Posts
Another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a great voice, "If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead, or on his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is prepared unmixed in the cup of his anger. He will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb." (Revelation 14:9-10)
One of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever. The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power. No one was able to enter into the temple, until the seven plagues of the seven angels would be finished. I heard a loud voice out of the temple, saying to the seven angels, "Go and pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of God on the earth!" (Revelation 15:7 – 16:1)
The great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the great was remembered in the sight of God, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. (Revelation 16:19)
The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of the sexual immorality of the earth. (Revelation 17:4)
Return to her just as she returned, and repay her double as she did, and according to her works. In the cup which she mixed, mix to her double. (Revelation 18:6)
I would like to review some of the stories throughout Scripture that involves a cup and see what connections and clues might emerge to inform us more concerning this important symbol.
They said to him, "We have dreamed a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it." Joseph said to them, "Don't interpretations belong to God? Please tell it to me." The chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, "In my dream, behold, a vine was in front of me, and in the vine were three branches. It was as though it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and the clusters of it brought forth ripe grapes. Pharaoh's cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand." Joseph said to him, "This is the interpretation of it: the three branches are three days. Within three more days, Pharaoh will lift up your head, and restore you to your office. You will give Pharaoh's cup into his hand, the way you did when you were his cupbearer. (Genesis 40:8-13)
Pharaoh styled himself to be a god in Egypt, particularly later in the time of Moses. What kind of connections might this arouse relating to the true God and His relationship to those holding His cup?
He commanded the steward of his house, saying, "Fill the men's sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put every man's money in his sack's mouth. Put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack's mouth of the youngest, with his grain money." He did according to the word that Joseph had spoken.
As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away, they and their donkeys. When they had gone out of the city, and were not yet far off, Joseph said to his steward, "Up, follow after the men. When you overtake them, ask them, 'Why have you rewarded evil for good? Isn't this that from which my lord drinks, and by which he indeed divines? You have done evil in so doing.'"
He searched, beginning with the eldest, and ending at the youngest. The cup was found in Benjamin's sack. (Genesis 44:1-5, 12)
Joseph said to them, "What deed is this that you have done? Don't you know that such a man as I can indeed divine?" Judah said, "What will we tell my lord? What will we speak? Or how will we clear ourselves? God has found out the iniquity of your servants. Behold, we are my lord's bondservants, both we, and he also in whose hand the cup is found." He said, "Far be it from me that I should do so. The man in whose hand the cup is found, he will be my bondservant; but as for you, go up in peace to your father." (Genesis 44:15-17)
This entire story resonates strongly with this whole subject related to the wrath of God. Joseph was pretending to be very angry and even unreasonable, yet that was the opposite of what he actually was feeling deep inside. His brothers, not aware of who they were speaking with and the truth of his real feelings towards them, perceived him in a similar way to how the wicked perceive the true God of heaven and His disposition towards sinners. While they imagined that they were targets of the wrath of this supposed Egyptian overlord making things impossibly difficult in their lives, the fact is it was the lies they had been living under for so many years were the real cause of all their emotional agony.
You shall also make a basin of brass, and the base of it of brass, in which to wash. You shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it. (Exodus 30:18)
He made the basin of brass, and its base of brass, out of the mirrors of the ministering women who ministered at the door of the tent of meeting. (Exodus 38:8)
This is highly significant as it has to do with where identity is sourced. If we look at this in connection to the origin of evil in the mind of Lucifer, one of the main causes of his fall was to change his origin of identity from what his purpose was by creation, to believing that his worth was based on his abilities, his assets, his beauty and what others thought about him.
therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because you have set your heart as the heart of God, therefore, behold, I will bring strangers on you, the terrible of the nations; and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom, and they shall defile your brightness.
Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and tell him, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: You seal up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz, emerald, chrysolite, onyx, jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and beryl. Gold work of tambourines and of pipes was in you. In the day that you were created they were prepared. You were the anointed cherub who covers: and I set you, so that you were on the holy mountain of God; you have walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. You were perfect in your ways from the day that you were created, until unrighteousness was found in you.
Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you have corrupted your wisdom by reason of your brightness: I have cast you to the ground; I have laid you before kings, that they may see you. By the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your traffic, you have profaned your sanctuaries; therefore have I brought forth a fire from the midst of you; it has devoured you, and I have turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all those who see you. All those who know you among the peoples shall be astonished at you: you are become a terror, and you shall nevermore have any being. (Ezekiel 28:6-7,12-15,17-19)
I am not suggesting that it is inherently evil to use mirrors as tools for caring for our body. What I sense here in the reference to the mirrors used by ministering women when couched in the much larger context of the origin of the cosmic struggle, could have much larger implications than simply needing brass to make basins for the sanctuary. There must be a reason it specifically mentions the brass came from the mirrors used by the women ministering at the door. I think this point is important, especially when it is so clear that keeping up appearances was central in the fall of Lucifer who originated the idea of living a life Paul refers to as living according to the flesh, which is all about basing our identity and worth on faulty sources of worth.
