BIBLE STUDY BOOKLET

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	THE TEMPTATIONS OF THE LORD By Theo Todman GETHSEMANE

We now come to a most solemn moment in our Lord's life on this earth, the "agony in the garden" (Matthew 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:40-46). Quoting from the New International Version of Matthew's account:-

The account in Mark is briefer but similar, with the variation that the Lord's prayer to His Father is a little more insistent.

The parallel in Luke is sufficiently dissimilar to quote in full:

This is the first question we must ask ourselves. The only explicit reference to temptation in the passage is the Lord's request of the disciples to "pray that you will not fall into temptation," which soon followed as they forsook Him and Peter denied Him. However, isn't the Lord Jesus undergoing some internal struggle to conform His Will to the Father's? The phrase "not my will but thine be done" could not be said if the two were identical. Whether this struggle arose internally, or was provoked by Satan, is not clear from the text. Often, Luke 4:13 is brought to bear on this event "When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left Him until an opportune time," though it is a little arbitrary to apply this verse to Gethsemane, and may simply refer to a subsequent occasion in the wilderness, for Luke's account of the temptations ends inconclusively whereas Matthew's does not. However, in Luke's account of the Lord Jesus' arrest, which follows immediately upon Gethsemane, we read that "this is your hour, and the power of darkness." (Luke 22:53).

In what did the temptation, be it such, consist? To the vast majority of commentators the answer is obvious, namely that 'this cup' represents the Cross. We can best consider this view by looking at the opinions of those who think that it must be something else. The main objection lies in the fact that, if the Lord Jesus is taken as seeking deliverance from the Cross in the Synoptic Gospels, then this is in sharp contrast to what He says in John, namely,

The other contention is that for the Son of God to show reluctance to go to the Cross would be in some sense unbecoming, that it might even be imperfection or sin, being fear and therefore less than perfect love, for

So, if 'this cup' is not the Cross, what is it? The answer given is that 'this cup' is the possibility of death (due to illness) in the garden, so preventing Him from accomplishing the work He came to do. On a first hearing, this sounds a little unlikely, though that is rather a subjective response. However, there is certain Scriptural justification for the suggestion. Firstly, in the garden He was at "the point of death" (Matthew 26:38), was "in an agony" and "His sweat was as it were great drops of blood failing down to the ground" (Luke 22:44, it being noted that Luke, being a doctor, would be interested in recording symptoms) so that He needed an angel to strengthen Him (Luke 22:43). Later, it was necessary for Simon of Cyrene to carry His cross (Matthew 27:32) and when Joseph of Arimathea went to ask Pilate for the body of Jesus, "Pilate was surprised to hear that He was already dead," and summoned a centurion to investigate (Mark 15:44).

In reply to these objections, we deal with the medical evidence first. As to the Lord being "at the point of death," what the text says is that He "began to be sorrowful and troubled" and said "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." The keynote here (Matthew 26:37,38) is one of sorrow, or rather grief (Greek: lupe, perilupos) and there are allusions to Psalm 42:5,11 and Psalm 43:5 where the righteous man, pursued by his enemies who deny that his God is with him, is near despair yet who reminds himself to hope in God. The reference to "at the point of death" is more likely to be a psychological than a physiological expression - a figure to express the extremity of grief, no more literal than the sword which was to pierce through His mother's soul (Luke 2:35). We must not forget the awesome horror of the prospect before the Lord. Not only was He to suffer a terrible and shameful physical death but the sins of the whole world were to be reckoned His and He was to be treated with all the righteous anger of the One Who will not clear the guilty (Exodus 34:7) and with the repugnance of One Who is "of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity" (Habakuk 1:13, Authorised Version). To view such a prospect with anything but anguish would not be a fully human response.

The passage (Luke 22:43-44) about the angel and the sweat as great drops of blood (hosei thromboi haimatos) does not state that the Lord Jesus sweat blood, as is sometimes supposed, but that His sweat was as profuse as a haemorrhage. This could equally be explained by acute anxiety as by a fever. The requirement for Simon of Cyrene could easily be explained by the fact that the Lord had been scourged. This scourging may have been severe, since Pilate had intended this to be His only punishment, hoping that this ill-treatment and humiliation by the soldiers would satiate the Jewish leaders' demand for vengeance (John 19:1 and following). His speedy death is explained in many ways. It could have been due to the crushing weight of sin upon Him, but in any case the end came when He said, "it is finished, bowed His head and gave up the ghost." (John 19:30). As he said, "No man taketh it (My life) from me, but I lay it down of Myself."(John 10:18).

Before we go back to consider John 12:27, we should consider one further Scripture, namely, Hebrews 5:7-8

This would seem to refer to Gethsemane in the absence of any rival passage. In what way was He heard and (presumably) saved from death? He was not saved from death on the cross, for He truly died. So, there is an argument that He was saved from death in the garden. However, the Greek for "to save Him from death" is sozein auton ek thanaton. If the ek means 'out of' (Revised Version marginal reading) as is usual, the salvation could be 'out of death', that is, by resurrection. The Companion Bible suggests that apo would be more appropriate for 'from (i.e. away from) death' though in fairness we must note that John 12:27 also has ek.

