GETHSEMANE
KRC I thought it would be good, brethren, if we could have an enquiry together into these great events that took place in Gethsemane, and what Gethsemane itself represents. It is a significant moment in the movements of the Lord Jesus, significant in the sense of the subject that we are taking up in relation to the true Servant. We see there is a certain reality behind it all and it should touch our affections in relation to the events that come before us in this section of Scripture. I understand that Gethsemane means ‘winepress’. Where we have read in Isaiah refers to a day of judgment to come, and that is not what is before us in Gethsemane. If we see the greatness of the events that unfold in Gethsemane, and if we are humbled in our affections in relation to them; if as believers we have an appreciation in our hearts of all that Christ is, then what is coming in judgment is not something that is to be feared; but it is a reality that will unfold. I am a bit hesitant to draw a connection between what we read in Mark and in Isaiah. Someone asked Mr C A Coates about the winepress in Isaiah 63, and he made quite a distinct separation. He said that, in Isaiah, His garments are red there with the blood of His enemies, but in Gethsemane we see ‘the personal cost to the holy Sufferer’, Outline of Mark’s Gospel p187. That comment drew me in my affections to what Gethsemane really shows us, we should each be subdued and humbled in relation to the sorrows of Christ and what He feels. So, He says at this point that His soul is troubled, John 12: 27. How much have I pondered the fact that this great One who represented God here was troubled in His soul? Do you think these things have been recaptured here for us to move us in our affections?
JTB Yes, it is very affecting to think of the One who was the Originator of life anticipating that He would die, Satan is bringing before His holy soul here the terror of death, the awfulness of death. The Lord Jesus actually died. He “became dead”, Rev 1: 18. It is very affecting to think of that, His death too involving all the judgment of God as He suffered there. Satan has returned here having been defeated earlier on at the outset of the Lord’s pathway; he returns with full designs on seeking to deflect the Lord Jesus from His pathway of dedication and devotion to God His Father’s will, which meant that He should die.
This scripture in Isaiah portends judgment. It has in mind that the Lord Jesus will come back and bring judgment on the nations, those who have rejected Christ. He says prophetically, “I have trodden the winepress alone”; it is a fine passage of scripture. There is a very affecting note, ‘superbly raising the head’, v 1 note ‘b’. He comes back in triumph, but, as you say, Gethsemane suggests pressure. Maybe you had something further in mind? It says, “of which the name is Gethsemane”. It is the place to which the Lord had recourse and Satan met Him there in all his power.
KRC Gethsemane is in the vicinity of the Mount of Olives, which is where we might say that the Lord enjoyed a place near to heaven, did He not? It was an area of comfort for Him. Does it just draw out the greatness of Him and His service, that He was in accord with the will of His Father? He was doing the will of God. He was in accord with heaven in the greatest moments of pressure, but it was fully in accord with a Servant here before God, do you think?
JTB I was struck when it was read when it says, “Sit here while I shall pray”. It is very affecting, anticipating all that lay before Him, but still in absolute dependence.
TWL I was wondering whether Psalm 69 would fit in with your thought. It is prophetic in relation to the Lord: “Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul”, v 1. Then further down it says, “They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head; they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away”, v 4. Then further down, “For the zeal of thy house hath devoured me, and the reproaches of them that reproach thee have fallen upon me. And I wept, my soul was fasting: that also was to my reproach”, v 9, 10. These are all things the Lord felt as going into Gethsemane, do you think?
NRC I was reading that very Psalm as well and I was impressed because I was pondering the very fact of how the Lord could be so depressed, as it says, “amazed and oppressed in spirit” and what that represents. I was wondering whether we get a taste of that in the Psalms. It relates to what David’s experience had been. I was particularly thinking of verse 3 of that psalm that you quoted. “I am weary with my crying, my throat is parched; mine eyes fail while I wait for my God”. It is a moving thing to contemplate, is it not?
