Passage: Revelation 14:6-11; Luke 22:41-44; John 6:35, 53-69

The Big Idea

Our culture prefers a sanitized God: all love, no wrath. But we can’t truly grasp the love of God until we’ve considered His wrath. Revelation 14 describes the cup of God’s wrath, poured out full strength on those who worship the beast. In Gethsemane, Jesus held that very cup. Torn between His humanity’s dread and His perfect submission to the Father, He sweat like drops of blood, and then He drank it, all of it, for us. “It is finished” was the bottom of the cup. Now He offers us a different cup: His own life, received by coming to Him and believing. Where else would we go?

Is He Safe?

In C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, when the children ask whether Aslan is safe, Mr. Beaver answers, in effect: of course he isn’t safe, but he’s good. He’s the King.

Is God “nice”? That depends what you mean. Does God always do what you think He should? Is He always agreeable?

Today God has largely been sanitized. People like to think about the love of God, but not His wrath. But I’d suggest that we can’t really comprehend God’s love until we’ve honestly considered His wrath.

Let God’s Word test our hearts, like a hammer testing metal. Sometimes it rings true. Sometimes it cracks.

God is unquestionably loving, merciful and gracious. And He is perfectly just, and will punish and condemn sin. How can both be true at once?

Some questions to ponder: Are you glad God judges the wicked? Do you doubt He does it rightly? Are you surprised by how severe it is?

Three Angels (Revelation 14:6-11)

I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to every nation, tribe, tongue and people, saying with a loud voice, “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth.” Another angel followed: “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” A third angel said: “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark… he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night.”

Receive the gospel. Fear God and worship Him through the good news of Jesus.
The world’s systems are corrupt and will fail you. Commercial, religious and philosophical, all that “Babylon” is will come to a terrible end, and it can’t save you. Those connected to it drink the enemy’s drink. It goes down their throats and becomes part of them.
The wrath of God will be poured into a cup, and the wicked will drink it.
– God will judge sin. His anger is described as a cup, not watered down.
– It’s pictured as torment and fire forever.
– There are no second chances after death.
– God has warned everyone.
– And it takes place in the presence of the Lamb.

That’s sobering. Is that what we expect of “gentle Jesus, meek and mild”? God’s wrath poured out on people is hard to process, even when they’re guilty. It’s hard to imagine a punishment that never ends. It’s easier to picture hell as a dark place we’ll never have to think about.

And notice: just as their worship of the enemy and his rebellion became part of them, so the wrath of God becomes part of them. They can’t separate their identity from their judgment. Like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, they’ve become what they consumed. Condemnation isn’t just something done to them; it’s who they’ve become.

What Did Jesus Know About This Cup? (Luke 22:41-44)

If Jesus is willing to see this cup poured out on the wicked, what does He know about it? Does He understand how brutal it is?

He withdrew about a stone’s throw, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground.

Jesus would be tortured and killed the next day.
He went to His familiar place of prayer, and something weighed on His heart.
For all eternity He had been one with His Father: one in heart, mission and glory. Even as a man, He’d never been disconnected from Him.
Jesus knew how much the Father loved Him. Twice heaven had opened to declare it (Matthew 3:17; 17:5).
And Jesus knew how much God hates sin. He’d seen the Flood, the plagues of Egypt, the rebellions in the wilderness, the exile.
Those two truths were colliding in that dark olive grove on Passover night.
Jesus was holding a cup: invisible, symbolic, but more real than any cup in your kitchen.
He was about to drink God’s wrath against sin, the same wrath we read about in Revelation 14, the undiluted hatred of evil.

The Old Testament speaks of this cup often:

In the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red… all the wicked of the earth shall drain and drink down its dregs (Psalm 75:8).
Awake, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His fury (Isaiah 51:17).
“Take this wine cup of fury from My hand, and cause all the nations to drink it” (Jeremiah 25:15).

God’s wrath is His settled, holy anger at sin. “I am infinitely good and holy. Sin infinitely offends Me. So its consequences are infinitely severe.” It’s a holy, righteous wrath. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31).

But Jesus stands at the crossroads, asked to drink that wrath, to let sin and the judgment it deserves come upon His own body, though He did nothing to deserve it. And then He would let His body die, so the wrath would be spent. That’s propitiation.

David Guzik puts it this way: Jesus was treated, in a sense, as an enemy of God, made to drink the cup of the Father’s fury so that we wouldn’t have to, and taking that cup was the source of His greatest agony.

Not a “yes,” but strength

The Father didn’t answer with “Yes, let’s take the easy way.” He sent an angel to strengthen Jesus to drink the cup for us. Supernatural help to do God’s will: grace. Because for God’s love to reach us, His justice had to be satisfied.

More earnestly

After the angel strengthened Him, Jesus was in agony and prayed more earnestly. I didn’t expect there to be a “more intense” prayer from the One who taught us to pray. But having received not a “yes” but strength, He prayed with even greater intensity.

As a man, He was devastated at the suffering ahead: the full wrath of God against sin.
As the Son of God, He was completely obedient to His Father.
There was a fierce battle within Him, and we see its effects in sweat like drops of blood.

The nineteenth-century commentator David Brown observed that this wasn’t a struggle between a reluctant will and a compliant one, but between two views of the same event: in one view it was revolting, in the other welcome. By showing how it felt in the first, Jesus displays His oneness with us in nature and feeling; by how He regarded it in the second, He reveals His absolute, obedient submission to His Father.

He was being torn in two. The wrath of God and the love of God were colliding in Him.

He loved His Father more than anything, and would obey any command.
And He hated sin, which dishonors and rebels against His perfect Father.
All that sin was about to be laid on Him, and all God’s hatred of sin directed at Him on the cross.
God would pour out His righteous fury against sin on His beloved Son, the Son in whom He delights.

Jesus is the only one who truly understands how much God hates sin, because He alone has known perfect holiness firsthand. So He knew what was coming. Not just physical pain. He would be treated as the sinner. He who knew no sin became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). He’d suffer as if He were the worst rebel, God’s enemy.

The end of that prayer in the garden was a decision: “I will drink the cup.”

And at the cross He cried, “It is finished!” That was the bottom of the cup, His cry of victory after drinking all the wrath our sins deserved.

All Because of Love

Because Jesus loved His Father. He surrendered His life, honored His Father’s will and drank the cup.
Because Jesus loved you. He bore the full penalty of every one of our sins, with no guarantee you’d ever change or deserve it. He just loved you, with pure, undeserved, unearned passion.

Let that sink in. The just for the unjust. The good suffering for the bad. The holy for the sinful. Jesus for you.

Not just for the worst villains of history. For you. You and I are the ones who’ve offended God. Do you know that? Do you admit it? If any part of your heart can’t see your own sin, ask God right now to open your eyes to His holiness and your need. You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with You (Psalm 5:4).

The Cup He Offers Us (John 6)

Jesus drank the cup of wrath for you. What cup will you drink?

“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day… He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:53-56).

That sounds strange! God’s law forbade drinking blood, for the life of the flesh is in the blood, given on the altar to make atonement (Leviticus 17:10-12). So why would Jesus say to drink His blood? Because His life is in His blood, and He’s speaking spiritually.

When many disciples complained, He said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But some of you do not believe” (John 6:63-64). Many turned away. Jesus asked the Twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” Peter answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (John 6:67-69).

The life Jesus gives is spiritual, and we receive it spiritually: by believing.
Only God can draw us to believe (John 6:65).
Jesus tested them: “Do you want to leave too?” True believing holds on even when it’s hard to understand.
Is there an inner confidence in your heart about what Jesus says? It’s a spiritual cup. Are you drinking it?

Earlier in the chapter, Jesus explained exactly how to drink: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).

Come to Jesus.
Believe in Jesus.

“No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

“Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat… without money and without price. Why spend money for what isn’t bread?… Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight in abundance” (Isaiah 55:1-2).

We drink His life by faith as we feast on His Word. Peter wasn’t perfect, but he knew where to go.

Your Answer Shows What You’ve Been Drinking

“Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come” (Revelation 14:7).

Today you’re asked the same question: Do you want to go away? Do you think Jesus is strange, or ineffective? Do you look elsewhere for the words of life?

If His life is in you, you’ll know you can’t go anywhere else. “Why would I leave?”
If you’re still living under God’s wrath, you’ll be filled with doubt, anger, bitterness and self-sufficiency. “Why do I need Him?”

Grace Takeaway

Today you can change sides. If you’re terrified by your sin, if you understand God’s wrath against it, and if you believe Jesus took that wrath for you, as your substitute, because He loves you, then call out to Him. Confess your sin. Confess your trust in Jesus alone to save you. Then drink deeply of His life, every day, by coming to Him and believing His Word. Where else would you go?

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What’s in That Drink? The Cup of Wrath and the Love of Jesus