Luke 22:39

AGONY IN THE GARDEN. (Luk 22:39-46)

as . . . wont--(See Joh 18:2).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk_22:39-46

The mount of Olives

The mount of Olives

The mountains are Natures monuments.

Like the islands that dwell apart, and like them that give asylum from a noisy and irreverent world. Many a meditative spirit has found in their silence leisure for the longest thought, and in their Patmos-like seclusion the brightest visions and largest projects have evolved; whilst by a sort of overmastering attraction they have usually drawn to themselves the most memorable incidents which variegate our human history. And, as they are the natural haunts of the highest spirits, and the appropriate scenes of the most signal occurrences, so they are the noblest cenotaphs.

I. OLIVET REMINDS US OF THE SAVIOURS PITY FOR SUCH AS PERISH (see Luk_19:37-44). That tear fell from an eye which had looked into eternity, and knew the worth of souls.

II. THE MOUNT OF OLIVES REMINDS US OF THE REDEEMERS AGONY TO SAVE.

III. The Mount of Olives is identified with the supplications and intercessions of Immanuel, and so suggests to us the Lord Jesus as THE GREAT EXAMPLE IN PRAYER.

1. Submission in prayer. In praying for His people, the Mediators prayer was absolute: Father, I will. But in praying for Himself, how altered was the language! Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.

2. Perseverance in prayer. The evangelist tells that there was one prayer which Jesus offered three times, and from the Epistle to the Heb_5:7, we find that this prayer prevailed.

3. The best preparation for trial is habitual prayer. Long before it became the scene of His agony, Gethsemane had been the Saviours oratory. He ofttimes resorted thither.

IV. The Mount of Olives recalls to us THE SAVIOURS AFFECTION FOR HIS OWN. I fear that the love of Christ is little credited even by those who have some faith in His finished work, and some attachment to His living person. (James Hamilton.)

Being in an agony

Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane

Jesus commenced His sacred Passion in the garden for these reasons:

I. BECAUSE HE INTENDED TO OBSERVE A PIOUS CUSTOM.

1. It was His custom, after He had preached and wrought miracles, to retire and betake Himself to prayer.

2. It should be our custom, too, to recollect ourselves in prayer, especially when the days work is over.

II. BECAUSE CHARITY AND OBEDIENCE URGED HIM.

1. Charity towards the master of the house, who, having left the supper-room at His disposal, should not be molested by the seizure of Jesus.

2. Love and obedience to His heavenly Father.

III. IN ORDER TO FULFIL THE TYPE OF DAVID. When Absalom had revolted against his father, David and the people went over the brook Kedron, and they all wept with a loud voice. Christ went over the same brook now, accompanied by His faithful friends.

IV. AS SECOND ADAM HE WOULD MAKE SATISFACTION IN A GARDEN FOR THE SIN OF THE FIRST ADAM WHICH HAD BEEN COMMITTED IN A GARDEN. (J. Marchant.)

Gethsemane

Now let us look at this scene of pain and agony in the lifo of Christ, and see what lessons it supplies to us. And I remark--

I. IT WAS SOLITARY SUFFERING. He was removed from them. He was alone. How weird and sombre the word! How it throbs with painful life I And does not your experience substantiate the same thing? What a recital you could give of pain, and sorrow, and heartache, and stern conflict you have borne and sustained in solitude into which your dearest earthly friend must not enter. But I remark further that this scene in the life of Jesus was one of--

II. INTENSE SUFFERING. It is an hour of supreme agony! The betrayer is at hand, the judgment hall, the mockery, the ribald jeers of the populace, the desertion of His friends, the false charges of His enemies, the shame and pain of the cross are just before Him. The bitterness of death is upon Him.

III. EARNEST PRAYER. He prayed the more earnestly. What! Christ pray? Did He need the help of this provision of the Infinite Father to meet the exigencies of sinful dependent man? Yes, the Man Jesus needed to exercise this gift. It was the human Christ that was suffering. Prayer is an arrangement in the economy of infinite wisdom and goodness to meet the daily needs of Human lives. But see again, in this time of great suffering there is--

IV. DEVOUT SUBMISSION TO THE DIVINE WILL. Nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done. Christ hero reveals a force and beauty of character of the highest and most perfect kind. When a man can be thus brought to put himself into harmony with the Divine plan and purpose, so as to say in true submission and surrender, Thy will be done, he gets to the very heart of the saints higher life on earth; this is about as fall a sanctification as can be attained this side heaven. This is one of the grandest, the greatest, and hardest, yet the sweetest and most restful prayers I know. Thy will be done. This prayer touches all things in human life and history from centre to circumference, nothing is left outside its sweep and compass. It is the life of heaven lived on earth--the soul entering into deep and abiding sympathy with the character and will of God, and going out in harmony with the Divine plan to do and suffer all His righteous will. What are some of the lessons suggested by this suffering scene in the life of Christ?

1. Every true man has his Gethsemane. It may be an olive garden, where is everything to minister to the senses, and meet the utmost cravings of the human heart so far as outer things are concerned. Or, it may be out on the bleak unsheltered moor, where the cutting winds and blinding storm of sickness and poverty chill to the very core of his nature: or in any of the intermediate states of life, but come it does.

2. To pass through Gethsemane is a Divine arrangement, a part of Gods plan for perfecting human lives. Christ was there not merely because it was His wont or habit, but as part of a Divine plan. He was drawn thither by unseen forces, and for a set or definite purpose. It was just as much the will of God as was any other act or scene of His life.

3. To pray for the cup to pass from us should always be subject to Christs condition, If it be Thy will.

4. God ever answers true prayer, but not always in the way we ask. Of this we may be sure, that He will either lift us from the Gethsemane of suffering, or strengthen us to bear the trial

5. In great suffering, submission to the Divine will gains strength for the greater trial beyond.

6. I learn, finally, this grand lesson, that I would by no means miss--that in all, above, and beyond, and through all, the Lord God reigns. (J. T.Higgins.)

Jesus in Gethsemane

I. Upon the very threshold of our lesson lies the weighty truth: WOES BITTEREST CUP SHOULD BE TAKEN WHEN IT IS THE MEANS OF HIGHEST

USEFULNESS. Wasted suffering is the climax of tragedy. Many broken hearts would have lived could it have been clear that the crushing woe was not fruitless. Unspeakable the boon if earths army of sufferers could rest on the knowledge that their pain was service.

II. FROM OUR LORDS EXAMPLE WE LEARN THE HELPFULNESS IN SORROW OF RELIANCE UPON HUMAN AND DIVINE COMPANIONSHIP COMBINED,

III. OUR LORDS CRUCIAL OBEDIENCE IN THE GARDEN AGONY REFLECTS THE MAJESTY OF THE HUMAN WILL AND ITS POSSIBLE MASTERY OF EVERY TRIAL IN PERFECT OBEDIENCE TO THE DIVINE WILL. However superhuman Jesus suffering, He was thoroughly human in it. He had all our faculties, and used them as we may use ours. It is no small encouragement that the typical Man gives us an example of perfect obedience, at a cost unknown before or since. In the mutual relations of the human and Divine wills all merit is achieved and all character constructed.

IV. JESUS SOUL COULD HAVE BEEN SORROWFUL EVEN UNTO DEATH ONLY AS HIS SUFFERINGS WERE VICARIOUS.

V. GETHSEMANES DARKNESS PAINTS SINS GUILT AND RUIN IN FAITHFUL AND ENDURING COLOUR. It is easy to think lightly of Sin.

VI. GETHSEMANE THROWS PORTENTOUS LIGHT UPON THE WOE OF LOST SOULS.

VII. OUR LESSON GIVES TERRIBLE EMPHASIS TO THE FACT AND SERIOUSNESS OF IMPOSSIBILITIES WITH GOD. Our Lords agonized words, If it be possible, establish the rigidity and absoluteness of governmental and spiritual conditions. Gods will and plans are objective realities; they have definite and all-important direction and demands. (S. L. B. Speare.)

The will of God the cure of self-will

Awful in its bliss, more awful yet is the will in its decay. Awful power it is, to be able for ourselves to choose God; terrible to be able to refuse Him. We have felt, many of us, the strangeness of the power of will in children; how neither present strength, nor persuasion, nor love, nor hope, nor pain, nor punishment, nor dread of worse, nor weight of authority, can, for a time, bend the determined will of a little child. We are amazed to see a power so strong in a form so slight and a mind so childish. Yet they are faint pictures of ourselves whenever we have sinned wilfully. We marvel at their resisting our wisdom, knowledge, strength, counsel, authority, persuasiveness. What is every sinful sin but a resistance of the wisdom, power, counsel, majesty, eloquent pleadings of Almighty God in the sinners soul? What is it, but for the soul which He hath made, to will to thwart His counsel who hath made it, to mar His work, to accuse His wisdom of foolishness, His love of want of tenderness, to withdraw itself from the dominion of God, to be another god to itself, a separate principle of wisdom and source of happiness and providence to itself, to order things in its own way, setting before itself and working out its own ends, making self-love, self-exaltation, self-gratification, its object, as though it were, at its will, to shape its own lot as much as if there were no God. Yea, and at last, it must will that there be no God. And in its worst decay, it accomplishes what it wills, and (awful as it is to say) blots God out of its creation, disbelieving that He is, or will do as He has said, or that He will avenge. Whoever wills that God wills not, so far dethrones God, and sets up his own will to dispute the almightiness and wisdom of the eternal God. He is a Deicide. It matters not wherein the self-will is exerted, in the very least things or the greatest. Antichrist will be but the full unhindered growth of self-will. Such was the deep disease of self-will, to cure which our good Lord came, in our nature, to fulfil the leathers will, to will to suffer what the Father willed, to empty Himself and become obedient unto death, and that the death of the Cross. And since pride was the chief source of disease in our corrupted wills, to heal this, the eternal Son of God came as now from His everlasting glory, and, as a little Child, fulfilled His Fathers will. And when He entered on His ministry, the will of His Father was the full contentment, refreshment, stay, reward, of His soul, as Man. And then, whereas the will of God is done either by us, in active obedience, or on us and in us by passive obedience or resignation in suffering, to suffer the will of God is the surest, deepest, safest, way to learn to do it. For it has least of self. It needeth only to be still, and it reposeth at once in the loving will of God. If we have crippled ourselves, and cannot do great things, we can, at least, meekly bear chastening, hush our souls and be still. Yet since, in trials of this soul, the soul is often perplexed by its very suffering, it may be for your rest, when ye shall be called to Gods loving discipline of suffering, to have such simple rules as these.

1. It is not against the will of God even strongly to will if it should be His will, what yet may prove not to be His will. Entire submission to the will of God requireth absolutely these two things. Wholly will whatsoever thou knowest God to will; wholly reject whatsoever thou knowest God willeth not. Beyond these two, while the will of God is as yet not clear unto thee, thou art free. We must indeed, in all our prayers, have written, at least in our hearts, those words spoken by our dear Lord for us, Not as I will, but as Thou. We shall, in whatever degree God hath conformed our will to His, hold our will in suspense, even while yet uncertain, ready to follow the balance of His gracious will even while we tremblingly watch its motions, and our dearest earthly hopes, laid therein, seem ready gradually to sink, for the rest of this life, in dust (2Sa_16:10). And so thou, too, whatever it be which thou willest, the health and life of those thou lovest as thine own soul, the turning aside of any threatened scourge of God, the healing of thine aching heart, the cleansing away of harassing thoughts or doubts entailed upon thee by former sin, or coldness, or dryness, or distraction in prayer, or deadness of soul, or absence of spiritual consolation, thou mayest without fear ask it of God with thy whole heart, and will it wholly and earnestly, so that thou will therein the glory of God, and, though with sinking heart, welcome the will of God, when thou knowest assuredly what that will is.

2. Nor again is it against the will of God that thou art bowed down and grieved by what is the will of God. And even when the heaviness is for our own private griefs, yet, if it be patient, it, too, is according to the will of God. For God hath made us such as to suffer. He willeth that suffering be the healthful chastisement of our sins.

3. Then, whatever thy grief or trouble be, take every drop in thy cup from the hand of Almighty God. Thou knowest well that all comes from God, ordered or overruled by Him. How was the cup of thy Lord filled, which He drank for thee?

4. Again, no trouble is too small, wherein to see the will of God for thee. Great troubles come but seldom. Daily fretting trials, that is, what of thyself would fret thee, may often, in Gods hands, conform thee more to His gracious will. They are the dally touches, whereby He traces on thee the likeness of His Divine will. There is nothing too slight wherein to practise oneness with the will of God. Love or hate are the strength of will; love, of the will of God; hate, of the will of devils. A weak love is a weak will; a strong love is a strong will. Self-will is the antagonist of the will of God; for thou weft formed for God. If thou wert made for thyself, be self thy centre; if for God, repose thyself in the will of God. So shalt thou lose thy self-will, to find thy better will in God, and thy self-love shall be absorbed in the love of God. Yea, thou shalt love thyself, because God hath loved thee; take care for thyself, because thou art not thine own, but God careth for thee; will thine own good, because and as God willeth it.

Father, nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou. So hath our Lord sanctified all the natural shrinkings of our lower will. He vouchsafed to allow the natural will of His sacred Manhood to be amazed and very heavy at the mysterious sufferings of the cross, to hallow the mute shrinking of ours, and guide us on to His all-holy submission of His will. (E. B.Pusey, D. D.)

Christs preparation for death

1. The prayer of Christ. In a praying posture He will be found when the enemy comes; He will be taken upon His knees. He was pleading hard with God in prayer, for strength to carry Him through this heavy trial, when they came to take Him. And this prayer was a very remarkable prayer, both for the solitariness of it, He withdrew about a stones cast (Luk_22:41) from His dearest intimates--no ear but His Fathers shall hear what He had now to say--and for the vehemency and importunity of it; these were those strong cries that He poured out to God in the days of His flesh Heb_5:7). And for the humility expressed in it: He fell upon the ground, He rolled Himself as it were in dust, at His Fathers feet.

2. This Scripture gives you also an account of the agony of Christ, as well as of His prayer, and that a most strange one; such as in all respects never was known before in nature.

3. You have here His relief in this His agony, and that by an angel dispatched post from heaven to comfort Him. The Lord of angels now needed the comfort of an angel.

It was time to have a little refreshment, when His face and body too stood as full of drops of blood as the drops of dew are upon the grass.

1. Did Christ pour out His soul to God so ardently in the garden, when the hour of His trouble was at hand? Hence we infer that prayer is a singular preparative for, and relief under, the greatest troubles.

2. Did Christ withdraw from the disciples to seek God by prayer? Thence it follows that the company of the best men is not always seasonable. The society of men is beautiful in its season, and no better than a burden out of season. I have read of a good man, that when his stated time for closet-prayer was come, he would say to the company that were with him, whatever they were, Friends, I must beg your excuse for a while, there is a Friend waits to speak with me. The company of a good man is good, but it ceases to be so, when it hinders the enjoyment of better company. One hour with God is to be preferred to a thousand days enjoyment of the best men on earth.

3. Did Christ go to God thrice upon the same account? Thence learn that Christians should not be discouraged, though they have sought God once and again, and no answer of Peace comes. If God deny you in the things you ask, He deals no otherwise with you than He did with Christ.

4. Was Christ so earnest in prayer that He prayed Himself into a very agony? Let the people of God blush to think how unlike their spirits are to Christ, as to their prayer-frames. Oh, what lively, sensible, quick, deep, and tender apprehensions and sense of those things about which He prayed, had Christ! Though He saw His very blood starting out from His hands, and His clothes dyed in it, yet being in an agony, He prayed the more earnestly. I do not say Christ is imitable in this; no, but His fervour in prayer is a pattern for us, and serves severely to rebuke the laziness, dulness, torpor, formality, and stupidity that is in our prayers. Oh, how unlike Christ are we! His prayers were pleading prayers, full of mighty arguments and fervent affections. Oh, that His people were in this more like Him!

5. Was Christ in such an agony before any hand of man was upon Him merely from the apprehensions of the wrath of God with which He now contested? Then surely it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, for our God is a consuming fire.

6. Did Christ meet death with such a heavy heart? Let the hearts of Christians be the lighter for this when they come to die. The bitterness of death was all squeezed into Christs cup. He was made to drink up the very dregs of it, that so our death might be the sweeter to us. (J. Flavel.)

The agony in Gethsemane

I. Meditating upon the agonizing scene in Gethsemane we are compelled to observe that our Saviour there endured a grief unknown to any previous period of His life, and therefore we will commence our discourse by raising the question, WHAT WAS THE CAUSE OF THE PECULIAR GRIEF OF GETHSEMANE? Do you suppose it was the fear of coming scorn or the dread of crucifixion? was it terror at the thought of death? Is not such a supposition impossible? It does not make even such poor cowards as we are sweat great drops of blood, why then should it work such terror in Him? Read the stories of the martyrs, and you will frequently find them exultant in the near approach of the most cruel sufferings. The joy of the Lord has given such strength to them, that no coward thought has alarmed them for a single moment, but they have gone to the stake, or to the block, with psalms of victory upon their lips. Our master must not be thought of as inferior to His boldest servants, it cannot be that He should tremble where they were brave. I cannot conceive that the pangs of Gethsemane were occasioned by any extraordinary attack from Satan. It is possible that Satan was there, and that his presence may have darkened the shade, but he was not the most prominent cause of that hour of darkness. Thus much is quite clear, that our Lord at the commencement of His ministry engaged in a very severe duel with the prince of darkness, and yet we do not read concerning that temptation in the wilderness a single syllable as to His souls being exceeding sorrowful, neither do we find that He was sore amazed and was very heavy, nor is there a solitary hint at anything approaching to bloody sweat. When the Lord of angels condescended to stand foot to foot with the prince of the power of the air, he had no such dread of him as to utter strong cries and tears and fall prostrate on the ground with threefold appeals to the Great Father. 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 Fathers 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. 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. It was the shadow of the coming tempest, it was the prelude of the dread desertion which He had to endure, when He stood where we ought to have stood, and paid to His Fathers justice the debt which was due from us; it was this which laid Him low. To be treated as a sinner, to be smitten as a sinner, though in Him was no sin--this it was which caused Him the agony of which our text speaks.

II. Having thus spoken of the cause of His peculiar grief, I think we shall be able to support our view of the matter, while we lead you to consider, WHAT WAS THE CHARACTER OF THE GRIEF ITSELF? Trouble of spirit is worse than pain of body; pain may bring trouble and be the incidental cause of sorrow, but if the mind is perfectly untroubled, how well a man can bear pain, and when the soul is exhilarated and lifted up with inward joy, pain of body is almost forgotten, the soul conquering the body. On the other hand the souls sorrow will create bodily pain, the lower nature sympathizing with the higher.

III. Our third question shall be, WHAT WAS OUR LORDS SOLACE IN ALL THIS? He resorted to prayer, and especially to prayer to God under the character of Father. In conclusion: Learn--

1. The real humanity of our Lord.

2. The matchless love of Jesus.

3. The excellence and completeness of the atonement.

4. Last of all, what must be the terror of the punishment which will fall upon those men who reject the atoning blood, and who will have to stand before God in their own proper persons to suffer for their sins. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Gethsemane

I. Come hither and behold THE SAVIOURS UNUTTERABLE WOE. We cannot do more than look at the revealed causes of grief.

1. It partly arose from the horror of His soul when fully comprehending the meaning of sin.

2. Another deep fountain of grief was found in the fact that Christ now assumed more fully His official position with regard to sin.

