Cup

I have been studying verses about the "cup of God's wrath" which has helped me to appreciate more the great cost and suffering of the Lord Jesus which he choose to go through for us when he died for us.

"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; 
yet not my will but yours be done."

(Jesus, Luke 22.42)

"Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"

(Jesus, John 18.11)

The Old Testament helps us see how utterly dreadful drinking from this cup was, which is why in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus was in such

  anguish...and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

(Luke 22.44)

The cup in Jeremiah was a symbol of God's terrible judgement:

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

 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.'
(Jeremiah 25.15-16)

The Lord Jesus drank this cup of judgement so we wouldn't have to.

In the hand of the LORD is a cup

full of foaming wine mixed with spices;

he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth

drink it down to its very dregs. 

(Psalm 75.8)

The Lord Jesus drunk it down to its very dregs so we wouldn't have to.

The great city split into three parts, 

and the cities of the nations collapsed. 

God remembered Babylon the Great 

and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath.

(Revelation 16.19)

A wonderful promise in Isaiah: a prophesy of Jesus taking the cup for us:

This is what your Sovereign LORD says,

your God, who defends his people:

'See, I have taken out of your hand

the cup that made you stagger;

from that cup, the goblet of my wrath,

you will never drink again.'

(Isaiah 51.22)

Our response: one of deep thankfulness and surely a deep desire to tell this good news to those who have not yet been rescued from the fury of God's wrath.