Could it be (without accusing women as inherently faulty) that this verse connects to something much more relevant for all of us? Each of us is called to give up things we rely on that sustain old ways of perceiving our identity that we may be restored to our original design as reflectors of God's glory.
You shall set the basin between the tent of meeting and the altar, and shall put water therein.
He set the basin between the tent of meeting and the altar, and put water therein, with which to wash. (Exodus 40:7, 30)
When the wine ran out, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no wine." Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does that have to do with you and me? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servants, "Whatever he says to you, do it."
Now there were six water pots of stone set there after the Jews' manner of purifying, containing two or three metretes apiece. Jesus said to them, "Fill the water pots with water." They filled them up to the brim. He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the ruler of the feast." So they took it.
When the ruler of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and didn't know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the ruler of the feast called the bridegroom, and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and when the guests have drunk freely, then that which is worse. You have kept the good wine until now!" (John 2:3-10)
He made the molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and the height of it was five cubits; and a line of thirty cubits compassed it round about. Under the brim of it round about there were buds which did compass it, for ten cubits, compassing the sea round about: the buds were in two rows, cast when it was cast. It stood on twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east; and the sea was set on them above, and all their hinder parts were inward. It was a handbreadth thick: and the brim of it was worked like the brim of a cup, like the flower of a lily: it held two thousand baths.
He made ten basins of brass: one basin contained forty baths; and every basin was four cubits; and on very one of the ten bases one basin. (1 Kings 7:23-26, 38)
Also he made the molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass; and the height of it was five cubits; and a line of thirty cubits compassed it round about. Under it was the likeness of oxen, which did compass it round about, for ten cubits, compassing the sea round about. The oxen were in two rows, cast when it was cast. It stood on twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east: and the sea was set on them above, and all their hinder parts were inward. It was a handbreadth thick; and the brim of it was worked like the brim of a cup, like the flower of a lily: it received and held three thousand baths. He made also ten basins, and put five on the right hand, and five on the left, to wash in them; such things as belonged to the burnt offering they washed in them; but the sea was for the priests to wash in. (2 Chronicles 4:2-6)
I said to the arrogant, "Don't boast!" I said to the wicked, "Don't lift up the horn. Don't lift up your horn on high. Don't speak with a stiff neck." For neither from the east, nor from the west, nor yet from the south, comes exaltation. But God is the judge. He puts down one, and lifts up another. For in the hand of Yahweh there is a cup, full of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours it out. Indeed the wicked of the earth drink and drink it to its very dregs. But I will declare this forever: I will sing praises to the God of Jacob. (Psalms 75:4-9)
Awake, awake, stand up, Jerusalem, that have drunk at the hand of Yahweh the cup of his wrath; you have drunken the bowl of the cup of staggering, and drained it. There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she has brought forth; neither is there any who takes her by the hand among all the sons who she has brought up. These two things have happened to you. Who will bemoan you? Desolation and destruction, and the famine and the sword; how shall I comfort you? Your sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as an antelope in a net; they are full of the wrath of Yahweh, the rebuke of your God. Therefore hear now this, you afflicted, and drunken, but now with wine: Thus says your Lord Yahweh, and your God who pleads the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of staggering, even the bowl of the cup of my wrath; you shall no more drink it again: and I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you, who have said to your soul, Bow down, that we may go over; and you have laid your back as the ground, and as the street, to those who go over. (Isaiah 51:17-23)
For thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, to me: take this cup of the wine of wrath at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send you, to drink it. They shall drink, and reel back and forth, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them. (Jeremiah 25:15-16)
You shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Drink you, and be drunken, and spew, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you. It shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at your hand to drink, then shall you tell them, Thus says Yahweh of Armies: You shall surely drink. (Jeremiah 25:27-28)
An oracle. The word of Yahweh concerning Israel. Yahweh, who stretches out the heavens, and lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him says: "Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of reeling to all the surrounding peoples, and on Judah also will it be in the siege against Jerusalem. It will happen in that day, that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples. All who burden themselves with it will be severely wounded, and all the nations of the earth will be gathered together against it. In that day," says Yahweh, "I will strike every horse with terror, and his rider with madness; and I will open my eyes on the house of Judah, and will strike every horse of the peoples with blindness. The chieftains of Judah will say in their heart, 'The inhabitants of Jerusalem are my strength in Yahweh of Armies their God.' In that day I will make the chieftains of Judah like a pan of fire among wood, and like a flaming torch among sheaves; and they will devour all the surrounding peoples, on the right hand and on the left; and Jerusalem will yet again dwell in their own place, even in Jerusalem. Yahweh also will save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem not be magnified above Judah.
