Sovereign Grace Church

I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD

(PSALM 116:13)

How sweet is the cup of salvation, after a taste of the bitter cup, in which is sin and fear, guilt and shame, wrath and death! But this bitter cup, with all its dregs, fell to the share of the Surety of the better testament. Our sipping of it gives us a fellowship with Him in His sufferings; it is planting us together in the likeness of His death; it is a crucifying us together with Him; it serves to furnish us with sympathy. We look at Him whom we have pierced and mourn; while a sense of His dying love, mixed with a sense of His sufferings, this, this melts us down in love together, and joins us to Him, and makes us one with Him; while the soul-transforming power and influence impress the image of the heavenly Adam on the soul. “Changed,” says Paul, “into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” And the more we look to Him the more this transforming work goes on. Enlivening rays and refreshing dews descend; while humble acknowledgments and grateful praises ascend.