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Matthew 26:39  (King James Version)
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<< Matthew 26:38   Matthew 26:40 >>


Matthew 26:39-44

Perhaps it was not just the approaching physical torture that Jesus dreaded as He made this plea to His Father. For every microsecond of eternity (with the possible two exceptions of His time in Mary's womb and His human babyhood), He had enjoyed a level of consciousness, involvement, control, and communication with God the Father that no other human could even begin to comprehend. It must have been almost intolerable for the Son of God, the great YHWH of the Old Testament, to contemplate being totally unconscious and "out of the picture," even for a mere 72 hours.

Jesus' agony no doubt included the foreknowledge of the spiritual torture of billions of sins committed throughout human history being laid on His innocent head. Jesus knew that His mind would soon become besmirched, infected, and injected with every filthy sin that man had ever committed in the past and would commit from that time on.

God tells us in I Corinthians 15:56, "The sting of death is sin." Most of us have been stung by a spider, bee, wasp, or hornet. The pain of an insect sting increases rapidly as its poison spreads through the blood vessels, deep into the body part that has been stung, and it can sometimes be almost unbearable. Nevertheless, it is impossible for us to imagine a fraction of the spiritual agony that those billions of "stings of death" caused our Savior as all the sins of the world were laid upon Him.

With all His might, He strove to dwell on better things (Philippians 4:8). He struggled to look beyond those hours of torture, despite His foreknowledge of their severity. Jesus knew what would happen after this day of agony and shame that was just beginning. More than any other human being who ever lived, He understood what lay beyond the split second of death and His short stay in the tomb. Just hours before this prayer in Gethsemane, He had spoken joyfully to His Father about their approaching reunion and regaining His former glory (John 17:5, 11, 13).

How did King Nebuchadnezzar feel when God gave him back his status as a real human being and a great king after living the existence of the lowest, slinking animal in the wild (Daniel 4:29-36)? How much more did Jesus look forward to waking after three days and three nights in the tomb as the Eternal God!

Did Jesus look forward to His death? No. He looked beyond His hours of suffering and beyond the instant of His death. He looked forward to life!

Staff
Death of a Lamb



Matthew 26:39

Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, just a short while after urging His disciples to drink of His cup. As He prayed fervently and emotionally to His Father in heaven, the symbol of the cup was fresh in His mind. Just as He had given His disciples a cup from which to drink, so had the Father placed a cup before Him! Notice Matthew 26:39: "He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, 'O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.'"

In the Old Testament, the cup is also a metaphor for the divine punishment of sin. Hence, Jesus' death would involve far more than just physical torture and death. Christ would become the target of untold divine wrath, as every sin that had ever been committed would be heaped on this one sinless Being! He who had sought always to do the will of His Father perfectly, He who had heard His loving Father exclaim, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," would now experience His Father's overflowing wrath for all sin, including all the worst sins! Some of what He suffered was for our sins—yours and mine.

Jesus knew that death and incurring God's wrath for sin comprised the climax of His mission on earth as the Messiah. But now, as that hour approached, His awareness of God's wrath against sin became even more intense! The Bible explains this in detail in Romans 1:18—3:20. To Jesus, it was an unimaginable horror!

The second and third times He prays in the Garden, He changes His words slightly, as He realizes He definitely has to drink of that cup: "O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done" (Matthew 26:42, 44). He now fully accepts the fact that the only way to get past this ordeal is to go through it.

The cup is still on Jesus' mind even after the soldiers from the High Priest come to capture Him. When Peter tries to defend Him physically with a sword and misses Malchus' head, cutting off his ear instead, Jesus says to Peter: "Put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?" (John 18:11). Indeed! And shall we not drink the cup which our King has given us?

Staff
Are You Drinking of the Master's Cup?



Matthew 26:39-44

What was this "cup" that Jesus asked might pass from Him if it were His Father's will? Was He, in a moment of weakness, asking His Father to prevent Him from going through the coming hours of physical torture? This is doubtful considering that Jesus, with the fullest knowledge and foresight of all the horrible details, had spent His entire human lifetime, and millennia prior to it, in preparation for this day.

A brief word study on these verses may prove helpful here. The word "cup" is translated from the Greek noun poterion, which can mean the vessel's liquid contents as well as the vessel itself. It is obvious, of course, that Jesus drank the contents, not the vessel. Poterion derives from pino, "to drink."

The word "pass" is translated from the Greek verb parerchomai, which can refer to the passage of time. From this, we can deduce that Jesus may have been asking His Father to make the time it would take to complete this awful "drink" pass as quickly as possible, but even then, only if it fit in with His Father's perfect will.

Most of us have at some time had to drink some horrible-tasting medicine, and although we knew that it was beneficial for us to drink it, the procedure still seemed to take an eternity! By prior agreement with His Father, Jesus was at this time voluntarily draining an enormous cup of spiritual "drink," which was ultimately a healing medicine for mankind but at the same time was to Him a deadly poison.

