The Cup He Refused to Drink

Introduction: The Cup Jesus Drank vs. The Cup He Refused

0:02 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday evening, March 2nd, 1997, at the Trinity Baptist Church of Montville, New Jersey.

0:14 Now will you turn with me in your Bibles, please, to the 15th chapter of the Gospel according to Mark. And I shall read but two verses in your hearing in this section where Mark is giving us details of those events which lead to our Lord being taken outside the city walls of Jerusalem and to the place of his execution. He writes in verse 22,

0:53 Now let us again plead with God that the Holy Spirit would come and shine upon the face of our Savior, that we may see him in the preached word as we anticipate seeing him afresh in the visible words and signs of his body, and that we may see him in the preached word as we anticipate seeing him afresh in the visible words and signs of his body, and that we may see him in the preached word as we anticipate seeing him afresh in the visible words and signs of his body,

1:57 and that we may see him in the preached word as we anticipate seeing him afresh in the visible words and signs of his body, and that we may see him in the preached word as we anticipate seeing him afresh in the visible words and signs of his body,

3:02 and that we may see him in the preached word as we anticipate seeing him afresh in the visible words and signs of his body, reference in John 18 and verse 11, where John records our Lord saying, the cup which my father has given me, shall I not drink it? It is the cup before which he staggered there in Gethsemane. The cup which wrung agony from his soul, pressed him to the ground, caused him to plead with repeated supplication to his father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. And that cup was nothing more or less than the full, the pure, the non-vindictive wrath of God against the sins

4:23 of his people. And it was that cup that our Lord willingly drank, and drank unknowingly. Until he drained its last dark drop. In the very accurate words of the hymn writer, Ann Cousins, it is captured in the second stanza of that marvelous hymn, O Christ, what burdens bowed thy head. Death and the curse were in our cup. O Christ was full for thee, but thou hast drained the last dark drop. Tis empty now, for me. That bitter cup, love drank it up. Now blessings draft for me. Now tonight I want you to

What Was In The Cup He Refused?

5:14 consider with me the second of the three cups of our Lord, moving on from the consideration of the cup that he drank, to our meditation upon that which I am calling the cup he refused to drink. And I say it is the cup he refused to drink, for in Mark 15, 23, we read, but he received it not. And as we meditate upon this text, let us ask three very basic questions of the passage. Question number one, what was in the cup he refused to drink? And the text tells us that they offered him one cup, and he refused to drink. And the text tells us that they offered him one cup, and he refused to drink. Wine mingled with myrrh. It was a cup in which there was a mixture of wine and myrrh. A combination

6:13 of these two things, and possibly other liquids or ingredients as well, which were intended to act as both an analgesic to relieve pain, and a narcotic or a sedative to dull the senses. It obviously was a cup of wine, and it was a cup of myrrh. And it was a cup of wine, and it was a bitter taste, because in the parallel passage in Matthew 27, 34, it is described as wine mingled with gall. And all it took for our Lord to recognize the content of the cup was a taste, for the scripture tells us in the parallel passage, when he tasted it, not drank it, merely tasted it, he refused that. Question number one then, what was in the cup he refused to drink? The answer is a mixture of wine and myrrh, and possibly other ingredients, concocted to act as an analgesic and a narcotic or a sedative. Question number two that we ask of our text, why was this cup offered to our Lord? Why was

Why Was This Cup Offered to Our Lord?

7:32 this cup offered to our Lord? And there are two possible answers. The first is that according to rabbinic tradition, when Jews were being crucified, women would present to the soldiers a cup of such a mixture in what they regarded as strict obedience to the directives of Proverbs chapter 31 verses 6 and 7. In Proverbs chapter 31 verses 6 and 7 we read, Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish, and wine to the bitter in soul. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more. In this section where the son of a king is being warned about the peculiar dangers of the abuse of alcohol and is being told that it is not for kings to drink and abuse alcohol in such a way as to unstring them for their official tasks there is also the instruction that there is a proper

8:49 place for an unusual concentration of alcohol and that is in order to give strong drink to him that is ready to perish and this concentrated amount of wine to the bitter in soul and it could well be that the women whose presence is described in luke 23 and verse 27 who were there in some measure of concentrated numbers and were bewailing our lord's suffering to whom our lord spoke and weep not for me but for yourselves it could be , that these women in keeping with rabbinic tradition had secured the cup of drugged wine and if it were presented from their hands through the soldiers it was an act of compassion in order to alleviate his impending agony it would be very similar to the controlled pain alleviation administered by hospice to someone dying of cancer

