“And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, ‘O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.’” (Matthew 26:39)
“His language is, ‘The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?’ Great and momentous words! Let us spend a few moments in meditating on them.
A cup is a vessel which has its appointed measure, and is limited by its rim. The Saviour several times refers to the cup that was appointed for Him.
In Matthew 20:22, He asks His disciples, ‘Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of?’ By the cup, He understood the bitter draught of His passion which had been assigned Him.
We heard Him ask in Gethsemane, at the commencement, if it were not possible that the cup might pass from Him; and here we find Him mentioning, with the most unmoved self-possession, ‘the cup which his Father had given him.’
We know what was in the cup. All its contents would have been otherwise measured out to us by divine justice on account of sin.
In the cup was the entire curse of the inviolable law, all the horrors of conscious guilt, all the terrors of Satan’s fiercest temptations, and all the sufferings which can befall both body and soul.
It contained likewise the dreadful ingredients of abandonment by God, infernal agony, and a bloody death, to which the curse was attached—all to be endured while surrounded by the powers of darkness.
Here we learn to understand what is implied in the words:
“Who spared not his own Son, but freely gave him up for us all.”
“The Lord laid on him the iniquities of us all.”
“I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.”
“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.”
“God made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.”
All that mankind have heaped up to themselves against the day of God’s holy and righteous wrath— their forgetfulness of God— their selfish conduct— their disobedience, pride, worldly-mindedness— their filthy lusts, hypocrisy, falsehood, hard-heartedness, and deceit— all are united and mingled in this cup, and ferment together into a horrible potion.
“Shall I not drink this cup?” asks the Saviour.
“Yes,” we reply, “empty it, beloved Immanuel! we will kiss Thy feet, and offer up ourselves to Thee upon Thy holy altar!”
He has emptied it, and not a drop remains for His people. The satisfaction He rendered was complete, the reconciliation effected.
‘There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.’ The curse no longer falls upon them.
‘The chastisement of our peace lay upon him; and by his stripes we are healed,’ and nothing now remains for us but to sing Hallelujah!”
—F. W. Krummacher, The Suffering Saviour: Meditations on the Last Days of Christ (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1947/2004), 134-135.
Leave a Reply