Let This Cup Pass From Me

“And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.  Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him.   And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”
Luke 22:41-44 (ESV)
 

“Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
Matthew 26:38-39 (ESV)
 

“ Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”
Matthew 26:42 (ESV) 

For much of my Christian walk, when I have read of Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, the picture that would come to mind when Christ asked that the cup be removed from him would be the image of his body being nailed to that cross.  To be sure, the Romans had perfected one of the most brutal, efficient and torturous means of putting someone to death.  It is easy to assign the cup Christ was agonizing over so intensely that his sweat became like great drops of blood to the barbaric act of crucifixion alone but, in doing so, we lose much of the significance of what our Savior accomplished on Calvary.

On Easter Sunday, church attendance will be larger than other weeks, families will gather, hams will be cooked and feasts prepared.  We will celebrate the resurrection of our Savior in the marvelous knowledge that that the tomb is empty and Christ has conquered death.  We’ll rest secure in the absolute assurance that he is our true sacrifice lamb and through his shed blood our sins are forgiven.  This is most certainly the case for the child of God, and is absolutely a reason to celebrate.

But the agony over the cup in Gethsemane still intrigues me.  Why didn’t he pray that he be delivered from the cross, or the pain, or from the hands of heart hardened sinners who were not able to recognize the most beautiful thing to ever inhabit this planet?  Instead, he prayed over and over that he be delivered from having to drink the cup.

We don’t hear it talked about much these days.  It doesn’t fit with the seeker friendly atmosphere that we want in our church services.  We want to hear about how Jesus loves us, and about how his desire is for us to be happy and successful in every area of our lives.  And friend, if you’re a believer, he does love you and wants you to abound in joy.  But as much as our God is a God of love, he is a God of justice.  He is a God of wrath.  In fact, the bible talks more about the wrath of God than it does about the love of God.

The Old Testament mentions a cup containing the wrath of God several times.  (Job 21:20, Isaiah 51:17, 22, Jeremiah 25:25)   It is also mentioned in the book of Revelation.

 “And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand,  he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and 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 (ESV)

“The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath.”  Revelation 16:19 (ESV)

God is love, to be sure.  But he also is holy and righteous and gloriously perfect.  His glory is reflected in every part of his nature.  It is present in everything he does, and it is at the very core of his being. God  jealously guards and is infinitely passionate about his glory.

Oftentimes, we do not realize how much our sin insults this glory that God so passionately protects.  All sin, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem to us, is an assault on the boundless majesty and sovereign authority of God.  It deeply offends his perfect holiness, and is an infinite offense to his glory.  With God being perfect in moral character, he cannot help but to be hostile toward our sin and what it does to his glory.  God’s moral nature, along with his holiness and righteousness, demands that he absolutely hate and abhor sin.  Anything that falls short of his perfection and attacks his glory needs to be judged.  In fact, it is demanded by his perfect righteousness.

Understand, this is not just something God has to do because he is God.  His divine justice, along with his holy anger and wrath toward sin are all part what makes him God.  These things are as much a part of who God is as his love, and grace and mercy.  And God’s divine justice demands that any insult to his glory...any sin...be dealt with through his righteous anger and wrath being poured out on the sinner.  That is what happened with Sodom and Gomorrah, and that is what the, "Wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger,” is referring to in Revelation.

But the bible says that in God’s patience, in his grace, mercy and love was, though divine forbearance, passing over former sin. (Romans 3:25)  In grace, God passed over sin, but his divine justice would not let him forget the assault of the sin on his glory.  He passed them over for a moment, for a time, but his divine justice demanded that his righteous anger and wrath be satisfied.

It was not enough for Christ to be sacrificed so that our sins would be forgiven.  He also had to deal with the wrath toward us that God’s divine justice demanded be satisfied.

That was the cup Christ stared into in the Garden of Gethsemane.  That was the cup which brought such sorrow to our Savior’s soul that he felt as if he were close to death.  It was the thought of that cup that caused him to agonize to such an extent that his sweat became as drops of blood.  It was that cup that held the full force of God’s anger and wrath for sin and only through drinking it would the the demands of God’s divine justice be satisfied.

Christ stared squarely into that cup, turned his heart toward heaven and prayed,  “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”

The next day he took that cup.  The one that was filled with the wrath of God’s anger for my every sin.  For every thought that fell short of God’s glory.  For every word spoken in hate, or slander or gossip.  For every action that assaulted the glory of God.  That cup which contained God’s righteous wrath for every sin of every person that would ever come to him.  And Christ took it, and drank every single drop. 

