39 And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” 40 And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? 41 Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Intense emotion gushes out at from this passage. We’ve previously seen the Lord praying and teaching His disciples how to pray. We’ve seen the disciples praying (that is, crying out) to the Lord in their desperate situations (think boating on the stormy Sea of Galilee). In the upper room account we are given an extended audience to His high priestly prayer (John 17). But, never before our passage today do we see the Lord praying with such emotion!
He collapsed with the crushing weight of what lay before Him. The third chronicler of our Lord’s life put it this way, “And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground” (Luke 22:44). This was real, not just a show for the casual reader. God invites us to sit front row center to view the intimate, great emotive outpouring in prayer. We tread such ground carefully.
How could Jesus, who was the Christ, the Son of the Living God, ask such a question, that “this cup pass from Me”? True, in the end, He submitted to the Father’s will, but He was tempted. What does that mean? Does that mean Jesus could have actually resisted His Father’s will? If that were the case, then the perfect union of the Father and Son was in danger of a breach—a division in God Himself and an absolute and utter failure of the mission, because of a failure in God Himself. Yet, that is an impossibility for it would contradict everything we know about Christ being God and therefore the very existence of God Himself. The Scripture says that, “He cannot deny Himself” (2 Tim 2:13).
Yet the temptation was very real, because Jesus was also human, and was “tempted in all things as we are” (Heb 4:15b). But, praise God, “He did not sin” (Heb 4:15c). How can both things be true: the reality of the temptation and the impossibility of sinning? Our own experience of temptation renders us suspicious, for it often leads us to sin. But the fact that we mere mortals do occasionally succeed in resisting temptation, tells that temptation in order to be real does not require failure. Therefore, for the temptation of the Lord to be real does not require that He be able to sin. He was the perfect man, and therefore He resisted the very real temptations that are “common to men” (1 Cor 10:13).
Lord, please come to my aid when I am being tempted (Heb 2:18).
0 Comments