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The Shadow of Calvary Chp 3:
The Agony of Prayer

Hugh Martin

“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”  Luke 22:44

Before entering on the consideration of the import of our Lord’s prayer in the garden, there are one or two preliminary considerations requiring our attention.

A Man of Prayer

1.  The Scriptures present Jesus to us as a man of prayer. At an early period in his ministry we read a statement such as this: “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed to a solitary place, and there prayed” (Mark 1:35). Again, after having fed the five thousand, Jesus, we are told, “straightway constrained his disciples to get into a ship and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitude away. And when he had sent the multitude away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray. And when the evening was come, he was there alone,” remaining thee until the fourth watch of the night, when he marvellously and miraculously showed himself to the disciples, walking upon the waters and subduing the storm (Matt 14:13). In like manner, the night preceding the day on which he chose the twelve to be his special disciples and witnesses, was dedicated to prayer: “And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples, and of them he chose twelve, whom he also named apostles” (Luke 6:12). These are instances in which Jesus is set before us as pre-eminently a man of prayer.

Made Like Unto His Brethren

2.  In the second place, this was of necessity involved in the fact of his being made in all things like unto his brethren, sin only excepted. To identify himself with his people in all their responsibilities, and in all their necessities and sinless infirmities, was the Redeemer’s purpose in assuming their nature. He would taste, by experience, all that was implied in their position, bearing by imputation all the sin that was involved in it, and entering by personal sympathy into all in it that was not sinful. He inevitably placed himself, therefore, in a position of acknowledged weakness and infirmity - of absolute dependence on God - a dependence to be exercised and expressed in the adorations and supplications of prayer. He was made of a woman, made under the law - under the law of prayer, as of other ordinances and duties - the law by which a man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven, and except the Lord be inquired of for it (Ez 36:37).

The Terms of the Covenant

3.  That Christ should be a man of prayer was required by the terms or conditions of the covenant between himself and the Father. That covenant, which imposed upon him certain obligations, made him the heir also of many promises. Yet the fulfilment of these promises was suspended on the condition that Jesus should solicit them in prayer. Whatsoever was needful for the preservation of his person, or the erection of his kingdom, the Father engaged to bestow, requiring only the Son to ask.

The strength, the grace, the support, the consolation needed by Jesus personally, had all to be sued out in prayer; as also the fruits of his death and the ingathering of his children. In all things by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, he had to make his requests known unto God. For such was the law of his office. Such, accordingly, was the decree concerning him, as he himself rehearses it in the second Psalm7  I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.
8  Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
Psalm 2:8: “I will declare the decree: Jehovah hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” And the prayers of the Son of God, David’s Son and David’s Lord, are predicted also, when in the eighty-ninth Psalm19  Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people.
20  I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him:
26  He shall cry unto me, Thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.
27  Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth.
28  My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him.
Psalm 89:19,20,26-28 Jehovah speaketh in vision to his Holy One, and saith, “He shall cry unto me, My Father, my God, and the Rock of my Salvation.”

The True Nature of His Humiliation

4.  The subjection of Christ’s divine person, in his Mediatorial office, to this necessity of prayer, illustrates the true nature of his humiliation. Prayer is a confession of weakness, of insufficiency. But how singular is this in one who is a divine person - the Eternal Son of God! For he who thus prayed was God manifest in the flesh. Surely, therefore, he was God in an estate of humiliation. For observe. From whom did Jesus seek the grace and power which his frail human nature needed? From what source did he desire and expect to be supplied with grace sufficient for him, with strength made perfect in his weakness? Surely from Godhead - from the infinite resources and all-sufficiency of Godhead in the person of the Father. But, dwelt there not all the fulness of the Godhead in his own person bodily? And if so, why did he not directly, and without supplicating the Father, lay hold at once on all the resources of strength and consolation which his own Godhead, in the unity of his Mediatorial person, could have yielded? Why, if he was, in his own person, true and very God, did he not make way immediately to enrich, from the treasures of his own divine energies, that frail human nature which he had exalted into union with Deity? Surely with such unimpeded and immediate access to the whole fulness of God, as the man Christ Jesus may be supposed to have possessed, in virtue of the personal indwelling of the Godhead, he might at once have laid his hand on the very gift, or measure of divine grace and strength, which he required, without the circuitous process and the delay, so to speak, of offering up supplications to the Father?

