The Cup in Gethsemane.

G. R.

1895 350 Dear Mr. Editor,

It is surely admonitory and, as being so markedly characteristic of the times, not less ominous to note, under what specious subterfuges Satan seeks to lower Christ. This is his real character as the untiring slanderer and subtle tempter; with many alas! the unsuspected and successful adversary of the truth — specially truth which more immediately bears on the immaculateness and impeccability of our Lord's humanity, and on His attitude and walk as the Son serving in the varied circumstances of His life and sufferings when here in flesh.

An instance and illustration of this has recently come before me in one of the many religious serials of the day. But the truth as in Jesus, and the honour due to Him are more, ought to be infinitely more to His own than names be they in other respects worthy. The subject discussed is the holy cry of the Lord Jesus in the garden, so impressively given us in Matt. 26:39, and in the two other Gospels of Mark and Luke. It is a subject surely which in its grave surroundings and associations of time, place, occasion, and person, may properly in approaching it claim from us the unshod foot of reverence and self-mistrust due from creatures such as we are. One has been used to conclude or take as granted beyond question that the "cup," from which He the Lord could and indeed did shrink, must have involved a something more far-reaching and appalling than anything flesh is heir to. What a vision before which He quailed must have held within its infoldings, and foreshadowed what no mere creature, man or angel, could face; or surely He Who is above all would not. But in this our long-cherished belief it would seem according to this new school (is it new?) we have been all wrong and need that one teach us again, I will not say the "first principles of the oracles of God," but what is to my mind foundation truth.

Let us hear then what it is we are asked to accept, and accept too as the only possible solution of words, otherwise presenting, as they say, insuperable difficulties and implying under any other interpretation a "weakness and ignorance" on the part of the Lord not to be thought of.

"I believe," says Dr. Schauffler, of New York, "that the prayer of Jesus was not at all for deliverance from the cross. I believe that what He most feared in the garden was that the suffering He was enduring on account of the sins [?] of the world would prove too much for His physical frame, and that He would die then and there under the burden. His soul was sorrowful 'even unto death'; was there not the fear that He might actually die? So it seems to me that the 'cup' from which He prayed to be delivered was not the death on the cross, but death in Gethsemane itself. He was praying for grace to reach the cross, not for grace to escape it."

"Dr. S.," says the editor in his comment on the above, "claims that the advantages of this interpretation are obvious and very great. It delivers the prayer in the garden at once from 'weakness' and from 'ignorance' … and, above all, it meets the only possible meaning of that famous passage in Hebrews which unquestionably refers to this event: 'Who in the days of His flesh,' etc., etc. (Heb. 5:7)." The editor then proceeds to favour is readers with a quotation from the paper in which Dr. S.'s contribution first appeared, the editor of which, equally with himself, puts his imprimatur on Dr. S.'s interpretation. "It has long seemed to the editor of the Sunday School Times that the agony of Jesus in Gethsemane was from the fearful pressure on Him of the consequences of sin, as culminating in His betrayal by a trusted 'friend,' in the failure of His chosen followers to understand Him or to be His sympathetic helpers, and in His rejection by His loved people, and by the world He came to save. Under that pressure on Him in the physical weakness of His humanity, it seems as if He were to sink before the final crisis of His earthly hour came; that peril was the 'hour' and the 'cup' He then faced — the peril of failure in His earthly life-work: … The 'cup' spoken of at the garden gate when Judas and his band had come to take Him was another cup altogether — the cup of His trial and crucifixion, which He was always ready to accept, and did accept without flinching."

