Jesus was submissive to the father

JESUS WAS SUBMISSIVE TO THE FATHER
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possibleunto
thee; remove this cup from me: howbeit not what I
will, but what thou wilt.—Mark14:36.
Great Texts of the Bible
The Prayer in Gethsemane
And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possibleunto thee; remove this cup from
me: howbeit not what I will, but what thou wilt.—Mark 14:36.
At the close of his accountof the Temptation, St. Luke tells us that then the devil
left our Lord for a season. Doubtless there was no time throughout His life—which
indeed was one victory over evil—in which that great adversary left Him wholly
unassailed; but the words lead us to look for some special manifestation of his
malice,—some sequel to his first desperate attempt,—some last struggle with his
Conqueror. Nor is the expectation vain. The Agony in the garden is in many
respects the natural correlative to the Temptation. In this we see Christ’s human
will proved to be in perfect harmony with the righteous will of God, just as in that
His sense and soul and spirit were found subjected to the higher laws of life and
devotion and providence. The points of similarity between them are numerous and
striking. The Temptation occurred directly after the public recognition of our
Lord’s Messiahship at His Baptism: the Agony was separated only by a few days
from His triumphal entry into the Holy City. The Temptation preceded the active

work of our Lord’s prophetic ministry: the Agony ushered in the final scenes of
His priestly offering. The Temptation was endured in the savage wastes of the
wilderness: the Agony in the silent shades of the night. Thrice under various pleas
did Satan dare to approachthe Saviour: thrice now does the Saviour approach His
Father with a prayer of unutterable depth. When the Temptation was over, angels
came and ministered to Him who had met Satan face to face: during the Agony an
angel was seen strengthening Him who fought with death, knowing all its terrors.
But there are also differences between the two events which give to each their
peculiar meaning and importance for us, though they are thus intimately connected.
At the first our Lord was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted: at
the last He retired into the garden to seek the presence of God. At the first He went
alone to meet man’s enemy: at the last He takes with Him three loved disciples to
watch and pray while He approaches His Father. At the first Satan lures Him to
gratify each element of His nature: at the last he endeavours to oppress Him by
fear. At the first our Lord repels the Tempter with the language of invincible
majesty: at the last He seems to sink under a burden—like the cross which He soon
carried—too heavy for Him to bear.
The prayer contains:—
His Assurance of the Father’s Ability
His Petition
His Acceptanceof the Father’s Will
It is introduced by the invocation, “Abba, Father”; and it leads to a consideration of
Christ in Prayer.

The Invocation
“Abba, Father.”
1. The combination, “Abba, Father,” occurs three times in the New Testament,
with a meaning which is the same every time but is not fully understood until the
three occasions are studied separately and then brought together. The three
occasions are these: (1) By Jesus in Gethsemane. The words are: “And he said,
Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; remove this cup from me: howbeit
not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mark 14:36). (2) By St. Paul, in writing to the
Galatians. The words are: “But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth
his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them which
were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are
sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father”
(Galatians 4:4-6). (3) By St. Paul, to the Romans. The words are: “Forye received
not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the Spirit of adoption,
whereby we cry Abba, Father. The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit,
that we are children of God:and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-
heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified
with him” (Romans 8:15-17).
Take the thoughts in order—
(1) Here are all the persons concerned in redemption: (a) the Father, to whom the
cry is made; (b) the Son, who makes the cry for Himself in Gethsemane; (c) the
Spirit of the Son, who makes it in the heart of the other sons;(d) the sons
themselves, who, under the power of the Spirit, cry, “Abba, Father.”

(2) The cry is the cry of a son to a father. That in every case is the whole point and
meaning of it. In one case it is the cry of the Only-begotten Son; in the other cases
it is the cry of the adopted sons. But it is always the cry of a sonwho has the heart
of a son. An adopted sonmight not have the heart of a son. But in each case here
the Father says, “My beloved son”; and the son responds, crying, “Abba, Father.”
(3) The true heart of a son, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father,” is due to the gift of
the Spirit. Look at St. Paul’s argument to the Galatians. There he states two things:
first, that when the fulness of time came, God sent forth His Son into the world;
second, that because we are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our
hearts.1 [Note: Expository Times, xx. 358.]
2. Our Lord’s appeal to God as “Father” was evidence that He was not, even then,
forsaken in His humanity. He experienced the deep depression, the spiritual
eclipse, the midnight darkness, under which we may speak as if utterly desolate.
But a, feeling of forsakenness is no proofof the reality. As the sun is not altered
when eclipsed, so God was as near in Gethsemane as on the Mount of
Transfiguration. The Sufferer expressed this confidence when calling on Him as
“Father.” God has forsaken no one who utters this cry. The appeal is the response
to His own call. If as a child I say, “My Father,” He as Father has already said,
“My child.” Mourning after an absent God is an evidence of love as strong as
rejoicing in a present one.
Speak to me, my God;
And let me know the living Father cares
For me, even me; for this one of His choice.

Hast Thou no word for me? I am Thy thought.
God, let Thy mighty heart beat into mine,
And let mine answer as a pulse to Thine.
See, I am low; yea, very low; but Thou
Art high, and Thou canst lift me up to Thee.
I am a child, a fool before Thee, God;
But Thou hast made my weakness as my strength.
I am an emptiness for Thee to fill;
My soul, a cavern for Thy sea.
“Thoumakest me long,” I said, “therefore wilt give;
My longing is Thy promise, O my God.”1 [Note: George Macdonald.]
I

His Assurance of the Father’s Ability
“All things are possible unto thee.”
The words are without reservation and they must be accepted unreservedly. All
things are possible to God always. There is no question of His power under any
circumstances. The only question is as to His will. “All things are possible unto
thee.”
It was so with our Lord on earth. “If thou wilt,” said the leper, “thou canst make
me clean.” His answer was, “I will.” Whereupon the leprosy departed from the
man.
This is a most comfortable doctrine. There is nothing impossible with God. We
never have to do with a baffled, helpless God. He is always able. And so, as the
only doubtwe can ever have about Him is His willingness, we know that whatever
we do not receive is something that would not be good for us to receive. Forwe
know that His will is to do us good. We know that He will never withhold any
good thing from them that love Him.
The cup which was put into the hands of our Lord in Gethsemane was so bitter that
if He had not known absolutely that all things are possible to God, He would have
thought that the Father could not help offering it. And that is actually how we look
upon it. There was no other way, we say. We limit God’sresources. Wecurtail
God’s power. We may say that there was no better way; for that is self-evident. He
took this way of redeeming us because it was the best way—the way of love. But if
it were not that His will always is for the best—the best for us and the best for our

Saviour—who can tell that He would not have chosenanother way than this
strange way of agony and bitter tears?
It was the best way for our Saviour. When He was able to say, “Not my will but
thine,” He entered into rest. He despised the shame. And it is the bestway for us.
“Father, if it be possible,” we say. But let us never, never end with that. For it is
possible if it is His will. Let us always add—“Nevertheless, not my will but thine
be done.”
II
His Petition
“Remove this cup from me.”
What was the Cup? In considering this question, says E. L. Hull, we have to take
account of two things at the outset:
(1) On the one hand, we must never forget that the suffering of Christ is a mystery
too profound for us ever fully to understand. The very fact that the Divine One
could suffer is, in itself, beyond our comprehension. The fact that Christ’s
sufferings were vicarious, invests them with still deeper darkness. That in Christ
the Divine was manifested in a human form, and was thus connected with the
human, is the sourceof the profoundestmystery in His sufferings. We know that in
man the soul and bodymysteriously affect each other; that the agony of the spirit
will, by some inexplicable method, shatter the material frame; but what effect the
manifestation of Divinity had on a frail human bodywe can never understand.
Thus it must not be forgotten that the sufferings of Christ as the Divine Man are

veiled in impenetrable darkness, and form a subject which must be approached
with deepest awe. The man who boldly speculates on this has lost all reverence,
while he who stands before it in reverential love will be able partly to comprehend
its mystery.
(2) The second point is, that while the sufferings of Christ are awfully mysterious,
we may obtain some dim insight into their character and source by considering
that, though Divine, Christ was also perfectly human—subject to all the sinless
laws of our nature. We are spirits in human forms; we know how the spiritual can
suffer in the material, and have thus one requisite for forming a feeble conception
of the sourceof the Saviour’s sufferings.
Luther was once questioned at table concerning the “bloodysweat” and the other
deep spiritual sufferings which Christ endured in the Garden. Then he said: “No
man can know or conceive what that anguish must have been. If any man began
even to experience such suffering, he must die. You know many do die of sickness
of heart! for heart-anguish is indeed death. If a man could feel such anguish and
distress as Christ felt, it would be impossible for him to endure it, and for his soul
to remain in his body. Soul and bodywould part. To Christ alone was this agony
possible, and it wrung from Him ‘sweat which was as great drops of blood.’ ”1
[Note: Watchwords from Luther, 17.]
1. Was the Cup the physical pain of His sufferings? He endured physical anguish
to a degree inconceivable by us; for if it be true that the more sensitive the spirit
the more it weakens the bodily frame—that intense and protracted thought
diminishes its vigour—that mental labours waste its energy and render it
susceptible of the keenest suffering, then we may well supposethat Christ in the
agony of the garden and the cross endured physical suffering to an inconceivable
degree. But apart from the frequent occasions on which He showed that His spirit
was troubled, we may perhaps perceive that bodily suffering was not the chief
sourceof His sorrow, from one fact, namely, that physical suffering is endurable,

and by itself would not have overwhelmed Him. Man can bear bodily anguish to
almost any degree. Granting the consciousness ofrectitude, you can devise no pain
which cannot be borne by some men.
I have been struck lately, in reading works by some writers who belong to the
Romish Church, with the marvellous love which they have towards the Lord Jesus
Christ. I did think, at one time, that it could not be possible for any to be saved in
that Church; but, often, after I have risen from reading the books of these holy
men, and have felt myself to be quite a dwarf by their side, I have said, “Yes,
despite their errors, these men must have been taught of the Holy Spirit.
Notwithstanding all the evils of which they have drunk so deeply, I am quite
certain that they must have had fellowship with Jesus, or else they could not have
written as they did.” Such writers are few and far between; but there is a remnant
according to the election of grace even in the midst of that apostate Church.
Looking at a bookby one of them the other day, I met with this remarkable
expression, “Shall that body, which has a thorn-crowned Head, have delicate, pain-
fearing members? God forbid!” That remark went straight to my heart at once.1
[Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]
2. Was the Cup the fear of Death? We cannot conceive that the overwhelming
sorrow of Jesus arose from the prospectof His approaching dissolution. For the
suffering of men through fear of death may be ascribed to two causes,—either the
sense of sin, or a doubtregarding the nature of the future life. We can well
conceive how a man who has a half dread lest death may be the extinction of
being, or who knows not whether futurity will bring him blessedness or woe,
should be overcome with a strange horror of dying. To such a man the uncertainty
is terrible, as he feels death may be but the escape from ills that are bearable to ills
that may be infinite. But we cannot supposethat anything like doubtor a fear of
the change of death for one moment overshadowed Jesus Christ. For, take one
illustration out of many, and compare the language of Christ with that of the
apostle Paul in prospectofdying, and we shall perceive that dread of the mere