3. We believe that at this time, our Lord had a very clear view of all the shame and suffering of His crucifixion.

4. But possibly a yet more fruitful tree of bitterness was this--that now His Father began to withdraw His presence from Him.

5. But in our judgment the fiercest heat of the Saviours suffering in the garden lay in the temptations of Satan. This is your hour and the power of darkness. The prince of this world cometh.

II. Turn we next to contemplate THE TEMPTATION OF OUR LORD.

1. A temptation to leave the work unfinished.

2. Scripture implies that our Lord was assailed by the fear that His strength would not be sufficient. He was heard in that He feared. How, then, was He heard? An angel was sent unto Him strengthening Him. His fear, then, was probably produced by a sense of weakness.

3. Possibly, also, the temptation may have arisen from a suggestion that He was utterly forsaken, I do not know--there may be sterner trials than this, but surely this is one of the worst, to be utterly forsaken.

4. We think Satan also assaulted our Lord with a bitter taunt indeed. You know in what guise the tempter can dress it, and how bitterly sarcastic he can make the insinuation--Ah! Thou wilt not be able to achieve the redemption of Thy people. Thy grand benevolence will prove a mockery, and Thy beloved ones will perish.

III. Behold, THE BLOODY SWEAT. This proves how tremendous must have been the weight of sin when it was able so to crush the Saviour that He distilled drops of blood I This proves, too, my brethren, the mighty power of His love. It is a very pretty observation of old Isaac Ambrose that the gum which exudes from the tree without cutting is always the best. This precious camphire-tree yielded most sweet spices when it was wounded under the knotty whips, and when it was pierced by the nails on the cross; but see, it giveth forth its best spice when there is no whip, no nail, no wound. This sets forth the voluntariness of Christs sufferings, since without a lance the blood flowed freely. No need to put on the leech, or apply the knife; it flows spontaneously.

IV. THE SAVIOURS PRAYER.

1. Lonely prayer.

2. Humble prayer.

3. Filial prayer.

4. Persevering prayer.

5. Earnest prayer.

6. The prayer of resignation.

V. THE SAVIOURS PREVALENCE. His prayers did speed, and therefore He is a good Intercessor for us. How was He heard?

1. His mind was suddenly rendered calm.

2. God strengthened Him through an angel.

3. God heard Him in granting Him now, not simply strength, but a real victory over Satan.

I do not know whether what Adam Clarke supposes is correct, that in the garden Christ did pay more of the price than He did even on the cross; but I am quite convinced that they are very foolish who get to such refinement that they think the atonement was made on the cross, and nowhere else at all. We believe that it was made in the garden as well as on the cross; and it strikes me that in the garden one part of Christs work was finished, wholly finished, and that was His conflict with Satan. I conceive that Christ had now rather to bear the absence of His Fathers presence and the revilings of the people and the sons of men, than the temptations of the devil. I do think that these were over when He rose from His knees in prayer, when He lifted Himself from the ground where He marked His visage in the clay in drops of blood. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The agony of Christ

I. THE PERSON OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS SUFFERER.

1. The dignified essential Son of God.

2. Truly and properly the Son of Man. Had our nature, body, soul.

II. THE AGONY WHICH HE ENDURED.

1. The agony itself.

(1) Deep, intense mental suffering.

(2) Overwhelming amazement and terror.

2. The cause of Christs agony. It arose--

(1) From the pressure of s worlds guilt upon Him.

(2) From the attacks of the powers of darkness.

(3) From the hiding of the Divine countenance.

3. The effects of the agony. He fell to the ground, overwhelmed, prostrated, and sweat as it were, great drops of blood.

III. THE PRAYER WHICH HE OFFERED. He prayed more earnestly. Observe--

1. The matter of His prayer. It was for the removal of the cup (Luk_22:42). As man, He had a natural aversion to pain and suffering.

2. The spirit of His prayer was that of holy submission, devout resignation.

3. The manner of His prayer.

4. The intensity of His prayer. The success of His prayer.

Application:

1. Learn the amazing evil of sin.

2. The expensiveness of our redemption.

3. The sympathy of Christ (Heb_4:15).

4. The necessity of resignation to the will of God. (J. Burns, D. D.)

The Saviours bloody sweat

I. THE CAUSES OF THE BLOODY SWEAT.

1. A vehement inward struggle.

(1) On the one hand He was seized by fear and horror of His passion and death.

(2) On the other hand He was burning with zeal for the honour of God and redemption of men.

(3) How great will be the anguish of the sinner at the sight of everlasting death and the endless pains of hell!

2. The representation of all the sins of the past, present, and future.

3. The consideration that His passion would prove useless to so many.

II. THE MANNER OF HIS SWEATING BLOOD.

1. He sweat blood in the strict sense of the word.

(1) Natural blood.

(2) In a natural way.

2. He was full of sorrow.

3. He fell upon His face. (J. Marchant.)

The witness to the power of prayer

I. AN ACT OF REAL PRAYER IS GREAT, POWERFUL, AND BEAUTIFUL; a spirit in an energy of pure, subdued, but confident desire, rising up and embracing, and securing the aid of the mighty Spirit of God. If we can believe the power of prayer, we may put forth the force of the soul and perform that act. How then can we learn that power? My answer is, From Christ. Everywhere Christ is the Representative Man. This in two senses.

1. He is human nature in sum and completeness as it ought to be. To see humanity as God imaged and loved it, to see humanity at its best, we must see our Master.

2. And Christ represents to us perfect human conduct. To see how to act in critical situations we must study Christ. In critical situations? Yes! there is the difficulty, there also the evidenced nobleness of a lofty human character. I need hardly say (for you know who Christ was) the most critical moments in human history were the moments of the Passion. Oh, perfect example! Oh, severe and fearful trial! Christ knelt alone amidst the olives, in the quiet garden, in the lonely night, and Dear, His weary, sleepy followers. It is a simple scene, but Christs spirit was in action. What was the significance of the act? It was very awful. It was an agony, a life-struggle, a contest. Much was involved in that moment of apparent quietude, of real struggle; but one lesson at any rate is important. Examine it. Here we have a witness to the power of prayer.

II. THE AGONY WAS LITERALLY A CONTEST. What was the nature of the struggle? It was a contest with evil; of that we are certain, although the depth and details are wrapped in mystery. Anyhow the struggle was with a force of which, alas! we ourselves know something. No one can live to the ago of five-and-twenty, and reflect with any degree of seriousness on himself or on the world around him, without knowing that evil is a fact. We find its cruel records in the blood-stained pages of history. We listen, and amidst whatever heavenly voices, still the wail of its victims is echoing age after age down the corridors of time. Our own faults and follies will not efface themselves from the records of memory; in the brightness of the flaring day of life they may fade into dim and shadowy outline, but there are times of silence--on a sick-bed, in the still house at midnight, in the open desolation of the lonely sea--when they rise like living creatures, spectral threateners, or blaze their unrelenting facts in characters of fire. Their force was not realized in the moment of passion. But conscience bides its time, bears its stern, uncompromising witness when passion is asleep or dead. Sin is a matter of experience. It has withered life, in fact, in history, with the deathly chill and sadness of the grave. Somehow all feel it, but it is prominent and stern before the Christian. He can never forget, nor is it well he should, that we are in a world in which, when God appeared in human form, He was subjected to insult and violence by His creatures. That is enough. That is, without controversy, the measure of the power, the intensity of evil. If there is to be a contest with evil, it is clearly a contest with a serious enemy.

III. HOW CAN WE THROW BACK SO FIERCE A POWER? THE ANSWER BROADLY IS, RELIGION. Religion is a personal matter; it must hold a universal empire over the being of each of us; it must rouse natural forces only by being in possession of supernatural power. Brothers, to possess a religion which can conquer sin we must follow our Master in the severity of principle, of conviction, of unflinching struggle. The external scene of His trial was simple, but He fought, and therefore conquered. Certainly He fought with evil, being in an agony.

IV. FOUGHT WITH EVIL. What do you mean? you ask. Evil! Is evil a thing, an object, like the pyramids of Egypt, or the roaring ocean, or an advancing army? Evil is the act of choice of a created will. It is the rejection by the creature of the laws of life laid down, not as tyrannical rules, but as necessary truths, by the Creator. Evil takes three active forms, so says Scripture, so we have learned in the Catechism: the accumulated force of bad opinion, that is the world; or the uncertain revolt of our own corrupt desires, that is the flesh; or a living being wholly surrendered to hatred of the Creator, that is the devil. Think of the last. You realize the severity of the contest in remembering that you fight with a fiend. Satan is a person. In this is he like ourselves. Of man it is said he has thoughts of himself. This is true of Satan; he can think of himself, he can purpose with relentless will, he can plan with unparalleled audacity. There are three specific marks of his character--

1. He is inveterate in his hatred of truth, lie is a liar.

2. He is obstinate in his abhorrence of charity, pure intention, and self-sacrificing devotion. He is a murderer.

3. He shrinks from the open glory of goodness. He is a coward. To abide in the truth, to love good, and love one another with a pure heart fervently, and to have holy fearlessness in the power of God is to be in direct opposition to him. From this it is evident that our contest is with a tremendous enemy, and that against us he need never be victorious. My brothers, there are two shadows projected over human life from two associated and mysterious facts--from sin, from death. In that critical moment when the human will is subjected to the force of temptation and yields to its sway, in that solemn moment when the human spirit is wrenched away for a time from its physical organism, there is a special power dangerously, not irresistibly, exercised by the being who is devoted to evil. A hint of this is given in Scripture in the allusion to the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, a hint of this dark realm certainly in the prayer by the grave-side that we may not for any pains of death fall from God. There is a shadow-land. How may we contemplate it without hopeless shuddering, how think of entering it without despairing fear? Now here is a primary fact. Christ our strength as well as our example boldly entered, and in the depths of its deepest blackness conquered the fiend. He was made sin; He became obedient unto death; and for all who will to follow Him, His love, His devotion is victorious. We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Yes! In union with Christ we can do what He did. O blessed and brave One! We may follow His example and employ His power. His power! How may we be possessed of it? In many ways. Certainly in this way. It is placed at the disposal of the soul that prays. This is in effect the answer of Christs revelation to the question, Why should we pray? Two facts let us remember and act upon with earnestness.

1. The value of a formed habit of prayer. Crises are sure to come and then we are equally sure to act on habitual impulse. Christ learned in His humanity and practised Himself in the effort of prayer, and when the struggle reached its climax, the holy habit had its fulfilment. Belong in an agony He prayed. And--

2. It is in moments of contest that real prayer rises to its height and majesty. When my heart is hot within me, says the Psalmist, I will complain; and of Christ it is written, Being in an agony He prayed more earnestly. Prayer, too, as the Christian knows, is not always answered now in the way he imagines most desirable, but it is always answered. If the cup does not pass, at least there is an angel strengthening the human spirit to drain it bravely to the dregs. Subjectively, there is comfort; objectively, there is real help. What might have been a tragedy becomes by prayer a blessing; desire which if misdirected might have crushed and overwhelmed us, becomes when truly used with the Holy Spirits assistance a raw material of sanctity. Certainly from prayer we gain three things: a powerful stimulus, and strength for act or suffering; a deep and real consolation; and the soothing and ennobling sense of duty done. (Canon Knox Little.)

Our Lords bloody sweat

There are some who only suppose that by this phraseology the mere size of the drops of perspiration is indicated. But the plain meaning of the language is that the sweat was bloody in its nature; that the physical nature of our Lord was so deranged by the violent pressure of mental agony that blood oozed from every pore. Such a result is not uncommon in a sensitive constitution. The face reddens with blood both from shame and anger. Were this continued with intensity, the blood would force its way through the smaller vessels, and exude from the skin. Kannigiesser remarks, If the mind is seized with a sudden fear of death, the sweat, owing to the excessive degree of constriction, often becomes bloody. The eminent French historian, De Thou, mentions the case of an Italian officer who commanded at Monte-Mars, a fortress of Piedmont, during the warfare in 1552 between Henry II. of France and the Emperor Charles V. The officer, having been treacherously seized by order of the hostile general, and threatened with public execution unless he surrendered the place, was so agitated at the prospect of an ignominious death that he sweated blood from every part of his body. The same writer relates a similar occurrence in the person of a young Florentine at Rome, unjustly put to death by order of Pope Sixtus V., in the beginning of his reign, and concludes the narrative as follows: When the youth was led forth to execution, he excited the commiseration of many, and, through excess of grief, was observed to shed bloody tears, and to discharge blood instead of sweat from his whole body. Medical experience does so far corroborate the testimony of the Gospels, and shows that cutaneous hemorrhage is sometimes the result of intense mental agitation. The awful anguish of Him who said, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, was sufficient cause to produce the bloody perspiration on a cold night and in the open air. (J. Eadie, D. D.)

The angel who strengthened Jesus

On a certain occasion, when the Rev. J. Robertson had been preaching one of a series of sermons, on Angels in their revealed connection with the work of Christ, Dr. Duncan came into the vestry and said: Will you be so kind as to let me know when you are going to take up the case of my favourite angel? But who is he, Doctor? Oh! guess that. Well, it would not be difficult to enumerate all those whose names we have given us. But I cant tell you his name, he is an anonymous angel. It is the one who came down to Gethsemane, and there strengthened my Lord to go through His agony for me, that He might go forward to the cross, and finish my redemption there. I have an extraordinary love for that one, and I often wonder what Ill say to him when I meet him first. This was a thought Dr. Duncan never wearied of repeating, in varied forms, whenever the subject of angels turned up in conversation.

Succoured by an angel

In the Ecclesiastical History of Socrates there is mention made of one Theodorus, a martyr put to extreme torments by Julian the Apostate, and dismissed again by him when he saw him unconquerable. Rufinus, in his History, says that he met with this martyr a long time after his trial, and asked him whether the pains he felt were not insufferable. He answered that at first it was somewhat grievous, but after awhile there seemed to stand by him a young man in white, who, with a soft and comfortable handkerchief, wiped off the sweat from his body (which, through extreme anguish, was little less than blood), and bade him be of good cheer, insomuch that it was rather a punishment than a pleasure to him to be taken off the rack. When the tormentors had done, the angel was gone.

Angelic ministry

The only child of a poor woman one day fell into the fire by accident, and was so badly burned that he died after a few hours suffering. The clergyman, as soon as he knew, went to see the mother, who was known to be dotingly fond of the child. To his great surprise, he found her calm, patient, and resigned. After a little conversation she told him how she had been weeping bitterly as she knelt beside her childs cot, when suddenly he exclaimed, Mother, dont you see the beautiful man who is standing there and waiting for me? Again and again the child persisted in saying that the beautiful man was waiting for him, and seemed ready, and even anxious, to go to him. And, as a natural consequence, the mothers heart was strangely cheered. (W. Baxendale.)

The safeguard against temptation

Satan, says Bishop Hall, always rocks the cradle when we sleep at our devotions. If we would prevail with God, we must wrestle first with our own dulness. And if this be needful, even in ordinary times, how much more so in the perilous days on which we are entering? Whatever we come short in, let it not be in watchfulness. None like to slumber who are expecting a friend or fearing a foe. Bunyan tells us that when Hopeful came to a certain country, he began to be very dull and heavy of sleep. Wherefore he said, Let us lie down here, and take one nap. By no means, said the other, lest sleeping, we wake no more. Why, my brother? Sleep is sweet to the labouring man; we may be refreshed, if we take a nap. Do you not remember, said the other, that one of.the shepherds bid us beware of the Enchanted Ground? He meant by that, that we should beware of sleeping. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. Slumbering and backsliding are closely allied. (R. Macdonald, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 22:39-46. He went, as he was wont — As was his custom every night; to the mount of Olives — See on Mat 26:30-32. And when he was at the place — When he had entered the garden of Gethsemane; he said, Pray that ye enter not into temptation — Having forewarned them of the lamentable effect which his sufferings would have upon them; that they would all stumble that very night, according to the prophecy of Zechariah, he exhorted them to pray that the temptation might not entirely prevail against them, and cause their faith to fail altogether. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast — Namely, not only from the other disciples, whom he had left at the entrance into the garden, but from Peter, James, and John, whom he had taken with him farther into it: kneeled down — Matthew, fell on his face; Mark, fell on the ground; and prayed, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup — The Greek rather means, “O that thou wouldst remove this cup!” ει being evidently a particle of wishing. Therefore, in Mark it is, He prayed, that if it were possible the hour might pass from him; saying, Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; take away this cup from me. It seems, he first kneeled and prayed, as Luke here says; then, in the vehemence of his earnestness, he fell on his face, and spake the words recorded by Matthew and Mark. In the mean time, his prayer, though most fervent, was accompanied with due expressions of resignation; for he immediately added, (Matthew,) Nevertheless, not as (Mark, what) I will, but as (Mark, what) thou wilt; or, as Luke here has it, not my will, but thine be done. And there appeared an angel — Probably standing near him in a visible form; strengthening him — Lest his body should sink and die before the time; and perhaps suggesting such holy consolations as were most proper to animate his soul in such a struggle. It is probable, that during this time of suffering the divine nature had withdrawn its usual support. And being in an agony — Probably now conflicting with the powers of darkness; feeling the weight of the wrath of God, due to the sins of mankind, and at the same time surrounded with a mighty host of devils, who exercised all their force, subtlety, and malice to persecute, distract, and oppress his wounded spirit; he prayed more earnestly — Than before, even with stronger cries and tears; and his sweat — Cold as the weather was; was as it were great drops of blood — Which, by the vehement distress of his soul, were forced out of the pores of his body, in so great a quantity as afterward united in large, thick, grumous drops, and even fell to the ground. Thus Jesus suffered unspeakable sorrows in his soul, as long as the divine wisdom saw fit. At length he obtained relief, being heard in that which he feared, (Heb 5:7,) or, on account of his piety, or perfect submission to the will of his Father, as απο της ευλαβειας, may be translated.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

§ 131. THE AGONY OF GETHSEMANE, Luk_22:39-46.

See notes on Mat_26:30; Mat_26:36-46; Mar_14:26; Mar_14:32-42; Joh_18:1.

39. Came out—Our Lord now changes the scene from the supper-table to the garden.

As he was wont—We are to conceive our Lord as an habitual walker to the Mount of Olives from the toils of the day.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

Luk_22:39. As He was wont.—This accounts for Judas being able to lead those who apprehended Jesus to the place where He was to be found.

Luk_22:40. At the place.—A garden or farm called Gethsemane (i.e., “the oil-press”), perhaps belonging to a friend or disciple. He said to them.—He left eight of the apostles, and took Peter, James, and John further into the recesses of the garden, and to them gave this exhortation.

Luk_22:41. Withdrawn.—R.V. “parted from them”; lit. “torn away” (cf. Act_21:1). The word implies reluctance to leave; but no great stress need be laid on it, as the special meaning may have been dropped in colloquial use.

Luk_22:42. Father, etc.—The sentence should be translated, “Father, if Thou be willing to remove this cup from Me [well]; nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done.” The word translated “remove” is in the infinitive, and not in the imperative.

