What cup did Jesus pray to have removed in the garden? I would like to hear your thoughts, or those you have read on this. Was it the cup of physical suffering? Was it eternal separation from God? Was it the cup of God's wrath? Was it the weight of the sins of humanity? Did God answer him in the negative? If so, was his prayer amiss? Inquiring minds want to know.
Maybe this will help. It is taken from Spurgeon's The Agony of Gethsemane.
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What is it then, think you, that so peculiarly marks off Gethsemane and the griefs thereof? We believe that now the Father put Him to grief for us. It was now that our Lord had to take a certain cup from the Father’s hand. Not from the Jews, not from the traitor Judas, not from the sleeping disciples, not from the devil came the trial now, but it was a cup filled by One whom He knew to be His Father, but who nevertheless He understood to have appointed Him a very bitter potion, a cup not to be drunk by His body and to spend its gall upon His flesh, but a cup which specially amazed His soul and troubled His inmost heart. He shrank from it, and therefore be ye sure that it was a draught more dreadful than physical pain, since from that He did not shrink; it was a potion more dreadful than reproach, from that He had not turned aside; more dreadful than Satanic temptation, — that He had overcome: it was a something inconceivably terrible, amazingly full of dread, which came from His Father’s hand. This removes all doubt as to what it was, for we read “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him, He hath put Him to grief: when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin.” “The Lord hath made to meet on Him the iniquity of us all.” He hath made Him to be sin for us though He knew no sin. This, then is that which caused the Saviour such extraordinary depression. He was now about to “taste death for every man,” to bear the curse which was due to sinners, because He stood in the sinner’s place and must suffer in the sinner’s stead. Here is the secret of those agonies which it is not possible for me to set forth in order before you, so true is it that —
“Tis to God, and God alone, That His griefs are fully known.”
Yet would I exhort you to consider these griefs awhile, that you may love the Sufferer. He now realized, perhaps for the first time, what it was to be a sin bearer. As God He was perfectly holy and incapable of sin, and as man He was without original taint and spotlessly pure; yet He had to bear sin, to be led forth as the scapegoat bearing the iniquity of Israel upon His head, to be taken and made a sin offering, and as a loathsome thing (for nothing was more loathsome than the sin offering) to be taken without the camp and utterly consumed with the fire of divine wrath. Do you wonder that His infinite purity started back from that? Would He have been what He was if it had not been a very solemn thing for Him to stand before God in the position of a sinner? yea, and as Luther would have said it, to be looked upon by God as if He were all the sinners in the world, and as if He had committed all the sin that ever had been committed by His people, for it was all laid on Him, and on Him must the vengeance due for it all be poured; He must be the centre of all vengeance and bear away upon Himself what ought to have fallen upon the guilty sons of men. To stand in such a position when once it was realized must have been very terrible to the Redeemer’s holy soul. Now also the Saviour’s mind was intently fixed upon the dreadful nature of sin. Sin had always been abhorrent to Him, but now His thoughts were engrossed with it, He saw its worse than deadly nature, its heinous character, and horrible aim.
Thanks for the meditation from Spurgeon. Maybe you or someone else would like to help ease my troubled mind.
If Christ was praying that God would remove the cup of suffering for sin, this troubles me. Maybe it is nothing, and I'm just thinking more than I ought. But, Jesus said his very purpose for coming to earth, was to be the one to die for redemption. Why, then would he pray to be relieved of the very purpose he proclaimed?<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/scratch1.gif" alt="" />
bestrech said: If Christ was praying that God would remove the cup of suffering for sin, this troubles me. Maybe it is nothing, and I'm just thinking more than I ought. But, Jesus said his very purpose for coming to earth, was to be the one to die for redemption. Why, then would he pray to be relieved of the very purpose he proclaimed?
SDG
bestrech,
Perhaps the answer is to be found by taking into consideration the two natures of Christ? Since Christ as the Second Adam was fully human, He was subject to myriad trials and temptations and through them, learned through obedience:
Hebrews 5:8 (KJV) "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;"
It should also be iterated that in His prayer to the Father, He did say, "not mine will, but thine be done"! Thus He was expressing the agony from the anticipation of what He was about to endure as it weighted upon Him in those final hours.
