Reading: Mark 10:35-39;
Matthew 26:27,28,39,42; Luke 22:20; John 18:11; 1
Corinthians 10:16; 11:26.
I came to cast fire
upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!
But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I
straitened till it be accomplished!
(Luke 12:49,50; RSV; KJV).
With the passages that
we have read fresh in our minds, I think that we are able
to see that this last passage gathers them all into
itself, and that what they all bring before us is the
relationship between the cup of the Lord and the
scattering of the fire in the earth. The Lord joined
these two things together, and showed their relationship;
indicating that the scattering of the fire in the earth
was dependent upon the drinking of the cup. And in so
doing, He only indicated and established a law, a law
which history has demonstrated and proved - either
negatively or positively - so deeply, so mightily. Where
there has been no cup there has been no fire: where there
has been the cup, there has always been the fire. It is
the story of all the persecutions, all the sufferings of
the people of God, which have issued in the progress of
the Gospel. It is something that we have to recognize
very clearly and to accept quite definitely, that, right
at the very heart of everything in the purpose of God,
there is a cup; and only by the drinking of that cup is
any kind of real spiritual progress, enlargement,
possible. But, to put that in another way, the drinking
of that cup will always issue in spiritual progress or
increase or enlargement or deepening. It is always gain.
An
Apparent Contradiction
Now here we have to
pause to clear up the difficulty that is always present
to confuse our minds in this matter, a fundamental
conflict or confusion. On the one side, the Christian
life ought to be characterized by joy, by peace, by rest,
by hope, by life. On the other side, the same Christian
life - without any contradiction to that - not only can
be, but should be, characterized by suffering. The Lord
Jesus mingled those two things in the moment when He took
the cup. "He took the cup, and gave thanks" -
He gave thanks. There should be, I say, no
contradiction between these two things: joy and sorrow
mingled; rest and peace and hope in the very presence of
suffering, adversity and affliction.
If we do not clear up
this matter in our minds we are going to get into
difficulty. We are going to argue that the Christian life
ought to be one continuous, unbroken song, joyfulness and
exuberance, enthusiasm and lightheartedness, with no
'wrong' or sombre elements whatever. If you think like
that, you have misread your New Testament! On the other
hand, it is possible for us to regard the sufferings and
the trials, the difficulties and adversities, as the
marks of a kind of holy Christian life, which must
exclude anything exuberant and joyful and glad. Some
people nurse that kind of complex: they are afraid of
joy; they are afraid even of spiritual laughter!
We have to recognize
that we are not speaking about natural things now. There
is that sublime, that wonderful, that Divine paradox -
"sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing" (2 Cor.
6:10), in the midst of afflictions and trials; "in
manifold trials", Peter says, yet "rejoicing
with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (I Pet
1:6-8). Somehow that has got to be recognized, or we
shall be in trouble. The true apprehension of the
Christian life is not that of frivolity and
superficiality. It is something, as we have said, that
has a cup right at the heart of it. The true apprehension
of the cup is not something morbid, something morose; is
not eternal sadness.
The peril of having a
contradiction in the back of our minds in this matter is
far more real than perhaps we recognize. Suppose we are
meeting those who are having a very good time. They are
in one of those phases of the Christian life where all is
good - it is spring-time, or it is summer-time - there
are no clouds in their sky, and they are inclined to
'down' the person who is having a bad time, perhaps
passing through some temporary darkness or eclipse, and
to feel that there is something wrong with their
Christianity. On the other side, if it is we who are
having the difficult time, let us be very, very patient
with those who are not. Let us reconcile these things and
see that they may only represent two aspects of one thing
and not be contradictory at all.
The
Cup Of The Lord
We all know that the cup
of the Lord is central and basic to the life of the
Church, and to our lives as Christians. It represents the
very centre, the very focal point, both of the Church's
life and of the believer's life. That is where the Word
of God puts it, that is the place that the Scriptures
give to it: it is the gathering centre of the people of
God, the foundation of their life individually and
collectively. But there is, so to speak, a division in
the cup, which we must recognize immediately: that is,
there is His side and there is ours. Let us get this
cleared up before we go further.
There is the side of the
Lord Jesus in that cup, with which we have nothing to do,
so far as the drinking of it is concerned. It is uniquely
His; it is His alone. It has to do, as we know, with our
redemption. It has to do with our sin, it has to do with
our judgment under the wrath of God; it has to do with
the final outworking of sin and judgment, it has to do
with death. And it has to do with the remission of sins:
'This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for the
remission of sins' (Matt. 26:28; Luke 22:20). It has to
do with our justification before God, our setting in the
position of the Righteous One; it has to do with our very
life - "the eternal life" (1 John 1:2). In all
that, you and l have no part, except to receive it by
faith. In drinking the cup we do not, of course, work out
our redemption, or have any part or place in that great
atoning, substitutionary, representative work for us:
that is isolated to Him. No one can go that path with the
Lord in His sufferings; that is His path. Our sufferings
with the Lord are not vicarious as His were.
