Viv & Gill White: Taken From Various Articles
The Passover celebration was held at sunset and lasted until the next sunset, on the 14th of Nissan.
Lev 23:5-6 ERV
(5) The LORD’S Passover is on the 14th day of the first month just before dark. (6) “The LORD’S Festival of Unleavened Bread is on the 15th day of the same month. You will eat unleavened bread for seven days.
During the Passover meal, the people gathered around a table, with their staff in their hands and with sandals on their feet and were told to eat the meal in haste. And God told them to celebrate this event to bring into remembrance the time of GOD’s mighty hand of redemption as He brought His Nation Israel out of the house of slavery and made them free to serve Him.
So the question is why were there four cups of wine during the Passover celebration?
The answer lies in the keen perception of the Sages (means teachers of old – men of wisdom) as they read the text of Shemot (Exodus), unfolding the whole story of the Exodus from Egypt. Beginning with the premise that every word is of vital importance, and nothing is redundant, the teachers of old noted the remarkable text of Exodus 6:6-7:
“Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. ‘Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. Exodus 6:6-7”
Taken with the power of the four verbs which describe God’s activity in the Exodus event, the Sages ordained four cups in the meal of remembrance to commemorate God’s work. The Midrash (a commentary on a Biblical text) on these two verses gives us the historical background:
There are four expressions of redemption:
- I will bring you out
- I will deliver you
- I will redeem you
- I will take you.
Ezekiel used four similar expressions, to denote the freedom yet to be:
Ezekiel 34:13-15
(13) I will bring them out from the nations, gather them from the countries, and bring them to their own land. I will take care of them on the mountains of Israel, by the streams, and in all the inhabited places of the land. (14) I will feed them in good pasture, and they will graze on the mountains of Israel. They will rest on the good land where they graze, and they will feed on the best pastures in the mountains of Israel. (15) I will take care of my sheep and lead them to rest, declares the Almighty LORD.
These correspond to the four decrees which Pharaoh issued regarding them. The Sages accordingly ordained four cups to be drunk on the eve of Passover to correspond with these four expressions, in order to fulfil the verse: “I will lift up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD” (Psalm 116:13).
While other explanations have been given for the four cups, the most common was to base the tradition upon the four activities of God as described in Exodus 6:6-7. Thus, the four cups represent God’s saving activity, one cup for each of God’s sovereign acts as he freed His firstborn son, Israel from the clutches of Pharaoh and the pagan gods.
Various names have been given to each of these four cups and the names are usually associated with them are:
- The Cup of Sanctification
- The Cup of Deliverance (or Salvation)
- The Cup of Redemption
- And the Cup of Hope (or Expectation).
The First Cup – The Cup of Sanctification
“I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”
First in the list of God’s activities in the Exodus event is this promise to free the Israelites from the burden of the Egyptians. This burden was the slavery to which the Israelites had been subjected and the hardships this slavery produced. But it was more than the sum of the nation’s woes at the hand of her slave-masters that necessitated God’s intervention. As slaves of Egypt, Israel could not worship God as He had instructed her, nor as she desired. Israel’s primary distinction was her worship of the God of her fathers, a worship which would cause the nations who saw her to marvel. But as slaves of the Egyptians, Israel was unable to worship God as she should. Her marked difference was clouded by her inability to live as God intended.
Therefore God makes this first promise, that He would separate her from the burden of the Egyptians, and we know that His purpose in doing so was that Israel might worship Him unfettered. Each time the famous line is spoken, “Let My people go,” it is followed with “so that they might serve me.” (“serve” and “service” are common Hebrew expressions for “worship.”)
Since the exodus became the primary and foundational expression of God’s redemptive activity, we are not surprised to see that in the progress of His revelation He teaches us that, even as He chose Israel, so He has chosen each and every person who comes to faith in Christ Jesus. The Apostle Paul speaks of this as he opens his epistle to the book of Ephesians:
“Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Through Christ, God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing that heaven has to offer. Before the creation of the world, he chose us through Christ to be holy and perfect in his presence. “(Ephesians 1:3–4) To be “holy and perfect in His presence” is language of worship, to abide in His presence, to be, as it were, engulfed in His Word and live it.
Thus, the first cup marks Israel out as God’s chosen ones, as the people for whom He will muster all of His omnipotence, and bring them out from under the burden of slavery, freeing them to worship and serve Him, in spirit and in truth. And this is the same work He does in this age for each and every child He brings into His family. He calls, and we must respond to that call, and when we except that call, it’s like as if we were taken out of Egypt and set free from the shackles of slavery of the world’s kingdom’s, and their traditions and the doctrines of this world, to freely serve Him, His way, in spirit and in truth. This freedom from slavery is for the primary purpose, to worship Him as He intends and as He directs. It is the calling of each and every child of God to be sanctified and set apart, unto God, to be given over to His worship and His worship alone.