Now I unhesitatingly reject such teaching as derogatory to the Lord in every part of it. It altogether shuts out the divine aspect of the cup, and substitutes for it a mere physical contingency which He had not counted for, and which moreover would have left Him helpless to finish the great work He came to accomplish. That the Lord did suffer other than substitutionally, and so as to surpass all conception of created beings, must be admitted; for indeed how could it be otherwise with one so holy as He in a scene such as this, and so defiled? The sights of human misery and suffering, the moral and physical degradation of man once created in the image and after the likeness of his Creator, the dire results of sin in all their hideous forms and degrees, ever confronting, ever before Him, must have told sadly and terribly on His tender heart, and on a nature so divinely attuned and so transcending (in sensitiveness to every form of suffering and wrong) aught which we could ever have attained to, fallen or unfallen. The supreme intensity of His love would necessarily render Him all the more susceptible to every slight, whilst not the less would his holiness make Him the more acutely alive to its every infraction. The whence and wherefore of His presence here as the "sent One" of the Father — the august and benign character of His mission and office as the Christ of God, the Messiah of prophecy, Israel's King, and the Saviour of the lost, His dignity as "the Son" and "Immanuel" in the world He had made, amongst "His own people" and "His own things," all added point and poignancy to His rejection — rejection, too, not so much at the hands of lawless, godless Gentiles, though this was so, but specially, of those to whom pertained "the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service of God, etc., and of whom as concerning the flesh He came, Who is God over all, blessed for ever" (Rom. 9). They were His chosen people, the children, the descendants, of those whom of old He had saved from Egypt, borne on eagles' wings and brought to Himself (Ex. 19:4); and whom now though in other and lowlier guise, but really in person and grace and power, He was here again to emancipate and enrich, and bless beyond thought.

This and all the other accompaniments, incidents, and inflictions, of a life of such unparalleled devotedness, could not but make up a cup from which, had He not been the Holy One tempted in all things like us, sin excepted, as in His case of course it was, He might well have shrunk. But it is just because we hold that He was this, and not only other but higher and more in His personality and in His humanity, — more and higher in every sense, as we shall presently see, that we indignantly resent as of Satan all such insinuations, under whatever protest, as that when He, in the garden, cried, O Father, etc., it was "death then and there" He had in His view — premature death, and consequent failure in the mission He came specially for; that He had it before Him not as a possibility only but as imminent; that as being helpless to save Himself He sought exemption at His Father's hand, and that His prayer was for strength to reach, not for grace to escape, the cross! Oh, the puerility as well as the sacrilegious presumption of such imputations! puerility indeed; for if mere physical dissolution, why the "if it be possible"? Oh, the blasphemy of attributing to Him a contingency attaching only to sin and sinners!

True, He was made a little lower than the angels (Heb. 2) — the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5), was made flesh (John 1), was made in the likeness of men, — made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant (Phil. 2), was made like unto His brethren (Heb. 2), was tempted (Heb. 4) and to crown all, "being thus found in fashion as a man," He further "humbled himself" to become "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Phil. 2). But are we therefore to depreciate Him to our level, to think of Him only as one of ourselves, because He thus descended (Eph. 4), and to attach to Him, or His humanity, the tendencies, the frailties, the amenabilities, incident really to sin and the sinner, to humanity fallen? Is it to he so conceived of Him in presence of such scriptures as the following? — "Behold, the virgin shall he with child and shall bring forth a son; and they shall call his name Emmanuel, (God with us)" (Matt. 2). "Now the birth of Jesus was on this wise: when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they Came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost, etc." (Matt. 1:18-20). "And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). "A body hast thou prepared me" (Heb. 10). "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father" (John 1). "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up … He spake of the temple of his body" (John 2). "For it pleased all the fulness in him to dwell" (Col. 1:19). Fallen humanity an enshrinement of deity! Fallen humanity conceived of the Holy Ghost! And will anyone tell me when He being here was not "God manifest in flesh" (1 Tim. 3)? How then failure or fear of it?

1895 366 Thus much as to His human side; now for the higher, if we may differentiate as to that which was inherent to Him, whatever the form and conditions He might assume or fill. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." "All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made." "And the Word was made flesh" (John 1). "Who is the firstborn of all creation" (Col. 1). "Before Abraham was I am" (John 8). "Upholding all things by the word of his power (Heb. 1:3). "He is before all things and by him all things consist" (Col. 1:15-17). "Unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever" etc. (Heb. 1:10).

Impossible to read these and how many more! without finding ourselves consciously, willingly or unwillingly, in the presence of supreme majesty, of Godhead truly. Subordinate Godhead is an absurdity, it cannot be, neither does God give His glory to another. Here is no inferior God; no mere outcome of creatorial power, place him ever so high or where you will. The Jehovah of the Old Testament is here, the God of Israel, of the Red Sea, and of Jordan; Whom winds and waves obey. In likeness of flesh of sin He was. And as the weary one He sat at Sychar and asked a drink of water; yet was He ever the omnipotent and the omniscient (Who none the less received all from His Father Whom He came to serve), mighty to save from sin, death, and judgment.