The fact that Jesus did not thus spontaneously, and on his own authority, appropriate from his own divine resources and make over to his human nature the upholding energy he so earnestly desired, but humbly and patiently sought and waited for it from his Father, is an illustration of the wonderful statement made by Paul, when speaking of Jesus he says, “Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil 2:6-8). It was the very God that was found in fashion as a man, in the likeness of men, in the form of a servant. At his disposal were all the attributes of which Godhead is possessed - all the strength and graces and gifts which Godhead can bestow. From his own Godhead he, the God-man, could have supplied gloriously to his own human nature, as he supplies to other created natures, all that is required for maintenance and wellbeing. It would not have been “robbery” had he done so. Yet he had emptied himself. His humiliation implied that he should refrain from seeking in this manner to strengthen his humanity. He was found simply “in fashion as a man,” resigning all claims to wield in his own behalf the powers of that Godhead which he still possessed unimpaired, though concealed. Though he was “in the form of God” - possessing, exhibiting, exercising the prerogatives of God - he took upon him “the form of a servant,” exercising himself unto all the subjection of a servant - the servant’s form alone appearing, the form of God retired from view. Hence, while still the true God, his were the infirmities and necessities of a man, and his Father’s Godhead was his refuge and his strength, his very present help in every time of trouble. Hence Jesus prayed. He required to pray: for in his humiliation, he emptied himself, and it was to his Father he applied, that according to his day his strengthThy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be.
Deuteronomy 33:25 might be. His miracles were wrought by the Father’s power: “My Father doeth the works.” And he received that power by prayer. As in the eminent miracle of raising Lazarus we find Jesus “lifting up his eyes and saying, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I know that thou hearest me always; but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou has sent me. And when he had thus spoken he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth” (John 11:41-43).

By the Father’s power was this stupendous work achieved - and that given in answer to prayer. For in the depths of his soul Jesus had prayed, and received secretly the consciousness of an answer: nor would he have given audible expression to his communion in prayer with the Father save for the people which stood by. But for their sakes he said it, that they might believe that the Father had sent him, that the Father did the works.

Thus the very nature of Christ’s humiliation explains the necessity and nature of his subjection to the ordinance of prayer: while it made prayer as truly indispensable to him as to any of his believing people. For in his resignation of all right to wield at pleasure the powers of his own Godhead, he “became poor” as his own poor and needy children, and left for himself only what they may ever draw upon - the fulness of the Father’s Godhead and his promises. How truly he became in all things like unto his brethren! In his exaltation in our nature he reassumed his Divine rights and glories, reaccepting full access to the spontaneous employment, for the Father’s glory and his own, of all that was his as the co-equal Son of God. “Father, glorify thou me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” And as he humbled himself that he might be made like unto his brethren, so in being exalted in our nature, it is that the brethren may be made like unto him, as he testifies in his intercession for them. “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them.”

Proceed we now to consider the prayer in Gethsemane. And here there are three things calling for attention. First, the subject; second, the nature; third, the success - of this prayer.

II. THE SUBJECT OR THE MATTER OF THIS PRAYER

The subject or the matter of this prayer. “O my Father, if this cup may not pass from me except I drink it, thy will be done.”

