At Jesus' final Passover service, He poured wine into His cup, blessed it, and passed it around to His disciples, inviting them to drink from it. Drinking of the cup of the Lord signifies participating in whatever that cup contains, accepting the blessings and consequences it represents. The cup of the Lord is a cup of blessing, symbolizing fellowship and sharing in the blood of Christ, as well as betrothal to Him through the new covenant for the remission of sins. Christ commands us to drink of His cup, emphasizing the acceptance of His shed blood and the deeper meaning of sharing in His experiences. We must consciously reject the cup of this world, of Babylon, in favor of the cup of the Lord, as God will not mix the contents of these incompatible cups. Paul warns that we cannot drink of the Lord's cup and of the cup of demons, urging a total rejection of the world's abominations for the new cup of blessing from God.

In Paul's instructions to the Corinthian church on observing Passover, he emphasizes the gravity of our approach to partaking of the cup of the Lord. When we individually partake of the cup of blessing and the bread at Passover, we become one with Jesus Christ. Thus, everyone who partakes of these symbols also becomes one with Him. Paul warns that whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. This warning is given in the context of behavior within the congregation, where self-centeredness and despising others reveal a lack of worthiness. He instructs church members to examine themselves before partaking of the bread and drinking of the cup, underscoring the seriousness of this spiritual evaluation. God will not look favorably on those who mistreat the ones for whom Christ died.