Topical Studies
Cup as Metaphor of Suffering
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Matthew 26:39 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, just a short while after urging His disciples to drink of His cup. As He prayed fervently and emotionally to His Father in heaven, the symbol of the cup was fresh in His mind. Just as He had given His disciples a cup from which to drink, so had the Father placed a cup before Him! Notice Matthew 26:39: "He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, 'O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.'" In the Old Testament, the cup is also a metaphor for the divine punishment of sin. Hence, Jesus' death would involve far more than just physical torture and death. Christ would become the target of untold divine wrath, as every sin that had ever been committed would be heaped on this one sinless Being! He who had sought always to do the will of His Father perfectly, He who had heard His loving Father exclaim, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," would now experience His Father's overflowing wrath for all sin, including all the worst sins! Some of what He suffered was for our sins—yours and mine. Jesus knew that death and incurring God's wrath for sin comprised the climax of His mission on earth as the Messiah. But now, as that hour approached, His awareness of God's wrath against sin became even more intense! The Bible explains this in detail in Romans 1:18—3:20. To Jesus, it was an unimaginable horror! The second and third times He prays in the Garden, He changes His words slightly, as He realizes He definitely has to drink of that cup: "O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done" (Matthew 26:42, 44). He now fully accepts the fact that the only way to get past this ordeal is to go through it. The cup is still on Jesus' mind even after the soldiers from the High Priest come to capture Him. When Peter tries to defend Him physically with a sword and misses Malchus' head, cutting off his ear instead, Jesus says to Peter: "Put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?" (John 18:11). Indeed! And shall we not drink the cup which our King has given us?
Staff
Are You Drinking of the Master's Cup?
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Matthew 26:39-44 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
What was this "cup" that Jesus asked might pass from Him if it were His Father's will? Was He, in a moment of weakness, asking His Father to prevent Him from going through the coming hours of physical torture? This is doubtful considering that Jesus, with the fullest knowledge and foresight of all the horrible details, had spent His entire human lifetime, and millennia prior to it, in preparation for this day. A brief word study on these verses may prove helpful here. The word "cup" is translated from the Greek noun poterion, which can mean the vessel's liquid contents as well as the vessel itself. It is obvious, of course, that Jesus drank the contents, not the vessel. Poterion derives from pino, "to drink." The word "pass" is translated from the Greek verb parerchomai, which can refer to the passage of time. From this, we can deduce that Jesus may have been asking His Father to make the time it would take to complete this awful "drink" pass as quickly as possible, but even then, only if it fit in with His Father's perfect will. Most of us have at some time had to drink some horrible-tasting medicine, and although we knew that it was beneficial for us to drink it, the procedure still seemed to take an eternity! By prior agreement with His Father, Jesus was at this time voluntarily draining an enormous cup of spiritual "drink," which was ultimately a healing medicine for mankind but at the same time was to Him a deadly poison. This spiritual drink was a mixture of two ingredients that could not have been more repulsive to Them both. The first ingredient was the sin of the whole world. The second was Their separation from each other. Jesus' spiritual poison did not just taste horrible. It racked His body and His mind with stinging agony (I Corinthians 15:56; Luke 22:44). Perhaps, in agreeing to drink of this cup, He even accepted a taste of the fiery fate of those who would never repent, as foretold through the prophet Jeremiah that the poison was like fire that had been injected into His bones (Lamentations 1:13).
John Plunkett
Jesus' Final Human Thoughts (Part Two)
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Revelation 17:4 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
The phrase "drinking of the cup" eventually symbolized sharing the consequences of what was in that cup. It also came to mean accepting what the king dealt out. The whole world drinks of Babylon's cup, full of the wine of her fornications and abominations. Since "drinking of the cup" means accepting whatever is appointed for one to experience—both good and bad, joyful or sorrowful—all who drink of Babylon's cup will share in her future. In the Bible are numerous references to this cup of God's wrath and how Babylon and other nations will drink from it, symbolizing the divine punishments being inflicted (Revelation 14:10; 16:19; Psalm 11:6; Isaiah 51:17, etc.). Revelation 14:10, for example, speaks of drinking "of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation." Drinking of a cup means participating in whatever that cup contains. Those whom God is calling out of Babylon are asked to drink of another cup. The psalmist writes, "I will take up the cup of salvation" (Psalm 116:13). This cup has far more positive ramifications for us than the curses boiling within God's cup of indignation! The cup of salvation contains all the blessings of God, especially those of eternal life and reward in His Kingdom.
Staff
Are You Drinking of the Master's Cup?
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