Passage

Matthew 26.28

"for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins." (Matthew 26:28, NASB95)

Jesus's word over the cup at the Last Supper, the single verse that institutes the New Testament's central rite, anchors the doctrine of the atonement to a specific OT covenant pattern, and gives Christian sacramental theology its most-contested phrasing. Three words do the work: "covenant" (diathēkē), "poured out for many" (echoing Isaiah 53.12), and "for forgiveness of sins" (eis aphesin hamartiōn).

Book: Matthew · NASB95

Immediate context (4 PD translations)

ASV (ASV)

"26. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it; and he gave to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. 27. And he took a cup, and gave thanks, and gave to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;"

"28. for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many unto remission of sins."

"29. But I say unto you, I shall not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. 30. And when they had sung a hymn, they went out unto the mount of Olives." (Matthew 26:26-30, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"26. As they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks for it, and broke it. He gave to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” 27. He took the cup, gave thanks, and gave to them, saying, “All of you drink it,"

"28. for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the remission of sins."

"29. But I tell you that I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on, until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s Kingdom.” 30. When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." (Matthew 26:26-30, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"26. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. ^{blessed it: many Greek copies have gave thanks} 27. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;"

"28. For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."

"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. 30. And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives. ^{hymn: or, psalm}" (Matthew 26:26-30, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"26. And while they were eating, Jesus having taken the bread, and having blessed, did brake, and was giving to the disciples, and said, 'Take, eat, this is my body;' 27. and having taken the cup, and having given thanks, he gave to them, saying, 'Drink ye of it, all;"

"28. for this is my blood of the new covenant, that for many is being poured out, to remission of sins;"

"29. and I say to you, that I may not drink henceforth on this produce of the vine, till that day when I may drink it with you new in the reign of my Father.' 30. And having sung a hymn, they went forth to the mount of the Olives;" (Matthew 26:26-30, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: Jesus, hosting the Passover meal with the Twelve.
Audience: the disciples, on the night before the crucifixion; through them, the historic church.
Location: the Upper Room in Jerusalem, Thursday evening of Passion Week.
Time period: events Passover c. AD 30/33; Matthean composition c. AD 60-80, traditional Antioch.

Theological reading

Three exegetical points carry the weight of this verse, each anchored in the Greek.

"Blood of the covenant", to haima mou tēs diathēkēs. The phrase is a direct verbal echo of Exodus 24.8, where Moses sprinkles the people with sacrificial blood and says, "Behold the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you." Jesus appropriates the Sinai covenant-inauguration formula and reapplies it to himself. The Last Supper is not a generic farewell meal but a covenant-ratification ceremony in which Jesus is both the priest and the sacrificial victim. The textual variant some translations render as "new covenant" (WEB, KJV, YLT all have "new"; ASV, NASB95, and the earliest manuscripts read simply "covenant") harmonizes Matthew with Luke 22:20 and 1 Cor 11:25, both of which explicitly say "new covenant" (cf. Luke 22.20, 1 Corinthians 11.25). Whether the word "new" is original or assimilated, the substance is the same: this is the inaugurating moment of the covenant promised in Jeremiah 31.31-34, "I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel... I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."

"Poured out for many", peri pollōn ekchynnomenon. The verb ekchynnō is sacrificial language for the libation-pouring of blood at the altar; the participle in the present tense pictures the pouring as ongoing, beginning here and consummated on the cross hours later. The phrase "for many" deliberately echoes Isaiah 53.12, "He poured out Himself to death... yet He Himself bore the sin of many." The Servant Song of Isaiah 53, the OT's clearest substitutionary-atonement passage, supplies the interpretive frame Jesus invokes. He is dying peri (concerning, on behalf of) the many. The word "many" here is a Hebraism for "the great multitude," not a limitation, it does not narrow the scope of the atonement to a numerically restricted group but contrasts the one who dies with the many who benefit.

"For forgiveness of sins", eis aphesin hamartiōn. The preposition eis with the accusative names the purpose-result: the blood is poured out toward, for the purpose of, resulting in the forgiveness of sins. Matthew makes the atoning purpose of Jesus's death explicit in a way the other Synoptic accounts do not (Mark and Luke have "poured out for many" but only Matthew adds "eis aphesin hamartiōn"). The phrase deliberately recalls John the Baptist's "baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins" (cf. Mark 1.4, same Greek phrase), but where John's baptism only signaled repentance, Jesus's blood actually effects the forgiveness.