change of death could not have affected Jesus. Paul on the very threshold of
martyrdom wrote, “I am ready to be offered.”
Celsus and Julian the Apostate contrasted Jesus, sorrowing and trembling in the
garden, with Socrates, the hero of the poisoncup, and with other heroes of
antiquity, greatly, of course, to the disadvantage of the former. “Why, then,” said
Celsus, scornfully alluding to Jesus’ conflict in the garden, “does He supplicate
help, and bewail Himself and pray for escape from the fear of death, expressing
Himself in terms like these, ‘O Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from
me’?” The Emperor Julian, quoted by Theodoreof Mopsuestia, uses, if possible,
still more scornful language: “Jesus presents such petitions as a wretched mortal
would offer when unable to bear a calamity with serenity, and although Divine, He
is strengthened by an angel.” To these heathen philosophers Jesus, trembling and
agonised in Gethsemane, seemed to come far short of the great men of classic
antiquity.1 [Note: A. B. Cameron.]
Whence did the martyrs draw their fortitude? Where did they find their strength to
meet death so bravely? Why could they look the great enemy in the face without
flinching, even when he wore his grimmest aspect?They were “strong in the Lord,
and in the power of his might.” His example was before them, His spirit within
them, His face above them. They saw Him standing at the right hand of God, the
Victor in His glory. They knew Him as the conquerorof death and the great
ravisher of the power of the grave. They passed into the valley treading in the
footprints He had left; they looked up through its darkness at their Leader on the
mountain-top. “The Breaker had gone up before them,” leaving the gates open for
them to pass through.2 [Note: G. A. Sowter.]
Thus every where we find our suffering God,
And where He trod

May set our steps:the Cross onCalvary
Uplifted high
Beams on the martyr host, a beacon light
In open fight.
To the still wrestlings of the lonely heart
He doth impart
The virtue of His midnight agony,
When none was nigh,
Save God and one good angel, to assuage
The tempest’s rage.
Mortal! if life smile on thee, and thou find

All to thy mind,
Think, who did once from Heaven to Hell descend
Thee to befriend;
So shalt Thou dare forego, at His dear call,
Thy best, thine all.
“O Father! not my will, but Thine be done”—
So spake the Son.
Be this our charm, mellowing earth’s ruder noise
Of griefs and joys;
That we may cling for ever to Thy breast
In perfect rest!1 [Note: J. Keble, The Christian Year, 85.]

3. There are several ingredients in the Cup. They may not be all equally evident,
and when we have considered them all we may still be far from the bottom of this
mystery of mysteries. But it is helpful to consider them, if it is done reverently and
self-reproachfully.
(1) The Cup was the necessity of coming into closestrelations with sinners, the
exceeding guilt of whose sin He alone was able to understand. Like the dwellers in
a city slum, they were unaware of the foul air they were breathing, they were
ignorant of the uncleanness of their lives. He came from the purity and holiness of
God’s throne. How could He breathe in this atmosphere? How could He touch
these defiled garments? Yet He must come into the very midst of it. His sympathy
for the sinner is not less than His loathing for the sin.
We know that the sympathy which a human spirit has with man is in proportionto
the magnitude of that spirit’s powers, and the depth of its emotional nature. It is
impossible for a human soulto sympathise with all humanity, but the men of
greatest genius and profoundestfeeling have the strongest sympathy with the race.
Men of feebler and narrower natures care but little for those beyond the circle of
their own friends, while the heart of the patriot beats in sympathy with the sorrows
of a nation and measures the wrongs of an age. Christ’s sympathy as the Divine
Son of Man was wide as the world. On all who lived then, on the men of the past,
on the generations of the future, He looked. Forall He felt. The pity of the Infinite
One throbbed in His heart. To His ear the great cry of the world was audible, and
to His eye all the woes of humanity were clear. Rise a step higher, and consider
that Jesus saw the deep connection between suffering and sin—saw men being
driven like slaves in the chains that connect the sin with the suffering, and at the
same time blinded by their own evil. He saw in sorrow more than sorrow. Every
tear of the weeping world and every death that broke the fair companionships of
earth, touched His sympathy, not simply by their agony, but because they were the
fruits of sin. Here we find the meaning of the sighing and sadness with which He
looked on suffering, for, while He denounced the narrow notion that each man’s
suffering springs from his own sin, yet suffering and death were to Him the signs

of man’s universal wandering from God. Rise one step higher—a mighty step, yet
one the extent of which we may faintly apprehend. Christ knew the power of sin
just becauseHe was free from it. He entered into the very awfulness of
transgression because of His perfect sympathy with man. Does this seem
perplexing? Do we not know that the purest and most compassionatemen ever
have the keenest perception of the sins of their brethren, and feel them like a
burden on their own hearts? Must not Christ, the Perfect One, have felt the evil of
the world’s sin, as it pressed against His soul, most profoundly becauseHe was
sinless?1 [Note: E. L. Hull.]
(2) This Cup of suffering was embittered by the behaviour of those for whom He
was suffering. As the wretched victims of debauchery will sometimes refuse the
sympathy and help of those who seek to restore them to a better life, so Christ was
despised and rejected by those whom He desired to redeem. The Gentiles crucified
Him; the rulers of His people condemned Him to death; His disciples forsookHim
and fled; one of them betrayed Him. He that ate bread with Him lifted up his heel
against Him.
This is a grief which strikes deeply and keenly into the soul, in proportion to its
own elevation and purity. Such souls care not for the opposition and for the
obloquy of the stranger, or the worldly, or of those from whom nothing better can
be expected. But the real keen and piercing grief of noble minds is when they feel
that the familiar friend in whom they trusted has turned against them, that the
leader and companion on whom they leaned, as on a part of themselves, has given
way. This is, indeed, agony. Of all the dreadful experiences of human life is not
this one of the darkest, the moment when the truth may have first flashed upon us
that some steadfast character on whom we relied has broken in our hand; that in
some fine spirit whom we deeply admired has been disclosed a yawning cavern of
sin and wickedness? Such was His feeling when He saw that Judas could no more
be trusted; when He saw that Peter and James and John, instead of watching round
Him, had sunk into a deep slumber—“What, could ye not watch with me one
hour?”

(3) This want of understanding of even His own disciples drove Him into a
solitude that at such a time and to such a nature must have been very hard to bear.
Notice the words, “He went a little further.” Do you not already feel the awful
loneliness conveyed by these words:the sense of separation, the sense of solitude?
Jesus is approaching the solemn climax of His life, and as He draws near to it the
solitude deepens. He has long since left the home of His mother and His brethren,
and will see it no more. He has but recently left the sacred home of Bethany, that
haven of peace where He has often rested, and where the hands of Mary have
anointed Him against His burial. He has even now left the chamber of the Paschal
supper, and the seal of finality has been put upon His earthly ministry in the
drinking of the cup when He said to His disciples, “Remember me.” He has just
left eight of His disciples at the outer gate of Gethsemane, saying, “Stay ye here
while I go and pray yonder.” A few moments later, and He parts from Peter and
James and John, saying, “Tarry ye here and watch with me,” and He went a little
further. It was but a stone’s throw, says St. Luke, and yet an infinite gulf now lay
between Him and them.
This loneliness of life in its common forms we all know something about. We
know, for instance, that the parting of friends is one of the commonest experiences
of life. People come into our lives for a time; they seem inseparable from us, and
then by force of circumstances or by some slowly widening difference of temper or
opinion, or by one of those many social forms of separation of which life is full,
they slowly drift out of our touch and our life. “We must part, as all human
creatures have parted,” wrote Dean Swift to Alexander Pope, and there is no sadder
sentence than that in human biography. It strikes upon the ear like a knell.1 [Note:
W. J. Dawson.]
But no boldness of thought and no heroism of conductwill ever be possible to us
until we have learned to stand alone and to go “a little further.” You remember that
the favourite lines of General Gordon, which he often quoted in those splendid
lonely days at Khartoum, were the lines taken from Browning’s “Paracelsus”—

I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first,
I ask not: but unless God send His hail
Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow,
In some time, His good time, I shall arrive:
He guides me and the bird.
4. But there is a greater sorrowhere. In some way, mysterious but most assured,
He had to make the guilt of the sin of mankind His own. He had to take the
sinner’s place—his place as a sinner—and acceptthe burden of his sinfulness. His
agony becomes intelligible only when we accept His own explanation of all His
suffering and woe, that He had come to give His life a ransom for many, and to
shed His blood for the remission of their sins. In other words, He had come to
make the sins of others His own, and to suffer and die as if He had committed
them, and as if the guilt and the penalty of them were His.
How Jesus could assume and have this personal relation to sins not His own is the
real mystery here. It must ever be, like much else in His Divine human being,
largely beyond our finite thought. It goes so far to explain it that He was the Son of
Man, and that in this unique character He could be for men what no other could
possibly be. As the God-man He was related to humanity, to its burden and its

destiny, as no other could be. He was its head and representative. As suchHe
could, while sinless Himself, make the sin, the agony, and the conflict of our fallen
race His own. The suffering and the death which this involved He as the second
Adam underwent, not for His own sake, but for the sake of humanity, that all might
issue in salvation. Thus far the Incarnation throws light upon Gethsemane and
Calvary. It did not merely add another to the number of our race, but it gave a new
Divine centre or head to it, and one in whose personal history the agony and
conflict of humanity because of sin might be endured and brought to the victory of
redemption.
It affords us, also, a new revelation of God, showing Him in the glory of His grace.
We can understand charity and self-denying beneficence meeting the results of evil
in this world—the poverty, misery, and suffering it has caused—with their bounty
and all the services and forms of self-sacrifice possible to them; but here is
philanthropy on the Son of Man’s part going so far as to deal with the evil itself
and all its demerit and guiltiness, its relations to the moral order of the universe,
and to the claims and glory of God. ForDivine love to relate itself to human need
and suffering, and to multiply its offices of charity in relieving them is a great
thing; but for Divine love to clothe itself with the shame and guilt of the sufferers
and make their cause its own is another and an infinitely greater thing. For God’s
Son to come into the midst of suffering men that He might share their ills and
sorrows, and provide them with comforts and abatements, would reveal a beautiful
compassionand beneficence. But for Him to descend from His Divine throne, step
into the sinner’s place, and suffer Himself to be numbered with the transgressors,
bearing their burden and blame—this is grace beyond all we can conceive of grace.
5. But what is it that makes it so hard for Him to have to take the sinner’s place? It
is that the sinner is an outcast from God. Sin has broken the communion. And now
He who was spoken of as the beloved Son has to bear the Father’s displeasure and
feel the unutterable pain of separation. No wonder He prayed, “Father, glorify thou
me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” For that glory was
to be loved by the Father: “Forthou lovedst me before the foundation of the