So Christ went to that cross as the only perfect sacrifice for our sin.  Through that cross my sin is cast as far as the east is from the west.  I stand forgiven before the God of all creation.  But, Christ also drank that cup to endure that wrath of what my sin did to the glory of God.  Christ endured the divine anger and wrath required of me by God’s divine justice.  Christ absorbed in his own soul the full, unmitigated fury of God’s wrath against all the sin of all the people who would come to him.  He drank that cup so that, for us who believe, the cup of God’s wrath is empty.

And, when God had finished pouring his wrath out on his son, Christ felt the hopeless despair of being abandoned by God.  He pushed himself up one more time on that cross, and cried out, “My God, My God, Why hast though forsaken me.”  Our Savior, in that moment, felt the full force of the dread that comes when God Almighty turns his back in abandonment.  And he did it so that God will not have to turn his back on us.

As we remember the sacrifice of Christ this Friday, we need to humbly and thankfully bow before our Savior and praise him for becoming the perfect sacrificial lamb for us.  We need to give him glory that through the cross our sins are forgiven.  We need to worship him for drinking the cup of God’s wrath so that cup now sits empty before us.  And we need to exalt him for experiencing the abandonment of God so that we will never be abandoned.


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When You Give

I was at that fragile point between wakefulness and sleep one night over two decades ago when, out of the blue, the question went through my mind, “Why ten percent?”  Now, to be clear, I wasn’t thinking about tithing, I had never had an issue with tithing, and I have absolutely no idea where the question originated from, but there it was none-the-less.  Why ten percent?  Why not five percent or twelve percent or eighteen percent?  Was God considering ease of calculation for his less than brilliant followers?  Had he done some divine bookkeeping and determined that to keep operations afloat in the universe he created from nothing was going to require ten percent from each of the people that would follow him?  Was it a good number to test his people’s commitment?  Maybe there was something cosmically symbolic about the number ten.

In full disclosure those last thoughts did not really go through my mind, just the quick, “Why ten percent?”  And as quickly as the question made its appearance, the answer followed.  I am serious.  I saw the explanation before I had time to even begin to analyze the origin of the question.  Does that make sense?  Normally, a person asks why something is the way that it is, then thinks it over, studies it, and perhaps arrives at a conclusion.  On this night I, for no apparent reason, asked why God told Moses to institute the tithe for the people of Israel, saw the reason, and then spent the time before I fell asleep contemplating the logic behind what appeared to me to be the reason.  The answer to the question I had no intention of asking is simple, practical and has altered my thoughts and habits in regard to my giving.

For over twenty years this late night revelation has been my personal guide to giving, and I have shared it with a few people, but have never taught or preached on the concept.  Then a couple of days ago, I read an article in the Christian Post concerning a well known pastor renouncing the practice of tithing. You can find the article here.  I also read the op-ed article from the Gospel Coalition referenced in the article.  The op-ed article can be found here. After reading these article I decided to share what I saw when I asked the question. "Why ten percent?" 

I need to preface this by saying that I agree with the author of the op-ed article that this is not a topic that should cause any believer to break fellowship with another believer.  Also, I do not claim to be a bible scholar or theologian and I only offer the answer that came to me when I asked, “Why ten percent?”  One of the first people I shared this with was someone who was very close to me, and he responded by saying, without trying to be condescending, “That makes a lot of sense.  We should run it past someone who knows something about it.”  True story.  It was true then, and it is true today.  So I encourage you to ask the question I asked, study what the Word of God has to say about it, and be open to what the Holy Spirit might be showing you.

Whenever I share this with people, I also preface it by saying that I believe that Christians are called to be the most giving people in the world.  We are called to feed and clothe the poor, we are responsible to support our pastors and churches, and we are called to give wherever and whenever the Holy Spirit puts it on our hearts.   

“Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”  2 Corinthians 9:7 (ESV)

So I asked the question, and here’s what I saw.  I say that I saw it because it was more of a visual concept than actual words.  The explanation of the concept required researching God’s Word for scripture to put form to the concept.  Hopefully, what follows will be that form.