Luk_22:43. There appeared an angel, etc.—This and the following verse are omitted in some very ancient MSS., perhaps from the mistaken idea that they derogate from the Saviour’s majesty. It is possible, however, that they did not appear in the first edition of the Gospel, but were added later. There is strong evidence in their favour from patristic writers: Justin Martyr, Irenæus, and Hippolytus refer to them. The appearance of the angel was evidently after the first prayer Christ offered in the garden—that quoted here. St. Luke summarises the other two prayers in the phrase (Luk_22:44), “He prayed more earnestly.” Strengthening Him.—The word implies imparting physical strength. We are not to think of spiritual strength or consolation being given.

Luk_22:44. Great drops of blood.—The words might be understood either of copious streams of sweat pouring like blood from a wound or of sweat actually tinged with blood. It is, however, probable that the latter is meant. If the former had been meant, it is difficult to see why the words “of blood” should have been used. Cases are on record of such. “bloody sweat” occurring in certain morbid states of body, or under the pressure of intense emotion.

Luk_22:45. Sleeping for sorrow.—As is well known, extreme grief has a stupifying effect, and often induces heavy, though unrefreshing, sleep.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Luk_22:39-46

The Strife and the Victory.—At first sight there is something very surprising in this scene in the garden of Gethsemane. Without anything to prepare us for its occurrence it suddenly breaks in upon the gospel narrative, like a storm coming one knows not whence. After the peaceful celebration of the Passover, after the institution of the Supper in which His sacrificial death is so plainly indicated, after the long conversations which, for pathos and depth of significance, have no parallel in history, and after the quiet walk through the sleeping city, there comes in an instant this profound outburst of anguish. Certainly Jesus knew beforehand, and for a long time past, that His work of salvation would be concluded by His death. When He entered Jerusalem He knew that He would not depart alive from the city that slew the prophets. He clearly saw events hurrying on to this close, and knew that but a brief interval divided the fleeting popularity that attended His triumphal entry into the city from His condemnation and death. Yet it was only in the course of this evening that He knew that the hour—His hour—was at hand. He had seen Judas leave the room, and had perceived that this night was to be His last. Then once more the enemy whom He had defeated in the wilderness made a final assault upon Him, and the last temptation possible beset Christ in the garden of Gethsemane: it arose from the fear of death.

I. First of all there were the dreadful circumstances of the form of death He was to meet.—Doubtless this constituted part, though perhaps but a subordinate part, of the temptation now presented to Him. Must He not have shuddered as He thought of the sufferings involved in a death by crucifixion. He was clothed with our flesh and was as sensitive as we are to bodily pain. The first of His temptations in the wilderness had been to put an end to the bodily pains excited by hunger by acting independently of the Divine will, and we can easily believe that the tempter now again appealed to the natural instinct of self-preservation by suggesting that He should not submit to the tortures of crucifixion.

II. Then, too, there was the moral infamy connected with His execution as a malefactor.—He knew that crucifixion would expose Him to the abhorrence of the whole Jewish people, for it was written in their law, “Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” It was a lingering form of death, which subjected those who underwent it sometimes to days of helpless misery, and left them at the mercy of all who chose to mock and insult them. It was a death which would proclaim Him as a false pretender to the rank and dignity of the Messiah, and brand Him as a malefactor. What wonder if the thought of dying such a death filled Him with agony!

III. Death itself, apart from the pains and ignominy of crucifixion, was full of horror for Him.—He was partaker of our nature, and for every man death, though inevitable, has something terrible in it, which can never fail to strike dread into the spirit. It was a man of God who gave to it the name of “the king of terrors.” There is in all of us a natural instinct which recoils from it, and Christ, who was in all points like us, doubtless partook of this. But if there is in our case an instinct which leads us to recoil from death, there is, doubtless, another which accepts it as natural and sees in it a punishment for sin. We feel that we have not, or have no longer, an inalienable right to life. But He who suffered agony in Gethsemane had that right, and it is a feeling of this which rises up in revolt in Him at the very moment when He sees death to be imminent. Death is the wages of sin, and sin never had any hold upon Him. Now all at once He realises that He must pass through that dark portal through which all sinners are doomed to pass. He who was without sin must accept the wages of sin. Yet, did Jesus Christ hesitate as to accomplishing His work? In this hour of anguish, does He consider whether He will carry it through to the end or give it up? No, not for a moment. He is determined to accomplish His work, but the question rises in His mind, Are death, and the death of the cross, the necessary means for that end? His work He does not even name. That which He asks His Father to spare Him, if possible, is the act which appears to Him as the consummation of His work—the “cup,” which represents His death. It was necessary, not only that Jesus should die, but that He die of His own free-will—that He should wish to die. And when once His will had been brought into conformity with the will of His Father His agony was past. He has won the victory by complete renunciation of Himself. The sacrifice He offers is accepted, though not yet consummated, and in Gethsemane the fundamental act of our salvation is accomplished. There are in the history of the plan of God two gardens—the garden of Eden and the garden of Gethsemane. The one is exactly the counterpart of the other. In the one the first son of God asserted himself against his Father, and sought, by disobedience, to add some Divine element to his humanity. The consequence was that he died and entailed death upon the whole of his race. In the other the second Son of God subjected His own will to that of His Father, and, in perfect obedience, offered Himself unto God. The consequence, in His case also, was that He died; but, since He gave up His life freely, He took it again, and became the Author of life to all His brethren, who, for His sake, receive the pardon of their sins. (See Berguer’s Sermons: “Gethsémané”).

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk_22:39-46

Luk_22:39-46. Gethsemane.—One of the most prominent and mysterious passages in our Lord’s life.

I. Suffering of peculiar intensity.

II. A conflict between inclination and duty.

III. Explainable only on the ground that He died to bear the great burden of sin.

IV. Duty overmasters inclination.—He offers Himself willingly for the cross and the grave.—Nicoll.

Luk_22:39. “As He was wont.”—Retirement for

(1) converse with God, and

(2) with our own hearts, is salutary for us, especially after celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The fact that Christ Himself found solace and strength in this way is highly significant.

The Calmness of Jesus.

I. Note the spirit in which the great agony was approached.—How we go into a trial is often of as much importance as how we behave ourselves in it. In entrance into trial, in continuance in it, in egress from it, Jesus was perfect. What He had dreaded all His life long was just at hand. The cross, in clear-cut sharpness, was just in view. But He went in calmness to the accustomed place, and for the accustomed purpose.

II. There is but little of this calmness manifested in even the great saints of God.—Abraham, Job, Moses, Elijah, all were greatly troubled in trying crises of their lives. Not so Jesus. See His calmness in the midst of provoking and angry men; before Pilate, how unlike the excitement that goes on in the world!

III. How suggestive is the phrase as to the habits of Christ’s life!—His great trial was to find Him in the midst of prayer. His enemies knew where to look for Him. Judas knew His place and occupation. And as with His habits of devotion, so with His thoughtfulness and generosity, tenderness and pity. Is He not still the same? He is unchanged. The habits of His earthly life have left their impress on Him for ever.—Power.

Luk_22:40-46. Lessons from Gethsemane.

I. About Christ.—

1. His true humanity.

2. His wonderful love.

3. His touching forbearance with His disciples.

II. About sin.—

1. Its exceeding sinfulness.

2. Its terrible power.

3. Its awful curse.

III. About temptation.—

1. To expect it.

2. How to conquer it by watchfulness and prayer.—W. Taylor.

Luk_22:40. “Enter not into temptation.”—

1. They were to be exposed to trial.

2. There was danger of the circumstances in which they were to be placed serving as a temptation to forsake Him or to deny their faith in Him.

3. The great means for their preservation was prayer.

Luk_22:41-44. The Prayers in the Garden.—What is the subject of Christ’s repeated prayer? He does not seek deliverance from the cross. It was from a thing worse than death to the holy soul of the God-Man. It was from the hour of conscious sin-bearing and sin-becoming; from this awful horror He shrank back.

I. The angel strengthening was the first answer to His prayer.

II. The redoubled fervour of the prayer was the second answer—There was a growth of submissiveness between the two prayers. The first prayer was submissive, asking the boon; the second accepts the refusal, asking only that the Divine will be done.—Vaughan.

Luk_22:41-42. The Great Example of Prayer.—

1. The soul separated from all others and in communion with God.

2. Reverence of manner and attitude before God.

3. The expression of sincere desire.

4. Resignation to the will of God, whether He grant or deny the request.

Luk_22:41. “Was withdrawn.”—The word, the reluctance, as it were, with which one tears himself away from friends. Of course, we are not to understand the word as if our Lord, almost against His will, separated Himself from the circle of His disciples, but simply thus, that He, following the constraint of His agitation of soul, with visible intensity of feeling and rapid steps, sought the still solitude.—Van Oosterzee.

Luk_22:42. The Cup of Suffering.

I. Christ’s sufferings were not purely, nor even principally, physical.

II. Nor could His sufferings have risen merely through His foreknowledge of death.

III. Nor were His sufferings endured as an equivalent for a certain amount of sin.

IV. His sufferings arose from His profound sympathy with humanity, and intense perception of man’s sin.—Hull.

“Nevertheless.”

I. The response which may be given to the unthwarted love of God by the heart that is perfect towards Him is heralded by this word.—Here, really for Himself, and ideally for all those who partake in Him through faith, Christ determinedly set His will in harmony with God’s. He made the supreme sacrifice of self which God accepted as the sufficient sacrifice for us all. His will, as man, was that the cup should pass; God’s will was that He should drink it.

II. This word, again, represented a defiance of circumstances, an appeal from the compulsion and the pressure of the world and the flesh to the right of self-determination.—The weakness of His human flesh, the shrinking from the hatred and cruelty of man, the fear lest, as His life, so His death might be a failure,—all these made up the strong stream of temptation against which Christ set the whole force of His being, when He cried, “Nevertheless.” It was not merely surrender. It was victory.—Nicoll.

Luk_22:43-44. Three Signs of the Deep Agony of Christ.

I. A weakness, calling for immediate and heavenly succour.

II. More earnest prayer.

III. Sweat, “as it were great drops of blood.”

Luk_22:43. “There appeared an angel.”—In the temptation in the wilderness the angels ministered to Christ after the conflict. Here He is sustained by heavenly aid during the conflict—thus showing us how much more trying was the second experience.

“Strengthening Him.”—God may help us either

(1) by removing the cause of sorrow, or

(2) by imparting to us fresh strength.

Luk_22:44. “Being in an agony.”—His delicately sensitive humanity shrinks from death; His holy humanity from the night of darkness; His loving humanity from the hatred that is now about to reach its most fearful culmination. Nay, if His humanity was of a finite nature, He might, standing over against the burden of the sin of millions, conceive, as we believe, even the possibility of sinking under His fearful burden. Sin and death show themselves now to His eye in an entirely different light than before His incarnation, when death stood already, it is true, before Him, without, however, having dared to essay any direct assault upon Himself.—Van Oosterzee.

I. A mysterious agony.—

1. His dread of coming into contact with the world’s evil.

2. His task of learning obedience by the things that He suffered.

II. A mighty prayer in the agony.

III. The gracious answer.—Davies.

Terror of Death.—We men, conceived and born in sin, have an impure, hard flesh, that is not quick to feel. The fresher, the sounder the man, the more he feels what is contrary to him. Because Christ’s body was pure and without sin, and our body is impure, therefore we scarcely feel the terrors of death in two degrees where Christ felt them in ten, since He is to be the greatest martyr and to feel the utmost terror of death.—Luther.

Luk_22:45. “Sleeping for sorrow.”—

1. The weakness of the disciples—failing to watch with their Master.

2. The kindly construction put upon it.

Luk_22:46. “Lest ye enter into temptation.”—The temptation was now past for Jesus; by watching and prayer He had overcome it. The disciples, by neglecting His warning, were unprepared for the trial to which they were to be exposed.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

A. The Deepening of the Conflict (Luk_22:39 to Luk_23:45)

1. Gethsemane

a. THE CONFLICT OF PRAYER (Luk_22:39-46)

(Parallel with Mat_26:36-46; Mar_14:32-42.)

39And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his 40[the14] disciples also followed him. And when he was at the place, he said unto them, 41Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he [himself] was withdrawn [withdrew] from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, 42Saying, Father, if thou be willing, [to] remove this cup from me:—nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done. 43And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. 44And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.15 45And when he rose up from prayer and was come to his [the] disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow, 46And said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Luk_22:39. And He came out.—Here also Luke does not fail of his peculiarity. The account of Matthew and Mark respecting the agony of our Lord in Gethsemane is much more detailed and complete than his, and only from the union of the three accounts does it become possible to represent to ourselves distinctly the course of the event. Evidently Luke condenses all, neither mentions the selection which our Lord made from among the disciples, nor the threefold repetition of the prayer, and passes over also the warning words of our Lord to Peter. On the other hand, we owe to him the mention of the bloody sweat and of the strengthening angel, as well as also his delicate psychological intimation, Luk_22:45, that the disciples were sleeping ἀπὸ τῆς λύπης. He alone defines the distance between the praying Saviour and the disciples, ὡσεὶ λίθου βολήν, Luk_22:41, and communicates the remark that the Mount of Olives was the place in which our Lord was commonly wont to pray, Luk_22:39. From all this it becomes evident that his account is invaluable for the complementing of the representation of Matthew and Mark, which, it is true, is more detailed and also more perfectly arranged.

As He was wont.—Comp. Luk_21:37. That our Lord goes straight thither is a new proof that the time is now past when He still sought to go out of the way of His enemies, for according to Joh_18:2, this place is known also to Judas, who will, therefore, undoubtedly seek Him there with the band, if he no longer finds Him in the paschal hall. At the same time it is a proof of the heavenly composure and clearness of mind which our Lord continually maintained. Not in the city, in the midst of the joyful acclamations of the paschal night, but without it, in the bosom of open nature, after He had previously strengthened Himself in solitary prayer to His Father, will He surrender Himself over to the hands of His enemies.—At the place.—The before-mentioned place where He would be; perhaps Luke does not mention the name Gethsemane because this was already sufficiently known through the evangelical tradition.

Luk_22:40. He said unto them, Pray.—According to Luke it appears as if our Lord said this to all His disciples. From Matthew and Mark, however, we know that He took three of them with Himself deeper into the garden, and addressed them in about this manner. As is to be recognized by the infinitive, the μή εἰσελθεῖν είς πειρασμόν is to be the substance of their prayer. The πειρασμός can here, agreeably to the connection, be no other than the threatening danger of suffering shipwreck of their most holy faith by all that they were soon to experience.

Luk_22:41. And He Himself withdrew, ἀπε ἀπάσθη ἀπ̓ αῦτῶν, Vulgate: “He was withdrawn from them.” Correctly Schöttgen: “Eleganter dicuntur ἀποσπᾶσθαι vel ἀποσπασθῆναι, qui ab amicissimorum amplexu vix divelli possunt ac discedere.” Of course we have not to understand the word as if our Lord almost against His will, as it were, impelled on by secret might, separated Himself from the circle of His disciples, but simply thus, that He, following the constraint of His agitation of soul, with visible intensity of feeling and rapid steps, sought the still solitude.—‘Ωσεὶ λίθου βολήν, the accusative of distance: since our Lord was not further removed than a stone’s throw from His three friends, He was still near enough to them to be seen and heard by them, especially in the bright moonlight.

Kneeled down.—Stronger yet in Matthew and Mark: He fell down on His face on the earth. He cannot now pray standing with head erect, as so lately in the paschal hall. Luke evidently condenses the substance of the three prayers into one, although he also (Luk_22:44) indicates that our Lord prayed at least more than once.—If Thou be willing, εἰ βούλει, equivalent to, “If it can consist with Thy counsel.” Grotius: “Si tua decreta ferunt, ut alio modo tuœ gloriœ atque hominum saluti œque consulatur.” Παρενεγκεῖν not infinitive for imperative (Bengel), but an aposiopesis, by which is admirably expressed that the prayer is, as it were, already taken back before it is entirely uttered. Note the distinction between εἰ βούλει and τὸ θέλημά σου; respecting the sense and the purpose of the prayer, see below.

Luk_22:43. And there appeared unto Him an angel.—There are many questions to be asked here: 1. Respecting the genuineness of this statement. As is known, the words (Luk_22:43-44) are wanting in A., B., Sahid, and other authorities.16 Some have indicated their doubts by asterisks and obelisks. Lachmann has bracketed the words. The most of modern critics and exegetes, however, declare themselves in favor of their genuineness. It is assumed that they were, in all probability, omitted by the Orthodox, who found in this account something dishonoring to Jesus. See Epiph., Ancor. 31, and besides, Wetstein, ad loc. On the other hand, no tenable ground can be assigned why any one should have interpolated these verses into the text if they did not originally stand in the Gospel of Luke 2. Respecting the manner and purpose of this strengthening through an angel, there have been at all times the most exceedingly diverse opinions. Here also Dogmatics has evidently controlled Exegesis. Without reason has Olshausen here assumed a merely internal appearance, and spoken of the afflux of spiritual energies which were bestowed upon the Redeemer wrestling in the extremity of abandonment, although, on the other side, it is not to be denied that the possibility of perceiving the angelic manifestation at this moment was conditioned by the suffering and praying Redeemer’s state of inward agitation; the text says also ὤφθη αὐτῷ not ὤφθη αὐτοῖς. To make the strengthening a merely bodily strengthening (Hoffmann), is certainly quite as arbitrary as (De Wette) to understand a strengthening to prayer. We know not what unreasonableness there could be in the conception that here the holy ψυχή of our Lord, which was now, seized by the intensest feeling of suffering, was strengthened by the brightening prospect of future joy, which was symbolized to Him by the friendly angelic appearance. With Bengel, however, we are disposed to believe that the strengthening mentioned took place non per cohortationem. 3. As respects the inquiry as to the time in which this appearance occurred, we can hardly believe that it (Dettinger) took place between the second and the third prayer of our Lord. If we attentively compare the evangelical accounts, we then see that the strengthening through the angel came in immediately after the first prayer—the most fervent and agonizing one—so that in consequence of it the anguish of soul had already at the second prayer in some measure subsided. It is true, Luke appears, considered entirely by himself, to lead us to another conception, but he has here also not wished so much to describe the course of the event in its different stages as to give a general view of the whole. The words, Luk_22:44, and being in an agony He prayed more earnestly, are not meant to denote what followed after the angelic manifestation, but that by which this manifestation was called forth and made necessary. With Meyer we take καί in the sense of “namely,” and find not the consequence but the motive of the manifestation thereby intimated. 4. Finally, as respects the credibility of this account, this is not lessened by the silence of the other Evangelists, and the very brevity, mysteriousness, and apparently unsatisfactory character of the representation of Luke speaks for its credibility. Whoever upon dogmatic grounds denies the possibility of angelophanies, cannot possibly accept this one either, but whoever acknowledges our Lord as that which His believing church have at all times held Him to be, will soon feel that the light of an angelic manifestation can make scarcely anywhere a more beneficent impression than in the night of these sufferings.