Now we are apt to regard this as an expression of resignation and submission, and nothing more, as a mere negative willingness to suffer the will of God. And the expression which Jesus employs often means this merely. Thus the friends of the Apostle Paul, when told by the Prophet Agabus the things that should befall him in Jerusalem, entreated him most vehemently that he would change his purpose, and when Paul would not be persuaded, they ceased, saying, “The will of the Lord be done.” In this they merely gave a pious yet bare acquiescence when they found that matters could not be otherwise; and henceforth they were willing, but not at all desirous, that Paul should go up to Jerusalem. But there is much more that this in the prayer of Jesus: “O my Father, thy will be done.” As when he commanded his disciples to pray, saying, “Our Father, who art in heaven, thy will be done on earth, even as it is done in heaven” - meaning that we ought to pray to be willing to know, obey, and submit to his will in all things as the angels do in heaven - so, in his own person, he exhibits an example of a positive and strong desire that the will of God should be done. He prays desirously that the will of God may positively be done - prays this “more earnestly” than when he went the first time and said, “Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me” - prays this “with strong crying and tearsWho in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;
Hebrews 5:7” - prays this in a vehement agony of wrestling, more vehement than Jacob’s when he would not let the angel of the covenant go except he blessed him - prays this in an agony of blood. We do not enter at all into the mind of Christ if we limit his language to a mere expression of his willingness to drink that cup which could not pass from him. We must understand the Saviour as intensely desiring that the will of God should be done.

What was that will of God? Clearly the two sides of the statement are directly contrasted. “O my Father, since this cup may not pass from me, thy will be done.” Since it is thy will that it should not pass from me, I desire to drink it. I desire to drink this cup, and thereby fulfil thy will - fulfil thy will in alll its extent, in measure and in manner to secure thy full approbation, and so as to secure all thy most holy and most gracious eternal purpose.

O my Father thy will be done! Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt-offering and sacrifice for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) - Lo I come to do thy will, O God. By the which will those whom thou hast given me shall be sanctified through the offering of my body once for all. For their sakes therefore I sanctify myself - I consecrate myself a sacrifice for sin - that they also may be sanctified, separated from the world, consecrated to thee, holy to the Lord (Heb 10:5-10, John 17:19). The will of the Father evidently was that Jesus should be an offering for sin - the suretySURETY n. a person who makes himself responsible for another’s performance of an undertaking or payment of a debt.
[Latin securitas - security]
Christ is his people’s surety in the Covenant of Grace, because he paid their debt as their substitute, in laying down his life in their place.

By so much was Christ made a surety of a better covenant.
Hebrews 7:22

I will be surety for him;
of my hand shalt thou require him:
if I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame for ever:
Genesis 43:9 in the room of the guilty - that he should be made sin. “Sacrifice and offering thou didst not will, but in the body prepared for me I come to do thy will.” And farther, the will of the Father was that hereby the Church should be sanctified or consecrated, or, in short, saved with an eternal salvation and with exceeding joy. “By the which will was are sanctified.” Hence two things are implied in Jesus’ prayer:

Support and Grace Sufficient

1.  He prays for support and grace sufficient to enable him to fulfil the whole will and appointment of God in his coming death. That death was one in which his covenanted engagement was not merely that he should passively endure what should be laid upon him, but that he should actively and positively and obediently offer himself unto God - and pour out his soul unto death - and make his soul an offering for sin. With this before him, he prays for such measures of divine grace - such supply of the Spirit of God - such communications and degrees of faith and love and zeal - such ardour of love to God and to the Church, as shall sustain him not only in uncomplaining submission, but in fervent and unimpaired obedience unto the end. For so long as in the spirit of ardent obedience, he embraced every pang of sorrow, every infliction which it was his to bear in “dying the just for the unjust,” so long would he be a conqueror. In being positively obedient unto death he would be the conqueror of death; and exactly by dying in such a manner he would be saved from death. Hence in alluding to his prayer, Holy Scripture says “that he offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death” (Heb 5:7Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;
Hebrews 5:7). This does not mean that Jesus prayed that he might be saved from dying, but saved in dying; saved from being swallowed up of death, by being enabled through death to swallow up death in victory. He prayed to him who, by the boundless riches of his sustaining grace, was able to enable him to meet death in the spirit of obedience and of zeal for his Father’s commandment, namely, that he should lay down his life for the sheep. He prayed to him who was able to strengthen him unto all endless love, that he might give himself, by positive “obedience unto death,” a sacrifice to God, a substitute for sinners. For so long as thus, by holy and obedient resolution, he presented himself unto death, he met and faced down death - never conquered by death so long as his own obedience was sustained. And should that obedience be sustained “unto death,” then would he be “saved from death” exactly by dying, and through death he would destroy him that had the power of death.

