What is the cup of God's wrath in the Bible?

The drinking of a cup, in Scripture, means the taking into the experience of the soul that which the cup signifies. The cup which the Lord took from His Father's hand was one of bitterness, and judgment, and death. He took into the experience of His soul what it was to be made sin; what it was to be abandoned of God; what it was to go into death as the judgment of God. There was no element in all that accumulated sorrow that He did experience in its infinite meaning, and to its full limit.

Various Hebrew words are so translated, having regard to the different uses to which the cup was put. It is frequently used for that which the cup contains, causing either joy or sorrow, as "I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord." Ps. 116:13. "In the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red . . . . the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out and drink them." Ps. 75:8: cf. Rev. 14:10; Rev. 16:19, etc. And so in many other instances; and especially in that of the cup of which the Lord Jesus drank when bearing sin. Matt. 26:27, 39, 42; John 18:11. In the Lord's Supper the 'cup' is put for the wine which was an emblem of the blood of Christ. 1 Cor. 10:16, 21; 1 Cor. 11:25-28.

Melchisedek brings forth bread and wine, emblems of the means of life and happiness. Wine, "that makes glad the heart of man," (Ps. 104:15; Judges 9:13.) has however sometimes a second and very different application in Scripture, where we read of the "cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath." Treading the wine-press is an invariable figure of the execution of judgment. (Rev. 14:19.) The cup is a symbol of adjudication: the ruler of the feast sent the cup to whom, and in what order, and with what contents he judged best. Hence Ps. 75:7-8. "But God is the judge: he puts down one and sets up another: for in the hands of the Lord there is a cup." A judging or "divining cup" was a frequent thing amongst the ancients: Joseph alludes to the idea, Gen. 44:15. Now this cup may contain either happiness or condemnation. It may be either the "cup of blessing which we bless;" or its contents maybe of a nature so dread and awful as to cause the most patient of all sufferers to pray, "O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt."

Thus, the material of this Psalm clearly shows itself to us. The wine cup, the cup of trembling, the cup of His fury, the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath, are various titles of the same cup, which is the emblem of divine judgments, like the vials of Rev. 16. The cup of salvation, on the other hand, expresses the joy of the kingdom. (See Psalm 116; Luke 22:18) Oh what a morning without clouds will the rise and waving of this righteous sceptre, here anticipated by the Lord Himself, spread over this groaning and thorny creation! And it is a striking and beautiful point in this Psalm, that the cup here drunk by the people of the earth does not pass on to Messiah. He takes instead of it the other cup, and at once calls on the name of the Lord. (See ver. 8, 9, and Ps. 116:3) The cup of anger is for their hand, the cup of salvation for His. He once took, indeed, the cup of sorrows, the cup of Gethsemane, for us poor sinners; but it is the cup of praise, the joy of the kingdom, that remains for Him now, while the apostate powers of the earth are wringing out the dregs of the cup of fury.

He looked at the cup, deprecated it, but said, I will drink it. Our eternal salvation hung upon His drinking that cup. If He did not bear that wrath and judgment, we must; and if He did not drink that cup, we must drink it. If He did not drink it for you, my hearer, you must yet drink it. Could you drain it? Sinner! you, who do not think much about the subject, if you go into judgment, and drink the cup of God's wrath, do you think you will drain it? You foolish man! Drain it? You will drink, and drink, and drink it again as the eternal ages roll on, but you will never drain it. Thank God, my Saviour has drained it for me. He has drained it to the very dregs, and has filled another cup — the cup of salvation — to the brim with love, and has put that cup to my lips, and I drink, and receive eternal life.

Doubtless Satan then suggested to Him to pause and not drink that cup, for it would cost Him His life, and the forsaking of God. He looked into the cup and measured its contents. It was all God's judgment against sin. If He drank it He must be forsaken of God, and be cast off, upon the cross. Not merely was it the physical suffering and sorrow that man could give Him, as they nailed Him to the tree, but the inevitable sense that God and He must part company. Hence as He looked at that cup, He said, "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done." He knew that if He did not drink that cup of judgment upon the cross, you and I would have to drink it in eternity. If He did not drink the cup in our room and stead, there was no deliverance, no salvation, no pardon, no cleansing, possible for you and me. As He looked at that cup He shrank from it in all the perfect holiness of His being, and deprecated it with the utmost intensity. Then He took it, and drank it to the very dregs in the perfection of His love. Blessed Saviour! Well may each redeemed one cry, Hallelujah, I am saved; I am saved by His death. We are saved because He drank God's cup of wrath, to the very dregs, so that He, in tender love and divine righteousness, might put the cup of God's salvation into our hands, and press it to our lips. May we not joyfully say, "What has God wrought?"

In Gethsemane, in prospect of the cup, He experienced man's weakness and the power of Satan. He sweat great drops of blood, and cries to His Father, "Father, if it be possible," etc. He had not got the cup then, though He was thinking of it. The moment He has got the cup He says, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The remnant may dread the wrath of God for sin; but they never endure it. He has endured it for them.

The devotees of the Beast are here warned and threatened with punishments of so terrible a character that the very mention of them is enough to make one’s flesh creep. But what of those who will have to endure them? The “third angel” says “with a loud voice” — so that all may hear,‎ and thus be without excuse — “he,” who has worshipped the‎ Beast and received his mark, “also shall drink of the wine of the fury of God.” The nations had drunk out of the‎ harlot’s cup (v. 8); now in retributive justice they shall drink out of God’s cup (v. 10). In this cup there are no palliative ingredients (Ps. 75:8). It is pure, unmixed wrath. “He shall be tormented in fire and brimstone.”‎ The awful torment is individual. Each one shall suffer eternal misery in his own person. “Fire and brimstone”‎ ‎(Isa. 30:33; Rev. 20:10) are symbols of unutterable‎ anguish. Another awful feature of the agony inflicted upon each adherent of the Beast is that the torment has to be endured “before (or in the presence of) the holy angels and before the Lamb.” The holy angels had been witnesses from their place on high of the horrible wickedness of the Beast and his abettors; now they will witness God’s vengeance, and each tormented one will know that the angels are looking down upon the scene of indescribable anguish, and also “before the Lamb,” Whom they had openly defied, and Whose blood had been wantonly trampled upon. This will, of course, add greatly to the horror of the situation.

Here we have a third angelic announcement. It concerns the worshipers of the beast. They drink of the wrath of God. It is "without mixture," that is, no mercy is found in the cup of His indignation. It serves as a solemn warning. Babylon falls prior to the glorious appearing of the King, and the beast will afterward manifest his power as never before. Therefore, the warning concerning the inevitable fate of those who worship the beast and take its mark.

The angel justifies God in His righteous judgment. It is just, that those who have shed the blood of saints and prophets, who have testified to the truth, should themselves drink of the cup of death — and that in its most terrible form as everlasting separation from God — seeing they have poisoned men's minds with error. Men may be mighty and, for a time, be allowed to show the evil of their hearts in persecuting God's people, but the Lord God is Almighty and, in His own time, will avenge the blood of His people. The allusion to the martyrdom of saints would again show that these judgments are specially directed against the kingdom of the beast.