Alex Craig
PREACHING OF THE WORD OF GOD - THE CUP WHICH HE DRANK
I sometimes think that Paul in writing this epistle was like Moses in coming down from the mountain with the two tables of stone on which God had written. In approaching the camp he saw the golden calf and them dancing round it, and it says his anger burned. I think Paul is like that in this epistle. The great blessing in this epistle is Abraham's blessing, consisting of two parts: eternal life and sonship. There was an attempt in the Galatian assemblies to neutralise the glad tidings about this great blessing, and Paul says, 'If we come along another time, if we come back to you again and preach another glad tidings, it is not another glad tidings, or if anyone come preaching another glad tidings, it is not the glad tidings, let him be accursed.' He says, 'If even an angel out of heaven comes and preaches another glad tidings, it is not another glad tidings: let him be accursed' (see Gal 1: 8,9). I think Paul's anger is burning because of the attempt to overthrow the blessedness of what has come in in Paul's glad tidings, the blessedness of what is involved in the blessing of Abraham consisting, as I said, of two things that Abraham in type fills out: eternal life and sonship. There is nothing better, dear friends, than to have these things in title, but also in their enjoyment, and for that the Spirit has to be given as it says here: ''that the blessing of Abraham might come to the nations in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith". The Spirit is necessary for the blessing of Abraham to be understood.
Before the Spirit could be given, there must be the great work of redemption wrought out by Christ on the cross and that involves His drinking the cup. I want to speak to you, before I come on to my subject about the Lord Jesus drinking the cup, and the Spirit tells me that this is a very holy subject, a very sacred matter as to the Lord Jesus drinking the cup. Nobody speaks about it but the Lord Himself. Paul never speaks about that cup, nor John, nor Peter. Only the Lord speaks about that cup. He never calls it 'My cup' because it was not His cup. As we sang, it was our cup. I hope you take these things in. The gravity, the solemnity of what lies at the basis of our enjoyment of divine blessing is this great matter of the Lord Jesus drinking that cup. In the three synoptic gospels he calls it "this cup"; in John He calls it, "the cup which the Father has given me", chap 18: 11. It was not His cup. Involved in this great matter is the fact that He was made a curse. I trust these things ring in your heart as they will in mine. Blessed, sinless Son of God, but He was made a curse! That is how Paul opens this epistle, as I said: “let him be accursed", for he is going to speak about One who came into this scene, the sinless Son of God, and maintained that all His life through, but He drank the cup, and He drank the cup on the cross. He did not drink the cup in the grave. He drank the cup on the cross and emptied it on the cross.
I want to bring forward the scapegoat in helping me to speak about this sacred matter of Him drinking the cup. What it meant to Him to drink that cup and empty it! The day of atonement - I expect you know all these things - was one of Israel's greatest days, the day when they had the assurance from God that He was going to go on with them for another year. God in the glad tidings today is assuring men that He is prepared to go on with them for eternity, but in Israel's case it was for a year, a year's blessing, and, according to the epistle to the Hebrews, the writer shows that it was not really absolute forgiveness they received, but the assurance from God on the ground of the sacrifice on the day of atonement.
