LS-27-The Cup Of Salvation
The Cup Of Salvation
What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.--Psalms 116:12-13.
It may help us in our meditation this morning if we think of our Lord and His disciples singing these words before they left the supper room to go to the Mount of Olives. The group of Psalms (113-118) in which these words occur, forms the Hallel, or Hymn of Praise, so called because of the frequent use in them of the word Hallelujah--Praise ye Jehovah. This hymn was regularly sung at the passover, and was probably the hymn which the Master and the disciples sang at the close of the Supper.
It may be that "the cup of salvation" to which the Psalmist refers, is the paschal cup. He is numbering his blessings. He realises that the Lord has been wondrously kind. "I love the Lord," he says, "because He heareth my voice and my supplications, because He hath inclined His ear unto me. God is merciful. I was brought low, and He saved me. What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord." If he means that he will faithfully observe the passover, with all its sacred associations of gratitude and joy, the thought is, I will take this paschal cup-the cup of memory, of salvation, and thus come into the sphere of blessing as I attend to the Lord’s appointment.
But, of course, the ancient singer in Israel may have used the word as a figure of speech, and by "the cup of salvation" may have meant all that he received at the hand of God. Many things come to us in the experience of life. Sometimes the cup overflows with sweetness and joy (Psalms 23:5). Sometimes it is full of bitterness (Mark 10:38). But whatever comes, he will receive it in gratitude as a cup of salvation from the good hand of God.
"Jesus took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave to them." It was the paschal cup, but he invested it with new meaning. Henceforth, to the men who received it, it would be a memorial of a greater redemption than it had been before. It now became the symbol of the blood of the new covenant. The apostle Paul called it "the cup of blessing." It is a "cup of salvation" too, because it is a medium for the impartation of saving grace, when by means of it we come in to communion with our risen Lord and Redeemer. Let us receive the bread, and take the cup, with gratitude and joy, remembering all His benefits, especially the spiritual blessings of pardon and power which God bestows upon us through our Saviour.