In that day Yahweh will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem. He who is feeble among them at that day will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of Yahweh before them. It will happen in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. I will pour on the house of David, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they will look to me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and will grieve bitterly for him, as one grieves for his firstborn. In that day there will be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. The land will mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of the Shimeites apart, and their wives apart; all the families who remain, every family apart, and their wives apart. (Zechariah 12:1-14)
The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of the sexual immorality of the earth. And on her forehead a name was written, "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I wondered with great amazement. (Revelation 17:4-6)
The cup originating in the hand of those in opposition to the truth about God leads them to intoxicate others in order to exploit them. But in doing so they betray they believe this is how God relates to them. So long as we believe God abuses His power to get His way, we will abuse our power to exploit others while imagining we are justified because we are no different than the god we worship except that He has more power to get His way than we possess.
I heard another voice from heaven, saying, "Come out of her, my people, that you have no participation in her sins, and that you don't receive of her plagues, for her sins have reached to the sky, and God has remembered her iniquities. Return to her just as she returned, and repay her double as she did, and according to her works. In the cup which she mixed, mix to her double. (Revelation 18:4-6)
When double to the original is added to the mix, one actually ends up with 3 times the original. This could connect to the one third symbol in Revelation which is Satan's trademark we have looked at repeatedly. With the Spirit teaching us to interpret everything through the mind of the Lamb rather than the wine of Babylon, how should we interpret the following passage?
Yahweh examines the righteous, but the wicked and him who loves violence his soul hates. On the wicked he will rain blazing coals; fire, sulfur, and scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup. For Yahweh is righteous. He loves righteousness. The upright shall see his face. (Psalms 11:5-7)
Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet were almost gone. My steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no struggles in their death, but their strength is firm. They are free from burdens of men, neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore pride is like a chain around their neck. Violence covers them like a garment. Their eyes bulge with fat. Their minds pass the limits of conceit. They scoff and speak with malice. In arrogance, they threaten oppression. They have set their mouth in the heavens. Their tongue walks through the earth.
Therefore their people return to them, and they drink up waters of abundance. They say, "How does God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?" Behold, these are the wicked. Being always at ease, they increase in riches. Surely in vain I have cleansed my heart, and washed my hands in innocence, For all day long have I been plagued, and punished every morning. (Psalms 73:1-14)
But I have made Esau bare, I have uncovered his secret places, and he shall not be able to hide himself: his seed is destroyed, and his brothers, and his neighbors; and he is no more.
Leave your fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let your widows trust in me. For thus says Yahweh: Behold, they to whom it didn't pertain to drink of the cup shall certainly drink; and are you he who shall altogether go unpunished? you shall not go unpunished, but you shall surely drink. For I have sworn by myself, says Yahweh, that Bozrah shall become an astonishment, a reproach, a waste, and a curse; and all the cities of it shall be perpetual wastes. (Jeremiah 49:10-13)
Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and save every man his life; don't be cut off in her iniquity: for it is the time of Yahweh's vengeance; he will render to her a recompense. Babylon has been a golden cup in Yahweh's hand, who made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.
Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: wail for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed. We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go everyone into his own country; for her judgment reaches to heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies. Yahweh has brought forth our righteousness: come, and let us declare in Zion the work of Yahweh our God. (Jeremiah 51:6-10)
The anger of Yahweh has scattered them; he will no more regard them: They didn't respect the persons of the priests, they didn't favor the elders. Our eyes do yet fail in looking for our vain help: In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save. They hunt our steps, so that we can't go in our streets: Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come. Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the sky: They chased us on the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness. The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Yahweh, was taken in their pits; Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the nations. Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, that dwell in the land of Uz: The cup shall pass through to you also; you shall be drunken, and shall make yourself naked. The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished, daughter of Zion; he will no more carry you away into captivity: He will visit your iniquity, daughter of Edom; he will uncover your sins. (Lamentations 4:16-22)
Repeatedly what we are finding in these passages is what Jesus defined as judgment, where hidden things of darkness become exposed by light. This is important to keep in mind.
For thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I will deliver you into the hand of them whom you hate, into the hand of them from whom your soul is alienated; and they shall deal with you in hatred, and shall take away all your labor, and shall leave you naked and bare; and the nakedness of your prostitution shall be uncovered, both your lewdness and your prostitution. These things shall be done to you, because you have played the prostitute after the nations, and because you are polluted with their idols. You have walked in the way of your sister; therefore will I give her cup into your hand. Thus says the Lord Yahweh: You will drink of your sister's cup, which is deep and large; you will be ridiculed and held in derision; it contains much. You shall be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of your sister Samaria. You shall even drink it and drain it out, and you shall gnaw the broken pieces of it, and shall tear your breasts; for I have spoken it, says the Lord Yahweh. Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because you have forgotten me, and cast me behind your back, therefore bear you also your lewdness and your prostitution. (Ezekiel 23:28-35)
Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, might drink from them.
Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, drank from them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.
In the same hour came forth the fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.
...but [you] have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine from them; and you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which don't see, nor hear, nor know; and the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways, you have not glorified. (Daniel 5:1-5, 23)
Woe to him who gets an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil! You have devised shame to your house, by cutting off many peoples, and have sinned against your soul. For the stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the woodwork will answer it. Woe to him who builds a town with blood, and establishes a city by iniquity! Behold, isn't it of Yahweh of Armies that the peoples labor for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh, as the waters cover the sea.