The cumulative theology: Jesus is the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, dying a substitutionary death, on the model of the Sinai covenant inauguration, to inaugurate the new covenant promised by Jeremiah, with the effect of actually forgiving sins. The verse is one of the strongest single-verse loci for Penal Substitutionary Atonement in the Synoptics.

Eucharistic theology

The verse is the single most-contested verse in Christian sacramental theology. The four major historic positions:

Transubstantiation (Roman Catholic): the substance of bread and wine is converted into the substance of Christ's body and blood while the accidents (appearance) remain. Anchored in "this is my blood" as ontological identity.
Sacramental Union / Consubstantiation (Lutheran): Christ is bodily present "in, with, and under" the bread and wine, without conversion of substance.
Spiritual / Pneumatic Presence (Reformed, Calvin): Christ is genuinely present and received by faith through the work of the Holy Spirit, but the elements remain bread and wine.
Memorial / Symbolic (Zwinglian, much of Baptist / evangelical practice): the elements are signs that memorialize Christ's death; the "is" is figurative ("this represents my blood").

Each position adduces v. 28 in its support; the verse alone does not settle the question, and the wider Christian tradition has read it through different theological grammars for two millennia. Matthew himself does not adjudicate; he reports the words.

Apologetic deployment

The verse is rarely on the front line of apologetic debate, but it functions in two important ways:

Internal coherence of OT-NT fulfillment. Atheist objections that "the New Testament invents the atonement" are answered partly by showing how directly v. 28 maps onto Exodus 24.8 + Isaiah 53.12 + Jeremiah 31.31-34; the doctrine is not novel, it is the convergence of multiple OT trajectories.
Historicity of the Lord's Supper saying. Multiple-attestation criterion: the institution narrative appears independently in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 1 Corinthians 11 (the latter explicitly citing tradition received earlier, c. AD 50s, within twenty years of the event). The variations among the four accounts are consistent with independent transmission of a single early tradition, not with later legendary development.

Key words

G1242 - diatheke, diathēkē, "covenant." Distinct from the secular Greek synthēkē (a contract between equals); the LXX uses diathēkē to render Hebrew berith, a sovereign-ratified arrangement.
G0859 - aphesis, aphesis, "forgiveness, release, remission." The OT-Day-of-Atonement vocabulary behind the verse.
H1285 - berith, berith, "covenant." The Hebrew background of diathēkē; the covenant pattern Jesus invokes.
H1818 - dam, dam, "blood." OT sacrificial-system vocabulary running from Genesis 4 through Leviticus to Isaiah 53 and finding its NT focal point here.

Theological themes

New covenant inauguration. The verse is the moment Jeremiah 31.31-34 is fulfilled.
Substitutionary atonement. "Poured out for many" + "for forgiveness of sins" combine Servant-song substitution with effected forgiveness.
Sacrificial fulfillment. The Mosaic blood-of-the-covenant + Day-of-Atonement system finds its terminus here.
Christ as priest and victim. Jesus distributes his own blood at the table; he is both the offerer and the offering (cf. Hebrews 9.12, Hebrews 9.14).
Eucharistic / Lord's Supper institution. The dominical word that grounds every subsequent Christian celebration of the meal.
The "many" of Isaiah 53. Universal-scope language ("for many" = "for the multitude"), not a restrictive limit on the atonement.

Cross-references

Exodus 24.8, "behold the blood of the covenant"; direct verbal source of v. 28.
Jeremiah 31.31-34, the new-covenant promise, fulfilled here.
Isaiah 53.12, "He poured out Himself to death... bore the sin of many"; the Servant Song behind "poured out for many."
Luke 22.20, Luke's parallel: "the new covenant in My blood."
Mark 14.24, Mark's parallel: "My blood of the covenant."
1 Corinthians 11.25, Paul's transmission of the institution; explicitly "new covenant."
Hebrews 8.13, the old covenant is made obsolete by the new; v. 28 is what makes it obsolete.
Hebrews 9.12, Christ enters the holy place "with His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption."
Hebrews 9.22, "without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness"; v. 28 supplies the once-for-all blood.
Matthew 1.21, "He will save His people from their sins"; v. 28 is the means of that salvation.
Matthew 20.28, "the Son of Man came... to give His life a ransom for many"; same anti pollōn construction.

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.