The First Cup of Passover, the Cup of Sanctification or Separation, reminds us of this crucial starting point of our salvation, as we see in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 17&18:
(17) The Lord says, “Get away from unbelievers. Separate yourselves from them. Have nothing to do with anything unclean. Then I will welcome you.” (18) The Lord Almighty says, “I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters.” (2 Corinthians 6:17-18)
The Second Cup — Cup of Deliverance
“I will deliver you from their bondage.”
The First Cup was attached to the phrase “I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.” It might appear that this second phrase simply reiterates the same thing with a few changes in the words: “I will deliver you from their bondage”
A closer look, however, shows that this second phrase gives additional insights. “To bring out,” found in the first phrase, implies a change of status. “To deliver,” found here in the second phrase, suggests that Israel is helpless to effect the change herself. One who needs to be rescued is someone who cannot effect his own deliverance—someone who must seek help outside of himself. Left by itself, the first clause could have suggested a picture in which Israel and God work together to extricate her from the burden of slavery.
This second phrase, however, makes it clear that Israel was helpless, and needed to be rescued.
Every time they raised the Second Cup of the seder and blessed the LORD for their salvation, they needed to be reminded that their deliverance was all of His doing—as they were helpless to secure their own rescue. And this plays the same role, through the blood of Jesus Christ today.
Israel, imprisoned under the yoke of Egypt, was in danger of falling prey to her idolatrous worship. This fact is made all the more clear when, after the Exodus, Israel comes to Mt. Sinai as God promised Moses (Exodus 3:12). When Moses lingered upon the mountain, Israel, following the ways of the Egyptians, made a golden calf not unlike the idols they saw in Egypt. Some commentaries say that Israel had come to believe that other gods actually did exist, and that maybe, just maybe, they were as powerful as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or perhaps even more powerful. When Moses failed to return as soon as they thought he should, they supposed that the other gods had won the day, and that Moses, along with his God, had perished. What was left for them to do but show their willingness to serve these other gods?! And so they made the golden calf, declaring that the god it represented had, in fact, brought them out of Egypt. It is clear that this manner of thinking results from being influenced by paganism. Israel surely needed to be “rescued” from the “service” of Egypt, because the tentacles of idolatry had already entwined and penetrated her national consciousness.
Now this is this same picture that fits each and everyone of us today, who may fall into the same or similar category of circumstances like the golden calf, in regarding the partaking, combining of the traditions about Easter, Christmas & Hallowean etc, with some even putting God’s and His son’s name into it. Again this is entwined with paganism, which is commonly known today as syncretism, which means, the amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought, into what is Holy.
Deuteronomy 12 verse 4 (GW):
“Never worship the LORD your God in the way they worship their gods.”
This bondage to sin, by mixing Holy with unholy, has left us unable to rescue ourselves. We simply cannot find our way to freedom because we were shackled by the chains of self-centeredness, & traditions of men, which is idolatry. Our only hope is that One stronger than our fetters should come in and deliver us from our prison of darkness. The Apostle Paul speaks of this when he writes in Colossians 1:13-14: “For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
The Second Cup reminds us then, that we were in great need of deliverance, from our own idolatry and traditions and doctrines of men that so shackled us, in that Kingdom of darkness as to be unable to effect our own rescue, and God’s deliverance was (and is) our only hope.
The Third Cup — the Cup of Redemption
“I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.”
In this third phrase, attached to the Third Cup, we have a most important word—an additional insight to the work of God in the salvation of Israel, a salvation which became the eternal paradigm for God’s full plan of salvation for sinners.
Even as the first verb, “bring out,” was amplified by the next verb, “to deliver,” so the concept of “deliver” is narrowed and described further by the central word in this phrase, “redeem.” For while “bring out” could imply the mutual efforts of Israel and God, the word “deliver” makes it clear that the rescue of Israel from her bondage was entirely God’s work. What the word “redeemed” now adds to the picture is that this deliverance was brought about by the payment of a price within a family setting.
Only One able to speak the worlds into existence could ever have redeemed Israel from Egypt. Redemption is, in the final analysis, the greatest display of God’s omnipotence, for it is ultimately the victory of good over evil, the conquest of righteousness over unrighteousness.
But there is one more aspect of the Hebrew word gā ’al (redeem) which must be considered here. The word itself always implies the payment of a price in order to effect redemption. If we were to ask what price was paid in the creation event, the answer would be none. Though the creation was an expression of God’s “outstretched arm,” it was done without apparent cost to the Creator.
But redemption, while requiring the same extension of God’s power to effect, requires payment of a price—redemption cost God something. Here, of course, we come to understand the necessity of the Passover lamb, whose blood was applied to the door in order to effect the protection of the Israelite family, and ultimately their redemption out of Egypt.
Redemption requires the payment of a price, and by the very standard of GOD’s justice that price is life-for-life. The picture turns from mere legal transactions in freeing a slave, to the heart of a Father toward His own children, and His willingness to pay the necessary price to have them back, even when that price is most costly. That price was nothing less than the giving of His own dear Son, Christ Jesus, emphasized by His identification with the Third Cup as symbolic of His own blood shed for the redemption of sinners – Luke 22:20 “In the same way, after supper, Jesus took the cup of wine and said, “This wine represents the new agreement from God to his people. It will begin when my blood is poured out for you.”