"Woe to him who gives his neighbor drink, pouring your inflaming wine until they are drunk, so that you may gaze at their naked bodies! You are filled with shame, and not glory. You will also drink, and be exposed! The cup of Yahweh's right hand will come around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory. For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the destruction of the animals, which made them afraid; because of men's blood, and for the violence done to the land, to every city and to those who dwell in them.
"What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols? Woe to him who says to the wood, 'Awake!' or to the mute stone, 'Arise!' Shall this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it. But Yahweh is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him!" (Habakkuk 2:9-20)
So far we seem to see differences between a cup used to exploit others, and a cup identified as coming from God that causes madness in the wicked. Yet at the same time it is not so clearly cut and dried as it might appear in the last passage, for it seems the same cup (if we read this at face value) used to intoxicate others to exploit them and gaze on their nakedness, appears to also be a cup in Yahweh's right hand sent back to the ones who used it for evil on others.i But a more plausible understanding for me is that God is describing the operation of a natural principle of cause and effect that has been misconstrued by the enemy as directly inflicted punishments on the part of God.
Before we launch into understanding a somewhat different aspect in the symbol of a cup as used by Christ with His disciples, I want to review some of the main points distilled from what we have looked at related to this symbolic cup and its contents. Why is it portrayed so often as being in the hand of God, implying motives to God's heart that are incongruent with the revelation of the Lamb? I think more things will clarify in our thinking when we allow the Spirit to give us not just a more mature understanding, but more importantly as we allow the Seed from the Father's heart to be born and grow inside ourselves so that the perspective of His love can expose the lies hiding in our inner recesses, dark misapprehensions about God that need to be rejected. Christ needs to become formed in us so boldly that we follow the Lamb obsessively wherever He goes and the same glory shining from His revelation that expels all fear, shines from us and does the same.
Here are questions and statements we might utilize to distill more coherence from above passages relating to the symbolic cups we have been examining.
It seems clear that not all cups mentioned reflect the motives and heart of God.
I believe it is safe to believe that the cup labeled as containing the undiluted wrath of God should not be viewed as synonymous with the cup described in the hand of the great whore who is identified as Babylon and the Mother of all Harlots. Otherwise we conflate the motives of God with those of His arch enemies, just what the father of lies wants us to believe.
We cannot serve two Masters according to the clear teaching of Jesus. He also indicated what will be our judge on the great day of the revelation of God's righteous judgment. What will judge us are the words from the mouth of His Son.
God is either how His enemies portray Him to be, making us identified with all who dwell on the earth who worship the dragon, the beasts and their image to the beast, or God is solely like the Lamb who has no darkness at all nor any shadow of turning.
The last chapter of this book makes it clear that nothing immoral can have any part in the kingdom of heaven, so the cup of intoxicating immorality and wickedness cannot be attributed as originating with God in heaven. There must be another way to understand and differentiate between these two kinds of cups.
Just because a cup is full of negative consequences and it said to be steered around by God for certain ones to drink from, does not prove the negative things in the cup reflect God's desire for them, but only that God is the Author of the principles that operate by cause and effect.
We have already spent time unpacking the true meaning of the words wrath and indignation, and those insights have a central role in how we arrive at the meanings of these other symbols from throughout Scripture.ii With this in mind, I want to examine the most important cup that sheds light on how to appreciate and relate to all the previous ones as well as their contents, and also what may determine the ingredients and effects in the contents of the cups. Additionally, we need to compare the cup of this New Covenant with the mysterious cup involving the empire of evil's intent to crush forever the very life of the Son of God in order to defeat the plan of salvation and disprove the validity of God's claims about Himself and about love, and to block the liberating power of forgiveness.
The Cup of the New Covenant
He took the cup, gave thanks, and gave to them, saying, "All of you drink it, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the remission of sins. But I tell you that I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on, until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's Kingdom." (Matthew 26:27-29)
In the same way he also took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink, in memory of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks the Lord's cup in a manner unworthy of the Lord will be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread, and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he doesn't discern the Lord's body. For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep. For if we discerned ourselves, we wouldn't be judged. But when we are judged, we are punished by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. Therefore, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait one for another. But if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest your coming together be for judgment.... (1 Corinthians 11:25-34)
When seeking to understand what it means to have unmixed wine in the cup of God's wrath, I believe answer is linked to understanding what Paul had in mind when discussing being unworthy and undiscerning while participating in sharing the communion cup that Jesus left for us as a reminder of who He is and what He did to reveal to us the reconciling truth about our Father's heart. The wine represents the beliefs we hold to in our heart revealing our beliefs about disposition of the One we reflect. In other words, the meaning we assign to His blood is entirely interpreted through our opinions about its purpose and meaning based on our core assumptions of His disposition towards us.
