A Sermon by Alexander Grierson
Luke 22:44. And being in an agony, He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
- Another ingredient in Christ’s bitter cup was supplied by Satan. To this we find repeated references in Scripture. After the temptation in the wilderness, the devil had departed from Christ for a season; but before going out from the communion table He had intimated to the disciples that the tempter was about to return: “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me” (Jn 14:30) – that is, though there was nothing in His holy will or affections on which his sinful suggestions could take effect, Satan was about to renew his desperate assaults, that he might tempt and terrify Him into abandoning His undertaking, if he could lead Him to sin. Satan knew that his time was short and that the crisis of man’s redemption was at hand.
The words of Jesus to the three disciples on first entering the garden, “Tarry ye here and watch with Me” (Mt 26:38), seem to indicate that the same dangerous and subtle enemy was near. And when Jesus returned and found them asleep, He renewed the warning in still plainer terms, “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation” (v 41). Nor did they escape the temptation against which He warned them, for on His return from prayer He found them again and again asleep, their eyes being heavy. On such an occasion, this can surely be ascribed only to supernatural temptation. The devil seems to have exercised over the disciples some strange soporific influence, that he might have a better opportunity of tempting and terrifying their Master, as the thief seeks to bribe or deceive the watchman.
A little before, in speaking of His last sufferings, Christ had connected them with a victory that He was to achieve over Satan. “Now is the judgement of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12:31). And a little afterwards, He said, in remonstrating with those that had come to apprehend Him: “But this is your hour, and the power of darkness” (Lk 22:53). From all this it seems that the devil was now permitted to collect all his forces and ply his subtlest wiles, and that the Redeemer’s agony was partly caused by the mighty struggle in which He was engaged with the
1Taken, with editing, from a posthumous volume of the preacher’s Sermons. The first part of the sermon, including the first head and the first point of the second, appeared last month. The first head was, “The outward expressions and indications of the Saviour’s agony”; the second was, “Its producing causes”. The first of these producing causes was “the wickedness of men acting in concert with the treachery of Judas, and the weakness of the other disciples”. The remainder of the sermon appears here.
principalities and powers of darkness. How appropriate the prophetic words of the Psalmist: “Be not far from Me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help. Many bulls have compassed Me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset Me round. They gaped upon Me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion” (Ps 22:11-13).
- But a far more terrible ingredient in Christ’s bitter cup was from the hand of God Himself, His righteous indignation and holy jealousy like a consuming fire against sin. On His way to the garden, Jesus had referred to this first of all. “Then saith Jesus unto His disciples, All ye shall be offended because of Me this night; for it is written, I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad” (Mt 26:31). He thus very plainly intimated that the time had now come when the dread commission granted by God Himself for the satisfaction of eternal justice was to be executed against Him: “Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the man that is My fellow, saith the Lord of hosts; smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered” (Zec 13:7).
This was the main ingredient in that awful cup and it gave its intensity of bitterness to all the rest. Jesus lost His sense of His Father’s love, and for a season lay under His Father’s frown. The sword of Divine justice was unsheathed and wielded by the hand of omnipotence, its sharp edge was piercing the very joints and marrow; God Himself smote the Shepherd. And when God revealed Himself in the glory of His holiness to the patriarch Job, the sense that holy man had of what his sin deserved was so bitter that he exclaimed, “O that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea. . . . For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me” (Job 6:2-4); “Thou huntest me as a fierce lion, and again Thou showest Thyself marvellous upon me” (Job 10:16).
If you have yourselves ever felt the feelings of guilt in an awakened conscience, if you have been convinced of sin by the Holy Spirit, if you have felt that “the word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart”, if you have thus felt that it is an evil and a bitter thing that you have sinned against the Lord, then what must have been the bitterness of that cup which sin had mingled for the Saviour? If the sting of death can sometimes appal even the unconverted sinner, if sin pained the heart of holy Job like the smart of a poisoned arrow, if the sword of the Spirit of grace pierces deep into the soul of the penitent in conviction; then how sharp and piercing must have
been the sword of God’s justice when He commissioned it to awake against the Shepherd.
But here illustration fails us, for who knows the power of Jehovah’s anger? Or who can adequately understand Christ’s apprehension of that wrath which was due to so many millions of transgressors and which made Him exclaim, “Thy wrath lieth hard upon Me, and Thou hast afflicted Me with all Thy waves” (Ps 88:7). This formed the grand distinguishing feature in the Saviour’s sufferings, which prepared the way for all the sufferings He bore. The words of Christ to Pilate, “Thou couldest have no power at all against Me, except it were given thee from above” (Jn 19:11), were equally true of all who took part against Him; without the permission of God, Satan could have had no power to tempt Him.
