Jesus Left One Cup Undrunk at the Last Supper — Do You Know Why?

The night before Jesus was crucified, he sat down to a meal, not just any meal, but a Passover meal. And most people who have been in church their entire lives think they know what happened at the table that night. They picture Jesus holding a piece of bread, holding a cup, speaking familiar words. This is my body. This is my blood. But what almost nobody talks about is the fact that Jesus left one cup undrunk. Four cups were passed around that night. Four cups had specific meanings, each one connected to a promise that God had given the people centuries before. And Jesus gets to the last one and he stops. He pushes it aside. And he says, I will not drink from this one, boys, not just yet. That one decision, that one moment of deliberate restraint, is one of the most overlooked details in all of Scripture. And when you understand why Jesus did it, what the cup actually meant, and then when he finally drinks it, it will completely change how you look at Good Friday from this day forward. It's going to change how you view the cross and his resurrection and ascension. You're not going to want to miss this one. Stay to the end. There is an insight that's going to change everything. Welcome back to Get Into the Word. My name is Robbie Gallaty. And I just want to say a big thank you to those who have supported the channel up to this point. Your comments each week are encouraging. For those who are subscribed, thank you. And crazy as it is, most who watch the channel aren't subscribed yet. So do me a favor and subscribe. And if the content is beneficial, would you share it with someone? It really helps us get the word out. To understand what Jesus did at the Last Supper, we're going to have to go back 1,400 years to the night of Egypt, when the Last Supper wasn't just a private dinner. It was actually a celebration they would practice for years and years to come. You see, Jesus didn't invent the Last Supper. He actually was participating in the Passover meal. For the Jewish family, Passover was a tradition where they actually connected with the people of the past. When they sat down at the table, they actually became those in Egypt.

They participated as if they were still in bondage, as if they were crying out to the Lord for deliverance. And so the disciples did the exact same thing. Now here's the setup. The nation of Israel is enslaved by the Egyptians. And God is about to set them free. And he makes a promise to the nation in four different areas, and I want to show them to you. Exodus 6, verses 6 and 7. Notice the four promises from God. I will bring you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians, and I will rescue you from slavery to them. I will redeem you, take a note of this, with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God. Four declarations, four promises, if you will. And over centuries, Jewish tradition assigned every one of these promises to one of the four cups of wine that they partook of in the Lord's Supper. And I want to dive into each one to show you the symbolism and what it means for us as New Testament Christians. The first cup was called the cup of sanctification. God said, I will bring you out. So before anything else happens, God calls his people what? Out of darkness and into a relationship with him. Before deliverance, there's always a calling. And then the second cup is called the cup of deliverance. God promised, I will deliver you. God doesn't just call them out, he breaks their chains. They're no longer slaves to Pharaoh. They're free now to worship God, to serve him. They're free to live for him.

And that's the picture of what Jesus does for us. Aren't you glad? He sets us free from the slavery of sin. We're no longer slaves. We are sons and daughters of God. The third cup is called the cup of redemption. It's the one that God promised, I will redeem you with an outstretched arm. This is the cup that they drunk after the meal. And this is the one I want you to lock in on because it's connected to one of the most powerful foreshadowing moments in all of scripture. When the Israelites were trapped at the Red Sea, you remember what happened. Pharaoh's army is closing in on them. They cry out to the Lord. They cry out to Moses and say, Moses, why did you bring us out here? Did you bring us out here to die? Should we go back to Egypt and dig graves for ourself? And Moses says, don't be afraid. I love this line. Stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord. Now that word salvation is a fascinating word. In Hebrew, it's the word Yeshua. Yeshua is the name of Jesus. God's Yeshua, God's salvation will accomplish this for you. I don't think this is a coincidence. It's actually a fingerprint. Now the fourth cup is called the cup of praise. God promised, I will take you to be my people. This is the culmination of all things. This is the restoration of all things. God brought them out.

He delivered them. He redeemed them. And now he's going to claim them as his own. That is the framework for the Passover meal. And it's at this table that Jesus sits down with his disciples the night before he dies. Now here's where this gets extraordinary. The disciples have celebrated the Passover their entire lives. They knew every element of the Passover by heart. They knew which cup comes when. They knew what blessing to say. They knew what each one of them meant. This is not new territory for them at all. But then Jesus is about to do something odd to them. He's going to rewrite what the cups meant. Look at what happens at the second cup, the cup of deliverance. Jesus takes the bread. In the Passover tradition, you have to understand, bread always symbolized something. It was the sustaining power of God that God would provide for his people. The manna in the wilderness, if you remember from the Exodus story, was provision from God coming down from heaven to earth. But then Jesus picks up this bread and says something that stops everyone at the table cold. Here's what he says. This, boys, is my body.