world.” The Father loves Him still and will glorify Him again. But now He feels
that He is about to be separated. One with the sinner in his sin, He must feel that
He is separate from the Father in His holiness. The Agony in the Garden is the cry
on the cross—“MyGod, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” It casts its dark
shadow before. If He accepts the Cup now He will go through it all, even though
when the moment comes that cry may yet be wrung from Him.
Imagine the evil of the world being felt by Him as a mighty burden, and that
feeling gathering and deepening until over His frail humanity it rolled like a
flood,—the sense of the world’s sin cleaving to Him, the sense of the world’s woe
rousing Him to compassiontill its mighty mass seemed to be tearing Him from
God, and the awful cry came at last, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” Add to this the
mystery of His Divinity—the Divine capacity of sorrowwithin the human form—
and who can tell what suffering His soul knew? Who can tell the horror of
darkness and the shuddering agony of pity that thrilled Him as the cry burst forth,
“O my Father, let this cup pass from me”?
To bear the weight of sin, and by it to feel cut off from the communion with God
which is Life Eternal—this is the one thing absolutely unbearable. We sinners
know it, if ever we have felt what men call remorse for our own sin, or for its
consequences, which we would give worlds to undo—if ever we know what it is to
struggle with all our might against the bondage of conscious sinfulness, and to
struggle in vain. The sense that sin has gained an absolute mastery over us, and that
in the darkness of its bondage God’s faceof love is hidden from us for ever, and
the unwilling terrors of His wrath let loose upon our unsheltered heads—which of
us would not count light in comparison the very keenest agony of bodyand soul?
You remember how St. Paul cries out under it, “O wretched man that I am! Who
shall deliver me from the bodyof this death?” But this sense of our own sin is but a
faint shadow of the burden on our Lord’s spirit of bearing, in the mysterious power
of Atonement, the sins of the whole world—“made” (as St. Paul boldly expresses
it) “sin for us,” entering even into the spiritual darkness which cries out, “My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”1 [Note: Bishop Barry.]

Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent;
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspentwith love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him,
The little grey leaves were kind to Him,
When into the woods He came.
Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content;
Out of the woods my Master came,
Content with death and shame.

When death and shame would woo Him last,
From under the trees they drew Him last;
’Twas on a tree they slew Him—last
When out of the woods He came.2 [Note: Sidney Lanier.]
III
His Acceptanceof the Father’s Will
“Howbeit not what I will, but what thou wilt.”
1. Not what I will.—It was His meat and drink, as He Himself has told us, to do
His Father’s will and to finish His work. We can understand Him doing the will of
His Father with gladness when, in accordancewith it, He had miracles to perform,
Divine blessings to spread abroad, and His own perfectly pure and good life to
live. We can also understand Him bravely doing it when, with His soul which
loathed evil and every kind of wrong, He bore up unflinchingly against the wrongs
and the evils with which He was Himself assailed. But Jesus’ subjection went far
beyond this when He took the cross from His Father’s hand, and meekly said as He
did so in Gethsemane, “Not what I will, but what thou wilt.”
The consentof His will was absolutely necessary. So He said Himself of His life,
“I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” That consent,

again, was needed at every point. At any moment His own words might have been
realised, “Cannot I pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than
twelve legions of angels?” That consent, further, had to be given under a perfect
fore-knowledge of all that it implied—every pang of suffering, every cruelty of
triumphant evil. In these points, as in all others, His was the one perfect sacrifice,
laying a will, itself absolutely free, at the feet of His Father. Doubtless we may
follow Him—we must follow Him—but it is afar off.
We read of a martyr of the English Reformation, before whose eyes at the stake
was held up the pardon which awaited his recantation; and who cried out in an
agony which he found fiercer than the fire itself, “If ye love my soul, away with
it.” And the secret of such agony, as also the essence of sacrifice, lies in the
submission of the will—in the subjection of that mysterious power, which in man,
weak and finite as he is, can be (so God wills it) overcome by no force except its
own. “Sacrifice and burnt offering thou wouldest not. Then said I, Lo! I come to do
thy will, O God.”I am content to do it.1 [Note: Bishop Barry.]
What a contrast within the spaceof a few hours! What a transition from the quiet
elevation of that, “he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father! I will,” to that
falling on the ground and crying in agony, “My Father! not what I will.” In the one
we see the High Priest within the veil in His all-prevailing intercession; in the
other, the sacrifice on the altar opening the way through the rent veil. The high-
priestly “Father! I will,” in order of time precedes the sacrificial “Father! not what
I will”; but this was only by anticipation, to show what the intercession would be
when once the sacrifice was brought. In reality it was that prayer at the altar,
“Father! not what I will,” in which the prayer before the throne, “Father! I will,”
had its origin and its power. It is from the entire surrender of His will in
Gethsemane that the Hight Priest on the throne has the power to ask what He will,
has the right to make His people share in that power too, and ask what they will.

2. What Thou wilt.—Out of that agony—borne through the power of intense
prayer of supplication—came forth submission to the will of the Father. Not the
acceptance of an inevitable fate, against which it is vain, and therefore foolish to
strive—such as a mere Fatalist or Cynic might show. But the submission, first, of a
perfect faith—sure that whatever our Father ordains must be well—sure that He
will not suffer one tear or pang that is not needed for Salvation—sure that
whatever He lays on us, He will give us comfort and strength to bear. “Not my
will, but Thine be done—Thine the all-wise—Thine the all-merciful—Thine the
almighty will.” But, even beyond this, there is the submission of love. There is an
actual delight in sacrifice of self for those we love, which, in the world as it is,
makes men count inevitable suffering as joy, and, out of that suffering for others,
actually begets a fresh access of love to them, which is itself an exaltation and a
comfort.
Christ’s prayer was not for the passing of the cup, but that the will of God might be
done in and by Him, and “He was heard in that he feared,” not by being exempted
from the Cross, but by being strengthened through submission for submission. So
His agony is the pattern of all true prayer, which must ever deal with our wishes, as
He did with His instinctive shrinking,—present them wrapped in an “if it be
possible,” and followed by a “nevertheless.” The meaning of prayer is not to force
our wills on God’s,butto bend our wills to His; and that prayer is really answered
of which the issue is our calm readiness for all that He lays upon us.1 [Note: A.
Maclaren.]
3. It is best so. The cup did not pass from Him becauseit was not possible; but yet
in two ways, far above our ways, His prayer was granted. It was granted first of
all—(the whole history of the Passionproves it)—it was granted in the heavenly
strength that was given to Him to bear all the pains and sorrows that were laid
upon Him. As afterwards He said to His great Apostle, “My grace is sufficient for
thee,” so, now, God’s grace was sufficient for Him. There appeared, we are told,
an angel from heaven strengthening Him; and in the power of that strength He rose
from His knees, no longer sorrowful, no longer bowed down with terror and

trouble, but calm and cheerful, ready to go forth and meet His enemies, ready to
bear all the taunts and pains of His trial and crucifixion, ready to answer a good
confession before Pontius Pilate, and to pray for His brothers, and to think of His
mother and friend, and of His companions in woe, and to look back on the
finishing of His mighty work, and to commend His soul to His Father—more
majestic, more adorable, more Divine than He had ever seemed before.
Let us fix our thoughts on that second and yet grander mode in which our Lord’s
petition was answered, even according to those sacred words of His own, which
are the model of all prayer, which are the key and secret of this Divine tragedy—
“Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.” That is the sum and substanceof the
whole narrative of the Passion. Not the substitution of the will of Christ for the will
of the eternal God, but the substitution of the will of the eternal God for the will
even of His most dearly beloved Son.
There is a friend of mine, a dear and brilliant friend, whose name would be
honoured by you all if I were free to mention it. He told me the other day the
darkest chapter of his life. He told me how his whole life lay suddenly broken off
in disaster: his work ended, his heart broken, himself in hospital suffering cruel
pain. And then he said: “Oh, Dawson, what visions of God I had as I lay in
hospital! what a sense of eternity, and the reality of things spiritual! I tell you, if I
knew to-day I could gain such visions of God and truth only by repeating my
sufferings, I would crawl upon my hands and knees across this continent to get that
disease!” Ah! there lies the justification of our Gethsemanes. We need the utter
loneliness, we need the separation from friend and lover, to make us sure of God.
“And Jacob was left alone,” says the older record: “and there wrestled a man with
him till the breaking of the day.” Even so—till the breaking of the day, for the
divinest of all dawns shines in the Gethsemane of sacrifice.1 [Note: W. J.
Dawson.]