TWL It is quite a thing that the Lord knew that He would not be left in death: “neither wilt thou allow thy Holy One to see corruption”, Ps 16: 10. So, although He knew that, it does not mean that He did not have to go into it, or that He did not feel everything as He went into it. The anticipation in Gethsemane, the anticipation of what He was to suffer, was what brought all these feelings to the fore. Would that be right?
KRC Do you think that is why He only brings Peter, James and John. Not all the disciples were exposed to that, but there was something for their learning, was there not? And that is why I wanted to have this reading because I feel when we come to the next section about Peter, he had not really grasped the effect of Gethsemane; not that any of us could, I suppose, but it is helpful instruction to see that. Help us with these words about the Lord Jesus: it says, “and he began to be amazed and oppressed in spirit”. That is what you are bringing out in Psalm 69, is it not? He says to them, “My soul is full of grief even unto death; abide here and watch”. Help us with what He was asking them to do in relation to being watchful.
TWL He was placing Himself into the hands of His Father in Gethsemane. As He went to the cross, He was conscious of what it was to have given Himself over into the hands of the One who had commanded that He should die, the One who would also raise Him from among the dead. The Lord is not presented as going forward in the might of His divine strength , but in the reality of the dependence of His manhood and committing Himself to His God. The disciples should have seen that, but it comes out later in their apostleship and martyrdom. That is what they had to learn. Do you think that is right?
KRC So, even in such times of pressure, the Lord was teaching them, which is a very wonderful and gracious thing, is it not, showing that He still cared for His own?
DCB It is interesting to see that the Lord directs His disciples here: “Sit here while I shall pray”, and then He chooses the three; but even there it says, “going forward a little, he fell upon the earth”. It is within our range to a degree, but we cannot be beside Him. I had that impression that we will never understand Gethsemane fully, and what it meant for Him, yet we are not left out. It comes into our view just to see something of what the Lord has gone through, even this, the anticipation of what lay ahead, and the way in which perfection shone out in that.
KRC That is very helpful, and I think it is very vital to the believer, to our daily maintenance in holding on to things. We can never really get a full sense of it, but to have something in our affections of what it meant for the Lord in this way is food for the soul, is it not? That is needed. That is why I wanted to look at Peter on another occasion because we can find ourselves in a position where we will not be able for things, and it is vital that we have been sustained so that we do not find ourselves in a place where we are not able to cope.
DCB I can see the need to be occupied with the sufferings of Christ, and how we need to go over them. I suppose the way in which everything was according to the Father’s will is what is brought before us in the way in which He speaks, “but not what I will, but what thou wilt”.
KRC I always find this very interesting, especially in relation to that wonderful book, ‘The Sufferings of Christ’ (J N Darby, Collected Writings, vol 7), which I think is a necessity for us all to go over. However we can never come into the fulness of what He had to suffer. Is that why it is so important for us to come into an understanding - if we can - as to the sufferings of Christ?
DCB Food has been mentioned, food for our souls, and to see the Lord Jesus in this way is food for our souls. It is something to build us up. And clearly there is what there is as an example for us in some degree because it involves so much. “But not what I will, but what thou wilt” is clearly a word that we should each be taking up. I think one of the other attractive things is He brings in that title “Abba, Father” here, and that is a word that we are going to be able to use, and use by the Spirit, as the epistles show, Rom 8: 15; Gal 4: 6.
SCL Do you think what comes out in the section that you have covered is the reality of what it is to serve the will of God. I find this very testing, but the Lord here demonstrates in reality that if we are to serve the will of God, it will involve suffering, and there is no more perfect example than Himself. He does so in humility, in grace, in gentleness, in care and, even in the midst of all that was on His spirit, He was still seeking to teach His apostles. Elsewhere the Lord tells His disciples that if they were going to take on service, it would involve suffering, and here He demonstrates it. It is quite exercising to consider that.