Accordingly it was renewed communication of strength from God that he prayed for in his weakness. With the burden of his Church’s guilt laid upon him, and the avenging penalty due to it about to be extracted from him in the wrath of God poured into his soul - or his own soul, under that wrath, soured out a victim to divine justice, a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour unto God - he feels that his weak human nature is utterly inadequate of itself to bear this burden, or come forth from beneath this ordeal with his obedience still inviolate. He calls therefore on the Lord. In an agony he wrestles earnestly. He offers up supplication and prayers with strong crying and tears. He is filled with holy fear. “According to thy fear, O God, so is thy wrath” (Ps 90:11). According, therefore to his fear, Messiah knoweth the power of the Father’s wrath as no other knows it. He trembles, dismayed. He casts himself prostrate on the ground. And as in the fortieth Psalm, which is his prayer in full, he who said, “I come to do thy will,” and who, on the imputation to him of his people’s sins, exclaimed, “Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I am not able to look up,” exclaimed also in contemplating the wrath which this imputation involved: “Be please, O Lord, to deliver me: O Lord make haste to help me: I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me, thou art my help and my deliverer, make no tarrying, O my God” (Ps 40:13,17).

With what earnestness and strong crying Jesus lifted up his voice and sought the Father’s strength may be learned from those Psalms that are manifestly prophetic of the Messiah, containing indeed the Messiah’s prayers. That the twenty-second and sixty-ninth Psalms are such every reader of the Bible knows; and from these, therefore, we bring forward the following supplications as part of those which Jesus offered up: “Save me, O God, for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God. But my prayer is unto thee, O God, in an acceptable time. O God in the multitude of thy mercy, hear me, in the truth of thy salvation. Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink; let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters. Let not the water flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me. Hear me, O Lord, for thy loving-kindness is good; turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies. And hide not thy face from thy servant; for I am in trouble: hear me speedily. Draw nigh unto my soul and redeem it; deliver me because of mine enemies. But I am poor and sorrowful; let thy salvation, O God, set me up on high” (Ps 69).  “Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help. For I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; me heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like as potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws: and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. Be not far from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste thee to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog” (Ps 22).  “Withhold not thy tender mercies from me, O Lord; let thy loving kindness and thy truth continually preserve me. For innumerable evils have compassed me about” (Ps 40:11,12).

In these supplication the one unvarying object of desire is divine help, preservation, grace that he may victoriously do and suffer the whole will of God. His crushing anxiety is that he may not fail nor waver from his obedience till he shall have done all that will of God on account of which a body was prepared for him. For the upholding power of his covenant God he prays, that his strength may not give way in bearing the condemnation of the Church and his Father’s wrath due to their iniquities. His work is very dear to him, and he agonises in prayer that he may be sustained unto the discharge of all that it involves. That work was assigned him by the Father’s will, aand with intense desire he cries: “Thy will be done!”

The Fruits of His Work

2.  But another thing involved in this prayer was a desire for the fruits of his work - the glory of the Father in the salvation of his people. For saith the Scripture, speaking of this will of God, “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ once for all.” Hence the prayer of Jesus implied in it a supplication for his Church that they may be sanctified - that is, separated, consecrated to God, and finally and fully saved. He prayed that he might so execute all that will of God, as that the covenanted result might follow in many sons and daughters being brought to glory. Hence in those Psalms which we have already quoted, in the midst of the petitions which supplicate grace for Jesus personally under his baptism of suffering and expiation, there occur, not seldom, petitions that refer to his people and their salvation - his anxiety to be preserved from failing in his work being increased by the thought that otherwise all hope of salvation would be cut off from the Church.

