insight, I explore in this paper how food informs covenant and sacrifice in Scripture, thus yielding a deeper understanding of Christ’s sacrificial death for God’s covenant people. I first trace food’s role in biblical covenants and sacrifices in the OT and NT (specifically, the Passover and Christ’s Passion). Then I integrate these insights on covenant sacrifices with Christ’s identity as bread of life to argue that food informs Christ’s atoning death in four ways: (1) that his death is not just cancellation of sins but constitution of God’s people; (2) that his death is not just substitution but an invitation to participation; (3) that his death shows not just his utility as means of salvation but his priority as source of life; and (4) that his death evokes not just present remembrance but future anticipation of his kingdom.
My research interacts with N. T. Wright’s “The Cross and the Caricatures,” Michael J. Gorman’s The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant (2014); Sara Covin Juengst’s Breaking Bread: The Spiritual Significance of Food (1992); Gillian Feeley-Harnik’s The Lord’s Table: The Meaning of Food in Early Judaism and Christianity (1994); Ellen F. Davis’s Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (2008); Angel F. Mendez-Montoya’s The Theology of Food: Eating and the Eucharist (2009); R. Larry Shelton’s Cross & Covenant: Interpreting the Atonement for 21st Century Mission (2006); Fleming Rutledge’s The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (2017), and T. F. Torrance’s Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ (2009).