In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus shrank back in horror from drinking the cup, and asked His Father to remove it from Him. What was in that cup that He had to drink? Here we tread on ground that no mortal man can fully fathom, but we do our best to understand what our salvation cost our Savior.
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The Horrors of Drinking The Cup
Luke 22:39-46
This morning, we all need to take our shoes off, because we stand on holy ground. We are going to follow our Lord into Gethsemane to view His agonies there. Of course, I feel utterly insufficient to understand, let alone, preach about Christ’s experience in Gethsemane. No mortal, sinful man can ever understand what Jesus experienced in Gethsemane. It is impossible. However, I will do what I can to try to throw some light on what our Lord experienced on his horrific night.
Jesus has been very busy for the last several hours. That evening He had gathered His disciples together for the Passover meal. He had taught them many things (John chapters 13-16). He had instituted the Lord’s Supper, and washed His disciples’ feet. After all this, they all sang a hymn together, and then departed to go to Gethsemane.
Gethsemane means “oil press.” Evidently, it was an enclosed olive orchard on the Mount of Olives, in which someone had installed an oil press to crush the olives and glean its oil. This was a favorite place of retirement for Jesus and His disciples. They had been there many times. Jesus deliberately headed to Gethsemane knowing that Judas would bring the authorities there to arrest Him, and eventually crucify Him. Jesus wasn’t trying to escape His crucifixion, but was headed towards it deliberately.
When they came to Gethsemane, Jesus left eight of His disciples near the entrance, and took Peter, James, and John in with Him further. Then He left them with the instructions to watch and pray that they wouldn’t enter into temptation. Then He went further into the garden, about a stone’s throw away and began to agonize in prayer.
The thing that fascinates me about all of this is something Jesus mentions in verse 42, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” Jesus’ central concern in His prayer was a cup. The cup was being stretched out to Him, and everything within Him recoiled in horror at the thought of drinking this cup. This morning, I want to explore with you this cup.
I have a very simple outline this morning – three simple statements.
- Jesus did not want to drink the cup.
- Jesus had to drink the cup.
- Jesus yielded to drink the cup.
1. Jesus Did Not Want To Drink The Cup
What exactly is this cup that Jesus is asking the Father to remove? Let’s see how the Scriptures portray the cup. Sometimes “the cup” is used as a metaphor of blessing or salvation, as in Ps. 23:5, or Ps. 116:13. But very often the cup refers to the cup of God’s wrath and indignation.
Psalms 11:6 “Upon the wicked He will rain snares; Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup.”
Psalms 75:8 “For a cup is in the hand of the LORD, and the wine foams; It is well mixed, and He pours out of this; Surely all the wicked of the earth must drain and drink down its dregs.”
Isaiah 51:17 “Rouse yourself! Rouse yourself! Arise, O Jerusalem, You who have drunk from the LORD’S hand the cup of His anger; The chalice of reeling you have drained to the dregs.”
Jeremiah 25:15 “For thus the LORD, the God of Israel, says to me, “Take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it.”
Revelation 14:10-11 “he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.”
Of course, this cup would have to include all of His sufferings that were about to take place. It would include Israel’s rejection of Him, the betrayal of Judas, the denial of Peter, the defection of the 11, the unjust sentence He received, the bloody scourging, the mockery of the soldiers, the spitting, beating, and physical pain associated with nails being driven in His hands and feet. All of those things are included in this cup, but there is much, much more. In fact, all of those things, I believe, pale into insignificance compared with His spiritual sufferings. Many martyrs have faced similar physical and emotional sufferings, and have borne it patiently and cheerfully. But in this case, Jesus faces the contents of the cup with horror and agony of soul. Why was His sufferings any different than others?