Thus, in the sixty-ninth Psalm, where he represents himself as the surety of the guilty, amenable in obligations not his own - for sins which he nevertheless so embraces in the imputation of them to himself and in the penalty due to them as to call them indeed his own, he says: “I restored that which I took not away: O God, thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from thee: Let not them that wait, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake; let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel.” Again when anticipating the all-sufficient grace which he implored, and the glorious issue in the full expiation of his people’s sins and the full satisfaction of his Father’s justice, he says in the same Psalm (verse 32): “The humble shall see this and be glad, and your heart shall live that seek God.” It is the same in his prayer in the fortieth Psalm: “Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me: O Lord, make haste to help me: Let those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee; let such as love thy salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified.” Let me so be sustained unto all gracious and holy obedience to thy will, that my offering of myself shall indeed be an acceptable sacrifice to God - a ransom infinitely precious - a ground of salvation and of boundless hope to all that seek Jehovah and his face - a fountain of redeeming grace so wonderful that all who love thy salvation shall shout for joy and magnify the Lord with me for ever.

Such, then, in substance were the two topics of this most marvellous prayer. First, the Lord Jesus implores all needful grace in the discharge of his duty of being “obedient unto death” - in his priestly office presenting himself through the Eternal SpiritHow much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Hebrews 9:14 a sacrifice without spot unto God. Secondly, he implores therein the everlasting salvation of his people and the glory of his Father thereby.

That “will of God” was the offering of the body of Christ once for all: to accomplish this he prayed for all needful strength. By that “will of God,” also, his people are sanctified and perfected: to obtain this also was the object of his prayer. He had both these things in view when he said, “O my Father, thy will be done.”

II. THE NATURE OF THIS PRAYER

Consider the nature of this prayer. And in one word this was a prayer of importunate faith. It was the prayer of faith and importunity.

The Prayer of Faith

1.  It was the prayer of faith

Jesus, the Eternal Son of God, was a man of faith. By his incarnation he assumed a nature and a position in which nothing but faith could have sustained him. And the very fact that he found it possible and necessary for him to exercise faith, notwithstanding his glorious possession of the Godhead dwelling in his person, resulted from that humiliation of which we have already spoken. Though he was in the form of God, he emptied himself, and was found in fashion as a man - in all things like unto his brethren, sin only excepted. Hence the faith of the man Christ Jesus is stated by the writer to the Hebrews as a proof of the full extent to which Jesus, the living head of the Church, hath identified himself with his members: “For both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the Church will I sing praise unto thee: And again, I will put my trust in him” (Heb 2:11-13).

So eminent and obvious was the faith which Jesus reposed in God that it was made especial matter of reproach to him. “All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him; let him deliver him seeing he delighted in him.” Such was the prophetic testimony of the Spirit. And it was literally fulfilled; for “the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders said, He trusted in God; let him deliver him now if he will have him” (Ps 22:7; Matt 27:43). His faith was conspicuous even to his foes.

Now in order to the prayer of faith, there must be both the Word and Spirit of the Lord. It must be prayer in the Spirit, and prayer according to the Word. It must be so with every member of the Church. And Jesus, the Church’s head, is under the same law. He also must pray in the Spirit, if he would be heard. He also must have God’s words abiding in him, if he would ask what he will and it shall be given to him. But the covenant under which he lives and dies, and rises again, provides for this abundantly. For, thus saith Jehovah to his Christ, thus hath the Lord said to our Lord, “As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord: My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words that I have put in thy mouth, shall never depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever” (Isa 59:21).