More earnestly, ἐκτενέστερον.—No wonder; He is in a veritable death-struggle (ἀγωνία), and summons up, therefore, all His energies to an unremitting struggle of prayer. Comp. Hos_12:4-5. The most striking commentary on this expression is given undoubtedly by the Epistle to the Hebrews, which also bears a thoroughly Pauline coloring (Luk_5:7-9), where strong crying and tears are spoken of with which our Lord offered up His prayers and supplications to Him who was able to save Him from death. It is noteworthy that this last passage is brought up as proof, as well for the view that our Lord would deprecate the whole suffering of death, as also for the opinion that He would deprecate only this momentary anguish of soul. For the former view appeal is made especially to the πρὸς τὸν δυνάμενον σώζειν αὐτόν ἐκ θανάτου; for the other to the εἰςακουσθεὶς ἀπὸ τῆς εὐλαβείας. [The former interpretation is better, as the prevailing usage of the conjugates of εὐλάβεια in the New Testament decidedly favors the translation: “heard on account of His reverent fear,” which, moreover, according to Robinson, is supported by all the Greek commentators—C. C. S.]

And His sweat.—The reading ὡσεί deserves the preference above ὡς, and expresses, even as Luk_3:23, a relative similarity. The question, answered sometimes negatively, sometimes positively, whether our Lord in Gethsemane really sweat blood, is primarily connected with another, namely, whether the weight of the comparison must be laid upon θρόμβοι or upon αἵματος. The latter is unquestionably more probable, since otherwise it is hard to conceive why Luke speaks of αῖ̔υα at all if it is not meant to refer to the nature of the sweat. To understand actual drops of blood is, it is true, forbidden by ὡσεί, but, at all events, we must conceive them as heavy thick drops, which, mingled and colored for the most part with portions of blood, looked altogether like drops of blood. Comp. hereupon, the passages adduced by Ebrard, Evang. Kritik., ad loc., as well as also what Hug, Gutachten, ad loc., remarks on historical grounds upon this distinction between a thin and thick sweat, which latter appears also to show itself in the case of those in the agonies of death. If we add to these now the medically certified cases of actual blood-sweat, and if we keep in mind the complete peculiarity of the condition in which the suffering Saviour is here found, we shall account it as unnecessary to understand here poetical embellishment (Scheiermacher) as mythical invention (Strauss and others).

Luk_22:45. Sleeping for sorrow.—Not an excuse of the disciples, but an explanation of their seemingly strange condition, nor is there any ground to reject this explanation as unsatisfactory. Sorrow, it is true, makes men sleepless sometimes, but when it is very great it may so weary down the whole outer and inner man that one, as it were, sinks into a condition of stupor; nor do the Evangelists tell us that it was a common sound sleep. There may, moreover, unknown to the disciples, an influence on the side of the might of darkness have been exerted, which, while it in Gethsemane assaulted the Shepherd, is certainly not to be supposed to have left the sheep unassailed.

Luk_22:46. Why sleep ye?—The more exact statement of the words of our Lord to the sleepers we find in Matthew and Mark. The account of Luke is too brief for us to have been able to get from it alone a satisfactory explanation of the case. We must conceive that our Lord after the third prayer so entirely recovered His composure that the sight of the still sleeping disciples now no longer distressed and disquieted Him. He granted them, on the other hand, this refreshment, which on this whole terrible night was not again to fall to their lot, and Himself for some moments guards their last transient rest (Mat_26:45 a). Only when Judas approaches with the band does He bid them rise, knowing well that now not a instant more is to be lost, and admonishes them not only to expect the enemy in a waking condition, but also to go courageously forward to meet them. Only the spirit, not the form, of this last utterance is communicated by Luke, Luk_22:46, who here repeats the main substance of Luk_22:40. “We put this, therefore, in Luke to the account of the inexactness of the more remote observer.” Stier.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Arrived at the sanctum sanctorum of the history of the Passion, a similar feeling seizes us to that which seized Moses (Exo_3:5), or Elijah (1Ki_19:13). Only a few intimations have the Evangelists communicated to us respecting the nature of this Passion. Not unjustly has it been at all times designated a suffering of the soul, because the conflict was carried on in the sphere of the ψυχή. Formerly Jesus had been troubled ἐν τῷ πνεύματι (Joh_13:21); but now His ψυχή was as never before shaken and agitated. This soul is troubled by the terrific image of approaching death, although the spirit was pervaded by the clear consciousness that this death was the way to glory. In the so called High-priestly prayer—[What we call more commonly the Intercessory Prayer.—C. C. S.]—(John 17), the spirit celebrates its triumph; in the first part of the prayer in Gethsemane the soul utters its lamentations. The suffering springing from the soul overmasters also the body of our Lord, and brings Him into a conflict that may most strictly be called a mortal conflict. Unexpectedly does the anguish of soul overwhelm Him; like the billows of the sea, it rises and it falls, and even lifts itself so high that the Lord of angels can be refreshed by the strengthening of His heavenly servant Like fragments of clotted blood (θρόμβοι) His sweat flows in streams to the earth, and like a worm must the Lamb of God writhe, before He conquers as a lion. Certainly there is here a mystery, of whose complete solution we must almost despair, on which account, therefore, it does not disturb us that the most diverse explanations of this enigma have been sought in the course of the ages. See on the parallel passage in Matt. p. 481. We also cannot refrain from making an attempt to find a satisfactory answer to the question: Whence now so unexampled an anguish?

2. We cannot be surprised that often the anguish of our Lord in Gethsemane has been conceived as something entirely peculiar, and, therefore, it has been asserted that He by the ποτήριον, for the passing away of which He prayed, meant not the whole suffering of death, but especially this anguish, which, if it had not subsided, would have hindered Him from bearing the suffering of death worthily and courageously. (See Lange on Matthew and Mark; among the Dutch theologians, Heringa, Bouman, Vinke). On the other side, however, it cannot be denied that the former interpretation of the prayer finds a very powerful support in the grammatical exegesis, and it therefore cannot surprise us to see it already defended by Calvin. By the cup (ποτήριον) and the hour (ἡ ὥρα) our Lord designates commonly not a part, but the whole of His impending suffering. It is true, He here speaks definitely of τὸ ποτήριον τοῦτο, but so had He also, Joh_12:27, prayed for deliverance ἐκ τῆς ὥρας ταύτης, which, however, certainly refers to nothing less than to the whole mortal passion. According to Mar_14:35, He prays in an entirely general way that ἡ ὥρα might pass over, by which we can hardly suppose anything else to be meant than the same ὥρα as in Mar_14:41; comp. Mat_26:45; Joh_2:4; Joh_7:30; Joh_8:20; Joh_13:1; Joh_18:11, not to speak of Mat_20:22-23; Mar_10:38. On the basis of all these passages we can do nothing else than, while submitting ourselves to better judgment, to subscribe to Bengel’s expression: ubi solus calix memoratur, passio intelligitur universa. We need not, however, forget that the key to the complete solution of the enigma cannot be sought in the sphere of grammar, and that in a certain sense, the whole distinction between the momentary and entire suffering of Jesus helps us little. For in that moment the terrifying image of His collective suffering already presented itself before the soul of our Lord, and this, therefore, already really begins in His consciousness; it fares with Him as at the first bitter draught of vinegar on the Cross, Mat_27:34. The question as to the possibility of such a condition, can only be answered by looking at the nature of the suffering, as well as, on the other hand, at the theanthropic personality of our Lord.

3. The suffering impending over our Lord was, on the one hand, the most terrible revelation of the might of sin, on the other hand, the great means to the atonement for sin. Jews and heathen, friends and foes, Judas and Peter, the whole might of the world with its prince unite against Him, and in this whole might He is at the same time to feel the whole curse of sin: as Representative of sinful, mankind, He is to place Himself before the judgment of God: He is to be made sin that yet knew no sin. Must not this prospect fill the holy soul of our Lord with an inconceivable horror? He was the Word that was with God and was God, but this Word had become flesh, like to His brethren in all things, except sin, on which account also one would seek in vain to form a correct conception of that which for such a theanthropic personality the approach of such suffering and dying must have been! If even for the purely human sense, the thought of death has something fearful, for Him who had life in Himself, dying was in addition something entirely preternatural. If for us death is only the end of a life which may with right be called a daily dying; on the other hand, for the sinless and immaculate Saviour, the destruction of the bodily organism was as entirely in antagonism with His being as for us, for instance, the annihilation of our immortality would be. His delicately sensitive humanity shrinks from death; His holy humanity from the might of darkness; His loving humanity from the hatred that now is about to reach its most fearful culmination. Nay, if His humanity was of a finite nature, He might, standing over against the burden of the sin of millions, conceive, as we believe, even the possibility of sinking under His fearful burden; certainly even His utterance: ἡ δὲ σὰρξ ἀσθενής, was the fruit of His own agonizing experience; sin and death show themselves now to His eye in an entirely different light from before His Incarnation, when death stood already, it is true, before Him, without however having dared to essay any direct assault upon Himself. Now is the God-man to become the victim of powers which the Logos in His preëxistence had seen before Him as powerless rebels. Indeed we comprehend and subscribe to the remark: “We, for our part, speaking as fools, could at least, if psychological and Christological ideas formed on the plane of our conceptions are here of any value, easier doubt the elevation of consciousness which the Intercessory Prayer exhibits to us than the depression of the same in Gethsemane.” Stier. Of a change of essential purpose respecting His suffering we find here no trace; but we do seem to find trace of an alternation of moods, in which the feeling of anguish first obtains the upper hand, and the thought rises in Him for a moment whether it might not be even possible for Him that the cup should pass by. Here also Luther has hit the right view when he in his sermon on this Passion-text says: “We men, conceived and born in sin, have an impure hard flesh, that is not quick to feel. The fresher, the sounder the man, the more he feels what is contrary to him. Because now, Christ’s body was pure and without sin, and our body impure, therefore we scarcely feel the terrors of death in two degrees where Christ felt them in ten, since He is to be the greatest martyr and to feel the utmost terror of death.” Comp. Ullmann, Sündlosigkeit Jesu, 5th ed. p. 164. In this we are not to forget how to our Lord His certain and exact knowledge of all that which should come upon Him must have so much the more heightened His suffering, Joh_18:4. But that He was in Gethsemane itself abandoned by His Father, and that such a special mysterious suffering, even besides the suffering of death, was necessary for atonement for sins, is nowhere taught us in the New Testament. Nothing, however, hinders us from assuming that an indescribable feeling of abandonment here seized upon Him, which upon Calvary reached its culmination, as, indeed, the first rushing of this storm of sorrow of the soul had already previously been perceived, Luk_12:49-51; Joh_12:27-28. Nor are we by any means to forget that the kingdom of darkness now least of all remained inactive (Joh_14:30); although no one will be able to decide how far this hostile might acted directly upon the body and upon the soul of our Lord.

4. Gethsemane, therefore, leads us spontaneously back to the wilderness of the Temptation; as there, so also here is our Lord tempted, yet this time also without sin. Unbelief, it is true, has here too, as it were, out of the dust of the garden raked up stones against Him; “He”—thus scoffed Vanini, when the sentence of death was executed upon him—“in the agony of death, sweat: I die without the least fear.” But if it would have been sin to pray as He did, then it was already sin that He was a true and holy Man. Such an one cannot do otherwise than shrink from such a death-agony. God’s Incarnate Son might have a wish—the word will is almost too strong for a prayer which was uttered with so great a restriction—which, according to the Father’s eternal purpose, could not be fulfilled; but difference is not of itself at all a strife, and in reality He also wills nothing else than the Father, although He naturally for Himself might wish that the Father’s counsel could be fulfilled in another way. Moreover, His obedience and His holiness are as little obscured by this prayer as His love and His foreknowledge. There is no more incongruous comparison than with the courage of martyrs in death, who had only by beholding Him obtained the strength to endure a suffering of a wholly different kind. “No martyr has ever been in His position, least of all, Socrates.” As well in His prayer to His Father as in His discourse with His disciples, our Lord shows Himself in adorable greatness, even in the midst of the deepest humiliation.

5. The momentousness of the suffering of Jesus in Gethsemane, can hardly be estimated high enough. As well over the Person as over the Work of our Lord, there is diffused from this point a satisfying light. He Himself stands here before us not only as the true and deeply-feeling Man, who through suffering must learn obedience and be perfected (Heb_2:10; Heb_5:7-9), but also in His unspotted holiness and untroubled unity with the Father, which is raised above all doubt. At the same time it is here shown that the Monophysite, as well as the Monothelitic error has been condemned with reason by the Christian church, as also that it is possible to ascribe to the God-man a limited humanly susceptible nature, without in the least throwing His sinlessness into the shade. As respects the severity of His suffering, we can nowhere gain a juster conception of it than here; Gethsemane opens to us the understanding of Calvary; for we now know that the elevated nature of His person, instead of making the burden of His suffering less oppressive for Him, on the contrary increases this in terrible wise. The necessity of His sacrifice becomes clear to us if we give heed to this: that the Father, even after such a prayer, does not let the cup pass by for His beloved Son. The completeness of the redemption brought in by Him is convincingly established for us when we see to how high a degree His obedience and His love raised Him; and the crown which this combatant there gained in the strife is to us so dear, for the reason that we know that He through this suffering has become the merciful High-priest, who can have compassion on our weakness. Heb_2:16-18; Heb_4:15.

6. It is known that the olive garden has also borne its fruits for the extension of the kingdom of God. The first Greenlander who was converted, Kajarnak, owed his conversion to the preaching upon our Lord’s Passion in Gethsemane. See Kranz, Geschichte von Grönland, p. 490. The representations of “Christ in Gethsemane,” by Retout and Ary Scheffer, deserve attention.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

In a garden the disobedience of the first, in a garden, again, the obedience of the second Adam was manifested.—Comparison of the course of Jesus to Gethsemane with the course of Abraham to Moriah (Gen_22:5), and with David’s passage over the brook Cedron (2Sa_15:23).—Our Lord also had His fixed customary place of prayer.—Prayer is for Jesus’ disciples the best weapon against temptation.—Our Lord’s prayer that the cup might pass away: 1. Heartrending; 2. intelligible; 3. unforgettable for all who confess Him.—To will what God wills, the essence of true religion.—The strengthening through the angel in Gethsemane: 1. What it reveals, a. the depth of the suffering, b. the greatness of our Lord, c. the love of the Father; 2. to what it awakens, a. to humble faith in the suffering Lord, b. to an unshaken trust when we ourselves are suffering, c. to the strengthening of other sufferers, to whom we appear as angels of consolation.—What it must have been for the angel during such a Passion to perform such a ministry.—The hotter the combat burns, the intenser must the prayer become.—The bloody sweat of the second Adam over against the sweat of labor of the first Adam and his posterity (Gen_3:19).—Eo terra benedictionem accepit. Bengel.—The touching contrast between the waking Lord and the sleeping disciples.—Whoever is richly strengthened of God, can at last do without the comforting of men.—Compassion on weak friends is brought home to us by the example of our Lord.—Gethsemane, the school of the prayer well-pleasing to God.—Our Lord, by His example, teaches us to pray: 1. In solitude, with fervent importunity; 2. with submission and unshaken perseverance, and with more fervent ardency the more our suffering augments; 3. with the fixed hope of being heard, which the angel of consolation instilled into His heart.—Gethsemane the sanctuary of the sorrow of Jesus’ soul: 1. The Priest who kneels in the sanctuary; 2. the sacrifice that burns in the sanctuary; 3. the ray of light that falls into the sanctuary; 4. the awakening voice that issues from the sanctuary.—Gethsemane, the battle-field of supreme obedience: 1. The Combatant; 2. the Victory; 3. the Crown.—The one cup of our Lord, and the three cups which daily pass around among His people: 1. The foaming cup of temptation; 2. the bitter cup of trial; 3. the final cup of death.—Heb_5:7-9. How our Lord: 1. Offers prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears; 2. learns obedience; 3. was also heard; 4. has thus become for all His people the Author of eternal salvation.

Starke:—He that will talk with God does well to repair to solitude.—Brentius:—Let us learn to pray the third prayer aright (Mat_6:10).—Cramer:—So soon as man surrenders himself to God, he will find strength and refreshment therein.—Quesnel:—God knows how at the right time to send an angel for our strengthening, should it be only an humble brother or sister.—J. Hall:—Even the comfort that comes from an humble hand we must not contemn.—Litany:—By Thine agony and bloody sweat, Good Lord, deliver us!—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—Let no one jest concerning death and devil; they have hunted from the Son of God bloody sweat.—Alas that we sleep, where we should watch!—Heubner:—A wonder it is how an angel—a creature, could strengthen the God-man; but it is a great consolation for us.—Near us also are there angels.—God will also strengthen us the more the heavier the temptations are.—Of certain formulas of prayer the saint never becomes weary.—His prayer hindered Jesus not from the exhibition of love, as it indeed should nowhere disturb a duty.—Arndt:—Jesus’ conflict in Gethsemane: 1. His anguish; 2. His prayer; 3. His

strengthening.—Krummacher:—Christ’s conflict and victory in Gethsemane.—Significance and fruit of the suffering on the Mount of Olives.—(On Luk_22:44): —The blood of the Lamb.—(Sabb. Gl. 1852):—1. Its nature and its significance; 2. its might and wonder-working.—Staudt:—The threefold way of our Lord in Gethsemane: 1. What it brought upon our Lord; 2. what it brings upon us.—Tholuck.:—The heart of our Lord in Gethsemane.—We hear here: 1. A human Nay; 2. a Divine Yea; 3. a Divine decision.—Lange:—The suffering of Jesus’ soul in Gethsemane (Langenberger Sammlung, 1852): 1. The nature of this suffering of soul; 2. our suffering of soul in the light of it.—J. J. L. Ten Kate:—Jesus’ Passion in Gethsemane: 1. The nature of this suffering; a. an unspeakable, b. a holy, c. an incomparable suffering; 2. the causes: I point you a. to the brooding treason, b. the impending suffering, c. the present temptation; 3. the value of the suffering; Gethsemane remains for us a. a joyful token of accomplished redemption, b. a holy school of Christian suffering and conflict, c. a consoling pledge of God’s fatherly compassion.

Footnotes:

[14]Luk_22:39.—Without adequate authority the Recepta has μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ.

[15]Luk_22:44.—Respecting the state of the case critically with respect to Luk_22:43-44, see Exegetical and Critical remarks.

[16][They are found in Cod. Sin.—C. C. S.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luke

GETHSEMANE

Luk 22:39 - Luk 22:53.

‘Put off thy shoes from off thy feet.’ Cold analysis is out of place here, where the deepest depth of a Saviour’s sorrows is partly disclosed, and we see Him bowing His head to the waves and billows that went over Him, for our sakes. Luke’s account is much condensed, but contains some points peculiar to itself. It falls into two parts-the solemn scene of the agony, and the circumstances of the arrest.

I. We look with reverent awe and thankfulness at that soul-subduing picture of the agonising and submissive Christ which Luke briefly draws.

Think of the contrast between the joyous revelry of the festival-keeping city and the sadness of the little company which crossed the Kedron and passed beneath the shadow of the olive-trees into the moonlit garden. Jesus needed companions there; but He needed solitude still more. So He is ‘parted from them’; but Luke alone tells us how short the distance was-’as it were a stone’s throw,’ and near enough for the disciples to see and hear something before they slept.