4. How blessed was the Result. He prayed His way to perfect calm, which is ever
the companion of perfect self-surrender to God. They who cease from their own
works do “enter into rest.” All the agitations which had come storming in massed
battalions against Him are defeated by it. They have failed to shake His purpose,
they now fail even to disturb His peace. So, victorious from the dreadful conflict,
and at leisure of heart to care for others, He can go back to the disciples.
And so you find that from this moment Jesus moves to His end in majestic calm.
The agony is passed, and it is passed for ever; He knows the darkness to be but the
shadow of God’s wing. He speaks henceforth as one who sees the dawn, and has
the light of dawn upon His brow.
And how great is the Encouragement. Christ’s agony is the very consecration of
human suffering, the fresh spring of human hope. There is no depth into which we
can be plunged that He has not fathomed, no gloom into which we can be cast that
He has not illumined. There are trials harder to bear even than death itself, but
Christ has known their bitterness, and if we recognise the sourceof sin from which
they first flowed, He can turn those bitter waters into rivers of comfort.
We very properly distinguish in ourselves two wills, the one of natural inclination,
the instinctive will, if you please; the other the deliberate purposeand choice of the
moral and rational nature. Our first effort must be the complete surrender of our
deliberate rational will to God, to work ever in submission to His gracious ordering
for our lives. Then the constant discipline of the Christian life becomes the stern
struggle to subdue the will of natural inclination and to bring it a captive to our
Lord. This is the sacrifice we have to offer Him, a feeble counterpart in our small
way, of the heroic self-sacrifice He offered that day in Gethsemane.1 [Note: A.
Ritchie.]
I know, O Jesus, in the bitter hour

Of human pain, that Thou hast felt the power
Of deeper anguish, and my lips are still,
Because in silence Thou hast borne God’swill.2 [Note: E. H. Divall, The Ways of
God, 22.]
Christ in Prayer
What is prayer? It is to connect every thought with the thought of God. To look on
everything as His work and His appointment. To submit every thought, wish, and
resolve to Him. To feel His presence, so that it shall restrain us even in our wildest
joy. That is prayer. And what we are now, surely we are by prayer. If we have
attained any measure of goodness, if we have resisted temptations, if we have any
self-command, or if we live with aspirations and desires beyond the common, we
shall not hesitate to ascribe all to prayer.
1. Christ is an Example in prayer. There is many a case in life, where to act seems
useless—many a truth which at times appears incredible. Then we throw ourselves
on Him—He did it, He believed it, that is enough. He was wise, where I am
foolish. He was holy, where I am evil. He must know. He must be right. I rely on
Him. Bring what arguments you may; say that prayer cannot change God’s will. I
know it. Say that prayer ten thousand times comes back like a stone. Yes, but
Christ prayed, therefore I may and I will pray. Not only so, but I must pray; the
wish felt and not uttered before God, is a prayer. Speak, if your heart prompts, in
articulate words, but there is an unsyllabled wish which is also prayer. You cannot
help praying, if God’s spirit is in yours.

2. Christ’s Prayer is an Example of what prayer is. A common popular conception
of prayer is, that it is the means by which the wish of man determines the Will of
God. This conception finds an exact parallel in those anecdotes with which
Oriental history abounds, wherein a sovereign gives to his favourite some token,
on the presentation of which every request must be granted. As when Ahasuerus
promised Queen Esther that her petition should be granted, even to the half of his
kingdom. As when Herod swore to Herodias’ daughter that he would do whatever
she should require.
(1) Try this conceptionby four tests:
(a) Try it by its incompatibility with the fact that this universe is a system of laws.
Things are thus, rather than thus. Such an event is invariably followed by such a
consequence. This we call a law. All is one vast chain, from which if you strike a
single link you break the whole. It has been truly said that to heave a pebble on the
seashore one yard higher up would change all antecedents from the creation, and
all consequents to the end of time. For it would have required a greater force in the
wave that threw it there—and that would have required a different degree of
strength in the storm—that again, a change of temperature all over the globe—and
that again, a corresponding difference in the temperaments and characters of the
men inhabiting the different countries. So that when a child wishes a fine day for
his morrow’s excursion, and hopes to have it by an alteration of what would have
been without his wish, he desires nothing less than a whole new universe.
(b) Try it next by fact. Ask those of spiritual experience. We do not ask whether
prayer has been efficacious—of courseit has. It is God’sordinance. Without
prayer the soul dies. But what we ask is, whether the good derived has been exactly
this, that prayer brought them the very thing they wished for? Forinstance, did the
plague come and go according to the laws of prayer or the laws of health? Did it
come because men neglected prayer, or because they disobeyed those rules which

His wisdom has revealed as the conditions of salubrity? And when it departed was
it because a nation lay prostrate in sackcloth and ashes, or becauseit arose and
girded up its loins and removed those causes and those obstructions which, by
everlasting Law, are causes and obstructions?Did the catarrh or the consumption
go from him who prayed, soonerthan from him who humbly boreit in silence? Try
it by the case of Christ—Christ’s prayer did not succeed. He prayed that the cup
might pass from Him. It did not so pass.
(c) Try it by its assumptions. To think that prayer changes God’swill, gives
unworthy ideas of God. It supposes ourwill to be better than His, the
Unchangeable, the Unsearchable, the All-Wise. Can you see the All of things—the
consequences and secret connections of the event you wish? And if not, would you
really desire the terrible power of infallibly securing it?
(d) Try it by its results. If we think that answered prayer is a proofof grace, we
shall be unreasonably depressed and unreasonably elated—depressed when we do
not get what we wish, elated when we do;besides, we shall judge uncharitably of
other men. Two farmers pray, the one whose farm is on light land, for rain; the
other, whose contiguous farm is on heavy soil, for fine weather; plainly one or the
other must come, and that which is good for one may be injurious to the other. If
this be the right view of prayer, then the one who does not obtain his wish must
mourn, doubting God’s favour, or believing that he did not pray in faith. Two
Christian armies meet for battle—Christian men on both sides pray for success to
their own arms. Now if victory be given to prayer, independent of other
considerations, we are driven to the pernicious principle that, success is the test of
Right. From all which the history of this prayer of Christ delivers us. It is a
precious lesson of the Cross, that apparent failure is Eternal victory. It is a precious
lesson of this prayer, that the object of prayer is not the success ofits petition; nor
is its rejection a proof of failure. Christ’s petition was not gratified, yet He was the
One well-beloved of His Father.

(2) The true efficacy of prayer is found in the words, “As thou wilt.” All prayer is
to change the will human into submission to the will Divine. Trace the steps in this
history by which the mind of the Son of Man arrived at this result. First, we find
the human wish almost unmodified, that “That cup might pass from Him.” Then
He goes to the disciples, and it would appear that the sight of those disciples, cold,
unsympathetic, asleep, chilled His spirit, and set in motion that train of thought
which suggested the idea that perhaps the passing of that cup was not His Father’s
will. At all events He goes back with this perhaps, “If this cup may not pass from
me except I drink it, thy will be done.” He goes back again, and the words become
more strong: “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” The last time He
comes, all hesitancy is gone. Not one trace of the human wish remains; strong in
submission, He goes to meet His doom—“Rise, let us be going; behold he is at
hand that doth betray me.” This, then, is the true courseand history of prayer.1
[Note: F. W. Robertson.]
He prayed, but to his prayer no answer came,
And choked within him sank his ardour’s flame;
No more he prayed, no more the knee he bent,
While round him darkened doubt and discontent;
Till in his room, one eve, there shone a light,
And he beheld an angel-presence bright,

Who said: “O faint heart, why hast thou resigned
Praying, and no more callest God to mind?”
“I prayed,” he said, “but no one heard my prayer,
Long disappointment has induced despair.”
“Fool!” said the angel, “every prayer of thine,
Of God’s immense compassionwas a sign;
Each cry of thine ‘O Lord!’ itself contains
The answer, ‘Here am I’; thy very pains,
Ardour, and love and longing, every tear
Are His attraction, prove Him very near.”
The cloud dispersed;once more the suppliant prayed,

Nor ever failed to find the promised aid.2 [Note: Jalaluddin Rumi, in Claud Field’s
A Little Book of Eastern Wisdom, 49.]
The Prayer in Gethsemane
BIBLEHUB RESOURCES
Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
The Cup Of Experience
Mark 14:36
A. Rowland
The mystery of our Lord's suffering is beyond our power of accurate analysis.
We cannotfathom the depths of sin and grief which he experienced. We must
not suppose that, because we are so familiar with this narrative, we know all
its significance. At the most we have only felt one wave of the sea ofsorrow
which sobbed and swelledin his infinite heart. Only one phase of this
manysided subject will engage our attention. Leaving the atoning nature of
the sufferings of our Lord, we will now regardhim as the Representative of
his people, their Forerunner in this as in all things. The "cup" is a figure
familiar enough to all students of Scripture.
I. THE CUP OF EXPERIENCE maybe representedby the cup which was the
symbol of the mockeryand shame and grief the Savior suffered.
1. The phrase reminds us that our joys and griefs are measured. A cup is not
illimitable. Full to the brim, it canonly hold its own measure.

(1) Our joys are limited by what is in us, and by what is in them. If a man
prospers in the world, his wealthbrings him not only comfort, but care,
anxiety, and responsibility, so that he may occasionallywishhimself back in
his former lowlier lot. And family joys bring their anxieties to every home
which has them. No one drinks here of an oceanof bliss but he thanks God for
a "cup" of it, measured by One who knows what will be best for character.
This is true even of spiritual joys. The time of ecstasyis followedby a season
of depression. The Valley of Humiliation is passed, as well as the Delectable
Mountains, by Christian in his pilgrimage. Nowhere on earth can we say, "I
am satisfied;" but many, like the psalmist, can exclaim, "I shall be satisfied."
(2) Our griefs are limited also. Theyare proportioned to our strength,
adapted for our improvement. Even in the saddestbereavementthere is much
to moderate our grief if we will but receive it: gratitude for all our dear one
was and did; gladness overall the testimonies of love and esteemin which he
was held; hope that by-and-by there shall be the reunion, where there shall be
no more sorrow and sighing, and where "Godshall wipe awayall tears from
our eyes." Goddoes not let an oceanofsadness surge up and overwhelm us,
but gives us a cup, which we may drink in fellowshipwith Christ in his
sufferings.
2. The phrase in our text suggestsnotonly measurement, but loving control.
Our Lord recognized, as we may humbly do, that the cup was filled and
proffered by him whom he addressedas "Abba, Father." In one sense the
events in Gethsemane and on Calvary were the results of natural causes.
Integrity and sinlessnesscalledforth the antagonismof those whose sins were
thereby rebuked. Plain-spokendenunciations of the ecclesiasticalleaders
arousedtheir undying hate, and no hatred is more malignant than that of
irreligious theologians. Judas, disappointedand abashed, was a ready
instrument for evil work. Yet, behind all this, One unseenwas carrying out his
eternal purpose, fulfilling his promise, "The seedof the womanshall bruise
the serpent's head." Hence Jesus speaks notof the plot accomplishedby his
foes, but of the cup given him by the Father. We are at an infinite remove
from him, yet, as the same law which controls worlds controls insects, so the
truth which held good with the Son of man holds goodalso with us. We may

recognize God's overruling in man's working, and accepteverymeasure of
experience as provided and proffered by our Father's hand.
II. THE PURPOSE OF ITS APPOINTMENT. Thatit comes from our
"Father" shows that it has a purpose, and that it is one of love, not of cruelty.
It is not like the cup of hemlock Socrates receivedfrom his foes, but like that
potion you give your child that he may be refreshed, or strengthened, or
cured.
1. Sometimes the purpose respects ourselves.Evenof Jesus Christ, the sinless
One, it is said he was "made perfect through sufferings;" that as our Brother
he might feelfor us, and as our High Priestmight sympathize, being "touched
with the feeling of our infirmities." Much more is the experience of life a
blessing to us who are imperfect and sinful; correcting our worldliness, and
destroying our self-confidence.
2. Sometimes the purpose respects others. It was so with our Lord pre-
eminently. He "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his
life a ransomfor many." "None of us liveth unto himself." If our cup of
blessing runs over, its overflowings, whetherof wealth, or strength, or
spiritual joy, are for the goodof those around us. If our lot be one of suffering,
we may in it witness for our Lord, and from it learn to console others with the
comfort wherewith we ourselves have been comforted of God. - A.R.

