THE CUP

KEY VERSES:

⁴¹ And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, ⁴² Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. ⁴³ And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. ⁴⁴ And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 41)

  Jesus, anticipating His Cup would be broken, overflowed it in agony. Jesus asked His Father to, “remove this cup from Me.” As usual, there are different meanings in scripture because of the inexactness in translations. The apostles had just drunk of the cup of Jesus at the Last Supper. It was wine which represented His blood. They were to drink of that cup in remembrance of Jesus. Now, after the cup had been drank of, Jesus asked that the cup be removed from him. Obviously, the cup from which they had drunk was not there, so Jesus made reference to something else. Hence, there were at least two “cups.”
  At Jesus’s death, he said, “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.” It was then that scripture said, “It is finished” (John 19:30) as He tasted the vinegar taken from a cup, placed on His tongue and forced into His mouth. At the Last Supper He did not drink of the cup because “it” was not time yet. His purpose had not been fulfilled (Luke 22:18) which is as he said, “until the Kingdom of God shall come.”
  The Cross was whereon the Kingdom of God came. At its top was “King of the Jews.” His death on that Cross is when His Kingdom came, and when “it” was finished.
  What was finished? When His ministry started, Jesus was filled with the Holy Ghost (Luke 4:1). In this context, “Ghost” is the Spirit of a dead person. Jesus was as dead because that is why He came. His Purpose was to be the “cup” that would hold the Spirit of God to enable God to experience death in three substances on the Cross. Only Jesus when John baptized had the Spirit remaining upon Him. Only the “cup” of Jesus could fulfill His Purpose.
  All the apostles but Jesus drank from the cup at the Last Supper. Judas did. However, he had Satan enter into him undoubtedly so that he would be the “cup” to save mankind. In a mockery Jesus, Judas hung himself to pay the price, but it was only the price for thirty pieces of silver. No one could sacrifice themselves to pay the price for mankind’s sins but Jesus. Satan attempted to pay the price with Judas, but it merely paid the price for that one man, and the price was not enough! Judas’s “cup” was dirty as Jesus pointed out to those whose “cups” were merely clean on the outside. (Mat 23:35; Judas was one of the hypocrites to which Jesus spoke those words).
  It should be clear that Jesus’s “cup” was ultimately His Purpose. Just what was His Purpose? First note what was said about Adam’s and Eve’s Holy Matrimony: “They are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mat 19:6). “What” is an important Word. It applies not only to Holy Matrimony between a man and a woman, but the “marriage” between Jesus and the Church. Jesus died to establish a Covenant of Grace between Himself as the Groom and the Church as the Bride.
  God Created Jesus in the Flesh, and at His baptism, God joined His Spirit, in bodily form by the way (Luke 3:22), with Jesus’s Flesh and both attributes of God was in One Vessel. Jesus referred to that man-shaped “vessel” as His “Cup.” When Jesus died on the Cross, the “Cup” was emptied when Jesus’s Holy Ghost departed from Him when it was finished.
  Thus, Jesus’s “Cup” was His body and it was filled with His Holy Ghost. Therefore, His soul was the body-shaped Ghost that came down on Him when He was baptized. It was finished when he died and the Cup was emptied. Thereafter, for three days, much seemed to happen; as Jesus body slept for three days in the “cupboard” His body-shaped Holy Ghost was depositing all the sins of mankind to Hell, and transporting the soul of the thief on the Cross to Paradise that day.
  It was God and only God who put asunder what He had made, thus validating Matthew 19:6. God was finished with Jesus’s “Cup” (His Body and Flesh) when the sacrifice was made once and for all forever on the Cross. Therefore, it leaked water and blood when the centurions pierced the cup, and it was that Broken Cup that saved mankind!  King David who had the Holy Ghost on Him before the Holy Spirit had experienced Flesh, said this:

What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. (Psalm 16:12-13)

   What could David render unto the Lord for his own benefit? That was rhetorical! It was by grace that David shall be saved in then end, and for us likewise. What is the Benefit? The Cup of Salvation is calling upon the Name of the Lord. The Lord’s Name is “Jesus.” Jesus is the “Cup of Salvation” — His Body for the Container for His Soul; His Cup to perish that we need not. The Cup emptied of blood and water so that ours need not eb sacrificed. David was somehow aware of Jesus Flesh as the Cup of Salvation and that he could not pass the Cup to any other. Only by One Name can any be saved, and that is “Jesus.” He is the One and Only “Clean Cup” from which to drink of salvation.

(Picture credit" Alamy)