by John H. Gerstner

The preview of impending doom was so terrifying that the mighty Jesus Himself asked, if it were possible, to escape it. Normally His obedience was instant and without question. Only the extreme severity of the ordeal can explain the plea: "O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me." The Son appealed directly to His loving Father to save Him from this hour if it were by any means possible. Mark tells us that He even first reminded God of His ability to do all things, as He said, "Abba [a term of the utmost filial intimacy], Father, all things are possible unto Thee. . . ." To the same effect, Luke mentions that He said, "Father, if Thou be willing. . . ." John notes that Jesus said, on an occasion which appears to be identical with the one we are now considering, "Father, save Me from this hour." The fact that this appeal appears in all accounts, and the poignancy with which it is recorded, show clearly how fervently Christ must have asked about the possibility of escaping the dread hour.

It does not tell us that God answered His Son's plea on this occasion. There were other occasions when God did speak audibly from heaven so that His Son and those around could hear Him. On this occasion God seems to have been silent--but the Son knew the answer. Indeed, I believe it was a rhetorical question, a question to which the answer was already known. It was a cry of desperation, and not an inquiry at all. Jesus knew that if there had been any conceivable way whereby God could have redeemed the world other than by the horrible death of His Son. God would never have resorted to such an expense. He knew that there never could be any other name given under heaven whereby men must be saved. He knew that there was no one else good enough to pay the price of sin; no one else could open the door and let us in. Jesus knew that if those dear ones whom He had left were to drink of the vine again with Him in the kingdom of God there was but one way--He must drink of the cup of God's wrath.

So, looking directly into the furnace of the coming divine fury into which His own willing obedience alone could cause Him to be cast, Christ said, "Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt." He made God's will His will, even though He knew fully and terribly what such submission meant. God's will was His will; the Father and the Son were one in their redemptive love for the elect. This is made even more explicit in John's account where Christ said, "Father, save Me from this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name."

"And He cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, 'What, could ye not watch with Me one hour?' " The Savior was surrendering Him-self to the wrath of God for His people. He had asked His chief disciples just to stand by, to understand, to appreciate, and to comfort. He did not ask them to do anything else; there was nothing else they could do. It was because they could do nothing that Christ had to do everything for their redemption. But could they not even stand by? Could they not sorrow that He had to suffer so much for them? Could they not even stay awake for one hour? What a heart-breaking ordeal it must have been to find those for whom He was about to die unable to stay awake for an hour to comfort Him in His great and terrible vicarious death for them! Yet our Lord, overwhelmed with the vision He had just had of the fiery torment before Him, to which He would submit Himself for the very elect's sake, very gently chided His sleeping disciples. Immediately He turned from His own concerns to theirs. "Love seeketh not her own," and so Love Incarnate quickly forgot His anguish and turned to the disciples'. Affectionately He warned them not for His sake, but for their own. "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." In that remark, grief-stricken as He was, bitterly disappointed as He must have been, Christ did not fail to notice and even praise the drowsy disciples for having the right spirit and meaning well, even though they were so very weak.

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This is part fourteen 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.