Brief Glimpse into the Mystery of Gethsemane

Introduction to the Mystery of Gethsemane

0:04 This sermon was preached on Sunday evening, September 8th, 1985, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now will you turn with me, please, to the 26th chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew. Matthew's Gospel and the 26th chapter. And follow as I read, beginning with verse 36 and concluding the reading with verse 46.

0:40 Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto his disciples, Sit here while I go yonder and pray. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful, and sore troubled. Then said he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Abide here, and watch with me. And he went forward a little, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, My father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me. Nevertheless. Not as I will, but as you will.

1:48 And he comes unto the disciples, and finds them sleeping, and says unto them, says unto Peter, What, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Again, a second time, he went away and prayed, saying, My father, if this cannot pass away, except I drink it, thy will be done.

2:23 And he came again, and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And he left them again, and went away, and prayed a third time, saying again the same words. Then cometh he to the disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now. And take your rest.

2:48 Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be going. Behold, he is at hand that betrays me. Now let us again ask the help of God, as we seek to meditate upon what is, in my estimation, one of the most profoundly mysterious, yet moving portions, in all of God's written record of the life, and the suffering, and the death, and subsequent resurrection of his own beloved Son.

Prayer for Illumination and the Shadow of Calvary

3:29 Let us pray. Surely, our Father, if you said to Moses by a burning bush, Put off your shoes, for the place where you stand is holy ground, we would in spirit take off our shoes, before we tiptoe as we go, as it were, to behold in Gethsemane the agony of our Lord Jesus. We confess that in the contemplation of this portion of your word, we stand upon unusually holy ground, ground that absorbed the blood and sweat of our Savior, ground that felt the weight of his prostrate body, as he agonized in prayer, O Lord, by the Holy Spirit, who gave us this record of his agony, give us eyes to see, and at least in some little measure, to enter in and to understand what it was that he was bearing for us. Hear our prayer, and so send the Spirit to bear witness to Christ, that our hearts will be melted before him, and the sight,

4:56 of his agony, for us, and for our salvation, we ask in his name. Amen. As we seek in the next half hour to prepare our hearts for coming to the Supper of Remembrance, I want you to take this time, and with me, to engage in what we can only call as a brief glimpse into the mystery of Gethsemane. In this scene that I've read in your hearing, recorded in Matthew's Gospel, and also recorded in Mark 14 and Luke chapter 22, we have that which Hugh Martin, the great Scottish theologian and preacher, has called the shadow of Calvary. In his classic work seeking to expound the mystery of Gethsemane, he has entitled that work, The Shadow of Calvary. And it's a very appropriate title, because if you have any familiarity with the Gospel records, you will note that in all of the events recorded when our Lord was actually upon the cross,

6:21 there is only one of the so-called seven sayings of the cross in which the Lord Jesus gives us any definitive insight into the state of his own mind and soul upon the cross. From the cross he speaks the word of pardon to the thief. He speaks the word of goodwill to the very ones who impaled him upon the cross. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

6:55 He speaks his word of triumph. It is finished. He speaks his word of commitment. Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit, but only in the words, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

7:12 Are we given an insight into something of the travail of his own soul as he bears the sins of his people? But here in the incident recorded in Gethsemane, the Holy Spirit has given us a fuller revelation of the inner travail of the Lord Jesus as he contemplates what it will mean for him who knew no sin to become sin on behalf of his people. And so in a very real sense, before the cross was actually planted there upon Golgotha, this dark but well-defined shadow from the cross is cast backwards into Gethsemane. And it is for that reason that Hugh Martin entitled his exposition of this passage The Shadow of Calvary. For in that shadow we are actually given insights into the mystery of the cross that are not given in the actual account of the cross itself. Throughout this entire passage, language is brought before us that is vigorous, strong,

The Intensity of Christ's Agony in Gethsemane

8:36 and yet language which in some ways can only be described as shocking and pathetic language. In verse 37 we read that he began to be sorrowful and sore troubled. Verse 38 tells us that he confessed to his own disciples that his soul was exceeding sorrowful even to the point of being crushed to death there in Gethsemane. Furthermore, we have the record in verse 39 that with no physical cross upon his back to press him to the ground in weakness, there was such a weight upon his spirit that he literally fell upon his face, and in the tenses used in Mark's account, it's the picture of a man who falls upon his face as we have sometimes seen in the proverbial desert traveler who's come almost to the end of his life and he staggers to his feet and takes a step or two in the burning sand and then falls upon his face again, lies prostrate, struggles to his feet, takes a few steps and falls again, the tense of the verb used in Mark's account

10:04 gives us that very picture. It was not a once for all prostration, a once for all falling, but there was this repetition of rising to the feet and falling under the weight of his soul and in prostration pouring out his heart into the ear of his father. And then Luke adds that strange statement in chapter 22 and verse 44 of his account of this incident, words that none of us can fully understand and I certainly am not prepared to interpret or even to exegete, I simply read them, and being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly and his sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground. Whether the sweat was actually mingled with blood or whether the sweat congealed as blood, this much we know from the language. So intense was the spiritual agony that there were even abnormal physical manifestations in the body of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ.

