But the weight and wickedness of the world’s sin was not all the “cup.” Sin separates from God. God cannot stay in the presence of sin even when that sin is upon His own beloved Son. The Son of Man in the garden faces this awful consequence of Saviorhood. Could He assume this consequence of sin for the sinner’s sake? Could He, who through all eternity in glory had rested in the intimate fellowship of the Father’s bosom and who in His life on earth had enjoyed the vivid consciousness of His Father’s abiding presence, consent to the inevitable even though momentary separation from His Father which the presence of the world’s sin on Him would cause? Death is separation from God and separation from God is hell (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9).

This, then, is “the cup” He could not drink were there any other possible way to accomplish the Father’s will in man’s salvation. This is “the cup” that caused the agony of soul in Gethsemane — an agony so terrible that His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground; an agony so awful it took Him back three times to the Father to cry out for release; an agony so intense that a heaven-sent angel appeared to strengthen Him. This is “the cup” that caused the intolerable anguish of spirit, which wrung from the sufferer upon Calvary that heart-breaking cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Could He drink that “cup”? Yes, even if it were the Father’s will, and there was no other way in which sin could be dealt with to God’s satisfaction and man’s salvation. He who had been obedient to the will of His Father every moment of His earthly life would be “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” There evidently was no other way, for “while He yet spake, lo, Judas one of the twelve came and with him a great multitude with sword and staves.” In quick succession follow the betrayal, arrest, and trial of the Lord Jesus and then — the crucifixion of the Lord of glory.

The “hour” had come. The event foretold and foreshadowed for centuries had taken place; “the most stupendous event in the history of man, the only event in the history of God.” The noon hour not only of time but of eternity had come; indeed, it was the pivotal hour in the life both of heaven and of earth. “The Son of God has died at the hands of men. This astounding fact is the moral center of all things. A bygone eternity knew no other future; an eternity to come shall know no other past. That death was this world’s crisis” (Sir Robert Anderson, The Gospel and Its Ministry, p. 12).

The death of Jesus Christ is the pivotal fact in Christianity. It is its very heartbeat, its life’s blood. Without it, Christianity would not be. His worth lay not in the life He lived but in the death He died. His death was not so much the culmination of the victorious, obedient, holy life as its coronation. His incarnation was but paving the way for death; His death was the goal of incarnation.

It is not merely the fact that Christ died that is vital, but that He died the death of the cross. The prophecy of Genesis 3:15 foretold a bruising and it was in the bruising of the heel of the woman’s seed that the promise of the sinner’s salvation was to be found. The Old Testament sacrifices made for the sake of sins year by year required the blood of goats and calves. These sacrifices and this blood-shedding foreshadowed the one perfect sacrifice of the Son of God as He poured out His life’s blood on Calvary for the salvation of sinners. While the prophets of old did tell us something of the circumstances that would attend the birth of Jesus Christ, yet the burden of their message was of One who would be “wounded,” “bruised,” “scourged,” “oppressed,” “and afflicted.” By the mouth of all the prophets, God foretold that Christ should suffer. Over and over again, the Lord Jesus told the disciples that He “must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and be raised again.” On the way to Emmaus, as He walked and talked with the two disciples who were recounting to Him the tragedy of His crucifixion, He said unto them,

Luke 24:26

“Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?”

The theme of the entire Bible is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. “Cut the Bible anywhere, and it bleeds; it is red with redemption truth.” A suffering, crucified Christ was the Christ preached by the Apostles, and to them, His sufferings were a vital factor in the sinner’s salvation because of their expiatory nature. Paul, testifying before King Agrippa, preached a suffering Christ.

Acts 26:22-23

^22 “Having therefore obtained the help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying nothing other than what the prophets and Moses said should come: ²³ that Christ should suffer, and that He should be the first who should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people and to the Gentiles.”

Peter told us that it was through the victorious, atoning sufferings of Christ that men were brought back to God.

1 Peter 3:18

“For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.”

John taught that there was no cleansing power except in the blood of Christ shed on Calvary.

1 John 1:7

“The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.”

Respectable sinners will flock to the church today to hear ministers preach on the life of Jesus; many are even not averse to listening to an occasional sermon about the death of Christ, providing that death is preached only as the greatest example of sacrificial love, or as the culminating event in a life of obedience, or as an act of martyrdom in a good cause. But in this age, there is a widespread refusal on the part of the man in the pew and on the part of the man in the pulpit, a conspicuous rejection of the Biblical, evangelical teaching regarding the death of the cross. The reason for this will grow more apparent as we proceed with our studies. 

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

Lord, forgive us! We are ignorant regarding all that you suffered in order to save us through Your death on the cross!