(1)Had Jesus the warrant of the Word for his prayer? Was it the promise of Jehovah that he pleaded? Was it as one who could say, “Remember unto thy servant the word on which thou hast caused me to hopeRemember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope.
Psalm 119:49”? Most certainly. When seeking the Father’s upholding power he had only to make mention of the Father’s covenant promise to him: “Behold by servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my Spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgment unto the Gentiles. He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgment in the earth, and the isles shall wait for his law” (Isa 42:1-4). Or again, thus had Jehovah said in the prophets concerning him “whom man despiseth,” “In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee; and I will preserve thee and give thee for a covenant of the people” (Isa 49:8). Hence did he say in faith: “The Lord God will help me; therefore I shall not be confounded; therefore have I set my face like a flint, for I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is near that justifieth me: who will contend with me? Let us stand together. Who is mine adversary? Let him come near unto me. Behold, the Lord God will help me: who is he that shall condemn me?” (Isa 50:7-9). Yes, Messiah had abundant promises, exceeding great and precious promises, all Yea and Amen in himself. And his prayer was simply an inquiring for the thing which the Lord had spoken.

(2)But was Christ’s prayer also in the Spirit as well as according to the Word? Now we know that the Spirit of the Lord was given him without measure; and if so, he must have prayed in the Spirit. Believers receive from Christ the promise of the Spirit. According to the measure of the gift of Christ to each member, the Spirit comes forth to the Church from her living head to whom the Spirit was given without measure. And if in the believer the Holy Ghost is a Spirit of Grace and supplications, he must have primarily wrought in this same character, in all his fulness and in his highest efficacyEFFICACY n. the ability to accomplish an objective; that which produces the desired effect., in Jesus. There is not indeed any express passage in Scripture in which Jesus is said to have prayed in the Holy Ghost, yet the inference is valid and unavoidable. We find it stated by the Apostle that the Spirit helpeth our infirmities and maketh intercession for us according to the will of God - that he maketh intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered. Bearing this in mind, let us stand for a moment beside Jesus at the grave of Lazarus. We hear him there referring to a prayer which he had presented, and giving thanks that the Father had answered it. “Father I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I know that thou hearest me always.” But on referring to the preceding context we find in it no record of any prayer that Jesus had offered up. We find it stated, however, a few verses before, that when Jesus saw Mary weeping and the Jews also weeping which came with her, “he groaned in the Spirit.” When we take this in connection with the fact that Jesus afterwards makes mention of a prayer which he had presented, and in connection with the description which Paul gives of the Spirit’s work in quickening the children of God in prayer, namely that “he maketh intercession in them with groanings which cannot be uttered,” are we not entitled to infer that when Jesus “groaned in the Spirit” he was offering up in the Spirit prayers and supplications, if not with strong crying, at least with tears (for at this time also “Jesus wept”) unto him that was able to hear him, and was heard, even as he immediately rendered thanks and put forth the power of giving life to the dead, even as the Father had given him. And indeed the Spirit of grace and supplications in the Church is just the Spirit of the Son in their hearts crying, Abba, Father, as doubtless that same Spirit it was in whom Jesus cried, “Abba Father, O my Father, thy will be done.”

How closely are the brethren conformed to the firstborn - he in all things made like unto him - he in all things made like unto them - that they might be conformed to the image of the Son! Mark it carefully. He is himself a man of prayer, as they must be. His prayer is the prayer of faith, as their’s must be. His prayer of faith is in the power of the Spirit, and on the warrant or promise of the Word; even as they must pray in the Holy Ghost, and with the Lord’s words abiding in them.