The Centrality of the Cup in Christ's Prayer

11:30 Then perhaps the greatest agony and mystery of the passage is to be found in that we have a record of something nowhere else found in the record of the life of Jesus, where the holy, pure, submissive, sanctified human will of Jesus is with importunity pleading that there might be a bypassing of what he knows to be the will of God. O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. If this cup cannot pass away except I drink it, thy will be done. And it would be impossible in the time allotted even to begin to expound the entire passage and all I propose to do after this general introduction is to focus your attention upon that which obviously was the focus of all of this trauma which our Lord experienced. The sorrow and the sore troubling, the sorrow even unto death, the falling prostrate upon the ground,

12:56 the pleading if possible that there would be a change in the will of God. All of this focused upon that which our Lord calls in this passage the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup. My Father, if it be possible, verse 39, let this cup pass away. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.

13:31 When he prays the second time, verse 42, he says, if this, understood again, the cup, if this cannot pass away except I drink it, the image of the cup again, thy will be done. And then we are told that he left them again, verse 44, and prayed a third time, saying again the same words. In each of the thrice repeated petitions, it is this issue of the cup that precipitates the agony of our Lord. It is the contemplation of the cup, whatever it is, that causes him to be prostrate upon the ground in such agony that either sweat mingled with blood or congealed as blood and dropped from his brow and from the rest of his physical frame, it was this whole issue of the cup. The cup, the cup, three times central to his agonizing prayer is the issue of the cup. And so the question forces itself upon the consciousness of every man, woman, boy or girl who reads the passage or listens to it read

15:00 with any attention. What was this cup? That it should cause that which is described as exceeding sorrowful even unto death. What was the cup?

Defining the Cup: The Unmixed Wrath of God

15:15 What was in the cup that caused our Lord in the thrice repeated prayer to plead, if at all possible, the cup might pass from him? Well, we know from the analogy of Scripture, we know from the Scripture and subsequent experience of our Lord that under the imagery of the cup is nothing less than our Lord's actual experience of taking the unmixed wrath of God due to the sins of his people and so absorbing that wrath into his own soul that all of the righteous claims of heaven against his sinful people will be fully exhausted and completely satisfied. In the language of Hugh Martin who seeks to answer that question, what is the cup? Here is the description. That cup is the curse of God from which he came to redeem his elect people.

16:30 That sword of the Lord's wrath and vengeance which he had just predicted, the penal desertion on the cross, the withdrawal of all comfortable views and influences, and the present consciousness of the anger of God against him as the substitute of his people, a person laden with iniquity, these were the elements mingled in the cup of trembling, which was now to be put into his hands and the prospect caused him deadly sorrow. The cup was nothing less than the Father presenting to the consciousness of Jesus in a way that hitherto he had never done what it would mean for him literally to exhaust the wrath of God unmixed with mercy, against the sins of a great multitude whom no man can number out of every kindred, tribe and tongue and nation and people. To use the very language of the book of the Revelation which picks up this theme and imagery of the cup,

17:55 we are told in Revelation 14.10 that those who worship the beast and his image shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is prepared unmixed, undiluted in the cup of his anger. The wine of the wrath of God prepared unmixed in the cup of his anger. You have a similar phrase in chapter 16 and verse 19b, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. And the cup which was presented to our Lord in Gethsemane was none other than that particular cup. It was the vessel full of the unmixed vengeance of God against the sins of those for whom Christ had become surety and substitute. And though he had spoken calmly and clearly, particularly from Caesarea Philippi onward, that the Son of Man must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things and be rejected

Christ's Virtuous Recoil from the Cup

19:24 and be killed and the third day rise from the dead, I say it reverently, he spoke those things while his own soul was distanced from what it would actually mean to drink the cup. But here in Gethsemane, the Father brings so near to the Son that cut cauldron of his unleashed fury against sin, brings it as it were so near to our Lord that he can smell its putrid smell, he can behold its fierce and frightening and awesome specter before him and when he sees it, everything in his holy humanity recoils. And it would have been sin for him not to recoil. For a holy creature to contemplate drinking into the depths of his soul the wrath of a holy God with indifference would be the height of impunity. It would show lack of respect for the majesty and the awesomeness and the fierceness of the anger of Almighty God.