Now I speak about the scapegoat. There is much which precedes the scapegoat which is greater in a way. Perhaps I should not have said that because what is greater than a type that would witness to you of what the Saviour has suffered to remove what stood against us? So the scapegoat was brought forward and Aaron put his hands on it. Aaron represented the people, and he put his hands on it, and all the iniquities and all the sins and all the transgressions of Israel were put on the head of the scapegoat. Think of that animal standing there innocent, not one of those liabilities and sins or iniquities its! - it had none - all confessed on its head: one moment they are on the people, the next they are on the scapegoat, and it is led away "by the hand of a man standing ready". It is all Jesus! He is the scapegoat. He was the man standing ready, but it is led away "to a land apart from men". I will tell you that at the cross when God transferred the sins of His people on to the sinless head of the Substitute, He was not led to a land apart from men. He was found in a land apart from God! Who could open that up to you? Who could? - a land apart from God! That is what the forsaking means. He was forsaken of God; not the scapegoat: it had its limits. It serves as a type. But when you come to Jesus, the real Substitute, the real Sin-bearer, He was forsaken of God. The point came on the cross when there was the transfer. God transferred from His people on to the sinless head of Christ all their sins. That point came on the cross. That point came at the sixth hour, not at the third hour, at the sixth hour. What a momentous moment, dear friends, for Jesus and for us! Do you appreciate this? Do I appreciate it? Do I appreciate as I should do, that this is what was meted out to my blessed Saviour, your Saviour, in the cup? I cannot tell you when it was actually given him - He says, ''the cup which the Father has given me" - but I can tell you when He was forsaken and when He drank the cup, forsaken of God. What a moment! I am certain, dear friend, that we do not ponder this sufficiently. Do you go into your room, do you open your Bible and put it down before you and on your knees do you read about the types and transfer them with your intelligence to the cross? Do you open your Bible at the gospels and read about the cross? What effect has that upon us? What a moment when the cup was accepted and drunk by the Lord Jesus! He drank it. As I said, it is a sacred subject, and He is the only one who speaks about it.
We can see them wending their way to the cross. We can see that crowd. We can see the Roman soldiers. Here is one carrying the hammer and the nails and the superscription. We can see all that taking place as they wend their way to Calvary. They come to the cross. They lay it down on the ground, they stretch the Saviour on it and nail Him to the cross and nail up the superscription, hoist it up and put it in the hole in the ground. He is there for three hours, jeered at, mocked: "let him save him now if he will have him", Matt 27: 43. What mockery! But then there was the sixth hour and darkness came down! I see Another. There is nobody ever speaks about the cross like Paul, not even John or Peter. Nobody speaks about the cross like Paul. And it is not mentioned in Romans: that was tender consideration for the Romans because it was a Roman cross. But I see Another there at the sixth hour with the hammer and the nails and the writing. Nobody sees Him. Paul speaks about this in the second chapter of Colossians: ''the handwriting in ordinances which stood out against us ... he has taken it also out of the way, having nailed it to the cross" (v 14). Who did that? God did that. I would invite you: Come up to the cross! See if your signature is on that handwriting! That handwriting means that: it is the signature of certain people, the signature, illustrated in Israel when the ten commandments were given. They endorsed it and put their signature to it. They said this: "All the words that Jehovah has said will we do! " Exod 24: 3. They signed the writing. Have you found your signature to all that was written out there, that stood out against us? Mine was there, thank God! It is as if God said to the Saviour at the sixth hour, 'Here it is. Here is the list of all that they are guilty of. Are you, my beloved Son, prepared to accept on their account what was due to them? Here are all the signatures. Are you prepared to accept what was due to them on their account?' It is as if the Saviour said, 'I will'. God said, 'I'll have to leave You. I'll have to abandon You. I'll have to forsake You.' And for three hours, dear friends, He endured the wrath of God. That cup was a cup of wrath and He drank it during the three hours of darkness on the cross and He exhausted it - He drank it to its last dark dregs. Is that how you prize the Saviour? That is how I prize Him, the One who has gone this way, gone to this limit, gone to this extent. He was forsaken by God. And all this happened, dear friends, in these three hours, still alive. He had not yet died. He accepted too the death penalty. but the drinking of the cup was during those awful hours. May the thought of it imprint itself on your heart and mind more than ever before!