That clinging to and separation from His humble friends gives a wonderful glimpse into Christ’s desolation then. And how beautiful is His care for them, even at that supreme hour, which leads to the injunction twice spoken, at the beginning and end of His own prayers, that they should pray, not for Him, but for themselves. He never asks for men’s prayers, but He does for their love. He thinks of His sufferings as temptation for the disciples, and for the moment forgets His own burden, in pointing them the way to bear theirs. Did self-oblivious love ever shine more gloriously in the darkness of sorrow?

Luke omits the threefold withdrawal and return, but notes three things-the prayer, the angel appearance, and the physical effects of the agony. The essentials are all preserved in his account. The prayer is truly ‘the Lord’s prayer,’ and the perfect pattern for ours. Mark the grasp of God’s fatherhood, which is at once appeal and submission. So should all prayer begin, with the thought, at all events, whether with the word ‘Father’ or no. Mark the desire that ‘this cup’ should pass. The expression shows how vividly the impending sufferings were pictured before Christ’s eye. The keenest pains of anticipation, which make so large a part of so many sorrows, were felt by Him. He shrank from His sufferings. Did He therefore falter in His desire and resolve to endure the Cross? A thousand times, no! His will never wavered, but maintained itself supreme over the natural recoil of His human nature from pain and death. If He had not felt the Cross to be a dread, it had been no sacrifice. If He had allowed the dread to penetrate to His will, He had been no Saviour. But now He goes before us in the path which all have, in their degree, to travel, and accepts pain that He may do His work.

That acceptance of the divine will is no mere ‘If it must be so, let it be so,’ much as that would have been. But He receives in His prayer the true answer-for His will completely coincides with the Father’s, and ‘mine’ is ‘thine.’ Such conformity of our wills with God’s is the highest blessing of prayer and the true deliverance. The cup accepted is sweet; and though flesh may shrink, the inner self consents, and in consenting to the pain, conquers it.

Luke alone tells of the ministering angel; and, according to some authorities, the forty-third and forty-fourth verses are spurious. But, accepting them as genuine, what does the angelic appearance teach us? It suggests pathetically the utter physical prostration of Jesus. Sensuous religion has dwelt on that offensively, but let us not rush to the opposite extreme, and ignore it. It teaches us that the manhood of Jesus needed the communication of divine help as truly as we do. The difficulty of harmonising that truth with His divine nature was probably the reason for the omission of this verse in some manuscripts. It teaches the true answer to His prayer, as so often to ours; namely, the strength to bear the load, not the removal of it. It is remarkable that the renewal of the solemn ‘agony’ and the intenser earnestness of prayer follow the strengthening by the angel.

Increased strength increased the conflict of feeling, and the renewed and intensified conflict increased the earnestness of the prayer. The calmness won was again disturbed, and a new recourse to the source of it was needed. We stand reverently afar off, and ask, not too curiously, what it is that falls so heavily to the ground, and shines red and wet in the moonlight. But the question irresistibly rises, Why all this agony of apprehension? If Jesus Christ was but facing death as it presents itself to all men, His shrinking is far beneath the temper in which many a man has fronted the scaffold and the fire. We can scarcely save His character for admiration, unless we see in the agony of Gethsemane something much more than the shrinking from a violent death, and understand how there the Lord made to meet on Him the iniquity of us all. If the burden that crushed Him thus was but the common load laid on all men’s shoulders, He shows unmanly terror. If it were the black mass of the world’s sins, we can understand the agony, and rejoice to think that our sins were there.

II. The arrest.

Three points are made prominent-the betrayer’s token, the disciples’ resistance, the reproof of the foes, and in each the centre of interest is our Lord’s words. The sudden bursting in of the multitude is graphically represented. The tumult broke the stillness of the garden, but it brought deeper peace to Christ’s heart; for while the anticipation agitated, the reality was met with calmness. Blessed they who can unmoved front evil, the foresight of which shook their souls! Only they who pray as Jesus did beneath the olives, can go out from their shadow, as He did, to meet the foe.

The first of the three incidents of the arrest brings into strong prominence Christ’s meek patience, dignity, calmness, and effort, even at that supreme moment, to rouse dormant conscience, and save the traitor from himself. Judas probably had no intention by his kiss of anything but showing the mob their prisoner; but he must have been far gone in insensibility before he could fix on such a sign. It was the token of friendship and discipleship, and no doubt was customary among the disciples, though we never hear of any lips touching Jesus but the penitent woman’s, which were laid on His feet, and the traitor’s. The worst hypocrisy is that which is unconscious of its own baseness.

Every word of Christ’s answer to the shameful kiss is a sharp spear, struck with a calm and not resentful hand right into the hardened conscience. There is wistful tenderness and a remembrance of former confidences in calling Him by name. The order of words in the original emphasises the kiss, as if Jesus had said, ‘Is that the sign you have chosen? Could nothing else serve you? Are you so dead to all feeling that you can kiss and betray?’ The Son of man flashes on Judas, for the last time, the majesty and sacredness against which he was lifting his hand. ‘Betrayest thou?’ which comes last in the Greek, seeks to startle by putting into plain words the guilt, and so to rend the veil of sophistications in which the traitor was hiding his deed from himself. Thus to the end Christ seeks to keep him from ruin, and with meek patience resents not indignity, but with majestic calmness sets before the miserable man the hideousness of his act. The patient Christ is the same now as then, and meets all our treason with pleading, which would fain teach us how black it is, not because He is angry, but because He would win us to turn from it. Alas that so often His remonstrances fall on hearts as wedded to their sin as was Judas’s!

The rash resistance of the disciple is recorded chiefly for the sake of Christ’s words and acts. The anonymous swordsman was Peter, and the anonymous victim was Malchus, as John tells us. No doubt he had brought one of the two swords from the upper room, and, in a sudden burst of anger and rashness, struck at the man nearest him, not considering the fatal consequences for them all that might follow. Peter could manage nets better than swords, and missed the head, in his flurry and in the darkness, only managing to shear off a poor slave’s ear. When the Church takes sword in hand, it usually shows that it does not know how to wield it, and as often as not has struck the wrong man. Christ tells Peter and us, in His word here, what His servants’ true weapons are, and rebukes all armed resistance of evil. ‘Suffer ye thus far’ is a command to oppose violence only by meek endurance, which wins in the long run, as surely as the patient sunshine melts the thick ice, which is ice still, when pounded with a hammer.

If ‘thus far’ as to His own seizure and crucifying was to be ‘suffered,’ where can the breaking-point of patience and non-resistance be fixed? Surely every other instance of violence and wrong lies far on this side of that one. The prisoner heals the wound. Wonderful testimony that not inability to deliver Himself, but willingness to be taken, gave Him into the hands of His captors! Blessed proof that He lavishes benefits on His foes, and that His delight is to heal all wounds and stanch every bleeding heart!

The last incident here is Christ’s piercing rebuke, addressed, not to the poor, ignorant tools, but to the prime movers of the conspiracy, who had come to gloat over its success. He asserts His own innocence, and hints at the preposterous inadequacy of ‘swords and staves’ to take Him. He is no ‘robber,’ and their weapons are powerless, unless He wills. He recalls His uninterrupted teaching in the Temple, as if to convict them of cowardice, and perchance to bring to remembrance His words there. And then, with that same sublime and strange majesty of calm submission which marks all His last hours, He unveils to these furious persecutors the true character of their deed. The sufferings of Jesus were the meeting-point of three worlds-earth, hell, and heaven. ‘This is your hour.’ But it was also Satan’s hour, and it was Christ’s ‘hour,’ and God’s. Man’s passions, inflamed from beneath, were used to work out God’s purpose; and the Cross is at once the product of human unbelief, of devilish hate, and of divine mercy. His sufferings were ‘the power of darkness.’

Mark in that expression Christ’s consciousness that He is the light, and enmity to Him darkness. Mark, too, His meek submission, as bowing His head to let the black flood flow over Him. Note that Christ brands enmity to Him as the high-water mark of sin, the crucial instance of man’s darkness, the worst thing ever done. Mark the assurance that animated Him, that the eclipse was but for an ‘hour.’ The victory of the darkness was brief, and it led to the eternal triumph of the Light. By dying He is the death of death. This Jonah inflicts deadly wounds on the monster in whose maw He lay for three days. The power of darkness was shivered to atoms in the moment of its proudest triumph, like a wave which is beaten into spray as it rises in a towering crest and flings itself against the rock.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

GETHSEMANE

Mat 26:30-46; Mar 14:26-42; Luk 22:39-46;Joh 18:1. “Jesus speaking these things, went out with His disciples beyond the brook Kidron, where was a garden, into which He and His disciples went.” This is the Garden of Gethsemane, which means “oil- press,” as evidently it had some celebrity for the manufacture of olive-oil, corroborative of which the olive-trees there still abound. They look very venerable. Since the olive-tree ordinarily lives five hundred to a thousand years, there is a degree of plausibility in the tradition that the identical trees under which Jesus and His disciples frequently sat still survive, as several trunks from the same root are still green and flourishing, some looking old and others young, favoring the conclusion that as the old die, others grow up, thus perpetuating the tree from the same root. “Garden,” in the Old World, is: frequently synonymous with “park” in this country; e. g., “the Garden of Eden.”

Mat 26:30; Mat 26:36-37. “And having sung a hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus comes with them into a place called Gethsemane, and says to His disciples, Sit here, until, having gone, I shall pray yonder. And taking Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to give way to sorrow and dejection.” You see how He compliments Peter, James, and John by taking them with Him to the exclusion of the rest. He did the same on the Mount of Transfiguration, and also at the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter — evidencing a deeper insight into spiritual things on the part of the apostolic trio. The unfallen humanity of Jesus, never callused by sin, is intensely emotional, feeling infinitely more acutely than we are likely to apprehend.

Luk 22:41-44. “And He departed from them about a stone’s cast, and putting down His knees, continued to pray, saying, Father, if this cup wishes to pass from Me.” This was spoken proleptically, implying a desire on the part of His humanity to retreat from the terrible ordeals of blood, insult, treason, abuse, and death which His Divinity saw in diabolical panorama moving before His eyes. “Moreover, not My will, but Thine be done.” Here you see He prefers the Divine will to his own human will, giving us an exceedingly profitable example. The human will of Jesus recoiled from the horrific tragedy coming to meet Him. So will ours under all circumstances. Hence we are to sink away into the Divine will, always keeping the human meekly acquiescent.

“And an angel appeared unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him.” While there was no retreat from the appalling and horrific maelstrom which opened its in hellish malice, yet the loving Father sends awful crisis. Hence you see the pertinency of prayer amid all of our temptations and trials; not that we will always be delivered from them, but that our Heavenly Father will send an angel to strengthen us, giving us the needed patience, resignation, forbearance, and perseverance adequate to the conflict. “And being in agony, He continued to pray the more fervently. And His perspiration was like drops of blood falling down upon the ground.” All efforts to explain this agony of His human soul are utterly vain. Millions of martyrs have gone singing to the burning stake, and shouted triumphantly amid the wreathing flames. Then why did Jesus agonize so intensely in contemplation of His martyrdom? You must remember that all comparison is really impertinent and utterly out of place as to any attempted exegesis, from the simple fact that none of the martyrs atoned for the sins of the world. The Divinity could neither suffer nor die, but only served as the altar on which the humanity was immolated to atone for the sins of a guilty world. Hence the innocent Man Jesus carried upon His spotless soul all the mountains of sin committed by the guilty; race in all ages, from Adam to the latest generation. Consequently, we are utterly incompetent to know or to realize the agony which He endured in the garden. There the battle was fought between the human and the Divine will, the latter triumphing. Gethsemane was the consecration and Calvary the sanctification. In the case of the latter, we see Him nailed to the cross, and pouring out His blood, and hear nothing of humanity’s recoil from the appalling tragedy, the battle having been fought and the victory won in Gethsemane. Hence the soul seeking sanctification must first pass the Gethsemane of consecration, where the human utterly and eternally submits to the Divine will. Then you are prepared cheerfully to let the Holy Ghost nail Adam the First to the cross, and let him bleed and die. The followers of Jesus must all pass through Gethsemane on their way to Calvary. This bloody sweat is unparalleled in all the history of human suffering, illustrative of the fact that the world has never seen but the one Savior, who actually carried upon His spotless soul all of its guilt and crime.

Mar 14:38-39. “And He comes and finds them sleeping, and says to Peter, Simon , do you sleep? Were you not able to watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest ye may enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” They had been constantly on foot and their attention engaged so long that drowsiness and nervous relaxation proved irresistible. “And again having gone away; He prayed, speaking the same word. And returning, He found them again sleeping; for their eyes were heavy, and they knew not what they respond to Him.”

It is about midnight. The apostles were stout, muscular men who, in case of nervous collapse, found drowsiness irresistible. “He comes the third time, and says to them, Do you sleep on and take your rest. It is over: the hour has come; behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be going; behold; the one having betrayed Me draweth nigh.” Jesus having seen all the maneuvers of His enemies, who, under the escort of Judas, have tracked them — making inquiry of the people on the streets

— from the upper room where they had taken the supper on Mount Zion, through the long way of the city to the east wall, and out across the Valley of Jehoshaphat and the brook Kidron to this garden, where Jesus had so often resorted with His disciples while Judas was with them, and who consequently kept His track, leading the mob, and also having seen all the hurry and bustle of His enemies, parading the temple guards and hiring the street rabble to accompany them, now, that they are coming right into the park, and knowing they are going to arrest Him, He commands the Eleven all to wake up, and goes to meet them.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

22:39 Mount of Olives: See study note on 19:29. This was the location of the Garden of Gethsemane (see Matt 26:36; Mark 14:32).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk 22:39. Κατὰ τὸ ἔθος, according to His custom) So the disciples were less struck by any immediate (present) sense of strangeness.—εἰς τὸ ὄρος τῶν Ἐλαιῶν, to the mount of Olives) It was to this mountain a red cow used to be led forth to be immolated. See S. R. Zeller on Maimon. as to the red cow, pp. 360, 501.—ἠκολούθησαν, followed) of their own accord.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk_22:39-46. See on Mat_26:36-46; Mar_14:32-42. The originality is on the side of Matthew and Mark. Luke by condensing disturbs the clearness of the single narrative, and mixes up with it legendary elements.

Luk_22:40. ἐπὶ τοῦ τόπου] at the place whither He wished to go,had arrived at the spot. On γίνεσθαι in the sense of come, see Nägelsbach, Anm. z. Ilias, ed. 3, p. 295.

προσεύχεσθε, κ.τ.λ.] which Mat_26:41 and Mar_14:38 do not insert till later. Luke abbreviates, but to the prejudice of the appropriateness of the narrative. He is not to be supposed capable of having confounded the prayer of Jesus (Mat_26:36) with that of the disciples (de Wette).

Luk_22:41. αὐτός] He on His part, in contrast with the disciples.

ἀπεσπάσθη] avulsus est, Vulgate; He was drawn away from them, not involuntarily, but perchance in the urgency of His emotion, which forced Him to be alone, so that He, as it were, was forcibly separated from His disciples, with whom He otherwise would have remained. Ancient scholium on Soph. Aj. 1003, ἀποσπᾶν τὸ βιαίως χωρίζειν τὰ κεκολλημένα. Comp. Act_21:1, and the passages in Kypke, also Pflugk, ad Eur. Hec. 225. It might indeed also mean simply: secessit (Kuinoel, de Wette, Bleek, and many others); comp. 2Ma_12:10; 2Ma_12:17; Xen. Anab. ii. 2. 12; but the above view explains the choice of the word, which is not elsewhere used in the New Testament for the frequent idea, He withdrew Himself.

ὡσεὶ λίθου βολήν] a distance of about a stones throw, therefore not so far that He could not be heard by the disciples in the still night. On the expression, comp. Il. xxiii. 529; Thuc. v. 65. 1; LXX. Gen_21:16. On the accusative of measure, see Kühner, § 556.

Luk_22:42. εἰ βούλει παρενεγκεῖν κ.τ.λ.] if Thou art willing to bear aside (Mar_14:36) this cup from me.

The apodosis (παρένεγκε) is in the urgency of the mental excitement suppressed by the following thought (comp. Luk_19:41). The momentary longing after deliverance yields immediately to unconditional submission. See Winer, p. 529 [E. T. 750]; Buttmann, p. 339 [E. T. 396].

θέλημα] not βουλή or βούλημα, which would not have been appropriate to μου. Comp. on Mat_1:19; Eph_1:11

Luk_22:43. The appearance of the angel, understood by Luke historically and externally (ὤφθη ἀπʼ οὐρανοῦ), is by Olshausen (see, in answer to him, Dettinger in the Tüb. Zeitschr. 1838, p. 46 f.) erroneously taken as an internal phenomenon (but see Luk_1:11, Luk_24:34; Act_2:3; Act_7:2; Act_7:30; Act_9:17; Act_16:9; Act_26:16), and interpreted as signifying an influx of spiritual powers. But of the strengthening itself is not to be made a bodily invigoration, as at Act_9:19 (Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. p. 391; Schegg), but it is to be left as an enhancement of spiritual powers,[256] as, according to the just narrated prayerful disposition, the context suggests. His submission to the Fathers will, just expressed in the prayer, was the subjective condition of this strengthening, and on this submission being manifested the strengthening was objectively effected by the angel. Thus the narrative of Luke; but the circumstance that neither Matthew (John does not give the narrative of the agony at all) nor Mark relates this singular and remarkable angelic strengthening, although the latter would have had the testimony of Peter on his side, authorizes all the more the view of a legendary origination of the narrative (Gabler in Theolog. Journ. I. pp. 109 ff., 217 ff.; Schleiermacher, Strauss, Hase, Theile, Holtzmann, comp. Bleek, Schenkel, and others), the nearer the decisive resolve of Jesus (whether regarded in itself, or as compared with the history of the temptation and such expressions as John 1:52) approached to such an increase of strength, which decisive resolve, however, in the tradition took the shape of an external fact perceived by the senses. Dettinger, l.c.; Ebrard, p. 528; Olshausen, Schegg; Lange also, L. J. II. 3, p. 1430, and others, adduce insufficient grounds in favour of the historical view. The older dogmatic devices to explain the manner in which this strengthening came about, wherein orthodoxy comforted itself with the doctrine of the κένωσις, may be seen in Calovius.