Biblical Illustrator
Which was named Gethsemane.
Mark 14:32-36
The conflict in Gethsemane
Charles Stanford, D. D.
I. THE PLACE OF THE CONFLICT CALLS FOR A BRIEF NOTICE.
II. THE STORYOF THE CONFLICT. Its intensity is the first factin the
story that strikes us. "His sweatwas as it were greatdrops of blood falling to
the ground." This conflict wrung from the Saviour a greatcry. What was it?
"O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless not as
I will, but as Thou wilt." We have a glimpse of the conflictcarried on by
Christ for us, single-handed.
III. THE SLEEP OF THE DISCIPLES WHILST THIS CONFLICT WAS
GOING ON.
(Charles Stanford, D. D.)
Gethsemane
The Preacher's Monthly.
I. Gethsemane suggeststo reverent faith our blessedRedeemer's longing for
human sympathy.
II. It reminds us of the sacrednessofhuman sorrow and Divine communion.
III. It reveals the overwhelming fulness of the Redeemer's sorrow.

IV. It reminds us of the will of Christ yielded to the will of the Father.
V. It has lessons andinfluences for our own hearts.
(The Preacher's Monthly.)
Jesus in Gethsemane
H. L. B. Speare.
I. WOE'S BITTERESTCUP SHOULD BE TAKEN WHEN IT IS THE
MEANS OF HIGHEST USEFULNESS. Wastedsuffering is the climax of
suffering. Affliction's furnace heat loses its keenestpangs for those who can
see the form of One like unto the Sonof Man walking with them by example,
and know that they are ministering to the world's true joy and life, in some
degree, as He did.
II. FROM OUR LORD'S EXAMPLE WE LEARN THE HELPFULNESS IN
SORROW OF RELIANCE UPON HUMAN AND DIVINE
COMPANIONSHIP COMBINED. Butto do both in proper proportion is not
easy. Some hide from both earth and heavenas much as possible. Others lean
wholly upon human supports; others, yet, turn to God in a seclusionto which
the tenderestoffices of friends are unwelcome. Our Lord's divinity often
appears plainest in his symmetrical union of traits, mainly remark. able
because oftheir combination. He was at once the humblest and boldest of
men; the farthest from sin and the most compassionate towards the returning
prodigal; the meekestand the most commanding. So, in the garden agony, he
leaned upon human and Divine supports; the one as indispensable as the
other. Whateverthe situation, we are not to actthe recluse. Life's circles need
us and we need them. Neither are we to forget the Father in heaven. Storms
and trial only increase His ready sympathy and succour.
III. OUR LORD'S CRUCIAL OBEDIENCEIN THE GARDEN AGONY
REFLECTS THE MAJESTYOF THE HUMAN WILL AND ITS POSSIBLE
MASTERYOF EVERY TRIAL IN PERFECTOBEDIENCE TO THE
DIVINE WILL. However superhuman Jesus'suffering, He was thoroughly

human in it. He had all our faculties, and used them as we may use ours. It is
no small encouragementthat the typical Man gives us an example of perfect
obedience, ata costunknown before or since. In the mutual relations of the
human and Divine wills all merit is achievedand all characterconstructed.
Learned authors dwell with deservedinterest upon the world's "decisive
battles," the pivots of destiny. The soul's future for time and eternity turns
upon contests in which the will is in chief command. Intellect and sensibilities
participate, but they are always subordinate. It were helpful to bear this in
mind under every exposure. Let the inquiry be quick and constant, What
saith the will? Is that steadyand unflinching?
IV. JESUS'SOUL COULD HAVE BEEN "SORROWFULEVEN UNTO
DEATH" ONLY AS HIS SUFFERINGS WERE VICARIOUS. He was always
sublimely heroic. Why such agonynow? It was something far deadlier than
death. It was the burden and mystery of the world's sin. The Lamb of God
was slain for us in soul agonyrather than by physical pain. His soul formed
the soulof His sufferings.
V. GETHSEMANE'SDARKNESS PAINTS SIN'S GUILT AND RUIN IN
FAITHFUL AND ENDURING COLOUR. It is easyto think lightly of sin.
Having never known guilt, Christ met the same hidings of the Divine
countenance as do the guilty. This was man's disobedience in its relationwith
God's law and judgment.
VI. GETHSEMANE THROWS PORTENTOUS LIGHT UPON THE WOE
OF LOST SOULS. He suffered exceptionally, but He was also a typical
sufferer; every soul has possibilities beyond our imagination; and terrible the
doom when these possibilities are fulfilled in the direction to which
Gethsemane points.
VII. OUR LESSON GIVES TERRIBLE EMPHASIS TO THE FACT AND
SERIOUSNESS OF IMPOSSIBILITIES WITHGOD. Our time tends
strongly towards lax notions of the Divine characterand law and of the
conditions of salvation. The will and fancy erecttheir own standards. Religion
and obedience are to be settled according to individual notions, a subjective
affair. Our Lord's agonized words, "If it be possible," establishthe rigidity

and absolutenessofgovernmental and spiritual conditions. God's will and
plans are objective realities;they have definite and all-important direction
and demands. Man should not think of being a law unto himself either in
conduct or belief; leastof all should he sit in judgment upon the revealed
Word, fancying that any amount or kind of inner light is a true and sufficient
test of its legitimacy and authority. But, how futile all attempts at fathoming
Gethsemane's lessons.
(H. L. B. Speare.)
Christ in Gethsemane
J. H. Hitchens.
I. GETHSEMANESAW CHRIST'S AGONY ON ACCOUNT OF SIN.
II. GETHSEMANE WAS A WITNESS OF CHRIST'S DEVOTION IN THE
HOUR OF DISTRESS.
III. GETHSEMANE WAS A WITNESS OF CHRIST'S RESIGNATIONTO
THE WILL OF GOD.
IV. GETHSEMANE WAS A WITNESS OF CHRIST'S SYMPATHY WITH,
AND AFFECTION FOR, HIS TRIED FOLLOWERS.
(J. H. Hitchens.)
The prayer in Gethsemane
C. S. Robinson, D. D.
I. Let us notice, in the outset, THE SUDDEN EXPERIENCEWHICH LED
TO THIS ACT OF SUPPLICATION. He beganto be "sore amazedand to be
very heavy." Evidently something new had come to Him; either a disclosure of
fresh trial, or a violence of unusual pain under it. Here it is affecting to find in
our Divine Lord so much of recognizedand simple human nature He desired
to be alone, but He planned to have somebodyHe loved and trusted within

call. His grief was too burdensome for utter abandonment. Hence came the
demand for sympathy He made, and the persistence in reserve he retained,
both of which are so welcome and instructive. Forhere emphatically, as
perhaps nowhere else, we are "with Him in the garden." Oh, how passionately
craving of help, and yet how majesteriallyrejectful of impertinent condolence,
are some of these moments we have in our mourning, "when our souls retire
upon their reserves, and will open their deepestrecesses onlyto God! Our
secretis unshared, our struggle is unrevealed to men. Yet we love those who
love us just as much as ever. It is helpful to find that even our Lord Jesus had
some feelings of which He could not tell John. He "wentaway" (Matthew
26:44).
II. Let us, in the secondplace, inquire concerning THE EXACT MEANING
OF THIS SINGULAR SUPPLICATION. In those three intense prayers was
the Savioursimply afraid of death? Was that what our version makes the
Apostle Paul sayHe "feared"? Was He just pleading there under the olives
for permissionto put off the human form now, renounce the "likeness of
men" (Philippians 2:7, 8), which He had taken upon Him, slip back into
heaven inconspicuouslyby some sortof translationwhich would remove Him
from the powerof Pilate, so that when Judas had done his errand "quickly,"
and had arrived with the soldiers, Jesus wouldbe mysteriously missing, and
the traitor would find nothing but three harmless comrades there asleepon
the grass?Thatis to say, are we ready to admit that our Lord and Master
seriouslyproposed to go back to His Divine Father's bosomat this juncture,
leaving the prophecies unfulfilled, the redemption unfinished, the very honour
of Jehovahsullied with a failure? Does it offer any help in dealing with such a
conjecture to insist that this was only a moment of weaknessin His "human
nature?" Would this make any difference as a matter of fact for Satan to
discoverthat he had only been contending with another Adam, after all?
Would the lost angels any the less exult over the happy news of a celestial
defeatbecause they learned that the "seedof the woman" had not succeeded
in bruising the serpent's head by reasonofHis own alarm at the last? Oh, no:
surely no! Jesus had said, when in the far-back counsels ofeternity the
covenantof redemption was made, "Lo, I come:I delight to do Thy will, O my
God" (Psalm 40:7, 8). He could have had no purpose now, we may be

evermore certain, of withdrawing the proffer of Himself to suffer for men.
There can be no doubt that the "cup" which our Lord desired might "pass
from" His lips, and yet was willing to drink if there could be no release from
it, was the judicial wrath of Goddischargedupon Him as a culprit vicariously
before the law, receiving the awful curse due to human sin. We rejectall
notion of mere physical illness or exhaustionas well as all conjecture of mere
sentimental loneliness under the abandonment of friends. In that supreme
moment when He found that He, sinless in every particular and degree, must
be consideredguilty, and so that His heavenly Father's face and favour must
at leastfor a while be withdrawn from Him, He was, in despite of all His
courageouspreparation, surprised and almostfrightened to discoverhow
much His own soul was beginning to shudder and recoilfrom coming into
contactwith sin of any sort, even though it was only imputed. Evidently it
seemedto His infinitely pure nature horrible to be put in a position, however
false, such as that His adorable Fatherwould be compelled to draw the mantle
over His face. This shockedHim unutterably. He shrank back in
consternationwhen He saw He must become loathsome in the sight of heaven
because ofthe "abominable thing" God hated (Jeremiah44:4). Hence, we
conceive the prayer coveredonly that. That which appears at first a startling
surrender of redemption as a whole, is nothing more than a petition to be
relieved from what He hoped might be deemed no necessarypart of the curse
He was bearing for others. He longed, as He entered unusual darkness, just to
receive the usual light. It was as if He had saidto His heavenly Father:"The
pain I understood, the curse I came for. Shame, obloquy, death, I care nothing
for them. I only recoilfrom being loadedso with foreignsin that I cannotbe
lookedupon with any allowance. I am in alarm when I think of the prince of
this world coming and finding something in me, when hitherto he had
nothing. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint, my
heart is like wax, when I think of the taunt that the Lord I trusted no longer
delights in Me; this is like laughing God to scorn. Is there no permitted
discrimination betweena real sinner, and a substitute only counted such
before the law in this one particular? All things are possible with Thee;make
it possible now for Thee to see Thy Son, and yet not seem to see the imputed
guilt He bears! Yet even this will I endure, if so it must be in order that I may
fulfil all righteousness;Thy will, not Mine, be done!"