KRC It is indeed, and we can go to Paul, where the Lord said to Ananias, “this man is an elect vessel to me, to bear my name before both nations and kings and the sons of Israel: for I will shew to him how much he must suffer for my name”, Acts 9: 15, 16. I am guarded about saying that because, what do I know as to suffering? And it is not necessarily physical. In the Scriptures and there were those who died for the Lord's name, but there are many who are suffering in many ways, and we can be thankful for what has come down to us. There are many who have suffered in relation to holding the testimony and the reality of how we gather, and who we gather with. These are things that have been made available to us as a result of faithful persons, do you think?
SCL You do not want to put anybody off taking up the exercise to serve, but it is also important to be real about it. You look at persons in the testimony and they might not have been martyred, but they were alienated sometimes, they faced great conflict in terms of persons standing against them. So, it is important to be real, but you do not want to put anybody off. I find it really exercising as to how far I am willing to suffer to serve.
JTB Further to that and to the reference to the psalm, I was interested in the Lord’s word, “Sleep on now, and take your rest”. One of the verses of Mr Darby's poem, ‘The Man of Sorrows’, comes to mind:
My soul in secret follows
The footsteps of His love;
I trace the Man of sorrows,
His boundless grace to prove.
I wondered if one application of the Lord’s word, “Sleep on now, and take your rest”, may have been an acknowledgement that none but the Lord Jesus could endure this. But on the other hand, when you are called to suffer - and I fully agree how little we know about it, we can depend on the boundless grace of God to support and help us in it. “Sleep on now, and take your rest”.
DCB The Lord was going to go on to the forsaking, and no one else, whatever the sufferings, is going to go on to forsaking.
TWL I was thinking exactly that, and when we go through suffering, there is a Man standing by. There was no man standing by for the Lord; there was nobody. He was truly alone, and that is the intensity of it. I was reading the passage again, thinking about how He is actually heading into the penalty, and that He would be made sin.
DHM I am glad you brought that in; do you not think we see here what was entirely related to the Lord Jesus alone? His disciples were there, but they were present only to an extent. There was what they simply were not able for; while for the Lord Jesus, there was a foretaste of what was going to be His portion later on when He would be literally entirely alone. I am glad you mentioned about forsaking.
TWL It is something that, as believers, we will never know. We will never know the intensity of what the Lord anticipated in Gethsemane. There is not another person who will ever know it, for one thing because they never knew love like He knew it. They never entered into a relationship such as He had; so there was that intensity that He was going to suffer as having to be put aside. Speaking very reverently, death for Christ involved all the terror of judgment upon sin, and nobody could feel that like Christ would, One who knew not sin, but knew what the penalty would be in its infinite greatness and severity. He knew that before He went there, and He still went there. That is Jesus alone.
KRC My exercise for this reading was to lift us in our affections because of the reality of what the Lord has done, and the intensity of what He faced, just as you are drawing that out. You have raised being forsaken. What does that actually mean?
TWL We need to remember that the scriptural presentation: when it comes to the forsaking, Jesus says, “My God”. It has been said, it was, ‘Man asking God, as His God, why He forsook Him’, J Taylor vol 17 p12. To be forsaken meant that the communion in the relationship that He had enjoyed was withheld. He did not have recourse to the love that He enjoyed. And to be forsaken means that God, who had supported Him in the whole of His life, now could not. It is not that He would not: He could not. Christ felt the intensity of that because the relationship was perfect. He moved this way; He suffered this way; He anticipated this way for me: now that is grace and that is love.
KRC That is very helpful, and very attractive, because we are reminded that He did all this as an obedient Man because of the will of His God. We have been exercised in relation to looking at the true Servant. This is the true Servant coming out in all of His glory in what was a very dark moment in the history of man, was it not?
TWL This is heading on to the darkest moment of the history of time. There was never a darker day than when Christ was crucified. There was darkness over the whole land for three hours.
SD Can we get some help why it was by means of crucifixion that the Lord had to die? Speaking carefully, would the work of God still have been completed if the Lord had died another way?. Could you just help us as to why that was the way that the Lord had to go?