We need to remember that Christ came down from heaven to suffer and die as our Substitute. He is our Surety. A surety is a person who voluntarily becomes legally responsible for the debts of another. A surety is like a co-signer on a loan. If I were to co-sign for a loan my son takes out to buy a home, if he ever defaulted, I would be legally responsible to pay off that loan. Jesus, as our Substitute, made Himself legally responsible to pay our debt to God. You see, our sins have incurred a great debt to God. Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” So, what is our debt to God because of our sin. We owe God satisfaction to His divine justice. We have broken His law. We owe God perfect obedience, but we have all failed to give that to Him. Instead, we have sinned against Him, times without number. Therefore we must make satisfaction to His justice. However, to do that, all of us must be cast into eternal hell to pay for our sins against Him. That’s where Jesus, our Surety, steps in. Jesus was willing to make Himself legally liable to make satisfaction to the justice of God for us.
What is God’s response to sin? He hates it, despises it, and it provokes Him to wrath. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “God made Him who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” What does it mean for the holy, spotless, Son of God to be made sin? Jesus, as God, hates sin. Yet He must be made sin. God was about to see His Son as the greatest sinner who ever lived. You heard me correctly. Of course, Jesus never sinned in His own person. But, He was assuming the guilt and punishment due us for our sins. All the millions of sins committed against God were laid on Him. God treated Him as the worst sinner who ever lived. Worse than Hitler, Stalin, Osama Bin Ladin, Saddam Hussein, Jeffrey Dahmer… you fill in the blanks. Put all the most wicked people who have ever lived together, and they don’t begin to compare with how God treated His Son! If God’s righteous response to sin is wrath, and millions upon millions of the most heinous and wicked acts of sin ever committed were all laid upon Jesus Christ, how do you think God must have treated His Son? All of God’s fiery indignation was poured out upon His Son, unmixed with mercy, as He crushed Him and put Him to grief.
Up until this point, Jesus Christ as enjoyed uninterrupted communion with His Father from all eternity. Jesus had never known what it was like to be cut off from His Father. But now, He is experiencing it in full force. Jesus said in John 17:24, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” Here we get a little glimpse into the relationship between the Father and the Son. Before the world was made, the Father and the Son were loving each other. But now, instead of showers of love being poured on Christ, there is only a storm of unmitigated wrath being poured down upon Him. Instead of unbroken communion, the Son feels absolutely abandoned by His Father. He cries, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” You and I will never be able to comprehend what it would be like for Almighty God to unleash all His righteous fury upon you, because you are the Sin-Bearer of the world!
Now, how did Jesus feel about the prospect of being the object of the Father’s wrath? What does our text say?
Matthew 26:37-38 “And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.” The burden of seeing what was in that cup, and knowing that He had to drink it, was literally crushing the life out of Jesus Christ.
Luke 22:44, “And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground.” Jesus appears to be experiencing what the medical community has called “hemitidrosis.” On very rare occasions, individuals who are experiencing acute fear and extreme stress will begin to go into a bloody sweat. The blood capsularies under the skin will actually burst, and when the sweat forms on the body, it is bloody.
Notice also the posture in which Jesus was praying. Luke tells us that He knelt down to pray. Matthew tells us that He fell on His face. Mark tells us that He fell to the ground. Folks, Jesus was in extreme agony. He knelt, then fell on His face, then continued to fall again and again to the ground, as He cried out to His Father to let the cup pass Him by.
Hebrews 5:7, “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.”
Let’s put all of this together. Jesus is experiencing an agony of soul that He fears might kill Him before He even gets to the cross. He is distressed and deeply grieved, and so fearful that the blood capsularies under his skin are bursting and exiting with His sweat. He is continually falling prostrate on his face as He prays, and He is crying loudly with tears as He prays to God.
Now, you ask, “Why all of this fear and dread? Didn’t Jesus know all along that this is what the Father sent Him into the world to do?” Of course, that is true.
Jesus had said in John 3:14-15, “For just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”
Matthew 20:28, “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Matthew 26:28, “for this is My blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.”