Do this in remembrance or memory of me. He's not saying that the bread becomes something supernatural. He's doing something far more profound. He's saying, I am now the sustenance for your life. The bread that kept our fathers alive in the wilderness, the bread that kept our fathers alive for 40 years as they wandered, well, that was actually pointing to me. I am the bread of life. What goes in the mind, he could be saying, is transformative, not what passes through the mouth and into the stomach. I like to say it, what passes through the mouth doesn't change you, it what goes in your mind. That's why Paul said, do not be conformed to the ways of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Jesus is not filling their stomachs. He's reshaping their theology. God has been leaving these kind of breadcrumbs all along the way, no pun intended, to teach us the truth of his word. Now, before we go any further, I wanna teach you something that will change the way you read the Bible forever, and I'm not saying that lightly. Let me back up and tell you why this is important. The Hebrew culture thinks in pictures. They think in images. The Western culture in which I live,

or the European culture in maybe which you live, we think in words. Now, follow me. If I walked up to an American seminary student right now, or any church member for that matter, and I asked them this question, what is God? Describe God in one word. They would probably say, you do it with me, you'd probably say, God is holy. God is righteous. God is, if you wanna impress your friends, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. God is all-powerful. God is always present. God is all-knowing. All of those are theologically correct. They're all academically precise, but they are entirely abstract. Now, if we were to ask the same question to a Jewish yeshiva or a school in Israel, what is God? They would give us a very different answer. Their answer would be, God is a rock. God is running water. God is an eagle's wing. Can you sense the difference? One gives a definition. The other gives you an image that you cannot shake. Now, let's play along for a moment. Close your eyes for just a second.

Those who haven't already. That's a joke. Close your eyes for a moment if you're not driving. When I say the words, what comes to mind? God is holy, love, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. Open your eyes. If you're like me, what you see in your mind are the words, right? Holy or righteous or love. Nothing's wrong with that. That's a very Western way to look at it. Now, I want you to close your eyes one more time, and I want you to see in your mind's eye what I'm saying. Close your eyes. God is a rock. God is an eagle's wing. God is living water. God is fresh baked bread. Open your eyes. If you linger long enough, you can almost smell the bread. Now, here's the million dollar question. Who talked like that? Well, Jesus did, of course. Jesus said, I am the what? Living water. I am the good shepherd. I am the way or the path to walk on. I'm a door. I am the light of the world. By the way, I am the bread.

of life. Jesus wasn't just making theological statements. He was painting pictures with a language that the people had spoken for thousands of years before. And this picture of bread, watch this, runs all through the scripture. If we go back to Exodus 16, when Israel is in the wilderness, God provides for them. God gives them manna to eat and he's showing them, I am going to sustain you. I will rain down bread from heaven every single day. Not just today, but twice on Friday so you can have it on the Sabbath day to get to Sunday. God himself was showing them that he was their sustenance to keep them alive. Now, what does this have to do with Jesus and New Testament Christianity? Well, if we jump to Matthew chapter four, when Jesus is being tempted by Satan in the very same place, the wilderness, the desert, the language is very similar. When Satan comes to Jesus at his weakest moment, when he's hungry, he says to him, if you're really the son of God, go ahead and prove it. Turn these stones right here into what? Bread. And Jesus answers him by quoting from the book of Deuteronomy. Jesus says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that, what, comes from the mouth of God. Jesus is connecting bread to sustenance, not just sustenance for your physical body, but sustenance for your soul. Here's what he's saying. Bread keeps the body alive, but the word of God keeps your soul alive. You see, Jesus knew the difference and he was about to become both for them. He feeds the 5,000 with what? Bread and fish. He feeds 4,000 more in the Decapolis with bread. And every time the crowd is going to walk away full, he's whispering to them a sermon without saying a word. I am the source of life. I'm the one you're actually hungry for. And then he says it plainly in front of the crowd one time. Listen guys, I am the bread of life. Jesus's whole ministry is one long picture pointing to the same exact truth. Everything points back to this. He's not just a teacher. He taught a lot. Yes. He's not just a miracle worker. He's not just a healer. Jesus is the sustenance our soul cannot live without. Now, here's a detail that will ruin you in the best possible way. What town was Jesus born in? Now, you know this one, Bethlehem. Bethlehem isn't just a location prophesied by the prophet Micah. It's actually a theological statement from God. You see, in Hebrew, the word Bethlehem is made up of two words. One word, bait. The other word, lecum. Bait, lecum. Bait is the word for house. Lecum is the word for bread. Bethlehem literally means, if you translate it in English, it means house of bread. Think of it this way. Jesus was born in a bread factory. The bread of life came to the house of bread. Luke 2 tells us that when