This New Covenant embraces an entirely new perception of God and His disposition towards us and how we are to view and relate to Him. This covenant is more radical than we have been willing to believe. Satan has so distorted our understanding of this symbol just as he has everything else God reveals about the truth, that we have come to imagine the blood and body of Christ somehow are meant to change God's disposition towards us when we trust in the substitutional death of Christ to assuage the wrath of God and purchase forgiveness for ourselves. Nothing could be further from the truth, yet by clinging to such notions we are polluting the true meanings of the pure fruit juice and unleavened bread, with leavening lies of the enemy that induces selfishness even in reminders of the very opposite as demonstrated in the life and death of the One sent to save us from our sins.
The Corinthians being instructed by Paul had fallen into the same trap many are in today, of viewing religion as a form or set of rituals to perform while failing to have the heart and life transformed from selfishness to living in selfless love for each other. Thus God's reputation and the ministry of His Christ is contradicted and distorted to be merely superficial formality rather than radical revelation accomplishing radical transformation. To make religion and ritual more important than receiving and giving love without resistance is to demonstrate we are not worthy of the trust Jesus has put in us to follow His example and receive His mind, His way of thinking and living to be reflected in us.
When we make ritual and religion, doctrines and knowing right answers, a higher priority over knowing the selfless love of God for us personally and passionately, we experience God's kind of judgment as defined by Jesus in John 3:19-20. By participating in the symbols of communion while denying the transforming power of the love it represents, our heart becomes hardened by the very things intended to remind us of the humility, kindness and power of love witnessed in the actions and disposition of the One whose blood is meant to change the way we think, live and interact. When judgment by the light of truth happens, our spiritual depravity is exposed and our weakness defines us as hypocrites and sinners rather than reflectors of the true glory seen in the mirror of Christ.
The Cup of Fear, Condemnation, Sin and Death
But Jesus answered, "You don't know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" They said to him, "We are able." (Matthew 20:22)
He went forward a little, fell on his face, and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me; nevertheless, not what I desire, but what you desire." (Matthew 26:39)
Jesus therefore said to Peter, "Put the sword into its sheath. The cup which the Father has given me, shall I not surely drink it?" (John 18:11)
In the above passages referencing a cup, I sense that the cup of communion is distinctly different in meaning and composition from the cup Jesus referred to when He talked about His imminent suffering. I believe this is key for understanding that in all these passages the symbol of a cup does not always mean the same thing. We do well to seek to appreciate their deeper and diverse meanings, given they involve very real choices and experiences both for God and for each one of us.
There is a cup containing what we label as the wine of Babylon that involves natural consequences in curses released from violated principles by evil choices and actions of various peoples and nations. At times Scripture says this cup is in God's right hand, yet that does not prove that the negative consequences represented as being unleashed from the contents of the cup, are being forced on those who drink it. We need to appreciate the established principles God created that synchronize and governs how cause and effect operates universally, and violating them elicits tragic unavoidable outcomes when we ignore the principles that govern life and reality. The idea of rewards according to their works, simply describes the operation of core principle of cause and effect, and sooner or later people become aware that the seeds they plant in moral choices bears fruit after its own kind.
This cup of natural consequences does seem however, to be closely aligned to what we are studying called the cup of the wrath of God (wrath defined as releasing one to experience the unleashed consequences that occur when divine protection is withdrawn) unmixed in the cup of His indignation (intense passion)iii. This brings us to consider one more aspect of this – the mixture.
For in the hand of Yahweh there is a cup, full of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours it out. Indeed the wicked of the earth drink and drink it to its very dregs. (Psalms 75:8)
I find this illustration fascinating and compelling with potentially deep insights to flesh out. What we find in the third angel's warning about experiencing unmixed wine makes me want to know what is missing and why it is missing. What is meant by foaming wine mixed with spices? What kind of spices, and what effect do they have on the wine? Do they make it taste better or make it dangerous? Are these spices what is absent from the unmixed wine of Revelation? I find this relevant and important as I believe it relates directly to our time right now. Even more important, our beliefs and choices make the difference in whether we drink mixed wine or unmixed wine? I believe we do act the key part in this, for those who drink the wine that is unmixed are clearly identified as being aligned with the beast and its image and having their mark. In other words, it can be traced back to our settled view of what kind of a God we serve that determines how we experience the contents of the cup. Our belief or unbelief directly affects how we react to this wine of God's passion.
In Psalms it is the wicked who drink the wine mixed with spices. Yet what might be the difference between those wicked and the ones in Revelation 14? If mercy is the missing ingredient in Revelation (and I believe there is strong evidence to assert this), then do the spices mentioned in Psalms represent what needs to be experienced before it is too late to repent? These are thoughts to consider. I don't presume to have all the answers, but I feel compelled to probe with penetrating questions and be open to receiving clues and discovering more answers as the Spirit guides.
