Gethsemane — death by the most appalling torture is only hours away, and Jesus is sorely tempted to escape it. In his anguish, the sweat pours from him, looking like great drops of blood. He cries out to his Father, “If it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39).
That second sentence expresses the sort of sentiment we have come to expect from the Son of God. But the fast sentence does not. Did Jesus really ask (even if only momentarily) for the cup of sacrifice to be taken away? Or were those words never intended to be understood at their face value, like many of his sayings. For example: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees:” “Destroy this temple and within three days I will raise it up;” “I came down from heaven:” “The wicked shall go into everlasting torment”
The purpose of this article is to seek a biblical answer to the question.
Foreknowledge
A few months before Calvary, at Caesarea Philippi in the extreme north of the land, Jesus began to prepare the disciples for what was coming. From then on, the warnings came thick and fast. Here are just a few, selected from a much longer list:
- “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
“Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!'”
“Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Out of my sight, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men” (Matt 16:21-23).
- “When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.’ And the disciples were filled with grief’ (Matt. 17:22-23).
- “Now as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside and said to them, ‘We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life ! (Matt. 20:17-19).
- “When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, ‘As you know, the Passover is two days away — and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified'” (Matt. 26:1-2).
- “Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:27-28 NIV).
One thing emerges clearly from these passages: without any shadow of doubt, Jesus knew that he must be crucified. The Matthew 16 passage is particularly powerful; it shows that anyone questioning this fact could justly be called Satan. So it is very difficult indeed (many would say, quite impossible) to take the Lord’s petition literally, as a short-lived request to be allowed to escape crucifixion. But what is the alternative?
Seeking an alternative meaning
Matthew and Mark both tell us Jesus prayed three times in Gethsemane. Matthew adds that the second and third of these petitions were identical, while Mark says the first and second were the same. If we assume — as I think we must — that neither Matthew nor Mark made a mistake, it follows that the Lord uttered only one basic prayer on this occasion, but repeated this basic request three times.
Interestingly, while we know there was only one basic prayer, Matthew offers us two different versions of the prayer which differ in a significant manner.
First petition (Matt. 26:39): “Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Meaning that another way could be possible but I will accept your decision).
Second petition (Matt 26:42): “Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done” (Meaning I realize I must go to the cross and submit myself to your will.)
The simplest way to bring into line these two wordings of the Gethsemane prayer is to take one of them as a statement of what the Lord actually said, and the other as Matthew’s inspired interpretation of what Jesus really meant. If our assumption is correct, this would provide the needed clue to a right understanding.
We have seen from the passages previously given that Jesus knew he must be crucified and rise from the dead. Accordingly, verse 39 must be what the Lord actually said, while verse 42 is Matthew’s interpretation of what the Lord actually meant. If this is so, most of the problems vanish.
To see the point clearly, we need to understand that the word “if’ is often used with the meaning of “since.” (This is true in both English and Greek.) Take, for instance, the following expressions in Matthew:
“If God so clothe the grass of the field…” (6:30).
“If ye, then, know how to give good gifts…” (7:11).
“If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub…” (10:25).
“If the case of the man is so with his wife…” (19:10).
If David then call him Lord…” (22:45).
In each of these examples, “if’ does not introduce a statement of a possibility (as it usually does); it introduces an accepted fact and clearly means “since”. That also is its obvious meaning in Matthew 26:42.
So it appears that Jesus did not, even for one moment, ask to be allowed to escape the cross. Instead, his prayer was simply an admission that he was sorely tempted to back oft; accompanied by a recognition that he knew he had to go through with it, and a plea that his Father would help him to do so.
The last word from John
John’s approach to recounting the actions of Jesus is different from that of the other gospels. Sometimes John omits an historical event that the other three all treat as very important, and instead gives us something unique that throws light on the missing event. For instance: Matthew, Mark and Luke all devote half a page or so to the last supper, while John does not mention it. Instead he chooses to devote a similar amount of space to the great discourse on the bread of life — something that adds an extra dimension to the other accounts of partaking of bread and wine.
It is like that with the events in Gethsemane. John makes no mention of them. What he does give us is a sort of inspired commentary on the Gethsemane prayers, spoken only a day or two before the actual event.
“Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!”
“Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.’ The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered, others said an angel had spoken to him” (John 12:27-29 NIV).
Notice how all the essentials of the Gethsemane prayer (as expounded above) are there. The admission of being under stress, the confession that Jesus was sorely tempted to escape the cross, his expression of determination not to do so, and the manifestation of God’s reassurance to him (possibly through an angel).
The one thing that is noticeably absent from this parallel passage in John is any suggestion that Jesus ever asked the Father if there might be some way of escape. Thus John provides useful confirmation that the words of Matthew 26:39 were never intended to be taken literally, and that Matthew 26:42 tells us what Jesus really meant.
Viewed like this, the Lord’s Gethsemane prayer sets an important example for us to follow. It suggests that it is not ideal to pray, “Lord I’m in great trouble; please could you get me out of it, if it be your will.” Instead, it is much more positive to say: “Lord, I’m in great trouble and I’d love to run away from it, if I could find a way to do so. But what! know I ought to do is to submit to your will, whatever that may be. So please help me, Lord, with the extra strength! need in order to go your way rather than mine.”
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