The Cup of Blessing: Receiving God's Gift with Thanks!
expected. Along with the word, which must accompany the observance of the sacrament in order to explain its meaning, the Lord’s Supper serves to strengthen believers and confirm their assurance of a share in the Covenant of Grace.
cup of blessing is the third of four cups required in the ceremony of the Paschal meal. It derives its name from the prayer offered over the cup: “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, who givest us the fruit of the vine.”
. I will pour out the cup of thanksgiving to Jehovah, because of aid vouchsafed. In the prophets, Jehovah is sometimes represented as making the nations drink a cup of intoxicating wine (כּוֹס הַתַּרְעֵלָה), so that they rush reeling into destruction. Isa. 51:17, 22; Jer. 25:15; 49:12; 51:7; Lam. 4:21; Hab. 2:16; Eze. 23:31, 32, 33; compare Apoc. 17:4; and as to the same image as used by the Arabic poets, see my Comment. on Isaiah 51:17.—Elsewhere cup is used metaphorically of lot, the image of a cup however being retained, Psalm 11:6; 16:5; compare Matt. 26:39; 20:22; and see my observations out of Arabic writers, on Isaiah 51:17
15. Wherefore glorify Jehovah in the valleys. God’s benefits ought to excite us to gratitude, and we testify it by singing his praises. “What return shall we make,” as David says, “for all the benefits which he has bestowed on us, but to take the cup of thanksgiving for salvation, and call on the name of the Lord?” The Prophet therefore observes this order; having spoken of the restoration of the Church, he exhorts us to offer the sacrifice of praise.
Signs for the senses, Christ for the soul
If we consider the Supper as a sign, given us for instruction, it exhibits a remembrance of Christ, and a lively representation of most of the awful mysteries of our religion, as the Greek fathers often speak. The bread signifies the body of Christ. For, as bread strengtheneth man’s heart (Ps. 104:15), so the flesh of Christ, and the spiritual blessings and graces purchased for us by Christ, when He was incarnate, are the food of our soul, supporting and strengthening it in the spiritual life, into the hope of life eternal. ‘I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world’ (John 6:51). Again, as corn, from which bread is prepared, is ground to meal, kneaded to dough, and baked in the oven, before it can be agreeable and wholesome food for man; so in like manner, the Captain of our salvation was made perfect through various sufferings (Heb. 2:10), and scorched both in the fire of the divine wrath kindled against our sins, and in the flames of His own love.
The wine signifies the blood of Christ. For, as wine allays the thirst, revives the spirits, cheers the heart (Ps. 104:15; Prov. 31:6–7) so in like manner, the grace purchased by the blood of Christ allays the thirst of our soul, abundantly satisfying all our holy longings (John 4:14), to a kind of a holy and mystical ebriety [or intoxication] (Ps. 36:8; Song 5:1), it supports and sustains the soul when sick of love (Song 2:5), and puts ‘gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine are increased’ (Ps. 4:7). And we must not omit, that as wine is squeezed with much force from the grapes, when trodden in the wine press; so in like manner the Lord Jesus was straitened [or distressed] (Luke 12:50), and oppressed with much anguish, that the blood might flow to us from His blessed body, and His spiritual grace with His blood.
When the dispenser of the mysteries of God takes the bread and the cup of blessing into his hands, before the eyes of the faithful, that seems to intimate, that Christ was thus constituted and taken to be Mediator, and set forth to believers, ‘to be a propitiation through faith in his blood’ (Rom. 3:25). The blessing and thanksgiving pronounced over the bread and wine teach us that Christ is that blessed seed of Abraham, in whom ‘God … hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places’ (Eph. 1:3), and the greatest gift of divine bounty, for which to all eternity we shall not be able to render suitable thanks. The breaking of the bread represents the breaking of Christ’s body, especially that by death; for, the soul is the band, by which all the parts of the body are preserved united. The pouring out of the wine represents the shedding of Christ’s blood, that especially which was done on the cross, for the confirmation of the New Testament. And thus in the holy Supper there is a commemoration of the death of Christ, not in words only, but also by those mystical rites. The distribution of these sacred pledges is a figure or emblem of that gratuitous offer, by which the Lord Jesus, with all His saving benefits, is presented to the elect, with the most alluring invitations to accept of Him: nor offered only, but actually reached out, and freely given to believers for their eternal salvation.
But when believers receive the bread and wine, they declare by that action, that they receive by a true faith Christ Himself, and all He is, that they may have a right to become the sons of God (John 1:12). But the eating the bread and drinking the wine signify something more. And first, they really set forth the devout and lively employment of the soul, engaged in holy meditations on Christ, who is all its desire, that it may derive from Him everything it knows to be needful for its spiritual life. Again, these actions also signify that intimate union which subsists between Christ and believers: as meat and drink, when put into the mouth, are not only received into the stomach, but also converted into the very substance of the person. This union the Scripture calls an abode (John 14:23), a joining (1 Cor. 6:17), the same body (Eph. 3:6). Lastly, they represent that sweetest delight which the hungry and thirsty soul enjoys from the fruition of Christ and His grace: not only believing, but seeing and tasting, that the Lord is good (Ps. 34:9; 1 Peter 2:3). And as all are partakers of one bread and of one wine, this is a figure of that amicable unity, whereby they who partake of the same sacred feast, are united together, as domestics of the same Lord: ‘For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread’ (1 Cor. 10:17).
Witsius, 459–62