Luk_22:44. Further particulars. According to Luke, the decisive resolve of Jesus: τὸ σὸν γενέσθω, was crowned with the strengthening angelic appearance; and thus decided and equipped for resistance, He now endured (comp. Heb_5:7 f., and thereupon Lünemann and Delitzsch) the agony (ἀγωνία, Dem. 236. 19; Polyb. viii. 21. 2; 2Ma_3:14; 2Ma_15:19), which was now beginning, fervently praying (as before the appearance), which agony increased even to the bloody sweat. Luke has conceived the strengthening influence as increasing as the agony increased. The sweat of Jesus (in the height of the agony) was like to drops of blood falling down. This is referred by Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Grotius, Calixtus, Hammond, Michaelis, Valckenaer, and most of the later commentators, including Paulus, Kuinoel, Olshausen, Bleek, merely to the size and consistence of the drops of sweat. So also Dettinger, l.c., and Hug, Gutacht. II. p. 145. Comp. Lange, II. 3, p. 1433. Thus in a naturalistic direction the point of comparison found in αἵματος is robbed of its characteristic importance, and Luke would have concluded his description, rising to a climax, with nothing but this: and Jesus fell into the most violent sweat! No! αἵματος only receives its due in being referred to the nature of the sweat, and this nature is viewed as foreshadowing the coming bloodshedding. Hence also the strongly descriptive word θρόμβοι is chosen; for θρόμβος is not simply a drop (σταγών, στάλαγμα), but a clot of coagulated fluid (milk and the like), and is often used especially of coagulated blood (Aesch. Eum. 184; Choeph. 533, 545; Plat. Crit. p. 120 A: θρόμβον ἐνέβαλλον αἵματος; Dioscor. 13 : θρόμβοις αἵματος). See Jacobs, ad Anthol. VII. p. 379; Blomfield, Gloss. Choeph. 526. Consequently that sweat of Jesus was indeed no mass of blood (opposed to which is ὡσεί), but a profusion of bloody sweat, which was mingled with portions of blood, and as it flowed down appeared as clots of blood trickling down to the ground.[257] So in substance most of the Fathers, Erasmus, Calvin, Calovius, Wolf, Bengel, and others, including Strauss, Ebrard, Schegg. As to the historical character of the matter, it would come under the same judgment as that of the angelic strengthening, were it independent of the analogies of sweat of blood elsewhere occurring (Aristotle, H. A. iii. 19; Bartholinus, de Cruce, pp. 184 ff., 193 ff.; Gruner, de J. C. morte vera, pp. 33 ff., 109 f.; Loenartz, de sudore sanguin., Bonn 1850).

Luk_22:45. ἀπὸ τῆς λύπης] by reason of the sorrow in which they were. An attempt to explain the strange sleep which had overmastered the whole band of disciples. Is it, however, sufficient? Hardly in this case, where in the chilly night of spring (Joh_18:18) Jesus was so near, and was in a situation exciting the deepest interest and the most intense participation in the sympathy of His disciples. In itself there is justice in the observation that continuous deep grief relaxes into sleep. See examples in Pricaeus, ad Apulej. Metam. p. 660 f., and Wetstein. Calvin suggests Satanic temptation as the cause first of this sleep, and then of the blow with the sword.

[256] Theodore of Mopsuestia (ed. Fritzsche, p. 16) says: δειλιᾷ τὸν θάνατον κατὰ φίσιν ἀνθρώπων καὶ εὔχεται καὶ ἐνισχύεται ὑπὸ ἀγγέλου.

[257] Justin, c. Tr. 103, relates from the ἀπομνημονεύμασι simply: ὅτι ἱδρὼς ὡσεὶ θρόμβοι κατεχεῖτο. Therein is found no essential variation from the passage before us. For θρόμβος, even in the classical writers, is used without αἵματος of a coagulated mass of blood. See Blomfield, l.c.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 22:39-46 . Gethsemane (Mat 26:36-46 , Mar 14:32-42 ). Lk.’s narrative here falls far short of the vivid realism of the parallels. Mt. and Mk. allow the infirmity of the great High Priest of humanity so graphically described in the Epistle to the Hebrews to appear in its appalling naked truth. Lk. throws a veil over it, so giving an account well adapted doubtless to the spiritual condition of first readers, but not so well serving the deepest permanent needs of the Church. This statement goes on the assumption that Luk 22:43-44 are no part of the genuine text, for in these, especially in Luk 22:44 , the language is even more realistic than that of Mk., and is thus out of harmony with the subdued nature of Lk.’s narrative in general. This want of keeping with the otherwise colourless picture of the scene, which is in accord with Lk.’s uniform mode of handling the emphatic words, acts and experiences of Jesus, is, in my view, one of the strongest arguments against the genuineness of Luk 22:43-44 .

Luk 22:39 . ἐξελθὼν : no mention of the hymn sung before going out (Mt. Luk 22:30 , Mk. Luk 22:26 ). Lk. makes prominent the outgoing of Jesus . The parallels speak in the plural of the whole company. κατὰ τὸ ἔθος : for the form vide Luk 2:42 , and for the fact Luk 21:37 and Joh 18:2 . This is another point of contact between these two Gospels. The reference to the habit of Jesus deprives this visit of special significance. ἠκολούθησαν : the disciples followed , no talk by the way of their coming breakdown, as in Mt. Luk 22:31 , and Mk. ver, 27.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

III. Gethsemane: Luk 22:39-46.

The Lamb of God must be distinguished from typical victims by His free acceptance of death as the punishment of sin; and hence there required to be in His life a decisive moment, when, in the fulness of His consciousness and liberty, He should accept the punishment which He was to undergo. At Gethsemane Jesus did not drink the cup; He consented to drink it. This point of time corresponds to that in which, with the same fulness and liberty, He refused in the wilderness universal sovereignty. There He rejected dominion over us without God; here He accepts death for God and for us. Each evangelist has some special detail which attests the independence of his sources. Matthew exhibits specially the gradation of the agony and the progress toward acceptance. Mark has preserved to us this saying of primary importance: “Abba! Father! all things are possible unto Thee.” Luke describes more specially the extraordinary physical effects of this moral agony. His account is, besides, very much abridged. John omits the whole scene, but not without expressly indicating its place (Luk 18:1). In the remarkable piece, Luk 12:23-28, this evangelist had already unveiled the essence of the struggle which was beginning in the heart of Jesus; and the passage proves sufficiently, in spite of Keim’s peremptory assertions, that there is no dogmatic intention in the omission of the agony of Gethsemane. When the facts are sufficiently known, John confines himself to communicating some saying of Jesus which enables us to understand their spirit. Thus it is that chap. 3 sheds light on the ordinance of Baptism, and chap. 6 on that of the Holy Supper.

Heb 5:7-9 contains a very evident allusion to the account of Gethsemane,—a fact the more remarkable, as that epistle is one of those which, at the same time, most forcibly exhibit the divinity of Jesus.

Vers. 39-46. The word came out (Luk 22:39) includes His leaving the room and the city. The name, the Mount of Olives, which is used here by our three Syn., may designate in a wide sense the slope and even the foot of the mount which begins immediately beyond the Cedron. This is the sense to which we are led by John’s account, Luk 18:1. The north-west angle of the enclosure, which is now pointed out as the garden of Gethsemane, is fifty paces from the bed of the torrent.

Ver. 40. Jesus invites His disciples to prepare by prayer for the trial which threatens their fidelity, and of which He has already forewarned them (Luk 22:31). The use of the word εἰσελθεῖν, enter into, to signify to yield to, is easily understood, if we contrast this verb in thought with διελθεῖν, to pass through.

In Matthew and Mark, Jesus has no sooner arrived than He announces to His disciples His intention to pray Himself. Then, withdrawing a little with Peter, James, and John, He tells them of the agony with which His soul is all at once seized, and leaves them, that He may pray alone. These successive moments are all united in Luke in the ἀπεσπάσθη, He was withdrawn (Luk 22:41). There is in this term, notwithstanding Bleek’s opinion, the idea of some violence to which He is subject; He is dragged far from the disciples by anguish (Act 21:1). The expression, to the distance of about a stone’s cast, is peculiar to Luke.

Instead of kneeling down, Matthew says, He fell upon His face; Mark, upon the ground.

The terms of Jesus’ prayer, Luk 22:42, differ in the three narratives, and in such a way that it is impossible the evangelists could have so modified them at their own hand. But the figure of the cup is common to all three; it was indelibly impressed on tradition. This cup which Jesus entreats God to cause to pass from before (παρά) His lips, is the symbol of that terrible punishment the dreadful and mournful picture of which is traced before Him at this moment by a skilful painter with extraordinary vividness. The painter is the same who in the wilderness, using a like illusion, passed before His view the magical scene of the glories belonging to the Messianic kingdom.

Mark’s formula is distinguished by the invocation, “Abba! Father! all things are possible unto Thee,” in which the translation ὁ πατήρ, Father, has been added by the evangelist for his Greek readers. It is a last appeal at once to the fatherly love and omnipotence of God. Jesus does not for a moment give up the work of human salvation; He asks only if the cross is really the indispensable means of gaining this end. Cannot God in His unlimited power find another way of reconciliation? Jesus thus required, even He, to obey without understanding, to walk by faith. Hence the expressions, Heb 5:8, He learned obedience, and Luk 12:2, ἀρχηγὸ/ς τῆς πίστεως, He who leads the way (the initiator) of faith. Yet this prayer does not imply the least feeling of revolt; for Jesus is ready to accept the Father’s answer, whatever it may be. What if nature rises within Him against this punishment? this repugnance is legitimate. It was not with the view of suffering thus that man received from God a body and a soul. This resistance of natural instinct to the will of the Spirit,—that is to say, to the consciousness of a mission,—is exactly what makes it possible for nature to become a real victim, an offering in earnest. So long as the voice of nature is at one with that of God, it may be asked, Where is the victim for the burnt-offering? Sacrifice begins where conflict begins. But, at the same time, the holiness of Jesus emerges pure and even perfected from this struggle. Under the most violent pressure, the will of nature did not for a single moment escape from the law of the Spirit, and ended after a time of struggle in being entirely absorbed in it. Luke, like Mark, gives only the first prayer, and confines himself to indicating the others summarily, while Matthew introduces us more profoundly to the progressive steps in the submission of Jesus (Luk 22:42). How much more really human do out Gospels make Jesus than our ordinary dogmatics! It is not thus that the work of invention would have been carried out by a tradition which aimed at deifying Jesus.

The appearance of the angel, Luk 22:43, is mentioned only by Luke. No doubt this verse is wanting in some Alex. But it is found in 13 Mjj. and in the two oldest translations (Itala and Peschito), and this particular is cited so early as the second century by Justin and Irenaeus. It is not very probable that it would have been added. It is more so that, under the influence of the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity, it was omitted on the pretext that it was not found either in Matthew or Mark. Bleek, while fully acknowledging the authenticity of the verse, thinks that this particular was wanting in the primitive Gospel, and that it was introduced by Luke on the faith of a later tradition. Schleiermacher supposes the existence of a poetical writing in which the moral suffering of the Saviour was celebrated, and from which the two Luk 22:43-44 were taken. But tradition, poetry, and myths tend rather to glorify their hero than to impair his honour. The difficulty which orthodoxy finds in accounting for such particulars makes it hard to suppose that it was their inventor.

This appearance was not only intended to bring spiritual consolation to Jesus, but physical assistance still more, as in the wilderness. The saying uttered by Him an instant before was no figure of rhetoric: “My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death.” As when in the wilderness under the pressure of famine, He felt Himself dying. The presence of this heavenly being sends a vivifying breath over Him. A divine refreshing pervades Him, body and soul; and it is thus only that He receives strength to continue to the last the struggle to the physical violence of which He was on the very point of giving way. Luk 22:44 shows to what physical prostration Jesus was reduced. This verse is omitted on the one hand, and supported on the other, by the same authorities as the preceding. Is this omission the result of the preceding, or perhaps the consequence of confounding the two καί at the beginning of Luk 22:44-45? In either case, there appears to have been here again omission rather than interpolation.

The intensity of the struggle becomes so great, that it issues in a sort of beginning of physical dissolution. The words, as it were drops, express more than a simple comparison between the density of the sweat and that of blood. The words denote that the sweat itself resembled blood. Phenomena of frequent occurrence demonstrate how immediately the blood, the seat of life, is under the empire of moral impressions. Does not a feeling of shame cause the blood to rise to the face? Cases are known in which the blood, violently agitated by grief, ends by penetrating through the vessels which enclose it, and driven outwards, escapes with the sweat through the transpiratory glands. The reading καταβαίνοντος, in אand some documents of the Itala, though admitted by Tischendorf, has no internal probability. The participle ought to qualify the principal substantive rather than the complement.

The disciples themselves might easily remark this appearance when Jesus awoke them, for the full moon was lighting up the garden. They might also hear the first words of Jesus’ prayer, for they did not fall asleep immediately, but only, as at the transfiguration (Luk 9:32), when His prayer was prolonged.

Jesus had previously experienced some symptoms precursive of a struggle like to this (Luk 12:49-50; Joh 12:27). But this time the anguish is such that it is impossible not to recognise the intervention of a supernatural agent. Satan had just invaded the circle of the Twelve by taking possession of the heart of Judas. He was about to sift all the other disciples. Jesus Himself at this time was subjected to his action: “This is the power of darkness,” says He, Luk 22:53. In the words which close his account of the temptation (Luk 4:13), Luke had expressly declared: “He departed from Him till a favourable season,”—the return of the tempter at a fixed conjuncture.

Vers. 45 and 46. Luke unites the three awakings in one. Then he seeks to explain this mysterious slumber which masters the disciples, and he does so in the way most favourable to them. The cause was not indifference, but rather the prostration of grief. It is well known that deep grief, especially after a period of long and keen tension, disposes to slumber through sheer exhaustion. Nothing could be more opposed than this explanation to the hostile feelings toward the disciples which are ascribed to Luke, and all the more that this particular is entirely peculiar to him. — Luk 22:46. Jesus rises from this struggle delivered from His fear, as says the Epistle to the Hebrews; that is to say, in possession of the profound calm which perfect submission gives to the soul. The punishment has not changed its nature, it is true; but the impression which the expectation of the cross produces on Jesus is no longer the same. He has given Himself up wholly; He has done what He Himself proclaimed before passing the Cedron: “For their sakes I sanctify myself” (Joh 17:19). The acceptance of the sacrifice enables Him to feel beforehand the rest belonging to the completion of the sacrifice. Henceforth He walks with a firm step to meet that cross the sight of which an instant before made Him stagger.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

We have here the awful story of Christ's agony in the garden, just before he was betrayed, which was largely related by the other evangelists. In it Christ accommodated himself to that part of his undertaking which he was now entering upon - the making of his soul an offering for sin. He afflicted his own soul with grief for the sin he was to satisfy for, and an apprehension of the wrath of God to which man had by sin made himself obnoxious, which he was pleased as a sacrifice to admit the impressions of, the consuming of a sacrifice with fire from heaven being the surest token of its acceptance. In it Christ entered the lists with the powers of darkness, gave them all the advantages they could desire, and yet conquered them.

I. What we have in this passage which we had before is, 1. That when Christ went out, though it was in the night, and a long walk, his disciples (eleven of them, for Judas had given them the slip) followed him. Having continued with him hitherto in his temptations, they would not leave him now. 2. That he went to the place where he was wont to be private, which intimates that Christ accustomed himself to retirement, was often alone, to teach us to be so, for freedom of converse with God and our own hearts. Though Christ had no conveniency for retirement but a garden, yet he retired. This should particularly be our practice after we have been at the Lord's table; we have then work to do which requires us to be private. 3. That he exhorted his disciples to pray that, though the approaching trial could not be avoided, yet they might not in it enter into temptation to sin; that, when they were in the greatest fright and danger, yet they might not have any inclination to desert Christ, nor take a step towards it: "Pray that you may be kept from sin." 4. That he withdrew from them, and prayed himself; they had their errands at the throne of grace, and he had his, and therefore it was fit that they should pray separately, as sometimes, when they had joint errands, they prayed together. He withdrew about a stone's cast further into the garden, which some reckon about fifty of sixty paces, and there he kneeled down (so it is here) upon the bare ground; but the other evangelists say that afterwards he fell on his face, and there prayed that, if it were the will of God, this cup of suffering, this bitter cup, might be removed from him. This was the language of that innocent dread of suffering which, being really and truly man, he could not but have in his nature. 5. That he, knowing it to be his Father's will that he should suffer and die, and that, as the matter was now settled, it was necessary for our redemption and salvation, presently withdrew that petition, did not insist upon it, but resigned himself to his heavenly Father's will: "Nevertheless not my will be done, not the will of my human nature, but the will of God as it is written concerning me in the volume of the book, which I delight to do, let that be done," Psa 40:7, Psa 40:8. 6. That his disciples were asleep when he was at prayer, and when they should have been themselves praying, Luk 22:45. When he rose from prayer, he found them sleeping, unconcerned in his sorrows; but see what a favourable construction is here put upon it, which we had not in the other evangelists - they were sleeping for sorrow. The great sorrow they were in upon the mournful farewells their Master had been this evening giving them had exhausted their spirits, and made them very dull and heavy, which (it being now late) disposed them to sleep. This teaches us to make the best of our brethren's infirmities, and, if there be one cause better than another, charitably impute them to that. 7. That when he awoke them, then he exhorted them to pray (Luk 22:46): "Why sleep ye? Why do you allow yourselves to sleep? Rise and pray. Shake off your drowsiness, that you may be fit to pray, and pray for grace, that you may be able to shake off your drowsiness." This was like the ship-master's call to Jonah in a storm (Jon 1:6): Arise, call upon thy God. When we find ourselves either by our outward circumstances or our inward dispositions entering into temptation, it concerns us to rise and pray, Lord, help me in this time of need. But,

II. There are three things in this passage which we had not in the other evangelists: -

1. That, when Christ was in his agony, there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him, Luk 22:43. (1.) It was an instance of the deep humiliation of our Lord Jesus that he needed the assistance of an angel, and would admit it. The influence of the divine nature withdrew for the present, and then, as to his human nature, he was for a little while lower than the angels, and was capable of receiving help from them. (2.) When he was not delivered from his sufferings, yet he was strengthened and supported under them, and that was equivalent. If God proportion the shoulders to the burden, we shall have no reason to complain, whatever he is pleased to lay upon us. David owns this a sufficient answer to his prayer, in the day of trouble, that God strengthened him with strength in his soul, and so does the son of David, Psa 138:3. (3.) The angels ministered to the Lord Jesus in his sufferings. He could have had legions of them to rescue him; nay, this one could have done it, could have chased and conquered the whole band of men that came to take him; but he made use of his ministration only to strengthen him; and the very visit which this angel made him now in his grief, when his enemies were awake and his friends asleep, was such a seasonable token of the divine favour as would be a very great strengthening to him. Yet this was not all: he probably said something to him to strengthen him; put him in mind that his sufferings were in order to his Father's glory, to his own glory, and to the salvation of those that were given him, represented to him the joy set before him, the seed he should see; with these and the like suggestions he encouraged him to go on cheerfully; and what is comforting is strengthening. Perhaps he did something to strengthen him, wiped away his sweat and tears, perhaps ministered some cordial to him, as after his temptation, or, it may be, took him by the arm, and helped him off the ground, or bore him up when he was ready to faint away; and in these services of the angel the Holy Spirit was enischuōn auton - putting strength into him; for so the word signifies. It pleased the Lord to bruise him indeed; yet did he plead against him with his great power? No, but he put strength in him (Job 23:6), as he had promised, Psa 89:21; Isa 49:8; Isa 50:7.

2. That, being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, Luk 22:44. As his sorrow and trouble grew upon him, he grew more importunate in prayer; not that there was before any coldness or indifferency in his prayers, but there was now a greater vehemency in them, which was expressed in his voice and gesture. Note, Prayer, though never out of season, is in a special manner seasonable when we are in an agony; and the stronger our agonies are the more lively and frequent our prayers should be. Now it was that Christ offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears, and was heard in that he feared (Heb 5:7), and in his fear wrestled, as Jacob with the angel.