No, Jesus knew that He had been sent into the world to die for sinners. Why then this agony of soul that was crushing Him? I believe it was because God gave Him a sense of what His sufferings would entail? Jesus was allowed to see the cup, smell the cup, and even put His lips to the cup and taste it. Jesus understood what was in that cup, and what it would cost Him to drink it. And in His humanity, He shrank from it with everything within Him. As God, Jesus had covenanted with His Father to lay down His life as a propitiation for sin. But as man, Jesus shrank back from drinking the bitter dregs of the cup. As man, Jesus did not want to have to experience the full fury of a holy, sin-hating, infinitely just God.
2. Jesus Had To Drink The Cup
In Luke 22:42 Jesus prayed, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” If you are willing! Was the Father willing to remove the cup from the lips of His holy Son? No. Was it because the Father didn’t love the Son? Of course not! It was because the Father loved sinners! The Father, Son and Spirit had entered into a covenant to save sinners before they even created the world. This is the sovereign will of the Triune God. Having established His purpose and plan, the Father is not willing to negate it now. No, the Father is not willing to remove the cup from His Son. It was all part of God’s predestined purpose and plan.
In Matthew 26:39 Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” Jesus was asking the Father that if it were possible to save His people any other way, to let the cup pass from His lips. The sober truth is that it was not possible for us to be redeemed from sin in any other way. For you and I to be saved, it took the bloody, agonizing death of the holy Son of God.
The Father was not willing, and it was not possible for the cup to pass from Jesus Christ. Therefore, even though Jesus in His humanity did not want to drink the cup, He had to drink the cup.
Although the Father would not change His predestined plan for His Son, He would strengthen Him to go through the sufferings of the cross. Notice Luke 22:43, “Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him.” That statement is almost unbelievable! Here we have the Creator of the angels, the King of Glory in such agony, that the Father has to send one of His created beings to strengthen Him in His hour of great trial. Can you imagine how many angels would have been competing with one another for the honor of being sent to Jesus to strengthen Him in Gethsemane?! How did the angel strengthen Jesus? We simply don’t know. It is enough to know that He did strengthen Christ. Evidently, Jesus needed this strengthening so that He did not die in the garden. The weight of the bitter cup was pressing down on Him so hard that He may not have ever gotten to the cross, unless the Father had sent this angel to support Him.
Friends, there will be times in our lives where we will pray that God will change our circumstances, and the heavens will be silent. We will pray that if it is possible, God would save us from suffering, and we won’t be spared. Evidently, there are some sufferings in our life, that we must go through. It is the sovereign plan of the Father. However, I am convinced that if we must go through those sufferings, God will strengthen us to bear them, just as He did His Son. Take heart Christian. God is for you. He will strengthen you, He will uphold You with His righteous right hand.
3. Jesus Yielded To Drink The Cup
Jesus was very clear in His petition to His Father. He was asking His Father to remove the cup from Him. Yet, He was also very clear that He didn’t want His will, but His Father’s to be done. “Not My will, but Yours be done.” Jesus prayed this prayer three times. After each time, He came back and found His disciples sleeping instead of praying. Finally, in Matthew 26:45 it says, “Then He came to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!”
So, how did God answer His Son? Jesus prayed that the Father would remove the cup, yet not His will but the Father’s be done. The Father could not remove the cup and have His will be done. The Father’s will was that Jesus drink the cup. And so, after praying this prayer three times, Jesus knows that He must drink the cup. That’s why He tells His disciples, “Get up, let us be going; the one who betrays Me is at hand!” In other words, He was saying, “My Father is not going to remove the cup. Instead He is going to allow Judas to betray Me into sinful hands, and I must drink the bitter, lethal cup of wrath.”