The Fourth Cup — The Cup of Hope
‘Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God.” Connected with the Fourth Cup is the reciting of Hallel (Praise and thanks) Psalms (Psalms 115-118) and the Great Hallel (Psalm 136).
Connected as it is with the fourth phrase of our type of Exodus text, the Fourth Cup takes on the character of hope for a future when all of Israel is in the Land, her enemies are subdued, and peace reigns.
What the Fourth Cup adds to the picture of the first three is that redemption, while securing the freedom and safety of Israel, does not immediately place her into the realm of eternal peace.
She is redeemed from Egypt and given her freedom, but now she must make her way through wilderness (just like us) and foreign lands before she reaches the Promised Land. Redemption guarantees the final destination, but the journey is still necessary.
What is more, the history of Israel shows that from the time of our type of Exodus out of Egypt, never has the nation as a whole willingly worshiped God as He desires.
The history of Israel, illustrious as it may be at times, is strewn with way-wardness and rebellion. They have not wholeheartedly, as a nation in this world, fulfilled the words of this Fourth Cup, “I will take you for My people, and I will be your God.”
While this has certainly been true of individuals in every generation who have made up a believing remnant, the nation as a whole has never been characterized by genuine worship of God.
It is to this that Jeremiah points in his “new covenant” prophesy “For there is coming a time when all of Israel, from the least to the greatest, will “know God,” (which must mean “have genuine covenant relationship with God,” not merely have intellectual knowledge about Him.)
This Fourth Cup, then, envisions the time when true Israel and all those who have attached themselves to her via faith and have been grafted in, will worship God in truth, and will be known in every way as His people. This final cup reminds us that our redemption is not fully realized yet, and though we enjoy the realities of it in the present, the future still holds our full and final redemption.
Summary of the Four Cups
The Four Cups of the Passover Seder, based upon the verses from Exodus 6:6-7, paint this picture for us:
First Cup — God chose us to be His holy (to be separated) people. To accomplish this He promised to unburden us from our enemy’s entanglements.
Second Cup — God teaches us that we cannot effect our own release, and that in our helpless state we must trust in Him and in Him alone for our salvation.
Third Cup — God further reveals to us that His sovereign work of salvation necessitates both divine power and payment. Our salvation would cost Him dearly, even the life of the Lamb of God, His only begotten Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.
Fourth Cup — God lets us know that the redemption which is ours is still not fully complete. We must await the future with believing in Christ (the Messiah) Jesus’ and at His coming, for He alone can transform us fully into the holy people His God and Father, and our God and Father, has ordained us to be.
Brothers and sisters, as it is written in the book of Hebrews chapter 13 verses 12-15:
“That is why Jesus suffered outside the gates of Jerusalem. He suffered to make the people holy with his own blood. 13 So we must go to him outside the camp and endure the insults he endured. 14 We don’t have a permanent city here on earth, but we are looking for the city that we will have in the future. Through Jesus we should always bring God a sacrifice of praise, that is, words that acknowledge him.”
As we now partake in breaking of bread and drinking from the cup, let us remember what the Scripture says: Through Jesus, He is our Passover Lamb, and we should always bring God a sacrifice of praise, that is, words that acknowledge Him, and to remember that the Old Testament Passover was a story of redemption by the killing of a Passover Lamb. The Israelites obeyed God by offering the blood of the Passover lamb to the doorposts of their houses so their firstborn would be spared the Tenth Curse against Pharoah who refused to let God’s enslaved Chosen People leave Egypt. When the Angel of Death passed through the land and saw the blood, he “passed over” those houses and spared the first born (Exodus 12:1-13). This was a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, God’s “Passover Lamb” who willingly allowed His own blood to be offered on our behalf and thus became our redemption, having His blood, this time, on the doorpost of our hearts. The Messiah fulfilled this offering when he was crucified at Passover! But “fulfilled” does not mean “put an end to”
Though it is true that Jesus died for us at Passover, the event serves a dual purpose. First, it happens at Passover, so the symbology of the Pashal Lamb is present as Jesus’ death allows GOD Almighty “spare us” (from eternal death) as He did the Israelis firstborn at the original Passover. After all, this is why he (Jesus) died! To give us eternal life.
John 17:2-3
“After all, you’ve given him authority over all humanity so that he can give eternal life to all those you gave to him. This is eternal life: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent”.
And secondly, it permits Jesus’ atoning blood to be shed for us, one time, for our sins.
Leviticus 17:11“For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for yourselves; for it is the blood that makes atonement because of the life.”
Colossians 3:15
“Each one of you is part of the body of Christ, and you were chosen to live together in peace.So let the peace that comes from Christ control your thoughts. And be grateful.”
Amen.