What about the cup looming before Jesus that aroused such intense trepidation that He cried out to His Father for any alternative if at all possible?iv Was this dreadful cup mixed or unmixed? Based on particularly the prophecies of Isaiah I think this cup was unmixed due to all the filth and byproducts of sin from all of humanity, all byproducts of lies and dark beliefs about God. Yet Jesus chose to identify with every human being in order to restore a way for them to be free to choose to identify with His identity as a reflector of the righteousness of God. Drinking this cup of lies and fears we all experience gave Him firsthand knowledge of how we perceive reality, and what is missing in our cups is the faith Jesus had in His Father's unwavering love and mercy that endures forever
The cup of communion Jesus shared with His disciples was representative of their embracing His identity given to every person, and His cup does not contain fermented wine. Fermentation causes intoxication and is how the great Harlot manipulates and controls the powerful and rich of the earth, exploiting them for her own agenda in league with the dragon on whom she sits. Jesus is not in league with Satan, and His was never corrupted by sin. Jesus remained entirely innocent, pure and undefiled throughout His life on earth, and His blood and its symbol aligns with this reality. We must not become deceived or intoxicated by seductive insinuations of the enemy that undermine the power of this truth. The fresh wine Jesus shared with His disciples was unmixed when it came to fermentation, but it was full of life and fragrance as represented by the spices used in the sanctuary.
I am coming to believe wine represents the beliefs we retain about God's character and motives in how He relates to sinners. When we retain double-minded views of God as being both good and evil, one who manipulates others with fear of punishment and enticements of reward, the inebriating selfishness darkens the truth from the One sent to save us from our sins and distrust of God. Believing God uses power in manipulative and intimidating ways like we exercise power, increases addiction to power and fills our heart with lust, pride, greed and thirst for more control, whether we have the advantages or are victims of other people's abuse. This is the wine of Babylon.
This is the wine of Babylon, lust for power, abusive control that robs others of respect, dignity and freedom. Believing God uses and abuses power to get His way is used to justify acting and lording over others ourselves. Most believe there must be limits to mercy, and kindness is useful so long as it achieves conformity. But when love fails to produce desired compliance, we say we have the right to use threats, force and even severe violence because we're convinced this is the only way evil can be successfully confronted and held in check. This is seen in the beginning of Romans 2 describing people who feel certain they are in the right and who judge sinners described in Romans 1. They imagine that condemning others only reflects how God intimidates and threatens people to get them to change or face condemnation and certain punishment.
Therefore you are without excuse, O man, whoever you are who judge. For in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge practice the same things. We know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. Do you think this, O man who judges those who practice such things, and do the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God; who "will pay back to everyone according to their works:" (Romans 2:1-6)
We visit this passage many times, yet I feel strongly this exposes what is missing in the wine that those who align themselves with the beast's view of God, delete from their beliefs about Him, yet it is the most important ingredient. This wine resulting in torment, is formulated by tenaciously clinging to dark views of God's heart and rejection of His love that has no trace of darkness in it at all. It is unmixed, not because God has ever ceased to be merciful (for His mercy endures forever as repeated over and over throughout Scripture), but because those who experience His presence as torment do so because they have refused a love of the truth of who He really is and that His love never changes.
For concerning those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance; seeing they crucify the Son of God for themselves again, and put him to open shame. (Hebrews 6:4-6)
For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which will devour the adversaries. A man who disregards Moses' law dies without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will he be judged worthy of, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant with which he was sanctified an unholy thing, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:26-29)
This describes why those who cling to dark views of God experience the power of His presence as painfully negative instead of full of glory, for they hate the light because they find it nothing but tormenting and dissonant to everything they cherish as valuable and important. When they come to realize that it is true that God will never punish their enemies who have offended them so deeply, their sense of justice is outraged, causing them to hate Him intently and to despise His kindness, forgiveness and generous grace as nothing short of despicable. They long to escape the light that exposes everything they have carefully hidden from the view of others, for they hate vulnerability and are terrified by being exposed for who they have become, contradicting their carefully groomed external identity they have artificially maintained so long.
This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and doesn't come to the light, lest his works would be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be revealed, that they have been done in God. (John 3:19-21)
Jesus said that the cup He was offering His disciples to drink from contained something new, different from what they had known previously. If this new cup and its new contents was fundamentally different from the past, and this cup had to do with the concept of a covenant, we have to conclude that if this one is new, the other cups that came before it relate to old covenant perspectives and how we imagined God related to us in the past. What we need is a radical new revelation of Him in the person of His representative, His Son who alone reveals a power greater than the power of fear that has held us hostage all our lives.
Since then the children have shared in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death he might bring to nothing him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver all of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. (Hebrews 2:14-15)
In this love has been made perfect among us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, even so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has punishment. He who fears is not made perfect in love. We love Him, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:17-19)
If we attempt to understand this only with our logical capacity, we will most likely choke on it and slip into doubt, caviling and unbelief because it will never fit into how we have been taught how to arrive at truth. This is the very reason Jesus was rejected, despised and put to death when He came to His own people who refused to accept His revelation of love. The cup of logical reason is shaped by philosophy, so-called science (only believing what we can prove ourselves) and our compulsion to believe our feelings or cling to our own traditions and opinions as more trustworthy than the objective revelation of God's disposition reflected through His Son. Tradition, reason and philosphy is far too small to process what constitutes the glorious reality God He longs for us to experience.
