Matthew 26:39-46: Your Will Be Done

“My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”  Jesus in Matthew 26:42

God planned the death of Jesus not to disown him or dishonor him or reject him, but to glorify him as the perfect, flawless Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.         (John Piper, “Did You Kill the Lord of Glory?”)

The cross is not plan B but it is plan A.   (David Platt, March 4, 2011, Johnson Ferry Baptist Church, Marietta, GA)

 Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane.   He is with His disciples, praying to the Father in the final hour before His arrest.  Gethsemane means “oil press,” accurately, describing the pressure Jesus feels: “very sorrowful, even to death,” (v. 38). 

 Jesus says, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will but as You will,” (v. 39).  This verse has caused some confusion.  Does this verse mean that Christ’s will was different from that of the Father’s will?  The whole testimony of Scripture should be consulted as one seeks an answer to this question.

Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” (John 10:30), meaning one in essence, purpose and will.   Never does our Lord act against the will of His Father.  Philippians 2:8 says Christ was not coerced or manipulated but that He “humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross,” (emphasis added).    Additionally, our Lord said in John 10:17-18, “I lay down My life that I may take it up again.  No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down on My own accord.”

Our Lord is fully God.  Yet He was also fully human.  He was keenly aware of the agony that lay before Him: the humiliation, the flogging, the crucifixion.  Yet the greatest agony He faced would be the separation He would experience from the Father.   The perfect unity of the Triune God would be suspended as Christ assumed our sin.   It was the agony of this separation that caused Him to call out, “if possible, let this cup pass from me,” (v. 39).  

But the Old Covenant was weak and could not save.   And “what the Law could not do…God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as an offering for sin” (Romans 8:3, NASB).   Our Lord knew there was no other way for man to be saved.   That is why, even though trembling in His flesh, Jesus said, “not as I will but as you will,” (v. 39). 

He came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (vv. 40-41).  Moody Gospel Commentary:   “Those who boasted of dying for Him could not even stay awake for Him.”   Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done,”  (v. 42).  Having been strengthened by an angel (see Luke 22:43), our Lord settled the issue even in His weak flesh.  

And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again, (vv. 43-44).   Prayer is not about God changing His will but about us changing our will.    And as our Lord persevered in prayer through “loud cries and tears,” God “saved Him from death” (Hebrews 5:7), not by sparing Him from the cross but by raising Him from the dead.

Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand,” (vv. 45-46).   Christ was not dragged kicking and screaming from Gethsemane.    He handed Himself over willingly to His betrayer.     Friend, what trial are you facing?  Persevere and be strengthened in prayer, align Your will with His, rise to meet the trial at hand.  I know those words are easy to say yet harder to do.   But the glory on the other side of the cross awaits you.