Our natural tendency is to assert Christ's divinity above His humanity. This is seen in the very question that is asked even here. But, as I am sure you concur, we need to be thankful for Christ's prayer here as it shows us the totality of His humanity. Think of the heresies that sprang up saying Jesus was not a man in this era (or even today for that matter). The cup of course is the symbol of suffering and divine wrath (Isa 51:17; Ezek 23:33). As one who had taken upon himself a full human nature, it was natural for Him to shrink from the horror of the Cross, a horror magnified by His knowledge that in death He would be forsaken by God and experience the full weight of divine wrath upon the sins of the elect. Nevertheless, Jesus was determined to follow the will of His Father. We need to understand that the temptations that Jesus encountered were REAL!
Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
Joe said: Our natural tendency is to assert Christ's divinity above His humanity.
I certainly don't want to be guilty of preferring one above the other. Nor do I want to separate or confuse the two natures. I think Chalcedon 451 is a fine summary.
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As one who had taken upon himself a full human nature, it was natural for Him to shrink from the horror of the Cross, a horror magnified by His knowledge that in death He would be forsaken by God and experience the full weight of divine wrath upon the sins of the elect.
Yet there were many times he did not do what was humanly natural, ie. walking on water, resisting Satan for 40 days in the wilderness, seeing the disciple's thoughts under a tree miles away, etc. After all of those (and more) amazing feats of courage and divinity, it strikes me as odd that he would shrink from his purpose. Perhaps he was praying regarding something else. Was he threatened with eternal separation from God? <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/Ponder.gif" alt="" />
bestrech queries: Yet there were many times he did not do what was humanly natural, ie. walking on water, resisting Satan for 40 days in the wilderness, seeing the disciple's thoughts under a tree miles away, etc. After all of those (and more) amazing feats of courage and divinity, it strikes me as odd that he would shrink from his purpose. Perhaps he was praying regarding something else. Was he threatened with eternal separation from God?
What you are wrestling with is the dynamics of the two-fold nature of Christ which I believe none of us finite mortals will ever be able to comprehend fully; even in glory. What we do see, however, is that there were times when the divine nature makes itself prominent, the manifestation of the indwelling Spirit in Christ, and most often the human nature expressed. This is a very deep and complex working of these three elements in the one man. Thus, it should not deter us from at least comprehending how the anticipation of the cross in its fullest sense, i.e., that it was the place where the God-man was going to exchange His own life and soul for that of those for whom He came to redeem and effect reconciliation.
I think it should be noted also, that the Lord Christ prefaces His prayer with, "if it be possible" and concludes the prayer with, "not my will, but Thine be done". In this we can see the humanity of Christ agonizing over the reality to come where He would be subject to the wrath and punishment of God; yes even separation from God. It is absolutely impossible that we, who are unable to even know the depth of our own sin, to be able to even imagine what it must have been like for One who was perfectly holy to have experienced the condemnation of God for all the sins of all the elect for whom He came to atone.
So, on the one hand, He, being fully God knew perfectly what was to take place and that it was to infallibly occur according to His own eternal foreordination. But on the other hand, He, being fully human; yet without sin, had no knowledge of what it was to be rejected of God and to experience His wrath and punishment for sin. It seems to me that the divine knowledge was communicated in part to the human nature, through the Spirit, of that which was to come. And thus, we read of His deep agony. What is most impressive to the heart is that Luke tells us that the Father did not leave the Lord Jesus to Himself during these moments but sent an angel to comfort Him. (cf. Lk 22:43).
I hope this helps to answer some of your questions. I must admit, that contemplating this particular moment in the Lord Christ's life causes my heart to shrink with sorrow. Yet, it also causes my heart to have the greatest of joy, knowing that my Saviour endured more than I am capable of comprehending in my place so that I could be washed in His blood, pronounced "Not Guilty", to be reconciled from the God Who I blasphemed for so many years and to even be adopted as a son of God.
Since Christ as the Second Adam was fully human, He was subject to myriad trials and temptations and through them, learned through obedience:![[Linked Image]](http://www.the-highway.com/pilgrim/pil_sig2.gif)
![[Linked Image]](http://www.the-highway.com/Smileys/pencil.gif)