Fear of death with Him! fear of failure in His life-work with Him! The whole theory in its inception and elaboration is from beneath, and only finds its endorsement in the natural mind. Its foundation is sand. It is an insult to the Christ they profess to honour, as it is a reflection on, yea, denial of, His person and ways. What can one think of those who can so misconstrue His words, so consistent and becoming the Son the Father at such a time and under circumstances and surroundings unparalleled except at the cross itself?

There is a further element, which can no more be overlooked than those we have been discussing: there are His own prophetic words, so impressively given to His apostles as recorded by Matt. 16:21, Matt. 17:22-23, by Mark 8:31, Mark 10:33-34, by Luke 17:31, 33, which I beg the reader to read. And again as to His life, "I lay it down of myself" etc., (John 10:17). "So must the Son of Man be lifted up" (John 3). Can scripture be broken? Had He forgotten or did He not know of Ps. 22, Isa. 53, where perhaps more than any where else, we have the whole tragic scene of His death depicted? Then again is His own pre-utterance in Ps. 16:8-10. How can it be supposed that He the One of faith beyond all others, its author and finisher (Heb. 11; 12), could so fail in His faith, and not in faith alone, but in His conception of the probabilities or possibilities of the case? Not so! In all things His is the pre-eminence. That there was in His view and vividly before His all prescient mind that which made Him "exceeding sorrowful unto death" (Matt. 26:38; Mark 14:34), we know; and that "being in an agony … his sweat was as it were great drops of blood." (Luke 22:44) we know; and that there appeared "an angel from heaven unto him strengthening him" (ver. 43), we know too. And as we read the record, we bow and challenge ourselves not to draw near with levity, not to venture presumptuously our own thoughts, or speculate on a theme so holy, so profound as the "baptism" He was then about to "be baptised with" (Matt. 20:22); for not for this surely were words so impressive handed down to us.

There are other statements equally questionable in the article we are reviewing, which, for fear of trespassing unduly on your limited space, I pass; not without hope that you, Mr. Editor, with your so much abler pen, may find it not incompatible with your other onerous occupations to take up and examine much more exhaustively and effectively than I in the least degree can aspire to.

Having endeavoured in my remarks to show, what the "cup" in Gethsemane was not, I now proceed to show what that cup was. One desires to feel the holiness of the ground we are about to tread further: its sacred, solemn character, profound beyond thought of man or angel, where as nowhere else in our own sphere, should be "the sacred awe that dares not move."

But preparatory to this I give a further extract from the paper before me. It is the Editor's opening statement and implied endorsement of Dr. S.'s view.

"When Jesus stood by the grave of Lazarus and lifted up His eyes to heaven, Father, He said, 'I know that Thou hearest me always.' But if in the garden He prayed He might escape the death upon the cross, then He was not always heard; this was one prayer — and a most agonising one — that the Father refused to answer. For it will not do to say that His prayer was answered in the angel who came from heaven to strengthen Him. That was not His prayer, and it is to escape the dilemma by falling into another. For if Jesus prayed for one thing and the Father granted another, then our Lord knew not any more than we, what He should pray for as He ought."

The Lord not heard! the Father refused to answer! unless in the sense they claim, and pointed to as (they say) in Heb. 5:7. Turning to the Psalms, we see, on the contrary, that whilst Heb. 5:7 says He "was heard for his godly fear" (Revised Version), Ps. 22:19-22 not only confirms this, but leaves us in no doubt as to what was the purport of the prayer referred to in Hebrews, that it was deliverance out of, not immunity from, death, there or any where. And was He not most signally answered? and declared Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:4)? See also Acts 3:15; 1 Cor. 15:15; 1 Peter 1:21. God "raised him from the dead and set him at His own right hand in the heavenlies, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come" (Eph. 1:20-21). Answer this, surely! The cry in the garden, then, had no such reference as they say it had. The "cup" there, was not another cup, nor did the cry there in my judgment. synchronise at all with Heb. 5.

