God is very familiar with the personal conflicts of people. The Lord Jesus Himself confronted them when He was on earth. This was His attitude just before the sins of all humanity were placed on Him:

He went a little farther, and falling on His face, He prayed, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” Matthew 26:39

To better understand everything that happened the night before the crucifixion, we need to look at the Jewish context of that time.

It was a custom for the feast of Passover to last almost the entire night. Families would eat, talk, remember their nation’s history, sing, enjoy themselves, and every two or three hours would drink a cup of wine. Every Jew would basically drink four cups. In the more traditional Jewish households, this ritual is still practiced today, but there is a spiritual significance behind this act.

The first cup, the“cup of slavery,” was meant to remind them of the time that they were slaves in Egypt.

The second cup, the“cup of deliverance,” commemorated their deliverance from the yoke of Egypt.

The third, the“cup of promise,” reminded them of all the blessings that God had promised. He is the LORD that not only recues and delivers, He is the One that redeems and bestows precious gifts.

The fourth and last cup, the“cup of suffering,” revealed that entering into the Kingdom of Heaven meant having to continue in the faith, reminding them that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God. Acts 14:22 (NLT)

The Lord Jesus Christ had to drink the fourth cup to give us the right to take ahold of our soul’s salvation. Since He celebrated the Passover with His disciples on His last night with them, there is no doubt that He drank each of these cups before He went to Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives.

The “suffering” that the last cup represented would not be symbolic, but literal, since in a few hours the martyrdom of the Savior would begin.

The cup that the Father Himself would place in the Son’s hands was the bitter cup that each person would have had to drink because of their sins and offenses.

If the sins of one person’s lifetime are terrible, imagine those of all generations!

All crimes, all bad thoughts, all hatred, all desire for revenge, all adultery, all lies, all sexual immorality, all impurity and all other sins that had been committed and would be committed would be placed on the One that never sinned.

As the Scriptures show, the Lord Jesus tasted “death for everyone,” for all humanity (Hebrews 2:9). He was considered guilty so that we could be absolved. He was separated from the Father so that we would never live far from Him.

Whoever lives in sin and thinks that the grace of God will deliver him from the Lake of Fire and Brimstone, at the very least, does not understand or does not want to (because it’s convenient) understand this: if God the Father did not spare His Son from the cup of suffering, will He spare willful sinners?