10:01 in which the proper use of concentrated narcotics is expressed as an act of compassion to alleviate human suffering and agony but if it had been concocted and repeatedly offered to jesus by the soldiers and this seems at least to be the suggestion of the text itself were all how some exegete argue that you have any definite CVR of προ make wine and mingled with the context back to the immediate antecedent of the way of God would be that soldiers from verse sixteen all AI word in this passage mark his recording the activity of the soldiers those soldiers lead him to heaven in this passage mumma mahmat would you away and they the soldiers clothe him with purple verse 19 and they the soldiers smote his head verse 20 and when they had mocked him verse 21 and they the soldiers compel one passing by Simon of Cyrene so when we read in verse 22 and they bring him to the place and they offered him

11:26 wine the most natural reading of the text is that it was the soldiers who offered him the drugged wine and in the text the verb used to describe their offering points to a repeated and insistent offering of the wine there is a use of an imperfect verb describing action in the past that was continuous so the soldiers were seeking as it were almost to force the cup of drugged wine upon our Lord well for what purpose would they have done this well remember these were experienced hardened soldiers perhaps those who were somewhat expert in execution by crucifixion and they had seen first hand what some of us have only seen and heard about second hand that a man very weak in constitution someone greatly weakened by starvation and physical illness when brought to the place of execution can be possessed momentarily of almost superhuman human strength in resisting those that would put on as it were the final

12:43 strokes to his execution and it could be that these soldiers knowing that most of the criminals whom they had executed in the past struggled with that almost superhuman strength and that rush of adrenaline that comes when we fear that life itself is being snatched away, but to make their job easier, that they offered to criminals the drugged wine, for remember in the case of our Lord it had been hours since he had eaten, and this drugged wine would have immediately gone to the nerve centers in the brain and had its dulling soporific effect, and so if this were the proper answer to the question, why was the cup offered to him, in the case of the soldiers it would not have been an act of compassion, but it would have been an act of convenience, to make their job easier, to see our Lord as it were more passively yield himself up to the next actions described in the Bible. In verse 24, and they crucify him, in just these few words the horrible action of stretching

Why Did Jesus Resolutely Refuse This Cup?

14:01 out his hands upon the transverse of the cross, and pounding the nails into his wrists, and fixing his feet upon that cross, and all that went with the act of crucifixion, it could well be that the cup was offered to him as a matter of convenience. To make their job easier, as they were about to impale him upon the cross. Well having raised the first question, what was in the cup he refused to drink, the second question, why was the cup offered to him, now we come to the heart of our meditation, why did Jesus resolutely refuse this cup? As I've already indicated, there was...

14:53 There was some insistence that he drink it, but his refusal is described with a verb that underscores that it was resolute, it was immovable. He refused to drink of that cup, he received it not. Since our Lord was not in any way infected with the doctrine of stoicism, the notion that it's a noble and virtuous thing to endure pain. To be stoical is to show austere indifference to joy, to grief, to pleasure, to pain.

15:34 And surely the Christ of Biblical revelation was not in the least bit affected with stoicism. For stoicism is inhuman, and our Lord was fully human. He had shown his response to internal pain and agony just a short time before he was in the garden, when he said, my soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. No stoic would ever say that.

16:04 Our Lord manifested joy when joy was appropriate. We read in the passage in Matthew 11, in the parallel passage in Luke, that Jesus exalted or rejoiced in the spirit and said, I thank thee Father, Lord of heaven and earth. Our Lord openly worshiped him. Our Lord openly worshiped him.

16:24 Our Lord openly worshiped him. He wept when weeping was appropriate. He wailed over Jerusalem, Luke 19. He wept with the gentle but real weeping of felt empathy by the graveside of Lazarus.

16:38 So when our Lord refuses the cup, surely we must not read into that anything of the leaven of stoicism in his mind or in his Holy Spirit. Furthermore, because our Lord was not infected with masochism. The thought that the gaining of pleasure is to come from suffering, either physical or emotional pain. There was nothing of masochism in our Lord, for this again is an inhuman view of what we are to do in the face of the possibility of physical or emotional pain.

Reason 1: To Demonstrate Voluntary Suffering and Death

17:18 What then is the answer to the question? Why did Jesus resolutely refuse this cup? He has a cup of the drugged wine. May I suggest that there are two parts to the answer.

17:32 The first is to demonstrate to all who beheld his action the absolutely voluntary nature of his subsequent suffering and of his death. To demonstrate to all who were there to witness the absolutely voluntary nature of his subsequent suffering and of his death. this subsequent suffering and death. No drugged wine was needed to quiet and subdue him that he might have his hands impaled and his feet nailed to the cross and be hoisted up to hang between earth and heaven.

18:17 The posture that he assumed from that moment in the garden when they came seeking him, and he asked them, Whom are you seeking? Who are you seeking? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. And he said, I am.