3. That, in this agony, his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Sweat came in with sin, and was a branch of the curse, Gen 3:19. And therefore, when Christ was made sin and a curse for us, he underwent a grievous sweat, that in the sweat of his face we might eat bread, and that he might sanctify and sweeten all our trials to us. There is some dispute among the critics whether this sweat is only compared to drops of blood, being much thicker than drops of sweat commonly are, the pores of the body being more than ordinarily opened, or whether real blood out of the capillary veins mingled with it, so that it was in colour like blood, and might truly be called a bloody sweat; the matter is not great. Some reckon this one of the times when Christ shed his blood for us, for without the shedding of blood there is no remission. Every pore was as it were a bleeding wound, and his blood stained all his raiment. This showed the travail of his soul. He was now abroad in the open air, in a cool season, upon the cold ground, far in the night, which, one would think, had been enough to strike in a sweat; yet now he breaks out into a sweat, which bespeaks the extremity of the agony he was in.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(39) And went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives.—The words agree with the previous statement in Luk_21:37, and with Joh_18:2. Here, as in the parallel passage of Mat_26:30 (where see Note), we have to insert the discourses of John 14-17.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

39-48. The Agony in the Garden.

39. And he came out] St Luke here omits all the touching incidents which St John alone records—the discourses so “rarely mixed of sadness and joys, and studded with mysteries as with emeralds Peter’s question, “Lord, whither goest thou?”; the melancholy remark of Thomas about the way; Philip’s “Lord, shew us the Father;” the perplexed enquiry of Judas Lebbaeus; the rising from the Table; the Parable of the Vine and the Branches, perhaps suggested by the trellised vine under which they passed out into the moonlight; and the great High Priest’s prayer.

to the mount of Olives] down the valley over the brook, or, rather, dry wady of the Kedron, and then up the green slope beyond it to the garden or small farm (χωρίον) of Gethsemane, “the oil press,” which is about half a mile from the city. Probably (Joh_18:2) it belonged to a disciple; possibly to St Mark. Judas knew the spot, and had ascertained that Jesus was going there. He had gone out to get the band necessary for His arrest.

followed him] The walk would be under the full Paschal moon amid the deep hush that falls over an Oriental city at night. The only recorded

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And when he was at the place,.... In the garden, at Gethsemane, which was at the foot of the Mount of Olives;

he said unto them; to the disciples, as the Persic version reads;

pray that ye enter not into temptation. This, according to the Evangelists Matthew and Mark, was said to them after he had prayed the first time, and returned to the disciples, and found them sleeping; See Gill on Mat 26:41.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

39 And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him.

Ver. 39.] See Mat 26:36; Mar 14:32; Joh 14:4.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

See the Mat. 26:30-46 notes; Mark 14:26-42 notes.

Luk 22:43

Strengthening him - His human nature, to sustain the great burden that was upon his soul. Some have supposed from this that he was not divine as well as human; for if he was “God,” how could an angel give any strength or comfort? and why did not the divine nature “alone” sustain the human? But the fact that he was “divine” does not affect the case at all. It might be asked with the same propriety, If he was, as all admit, the friend of God, and beloved of God, and holy, why, if he was a mere man, did not “God” sustain him alone, without an angel’s intervening? But the objection in neither case would have any force. The “man, Christ Jesus,” was suffering. His human nature was in agony, and it is the “manner” of God to sustain the afflicted by the intervention of others; nor was there any more “unfitness” in sustaining the human nature of his Son in this manner than any other sufferer.

Luk 22:44

In an agony - See this verse explained in the notes at Mat 26:42-44.

Luk 22:45

Sleeping for sorrow - On account of the greatness of their sorrow. See the notes at Mat 26:40.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Both Matthew and Mark say, he went to a place called Gethsemane; but that makes no difference, for whether Gethsemane signifieth a village, or a garden, or a valley, all agree it was at the foot of the mount of Olives. It was a place to which our Saviour had used to go ever since he came to Jerusalem, and lay in his way to Bethany. He went thither to pray, and his disciples followed him.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Vers. 39-46. The agony in the garden. This eventful scene is recounted in detail by all the three synoptists. St. Matthew"s account is the most complete. St. Mark adds one saying of the Lord"s containing a deep theological truth, "Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee." These remarkable words, occurring as they do in the midst of the most solemn scene of prayer in the Redeemer"s earth-life, tell of the vast possibilities of prayer. What may not be accomplished by earnest supplication to the throne of grace?

St. Luke"s account is the shortest, but it contains the story of the angelic mission of help, and the additional detail of the "bloody sweat.

St. John alone of the four omits the scene; but, as in other most important recitals where he refrains from repeating the story of things thoroughly known in his Master"s Church at the period when he committed his Gospel to writing, he takes care, however, often to record some hitherto unrecorded piece of the Lord"s teaching, which is calculated to throw new light upon the momentous twice and thrice told incident, the story of which he does not deem it necessary to repeat. So in Lu 2 he throws a flood of light upon Christian baptism. Lu 6 is a Divine commentary on the Holy Eucharist. While in Luk_12:23-28 he gives us, in his Master"s words, a new insight into that awful sorrow which was the source of the agony in Gethsemane.

Canon Westcott suggests that the succession of the main events recorded by the four evangelists was as follows:

Approximate time:

1 a.m....

The agony.

The betrayal.

The conveyance to the high priest"s house, probably adjoining "the

Booths of Hanna.

2 a.m....

The preliminary examination before Annas in the presence of

Caiaphas.

About 3 a.m....

The examination before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin at an irregular meeting at "the Booths.

About 5 a.m....

The formal sentence of the Sanhedrin in their own proper place of meeting Gazith or Beth Midrash. (Luk_22:66 Mat_27:1, prwiav genomenhv ; comp. Mar_15:1 Luk_22:66, wv egeneto hmuera) The first examination before Pilate at the palace.

1 a.m....The examination before Herod. The scourging and first mockery by the soldiers at the palace.

2 a.m....The sentence of Pilate. (Joh_19:14, wra hn wv ekth)

7 a.m.... The second mockery of the condemned "King" by the soldiers.

9 a.m.... The Crucifixion, and rejection of the stupefying draught. (Mar_15:25, hn wra trith)

12 noon... The last charge. 12-3 p.m.... The darkness. (Mat_27:45 Mar_15:33 Luk_23:44 hn wsei wra ekth ewv wrav ennathv)

3 p.m.... The end.

And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the Mount of Olives. In the other evangelists we find the place on the Mount of Olives described as Gethsemane. The word Gethsemane signifies "oilpress." It was a garden; one of the many charming gardens which Josephus tells us old Jerusalem abounded with. It perhaps belonged to a friend of Christ, or else was with others of these gardens, or "paradises," thrown open at the great festival seasons to the faithful pilgrims who on these occasions crowded the holy city and its suburbs. There is at the present day just beyond the brook Kedron, between the paths that go up to the summit of the mount, about three quarters of a mile from the Jerusalem wall, an enclosed garden called Gethsemane. It belongs to the Latin community in Jerusalem. In it are eight very ancient olive trees. When Henry Maundrell visited the spot, in 1697, these eight aged trees were believed to be the same that stood there in the blessed Savior"s time. Bove the botanist, in Ritter"s "Geography of Palestine," vol. 4., quoted by Dean Mansel, says these venerable olive trees are two thousand years old. Josephus, however, relates that in the great siege the soldiers of Titus cut down all the trees in the Jerusalem suburbs. Even if this be assumed, these soldiers, from some feeling of awe stirred up by the tradition which hung, of course, round this hallowed spot, might have spared this little sacred grove; or they might at the time have been still young saplings, of no use for the put-pose of the siege operations. "In spite of all the doubts that can be raised against their antiquity, the eight aged olive trees, if only by their manifest difference from all others on the mountain, have always struck even the most indifferent observers. They will remain, so long as their already protracted life is spared, the most venerable of their race on the surface of the earth. Their gnarled trunks and scanty foliage will always be regarded as the most affecting of the sacred memorials in or about Jerusalem the most nearly approaching to the everlasting hills themselves in the force with which they carry us back to the events of the gospel history" (Dean Stanley, " Sinai and Palestine," p. 455).

Vers. 39-46. Gethsemane.

It is now dark. On the way to the Mount of Olives, the customary retreat of Jesus (ver. 39), at the point where the upward slope begins, there is a shady place, belonging, perhaps, to one of those who believed in him, whither "Jesus had often resorted". (Joh_18:2) The site of the garden of Gethsemane may, with sufficient accuracy, be identified. It may not have been the exact spot, overshadowed by the eight venerable trees, which immemorial tradition has distinguished as the scene of the lonely vigil, but it must have been close to that spot. It was a place where there were many olives, and, as the name suggests, an oil-press; a place of perfect quiet and seclusion, where, beyond the voices of rude men, there was the peace of heaven. To this place he who had uttered the high-priestly prayer brought the high-priestly sacrifice; and there he began the walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The tale of the sore amazement and exceeding heaviness is told, with more fullness of detail, by the Evangelists Matthew and Mark (see homiletics in loc. ). Here, without enlarging on the meaning and scope of the features of the narrative, note

I THE AGONY. (Ver. 44) It has always been felt that in this there is immeasurably more than a mere revolt from imminent pain and death. The anguish is marked by an intensity for which this revolt cannot account. A brave man, however sensitive, can face, with unflinching fortitude, a high enterprise, even though its fatal consequence is evident. "The sweat becoming as it were great drops of blood," speaks of a conflict in the soul for which the impending physical dissolution cannot account. Some references supply us with suggestions.

1. The announcement made at the Supper-table, (Joh_14:30) of the coming of the prince of the world, speaks to us of a temptation, intensified by the circumstances of the hour, in the line of the wilderness-temptation, to grasp the power of the Messiah otherwise than through the suffering of the cross (see, in this connection, Mat_26:53).

2. The sorrow which cast its shade over his countenance when the betray always mentioned; (Joh_13:21) the horror with which he regarded the perfidy; (ver. 22; Mat_26:24) the utterance by which he awoke the disciples, marking out the betrayal as the bitterness of the hour at hand; (Mat_26:45) the appeal to Judas (ver. 48); these things indicate the amazement and pain caused by the action of the son of perdition.

3. The word of the Son to the Father as to the cup so full of woe that he humbly besought its removal, reminds us of a region beyond all that our thought can trace, in which the Christ of God was treading the wine-press alone. Better, in view of this, a holy reticence than a zeal which is eager with explanations. If we must speak of the special fearfulness and trembling of Gethsemane, let us simply say that there, in all its crushing weight, was realized the bearing of the sin of the world.

II THE PRAYER.

1. Observe its characteristics.

(1) Humility. He kneeled down." More strongly still St. Mark says, (Mar_14:35) "He fell on the ground." It was the attitude of deepest reverence, of entire prostration. In the high-priestly prayer, "he lifted up his eyes to heaven;" but now, in human weakness and dependence, he is prostrate before his Father. Sign of the "godly fear" (Heb_5:7) for which he was heard.

(2) Importunate repetition. Thrice he prayed, "saying the same words". (Mat_26:44) It is not the eloquence, but the sincerity of desire in the prayer which God regards.

(3) Increasing earnestness. "Being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly." The greater the pressure on the soul, the more fervent became the cry. The sorrow of the disciples sent them to sleep; his sent him to the Father. "Love overmasters agony," not agony love. Let the disciple learn, of the Master.

2. Observe its subject-matter. (Ver. 42) "Remove this cup from me; or (as in Mat_26:30), "Let this cup pass from me." It was the pleading of the sensitive human soul. And we may be assured that to plead for the removal of a cup of pain, for relief from burdens which seem greater than we can bear, is in the way of the child"s privilege; only there must be the spirit of entire dependence. "If thou be willing." There is to be no "if" where God"s promise is absolute. We do not need to say, If thou be willing, make thy grace sufficient." His pledge as to this is distinct and unequivocal: "My grace is sufficient." From this, on this resting, we pray. But when we desire that concerning which we have no definite assurance of the Father"s mind, then all is to be subordinated to him. This is to abide in the Son as he is revealed in Gethsemane. "If we ask any thing according to God"s will, he heareth us." The godly McCheyne spoke of getting into tune for prayer. We get into tune when we learn Christ"s "if it be possible;" "If thou be willing." "Renew my will from day to day; Blend it with thine," etc.

3. Observe its answer. The answer is manifest:

(1) In the righting Nevertheless. " (Ver. 42) In the prayer the soul realized "God my Rock." From what might have been self-seeking, it was delivered. "Do thou thy holy will: I will lie still; I will not stir, Lest I should break the charm. "In the day when I cried, thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul.

(2) In the comforting angel. (Ver. 43) The holy one, sign of the sympathy in heaven above. For to the one who prays in an agony the heavens are not brass. There are ministries of love. God"s angels are all ministering spirits. In visible form the angel may not appear; but we know that he is with us in the comfort and peace. Have we not the Comforter himself?"A gracious, willing Guest, While he can find one humble heart Wherein to rest.

And thus, though the cup does not pass, the will of the Son is strengthened into perfect harmony with the will of the Father. He rises up from prayer, ready, "strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.

III Observe, finally, THE REMONSTRANCE. Very touching the word to Peter. (Mat_26:40) The one hour never again to come, the one hour of watching, lost in sleep! And now (ver. 46). May not the pathetic question ring in the ears of the Christian?

Why do we sleep we whom the Son of man has associated with himself in his prayers and pains? We asleep, and he toiling! We asleep, and the world lying in darkness! Ah! in the solemn light of Gethsemane, what is the utmost Christian activity but a slumber? and how many who claim to be Christ"s are fast asleep, not for sorrow, but in self-indulgence and sin! Oh that the gentle, reproachful "why?" may be as an alarum-clock to conscience, a continual incitement to will and heart! The spirit may be willing, but the flesh is ever weak. "Rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation!

Vers. 39-45. Gethsemane.

As we enter "the place which is called Gethsemane," we pass into the "holy place," the nearest of all to "the holy of holies that is, to Calvary itself. Thither our Lord went on this most memorable evening; and "his disciples followed him the eleven who remained faithful to him. But even of these only three were counted worthy to attend him into the secret place of prayer and struggle, and to witness his agony. Such sorrow as he was then to know seeks the secret place and chooses only the very closest and dearest friendship for its ministry. Then fell upon our Divine Lord a sorrow and a temptation; an agitation and agony of soul for which our language has no name, our heart no room, our life no experience. We ask What was that intolerable and overwhelming anguish, which the Savior asked might pass from him, and which had so marvellous and so terribly significant an effect on his bodily nature (vers. 42-44)? Our completest answer leaves much to be said, much to be explained.

1. We barely touch the outer line of the whole circle of truth when we speak of the apprehension of coming torture and death as events in the natural, physical sphere. It is an irreverent and wholly unworthy conception that what many men many who have not even been good men have faced without flinching, our Lord and Master shrank from with an overmastering dread.

2. We come nearer to the center of the truth when we think that the whole shadow of the cross, with its spiritual darkness and desolation, then began to rest upon him... Something of that shadow had been darkening his path before. (Mar_10:38 Luk_12:50 Joh_12:27) And this shadow darkened and deepened as he drew near to the dread hour itself. At this point the cross immediately confronted him in all its awful severity, and he knew that this was the time when he must finally resolve to endure everything or to retrace his steps. This, then, was the critical hour; then was "the crisis of the world." Great and terrible was the temptation to decline the fearful future now at hand; it was a temptation he struggled against with a spiritual violence that showed itself in the drops of blood; it was a temptation he only overcame by tearful supplications to the Eternal Father for his prevailing succor. (Heb_5:7)

3. But we miss our true mark if we do not include the thought that he was then bearing something of the burden of human sin. Whatever was intended by bearing our sins in his own body," by making his soul an offering for sin," and by expressions similar to these, we believe that Jesus Christ was then in the very act of fulfilling these predictions when he thus strove and suffered in the garden. As we look upon him there we see "the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world." The scene may teach us very varied lessons and affect us in many ways; but it is certainly well fitted to be

I AN ATTRACTION TO SOULS STILL DISTANT FROM THE SAVIOUR. It says, "Behold how he loved you!

II AN INVITATION TO PRAYER FOR FAITHFULNESS IN THE HOUR OF TRIAL. Both before and after, the Master exhorted his disciples to pray that "they entered not into temptation" (vers. 40, 46). He himself triumphed through the strong efficacy of prayer (ver. 41). Prayer, appropriate at all times, is urgently needed as we enter the shadow of temptation; but it is positively indispensable when the greater trials of our life assail us.

III A SUMMONS TO STRENUOUS AND UNFALTERING PERSEVERANCE. Christian pilgrim, Christian workman, do you weary of your way or of your work? Does the one seem long and thorny, or the other tedious and unsuccessful? Do you think you must sleep as the disciples did, or that you must put down the cup as their Master did not? Do you talk about giving up the journey, about retiring from the field? Consider him who went quite through the work the Father game him to do, who strove and suffered to the very last; consider him, the agonizing but undaunted, the suffering but resolving Savior; consider him, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. "Go, labor on, spend and be spent, Thy joy to do the Father"s will; It is the way the Master went, Should not the servant tread it still? C.

Vers. 39-53. Gethsemane.

After the Passover and the address given in John 14., he led the disciples out through the vineyards, where most likely John 15. was delivered to them, and John 16., until he reached his usual rendezvous in Gethsemane, part of the Mount of Olives. Here let us suppose the high-priestly prayer given in John 17. took place, which being ended, he retired to an adjacent and secluded place for further prayer. Gethsemane was thus his preparation for suffering and death, as the Transfiguration had been for work. And here we have to notice

I HIS DREAD OF THE DENOUEMENT WAS NOT A DREAD OF PHYSICAL PAIN AND DEATH. His cry for escape, if possible, was not prompted by physical fear. He always showed himself brave before danger of a mere physical kind. Socrates seems the braver man before he drank the hemlock, but this was because Socrates could not see the issues that were before him as Christ foresaw his fate. The cup he shrank from was not like that of Socrates. It was no literal cup, but the apprehension of isolation from his Father. Not the trial, nor the mockery, nor the physical pain, but the isolation from God, the sense of forsakenness, the constraint to cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" which prompted the cry to escape. Now, the very elevation of his being rendered the dread of separation even for the shortest season from his Father intensely painful. Vulgar souls can take separation from others quietly, but the elect souls pass through deepest pains in consequence. That darkness which came on when Son was separated from Father because of the sin-bearing was what Jesus dreaded, and would gladly have escaped. Want of fellowship with the Father seemed to this holy Child Jesus something to be escaped if at all possible.

II THE INTENSITY AND EFFICACY OF HIS PRAYER. Just as Jacob had to wrestle at Peniel to obtain the blessing, so had the Saviour in the garden. He was in an agony of earnestness, and was in consequence bathed in a bloody sweat. Time after time he prayed thus earnestly. And we are expressly told, "He was heard in that he feared". (Heb_5:7) His prayer was efficacious. Now, let us consider what he prayed for. It was for deliverance from isolation from God deliverance from death without a sense of the Divine fellowship. And when we consider the sequel, we find that he was heard, and his prayer answered. For

(1) he enjoyed an angelic visit and was strengthened by it (ver. 43);

(2) he was granted light and fellowship with the Father before death supervened; and

(3) he was saved from death by resurrection. In these ways the Father undoubtedly heard and answered the cry of Christ in Gethsemane.

