How can God look upon all the evil in the world without doing anything? Both Isaiah and Jeremiah answered this commonly asked question by using the symbol of a cup (Isaiah 51; Jeremiah 25; Cf. Revelation 16). Into this cup, they said, was being stored all the guilt of the nations and one day God would make them drink the consequences of their evil. They describe the horrors of this cup in what is the biblical expression of what Indian religions call ‘Karma’: you reap what you sow! I find this term useful in explaining the Gospel since most people acknowledge the justice of the idea of reaping what we sow. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is facing his sacrificial death and he says to God: “If it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” He is talking about the cup described by Isaiah and Jeremiah. He wants the cup of judgement to be taken away from us so that we don’t get what we deserve. It turns out that the cup of judgement could not be taken any other way. The only way this cup could be taken from us was if Jesus swallowed the consequences for us. Most world religions diagnose the problem of human guilt and most predict some form of future judgement. But there is only one name by which we can receive grace. Jesus takes the cup of the consequences of our actions out of our hands and he drinks it himself. He then puts another cup into our hands: the cup of blessing.
Receive forgiveness from God.
Read Matthew 26:36-46
