by John H. Gerstner

Gethsemane was the place of Christ's exquisite torment. It is here we see the Man of Sorrows being acquainted with grief. Matthew tells us that after the last supper with His apostles, He began to be sorrowful. At the supper He had been full of joy. Though the supper represented vividly to Him the death He was to accomplish the next day, He was still very happy because He was with His own. His sorrow then was sublimated in a sense of the joy that would follow. Here feasting with Him were the very ones for whom He was to die so that they would be able to feast with Him forever. Though the cup was the new testament in His blood, as He told them, He was comforted in the anticipation of eating and drinking with them again in the kingdom of heaven. "With desire," He had said, "have I desired to eat this passover with you." His desire was fulfilled.

The sorrow of Christ was like that of a soldier about to go into battle--a battle which he knows means suffering and death--who is spending his last night with his family. There is his dear wife and beloved children for whom he would go out to fight and die. So on that last evening, the divine Soldier was happy because He was in the presence of those for whom He was soon to die, and was surrounded by their love. Christ was not sorrowful then. His own grief was swallowed up in the joy of being with His disciples.

But when the supper was over and they all went out after singing the Hallel, this divine Warrior was left with His thoughts about the dread battle soon to be waged in order that he might save those with whom He had so happily dined. As a soldier will say "farewell" to his little children first and then draw apart for a final farewell with the one who understands and loves him most, his wife, so Christ separated Himself from His family of apostles and called to Himself the three who loved and understood Him best of all: Peter, James, and John. Then it was that "He began to be sorrowful, and sore troubled. Then saith He unto them, 'My soul is ex-ceeding sorrowful, even unto death; abide ye here and watch with me' " (Matthew 26:37).

What was the cause of this amazement, sorrow, and great trouble even unto death which our Lord encountered in Gethsemane? It was a taste of the cup He was about to drink. He always knew that He was to die; in fact He had predicted it many times. He had set His face as a flint to go up to Jerusalem where He was to be delivered up. He had discussed with Moses and Elijah His decease at Jerusalem. It was not a disclosure that He was to drink a cup of woe that so amazed and burdened Him that He sweat great drops of blood; it must have been a divinely given realization of what the cup of suffering was--not just that it was to be, but what it was to be. He had always known that He was to die and be separated from God on the cross. Now He was made to feel what it was. In the words of Jonathan Edwards:

The sorrow and distress which His soul then suffered arose from that lively, and full, and immediate view which He had then given Him of that cup of wrath, by which God the Father did, as it were, set the cup down before Him, for Him to take it and drink it. Some have inquired what the occasion of that distress and agony was, and many speculations there have been about it; but the account which the Scripture itself gives us is sufficiently full in this matter and does not leave room for speculation or doubt. The thing that Christ's mind was so full of at that time was, without doubt, the same as that which His mouth was so full of: it was the dread which His feeble nature had of that dreadful cup, which was vastly more terrible than Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace. He had then a near view of that furnace of wrath into which He was to be cast. He was brought to the mouth of the furnace that He might look into it, and stand and view its raging flames, and see the glowings of its heat, that He might know where He was going and what He was about to suffer. This was the thing that filled His soul with sorrow and darkness, this terrible sight as it overwhelmed Him. For what was that human nature of Christ to such mighty wrath as this? It was in itself, without the supports of God, but a feeble worm of the dust, a thing that was crushed before the moth. None of God's children ever had such a cup set before them as this first Being of every creature had." (From "Christ's Agony," in the Soli Deo Gloria title Pressing Into the Kingdom)

The second Adam was undergoing a much greater temptation than the first one. The probation was the same, however, testing obedience to God. There is no indication, though, that Adam faced anything comparable to the ordeal of Christ in His obedience. Adam was to obey God by not eating of the tree. We may assume that there was something very tempting--even without the solicitation of Satan--in that tree's fruit. But certainly that trial could not approach the ordeal of Christ. He had to be obedient unto death; Adam would have to be obedient unto life. Adam's obedience would save him from death; Christ's obedience would deliver Him to death. Furthermore, Christ would see in advance all the horror of that death which obedience would cost. Never had there been nor could there be a temptation like that.

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This is part thirteen of John H. Gerstner's small book entitled Theology for Everyman, originally published in 1965 (Moody Press, Chicago). That book was subsequently republished by Soli Deo Gloria in 1991. It has since fallen out of print and we thought it would be good to revisit this book here on the blog. Over the next couple of months, we'll work our way through the book. Here is where we've been so far: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4.