Growing In Godliness Blog
““Let This Cup Pass from Me””
Categories: Author: Steve Gwin, Forgiveness, Jesus, Suffering“Let This Cup Pass from Me”
By Steve Gwin
On the night before Jesus was crucified, He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. His prayers were “with loud cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death” (Hebrews 5:7). Matthew 26:39 records some of the words Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” What was this cup that Jesus wanted to pass from Him?
Jesus had mentioned a cup He was going to drink in a conversation that seems to have happened only a couple of weeks earlier when the mother of James and John asked Jesus if her sons could sit, one on Jesus’ right and the other on His left, in His kingdom. Jesus responded in Matthew 20:22-23, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” It seems clear that Jesus used the words, “drink the cup that I am to drink” to refer to His suffering. James and John would indeed someday each suffer because of being His apostles.
When Jesus prayed “if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me”, He was using “cup” figuratively to represent all the suffering He would endure within the next several hours:
- falsely accused in repeated mock trials the rest of the night and into the next morning (Matthew 26:59-61; 27:1-2)
- repeatedly mocked, slapped, and spat upon (Matthew 26:67; 27:30-31)
- scourged, which was a brutal whipping that was so very painful as His flesh was ripped away (Matthew 27:26)
- a crown of thorns put on His head (Matthew 27:29)
- humiliated by stripping Him of His clothes (Matthew 27:28)
- the excruciating pain of crucifixion (Matthew 27:35)
- even more than all of the above, bearing all the sins of all humans, past, present and future (1 Peter 2:24).
It is likely that Jesus had an additional idea in mind when He prayed “if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me” because we read in Jeremiah 25:15-17, “Thus the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: ‘Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them.’ So I took the cup from the LORD's hand, and made all the nations to whom the LORD sent me drink it:” In verses 18 through 27, numerous nations are mentioned, and then in Jeremiah 25:28-29, “And if they refuse to accept the cup from your hand to drink, then you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts: You must drink! For behold, I begin to work disaster at the city that is called by my name, and shall you go unpunished? You shall not go unpunished, for I am summoning a sword against all the inhabitants of the earth, declares the LORD of hosts.’” Drinking the cup of God’s wrath represented nations receiving God’s judgment for their sins.
A similar use of the “cup” figure of speech is in Revelation 14:9-10, “And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, ‘If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.’” Again, drinking the cup of God’s wrath represented receiving God’s judgment for sins.
Let us every day give thanks for Jesus enduring the judgment we each deserve for our sins. Jesus had no sin, but He drank the cup of God’s wrath for our sins, so we won’t have to drink it.