the angels came to the shepherds in the field, they said to them, go into the city of David, because a savior is born for you who is the Messiah, the Lord. Well, what is the city of David? It's the house of bread, Bethlehem. You see, God didn't just drop Jesus into Jerusalem. He could have. That was the center of political power. He didn't send him to Rome, the center of worldly power. He sent him to Bethlehem, the house of bread. Why? Because from the first breath Jesus drew, he was announcing what he came to do. Not just to be a conqueror, which he was. Not a politician. Not just a prominent figure. Jesus came to be our provider. And after he breaks the bread at that last supper, watch this. Jesus reaches for the third cup, the cup of redemption. He gives it an entirely new meaning. He said, guys, this cup is a new covenant of my blood, and it's about to be poured out for you. Think about what he just did. For centuries up to that point, a lamb had to be killed. An innocent animal had to bleed. Its blood was then placed on the doorpost of the Passover so that the angel of death would pass over their house and spare the family within. You have to understand that blood didn't look inside the home to see whether the family was deserving or not. Should I save them or not? No. It just covered them. That's just the way it worked. Jesus is now saying this to his disciples. Because of my death and burial, there's no need for sacrifice. There are no more animals that have to die. No more death. Why? Because my blood is covering you now. And then he says something that should stop us cold. He says, the cup represents a new covenant. A new covenant. Exodus 6, God says, The covenant is God is redeeming his outstretched arm. Don't miss the foreshadowing here. You can't miss this. Both arms stretched out wide, nailed to a cross. As blood is pouring out, Jesus is becoming our Passover sacrifice. The outstretched arm of God redeeming his people in Egypt now is redeeming us from sin and death forever. It's through the blood of Jesus where anybody can come to him, regardless of our past, regardless of what we've done, it is covered by the blood of the lamb.

Just like that doorpost, just like that first Passover night when the angel of death passed over them, Jesus's blood covers us. Now buckle up because here's the moment where everything changes. After the third cup, what comes next? Well, if you remember, we talked about the fourth cup. Do you remember the name? It was called the cup of praise. The cup of praise seals the meal. That cup says God has brought us out, God has delivered us, God has redeemed us, and now because of all that, God calls us to be his own. But Jesus doesn't drink that cup. He puts it down. I know what you're saying. Well, prove that to me in scripture. Well, I'm glad you asked. Matthew 26, verse 29 says, Jesus says to them at the last supper, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine or this cup from now on until that day when I drink it new with my father in my father's kingdom. Every person at the table that day understood what Jesus meant. You see, they had celebrated this meal their entire lives, and they knew that the fourth cup was the final cup. It was the cup of completion. It was the cup of restoration.

It was the cup of God fully claiming his people to be with them once and for all. And Jesus is saying that cup isn't for tonight. Why? Because I'm not finished the work yet that is to be done. There's something that still has to happen. There's something that's gonna happen on the cross. Before the praise can be declared, before the restoration is complete, before the kingdom is fully realized in my life, I have to go to the cross. Now, follow this. The disciples then leave the upper room with Jesus. He's gonna take them to a garden. He's gonna pray on his face. Judas will betray him. He'll be arrested, tried, beaten, and then nailed to the cross. And then while Jesus is hanging on the cross, John 19, 28 tells us something pretty profound. And if you don't know what I just told you, you miss it. Look at John 19, 28. After this, when Jesus knew that everything was now finished, all the work was done, and the scripture might be fulfilled, he said, I am what? I am thirsty. Now, I've always been baffled by this. Anyone else? Why is a man moments away from death asking for a drink?

I mean, Jesus is about to die in a moment. Here's what I believe. Jesus is not asking to quench his thirst. He's asking to teach a spiritual truth. As they lift the sponge up to his mouth, notice what it is. When Jesus received the sour wine, he says, it is what? Finish. Jesus, in a sense, is drinking, don't miss this, the fourth cup, the cup of praise, the cup of full and final restoration. I will take you at this moment because of this act to be my people, and I will be your God. Jesus deliberately waited to drink that final cup until he had finished the work on the cross. And the very next thing out of his mouth is what? It is finished. Not I give up, not I can't take it anymore, not I'm defeated, it is finished. That Greek word, tetelestai, is an accounting term. It means that the debt that was accrued is paid in full, stamped, done, signed, sealed, delivered, closed forever. Jesus didn't stumble into death on that cross. He arrived at the finish line. He completed what his father had sent him to do. And he drank that fourth cup, and when he did, he declared that the work was done, and then at that moment, he gives up his spirit. No more innocent animals dying, no more annual sacrifices, no more separation between you and God, no mediator needed, no pope or prophet

or priest or preacher, no, Jesus is the high priest and the lamb all at the same time. So the table is set, the work is finished, and the question I wanna leave you with is this. Will you take a seat at the supper? From now on, every time you take communion, every time you break the bread and drink of the cup, you're not just participating in a church ritual. We are participating in a story that began in Egypt, was promised through Abraham, spoken by the prophets, and written into the fabric of the Passover supper for 1,000 years before Jesus ever sat down at the table. Jesus endured the cross, so you and I wouldn't have to. Jesus drank that fourth cup, so we could one day drink it with him at the festival of the final supper of the lamb in his father's kingdom. And so today on Good Friday, don't just grieve what happened on the cross. Received what is accomplished. You see, the bread is his body, broken for you. The cup is his blood, poured out for you and for me. And the empty tomb, you ready for this, on Sunday morning is the proof that the father accepted his sacrifice. So let's receive it, trust it, and let it change your life. If this video helped you in any way, do us a favor and subscribe to the channel. Also hit that like button, it sends the video out to those who are not yet interested

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