"And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. (41) And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, (42) Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. (43) And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. (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. (45) And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow, (46) And said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation."
I enter upon those verses with an holy awe and reverence! Who is competent to apprehend, much less to explain, the soul-agony of Christ, in this tremendous season. Jesus himself called it the hour of the enemy's triumph, and the power of darkness. His disciples were withdrawn from him: Satan desperately bent against him - and Jesus bearing the whole sins of his redeemed in his own person. And, as if that was not enough, the justice of God beholding him, as the sinner's Surety, voluntarily coming forward, the Representative and Head of his Church, to be made both a sin and a curse for his people, that they might be made the righteousness of God in him. These outlines of the subject, (for our present capacities are incapable of apprehending anything more, than the merest outlines of a subject whose dimensions are infinite), may, in some measure, serve to show what an unequalled season of agony and soul. conflict this was to the Great Redeemer. We are told, that, on Christ's entrance upon his public ministry, after his baptism, when led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, when the devil had ended those temptations, he departed from him for a season. Luke 4:13. And now, at the close of his ministry, the devil came again with tenfold fury.
But, had the temptations of hell been all which the Lord Jesus sustained in those tremendous hours, these might easily have been borne, compared to what the Son of God in our nature, and as the Surety of his Church and people, had to encounter. The dreadful part the Lord fell under, and which brought him to the ground in agonies and prayer, was, the frowns of Heaven; in the curse he bore, and the Father's judgment due to sin in consequence of it. The Holy Ghost hath in one short verse described it, and none but God the Holy Ghost could describe it: when under the Spirit of prophecy, Jesus said, Thy rebuke hath broken my heart! Psalms 69:20. It is impossible in our researches on this subject to go very far. We know that the curse pronounced on the fall was, In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. Genesis 3:19. But, in sustaining this curse, who would have concluded, that a bloody sweat should follow? All men, more or less, taste of the fruit of Adam's sin, and not only the laboring part eat bread in the sweat of the brow; but the rich and the mighty, some way or other, know the bitterness of it. But while the earth brings forth thorns to all, Jesus only was crowned with them. While men sweat in sorrow, Jesus only sweats a bloody sweat. Precious Lord! in all things thou must bare the pre-eminence! Colossians 1:18. I have, in the best manner I am able, noticed the different terms the Evangelists make use of concerning Christ's agony in the garden of Gethsemane. See Matthew 26:38. He calls it the soul of Christ being exceeding sorrowful even unto death. Mark expresses it, being sore amazed, and very heavy. Mark 14:34. And Luke renders it agony, as one that was at strife, for such is the original. And yet Christ was alone. What strife then could this be? Nay, who shall answer the question. An angel appeared from heaven to strengthen him. An angel! Did He who was the image of the invisible God, and with whom it was no robbery to be equal with God, need aid from his creatures? So the word of truth states it; but who is competent to explain a fact so mysterious. Reader! ponder well the subject. Angels desire to look into it. 1 Peter 1:19. surely never, never was there a period in all the annals of mankind, since time began to be numbered, (the cross of Christ excepted, and this was but the close to it) of equal moment with this soul conflict of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane!
Reader! would you see sin in its true light! This is the mirror. The drowning of the whole world at the flood; the destruction of Sodom by fire; the ten thousand hospitals of mankind; yea, the whole earth considered, as one great, mass of misery; and even hell itself, with its everlasting burnings, all form no equal manifestations of the malignity of sin, compared to Christ bearing the curse and punishment of sin, when in the garden he bore agonies, and on the cross he died, the just for the unjust, to bring his people to God. And, therefore, let my soul, let your soul, yea, let every reflecting soul, think what ultimately must be the everlasting state and condition of every sinner who dies out of Christ, with his sins unpardoned, his soul uncleansed, his spirit unregenerated, and the whole weight and pressure of his iniquity bearing upon his own soul! If Christ was thus brought into such an agony, while bearing only the transgressions of others; what must be the terrors of those who bear their own? If, to use our Lord's own words, such things were done in the green tree, where there was nothing to give fuel to fire, what shall be done in the dry? where, like combustible matter, it wants but the spark to set the whole in a blaze, to burn forever! Luke 23:31
I feel constrained to detain the Reader one moment longer over this most solemn passage, just to observe the state of the disciples at this awful crisis. When Jesus, in the midst of his agony, came to them who had been withdrawn from him by some supernatural power, it is said, that he found them steeping for sorrow! And both Matthew and Mark have recorded, that,, at this time this was repeatedly the ease, at Christ's going from them, and returning to them again. Matthew 26:45; Matthew 26:45; Mark 14:40-41; Mark 14:40-41. Reader! observe the expression, sleeping for sorrow! We know full well, that sorrow, deep sorrow, will prevent sleep; but it must be unusual sorrow indeed to induce sleep. But it should seem very plain, that the Apostle's sleep was a sleep into which they were cast by the powers of hell. Jesus himself said, that this was the hour of the enemies' triumph, and the powers of darkness; and it, seems more than probable, that Satan had drenched those few faithful servants of the Lord in a stupidity and heaviness to sleep on purpose, that all human comfort should be withdrawn at this awful time from Christ; and Christ left alone to combat in this unparalleled struggle!