III. Again, let us observe carefully THE EXTRAORDINARYRANGE
WHICH THIS PRAYER IN THE GARDEN TOOK. It is not worth while
even to appear to be playing upon an accidentalcollocationofwords in the
sacrednarrative; but why should it be assertedthat any inspired words are
accidental? The whole history of Immanuel's sufferings that awful night
contains no incident more strikingly suggestive than the record of the distance
He kept betweenHimself and His disciples. It is the act as well as the language
which is significant. Mark says, "He went forward a little." Luke says, "He
was withdrawn from them about a stone's east." Matthew says, "He wenta
little farther." So now we know that this one petition of our Lord was the
final, secret, supreme whisper of His innermost heart. The range of such a
prayer was overHis whole nature. It exhaustedHis entire being. It covered
the humanity it represented. In it for Himself and for us "He went a little
farther" than ever He had in His supplication gone before. One august
monarch rules over this fallen world, and holds all human hearts under His
sway. His name is Pain. His image and superscription is upon every cointhat
passes currentin this mortal life. He claims fealty from the entire race of man.
And, soonerorlater, once, twice, or a hundred times, as the king chooses, and
not as the subject wills, eachsoul has to put on its black garment, go sedately
and sufferingly on its sad journey to pay its loyal tribute, preciselyas Joseph
and Mary were compelled to go up to Bethlehem to be taxed. When this tyrant
Pain summons us to come and discharge his dues, it is the quickestof human
instincts which prompts us to seek solitude. That seems to be the universal
rule (Zechariah 12:12-14). Butnow we discoverfrom this symbolic picture
that, wheneverany Christian goes awayfrom other disciples deeperinto the
solitudes of his own Gethsemane, he almost at once draws nearer to the
Saviour he needs. For our Lord just now "went forward a little." There He is,
on ahead of us all in experience!It is simply and wonderfully true of Jesus
always, no matter how severe is the suffering into which for their discipline
He leads His chosen, He Himself has takenHis position in advance of them.
No human lot was everso forlorn, so grief-burdened, so desolate, as was that
of the GreatLife given to redeem it. No path ever reachedso distantly into the
regionof heart trying agony as that it might not still see that peerless Christof
God "about a stone's cast" beyondit, kneeling in some deeper shadows ofHis

own. No believer ever went so far into his lonely Gethsemane but that he
found his Masterhad gone "a little farther."
"Christ did not send, but came Himself, to save;
The ransom price He did not lend, but gave;
Christ died, the Shepherd for the sheep, —
We only fall asleep."
IV. Finally, let us inquire after THE SUPREME RESULTS OF THIS
SUPPLICATION OF OUR LORD.
1. Considerthe High Priestof our profession(Hebrews 12:2-4). What good
would it do to pray, if Christ's prayer was unsuccessful?
2. But was it answered? Certainly(Hebrews 5:7-9). The cup remained (John
18:11), but he got acquiescence(Matthew 26:42), and strength (Luke 22:43).
3. Have we been "with Him in the garden"? Then we have found a similar
cup" (Mark 10:38, 39).
(C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Companionship in sorrow
H. Clay Trumbull.
It is a delightful thing to be with Jesus on the mountain of transfiguration,
where heavenly visitants are seen, and a heavenly voice is heard. It would
seemgoodto be always there. But they who would follow Jesus through this
earthly life, must be with Him also out on the stormy sea in the gloomynight;
and againthey must come with Him into the valley of the shadow of death.
There are bright, glad clays to the Christian believer, when faith and hope
and love are strong. But there are days also of trial and sorrow, whenit seems
as if faith must fail, and hope must die, and love itself must cease. It is one
thing for a young couple to stand togetherin light and joy, surrounded by
friends, at their marriage reception, or to share eachother's pleasure on their

wedding tour. It is quite another thing for a married pair to watchtogether
through the wearynight over a sick and suffering child, and to close the eyes
of their darling in its death sleep, in the gray of the gloomy morning. Yet the
clouds are as sure as the sunlight on the path of every chosendisciple of Jesus
who follows his Masterunswervingly; and he who never comes with Jesus to a
place named Gethsemane has chosenfor himself anotherpath than that
wherein the Saviourleads the way.
(H. Clay Trumbull.)
Christ, our sin bearer
J. H. Evans, M. A.
I. WITH REGARD TO THE POSITION OUR LORD WAS IN, HE STOOD
THERE AS THE GREAT SIN BEARER. Here, beloved, we see what the
burden was which our Lord bore: it was our sins.
II. BUT NOW OBSERVE, SECONDLY, THE GREAT WEIGHT OF THIS
BURDEN. Who can declare it?
(J. H. Evans, M. A.)
The sufferings of the good
Norman Macleod.
My life has been to me a mystery of love. I know that God's educationof each
man is in perfect righteousness. Iknow that the best on earth have been the
greatestsufferers, becausethey were the best, and like gold could stand the
fire and be purified by it. I know this, and a greatdeal more, and yet the
mercy of God to me is such a mystery that I have been tempted to think I was
utterly unworthy of suffering. God have mercy on my thoughts! I may be
unable to stand suffering. I do not know. But I lay myself at Thy feet, and say,
'Not that I am prepared, but that Thou art good and wise, and wilt prepare
me.'"

(Norman Macleod.)
Resignation
R. N. Cust.
Of all the smaller English missions, the Livingstone Congo stands conspicuous
for its overflowing of zeal and life and promise; and of all its agents, young
M'Call was the brightest; but he was struck down in mid-work. His last words
were recordedby a strangerwho visited him. Let eachone of us lay them to
our hearts. "Lord, I gave myself, body, mind, and soul, to Thee, I consecrated
my whole life and being to Thy service;and now, if it please Thee to take
myself, instead of the work which I would do for Thee, whatis that to me?
Thy will be done."
(R. N. Cust.)
Christ's sorrow and desertion
H. Melvill, B. D.
It is beyond our powerto ascertainthe precise amount of suffering sustained
by our Lord; for a mystery necessarilyencircles the person of Jesus, in which
two natures are combined. This mystery may ever prevent our knowing how
His humanity was sustainedby His divinity. Still, undoubtedly, the general
representationof Scripture would lead to the conclusion, that though He was
absolute God, with every powerand prerogative of Deity, yet was Christ, as
man, left to the same conflicts, and dependent on the same assistances as any
of His followers. He differed, indeed, immeasurably, in that He was conceived
without the taint of original sin, and therefore was free from our evil
propensities:He lived the life of faith which He workedout for Himself, and
He lived it to gain for us a place in His Father's kingdom. Although He was
actually to meet affliction like a man, He was left without any external
support from above. This is very remarkably shown by His agonyin the
garden, when an angelwas sent to strengthen Him. Wonderful that a Divine

person should have craved assistance,and that He did not draw on His own
inexhaustible resources!But, it was as a man that He grappled with the
powers of darkness — as a man who could receive no celestialaid. And, if this
be a true interpretation of the mode in which our Lord met persecutionand
death, we must be right, in contrasting Him with martyrs, when we assertan
immeasurable difference betweenHis sufferings, and those of men who have
died nobly for the truth: from Him the light of the Father's countenance was
withdrawn, whilst unto them it was conspicuouslydisplayed. This may explain
why Christ was confounded and overwhelmed, where others had been serene
and undaunted. Still, the question arises, — Why was Christ thus desertedof
the Father? Why were those comforts and supports withheld from Him which
have been frequently vouchsafedto His followers? No doubt it is a surprising
as well as a piteous spectacle thatof our Lord shrinking from the anguish of
what should befall Him, whilst others have faced death, in its most frightful
forms, with unruffled composure. You never can accountfor this, exceptby
acknowledging that our Lord was no ordinary man, meeting death as a mere
witness for truth, but that he was actually a sin offering; bearing the weightof
the world's iniquities. His agony — His doleful cries — His sweating, as it
were, greatdrops of blood; these are not to be explained on the supposition of
His being merely an innocent man, hunted down by fierce and unrelenting
enemies. Had He been only this, why should He be apparently so excelledin
confidence and composure by a long line of martyrs and confessors? Christ
wad more than this. Though He had done no sin, yet was He in the place of the
sinful, bearing the weight of Divine indignation, and made to feelthe terrors
of Divine wrath. Innocent, He was treated as guilty! He had made Himself the
substitute of the guilty — hence His anguish and terror. Bearin mind, that the
sufferer who exhibits, as you might think, so much less of composure and
firmness than has been evinced by many when calledon to die for truth —
bear in mind, that this sufferer has had a world's iniquity laid on His
shoulders; that Godis now dealing with Him as the representative of apostate
man, and exacting from Him the penalties due to unnumbered transgressions;
and you will cease to wonderthough you may still almostshudder at words, so
expressive of agony — "My soulis exceeding sorrowful, evenunto death."
(H. Melvill, B. D.)