TWL It was prophesied, was it not, that He was to die on a cross, and it was the worst that men could do? But the Scripture gives us this reason: “Cursed is every one hanged upon a tree”, Gal 3: 13. Christ bore that curse under which sinful man lay. He was perfect but He moved this way as a Man to save men; He had to die. The One who “offered himself spotless to God” (Heb 9: 14) was the only Man that was ever perfect; so He was the only Man that could die like this. Every other man had the sentence of death on him; Christ never had the sentence of death. We have a sentence of death because of our sin. He was never subject to the penalty of death, but He took on death; He offered Himself to God. We should love Christ when we understand that He knew the severity of death, and then He took it, and He took it for me and you. He took it for God too, but for me and you. Why do I love Christ? Why do I commit my life to Him? Because of this.
JTB “For the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6: 23); so the Lord Jesus had to die to settle the whole matter of sin and sins. Just on the forsaking, Mr Darby has a very illuminating phrase, ‘all dark, without one ray of light even from God’. He says, ‘For Him, death was death. Man’s utter weakness, Satan’s extreme power, and God’s just vengeance, and alone, without one sympathy, forsaken of those whom He had cherished, the rest His enemies, Messiah delivered to the Gentiles and cast down, the judge washing his hands of condemning innocence, the priests interceding against the guiltless instead of for the guilty - all dark, without one ray of light even from God’, vol 7 p169. That was the horror of the forsaking.
The other thing to say too is that communion was known in its fulness here at Gethsemane but on the cross, which we will come to, the conscious sense of the relationship was broken. And love: love could never mitigate what was there.
NRC I was reading verse 35, “And, going forward a little, he fell upon the earth”, and then it says, “and he prayed”. That communion that you are speaking of is seen there. It is very interesting to contemplate the full communion that He had with His God and Father, but what you have quoted as to the cross, ‘all dark, without one ray of light even from God’, is very affecting. He was there on His own, was He not? Here in Gethsemane, at this time of severe depression that came upon our Lord (I am speaking reverently when I say that), I was affected by that, that “he fell upon the earth”, and then it says, “and he prayed”. It shows the love and affection that He had for His Father? I was thinking of what was said about “Abba, Father”? It is not just His Father; it is, “Abba, Father”. The greatness of that in itself is all-encompassing, is it not?
DCB This seems to be on the line of Mark's gospel. We have seen various times when the Hebrew is used directly, which suggests an intensity in the speaking, and there is an intensity in the speaking when He would say, “Abba, Father”, and bring in the fulness of the fact that He was in such intimacy. He does not address the Father as forsaken. But He came to that point on the cross where He did not use the term, ‘Father’. He had to say, “my God”. It was God and man, a great transaction between God and man, and He is taking on the whole issue there.
TWL It is interesting that “going forward … he prayed”. That is the dependent Man, the One who is placing Himself into the hands of His Father knowing exactly what was before Him. His only recourse was to place Himself into the hands of His Father. The sufferings of Christ are a very real thing. It is a very real thing to contemplate the intensity of the feelings that were found there in Gethsemane, that only He could feel.
DCB He says, “Arise, let us go” at the end of this paragraph. There is not the same indication of these feelings after this point. The matter has been , committed into the Father's hand, in that sense, and He goes forward in a holy calmness to what was to be endured.
SW I was impressed looking at some of the parallels in Genesis 22. Abraham says to his young men that they were to stay behind, and he and Isaac were to go forward. We can see how this moment was entirely between the Father and the Lord here. From the Father’s side, the Father knew exactly what was in that cup too and the Lord’s committal to it. I have just been impressed by that.
I was wondering if there is something in the fact that it is three times here that He comes back. It says, “And he comes the third time”.
DCB I wonder if that is a feature of completion. The matter was gone through and through and through, and then it comes to a culmination, and He has committed it to the Father. There is something about that, three times. The apostle prayed three times (2 Cor 12: 8) and then the word came, “My grace suffices thee”, v 9. There is something completed in an exercise, and God’s word comes in.
KRC So that in itself draws out His perfection because He did not go forward in any hesitant way from this point. It was a complete matter. “He stedfastly set his face”, Luke 9: 51. He was moving forward under the direction of God.