But then there is our
path. We are brought in to share the cup, but our
part is in another realm. It is that of sharing His
reproach. It is because we are standing with Him for His
rights which are being disputed and challenged and
terribly fought against in this universe and in this
world; it is because the Holy Spirit is doing something
in us in relation to the character of the Lord Jesus. You
know very well that, no sooner is there the slightest
sign of any Christlikeness in an individual, than
something seems to be provoked: and antagonism breaks
out, which says, in effect, 'You must not be like
Christ!' Unseen forces 'take knowledge that we have been
with Jesus', and they counsel to put us to death.
It is something, you
see, in the spiritual realm which hates this character of
Jesus, because its presence is an exposure and a
condemnation of sin. Evil hates good and cannot bear its
presence - the very presence of good causes misery and
suffering. And it is in that, just in being Christlike,
that we are involved in His cup. It is because we have
taken sides with Him against a great enemy, His age-long,
sworn enemy, who, with all his vicious malignity, is
determined that the last semblance and trace of this One
shall be blotted out, if he can do it! You and I are
intended to be present here in this world as a semblance
of Christ, and we come under those evil counsels. That is
our part. We are partners with Him in His position in
this world, and that involves the drinking of His cup,
the cup of suffering.
That is where we begin
with the cup. It is there as our ground: the ground of
our salvation, of our redemption, our justification, our
life. We stand on that ground. We take the cup gratefully
and with thanksgiving. But, in doing so, we commit
ourselves to this side of the cup. We become involved in
this side of His sufferings, and there is no evading, or
avoiding, or getting away from it. This is something to
be clearly recognized and definitely and deliberately
accepted, right at the outset, and to be kept continually
in mind.
The
Cup Marks A Separation
But then there are other
things about the cup. This cup sets forth and represents
the absolute holiness and apartness of Christ, and of all
that is related to Christ. You remember I Cor. 10: 'You
cannot drink of the cup of the Lord and the cup of
demons' (verse 21); you cannot bring these together. It
betokens a failure to recognize the utter apartness of
two whole realms. This cup speaks of that apartness, that
holiness, that separateness of Christ and all that is
Christ's. It marks the difference, the fundamental and
radical difference, between the Christian and everyone
else.
That is the whole
argument of the first letter to the Corinthians.
Throughout that letter we have an unlawful bringing
together of things, focused in that unlawful bringing
together at the Lord's Table. It is a terrible letter,
which really does centre in this matter of the cup. What
the Apostle is doing is seeking to point out that there
is a discrimination that must be exercised, a difference
that must be discerned. It is a question, not of degrees
of Christian life, but of the very basis and nature of
the Christian life - that a Christian is this, and
not that. These things are separated by the cup. The cup
is something very holy, something very separate,
something very different; and if you and I drink the cup,
we are supposed to be different from everyone else, that
is, from everyone who is not the Lord's. There is a
character required by this cup, a character that is
different; there is a life that is different, there is a
person that is different. The cup declares that. It
challenges everything that does not belong to Christ: it
stands against that, because that is against the cup.
This is a holy thing.
No wonder the Apostle
was so strong on this matter - and no wonder that
distressing and tragic things were happening in Corinth!
"For this cause many among you are weak and sickly,
and not a few sleep" (verse 30) - through not
discriminating at the Lord's Table. It is searching.
But note again, this cup
deals with and removes all the ground of Satan. Satan's
ground, of course, is the ground of nature: your nature
and mine - what we are in ourselves. That is the
playground of Satan. The cup deals with that and takes
Satan's ground from him; it puts him out. That is why
Judas had to go: the cup drove him out. The very
significance of the cup meant that he was not of it: he
was of another; he must go. He is Satan's ground in the
holy circle, and he must be eliminated.
The
Unifying Work Of The Cup
But then again, the cup
is the great unifying factor for the Lord's own. It is in
the first place the great means of unification with
Himself, for it is our common participation with Him. The
cup links us with Him. It not only distinguishes us as
His, as different, but it declares a relationship which
is - to use the symbolism - most truly a
blood-relationship. In the second place, it establishes a
relationship of that kind between all who are joined to
the Lord. The cup is that which unifies His own.
These may sound simple
things, but they are profoundly challenging. Let us look
again at this first letter to the Corinthians, chapter
10, verse 16: "The cup of blessing which we bless,
is it not a communion of (eg., a participation in) the
blood of Christ?" Now look just over the next
chapter (of course it is a continuous narrative in the
original letter). We come to this: "First of all,
when ye come together in the church" (or: "in
assembly"), "I hear that divisions exist among
you; and I partly believe it" (11:18). You see the
contradiction? It is not just that we participate with
Christ, but together we are on common ground in our
participation: it is collective, it is corporate - a common
participation, a together participation, a one
participation. It is the Church. 'Now when you come
together as the Church, there are divisions among you' -
that is a contradiction, it is a violation of the very
meaning of that cup.