That is perhaps the main factor in my preaching, but I must speak about what flows out of that: Abraham's blessing. Paul shows in this scripture the full extent of the transgression, the full extent of it is seen in the fact that He was made a curse. I speak with the tenderest of feelings and with the warning from the Spirit of God about this holy subject, that it was necessary, that He was made a curse, but it was all in view of absolute removal. I was going to say in connection with the scripture I referred to in Colossians when God nailed things to the cross - and if you know your Bible, you will see that the context all through that section is God, what He did, what God did at the time of the cross - and if God nailed things to the cross, what Paul is showing is that the thing is final. It can never be brought up again. God nailed it to the cross. That is final. That is eternal. I say this, dear friends, that the removal of our sins and transgressions is such that God cannot find them. God Himself could not find them. So thoroughly have they been dealt with at the cross when He drank the cup that they cannot ever be found again. They will never come up. The psalmist says, "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgression from us", Ps 103: 12. No one could bring the east and the west together. They are irreconcilable. They are apart. So far as the east is from the west our sins have gone, beyond the finding of even the holy, righteous God! He is completely satisfied with their removal and they are removed finally. I hope we enjoy that! That is the basis upon which the glad tidings goes out. That is the basis upon which everything proceeds and nobody can enjoy the blessing of Abraham apart from the sense that everything is on righteous grounds before God and that there is no come-back. God will not come back. "For the gifts and the calling of God are not subject to repentance", Rom 11: 29. He will never repent, and that is all due to the finality of the work done by Christ and the drinking of the cup.
But then, as I said, there was the question of the penalty of death, and burial had to be met as well as the curse. Of course, the curse exists all the way down from Genesis chapter 3. There is no curse in chapter 2, but in chapter 3 the curse is introduced and it is on the ground. God curses the ground. The last reference to the curse is in Revelation 22 and comes in in connection with the river that goes out from the throne of God and the Lamb: "And no curse shall be any more" (v 3). So I gather that not only is the curse removed by the Lord Jesus becoming that and drinking the cup, but the Spirit is communicated - the Spirit is given - that all trace of it in our consciences might be for ever removed. The Spirit of God would serve us in that connection, that every sense of that is removed with the appreciation of what has been done by Jesus and the finality of His work; and it will not be repeated. I could go to other scriptures for that. It cannot be repeated - once for all - and the Spirit would be here bearing testimony to that fact and brings us into a situation where everything is cleared before God and the way is open for our enjoyment of these two great matters of eternal life and sonship.
Paul brings forward here the argument in proof of it by speaking of Abraham. He refers to two scriptures: Genesis 12 first of all where God promises blessing to the nations through Abraham; and also Genesis 22 where Isaac is offered on the altar and God confirms the promise to Abraham that there would be blessing. And that is what Paul refers to. He says, "even man's confirmed covenant no one sets aside, or adds other dispositions to", v 15, no codicils, no amendments. Even in human affairs. Paul says, that if a man makes a will, that is done. Nobody can change it. Well, God has come out in that way. He made a promise to Abraham, then He confirmed it, and He confirms it in a risen Christ. That is where the confirmation is. Not only did He drink the cup and accept the death penalty and the burial penalty, but God raised Him, and in the resurrection God is confirming His promise that there will be blessing. That is how you are to regard the resurrection of Christ. God is confirming it in raising Christ. That is what Paul is saying here. It is a wonderful thing, dear friends, to have these foundations in our souls, to get some impression of God's disposition. That is the idea of the covenant, God's disposition, His mind towards us. What is His mind towards me, towards us, towards men? - that they might come into the blessing, the blessing He promised to Abraham. Eternal life! That is a wonderful thing! Eternal life! Now you need a sphere to enjoy eternal life. That involves the inheritance. You might say that is first with Abraham. God says, "Arise, walk through the land according to the length of it and according to the breadth of it", Gen 13: 17. He says, 'It is all yours; I am going to give it to you'. That is where the blessing of eternal life is enjoyed. What a portion! That is what he says – “that the blessing of Abraham". So that is what God has given to us once the ground is cleared no obstacle is in the way, God brings out the wealth of His provision in grace. The glad tidings