Christ's agonyof soul
H. Melvill, B. D.
It is on the sufferings of the soulthat we would fix your attention; for these,
we doubt not, were the mighty endurances of the Redeemer — these pursued
Him to His very lastmoments, until He paid the last fragment of our debts.
You will perceive that it was in the soul rather than in the body that our
blessedSaviour made atonement for transgression. He had put Himself in the
place of the criminal, so far as it was possible for an innocent man to assume
the position of the guilty; and standing in the place of the criminal, with guilt
imputed to Him, He had to bear the punishment that misdeeds had incurred.
You must be aware that anguish of the soul rather than of the body is the
everlasting portion of sinners; and though, of course, we cannotthink that our
Lord endured preciselywhat sinners had deserved, for he could have known
nothing of the stings and bodes of consciencebeneathwhich they must
eternally writhe, yet forasmuch as he was exhausting their curse — a curse
which was to drive ruin into their soul as well as rack the body with
unspeakable pain — we might well expect that the soul's anguish of a surety
or substitute would be felt even more than the bodily: and that external
affliction, howevervast and accumulated, would be comparatively less in its
rigour or accompaniments, than His internal anguish, which is not to be
measuredor imagined. This expectationis certainly quite borne out by the
statements of Scripture, if carefully considered. Indeed it is very observable
that when our Lord is setbefore us as exhibiting signs of anguish and distress
there was no bodily suffering whatever — none but what was causedmentally.
I refer, as you must be aware, to the scene in the garden, as immediately
connectedwith our text, when the Redeemermanifested the most intense grief
and horror, His sweatbeing as it were greatdrops of blood — a scene which
the most callous canscarcelyencounter:in this case there was no nail, no
spear. Ay, though there was the prospectof the cross, there was hardly fear. It
was the thought of dying as a malefactor, which so overcame the Redeemer,
that He needed strength by an angelfrom heaven. That it was that wrung out
the thrilling exclamation:"My soul is exceeding sorrowful." It is far beyond

us to tell you what were the spiritual endurances which so distressedand bore
down the Redeemer. There is a veil over the anguish of the incarnate God
which no mortal hand may attempt to remove. I can only suppose that holy as
He was — incapable of sinning in thought or deed — He had a piercing and
overwhelming sense ofthe criminality of sin — of the dishonour which it
attachedto the world — of the ruin which it was bringing on man: He must
have felt as no other being could, the mighty fearfulness of sin — linked alike
with God and with man — the brethren of sinners, and the being sinned
against. Who can doubt that, as He bore our transgressions in our nature, He
must have been wounded as with a two-edgedsword— the one edge
lacerating Him as He was jealous of divine glory, and the other as He longed
for human happiness? Though we cannotexplain what passedin the soul of
the Redeemer, we would impress on you the truth, that it was in the soul
rather than in the body that those dire pangs were endured which exhausted
the curse denounced againstsin. Let not any think that mere bodily anguish
went as an equivalent for the miseries and the tortures which must have been
eternally exactedfrom every human being. It would take awaymuch of the
terribleness of the future doom of the impenitent, to representthose sufferings
as only, or chiefly, bodily. Men will argue the nature of the doom, not the
nature of the suffering capacityin its stead. And, certainly, a hell without
mental agony, would be a paradise in comparisonwith what we believe to be
the pandemonium, where the soul is the rack, and consciencethe executioner.
Go not awayfrom Calvary, with thoughts of nothing but suffering a death by
being nailed to a cross and left to expire after long torture! Go away, rather
thinking of the horror which had takenhold of the soul of the forsaken
sufferer; and as you carry with you a remembrance of the doleful spectacle,
and smite your breasts at the thought of His piteous cry — a cry more
startling than the crashof the earthquake that announcedHis death — lay ye
to heart His unimaginable endurances which extort the cry: "My soul is
exceeding sorrowful, even unto death."
(H. Melvill, B. D.)
Blessings throughChrist's soul agony

H. Melvill, B. D.
It is this death — this travail of the soul, which from the beginning to the end
of a Christian life is effecting or producing that holier creature which is finally
to be presentedwithout spot or wrinkle, meet for the inheritance of the saints
in light. It is in the pangs of the soul, that he feels the renewing influence of the
Holy Ghost, realized in the birth of the Christian character, who in any age of
the world recovers the defacedimage of his God. I think it gives a
preciousness to every means of grace, thus to considerthem as brought into
being by the agonies ofthe Redeemer. It would go far, were this borne in
mind, to defend it againstthe resistance orneglect, if it were impressed on you
that there is not a single blessing of which you are conscious,that did not
spring from this sorrow — this sorrow unto death of the Redeemer's soul.
Could you possibly make light, as perhaps you now do, of those warnings and
secretadmonitions which come you know not whence, prompting you to
forsake certainsins and give heed to certain duties, if you were impressedthat
it was through the very soul of the Redeemerbeing "exceeding sorrowful,
even unto death," that there was obtained for you the privilege of accessto
God by prayer, or the having offers made to you of pardon and
reconciliation? Do you think you could kneel down irreverently or formally,
or that you could treat the ordinance of preaching as a mere human
institution, in regardto which, it mattered little whether you were in earnest
or not? The memory that Christ's soul travailed in agony to procure for you
those blessings — which, because they are abundant, you may be tempted to
underrate — would necessarilyimpart a preciousnessto the whole. You could
not be indifferent to the bitter cry; you could not look languidly on the scene
as you saw the cross. This is a fact; it was only by sorrow — sorrow unto
death of the Redeemer's soul — that any of the ordinary means of grace —
those means that you are daily enjoying, have been procured. Will you think
little of those means? Will you neglectthem? Will you trifle with them? Will
you not rather feelthat what costso much to buy, it must be fatal to despise?
Neither, as we said, is it the worth only of the means of grace that you may
learn from the mighty sorrow by which they were purchased; it is also your
own worth, the worth of your own soul. When we would speak ofthe soul and
endeavour to impress men with a sense ofits value, we may strive to set forth

the nature of its properties, its powers, its capacities, its destinies, but we can
make very little way; we show little more than our ignorance, forsearchhow
we will the soul is a mystery; it is like Deity, of which it is the spark; it hides
itself by its own light; and eludes by dazzling the inquirer. You will
remember, that our Lord emphatically asked:"What shall a man give in
exchange for his soul?" It is implied in the question, that if the whole world
were offered in barter — the world, with all its honours and its riches — he
would be the veriest of fools who would consentto the exchange, and would be
a loserto an extent beyond thought, in taking creationand surrendering his
soul. Then I hear you say, "This is all a theory!" It may be so. "The world in
one scale, is but a particle of dust to the soul in the other! We should like to
see an actualexchange:this might assure us of the untold worth that you wish
to demonstrate." And, my brethren, you shall see a human soulput on one
side and the equivalent on the other. You shall see anexchange!Not the
exchange — the foul exchange which is daily, ay, hourly! made — the
exchange of the soul for a bauble, for a shadow;an exchange, whicheven
those who make it would shrink from if they thought on what they were doing
— would shrink from with horror, if they would know how far they are losers
and not gainers by the bargain. The exchange we have to exhibit is a fair
exchange. Whatis given for the soul is what the soul is worth. Come with us,
and strive to gaze on the glories of the invisible God — He who has grieved in
the soul, "for He emptied Himself, and made Himself of no reputation," that
the soulmight be saved! Come with us to the stable of Bethlehem! Come with
us to Calvary! The amazing accumulationof which you are spectator — the
fearful sorrow, onwhich you hardly dare to look — the agony of Him who
had done no sin — the agonyof Him who was the Lord of glory — the death
of Him who was the Prince of Light — this was given for the soul; by this
accumulation was redemption effected. Is there not here an exchange — an
exchange actuallymade, with which we might prove it impossible to overrate
the value of the soul? If you read the form of the question — "Whatshall a
man give in exchange for his soul?" you will see it implies that it is not within
the empire of wealth to purchase the soul. But cannot this assume the form of
another question — What would God give in exchange for the soul? Here we
have an answer, not of supposition, but of fact: we tell you what God has given
— He has given Himself.

(H. Melvill, B. D.)
Complete resignation
A minister, being askedby a friend, during his last illness, whether he thought
himself dying, answered:"Really, friend, I care not whether I am or not. If I
die, I shall be with God; and, if I live, God will be with me."
Instance of resignation
During the siege of Barcelona, in 1705, CaptainCarletonwitnessedthe
following affecting incident, which he relates in his memoirs: "I saw an old
officer, having his only son with him, a fine young man about twenty years of
age, going into their tent to dine. Whilst they were at dinner a shot took off the
head of the son. The father immediately rose, and first looking down upon his
headless child, and then lifting up his eyes to heaven, whilst the tears ran
down his cheeks,only said, 'Thy will be done!'"
COMMENTARIES
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
(36) And he said, Abba, Father.—The recordofthe word “Abba” as actually
uttered, is peculiar to St. Mark. We, perhaps, find traces ofthe impression it
made on the minds of men in the “Abba, Father” of Romans 8:15, Galatians
4:6.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

14:32-42 Christ's sufferings beganwith the sorestofall, those in his soul. He
beganto be sorelyamazed; words not used in St. Matthew, but very full of
meaning. The terrors of God set themselves in array againsthim, and he
allowedhim to contemplate them. Neverwas sorrow like unto his at this time.
Now he was made a curse for us; the curses of the law were laid upon him as
our Surety. He now tasted death, in all the bitterness of it. This was that fear
of which the apostle speaks,the natural fearof pain and death, at which
human nature startles. Can we ever entertain favourable, or even slight
thoughts of sin, when we see the painful sufferings which sin, though but
reckonedto him, brought on the Lord Jesus? Shallthat sit light upon our
souls, which sat so heavy upon his? Was Christ in such agonyfor our sins, and
shall we never be in agony about them? How should we look upon Him whom
we have pierced, and mourn! It becomes us to be exceedinglysorrowfulfor
sin, because He was so, and never to mock at it. Christ, as Man, pleaded, that,
if it were possible, his sufferings might pass from him. As Mediator, he
submitted to the will of God, saying, Nevertheless,not what I will, but what
thou wilt; I bid it welcome. Seehow the sinful weaknessofChrist's disciples
returns, and overpowers them. What heavy clogs these bodies of ours are to
our souls!But when we see trouble at the door, we should get ready for it.
Alas, even believers often look at the Redeemer's sufferings in a drowsy
manner, and instead of being ready to die with Christ, they are not even
prepared to watchwith him one hour.
Barnes'Notes on the Bible
Ἀββα Abba This word denotes "father." It is a Syriac word, and is used by the
Saviour as a word denoting filial affectionand tenderness. Compare Romans
8:15.
Jamieson-Fausset-BrownBible Commentary
Mr 14:32-42. The Agony in the Garden. ( = Mt 26:36-46;Lu 22:39-46).
See on [1507]Lu22:39-46.
Matthew Poole's Commentary
See Poole on"Mark 14:32"