III NOTICE THE DISCIPLES" SLEEP OF SORROW. For sorrow often induces sleep, while at other times it makes sleep impossible. In the present case the disciples ought to have been praying for Jesus, for themselves, seeking preparation for the trial he had forewarned them was at hand. Instead of doing so they slept. Here we have to notice:

1. Opportunity for showing spiritual sympathy was missed. Jesus, as we know, was most anxious they should watch with him. He needed and he sought their sympathy; but they, in thoughtlessness, denied it to him. It would be well it deepest consideration were exhibited for noble souls that are greatly tried.

2. Opportunity for private preparation was missed. They themselves needed spiritual help more than Christ. They could less afford than he to meet the crisis prayerlessly. Yet this was their condition when the trial fell upon them.

3. Physical effort was their only resource when the crisis came. They could lay on with the sword. It does not take much prayer to help men to fight. But other and better weapons were needed than Peter"s sword, but they could only be taken out of the armoury by prayer.

IV THE BETRAYAL. Judas and his band were upon them before the sleepy disciples had time to pray. He had planned the capture as only a coward can. He betrays Christ with the semblance of friendship, trying to give the Master the usual kiss. To this offer Jesus simply replies, "Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?" Force behind deceit is apparently overpowering the spirituality which had its home in that place of prayer.

V THE DEFENCE OF THE DISCIPLES AND THE MIRACLE OF THE MASTER, The disciples, spiritually off guard, betake themselves to the carnal weapon, and Peter lays round him with the sword. He succeeds in cutting off the right ear of the high priest"s servant. Here is fresh trouble created. If this servant has to go back thus wounded, a warrant will soon be out for the disciples, and the whole issue thrown into perplexity. Our Lord accordingly interposes, heals the sufferer"s ear, and advises Peter to put up his sword. In this way Jesus rescues the disciples from the liability incurred through their own imprudence. It was a wonderful consideration manifested when his own troubles were rising to their height.

VI THE REBUKE ADMINISTERED TO HIS ENEMIES. Why had they come out against him as against a thief? Had he not confronted them time after time in open day? They had not dared to lay hands upon him then. He thus convicted them of cowardice. It was "their hour, and the power of darkness." A deed of darkness dare not be done in open day. Thus was it that our Lord bravely met his adversaries. He was prepared, though the disciples were not. R.M.E.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Matt. xxvi, 30.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The agony in Gethsemane:

v. 39. And He came out and went, as He was wont, to the Mount of Olives; and His disciples also followed Him.

v. 40. And when He was at the place, He said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation.

v. 41. And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down and prayed,

v. 42. saying, Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done.

v. 43. And there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him.

v. 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.

v. 45. And when He rose up from prayer and was come to His disciples, He found them sleeping for sorrow,

v. 46. and said unto them, Why sleep ye? Rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.

Jesus had the habit of going over to Mount Olivet often, to a certain garden called Gethsemane, the place of the oil-press, and on this fine moonlight night, when only the depths of the Kidron Valley were in shadow, He could very profitably spend a few hours in prayer. His disciples, therefore, saw nothing strange in His action, but followed Him as usual. It is probable that they did not even think it strange when He chose three of their number as His companions for a walk into the farther recesses of the garden, for that also had happened before. But Jesus did all this with full understanding of all that was going to happen. To His closest friends He said, in the interior of the garden, that they should pray in order not to enter into temptation. Satan was even then gathering his forces, marshaling all the forces of darkness to make one last attempt against the work of atonement. The fear of death had fallen upon the Lord, of temporal, spiritual, and eternal death. His terror became greater with every moment. He withdrew, He tore Himself away from His three disciples in the intensity of His soul’s suffering, to a distance of about a stone’s throw; He threw Himself down upon His knees in an imploring attitude; He begged and pleaded with His heavenly Father: If Thou wilt, take away this cup, let it pass away on one side of Me. That bitter cup which was now held out to Him, the prospect of the cruel tortures on the cross and of the death for the sins of the whole world, that seemed too much for Him at this time. Jesus was a true, natural man, and human nature resists and struggles against death, for death is unnatural; it destroys the life which God has given, it tears apart the band between body and soul. The humiliation of Jesus is so great that He thinks it possible to find another way to work the redemption of the world. The very counsel of God which drove Him down from His throne of glory into this vale of tears was darkened before His eyes in this hour. What a depth of humiliation! And yet, there was not the slightest murmuring against the decree of God. Always the will of God was to be carried out first. He sacrificed His will to that of His heavenly Father. In suffering He learned obedience, and He practiced submission, becoming obedient unto death, Heb 5:8; Php 2:8. At this climax of His suffering an angel from heaven appeared to Him and offered Him strength, probably by reminding Him of the eternal plan of God and of the final result of His way of suffering. So unutterably deep was the humiliation of the Son of God that He, the great Creator of the universe, accepted assistance and encouragement from one of His own creatures. He was then at the height of His great fear; the words of His prayer poured forth with great vehemence. Of this battle that of the patriarch Jacob at Jabbok had been but a faint type. Finally His sweat became like large drops of blood, which ran down His holy face and fell to the ground. It was the misery and fervor of His soul, glowing in the unbearable heat of this tribulation, that caused this phenomenon. But gradually His strength prevailed, gradually the attacks of death and the devil lost in intensity. And finally He had overcome all His weakness: He was ready to take the cup out of the hand of His heavenly Father and to drain it to the last dregs. He arose from His long battle of prayer; but when He came to His disciples, He found them sleeping for sorrow. Mere flesh and blood had not been able even to witness the scene of such harrowing agony. He awakened them from their sleep, with some degree of sadness over Peter’s inability to watch with Him for even one hour. He told them that this was no time to sleep. They should rather arise and pray, lest they enter into temptation. In the hours of great and bitter misfortune above all it is necessary to be ever on the alert, to practice all vigilance, to ask God for strength and submission to His will, in order that no temptation prove too strong or rob us of our faith. The spirit of the Christians may be willing enough, for that is born out of God, but the flesh, the inherited depravity and sinfulness, is too weak and helpless. Only persistent, importunate prayer will receive from the Spirit of God the strength to overcome and obtain the victory.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Our blessed Saviour being now come to the Mount of Olives, and having entered with his disciples into the garden near it, whether he used to retire and pray; in this place he falls into a bitter and bloody agony, in which he prayed with wonderful fervor and importunity; his sufferings were now coming on a great pace, and he mets them upon his knees, and would be found in a praying posture.

Learn thence, that prayer is the best preparative for, as well as the most powerful support under, the heaviest sufferings that can befall us.

As to this prayer of our Saviour, in his agony, many particulars are very observable as, 1. The time when he prayed thus extraordinarily; it was the evening before he suffered, just before Judas with his black guard came to apprehend him; and when he did come, he found him in a praying posture; our Lord teaching us by his example, that when imminent dangers are before us, especially when death is apprehended by us, it is our duty to be very much in prayer to God, and very fervent in our wrestlings with him.

Observe, 2. The subject matter of our Lord’s prayer, That, if possible, the cup might pass from him; that is, that he might escape the dreadful wrath, at which he was so sore amazed.

But what did Christ now begin to repent of his undertaking for sinners? Did he shrink and give back, when he came to the pinch?

No, nothing like this; but as he had two natures, being God and Man, so he had two distinct wills; as Man he feared and shunned death, as God-man he willingly submitted to it. The divine nature and the human spirit of Christ did now assault each other with disagreeing interests.

Again, this prayer was not absolute, but conditional: "Father, if it may be, if thou wilt, if it please thee, let the cup pass; if not, I will drink it." The cup of sufferings we see is a very bitter and distasteful cup, a cup which human nature abhors; yet does God oftentimes put this bitter cup of affliction into the hands of whom he does sincerely love; and when he does so, it is their duty to drink it with silence and submission, as here their Lord did before them.

Observe, 3. The manner of our Lord’s prayer in this his agony: and here we may remark,

1. It was a solitary prayer; he went by himself alone, out of the hearing of his disciples. The company of our best and dearest friends is not always seasonable; there are times and seasons when a Christian would not be willing that the most intimate friend he has in the world should be with him, to hear what passes in secret between him and his God.

2. It was an humble prayer; that appears by the postures in which he cast himself, sometimes lying prostrate upon his face, he lies in the very dust, and lower he could not lie, and his heart was as low as his body.

3. It was a vehement, fervent, and importunate prayer; such was the fervor of his spirit, that he prayed himself into an agony. Oh let us blush to think how unlike our praying frame of spirit is to Christ’s.

Lord, what coldness, deadness, drowsiness, formality, and laziness, are found in our prayers! How often do our lips move, when our hearts stand still!

Observe, 4. The posture which the disciples were found in; when our Lord was praying in his agony, they were fast asleep. Good God! Could they possibly sleep at such a time as this? When Christ’s soul was exceedingly sorrowful, could their eyes be heavy?

Learn thence, that the very best of Christ’s disciples may be, and oftentimes are, overtaken with great infirmities, when the most important duties are performing; Then cometh he to his disciples, and findeth them sleeping.

Observe, 5. The mild, meek, and gentle rebuke which he gives to his disciples for their sleeping; he said unto them, Why sleep ye? Could ye not watch with me one hour? "What, not watch when your Master was in such danger! Could ye not watch with me, when I was going to lay down my life for you: What, not an hour, and that the parting hour, too?

Learn hence, that the holiest and best resolved Christians, who have willing spirits for Christ and his service, yet in regard to the meekness of the flesh, and the frailty of human nature, it is their duty to watch and pray, and thereby guard themselves against temptation: Rise and pray, let ye enter into, etc.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CXXIII. Going to Gethsemane].

CXXIII. GOING TO GETHSEMANE, AND AGONY THEREIN. (A garden between the brook Kidron and the Mount of Olives. Late Thursday night.) aMATT. XXVI. 30, 36-46; bMARK XIV. 26, 32-42; cLUKE XXII. 39-46; dJOHN XVIII. 1.

d1 When Jesus had spoken these words [the words contained in Joh_1-17:26], a30 And when they had sung a hymn [the shadow of the cross did not quench the spirit of praise in Christ], they went out c39 And he came out, and dhe went forth with his disciples cas his custom was, dover the brook Kidron, ainto bunto the mount of Olives. dwhere was a garden, into which he entered, himself and his disciples. cand the disciples also followed him. a36 Then cometh Jesus with them b32 And they come unto a place which was named acalled Gethsemane [The name Gethsemane means a place of oil-presses, and hence it accords well with the name of the mountain at whose base it was situated. But the place was now a garden. It was about half a mile from the city, and from what Luke says here and elsewhere ( Luk_21:37), it seems that Jesus often resorted to it while in Jerusalem at the festivals. Compare also Joh_18:2], c40 And when he was at the place, he said asaith unto his disciples, Sit ye here, while I pray. cPray that ye enter not into temptation. [As the hour of trial and temptation came upon Jesus he fortified himself against it by prayer. And he bade his disciples do likewise, for his arrest would involve them also in temptations which he [685] foresaw that they would not be able to withstand.] a37 And he took btaketh with him Peter aand the two sons of Zebedee, bJames and John, and began to be greatly amazed, asorrowful and sore troubled. [While seeking heavenly aid in this hour of extremity, our Lord also manifested his desire for human sympathy. All the eleven apostles were with him in the garden, and the three most capable of sympathizing with him were stationed nearer to him than the rest.] c41 And he was parted from them about a stone's cast [one hundred fifty to two hundred feet]; b34 And a38 Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: babide ye here, and watch. awith me. [The sequel shows that the phrase "even unto death" was no figure of rhetoric. The nervous prostration of Jesus was such as to endanger his life, and the watching of the apostles may have been doubly needful. Not only did he require their sympathy, but he may also have looked to them to render him assistance in the case of a physical collapse.] 39 And he went forward a little, cand he kneeled down band fell on the face, aand fell on his face, and prayed, bthat, if it were possible, the hour might pass away from him. [This posture was expressive of the most intense supplication.] 36 And he said, { asaying, bAbba, aMy Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me: ball things are possible unto thee; cif thou be willing, remove this cup from me: bhowbeit anevertheless, not as bwhat I will, abut as bwhat thou wilt. cnot my will, but thine, be done. [Much of mystery is found in all life, so it is small wonder if the dual nature of Jesus presents insoluble problems. It perplexes many to find that the divine in Jesus did not sustain him better during his trial in the garden. But we must remember that it was appointed unto Jesus to die, and that the divine in him was not to interfere with this appointment, or the approaches to it. For want, therefore, of a better expression, we may say that from the time Jesus entered the garden until he expired on the cross, the human in him was in the [686] ascendant; and "being found in fashion as a man," he endured these trials is if wholly human. His prayer, therefore, is the cry of his humanity for deliverance. The words "if it is possible" with which it opens breathe the same spirit of submissive obedience which is found in the closing words. Reminding the Father of the limitless range of his power, he petitions him to change his counsel as to the crucifixion of the Son, if his gracious purposes can be in any other way carried out. Jesus uses the words "cup" and "hour" interchangeably. They are both words of broad compass, intended to include all that he would undergo from that time until his resurrection. They embrace all his mental, moral, physical, and spiritual suffering which we can discover, together with an infinite volume of a propitiatory and vicarious nature which lies beyond the reach of our understanding. The submission of Jesus was no new fruitage of his character; the prayer of the garden had been the inner purpose of his entire life-- Joh_5:30, Joh_6:38.] 43 And there appeared unto him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. 44 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. [Commentators give instances of bloody sweat under abnormal pathological conditions.] 45 And when he rose up from his prayer, he came { acometh unto the disciples, and findeth cfound them sleeping for sorrow, 46 and said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. [The admonition which had at first been addressed to all the eleven is now spoken to the chosen three] aand saith unto Peter, bSimon, sleepest thou? couldest thou not watch one hour? aWhat, could ye not watch with me one hour? 41 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. [Peter, having boasted of his loyalty, has his weakness pointed out and is further warned to be on his guard, since the weakness of his nature will not stand the coming strain. The slumber of the disciples was not through indifference; but was [687] caused by the prostration of grief. When we remember the excitement which they had endured that night, the tender words spoken by Jesus, the sadness of which was intensified by the atmosphere of mystery which pervaded them, the beautiful and touching prayer, and lastly this agony in the garden, it is not to be wondered at that the apostles, spurred by no sense of danger, should succumb to the long-borne tension and fall asleep. Had they comprehended how much the Lord needed their wakeful sympathy as he came again and again seeking for it, they would probably have kept awake.] b39 And again aa second time he went away, and prayed, bsaying the same words. asaying, My Father, if this cannot pass away, except I drink it, thy will be done. [Jesus here speaks of draining the cup. The "cup" was a common Hebrew figure used to denote one's divinely appointed lot or fortune-- Psa_23:5, Psa_75:8, Isa_51:17, Isa_51:22, Eze_23:31-33.] 43 And he came again and found them sleeping, for their eyes were bvery heavy; and they knew not what to answer him. [They were ashamed of the stupor which had come upon them and knew not what apology to make for it.] a44 And he left them again, and went away, and prayed a third time, saying again the same words. b41 And a45 Then cometh he to the disciples, bthe third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and that your rest: it is enough; abehold, the hour is at hand, bthe hour is come; aand bbehold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42 Arise, let us be going: behold, he that betrayeth me is at hand. [Our Lord's words are paradoxical. In our judgment the saying is best understood by regarding the first part of it as spoken from the Lord's viewpoint, while the latter part is spoken from the disciple's viewpoint. It is as if he said, "So far as I am concerned, you may sleep on and take your rest, for the time to be of comfort or assistance to me has wholly passed. But so far as you yourselves are concerned, you must arise and be going, because Judas with his band of temple police is upon us."] [688]

[FFG 685-693]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

39–46. He went … unto the mount of Olives. See notes on Matt. 26:36–46, for the Agony in Gethsemane. Compare Mark 14:32–42. Luke alone mentions that his sweat became as great drops of blood a fact that portrays, as language could not, the agony of our Lord's struggle.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

General Information:

Jesus goes to the Mount of Olives to pray.

that you do not enter into temptation

"that you are not tempted" or "that nothing tempts you and causes you to sin"

translationWords

Mount of Olives

disciple

pray

tempt

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

39–46. THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN

39. ἐξελθών. St Luke here omits all the touching incidents which St John alone records—the discourses so “rarely mixed of sadness and joys, and studded with mysteries as with emeralds;” Peter’s question, “Lord, whither goest thou?”; the melancholy remark of Thomas about the way; Philip’s “Lord, shew us the Father;” the perplexed inquiry of Judas Lebbaeus; the rising from the Table; the Parable of the Vine and the Branches, perhaps suggested by the trellised vine under which they passed out into the moonlight; and the great High Priest’s prayer.

κατὰ τὸ ἔθος. ‘As His custom was.’ The word ‘custom’ seems too wide to apply only to our Lord’s practice during these few days. It leads us to suppose that He disliked sleeping in the crowd and closeness of cities, and habitually chose to spend the night in the olive-yards of the Hill.

εἰς τὸ ὄρος τῶν Ἐλαιῶν. See note on Luk 19:29. The way led down the valley over the brook, or, rather, dry wady of the Kedron, and then up the green slope beyond it to the garden (see Jos. B. J. Luk 22:2, § 2, VI. 1, § 1), or small farm (χωρίον) of Gethsemane, “the oil press,” which is about half a mile from the city. Probably (Joh 18:2) it belonged to a disciple; possibly to St Mark. Judas knew the spot, and had ascertained that Jesus was going there. He had gone out to get the band necessary for His arrest.

ἠκολούθησαν. The walk would be under the full Paschal moon amid the deep hush that falls over an Oriental city at night. The only recorded incident of the walk is one more warning to the disciples, and specially to St Peter. Mat 26:32-35.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

39-46.] Christ’s agony at the Mount of Olives. Mat 26:36-46. Mar 14:32-42. Joh 18:1. For all comment on the general narrative, see notes on Matthew. Our account is compendious, combines the three prayers of our Lord into one, and makes no mention of the Three Apostles being taken apart from the rest. On the other hand it inserts the very important additional details of vv. 44, 45, besides the particularity of ὡσεὶ λίθου βολήν, ver. 41.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

39-46. The Agony in the Garden. With regard to the omission of nearly the whole of the last discourses (Jn. 14-17.) Godet remarks that the oral tradition was not a suitable vehicle for transmitting such things: c’étaient den trésors qu’un cæur d’élite Pouvait seul garder et reproduire. On the other hand Jn. omits the whole of this scene, although there is a clear reference to it 18:11. Lk.’s narrative once more differs considerably from that of Mt. (26:30-41) and of Mk. (14:26-38), which are almost verbatim the same; and it is very much shorter. It is in vv. 39, 42, 46 that Lk. comes most closely to the other two.

39. ἐξελθών. From the house.

κατὰ τὸ ἔθος Peculiar to Lk. (1:9, 2:42): Comp. πολλάκις συνήχθη Ἰησοῦς ἐκεῖ (Joh 18:2). It was no longer necessary to keep Judas ignorant of His movements; so He follows His usual practice. Lk. omits the ὑμνήσαντες which records the chanting of the second part of the Hallel. Jn. alone mentions the passing of the gloomy ravine of the Kidron (18:1).

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.