We now consider the passage in John:

If 'this hour' is the same as 'this cup' then we have what seems to be a contradiction, for in the Synoptic gospels the Lord Jesus prays 'Father, if you are willing, take this cup from Me.' (Luke 22:42). The primary method of disposing of supposed contradictions or discrepancies in Scripture is to determine whether the two passages are referring to the same matter, at the same time - and the viewpoint we are discussing suggests that the subject matter differs. However, there is also a time difference for John 12:27 is prior to John 18:1, when the garden is entered. The gap is less than a week because John 12 commences "Six days before the Passover" (verse 1) and continues with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Most of the intervening material is taken up with the long prayers of chapters 14-17. This short time gap is not, on its own, a very satisfactory explanation of the discrepancy. Are we at liberty to assume an evolution of thought on the part of the Lord Jesus as the Cross drew nearer?

Hebrews 13:8 reminds us that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever," but this surely refers to Him after His resurrection, for we read in Luke 2:52 that "Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and men" and Hebrews 5:8 says, "Although He was a Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered." Hebrews 13:8 is really a lead-in to the next verse, "Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings." The immutability of the Subject guarantees the immutability of the teachings about Him. Nonetheless, it might be objected that this change seems to be for the worse, unlike those quoted above. It would be almost as though the words of John 12:27 were spoken with an overconfident swagger, out of which the Lord was shaken as the dreadful day drew close and inescapable. It cannot possibly be the whole truth.

A better approach, perhaps, is to try to consider just what the various evangelists are seeking to convey about the Lord Jesus. It is well known that each evangelist majors on a different aspect of the Lord's person, and tells the story of His life and death from a different angle. A popular view, for which no justification can be given here, is that Matthew portrays Him as King, Mark as Servant, Luke as Perfect Man, and John as God. In particular, there is not a great deal of common material between John and the Synoptics - the omission in John of the Temptation in the Wilderness and of the Agony in the Garden being outstanding examples. Also, incidents such as that in John 18:6 "When He said to them, 'I am He,' they drew back and fell to the ground" are recorded in John but not elsewhere.

When we consider these things we see that there are certain incidents that are appropriate to Christ as God that are inappropriate to Him as Man and vice versa. In the Synoptics, a rough count of the usage of the formulae "Son of Man" and "Son of God" gives the ratio 2:7, whereas in John the ratio is 1:1. As Son of Man, the Lord Jesus may be portrayed as being in anguish over His approaching death whereas as Son of God He would have no such emotions. The problem is to hold these two ideas together without implying some sort of schizophrenia on the part of the Lord. Indeed, in our understanding, His Deity and humanity must always be held in tension - their fusion is beyond our comprehension. It is attempts to clarify this situation that have led to the denial of either His Deity or humanity.

So, in the Synoptic Gospels, the Lord Jesus prays to the Father (proseuchomai), there being a separation between Them which needs to be bridged by prayer. However, in John, He and the Father are one (John 10:30 etc.). When there is mention of prayer it is not proseuchomai but erotao 'to ask', suggesting equality or at least intimacy. These facts may be hard for us to fit together, but we have to beware of being presumptuous about our ability to grasp the Lord's personality, which was unique and, on the divine side, utterly beyond our experience.

To sum up, we have two views of Gethsemane, one of which is certainly possible but seems a little unlikely - surely "this cup" of Gethsemane is the same cup as that in John 18:11 "Shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given Me?" - while the other requires a certain amount of metaphysics to support it. What can we draw from the incident that is relevant to our subject? It is an aspect of His being "One Who has been tempted (or tested) in every way, just as we are - yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15, a verse we will discuss in greater detail later.)

Wherein did the test lie? In the orthodox interpretation of this passage it is His grappling with and defeating, in anticipation, the last enemy, namely, death. This view is that if He had not plumbed the depths of the horror (not necessarily fear) of death, which the generality of mankind has to deal with in its various forms, He would not be able properly to "help those who are being tempted" (Hebrews 2:18 NIV, again to be considered in a later chapter). It is to be noted that in death He had to cope not only with the horrors of dying - and here He shares with all men, even the regenerate - but also the righteous judgement and retribution of God that is to be experienced by the unregenerate and in which the regenerate have no part because He has already been substituted for them. Hence, can we not say that in order to "free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death" (Hebrews 2:15) He had to undergo that fear, which is a correct and logical dread of the wrath of God which was to be poured out on Him. As Paul says, the "sting of death is sin" (1 Corinthians 15:56) and He was treated as though the sins of the whole world were His (1 John 2:2). So, for Him, the sting remained.

Under the alternative exegesis, the temptation or test lay in the Lord reconciling Himself . to a 'wasted' mission - one in which He failed to reach the Cross for which He came - should that be the Father's will. In either case, there was real suffering in that garden; there was a need for His will to be conformed to the Father's, whatever that will might be.