Importunate Prayer

2.  But, secondly, as this was believing prayer, so it was importunate. It was such as would take no denial. It was exceeding earnest: it was with strong and loud cries to God; it was with tears; it was with blood. “His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

There was never such prayer offered to God. Jacob’s prayer was earnest and persevering, importunate and successful, when he wrestled with the angel of the covenant and would not let him go without the blessing. But when Jesus wrestled, strove, agonised, it was such prayer as heaven and earth had never seen. He was charged with the vindication of his Father’s honour - with the maintenance of his Father’s law - with the salvation of countless thousands through eternity. He had to discharge himself of all these responsibilities in one only way, by suffering in all the powers and faculties of his created nature, in soul and body, the infliction of those stripes which should satisfy divine justice and be in the scales of equity a righteous equivalent for the second and eternal death of all for whom he gave himself. He had an amazing and appalling view of the justice and terror of such a doom, and his soul became exceeding sorrowful even unto death. No wonder that meeting such a doom with a body such as ours, sensitive in every nerve to every pang of physical endurance - and a soul unutterably more sensitive, in its unspotted purity, to the agony of those spiritual pangs which the frown and displeasure of the Almighty and the All-holy One caused him; he should have laboured in the anguish of his spirit to lay hold, in the prayer of faith, importunate and invincible, on the divine upholding power through which alone he could achieve the eternal wonder of an obedient endurance of the coming Cross. Loving his people also with an everlasting love, and alive to the dreadful doom from which he came to save them; understanding in the depths of his created spirit, as he had never till now understood, the bitter endless woe and shame from which he is about to rescue them; and seeing what that dreadful destiny is which must pass upon them and abide on them for ever, if he cannot obediently, willingly, wholly and successfully endure it all in their stead; with a love towards them rising in its action and intensity the more that he apprehends and appreciates all the endless terror from which it is his office and his work now to save them; and the more he apprehends and appreciates that, feeling only all the more unfit for going through with the work assigned him, yet all the more resolved to ransom and redeem his people - no wonder if trembling at the prospect of enduring that wrath of God, and trembling still more at the thought of failing, and so consigning his beloved elect to endure it, he throws himself in agony upon Jehovah as his refuge and his strength - fulfils his Father’s prophecy concerning him, “He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my Salvation” - appeals with loud cries to his Father’s promise, “My hand shall be established with him, mine arm shall strengthen him; my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him, and in my name shall his horn be exalted” - and in the depths of holy fear offers up supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that is able to save him from death.

III. THE SUCCESS OF THIS PRAYER

What was the success of this prayer? It was an abundant answer. “He was heard in that he feared.” He received all needful grace, all sustaining strength, qualifying and enabling him to endure the cross and despise the shame; and gain an eternal title to the joy that was set before him.

Two leading desires were embraced in this prayer. First, that he might obtain grace and zeal and love even in such measure as would keep him positively obedient unto death, that hereby he might destroy death and attain the perfection of his own office and power as a Prince of Life. And, second, as the sure fruit of this, the seeing of the travail of his soul in the salvation of all whom the Father had given to him. Now these are the very things which Scripture testifies he received in answer to prayer.

He Learned Obedience by the Things which He Suffered

1.  “He was heard in that he feared, and though he were a Son - the only begotten Son of God - he learned obedience by the things which he suffered7  Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;
8  Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
Hebrews 5:7,8.” In answer to his prayer to be saved in dying, God taught him - God strengthened him to learn - that obedience unto death, whereby death should be destroyed. The Father bestowed upon him all grace to give himself willingly to death; to obey in positive priestly activity and holy zeal the commandment to lay down his life for the sheep. God taught him the great lesson of destroying death and being saved from death, by not passively suffering death - but by actively and obediently meeting death and offering himself in death a sacrifice to God without spot. God taught him this lesson in time of need. God gave this counsel; and his reins instructed him in the night season; so as that being thus obedient unto death, “his soul should not be left in the state of the dead, nor the Holy One suffered to see corruption” (Ps 16:8,9). And Jesus learned the lesson; learned obedience in the things which he suffered; and in dying obediently he was saved from death, and exclaimed, “It is finished” or “It is perfected.” He himself in all his office and work was hereby made perfect (see Heb 5:7-97  Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;
8  Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
9  And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;
Hebrews 5:7-9).