Whence then came God’s permission, and why did the hand of God smite Him? There was none that could convict Him of sin; He had done no violence, neither was guile ever found in His lips. And His nature was as holy as His life. The prince of this world came and found nothing in Him. “Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (Is 53:4,5).
Thus did Christ suffer as a sacrifice for His people’s sins. While they think on the known and unknown sufferings of Christ, let them also think about their own sins – not only those they know, but those that are unknown and unnumbered. Let the eye of every soul be directed inwards; let each survey his own life and examine his own heart. And as each act of transgression passes in review, let him remember that each went to fill up that cup of affliction and misery, of wormwood and gall, from which the Saviour drank. Let them remember their sins this day, and mourn over them with godly sorrow.
3. The prayer with which Christ’s agony was accompanied. From a careful examination of the words of the inspired account, it appears that Christ prayed three times in the garden, that His prayer on the second and third of these occasions was one and the same, but that the prayer He first offered was different. Let us consider them in order.
(1). Matthew tells us (26:39) that, on the first of these occasions, He fell on His face and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt”. To the same effect are the words of Mark (14:35,36), “He went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him. And He said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee; take away this cup from Me; nevertheless not what I will, but what Thou wilt.”
In this first prayer He expressed His deep aversion and horror in contemplating that cup and His strong desire that it might pass away without Him drinking it, though this is coupled with the most perfect submission to His Father’s will. He prayed that, if it was possible, the cup might pass away. Now, let us remember that Christ was made in all things like unto His brethren, yet without sin. But a desire to escape from suffering, if consistent with God’s will, is not sinful. On the contrary, to profess a stoical indifference to suffering, such as some have gloried in, suggests an unfeeling hardness of soul. The example of Christ teaches us rather to honour the tender feelings of our nature. It inspires that gentleness and sympathy which, when the occasion calls for it, is not ashamed of tears and earnest cries and prayers.
This prayer of the Saviour indicates how gladly He would have avoided the sufferings upon which He was entering, had it been consistent with the will of God and the welfare of His people; it indicates that He was in a great strait between the weakness of nature and the counsels of Divine grace, between fear and subjection, between death and duty. The struggle in His bosom did not arise, as it did in Paul, from the contest between sin and grace, but between His holy human nature and the unparalleled sufferings to which it was exposed.
If it had been possible, the cup would have passed away in answer to His prayer. But the holy law of God had been broken, its penalty had been incurred by sin, and all the attributes of the Godhead forbade that sin should pass unpunished: His holiness, which is a consuming fire to iniquity and can never cease to be so; His inflexible justice, which will by no means clear the guilty; and His unchanging truth, which has declared that “the wages of sin is death”. The cup did not pass away, but an angel was sent from heaven to strengthen Him to endure it. What a view is thus presented to us of the terrible reality of Christ’s sufferings and of their tremendous necessity! Even in following out His gracious purposes of love and mercy to sinners, the all-wise God could only proceed in such a way as, instead of tarnishing, served yet more to exalt and illustrate the glory of His justice and the majesty of His law.
(2.) His prayer on the second occasion was in these words: “O My Father, if [or, since] this cup may not pass away from me except I drink it, Thy will be done” (Mt 26:42). The Father indicated His will that the Son should suffer, and the Son expressed unreserved acquiescence. But there is more in these words than a mere expression of His submission to the will of God; there is also an expression of His earnest desire and prayer that God would so support and strengthen His holy humanity that it might not fail nor be discouraged, but that He might be enabled to obey, and submit to, the whole will of God
and finish the work. The Apostle, in referring to His prayer at this time, says, He “was heard in that He feared”. What He feared was that His human nature might sink and be swallowed up in His great work; therefore He cried mightily unto God for aid, saying, “Thy will be done” (Mt 26:44).
“And he left them, and went away again the third time, saying the same words.” Christ well knew that the glory of His Father’s grace, as well as the success of His own mediatorial work and the everlasting salvation of all His people, were inseparably bound up with His finishing that cup. But He knew also that His human nature was weak; and so that it might not be overwhelmed He twice presented the prayer, “Thy will be done” – a prayer which was prophetically ascribed to Him by the Psalmist in a more expanded form: “Save Me, O God, for the waters are come in unto My soul; I sink in deep mire where there is no standing; I am come into deep waters where the floods overflow Me. . . . Deliver Me out of the mire, and let Me not sink; let Me be delivered from them that hate Me, and out of the deep waters. Let not the waterflood overflow Me, neither let the deep swallow Me up; and let not the pit shut her mouth upon Me” (Ps 69:1,2,14,15).