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
And he said, Abba, Father,.... In the originaltext, the former of these is a
Syriac word, and the latter a Greek one, explanative of the former, as in
Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6 or the repetition is made, to express the
vehemency of his affection, and his strong confidence in God, as his Father,
amidst his distress, as the Syriac version renders it, , "Abba, my Father":or
"my Father, my Father";and so the Ethiopic version:
all things are possible unto thee; so Philo the Jew (b), taking notice of Isaac's
question about the burnt offering, and Abraham's answerto it, represents the
latter as adding, in confirmation of it,
"all things are possible to God, and which are both difficult and impossible to
be done by men;''
suggesting, thatGod could easily provide a lamb for a sacrifice;and Christ
here intimates, that every thing consistentwith his perfections, counsels, and
covenant, were possible to be done by him; and how far what he prays for,
was agreeable to these, he submits to him, and to his sovereignwill:
take awaythis cup from me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt:
See Gill on Matthew 26:39.
(b) De Abrahamo, p. 374.
Geneva Study Bible
And he said, {h} Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away
this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.
(h) This doubling of the word was usedin those days when their languages
were mixed together: for the word Abba is a Syrian word.
EXEGETICAL(ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)
Expositor's Greek Testament
Mark 14:36. Ἀββᾶ ὁ πατήρ: in the parallels simply πάτερ. In the Apostolic
Church the use of the double appellationamong Gentile Christians was

common (vide Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6), Ἀββά having become a proper
name and πατὴρ being added as its interpretation = God our Father. Mk.
imparts into the prayer of our Lord this apostolic usage.Jesusdoubtless
would use only one of the names, probably the Aramaic.—παρένεγκε τ. π. τ.,
remove this cup; equivalent to παρέλθῃ in Mark 14:35 (Luke 22:42).—ἀλλʼ
οὐ, etc.; “but not what (τί for ὃ) I will, but what Thou”;elliptical but clear
and expressive:γενήσεται or γενέσθαι δεῖ (not γενέσθω which would demand
μὴ before θέλω) is understood (vide Holtzmann, H. C., and Weiss in Meyer).
Cambridge Bible for Schools andColleges
36. Abba] St Mark alone has preservedfor us this word. St Petercould not
fail to have treasuredup the words of murmured anguish, which, “about a
stone’s throw” apart, he may have caughtbefore he was overpoweredwith
slumber. It is used only twice more in the New Testament, and both times by
St Paul, Romans 8:15, “we have receivedthe spirit of adoption, whereby we
cry Abba, Father” and Galatians 4:6, “Godhath sent forth the Spirit of his
Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father.” In Syriac it is said to have been
pronounced with a double b when applied to a spiritual father, with a single b
when used in its natural sense. With the double letter at all events it has
passedinto the European languages, as anecclesiasticalterm, ‘abbas,’
‘abbot.’ See Canon Lightfoot on Galatians 4:6.
Father] St Mark adds this probably to explain the Aramaic word, after his
wont.
Bengel's Gnomen
Mark 14:36. Ἀββᾶ ὁ πατὴρ, Abba Father) Mark seems to have added Father,
by way of interpretation: For Matthew, ch. Matthew 26:39; Matthew 26:42,
says that what was saidby Jesus was simply, “My Father:” Luke, ‘Father,’
Matthew 22:42. on the cross, He said Eli, Eli.—τὶ, what) The question in the
case, saithHe, is not what I will, but what Thou wilt.
Pulpit Commentary

Verse 36. - And he said, Abba, Father. Some commentators suppose that our
Lord only used the Hebrew or Aramaic word "Abba," and that St. Mark adds
the Greek and Latin synonym (πατὴρ) for the benefit of those to whom he was
writing. But it is far more natural to conclude that St. Mark is here taking his
narrative from an eye and ear witness, St. Peter; and that both the words
were uttered by him; so that he thus, in his agony, cried to God in the name of
the whole human family, the Jew first, and also the Gentile. We can quite
understand why St. Matthew, writing to Jews, gives onlythe Hebrew word.
All things are possible unto thee. Speaking absolutely, with God nothing is
impossible. But the Deity is himself bound by his own laws;and hence this was
impossible, consistentlywith his purposes of mercy for the redemption of the
world. The Lord himself knew this. Therefore he does not ask for anything
contrary to the will of his Father. But it was the natural craving of his
humanity, which, subject to the supreme will of God, desired to be delivered
from this terrible load. Remove this cup from me. The "cup," both in Holy
Scripture and in profane writers, is takento signify that lot or portion,
whether goodor evil, which is appointed for us by God. Hence St. John is
frequently representedas holding a cup. Howbeit, not what I will, but what
thou wilt. Our Lord has no sooneroffered his conditional prayer than he
subordinates it to the will of God. St. Luke (Luke 22:42) here says,
"Neverthelessnotmy will, but thine, be done." Hence it appears that there
was not, as the Monothelites taught, one will, partly human and partly Divine,
in Christ; but there were two distinct wills, one human and the other Divine,
both residing in the one Christ; and it was by the subjecting of his human will
to the Divine that he wrought out our redemption.
CALVIN
Matthew 26:36. Then Jesus comethwith them. Luke mentions the mountain
of Olives only. Mark and Matthew add a more minute description of the
place. But Luke expresseswhatis still more to the purpose, that Christ came
there according to his custom. Hence we infer, that he did not seek retirement

for the purpose of concealing himself, but, as if he had made an assignation
with his enemies, he presented himself to death. On this accountJohn says
(18:2) that the place was knownto the traitor, because Jesus was wontto come
there frequently. In this passage,therefore, his obedience is againdescribed to
us, because he could not have appeasedthe Father but by a voluntary death.
Sit here. By leaving the disciples at a distance, he spares their weakness;as if a
man, perceiving that he would soonbe in extreme danger in battle, were to
leave his wife and children in a situation of safety. But though he intended to
place them all beyond arrow-shot, yet he took three of them who accompanied
him more closelythan the rest, and these were the flowerand choice, in which
there was greaterrigor. And yet he did not take them, as if he believed that
they would be able to sustain the attack, but that they might afford a proof of
the defectwhich was common to them all.
37. He began to be affectedwith grief. We have seenthat our Lord formerly
contended with the fear of death; but as he now fights face to face with
temptation, such an attack is called the beginning of grief and sorrow. Hence
we infer that the true testof virtue is only to be found when the contest
begins; for then the weaknessofthe flesh, which was formerly concealed,
shows itself, and the secretfeelings are abundantly displayed. Thus, though
God had already tried his Son by certain preparatory exercises,he now
wounds him more sharply by a nearer prospectof death, and strikes his mind
with a terror to which he had not been accustomed. Butas it appears to be
inconsistentwith the divine glory of Christ, that he was seizedwith trembling
and sadness, many commentators have labored with toil and anxiety to find
some way of evading the difficulty. But their labor has been ill-judged and of
no use; for if we are ashamedthat Christ should experience fear and sorrow,
our redemption will perish and be lost.
Ambrose justly says:"I not only do not think that there is any need of excuse,
but there is no instance in which I admire more his kindness and his majesty;
for he would not have done so much for me, if he had not takenupon him my
feelings. He grieved for me, who had no cause ofgrief for himself; and, laying
aside the delights of the eternal Godhead, he experiences the affliction of my
weakness.I boldly call it sorrow, because Ipreach the cross. Forhe took upon

him not the appearance, but the reality, of incarnation. It was therefore
necessarythat he should experience grief, that he might overcome sorrow, and
not shut it out; for the praise of fortitude is not bestowedon those who are
rather stupefied than pained by wounds." Thus far Ambrose.
Certainly those who imagine that the Son of God was exempt from human
passions do not truly and sincerelyacknowledgehim to be a man. And when it
is even said that the divine powerof Christ restedand was concealedfor a
time, that by his sufferings he might discharge allthat belongedto the
Redeemer, this was so far from being absurd, that in no other way could the
mystery of our salvationhave been accomplished. ForCyril has properly said:
"Thatthe suffering of Christ on the cross was notin every respectvoluntary,
but that it was voluntary on accountof the will of the Father, and on account
of our salvation, you may easily learn from his prayer, Father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me. For the same reasonthat the Word of God is God,
(John 1:1,) and is naturally life itself, (John 11:25,)nobody doubts that he had
no dread of death; but, having been made flesh, (John 1:14,) he allows the
flesh to feel what belongs to it, and, therefore, being truly a man, he trembles
at death, when it is now at the door, and says, Father, if it be possible, let this
cup pass from me; but since it cannot be otherwise, let it be not as I will, but
as thou wilt. You see how human nature, even in Christ himself, has the
sufferings and fears which belong to it, but that the Word, who is united to it,
raises it to a fortitude which is worthy of God." He at length concludes:"You
perceive that it was not for the sake of the flesh that the death of Christ was
voluntary, but that it was voluntary, because, onaccountof it, according to
the will of the Father, salvation and life were bestowedon men." Such are the
views of Cyril.
Still the weaknesswhichChrist took upon himself must be distinguished from
ours, for there is a great difference. In us there is no affectionunaccompanied
by sin, because theyall exceeddue bounds and proper restraint; but when
Christ was distressedby grief and fear, he did not rise againstGod, but
continued to be regulated by the true rule of moderation. We need not wonder
that, since he was innocent, and pure from every stain, the affections which
flowed from him were pure and stainless;but that nothing proceeds from the
corrupt nature of men which is not impure and filthy. Let us, therefore,

attend to this distinction, that Christ, amidst fear and sadness, was weak
without any taint of sin; but that all our affections are sinful, because they rise
to an extravagantheight.
The kind of feelings, by which Christ was tempted, is also worthy of notice.
Matthew says that he was affectedby grief and sorrow (or anxiety;)Luke says
that he was seizedwith anguish; and Mark adds that he trembled. And
whence came his sorrow and anguish, and fear, but because he felt that death
had something in it more sad and more dreadful than the separationof the
soul and body? And certainly he underwent death, not merely that he might
depart from earth to heaven, but rather that, by taking upon himself the curse
to which we were liable, he might deliver us from it. He had no horror at
death, therefore, simply as a passageoutof the world, but because he had
before his eyes the dreadful tribunal of God, and the Judge himself armed
with inconceivable vengeance;and because our sins, the load of which was
laid upon him, pressedhim down with their enormous weight. There is no
reasonto wonder, therefore, if the dreadful abyss of destructiontormented
him grievouslywith fear and anguish.
38. My soulis sorrowful. He communicates to them his sorrow, in order to
arouse them to sympathy; not that he was unacquainted with their weakness,
but in order that they might afterwards be more ashamedof their
carelessness. This phrase expresses a deadly wound of grief; as if he had said,
that he fainted, or was half-dead, with sorrow. Jonah (4:9) makes use of a
similar phrase in replying to the Lord; I am angry even to death. I advert to
this, because some of the ancient writers, in handling this passagewitha
misapplication of ingenuity, philosophize in this way, that the soul of Christ
was not sorrowful in death but only even to death. And here againwe ought to
remember the cause of so greatsorrow;for death in itself would not have so
grievously tormented the mind of the Son of God, if he had not felt that he had
to deal with the judgment of God.
39. And he went forward a little. We have seenin other passages, that in order
to excite himself to greaterearnestness ofprayer, the Lord prayed in the
absence ofwitnesses;for when we are withdrawn from the gaze of men, we
succeedbetterin collecting our senses, so as to attend more closelyto what we

Jesus was submissive to the father

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Jesus was submissive to the father