You know, when you go
back to the beginning of that letter the Apostle has much
more to say about this matter of divisions. He so early
opens up the matter of divisions (1:10-13). 'There are
contentions among you: one says, I am of Paul' (you can
put what name you like there), 'and I am of Apollos, and
I am of Cephas.' It represents parties, does it not?
Parties in the Church. The point is this, that the
Apostle is steadily working his way towards the matter of
the Table, and he makes that the climax. He is saying, in
effect: 'You cannot have the Table in reality while it is
like that - the reality of the Table is impossible - the reality
of it - while it is like that! It is a contradiction,
it is a denial, it is a mockery; it is the fundamental
subverting of the very meaning of the cup, if it is like
that. You cannot have it in reality - but you can have it
to your own undoing and judgment.'
You see, this cup, the
cup of the Lord, above all things speaks of love - the
love of the Father, the love of the Son, the love of
the Spirit, and the mutual love of believers.
The
Cup Needed For The Fire
"I have a baptism
to be baptized with..." "Are ye able to drink
the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism
that I am baptized with?" (Mark 10:33). What
the Lord was really saying, in other words, was this: 'I
have a cup to drink; and, until I have drunk it, that
very purpose for which I have come is in suspense. I have
come to scatter fire into the earth.' The two things go
together.
We shall perhaps see
later the fire scattered. You see, we are all very
interested in the scattering of the fire - put that how
you will: if you like, the progress of the Gospel, the
extension of the Kingdom, the salvation of souls, the
expansion of testimony. It is all the same thing; it is
the scattering of the fire. The earth has got to feel the
touch of something from Christ - to register something
burning, something living, something consuming, something
against which it cannot stand. 'I am come to scatter fire
in the earth.'
But note - that is all
dependent upon the cup, from first to last, and upon all
that the cup implies. You notice that 2 Corinthians
entirely rests upon those two things. "For as the
sufferings of Christ abound unto us..." (1:5): there
is the cup. "Therefore seeing we have this
ministry..." (4:1): the ministry rests upon
the cup. This second letter is, as you know, the letter
of the ministry, but notice that it begins with the
sufferings of Christ abounding unto us. The
scattering of the fire, the fulfilment of the ministry,
the service of the Lord, the expansion of the Gospel -
however we may put it - rests upon the cup: and not
merely upon the cup as for our salvation, but the cup in
all those other aspects of a holy life, of an inward
separateness, of something apart for the Lord.
And it rests upon, not
only our oneness with Him, but our oneness in Him.
Souls will not be saved while there is disruption in
the instrument; souls will not be saved while there are
divisions amongst those who are seeking their salvation.
The work will not grow and expand and enlarge if Satan is
allowed a place to divide the people of God. Christ
Himself has pointed to the established law; we cannot get
away from it. We may try, make our efforts, do all that
we can, but they are just not getting there. What is the
matter? The matter is, that there is sin somewhere, or
there is division somewhere. There is some circling
around people, or making parties; and we are simply
destroying our own work if it is like that.
You see, this is corporate
- it is the Church that the Apostle is
talking about and writing to. He is speaking about the
Church again and again in these Corinthian letters. 'When
you come together as the assembly, as the Church...' This
fellowship in the cup, for the scattering of the fire, is
a corporate matter.
We need to ask
ourselves: Have we a right to have the table, to have the
cup? Have we the ground for this? We have got to get our
basis, our foundation right, before we can have anything
else. It would be lovely to go on with the scattering of
the fire, to see the thing working out on the side of the
glory and the power. Yes, we would like to be caught up
in that; but we have got to get our basis right, and the
basis is the cup.
There is no doubt that
the ruin of the Church's testimony and ministry is so
often resultant from either or both of these two things:
either a contradiction to the cup right in its midst, or
else an avoidance of the cup - trying not to face the cup
and accept the involvement in the sufferings. We will
have a good time, and make everything like that; but the
cup - no. The ruination of testimony and ministry comes
as much by avoiding the cup as by contradicting it. But
the cup is there: you cannot move it. It is established
in all its meaning; it has to be taken.
I think those two
disciples were a little frivolous. How profoundly and
terribly right the Lord was when He said: 'You know not
what you ask.' 'We are able,' they said 'Very well, you
shall.' The first one of those was the prototype martyr
of the New Testament. We shall think about him perhaps
later. He drank the cup. Herod killed James with the
sword. 'You shall... you shall...' This is something very
real. Nevertheless, we shall see that it worked out for
the furtherance of the Gospel.
If our attitude to the
cup is right, the other will follow. It will follow quite
naturally, quite spontaneously. The cup leads to the
scattered fire; the scattered fire waits for the cup. 'He
took the cup and gave it to them and said...Take...
drink... drink ye all of it.'
Let us ask the Lord just
how this word applies, where it applies, what it means.
May He give us grace to receive it!