The Cup He Drank

Driving home: Our thoughts might well be of the cup Christ drank, the cup he refused, and the cup from which he will drink with us in glory.

Martin quotes Frederick Leahy's book, 'The Cross He Bore,' which categorizes Christ's interaction with three cups: the one he drank, the one he refused, and the one he will drink in glory. This quotation provides the sermon's structural framework.

Behold, he is at hand that betrays me. In a recently published little book entitled, The Cross He Bore, very choice, helpful meditations on the sufferings of our Lord Jesus, the author Frederick Leahy, a ministerial colleague of our dear friend and esteemed brother, Pastor Ted Donnelly of Northern Ireland, wrote on page 67 these very pregnant words, Our thoughts might well be of the cup Christ drank, the cup he refused,

3:03 - 3:46 Read in full sermon

Driving home: when we come to Gethsemane, we have that which the servant of God of another generation called the shadow of Calvary, and there in Gethsemane we see a dark but clear and clearly defined, sharply etched shadow cast backwa…

Gethsemane is described as 'the shadow of Calvary,' a dark but clear and sharply etched shadow cast backward from the cross, providing deeper insight into the agony of the cross itself.

So we are given very little of the inner struggle of the soul of our Lord Jesus when upon the cross, but when we come to Gethsemane, we have that which the servant of God of another generation called the shadow of Calvary, and there in Gethsemane we see a dark but clear and clearly defined, sharply etched shadow cast backward from the cross, the events of which were yet to unfold, that in many ways give us a deeper insight to the very

6:27 - 7:04 Read in full sermon

Driving home: when we come to Gethsemane, we have that which the servant of God of another generation called the shadow of Calvary, and there in Gethsemane we see a dark but clear and clearly defined, sharply etched shadow cast backwa…

Mark's description of Christ 'continually falling upon his face' is illustrated as a wounded or drunk man who staggers, falls, rises, and falls again, emphasizing the intensity of his agony.

Because it truly is. even to the point of death, that he fell upon his face, or in the more vivid graphic description of Mark, he uses a form of the verb that he was continually falling upon his face. The picture of a man wounded or drunk who staggers and falls and rises and staggers and falls in repeated acts of rising and falling. We read in Luke that being in an agony, his sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground.

7:49 - 8:26 Read in full sermon

Driving home: That curse of God from which he came to redeem his elect people, that sword of the Lord's wrath and vengeance which he had just predicted, the penal desertion of the cross, the withdrawal of all comfortable views and inf…

Martin quotes 19th-century Scottish theologian Hugh Martin, who provides a condensed and biblically accurate answer to 'What was that cup?' detailing it as the curse of God, the sword of wrath, penal desertion, and God's anger against Christ as substitute.

Well, I know no answer more condensed and yet more biblically accurate than is given by the man. I've referred to earlier, Hugh Martin, the Scottish theologian and pastor and preacher of the 19th century, who wrote in answer to that question, What was that cup? This is what he said. But doubtless the sorrow arose from the source that his prayer was concerned with.

10:39 - 11:09 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Christ knew the cup was presented for one purpose: to drink it, to ingest into his soul the full wrath of God, thereby exhausting its contents.

The act of drinking water is used to illustrate that when Christ drank the cup, he ingested and internalized its objective reality, making it a part of him, signifying his full absorption of God's wrath.

When you drink something, when I drink the water I see that objective reality the glass that holds the water the water within the glass and when I drink it I ingest it I internalize it the water becomes a part of me. And our Lord knows when the cup is presented there in Gethsemane that it is presented not to look at it not to admire the pure whole cup. The holy justice of the Godhead that framed the cup. Not to look at the cup and to admire the plan of redemption set in the counsels of eternity which determine there should be a substitute for sinners.

15:50 - 16:30 Read in full sermon

Driving home: not only was it right it would have been the grossest form of impiety and hardness of heart to have looked into that cup with anything other than a holy aversion

Martin emphasizes that Christ's agony was 'no charade' or performance for an audience, but a genuine, intense struggle, underscoring the reality of his suffering.

and staggers and falls to rise and stagger and fall again this is no charade this was not done for prime time news on channel 4 not only was it right it would have been the grossest form of impiety and hardness of heart to have looked into that cup with anything other than a holy aversion Moses asked the question in Psalm 90 who knows the power of thine anger and thy wrath according to the fear

19:00 - 19:43 Read in full sermon

Driving home: not only was it right it would have been the grossest form of impiety and hardness of heart to have looked into that cup with anything other than a holy aversion

Martin again quotes Hugh Martin, who argues that desiring exemption from God's wrath was a dictate of Christ's holy human nature, and not to have felt this desire would have been impious and inhuman.

the power of the wrath with an eagle's eye undimmed by sin He can feel by way of anticipation its horrors for He has never had a soul calloused by rationalizing sin by excusing sin by thinking lightly of sin was it right for Him to feel this aversion anything less would have been the height of presumption and impiety listen again to Hugh Martin who writes considered simply in itself to desire exemption

20:24 - 21:09 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Despite his aversion, Christ chose the Father's will, walking with dignity to Golgotha where he fully drank the cup during the three hours of darkness, draining every last drop…

A hymn is quoted to beautifully summarize the consolation for believers: Christ bore our load, drained the bitter cup of death and curse, leaving it empty for us, now a cup of blessing.

And in the reckoning of God, that cup was thrown down and dashed to shivers on the blood-stained rocky soil there on Golgotha. And it has lain there shattered ever since. O Christ, what burdens bowed. At thy head our load was laid on thee.

25:45 - 26:12 Read in full sermon