This view of both prayers in Gethsemane is in entire accordance with His own words as recorded by John: “Now is My soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour, but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name” (12:27,28). His first request in this passage, “Father, save Me from this hour,” corresponds with His first prayer in the garden: “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me”. And His second request, “Father, glorify Thy name,” corresponds with His second and third prayer in the garden: “If this cup may not pass away from Me except I drink it, Thy will be done”.
What the Apostle writes to the Hebrews confirms and illustrates, in the most pointed manner, this view of Christ’s latter and twice-offered prayer, that it was neither a request that the cup might pass from Him, nor a mere expression of His submission and acquiescence in the Father’s will, but an earnest desire that His will might be done and that His humanity might be strengthened for the endurance of it: “Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared. Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered; and being made perfect, He became the Author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him” (5:7-9).
Yes, blessed be God, both prayers were answered: the first, not in the withdrawal of the cup, but in the visit of the angel; and the second, in the strength imparted to sustain Him in His sufferings, in the completion of His great work
by His obedience unto death, in the Father’s acceptance of His sacrifice, in His being raised again on the third day, and in His exaltation to glory. It is being answered still whenever a sinner is converted to God, and it will be finally and fully answered in the everlasting salvation of all His people.
Now, in conclusion, let us enquire what practical instruction we may gather from this whole subject. The whole subject is intensely practical. I can but suggest two or three inferences for your own after-reflection.
- How alarming ought the subject to be to impenitent sinners! Go in your thoughts to Gethsemane if you have been stifling your convictions, listening to the suggestion of the tempter, “Ye shall not surely die”, and quietening your souls with the idea that God is too merciful to be just, so that you may still enjoy the pleasures of sin – expecting, in the end, to find God very indulgent. Go and see the Holy One agonising in sweat and blood and hear His earnest appeal, “O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me”. Yet that cup does not pass, because it was not possible that it should do so; surely there is enough in this solemn scene to convince us all that the idea of God being indulgent to sin and pardoning the finally impenitent is the most vain and groundless thought that was ever harboured by a deceived heart. Unless we repent and believe on the name of Him who drank that bitter cup on behalf of His people, the bitterest of all the ingredients in that cup, the wrath of God due to us for sin, is yet in store for us.
If God spared not His own Son, impenitent sinner, “take heed lest He also spare not thee”. Rather, if these things be done “in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?” “For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and He poureth out of the same: but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them” (Ps 75:8). To be racked with the remorse of a guilty conscience and tormented by inward corruption; to be plunged into the darkness of absolute despair and to have God for ever as their enemy; these are some of the ingredients of that cup which is reserved for the wicked, and of which they must drink through an endless eternity. If there was any right apprehension of these things, every Christless sinner would be pricked to the heart, a cold sweat would break out over all his frame, and he would exclaim in the bitterness of his soul, “What must I do to be saved?” And remember that these things are real and near at hand, whether we believe them or not.
- What a solid ground of hope is here laid for every truly penitent sinner, for all who are willing to forsake their sins and trust in the mercy of God through Christ! For in the sufferings of Christ we see not only the terrible nature and tremendous consequences of sin, but we see also the sure ground upon which God is both able and willing to bestow forgiveness on all that
come to Him in Christ’s name. If Christ agonised in sweat and blood, not only for His disciples, in spite of all their weakness, but also for thousands and millions who were yet in their enmity, will He now reject those who come to Him with a humble and penitent heart? “Come unto Me,” He says, “all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.”
- What a source of consolation and what a call to renewed contrition, as well as devout love and gratitude, does this subject present to the people of God! For Christ bore the chastisement of their peace, and by His stripes they are healed. When you meditate on the sufferings of Christ, surely to contemplate His great drops of blood may well move you to shed bitter tears over those sins which caused His agony. Yet even during his deepest self-abasement, the believer may well cherish everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, for the same justice, which rendered it impossible that the cup of wrath should pass away from the Saviour, renders it equally impossible that this cup, now that it has been exhausted by your Surety, should ever be presented to you. Indeed the sufferings of Christ are to the believer the sure pledge of every blessing. If God “spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up” to the death for us all, “how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”
I have read of someone who asked a friend to remind him, when he should be in the agonies of death, of Christ’s agony and bloody sweat. When this was done, he died in perfect peace. O that when we experience the cold and clammy sweat of death on our own mortal bodies, a believing view of our Saviour’s sufferings may assure us of His continued sympathy, protection and love! May we, with hearts full of hope and resignation, go to be with Him and to be like Him – His agony in the garden exchanged for a throne of glory, and our own manifold temptations, sins and trials for the holy and everlasting blessedness of heaven!