Here’s what God told Moses about tithing when he was receiving the law on Mount Sinai:

Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the LORD’s; it is holy to the LORD.  If a man wishes to redeem some of his tithe, he shall add a fifth to it. And every tithe of herds and flocks, every tenth animal of all that pass under the herdsman’s staff, shall be holy to the LORD.   Leviticus 27:30-32 (ESV) 

A couple of things to note about this general tithe demanded of the people.  There were other tithes for festivals and giving to the poor, but this was the general tithe imposed in the law.  There is much debate about how the tithes fit together and the total percentage of what was produced was actually given to God.  But the principle for new testament tithing is based on this general tithe.  This tithe (literally one tenth) commanded of the nation of Israel was of all of the crops and livestock that the land produced.  If you became a fisherman in the promised land, you would not have to tithe on the fish you caught.  If you hired yourself out to herd another person's sheep, you would not have to pay a tithe on the wages you earned.  If you were a craftsman or a carpenter, you would not pay a tithe on the profit you made from plying your trade.  The tithe was on the what grew from the ground on the land, what came off the trees of the land, and the livestock that was raised on the land.  Nothing else.  This is important.  Why was the tithe on the produce of the land only?  Why wasn’t it imposed on fishermen, or sheep herders, or craftsmen, or carpenters?  I will address that question later.

You may recall that the sons of Levi, the Levites, were not to receive an inheritance of land in the promised land.

Therefore Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers. The LORD is his inheritance, as the LORD your God said to him.  Deuteronomy 10:9 (ESV) 
 
So, when Israel entered the promised land it was divided into twelve portions.  Ten for each of the tribes of the sons of Jacob (Israel), and two for the half tribes of Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) as shown in the chart below.  The tribe of Levi was not given an inheritance in the land, but the Lord himself was to be considered  their inheritance.  Of the tribe of Levi, God ordained that the sons of Aaron would be priests to minister before him while the remaining Levites would take care of the tabernacle and, later, the temple.  They would also serve as aides to the priests in the preparation of sacrifices, and were musicians, singers, and door keepers for the house of God.

Now, watch what happens.  In Numbers, God tells the people what he plans to do with the general tithe he required of them in Leviticus.
 

To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service that they do, their service in the tent of meeting, so that the people of Israel do not come near the tent of meeting, lest they bear sin and die.   Numbers 18:21-22 (ESV)  

God says, the tithe that I am requiring of you, I am giving to the Levites for their service.  This is where the answer to, “Why ten percent?” begins to make sense, and why it is not just some arbitrary number.  God said that the tribe of Levi would not have an inheritance of land in the land he was giving them, but he set up a system by which they would have an inheritance of what the land produced.  That is why God chose ten as the percentage the land owning tribes would be required to give.

Let me show you how it works.  For convenience sake, and to accommodate my limited math skills, lets say that during the wheat harvest, each tribe produced 100 bushels of wheat on the land they inherited.  Obviously, each tribe would produce much more than 100 bushels, and the tribes would produce varying amounts of wheat, but this demonstrates the principle.  The following chart shows how the 100 bushels of wheat would be dispersed.

Tribe

Bushels of wheat raised

Bushels of wheat tithed

Bushels of wheat kept

Simeon

100

10

90

Judah

100

10

90

Issachar

100

10

90

Zebulun

100

10

90

Dan

100

10

90

Naphtali

100

10

90

Gad

100

10

90

Asher

100

10

90

Ephraim (half tribe of Joseph)

100

10

90

Manasseh (half tribe of Joseph)

100

10

90

Benjamin Reuben

100 100

10 10

90 10

Tithe      received by Levi

120

As demonstrated by this marvelous table, for every hundred bushels of wheat raised by each tribe, ten bushels would be given as tithe, and ninety bushels kept for their own use.  The tribe of Levi would receive one hundred and twenty bushels through the tithes of the land owning tribes. We are not through with our calculations yet, because the people of the tribe of Levi still had to tithe.
 

And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Moreover, you shall speak and say to the Levites, ‘When you take from the people of Israel the tithe that I have given you from them for your inheritance, then you shall present a contribution from it to the LORD, a tithe of the tithe.  Numbers 18:25-26 (ESV)

So you shall also present a contribution to the LORD from all your tithes, which you receive from the people of Israel. And from it you shall give the LORD’s contribution to Aaron the priest.  Numbers 18:28 (ESV)
 

The priests (the sons of Aaron) obtained food from the sacrifices that were offered to God in the tabernacle or the temple.  (Numbers 18: 8-18)  This was also supplemented by the Levites offering their tithe of the tithe they received from the other tribes.  Once the temple was built, Levites would travel from their cities to take turns serving in the temple.  This tithe of the tithe, was brought into the storehouse in the temple to support the priests and the Levites as they served in the temple.  (Nehemiah 10:38,  Malachi 3:10)   (There is much that could be said about the common practice of using Malachi 3:8 to accuse Christians of robbing God by not tithing, but that is not for today.  I will point out that he was speaking specifically about bringing the whole tithe into the storehouse, and the only tithe that was brought into the storehouse was the Levite’s tithe of the tithe.)