SCL Yes, the Jews might have said it was just a natural man; the mask could have slipped by now. But the Lord goes forward in absolute perfection, and it is a testament to the divinity of His Person. There is not a man alive but the Lord Jesus who would not in some way succumb to weakness.
JTB “Take your rest”: the Lord Jesus would never sleep again before His death. It brings out, first of all, His care for His own, but it also brings out the uniqueness of His Person that He would face all that transpired before Herod, all the indignities heaped upon Him by men, then He would appear before Pilate and be wrongly judged. He would carry His cross to Golgotha. He would be forsaken there. And yet here He says, “Sleep on now, and take your rest”.
NRC I am struggling to think of the words to use, but to think that that was all done as a Man. Here He is in communion with His Father although you could never take away the greatness of His Person as to who He was in Himself. The hymn says,
God manifest in flesh, O wonder of His universe! (Hymn 400)
Yet these things He had to go through! I was thinking of the remark that He would have never slept again and what was before Him: yet He did it all as Man. In view of what has been brought before us in this reading, what does it represent? It is really to fill our hearts in appreciation of the greatness of His Person.
TWL It is of all importance that He goes forward in the calmness of committal and devotion and subsequently, as Man, He has the way forward to death in calmness. Now, there is no man that would suffer affliction like this, knowing the terror that was before him and yet going in calmness, but Christ went in calmness. So He could quite readily not reply to Pilate. He could do that because He was in the calmness of His committal and dependence.
DHM What we see shining out is His dignity in a unique way. There was no protest, there was nothing of that sort. He faced what could be faced by none other, clothed with divine dignity in His manhood. Who else could have done that, but Jesus?
TWL “Who, when reviled, reviled not again; when suffering, threatened not; but gave himself over into the hands of him who judges righteously” (1 Pet 2: 23) refers to what happened in Gethsemane, and He went from there to the cross in all His dependent manhood in the settled condition of soul and He went to die for His God.
KRC What you are emphasising is good because men took Him, but He gave Himself up to God, did He not? There is no weakness here on the divine side; there is power actually. Is it the fulfilment of what God had planned and purposed, and He was the One who was doing it for His God?
TWL He is the only One that could because He was spotless and He is the only One that would because of His devotedness. And these are two features of the life of Christ which mark the whole thing.
KRC What you were saying about not opening His mouth is helpful because it is quite a contrast to Peter when he was accused, to the extent that he curses and swears; but I was thinking of what the Lord says, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak”. There is something to learn in that for us all, just to appreciate more what this One has done, do you think?
DCB It is another gracious touch, is it not, that He gives them every possible credit He could? He knew what the flesh was in them and their weakness, and would sympathise with that. That is how His spirit is: even at the time of the greatest pressure for Himself, He is giving credit, looking at those who would go as far as they could with Him. While it does not come into this gospel, elsewhere He says, “Let these go away”, John 18: 8. He does not expect them to go this way with Him, but they went as far as they could; and then, in a certain sense, He dismisses them.
SCL Going back to where we read in Isaiah, we can understand heaven’s judgment on persons who reject the gospel is as it is. The Lord has given everything that we have discussed. It is the rejection of the sufferings of Christ and all that He did it for, and His expression of love and grace, all that is rejected. I also wondered about the converse to that in Hebrews 12 (and I know we are speaking about what preceded the cross), where it says of the Lord, “who, in view of the joy lying before him, endured the cross”, v 2. There was joy before the Lord in all that He endured and what was to come as a result of all of the sufferings: there would be persons that would contemplate Him and appreciate Him and grow in affection for Him. Part of the joy that was before the Lord as a result of His sufferings would be that there would be persons moved by it and grow in the appreciation of all that He did.
KRC There is very deep feeling to consider in that section in Isaiah. It is therefore a benefit to consider that we know that there is One who has taken that judgment Himself. There is no getting away from the judgment of God, that God is a righteous God and a real judge, but Someone has taken that on my behalf. If we are humbled by it and affected by it, there is no fear for the believer, is there? It is a wonderful thing. I was thinking just as you were speaking, when Stephen preached in the early Acts, it says “And hearing these things they were cut to the heart”. They were rejecting this. They refused to be humbled by what Christ had done.