would convey that and give the title of it to you, but He gives the Spirit that you might know something about it; and we do know something about it. That is by the Spirit. That is what he says, "that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith". All this is brought in, as I said, to maintain the purity and blessedness of the glad tidings that come from the apprehension and appropriation of faith, not of works. That is what he is bringing out; and the Spirit is needed, not only to bear testimony to the fact that we have the title to it, but too that there might be the enjoyment of it. That is open to us. I am not saying that the Galatians were up to it; they had the title, but they had the means in the Spirit, and that comes out in Abraham - wonderful situation! The whole land was his. What a wealth of things! How rich, dear friends, does the glad tidings make us, and the Spirit would come in and give us that assurance. More than that, He would give us the experience of what this is. Now, eternal life has a great delivering effect. It is not only something nice to talk about, but it has a great delivering effect; it has a satisfying effect, and that in itself is a delivering effect. Those who are in the gain of eternal life, or in the enjoyment of eternal life in any measure, are contented people, satisfied people. They are not longing for great things in the world. It is a great matter to be somewhat in the gain of this great blessing. What did Abraham require from the king of Sodom? What did he want? He needed nothing. He was quite satisfied with the portion God gave him in this land: wonderful land it was, where God's love is known! That is where eternal life will lead you to, to the centre of God's love, the land over Jordan. God espied it for them. It was the blessing of Abraham. We can enjoy that and be delivered from the whole world's system and all that appeals to us as natural people, people in the flesh if you understand what that means, just ordinary people. It has that effect of bringing about satisfaction in your soul and enjoyment of the love of God, two great testimonies in John 3 and John 4, and the object is eternal life. The great testimony is this that God gave His Son and God gave the Spirit. These are the great testimonies to God's love because in chapter 3 it is: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son", v 16 - that is His love lying behind it all. Then it says in John 4, "If thou knewest the gift of God" (v 10). A gift does not come by any way but by love, and the testimony to God's love is the gift of the Son and the gift of the Spirit. These things both lead the way into eternal life that these people down here might be satisfied with their portion. What portion do you want? What can the world contribute to us? Nothing at all. As I said, eternal life has a great satisfying and delivering effect!
Just a word about sonship. Abraham had the promise of the land: that is eternal life; but he was also brought into the great light and blessedness of sonship, and this epistle develops that too. In chapter 4 Paul says, "God sent forth his Son, come of woman, come under law, that he might redeem those under law, that we might receive sonship", (vv 4,5). There is nothing greater in this epistle than these two things: eternal life and sonship. God has opened His treasuries and He has brought us into this great sphere of satisfaction, a sphere of relationships. That is the idea of sonship where there is status and also relationships held out to us. We have them all in title, but the Spirit is given that they might be real to us. I hope I am not in any sense over-emphasising this matter of the Spirit: "But because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba Father", chap 4: 6. The reality of these things is maintained by the Spirit. So things are not only in title. I think most of us rest there with what is in title, and it cannot be questioned because that goes back to the work of Christ and the ground being cleared. Our title to everything lies there, but our peace and satisfaction must come by what the Spirit is doing at the present time. I hope you take that in, that the Spirit of God has come in to bring us into the enjoyment of what we speak of as sonship where there is a whole new system of things opening up. Eternal life involves the kingdom, the whole land with its blessedness and enjoyment where there is satisfaction, but the house involves the sphere where Christ dominates as Son over God's house, brought into the house, the whole economy of divine love, such a portion as that! The Spirit of God would give us the conviction of it and the sense of it and the blessedness of it, and we cry, "Abba Father! "
I think I should stop there, that the Lord Jesus drinking the cup and clearing the whole ground was all in view of God's people coming into the wealth and blessedness of what lay in the mind of God for them, the promise of life in Christ Jesus. God had promised that. Great obstacles stood in the way. Our deserts, what we were liable for, have been freely and fully accepted by Christ Himself and the Spirit has been communicated that the blessedness of divine things might be known by us. May He bless the word!
EDINBURGH
30 August 1992