"Why was the Lord Jesus distressed in light of the prospect of the cross? Why did He pray remove the cup from Him if it's possible? Was He scared?"
Mr 14:33 And He took Peter, James, and John with Him, and He began to be troubled and deeply distressed.
35 He went a little farther, and fell on the ground, and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him.
36 And He said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will."
Reply:
The reality of experiencing God’s anger reeled and staggered the Lord Jesus. Yes, of course, He knew beforehand that He would come to this. But this was different. This was the moment of truth. For the very first time, He was at the very door. The very reality of it was now inches away. And His whole being was upset by it. Martin Luther said: "No one ever feared death so much as this Man!"
The deaths of other great Christians who faced death bravely was not the same death that He would face. They had the comfort of God while He would have none. They did not die alone; God was with them but He would die alone; totally forsaken by God. They died without God’s anger and wrath but He would die consumed by it. They died without hell in their deaths but He would die and experience a hellish kind of torment in His death. Their deaths were only physical separation but His death involved so much more --- God would forsake Him. They died with God as their friend. But He will die with God as His enemy. They died with no sin on them but He would die with all the sins of the world on Him. Even those who died unsaved only had their sins on them. But Christ? All the sins of the world.
There are unsaved men who died with relative calm in their deaths, but they only died the way they died because they were ignorant of what awaited them. But the Lord Jesus saw clearly the awful and terrifying realities that awaited Him. His death was a death like no other in the history of the world. And it staggered Him to the core of His being.
Consider the fine nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was holiness Himself; and yet He was made sin for us.
2CO 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
He was holiness Himself and yet God poured on Him the sins of man:
ISA 53:6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.
Imagine the fine and sensitive ear of a musical genius and maestro, who is pained by the slightest discordant note, who detects the minutest disharmony that we ordinary mortals do not hear, being exposed to hearing us sing in a karaoke establishment. We could live with it. We survived the ordeal many times. We are used to our unmelodious and unmusical voices. But, to him, it’s pure torment and anguish.
The finer, the holier a person is, the more painful it is when exposed to sin. Imagine, He, the holy One, becoming sin for us, having our sins to fall on Him.
Consider also His perfect and sweet communion with God. And yet, it was broken when He was forsaken on the cross by God. Imagine living in heaven with God in eternity past and then forsaken by God. The One who had had perfect fellowship with God every moment of His existence was about to experience what it is to be forsaken by God. Hell is more painful when you have tasted heaven. Being forsaken by God is more painful when you have experienced perfect communion with Him. A husband who is separated for the first time from his wife of 60 years can only begin to understand a little bit about the painful alienation the Lord Jesus was about to experience here from God.
Consider His absolute love for God. You ask any soldier who is also a loving husband and father. The most difficult and the most grievous of all is not in the midst of the battle, with all guns blazing, with all the bullets whizzing by him. No, to him the most heart-wrenching event is when he has to walk away from home to go to battle and look back and see his wife sobbing with his child waving a tiny handkerchief right beside. The Lord Jesus absolutely loved God and He was going to be separated from Him, struck by Him as per Mark 14 verse 27.
And so, the reality of all these made Him experience all these intense and extreme emotions at this point.
Don’t view this as a negative point against the Lord Jesus. Some would use this incident to say: “See! He was a coward. He hesitated dying for us!”
No. No. No. Rightly viewed this is in fact an exhibition of the moral perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ. This shows that He was a morally perfect human being. It’s not a moral blemish on His part but a demonstration of moral flawlessness.
This does not detract anything from His love for us as sinners. Rather, this shows His greater love for His Father.
Does He love us as sinners? Absolutely yes! But He loves His Father more. And that’s a mark of a morally perfect being. A morally perfect being is someone who loves God more than anybody else.
A man who doesn’t pause and show any hesitancy in leaving someone is someone who has no love for that person.
If the Lord Jesus did not strongly feel what He felt here then it would not have been perfection on His part. It would have been heartlessness toward the Father.
Don’t view this incident as the Lord Jesus faltering in doing God’s will. No, view this as the pause and the hesitancy of love in leaving someone it dearly loves.
Moreover, a man who can approach God’s wrath casually without any fear, pause and hesitancy is someone who is not taking God seriously. The Lord Jesus was and is the perfect man. A perfect man is someone who takes God seriously, even His wrath. A man who doesn’t show any tendency to flee from God’s wrath is a pervert. It’s a demonstration of hardness --- a hardness that is harder than that of demons. Remember, even the demons tremble at God’s wrath and judgment. And so, that’s why He prayed: “remove this cup from Me.”
It was part of His perfection to pray “remove the cup” but it was equally part of His perfection to submit Himself to God’s will, saying: "… yet not what I will, but what You will.”
“Remove this cup from Me” is immediately followed by “yet not what I will, but what You will.” You see, He is submitting to the Father, depending on His will.
The pronouns “I” and “You” here are in the emphatic position in the Greek. In Darby’s English translation, these pronouns are in asterisk, apparently implying the emphatic position.
The Lord Jesus was saying: “yet not what I (emphatic) will, but what You (emphatic) will.” The Lord Jesus emphasized the pronouns to express His submission and dependence on the Father.
P.S. The separation and alienation spoken of here in this article does NOT refer to the relational and ontological separation of the second person of the Trinity from the first person of the Trinity. The unity of the three persons remained intact. Rather, it refers to God's benevolent and loving treatment of the Son. God did not treat the Lord Jesus lovingly the same way He treated Him before. He was separated from the loving treatment of the Father.