There are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they would all be written, I suppose that even the world itself wouldn't have room for the books that would be written. (John 21:25)
Neither do people put new wine into old wineskins, or else the skins would burst, and the wine be spilled, and the skins ruined. No, they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved. (Matthew 9:17)
This illustration adds yet another option to the meaning of a cup. We have not spent time exploring the materials of the cups, but I suspect much more could be gleaned in a more thorough exploration of all the various containers connected to holding contents connected to these prophecies.
Most importantly I want to see how this vitally important message of this third angel directly affects each one of us personally and alerts us to our options as to how to respond in ways that bring us into alignment with the attributes of the Lamb rather than living according to the flesh, the beast, the dragon and their image. We have seen in this study that how we react when brought into the presence of those reflecting the power of God's glory and pure love, exposes clearly the kind of character we have formed based on what we have come to believe is true about the God we worship. Revelation is saturated with references to worship, and this makes sense in light of the fact that worship has everything to do with what we come to believe about our identity, and what we believe about our identity in turn determines the character we form, because whatever we imagine God to be like will determine what we become like because we cannot avoid reflecting what we imagine God is like towards us.
In this angel message warning us that our choice about how we perceive God has everything to do with how we will react when brought into His presence, a parallel passage amplifies and clarifies this even more.
"Now I will arise," says Yahweh; "Now I will lift myself up. Now I will be exalted.
You will conceive chaff. You will bring forth stubble. Your breath is a fire that will devour you. The peoples will be like the burning of lime, like thorns that are cut down and burned in the fire.
Hear, you who are far off, what I have done; and, you who are near, acknowledge my might."
The sinners in Zion are afraid. Trembling has seized the godless ones. Who among us can live with the devouring fire? Who among us can live with everlasting burning?
He who walks righteously, and speaks blamelessly; He who despises the gain of oppressions, who gestures with his hands, refusing to take a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of blood, and shuts his eyes from looking at evil-- he will dwell on high. His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks. His bread will be supplied. His waters will be sure.
Your eyes will see the king in his beauty. They will see a distant land. (Isaiah 33:10-17)
This is our choice – for which version of God we embrace will inevitably shape our character and form the lens through which everything is processed and understood to mean to us. Notice it is sinners in Zion who are afraid and terrified, not just sinners out in the world. It is when we are exposed in the presence of the passionate fire of God's relentless love in close proximity, that what we imagine to be true about God becomes unavoidably exposed. This is the nature of true judgment, not God making decisions about us but we having our heart perceptions exposed in the light of the blazing truth that can no longer be hidden.
Following is a bit of a summary of variables we have tried to process in this study.
Materials and labels of the cup(s)
Golden cup – Babylon in the hand of God, and then in the hand of the whore called Babylon
Silver and gold composing the vessels used to drink Babylonian wine at Belshazzar's feast
Brass if referring to the laver
Stone is including the jars for purification
Babylon is a cup
Jerusalem is a cup
Cup of God's anger/wrath
Cup of staggering
Cup of reeling
Bowls full of the wrath of God/plagues
Location of cups, containers
In the right hand of Yahweh
In the hand of Jeremiah
In the hand of Pharaoh
In the hand of the butler
In the possession of Joseph
Laver between the sanctuary tent and the altar of sacrifice
Censors in the hands of the priests
Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah
Edom in the land of Uz
In the hands of Belshazzar and his party guests
In the hands of the 4 living creatures around the throne of God
In the hands of the 7 angels
In the hand of the whore identified as Babylon
Functions of the cups/containers
Holding water or wine for drinking
Divining – discerning secrets or foretelling future events
To inebriate others until they are so drunk they lose their normal inhibitions or even clothing
To punish
To form a lasting covenant bond
For mixing drinks
Contents of the cups/containers
Fresh squeezed grapes for Pharaoh
In larger containers, water for purification
Snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest
Foaming wine mixed with spices
Babylon's wine
Wine converted over from purification water
Wine of the new covenant in the communion supper
Wine of the fierceness of the wrath of God
Wine of the great whore's fornication
Abominations and impurities of sexual fornication
i This is where it becomes so important to rely on the criteria we established at the very beginning of this book when it comes to interpreting prophetic symbols, and especially how we attribute motives and intents of the heart of our loving heavenly Father. It is not safe to simply brush off the glaring discrepancies and contradictions that arise in a study like this, excusing dark assertions about the ways of God as simply inscrutable and beyond our understanding. Insisting we just have to accept that God can be anything He chooses and we must not judge or resist or challenge His motives plays right into the lie of the serpent that God knows both good and evil. The truth is we are already judging God regardless of what we say, for to embrace dark motives on the part of God that directly contradicts the revelation of His heart in light of His Son, the only clear and explicit revelation of Him, is to violate and resist truth as revealed by the Lamb.