18:31 And in a momentary burst of his glory, they fall back, prostrate to the ground. When they gain their composure and rise up again, he puts himself voluntarily into their hands, and they bind him. They lead him away to the house of the high priest, and from there off to Pilate, and off to Hezbollah, and Herod, and back to Pilate. And in all of this, his posture was, as the prophet had predicted, as a lamb before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.

19:06 He gives his back to the smiters, and his cheek to those that pluck out his hair. And so the posture of the meek, submissive lamb, the posture assumed at Gabbatha, the posture assumed before the pagan Gentile leaders, is now the posture that our Lord assumes at Golgotha. No drug wine is needed to subdue me. I consciously, deliberately, voluntarily lay down my life.

Reason 2: To Ensure Complete Sensibility to Consummate Suffering

19:47 And his refusal of the cup of the drugged wine was first of all, to demonstrate to all the absolutely voluntary nature of the subsequent suffering and of the death to follow. But then secondly, it was to ensure his complete sensibility to all the realities of the consummate suffering of the next three hours. It was to ensure his complete sensibility because, the alertness of all of the faculties of mind and body, no analgesic to ease the pain of body, no narcotic to dull the senses. He refuses the cup to ensure his complete sensibility to all of the realities of the consummate suffering of the next three hours. He knew that there were declarations that he was to make from that cross from which those who heard those declarations at that time would derive instruction and comfort

21:08 and from which the people of God for centuries until his return in glory would find sweetness and consolation and instruction. He had declarations. Declarations to be made not with the slurred speech of a drugged criminal but with the articulate speech of truth incarnate. Amidst his agony and pain, he had a sinner to save.

21:42 Someone else was being crucified with him on whose behalf he, Jesus, was being crucified. And he would leave no doubt. He would leave no doubt in the mind of the penitent thief who would cry, Lord, remember me. He would leave no doubt of his answer.

22:00 An answer garbled in slurred speech or an answer, if somewhat articulate, would cause the dying thief to say, Can I really trust the words of a semi-delirious fellow, Callan? No, no semi-delirious Christ says, Today, you will be with me. In paradise, he had a conquest to be undertaken. He is giving himself up to death without any dilution, any mitigation of the pain of death as alienation from God that confronting death he might conquer death.

22:44 And above all, he had a cup to drink. And if that cup was the unleashed fury of the wrath of God, against the sins of those for whom he was dying on that cross, he could only empty the cup if in conscious pain of separation from his Father, he drained the cup. Therefore, though beaten, bruised, his back shredded to a pulp, his face distorted with contusions, the tears upon his brow, from the crown of thorns, he refuses to drink the drugged wine. To put it as simply as I know how, he refused the second cup that he might utterly drain the first cup. And it was in his refusal of the cup of drugged wine that our blessed Lord fully drank the cup of the Father's wrath, against the sins of his people. And so in answer to the question, why did Jesus resolutely refuse to drink that second cup, I suggest that it was to demonstrate

Application for Believers: Immerse in Love, Confirm No Wrath, Commit to God's Cup

24:10 the absolute voluntariness of his suffering and to ensure his complete sensibility to all of the realities of the consummate suffering, of the next three hours. Now then, what do we say when we stand before the cup that our Lord refused? Well, to you who are the people of God, to you who in the language of Hebrews have fled for refuge to this Christ, let me suggest three lines of application. And the first is this.

24:50 Child of God, immerse yourself anew. In the ocean of the love of Jesus towards his own. Immerse yourself anew in the ocean of love that Jesus bears towards his own. His physical agony was about to be heightened to its most intense level as he was undergoing perhaps the most cruel and painful death ever invented.

25:26 By the wickedness of the human heart. But his physical trauma, though great and intense, was such that he refused to do anything that would in any way lessen his bearing for you and for me, the full fury of the wrath of his Father. And surely John 13.1 finds its expression here, having loved his own, he loved them unto the end.

26:06 His thirst for your salvation and mine was so intense that he refused in any way to quench his thirst with the drugged wine. What but his infinite, indescribable, what but his love to his own, caused him to refuse that cup. But then secondly I say, child of God, not only immerse yourself anew in the ocean of his love to his own, but confirm yourself anew in the confidence that there is no unsatisfied wrath or unrequited justice towards your sin. Confirm yourself anew. In the confidence that there is no unsatisfied wrath or unrequited justice towards your sin. We read in Romans 8.1,

27:14 There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Why? For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. And all of your sins and all of mine, in all of the wrath deservingness of them, the cup was full for our Lord.

