What was the Cup That Jesus Drank?
In the 26th chapter of Matthew, the 14th chapter of Mark, the 22nd chapter of Luke, and the 18th chapter of John, moments before Jesus was betrayed by one of His followers, arrested by His own people, and abandoned by His closest friends, He prayed an agonizing prayer of submission. Three times He begged His Father in Heaven to “let this cup pass from Him.” But what was this cup exactly, and what was the significance of Jesus’ request?
To first century palestinian Jews, this prayer would have meant much more to them then it does to us. Without a deeper study as to why Jesus deemed it important enough to mention three times, we can easily miss the significance and weight of what was happening and what was being recorded. Luke records for us that Jesus’ “sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). Medically known as hematohidrosis, sweating blood is an actual physical anomaly in which capillary blood vessels that feed the sweat glands rupture, causing them to exude blood; it occurs under conditions of extreme physical or emotional stress. Something about this cup was so horrific and terrifying that it led the Messiah of the world to sweat blood. But what was it?
A Symbol for Suffering
With a cursory glance at all four Gospels, it’s easy to understand that this cup has some sort of connection with suffering. Without understanding the entirety of Jesus’ purpose and ministry, the mother of James and John approaches Jesus and asks Him to “grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom” (Matthew 20:21). The mother clearly does not understand the weight of what she is asking, however, Jesus’ response lets us in on a little glimpse of what this cup represents. Jesus responds to the mother by addressing her sons, assuring them that “You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?”
Almost as if to say that in order to be glorified with me in Heaven, you must suffer with me on Earth. This response, knowing with hindsight that Jesus painstakingly prayed against this cup, makes a direct connection between the suffering we receive on this Earth and the glory we will receive on the New Earth. The record of Jesus’ prayer in the garden, and potentially this dialogue between Jesus, James, John, and their mother, could have potentially been in Paul’s mind while writing his letter to the Romans:
“Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” (Romans 8:17)
To further solidify the metaphor between the cup and suffering, Jesus assures James and John that they will eventually drink from the same cup that he would drink. What they didn’t understand then is that as time would tell, they would both be persecuted and martyred for naming the name of Jesus Christ, and like all believers, will be partakers of His glory, as Paul reminds us. However, there is a profound difference from the cup of suffering that the apostles and many believers have drunk throughout the history of the church, and the specific cup that petrified Jesus to the point of hematohidrosis.
General Suffering vs. God’s Wrath
It is clear that the cup that Jesus is alluding to when prophesying of James and John’s future persecutions and deaths refers to suffering, however, is this the same cup that Jesus was referencing when praying to His father in the garden?
The most responsible way to read the Scriptures, both the Old and New Testament, is to remember that these were written for us, but not to us. Thus said, when hearing about or reading Jesus’ prayer in the garden, the cup that Jesus mentions would have set off some Old Testament radars to first century Jews that it doesn’t necessarily set off to readers today.
The Old Testament Cup
Throughout Israel’s history, we see that their repeated rebellion and disobedience to God through idolatry and conformity to surrounding nations makes God increasingly angry. As a foreshadow to Jesus and through many messianic type figures, we see Moses and other prophets having to step in on multiple occasions, saving the nation from God’s wrath by reminding God of His compassionate, slow to anger character. In several occasions throughout the Pentateuch, we see that “the anger of the Lord was burned hot; very much” (Numbers 11,Deuteronomy 31) and “I will hide my face from them” (Numbers 11,Deuteronomy 31).
“Life, stability, and order are a gift of God, and God ‘hiding his face’ becomes shorthand for God withdrawing his protective and ordering presence.” - Tim Mackie
The Cup of God's Wrath
With a quick read through the Old Testament, God’s “anger burning against Israel” becomes a commonly read phrase as Israel ebbs and flows through seasons of obedience and seasons of idolatry. One way God acts on His righteous anger is by handing Israel over to the nations they so desperately want to emulate.
“When Israel chooses life apart from God, God removes his protective, sustaining hand over them. This theme builds until Israel is destroyed and carried into exile by the nation of Babylon.” - Tim Mackie
God’s wrath or anger, becomes a cup which the nations must drink. The first mention in Scripture of God’s cup of wrath is in Jeremiah 25:15-17:
This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath [“heat” / khemah] and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them.” So I took the cup from the Lord’s hand and made all the nations to whom he sent me drink it”
The true metaphor here is that when Israel’s desire to be like the world and other nations is greater than their desire for the LORD, then He gives them over to their enemy nations so that they can learn and see just how horrible it is to live without Him. God repeatedly saves Israel from enemy nations and then they long to be like the nations He saves them from. God always gives Israel grace by letting them experience their desires and then learning from them. Moreover, throughout the Old Testament, we can determine that the “cup of God’s wrath/heat (khemah)” is God handing Israel over to the respective enemy nation as a result of their national sins.
“Throughout the Old Testament, God’s anger is most intensely expressed against His representatives; people that He has married so that they can become His ambassadors to the nations[...] God expresses that anger by metaphorically hiding His face, but more concretely, by handing Israel over so that they are conquered by their enemies. These consequences are never permanent when it comes to God’s long term strategy to install humans as His partners over Heaven & Earth. ” - Tim Mackie
Jesus Drinks the Cup We Couldn’t
It is pivotal to understand God’s “handing over” of Israel to their enemy nations in order to fully grasp what Jesus said and meant in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus’ promise to John and James that they will one day drink from the cup that Jesus drank was fulfilled in their future martyrdoms, when their lives were “handed over” to their enemies. But what separates Jesus from the Apostles? What made Jesus so sorrowful to have to drink His cup?
In the 10th chapter of John, after Jesus heals a man born blind, the Pharisees and other Jews are furious at Him for healing on the Sabbath. In His explanation of who He is, Jesus reassures the Pharisees about His relation with the Father and the authority that has been given to Him. In this explanation, Jesus says something shocking in verses 17-18:
Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.
Jesus proclaims that no one takes His life but that he “hands it over” to His enemies. We see this further emphasized in the 18th chapter of John’s Gospel, when Jesus is getting questioned by Pilot. Jesus announces that He is a King, but unlike the kings of this world:
“My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.”
The Gethsemane Cup
In the Garden of Gethsemane, moments before His arrest, Jesus prayed that this horrific cup would pass. He knew that the cup was overflowing with humanity’s sin from the beginning of time to the end of time, and He knew that it was filled with God’s righteous anger. But this time would be different. Jesus appeared to be being “handed over” to Israel’s enemy nation of the time, Rome. What made this event so shocking, and what made this cup so much more unbearable, is that Jesus’ life was not being “handed over” but he was “handing it over” Himself, and more importantly, it wasn’t the enemy nation of Rome that He was “handing it over” to, it was Sin itself, humanity’s true enemy. Jesus became sin, who knew no sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). Two verses should come to memory when thinking about Jesus’ victory over sin by the handing over of His life:
“And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel” (Gen. 3:15)
and:
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit [...] (1 Peter 3:18)
The cup that drove Jesus to agonizing pain was filled with the sins of all of humanity and the righteous anger of God. Such anger is righteous and necessary for a perfect and holy God. Jesus, living a sinless life, drank the cup that no human ever could. Through perfect obedience, He had the authority given to Him from His Father to hand over His life to the only enemy nation that humanity has ever really had…Sin (Ephesians 6:12).
References: