A beautiful cup is the cup of the Lord—a cup full of the good wine that God made through the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and a cup that fills the soul with the shed blood of Jesus Christ. That shed blood washes away all sins and gives the joy and gladness of heaven and eternal life. That blood was shed for you. And that blood sealed the promise of the covenant of God as yes and amen. There is no good thing that God has promised that Jesus Christ did not make sure and certain through the shedding of his blood.

The testament that Jesus confirmed by the shedding of his blood is the new one. The old one was a covenant of law. Oh, not that it was not part of the one, eternal covenant of grace, but its administration was the old letter of the law that killed and was the ministration of death. The law was added to the promise that God made to Abraham. The law made sin exceeding sinful, so that transgressions abounded and that the grace of God might much more abound. The law made all who came under it sinners and threatened every sinner with eternal desolation. Cursed is everyone who continues not in all things that are written in the law to do them. The law never said, “Be decent persons, try your hardest, do your best, or do better next time.” But the law said, “With all your hearts, minds, souls, and strength you must love the Lord your God.” In all that we failed. Not first ourselves! No, we came into the world under the condemnation of the law through our first father, Adam. We were born as sinners by nature, and daily we increase our debts.

Thus the law was a crushing weight that brought with it the terror of the wrath of God.

Jesus gave us a new testament. He is not another Moses who brings the law to rule over us again. Jesus freed us from the law! Yes, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ! He came to justify us from all things from which we could not be justified by the law of Moses. And Jesus gave us a new cup full of the good wine of his perfect salvation: justification from our sins and consecration to the living God in his fellowship. Yes, if you drink that cup, you not only receive the pardon of sins, but you also become more and more united to Christ’s sacred body! You are assured more and more of the forgiveness of your sins and of the promise of eternal life! You are filled with the Holy Ghost, who is that sweet wine that Christ pours into our souls to refresh us and by whom Christ as the head governs us, the members of his body! Drink that wine and taste heaven. The taste will transform you from glory to glory until in the new heaven and earth you drink that wine anew with Christ in the marriage supper of the Lamb and his bride. Such a sweet and lovely cup.

Yes, because Christ took another and terrible cup filled with the wrath of God against our transgressions of his law. When Christ took that cup into his hand, then a look into the cup nearly killed him. The terribleness of that cup pressed out of him a blood-sweat in the garden. The cup’s terror so sapped him of his strength that God sent angels to strengthen the Son of God. Submitting to God’s will and having taken the cup, Jesus drank it to the last swig of bitter vinegar that burned his parched lips and throat. Having cried with a loud voice, “It is finished!” he gave up the ghost. And that bitter cup was transformed into a cup full of the sweet wine of the Spirit! When we drink it, we show Christ’s death till he comes.