27:46 And as he drinks the cup of the wrath of God, it is in the context of refusing the cup of the drugged wine. Why? That looking at the empty cup that he drank, and looking at the full cup that he refused to drink, we, even here at the table tonight, might confirm ourselves anew in the confidence that there is no unsatisfied wrath or unrequited justice towards our sin. And then thirdly, child of God, commit yourself anew to drink in submissive faith whatever cup God places to your lips. Commit yourself anew to drink in submissive faith whatever cup he places to your lips. For whatever cup he places to your lips, no matter how bitter it may seem, this much you know, the bitterness has not a dram, a dram of God's wrath in it. All the bitterness was in the cup that he drank, fully drank it,

29:10 in refusing the cup of drugged wine. The hymn writer has captured this beautifully when in our hymn number 94 in stanza 3, hymn number 94 in stanza 3, this imagery is set before us. Whate'er my God ordains is right, though now this cup in drinking may bitter seem to my faint heart, I take it all unshrinking. How can I take it unshrinking even when its bitterness sets my teeth on edge? Because I know whatever is in that cup there is not a dram of God's unrequited wrath. And surely if the pattern of the child of God is established in the work of Christ, suffering now and glory to follow, we know that those sufferings are disciplinary. They are the sufferings that come to sons and daughters from the hand of a loving father.

30:33 Then shame on you and shame on me when beholding our Lord taking the first cup to his lips and draining its last dark drop while refusing the second cup. Shame on us that we're constantly spitting out anything that isn't as sweet as Kool-Aid. Shame on us when we spit out and are irritated and question the heart of God when he puts something to our lips that is not saccharine sweet like Kool-Aid. God have mercy on our pathetic, self-centered, soft unwillingness to undergo those things that are in our best interest that Christ might have what he died for. And that is a people who reflect his likeness. And he perfects none into the likeness of Christ apart from the crucible of suffering and the discipline of chastisement and the pain of pruning

31:58 as we considered last week. The cups that God puts to our lips that are bitter are never, never, never tinged with divine wrath. They are cups put for our nourishment or they are cups put to our lips as medicine. Put to our lips as the old writers would say as purgatives to clean us out.

Application for Unbelievers: The Horror of God's Wrath Without Relief

32:25 Put as nutrients or put as medicine to go after those things in our spiritual system which if left untended would destroy us. And then having considered what we say to the child of God in the light of the cup he refused I close with this word to you who are not Christians. Fellows, girls, men, women, children what does this cup that Jesus refused say to you? What Jesus experienced while refusing the drugged wine he did in the place of sinners.

33:10 What you will do in drinking the cup of God's wrath you would give anything for a cup of drugged wine. You may now dull and drug your conscience with the drugged wine of an obsession with music and abuse of alcohol the use of illicit drugs obsession with fun and games a thousand things can be your present cup of drugged wine to dull your senses to somehow silence your conscience that speaks of hell and of judgment and accountability to God. But when the scripture says that the unconverted shall drink of the cup of the fury of God's wrath amidst amidst there will be no drugged wine in hell no drugged wine offered in hell and my friend if you want to take lightly what Jesus bore ask yourself this question am I prepared to bear what he bore vicariously substitutionarily on behalf of his people am I prepared to bear as a poor helpless creature when the almighty comes

34:37 forth in righteous fury to deal with me in my sins what a horrible thing to even contemplate that frightening reality and I plead with you as you see God's people taking the simple elements of broken bread and the fruit of the vine and by taking them into their hands and into their bodies saying by faith they have appropriated this Christ as their only hope of life and salvation so may you by the hand of faith reach out to this Christ as you sit among us this night plead son of David have mercy upon me and lay hold of this Christ who drank the first cup but refused the second that this night I might have the unspeakable privilege of offering to you a gracious a willing an able savior who says that what he did in printing the bitter cup in refusing the cup of drugged wine is accessible to all who will have him who drank the one and refused the other

Closing Prayer

36:06 they bring him to the place called Golgotha which is being interpreted the place of a skull and when they offered him wine mingled with myrrh he received it not let us pray our father we thank you that in your great mercy and kindness you sent your only begotten son into the world to receive such contradiction of sinners against himself and we thank you for the record of all that he bore on behalf of his people we thank you Lord Jesus that you were so determined that all would know that no one was taking your life from you but that you were laying it down of your own will so determined that you would consciously experience the torments of the damned that you refused that cup of drugged wine Lord Jesus as we come to partake of the cup of blessing tonight may we indeed immerse ourselves afresh in the devotion of your unspeakable

37:35 love to us may we have confirmed afresh the reality that there is no wrath towards your own and may we be determined afresh in submissive faith to drink whatever cup you put to our lips knowing that it is only for our ultimate well-being and for your glory have mercy upon us on those who this night have no interest in these things may the preaching of your word blessed by the Spirit draw them to embrace the Savior even this night in this place meet with us O Lord as we gather to the table may your presence with us by the Spirit draw out our hearts affection towards you strengthen our faith and deepen our resolve to live as those who have been bought with a price and joyfully acknowledge that they are not their own hear us we plead for your name's sake Amen