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The Cup of Incarnation

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Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 20, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 16.

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The Cup of Incarnation

By H. A. St. John

By H. A. ST. JOHN
ONLY one person drank this cup, and that one was the Son of God. He drank it all alone. The time required was the entire period of His humiliation, from His lowly birth in the stable in Bethlehem to His ignominious death on Calvary's cross.
The Father and the Son unitedly prepared this cup in heaven; and Jesus well knew all it contained, and gladly accepted it, before He left glory and humbled Himself as a man. He gladly accepted it, and drank it, because of the joy set before Him of thereby becoming the Redeemer of a lost world. It was the price required to redeem a sinful race.
Jesus began to drink this cup when He laid aside His royal robe and crown, and left His Father, and all the blessed associations of heaven. In the first part of this cup, it was not all bitterness and suffering, but a mixture of joy came to His holy soul as He witnessed the happiness that so many experienced who had been sorely afflicted and oppressed by the devil, but whom He healed of their maladies, and pardoned their transgressions.
But the time hastened for Him to drink the dregs of the cup. His crowning act of humility was performed in the early part of the night of His betrayal. As a servant of servants, He humbled Himself and washed His disciples' feet. Then He gave to them the bread and the wine as emblems of His broken body and spilt blood. Thus we see that the Lord's Supper is ever to be observed by His church as a divinely appointed memorial of the cup of Jesus' incarnation, by which our redemption is made possible.
Jesus then offered His last prayer with and for His church, and in that prayer He said to His Father, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.” His joy and peace He gave to His followers, and then went forth to drink the dregs of the cup.
Soon He was in Gethsemane, staggering to the place of prayer. He cried, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.” Soon in bloody tears of anguish He cried, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”
An angel strengthened Him to finish drinking the cup. Soon the mob appeared. He was arrested, bound, and led away to be tried. When Peter attempted His release with a sword, He told him to put up his sword. “The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?”
Then He was led from trial to trial, shamefully abused in every disgraceful way possible, wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, chastised for our peace, and crucified.
At the end of six hours of untold agony of soul and body on the cross, He cried, “It is finished,” bowed His head, and died. He thus finished the dregs of the cup. He rested one Sabbath in the sepulcher, then His Father called Him, and He was soon exalted to His Father's throne, and is now our almighty Saviour.