20:49 It was virtuous in the human soul of our Lord to recoil from that cup. There was no misunderstanding of that cup as the subsequent cry from Golgotha reveals that as he contemplates the forfeiture of all the felt approval of his father, as he contemplated what it would mean to feel as it were the fiery indignation of his father against the sins of his people, running along the track of every faculty of soul and body, he was not overestimating the reality for when the reality came it is that which forced from him his soul to cry God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why have you abandoned me? Why have you plunged me into the darkness of no felt warmth of the light of your countenance, no felt sense of your approbation and smile and approval? My God, why have you abandoned me?

Christ's Submission and Triumph

22:09 And it was in Gethsemane that our blessed Lord facing that cup in his holy human soul recoiled and said as an act of virtue O my Father if it be possible let this cup pass then his prayer moves into a new dimension when he says if it cannot pass pass it must if any sinner is to be saved saved righteously saved justly saved in a way that leaves no tarnish upon the throne of Almighty God if it cannot pass except I drink it not my will but thine be done and as you read the Gospel record you will know that he came forth from the agony and the travail and the conquest of Gethsemane with a majestic calmness that is not that is not broken until the cry of dereliction he goes forth from this point with no murmur as the lamb before her shearers is dumb so he opens not his mouth and there upon the cross the Father answers the prayer not my will

23:37 but thine be done I embrace thy will and if thy will means that I must drink that cup to the last dark drop drink it I must drink it I shall drink it I will out of love to you my Father and love to the sheep for whom I am to lay down my life and there upon the cross the cup met him again and this time it met him not held in the Father's hands in prospect but put into his hands and he was told to drink and he drank and he drank and he drank until when he came to the dregs of that cup the agony experienced wrung from him that cry Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani my God my God why hast thou forsaken me but in a short while the Father let him see that the cup was empty and it is then that he cried tetelestai it is finished drop in that cup's drain and then not expiring in weakness

Application to Unbelievers: Flee God's Wrath

25:06 but with a shout of triumph he cries Father into thy hands I commit my spirit now that in brief is the message of that cup what does it say to us as we stand and sit on the threshold of coming to the Lord's table well let me in closing bring out three very simple but also vital lines of application first of all a word to you men women boys and girls who are yet in your sins who have never fled to Christ as your sin bearer I call upon you in this passage to view the fiery indignation of God against you in your state of unclean sinfulness if the Lord Jesus viewed the cup of God's wrath undiluted with mercy the fierceness of his anger with no dilution of compassion or mercy pure justice in the cup what makes you think you will escape in the day of judgment if the Son of God

26:33 did not escape the cup when bearing sin vicariously when becoming the sinner in position before the bar of God voluntarily and willingly as the substitute of his people if God's anger was not diluted for him but caused him to stumble before the sight of God before the sight of it to cry that he might avoid it what will you do sinner when you go before God and a cup is held before you and it's God's wrath against your sins every lie every profanation of his name every thought and deed of lust every act of disobedience to parents every feeling of jealousy and bitterness and anger and wrath every word of deceit every word of bitterness my sinner friend in the name of God will you be able to take that cup the incarnate God staggered in Gethsemane before him no wonder scripture says in that day men will cry for rocks and mountains to hide them

28:01 from the face of him that sits upon the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb oh my sinner friend don't trifle with God's offered mercy in the Lord Jesus the Father takes sin seriously so seriously that he puts the cup of imputed sin and therefore of imputed wrath and judgment before his own beloved Son until it almost crushes his Son to death at the very sight of it my soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death but for you it will crush you and that with eternal death oh I plead with you by the sweat drops of Gethsemane and the blood spilt upon Calvary my sinner friend repent and flee to the Lord Jesus child of God as we contemplate coming to the Lord's table the cup of Gethsemane contains a profound message to us first of all it contains for us a word that ought to produce the deepest conviction on the one hand and the greatest comfort on the other you see the scripture tells us