In this, Jesus has provided an excellent example to all of us. We know from 1 John 5:14-15, that God answers prayer according to His will. Often, when we go to God in prayer, we want Him to do something very badly. Maybe a family member is desperately sick and we ask God to heal them. Maybe we have a wayward child, and we ask God to save them. Maybe we are suffering, and we ask God to remove the suffering. That is all fine. However, when you go to God in prayer, do you go like Jesus? Do you go saying, “Not my will, but Yours be done”? Some believers say you should never pray that way, because it shows a lack of faith. They say it is a faith cop out. However, there are many times when we just don’t know what God’s will is. When you don’t know God’s will, follow the example of Jesus. Pray for what you want, but do so in resignation to God’s will. We must approach God in submission to His will. If we don’t, we are in danger of committing idolatry. We are exalting our own will over God’s will, and now we have become God, and He exists only to serve us. My friends, He is the Creator, and we are the creatures. It is our duty to love Him, serve Him, and submit to Him. So, I urge you to cultivate a spirit of loving submission when you go to God in prayer. Yes, pray for the desires of your heart, but if you are not sure what the will of God is in that situation, also ask that God’s will would be done, not your own. Tell the Lord, “Father, I want you to heal me, but even if you don’t I will serve You. I want you to save my son, but even if You don’t, I will love you. I want you to heal my loved one of cancer, but even if You don’t, not my will, but Yours be done.” Do you love and trust God enough to submit all your desires to His will?
Conclusion
Brothers and Sisters, what does this passage have to say to you and I today? I think it confirms the truth of eternal punishment. The traditional doctrine of hell has been questioned and denied by many. Some say that when an ungodly person dies he is annihilated; he just ceases to exist. Others teach that all people are eventually saved through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. However, if the ungodly are annihilated or are eventually saved, then why does Jesus react this way in Gethsemane? Why is He very distressed and troubled? Why does He say, “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death”? Why did He pray in an agony? Why was He continually falling on His face to the ground? Why did He pray that the Father would remove the cup, and let the hour pass Him by, even though He knew that He had come into the world to die for sinners? Why did the Father send an angel to strengthen Him? Why did His sweat become like drops of blood, falling upon the ground? I submit to you, that the only reason for all of those things is because Jesus knew that He must face the dreadful, holy, wrath of Almighty God against our sins. Jesus had to face what all mankind must face, if left in their sins. Now, if all we are going to face is annihilation, then Jesus was greatly overexagerating in Gethsemane. If all He had to face was the punishment of annihilation, then why shrink back in horror? Why pray in agony? Why sweat blood?
This passage teaches us something of the horrors from which God has saved us. Here we see the only perfect man who ever lived. He, undoubtedly, was the most courageous man who ever lived. Yet, even He shrank back in horror at what was to come upon Him, and only with extreme difficulty was able to accept the cup. My friends, you and I can drink the cup of salvation and blessing, because Jesus drank the bitter and poisonous cup of wrath and indignation. If He was not willing to drink that cup of wrath, we could never drink the cup of salvation. But how much of the cup did He drink? Did He drink half of it, leaving you and I to drink the other half? Did He drink 90% of that cup, and only leave 10% for you and I to drink? No, He drank every last drop that was in that cup. There is nothing left in the cup. Jesus emptied it. Jesus took all of God’s wrath that was leveled against His people.
It was as if you and I were standing up against a firing squad, and Jesus stepped in between us and our executors, and took every last bullet from their guns in His own body. For true believers, God has no more ammunition against them. God has no more wrath against them. God may discipline them, but He will not punish them. God has exhausted His wrath upon His Son. When He cried, “It is finished!”, He meant it! The work of salvation is finished. The work of atonement is finished. The work of propitiation is finished!
My friends, how grateful we should be that we have a Surety who has stood in our place! How we should love our Lord Jesus, for being willing to be crushed and put to grief. Oh, how we should love our Father for causing the iniquity of us all to fall on Him!
I call upon you today, church, to love Christ! Adore Christ! Worship Christ! Serve Christ! Submit to Christ! He is all in all!
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