Either the Son of God who claims to be the only way to the Father, the way, the truth and the life and who claims to be the light that lights every man who comes into the world Рeither He is the One we rely on to filter every speculation, or we make Him out to be a liar in supporting and embracing accusations and slander originating with the father of lies. This was the root of the war described in this whole prophetic expos̩ of the backstory bringing light and clarity to all truth from the entire account of inspired Scripture. Because of this, we need to open ourselves to the wisdom of heaven sent through the Spirit of truth and to seriously wrestle with these passages until the seeming contradictions resolve.
With this as the goal, to reconcile the revelation of who God is by the testimony of the True Witness represented in this book as the violently slaughtered Lamb, presented as the hero and winner of this war, I find it both mind-expanding and exhilarating to enter into the joy of discovering fresh truths in light of what it means to follow only the Lamb and stick to His version of how God relates to His created beings. He is the only safe way to define our own view of the One we will inevitably reflect in our own lives in any situation. I believe we are to rely on the New Song as our primary weapon to tear down every idea, thought and suggestion that sets itself up against an intimate knowledge of God. And possibly nowhere else is this so important to do than in what we come to believe about this symbol of a cup in God's hand that can appear to affirm the assertions of the enemy as his insistence that God uses force, violence and subscribes to the counterfeit design of good and evil, rewards and retributions that are foreign to the ways of the Lamb.
ii The reason the wine that causes torment in the presence of God is unmixed, is because the lost have refused to believe and embrace the truth as it is in Jesus, that God is light with no darkness at all in Him. The wine in that cup of wrath/emotional intensity has in their mind and heart been robbed of the core elements of truth that make it life-giving and attractive instead of terrifying and tormenting. It is not God who removes the key saving elements in is, but rather determined resistance to receiving a love of the truth that could have cleansed them of the unrighteousness and lies that ferment their feelings and poisons their spirit with intoxicating lies that debilitate, inebriates, confuses and leads them ever deeper into deception, fear and shame until they are drowned by them and come to prefer death rather than to continue living in such torment.
This cup containing intense internal dissonance caused by believing lies and clinging to unbelief and distrust of God's heart, is fueled by fear of expected punishment and is the basis of the false identity all of us have experienced to some extent in our lives. The torment of this dissonance is triggered whenever we encounter or sense the the nearness of the One who is intense love. Because this is a love that is immeasurably passionate and is intensely jealous and can brun hot with anger whenever a liar steals our capacity to respond to love, or when fear prohibits us from being willing to live in its embrace without resistance, our hardened heart reacts in terror, finding it impossible to imagine that this intense passion could be anything but punishment.
iii If we imagine God is the one choosing what is in the cup and forcing others to drink it as punishment for crimes as we have often perceived judgments described in prophecy, we are already being inebriated with the wine of Babylon, because we resist believing that God is as forgiving, compassionate, gentle and kind as His Son who was sent to reveal His heart. In judging God through lies we have inherited, we mix our own wine with contaminating lies that corrupt the pure fresh wine of the gospel, leaving us to imbibe fear-infected cocktails that intoxicate us in ways making it impossible for us to rest in the truth of God's relentless love for us.
The cup of God's wrath does not mean what it appears on the surface as seen through the filter of our worldly wisdom and experiences of wrath. Likewise the contents of this cup that are described as unmixed and result in torment, does not mean that it is God's purposeful intent to inflict punishment on those who have rejected His offers of mercy and despised His kindness. The cause for this wine being unmixed is not because God has exhausted His mercy, for it is unavoidably clear that His mercy endures forever, so this explanation falls flat. Rather despising His kindness and mercy is actually part of the cause of the torment experienced in the presence of intense kindness and mercy.
iv The cup that Jesus allowed to be poured out to the dregs into His soul until it caused His physical heart to rupture and bring about His death, is the cup of lies that all of us collectively have believed and felt in our own soul that makes us afraid and distrustful of the very One who created us to live in intimate love, joy and peace in His presence. The fact that people experience the opposite in His presence is not proof that what they believe about Him is true, but that what they believe about Him distorts their perceptions of the meaning of His passion and they misapprehend the cause of His intense anger, imagining it is motivated by desire for retribution when in reality His anger is directed at the very lies they are clinging to that alienates them from resting in His passionate love for them.
What Jesus experienced, I believe for three days and three nights leading up to His death, was all the psychological torment that has affected the minds, hearts and consciences of every person who has been born under the power of sin. It began with the condemnation and shame first felt by our original parents when the presence of God drew near. They misinterpreted His motives and ran away to hide. Ever since, humans have lived in fear of God's presence because we have all been infected with the increasing complexity of lies that inhibit us from resting and rejoicing in His presence. So long as we imagine that God relates to us according to the scales version of justice rather than as loved children He longs to embrace in His arms of love, it is impossible for us perceive Him as safe and come running to Him in bold confidence free of all fear, trepidation or inhibition.