Application to Believers: Conviction and Comfort

29:30 that he bore our sins plural particular individual he bore our sins in his own body up to the tree that cup was full of the wrath of God unmixed with mercy not simply against the sins of his people generically facelessly but the particular sins of all of his people particularly though the hymn is speaking of Calvary it can be applied to Gethsemane you who fear God and you who think of sin but lightly nor suppose its evil great here may view its nature rightly here its guilt may estimate child of God what sin are you rationalizing about sitting here tonight what sin are you excusing what sin are you justifying what sin are you covering over with euphemisms what sin are you presently in this very hour excusing because everyone does it is it sins connected with the tongue is it sins of the heart

30:56 sins of attitude sins of the eyes sins of the ears sins of the hands sins of the sexual organs whatever they be child of God go to Gethsemane and look at your sin in that cup look at your sin in that cup see your sin in that cup I defy anyone in whose heart grace exists to go on rationalizing his sin while gazing into that cup excusing the sin while gazing into the cup gazing into the cup where God gives us his true estimation of that sin even in the life of a believer that the cup that caused our Lord to quake and tremble and fall prostrate in an agony of soul should not only bring conviction to us as his children but it should bring comfort to us my soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death and that sorrow did culminate in the wages of sin which is death death and the curse were in our cup

32:21 O Christ was full for thee thou hast drained the last dark drop tis empty now for me that bitter cup love drank it up now blessings draft for me child of God can you rejoice in full and free forgiveness if you find it difficult to do so go to Gethsemane behold your Lord trembling staggering before the cup then behold him upon the cross drinking it until its bitterness rings from his soul the cry of dereliction then in his triumphant cry it is finished believe that the cup is empty there will be no wrath bearing twice God has punished your sins in the person of your substitute therefore the cup we take tonight is called a cup of blessing it is a cup unmixed with wrath because his cup was unmixed with mercy a cup unmixed with wrath dear people there is no wrath in that cup we drink

Application to Believers: The Principle of Obedience

33:49 because there was nothing but wrath in the cup that he drank and then in conclusion there is a final word of application that must grow out of Gethsemane and the cup it's the application forced upon us by the language of Hebrews 5 where it says of our Lord who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers with strong cryings and tears and was heard in that he feared a reference to Gethsemane though he were assigned by the Son yet learned the obedience by the things which he suffered and being made perfect he became unto all that obey him the author of eternal salvation what are we to learn from Gethsemane in the cup we are not only learned to be convicted to see sin in its true light to be comforted but child of God it is here that we learn the principle of obedience everything in the spotless stainless human soul of our Lord had an aversion to that cup and that aversion was not sinful the principle of obedience

35:17 when in the path of obedience God brings to us that which in and of itself provokes and evokes in us nothing but a sense of aversion I cannot make that decision I cannot break that relationship I cannot make that issue right I cannot humble myself in that circumstance it would mean the death of me my friend then die and live the great lesson of Gethsemane according to Hebrews 5 is that this is how the Son of God learned obedience and if the spotless Son of God had to learn the principle of obedience in such a context do you think we will be exempt from a similar context with all of the remaining deviation and corruption within us without in any way irreverently speaking of our own personal Gethsemane or anything of that sort the principle is nonetheless there in Scripture and I ask you child of God what is it sitting here tonight that causes you to say

36:44 oh God anything but that though I see the principles of your word leading me to that to that decision to that commitment to the breaking of that relationship to the establishment of that discipline to the making right that wrong it will publicly shame me it may bring me into total financial ruin I know the word of God points that way but everything in me says oh God any way but that is when you've said not my will but thine be done that you've begun to learn the principle of obedience according to Hebrews 5 9 Jesus went through what he went through to have a people whose salvation comes to light in the impartation of a similar spirit of obedience he became the author of eternal salvation unto all that obey him our obedience does not secure the salvation his drinking of the cup did but the faith that embraces the provision of his drinking puts our feet into the way of obedience so as we come to the table what better time to say

Concluding Exhortation and Prayer

38:11 not in the generic not in the broad and general but in the specific where God is pressing your conscience even tonight not my will but thine be done may God help us so to come as we gather to the table of our Lord let us pray oh our Father we confess with shame that we feel the dullness of our hearts that we can contemplate even for a few moments the record of our Lord's agony and not have our hearts utterly shattered and broken and the fountain of our tears opened and flowing copiously what a hard-hearted people we are by nature oh soften and melt our hearts in the contemplation of our Lord in Gethsemane that dark but well-defined shadow of Calvary and as we come to the table of remembrance oh may we so come as to feed upon him

39:37 who loving his own loved them even unto the end oh Father seal your word to our hearts and continue with us as we wait in your presence Amen