THE CUP AND THE BLOOD
When reading the Bible, it’s always important to understand that although it’s to be taken literally for the most part, it also uses allegory and symbolism in many places. Thus, when we speak of Christ asking the Father in Luke to “take this cup away from Me” (22:42), He wasn’t thinking of an actual vessel but of an ordeal, symbolized as a cup full of the entire sin of mankind. God, as a man, sinless and blameless, was to take on (drink) all of mankind’s misgivings throughout history. This would be the fulfillment of the prophecy given by the angel to Mary that her Son would “…save His people from their sins,” (Matthew 1:21). When John saw Jesus coming towards him, he said: “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). 1 John 2:2 puts it this way: “And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but for the whole world.”
So Jesus “drank” all the sin of man from the “cup” and as a result took upon Himself the punishment that the presence of sin required - death. Now, from the earliest time, it was felt in the Bible that: “…the life of the flesh is in the blood…” (Leviticus 17:11). In God’s promises to Noah, He said: “…you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood,” (Genesis 9:4). This is why the blood was so important during the sacrifices in the Old Testament. Leviticus is riddled with references to blood being sprinkled or drained or poured out during sacrificial ceremonies. This is referred to in Leviticus 5:9 as such: “Then he [the priest] shall sprinkle some of the blood of the sin offering on the side of the altar, and the rest of the blood shall be drained out at the base of the altar. It is a sin offering.”
So as the blood of animals was shed as a sin offering in the Old Testament, the blood (life) of Christ was shed to atone for our sins in the New Testament. And just as the nations in earlier times were to drink the wine cup of fury: “…Take this wine cup of fury from My hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send you, to drink it” (Jeremiah 25:15), we also, initially, had the same cup to drink from. But Christ did that for us by pouring out His blood, and now the cup is no longer filled with fury but symbolically with His blood. “…He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do…in remembrance of Me’” (1 Corinthians 11:25).
So the cup is no longer a cup of death filled with God’s fury but instead is a cup filled with God’s love (symbolized by Christ’s blood), and becomes a cup of covenant and life. Hence, the statement by Christ in Corinthians: “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me” (1 Corinthians 11:25). Such is only available to those who have accepted Christ and His sacrifice; but for others, who have not understood His action, the cup is still filled with God’s wrath and will still be drunk by all nations, just as Jeremiah prophesied.
Jesus sacrificed His life for us and, since “the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11), Jesus literally poured out His blood on the cross and, in symbolism, filled the cup of covenant with it. This explains why, when Jesus appeared to His Disciples after the resurrection, He said: “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Luke 24:39).
Resurrected, Jesus was only flesh and bones, no blood. As the blood of the sacrifice had been sprinkled over the altar on the Old Testament, so the blood of Christ has been given for us at the cross and this has allowed us to drink from the cup of covenant and not from the cup of wrath.
It really is something to think about.
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