This spiritual drink was a mixture of two ingredients that could not have been more repulsive to Them both. The first ingredient was the sin of the whole world. The second was Their separation from each other. Jesus' spiritual poison did not just taste horrible. It racked His body and His mind with stinging agony (I Corinthians 15:56; Luke 22:44). Perhaps, in agreeing to drink of this cup, He even accepted a taste of the fiery fate of those who would never repent, as foretold through the prophet Jeremiah that the poison was like fire that had been injected into His bones (Lamentations 1:13).

Staff
Jesus' Final Human Thoughts (Part Two)



Matthew 26:39

A number of years ago, bumper stickers proudly bearing the motto, "God is my co-pilot," became popular. A short time later, astute individuals began promoting an answer to this pithy saying: "If God is your co-pilot, switch seats!"

This vignette shows two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, we are most comfortable leading the way in whatever charge captures our fancy at the time, trusting—often erroneously—that God is right there with us. On the other hand is the unassailable truth that, if God is not leading the charge, we are in the wrong role—and dabbling with disaster.

Allowing God to direct our lives, without continually advising, complaining, recommending, suggesting, and giving input on the details, goes against the natural inclination within us. Yet, experience has taught us that it is only when we finally give up, ceding sovereignty to the Almighty—who really had it all along—that things begin moving. Ultimately, matters work out far better with God in control than anything we could accomplish with our limited vision. Truly, the crucial first step on the journey—surrendering—is most often the hardest. A man can be nominally obedient to God's instructions, yet still not be surrendered to the rule of God.

The story of Jonah is about such a man, a prophet who grudgingly complies but never truly surrenders to God's will. Just three verses into the book, he is fleeing from God's presence rather than yielding to His instructions. God sends a mighty tempest to create a crisis, a point of decision on the part of Jonah and the sailors (Jonah 1:4-16). To a degree, Jonah surrenders when he instructs the sailors to cast him overboard, yet it appears to be the capitulation of a man giving up on life rather than giving his life in obedience (Jonah 1:12).

When God commands Jonah a second time, he complies, preaching the message God gave him for the Ninevites (Jonah 3:1-4). However, he becomes angry when God's Word—through him—accomplishes its purpose, and Nineveh repents (see Isaiah 55:11). Jonah is obedient in terms of following orders, but he does not surrender to God's will when things turn out differently than he expects. As when he was on the ship, he would have rather died than live with circumstances that were not to his liking (Jonah 4:3, 8-9). Up to the abrupt ending of the book, we see a nominally obedient Jonah, yet a man never fully surrendered to the rule of God. The last we see of him, he is in despair over a life that is not according to his terms.

In stark contrast to Jonah is Jesus Christ. He did not seek His own will, but that of the Father (John 5:30). He always did what pleased the Father (John 8:29)—not merely obeying, but surrendering to His Sovereign. He taught His followers to pray, "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Luke 11:2). The night before He surrendered His life for us, He plaintively told His Father, "Not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:36); "Your will be done" (Matthew 26:42); and ". . . nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done" (Luke 22:42). "I do not want to go through this," He said in essence, "but, Father, I surrender."

The outcome of this supreme surrender to God's rule is without parallel. Not only have all things been put under Jesus Christ, but the way was opened for the blotting out of sin and the beginning of the restoration of the relationship between God and man that was fractured in the Garden of Eden. When a man cedes sovereignty to the Almighty, things begin moving and ultimately work out far better than anything that could be accomplished with limited human vision.

The apostle Paul teaches in Ephesians 5:24 that "the church is subject to Christ." An ancillary meaning of this is that the church is composed of those who are subject to Christ. The church—the Body of Christ—consists of those who are subject to the rule of God in all of its implications and not merely grudgingly obedient. Those who are regenerated by the Father are those who, like their Elder Brother, regularly and continually come to the place in their lives where they say, "Father, I surrender. Not my will, but Yours, be done." When we truly give up, we tell God that we are finally ready for Him to act.

David C. Grabbe
Surrender



Matthew 26:39

Matthew, Mark, and Luke each record Christ praying to the Father on this fateful night, asking if He might “let this cup pass from Me.” He mentions the same “cup” in rebuking Peter's assault on Malchus: “So Jesus said to Peter, 'Put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?'” (John 18:11).

The image of drinking from a cup is a metaphor for His submission to the Father's will, while the cup itself stands for the enormous burden His submission would require (Luke 22:42-44). Despite desiring that some other way could be found to accomplish the payment for mankind's sins, Jesus bowed to His Father's will in the matter and gave Himself up to the arresting troops.

Martin G. Collins
The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing Malchus' Ear (Part Two)




Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Matthew 26:39:

Matthew 26:39
Matthew 26:39
Matthew 26:42
Matthew 26:44
Mark 13:37

 

<< Matthew 26:38   Matthew 26:40 >>



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