SCL Let us even take this reading today: what does that mean to the heart of the Lord? Right now, there are persons contemplating in their measure what the Lord actually took on. That means something to the heart of God right now.
KRC That is why I desired just to focus on this so that we would come away with something, however small it may be, for the glory of God.
DCB In the giving of the passover there is a reference to “its head with its legs and with its inwards”, Exod 12: 9. We get some secret of the inwards of Christ here, as the passover is to be fed upon; but also you see the same in the burnt-offering, which is wholly burnt up: there is what is wholly for God. There is our contemplation, but there is God’s contemplation and the Father’s contemplation of the excellence of Christ that is distinct in this chapter.
NRC I was just wondering why in Mark’s gospel when it speaks of the bondman’s ear having been struck off, there is no explanation; the Lord does not say anything regarding the ear in His answer. In the other two gospels the Lord tells Peter to put his sword back in its sheath, but in Mark’s gospel there is nothing at all. It just goes on to say, “And Jesus answering said to them, Are ye come out as against a robber, with swords and sticks to take me?” Is there anything in that?
DCB You can see the Lord in grace; the last miracle He did was to heal the bondman. But the way it is put here would sober us: that if we do something like what is done here, it is damaging to the testimony. There was something that was not right that was done, and it affected someone’s ear; so we have to be careful, but I could not say any more than that.
KRC Is Peter interfering with the will of God and the One who went out in a state of calm? I have read today in Zechariah 13 where it says, “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd”, v 7. We could get help on that.
DCB It is affecting that He was the one who was to bear the stroke of the sword and no-one else at this point. It does not say it was Peter in Mark, which has often been remarked. That means that each of us can put ourselves in his place: I could be the one doing this. Well, the Lord was the one to bear the stroke at this time. You mentioned interfering; it was interfering with the way that God was acting in going forward.
TWL We speak of Mark as being the Servant’s gospel, and the Lord here is not exactly occupied with things that are happening around Him. He has committed Himself to this, to head to the cross as the Servant. It is not that He bypasses this matter but in Mark’s gospel, He is heading to the cross. He is serving His God. That is the feature of this part of the gospel. Would that be right?
DCB There is a reference to “a horse girt in the loins” (Prov 30: 31) which I think links with Mark’s gospel. There is One going forward, going directly. We have to realise that when He says, “not what I will, but what thou wilt”, even saying that was under the Father’s direction. There is not an element of rebellion; we see He is being subject in displaying what His feelings were.
JTB No doubt He had heard; His ears had been opened that very morning “to hear as the instructed” (Isa 50: 4) and He would feel that the Father had this in mind for Him. The ear is a very important organ in the body. Psalm 40 refers also to the ears, ”ears hast thou prepared me”, v 6. That is a reference to the Lord Jesus. So, He heard in a totally balanced way, whereas what Peter did to the bondman of the high priest put him out of kilter. He had no way of weighing up fully what the components of any matters were.
To bring it down to a practical level, what we listen to needs to be studiously considered, does it not, in a balanced way? “Ears hast thou prepared me”. This man became unbalanced but, as we know from other gospels, the Lord’s healing touch came in. So, for the servant, therefore, there is someone listening with one ear, so to speak, which is totally inconsistent with the Father’s will.
KRC My father used to say it was the last miracle the Lord performed. It is a very gracious touch, healing the man’s ear. The man would no doubt have been given every opportunity to hear the gospel in a balanced way so that he would get the opportunity to come into blessing, do you think?
JTB That is one of the Lord’s miracles given His pathway of service here. It is interesting to see how He went about giving the deaf the capacity to hear.
Edinburgh
11th May 2025
List of Initials (all Edinburgh unless shown)
D C Brown, J T Brown; K R Cumming; N R Cumming; S Duthie; T W Lock; S C Lock; D H Marshall; S Walker, Glasgow