It had in it another ingredient, one far more fearful than "fear of death and failure through death then and there;" an ingredient, a factor, from which there could be no discharge if "atonement" were to be made: hence therefore the qualifying "if it be possible" and the "nevertheless." What that was we are not left far to seek for. We read 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24, and we get our answer truly as to one part of it — "made sin." We read Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34, and we again get our answer in its second part — "forsaken of God"! Let us pause, let us afresh consider of Whom it is these scriptures so speak. The Only-begotten, ever in the Father's bosom, the Son of His love and His delight. Alike in His own love to and delight in the Father as was the Father to Him. The Son too, Whose sceptre is a sceptre of righteousness, Who loved righteousness and hated iniquity. The Holy One, the Holy One of God, even that not relatively only, but absolutely, essentially, intrinsically, the expression of it without measure, without alloy in His person and in every step and stage of His wondrous path here, in Whom could be no tolerance or excuse or mitigation of sin, but absolute abhorrence of, and anger against sin in its every beginning, development, and ending. Whose eyes to detect it were as a flame of fire, in Whose hand to resent it was a sharp two-edged sword, Whose voice to condemn it is as the voice of thunder, and the sound of many waters; and His countenance as the sun shineth in his strength, flashing forth indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, against every soul of man that doeth evil — every evil work or thought. Here in grace to save though! wondrous combination truly! The apostle writes, "Consider him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself."

But here in our present view, we are to behold Him — "made sin" brought into vital contact and affinity, if we may so say, with that which He as the "Holy One" so hated — so contrary and repulsive to Him, beyond the holiest of men or angels, as well it might be surely; not as touching Him only, but as that which touched specially His God and Father in His prerogatives, his honour, His sovereignty, His word: the great blight on the creature and the creation, the foul and poisonous breath of Satan, and his kindred host of demons and of men, his only too willing accessories and tools. And mark, not "made sin" only, not "bearing our sins in His own body on the tree" only; but as the necessary, inevitable — and to Him appalling result, Himself the "forsaken" one of "His God." "O my God, I cry in the day-time, but thou answerest not; and in the night-season, and am not silent." "Our fathers trusted in thee … and thou didst deliver them … But I am a worm!" (Ps. 22). He had said, "I knew that thou hearest me always"; but now, it is, "Thou hearest me not." "Why art Thou so far from helping me"? Speak not of death as His "fear" here, true He died, had to die, for that was a necessity in atonement. But "made sin," "forsaken of His God," that — the two combined — the latter, the necessary, the irrevocable, the stern sequence of the former. "Let this cup pass from Me if possible"! And is not this divine perfection in its purest form, the "perfection of holiness" and of love, a love which might well shrink from a forsaking such as this? Not to have shrunk here, not to have recoiled here, would have been a failure indeed, the strangest failure and more fatal to His own character as "Son and Holy" than any other. And yet we are told by these writers that "this He was always ready to accept and did accept without flinching." Do they really mean it?

It is important, too, to observe how carefully scripture excludes the thought that His death was the result of any thing from without, the result of crucifixion — its accompaniment it was truly, but only. For we read that when they came to Him with intent to hasten or precipitate His death by breaking His legs, they found Him dead already, but not so the two malefactors (John 19:31-33); and so Pilate marvelled if He were already dead (Mark 15:44). No! His life He laid down of Himself as He had said (John 10:17-18), and so with loud voice He cried, "It is finished: and he … gave up the ghost," saying, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Matt. 27:50; Mark 15:37; Luke 23:46; John 19:30). Thus, thanks be to His great name and holy, "He the Just one died for us, the unjust, that He might bring us to God — died that we might live" (2 Cor. 5) — "gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world" (Gal. 1); for "thus it is written and thus it behoved him," as the Son and the Saviour and the Shepherd. And so with John we exultingly cry, "Unto him that loveth us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and made us kings and priests unto God and His Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever." Amen.

To say then that when the Lord Jesus cried in the garden, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me," He had before Him "death then and there": and that it was "fear" of this which induced or evoked the cry, is not to explain but to pervert His words. It is to lay upon Him a contingency only belonging to one fallen. It is to impute to Him forgetfulness of His own, and the Father's words, and all the scriptures which speak of His death (and this as only on the cross), and so far from "delivering the prayer there, from weakness and ignorance" (Himself pardon the words) as this writer claims, makes it all that and worse, for it places the Christ of God on the same plane as those, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. This is not to honour. It debases Him, not exalts. G. R.