What the Bible says about Passover Cup
(From Forerunner Commentary)
The Bible uses wine in a wide variety of ways. It can represent a drug or a blessing. It can be a symbol of debauchery or of abundance. Wine was part of the drink offering, symbolizing being poured out in service. It was part of Melchizedek's blessing on Abraham, and 2,000 years later, Jesus uses it in the Passover as the blood of the New Covenant. Psalm 75 shows a cup of wine of God's wrath, and Revelation 18 depicts a cup in the hand of Mystery Babylon, representing its intoxicating culture and the spirit of the times.
Obviously, not all of those meanings are in view here, but when we link the new wine with Jesus being "taken away" (verse 35), it coincides with the Passover cup, representing Christ's blood and the New Covenant. When we add the fact that the Holy Spirit could not be given until Jesus had gone away, then the new wine entails more than just forgiveness, but also suggests God's Spirit—His love, power, and sound-mindedness (II Timothy 1:7).
In the example, the new wine is expansive. The fermentation process produces a great deal of pressure. An old and brittle wineskin will not be able to withstand the increasing stress, and it will burst.
The wineskin is a type of vessel. Throughout Scripture, vessels are symbols for people. For Christians, there is an “old man” and a “new man.” The old man represents the life we had before conversion, and the new man, the new vessel, is the life that comes because of conversion. But if we take the expansive and dynamic new wine, and we attempt to put that into the old life, we can be sure that we will have a disaster on our hands.
Our old lives, our old ways, are entirely incompatible with the new wine. The new wine requires change, expansion, and steady improvement, while in the old life, there was no real desire or ability to change. Remember, the new wine is tied to the blood of Passover, the New Covenant, the receipt of God's Spirit, and the spiritual result that will be produced by those powerful factors. Trying to cram all that into a person who is unwilling to change will invariably result in his coming apart at the seams. The precious new wine is spilled on the ground and dreadfully wasted.
David C. Grabbe
Clothing, Wineskins, and WineRelated Topics: New Man | New Wine | New Wine as God's Holy Spirit | New Wine as Symbol of Christ's Blood | Old Man | Passover Cup | Wine as a Symbol
When we observe the Passover each spring, we each drink from a cup of wine. The wine symbolizes the blood of Jesus Christ, shed on our behalf, which accomplishes a number of tremendous things that we cannot do for ourselves. We tend not to focus as much on the cup, but it, too, is a foundational part of Passover's meaning.
When the Bible speaks of "drinking of the cup," it indicates that a person is also sharing in the consequences of whatever the cup contains. "Drinking of the cup" goes beyond merely partaking of the liquid but implies accepting everything that happens as a result. Thus, when the mother of Zebedee's sons petition Jesus to grant her sons positions of honor, He asks James and John if they are able to "drink the cup" that He is about to drink (Matthew 20:20-23). He implies that if they desire to reign with Him in glory, they have to be willing to also share in His whole experience, not all of which would be glorious.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asks the Father to let that cup pass from Him if it were possible (Matthew 26:39-42). The cup of which He speaks is the cup He had just drunk from at the Passover. At that meal, He had identified the cup as "the new covenant in My blood" (Luke 22:20; emphasis ours throughout). By drinking from that cup, He had agreed to make the New Covenant, which required a perfect blood sacrifice that only He could fulfill. When we drink from that cup at Passover, we, too, agree to share in whatever results from that covenant, assenting to pay whatever it costs to become fully unified with Jesus Christ.
On the one hand, priceless blessings and promises come from that cup. But on the other hand, a price must be paid in this life, which can perhaps best be summed up with the word "suffering." Suffering is not a concept that we like to think about, and our mind resists it, even as Christ prayed that, if possible, that cup would pass from Him. However, when we become united with Christ through partaking of His blood, our lives with Him will involve suffering, just as His did.
To evaluate the depth of our convictions and the maturity of our faith honestly, it is necessary to understand what the Bible has to say about suffering. Because of the weakness of our flesh, we eagerly anticipate the Messiah's crown of honor but shy away from identifying with the crown of thorns that was thrust upon His head. We look forward to the white robes of glory but turn from the scarlet robe of mockery and ridicule placed on Christ. As one commentator put it, most Christians "would desire to share the glories and triumphs of redemption but not its poverty, contempt, and persecution." If we are merely seeking that crown of glory, hoping to skirt the less enjoyable parts of Christ's experience, we must ask ourselves whether we really understand and accept the Passover cup.
Even a cursory reading of the epistles shows a clear sequence: First, there is suffering, then there is glory—and we cannot have the second without some measure of the first (see Luke 24:25-26; Romans 8:17; I Peter 1:10-11; 4:13; Revelation 2:10).
Jesus Christ is the ultimate example of this sequence because only He has suffered and been glorified. Nevertheless, we can also look at the record of the heroes of faith, as well as the apostles and prophets, and realize that, throughout history, being chosen by God meant there would be some suffering involved. Just as day follows night, so our glory will not come until we have gone through darkness
David C. Grabbe
A Look at Christian Suffering (Part One)Related Topics: A Look at Christian Suffering | Bread and Wine as Symbols | Cup as Metaphor of Suffering | Cup as New Covenant | Fellowship of Christ's Sufferings | Glorifying God in our Suffering | Heroes of Faith | New Covenant | New Wine as Symbol of Christ's Blood | Passover Cup | Sharing Christ's Sufferings | Unity with Christ | Wine as a Symbol