The Salvation of His People

2.  But when Jesus prayed that he might be saved from death, his petition referred not personally to himself alone, but to himself as the head and high priest of the Church, and therefore to the salvation of all his people. He prayed that he might emerge from the jaws of death, not only safe in himself from all the claims of the king of terrors 13  It shall devour the strength of his skin, even the firstborn of death shall devour his strength.
14  His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors.
Job 18:13,14
[This passage was spoken by Bildad to Job, and should not be applied in every respect to Christ.
It does, however, teach that death is the king of terrors.], but bringing up with him also the eternal salvation of all for whom he died. Hence the Scripture assures us that in this point also he was heard. Not only was he heard on his own behalf, and saved from death, saved from succumbing under the last enemy, Jehovah teaching him the strange lesson of vanquishing death by being obedient unto death. Not only was he heard on this point, and taught and strengthened for obedience in the things which he suffered, but he received his people’s salvation also in and with his own, so that they dying in his death and rising to newness of life in his resurrection, “he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him” (Heb 5:9And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;
Hebrews 5:9). Hence those Psalms from which we have already quoted, as giving us in full the prayers which Jesus offered up in his sorrow, all point to the salvation of the Church - the promised seed - the prospering pleasure of the Lord - the gathering together of all the elect in Jesus. Thus in the fortieth Psalm - where the answer to the prayer is celebrated in the outset; “I waited patiently - (he waited who in the seventh verse says, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me) - I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit and out of the miry clay - (the same as in the sixty-ninth Psalm, “I sink in deep mire where there is no standing”) - and he set my feet upon a rock and established my goings: And he hath put a new song into my mouth - (for “he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, In the midst of the Church will I sing praise unto thee”) - he hath put a new song into my mouth, even praise unto our God - many shall see it and fear, and trust on the Lord.” Many shall believe to the saving of the soul: many shall put their trust in the perfected author of salvation: many, even the great congregation who shall hear my song! Thus also the sixty-ninth Psalm closes with this joyful answer, “God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah. The seed also of his servants shall inherit it, and they that love his name shall dwell therein.” And precisely the same in substance is the close of the twenty-second Psalm, “A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. He shall come and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this” - that “It is finished.”

Thus, him the Father heareth always. “For I know that the Lord saveth his anointed; he will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand. The king shall joy in thy strength, O Lord; and in thy salvation, how vehemently shall he rejoice! Thou hast given him his heart’s desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips.”

Such, then, were the subject, the nature, and the success of our Lord’s prayer in the garden.

Deferring the full application, let me close with three words of exhortation.

1.Be ashamed and confounded, ye who pray not for your own salvation! Shall the king of righteousness and peace, the Son of God, thus wrestle in supplication, with cries and tears and agony and blood, for the salvation of sinners, while you yourselves will not wrestle for that salvation which his prayers and his blood have purchased? Will you despise and neglect so great salvation, on which the Lord of glory set such a value that to gain it for such as you, he was content to be prostrate in anguish and extremity and amazement seized him at the bare thought of not securing what you despise? If you live in such prayerlessness, how inevitable and righteous will be the everlasting loss of you soul!

2.Be encouraged, ye that are seeking salvation, to come for it most confidently to Jesus. What he agonized and prayed with tears and blood to procure, he will now most joyfully and readily communicate. Oly be thou alone with Christ, as he calls thee to himself: and as assuredly as he was himself heard and “became the author of eternal salvation,” he will hear you and receive you, and redeem you from all your destructions, and you shall henceforth obey and love him. Well will you understand the meaning of the cry: “Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?”

3.Let believers offer up supplications and prayers, in the strength of those of Christ. Enter by faith into the rich inheritance of the prayers of your living Head, and into all the riches of their answers. Be ye in prayer beside the Saviour, mingling your strong crying and tears with his; yea, with what is now his glorious intercession; and when Jehovah looks on his anointed, he will lift on you the light of his countenance and fulfil all your petitions.

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