So, in our simplified example, the Levites have 120 bushels of wheat, and each of the other tribes have 90 bushels of wheat.  The people of Levi still have to tithe off of their tithe to Aaron (the priests for the storehouse)  Of their 120 bushels they would have to tithe 12 bushels to Aaron, and take it to the temple storehouse.  That would leave them with 108 bushels.
 
We will come back to this, but let me tell you what I am suggesting.  What it was that I saw when I asked, “Why ten percent?”  I believe that God chose the tithe (ten percent), because that was the number which would evenly divide the produce of the land between the tribes with land and the Levites.  Anything less and the Levites would have received less than the other tribes.  Anything more, and they would of received more than the other tribes.  Just because God did not give the Levites an inheritance of land in the promised land, does not mean that he did not intend for them to share in its bounty.  Ten was the number that allowed them to equally share in everything the land of milk and honey had to offer.

Do you see why this also explains why God did not require a tithe off of fish that were harvested, or a tithe off of what a man might earn by herding sheep, or working as a carpenter or by making money by some other means?  It seems to me that if the Father’s purpose were to build up a treasury, or for each person to contribute something, it would have been quite easy to set up a simple, across the board, tithe on everyone’s income.  But he didn’t. Tithe was only required off of what came off the land.  The Levite would not have a right to that which came out of the sea, or from what a man earned from his labor.  It was not a matter of income, but an issue of what was produced on the land.   

But you will say, in our example the Levites ended up with 108 bushels of wheat and the other tribes each had 90.  I offer a couple of explanations for this.  
 
First, while God has always been concerned for the poor, the widows, the fatherless, and the aliens in the land and encouraged all tribes to care for them, the bulk of the responsibility fell to the Levites. God may have allotted extra for them to meet those needs.  Every third year a tithe was collected specifically for the Levites and the poor, but I would suggest the possibility that this was also being allowed for in the calculation of the general tithe.

As I have considered this, I have come to another conclusion as to why the numbers slightly favor the Levites.  What the other tribes received from the land was completely dependent on God.  He provided the sun and the rain to grow the crops.  He allowed the herds and flocks to increase.  There was no middle man.  God brought the increase for the land owning tribes.  The Levites, however, had a middle man.  I am referring to the individual members of the land owning tribes.  God tells us that he knows the heart of man and, I believe, he knew that greed and selfishness would make its way into this system of distributing the produce of the land.  He knew that, while many would be faithful in bringing in the full tithe, some would be inclined to fudge the numbers of what the land produced.  Some might “forget” to tithe on a couple of fields, or might take the eleventh or twelfth animal to give rather than the tenth when tithing their livestock.  I would suggest that God allowed for this when he established the tithe.
 
I do understand that there will be those who will say that Abraham tithed to Melchizedek, and that Jacob pledged a tithe to God.  All I will say is that, it seems to me, that it is much more likely that this would be a precedent for the people of Israel entering the promised land, than it would be a principle for giving under the new covenant.

It also seems to me that the apostles agreed as well.  When asked what requirements should be placed on gentile believers, certain converts who were former Pharisees were demanding that they be circumcised and required to follow the law.  Peter stood up and said, “Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?” Acts 15:10 (ESV)   In the end, when they could have told them that they needed to tithe, they did not.  (Acts 15)

Then consider Paul.  A man who had a heart for the poor.  A man who understood the law, and explained to the church how they were no longer under the law, but under grace.  This man, who strongly encouraged believers to be generous givers, never put them under the burden of the tithe.  He encouraged them to give joyfully, generously, not under compulsion or reluctantly, in proportion to what they had, and according to what God had placed on their hearts. (2 Corinthians 9:7, 1 Corinthians 16:2)  Paul encouraged bountiful giving without putting believers under the law of the tithe. 
 
Friend, that is my goal in sharing this.  Give whatever, whenever, and wherever the Holy Spirit puts it on your heart to give.  Our Father will honor your faithfulness.  He will bless your obedience.  If the Holy Spirit has placed giving ten percent of your income to kingdom work, then joyfully offer it up as an act of worship.  If he tells you to give more than ten percent, then rejoice in the knowledge that he has blessed you to be able to give more.  We are called to be givers.  Just never allow yourself to be brought under condemnation for not tithing.  Never feel that you are robbing God if your circumstances do not allow for you to give ten percent of your income.

Give where you can, when you can, and as God leads you to give.  You are not under any part of the law, but you are particularly not bound by God’s formula that provided for the tribe of Levi to receive their portion of what the promised land yielded.