0124. 121. Christ’s Agony in Gethsemane

121. Christ’s Agony in Gethsemane

1. “Began to be sorrowful” (Mat_26:37). Like an on-coming storm which causes the barometer to fall, so the conflict through which Christ was about to pass caused Him to be weighted with sorrow.

2. “Began to be sore amazed” (Mar_14:33). “Sore amazed” is rendered “greatly amazed” (Mar_9:15) and “affrighted” (Mar_16:5-6). As an apparition will cause the observer to be frightened, so as Christ looked into the cup He was about to drink it startled Him with the awfulness of its ingredients.

3. “To be very heavy” (Mar_14:33). The word is given in Php_2:26, “full of heaviness.” As the liquid cement hardening in a vase filled with it will cause it to be weighted beyond intention, so Christ was made heavy with the weight of sin, as He contemplated the punishment it deserved.

4. “My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death” (Mar_14:34). He was not only “sorrowful,” but “exceedingly” so; that is, He was completely surrounded with grief, even as a tropical plant might be by a blasting frost, and His sorrow was “unto death.” Some would tell us Christ was afraid He would die before He reached the Cross, but He said He would die and rise again—see Mat_20:17-20; Joh_10:17, Joh_10:18. “Unto” means “until,” and, as Bullinger points out, means “marking the continuance of an action up to the time of another action.”

5. “Being in an agony” (Luk_22:44). The word “agony” is rendered “conflict” in Col_2:1. How His holy soul was torn as He entered into “the hour” of the nearing Cross—Mar_14:35, Mar_14:41, as he looked into the cup He was about to drink, as He felt the powers of darkness by which He was surrounded, and as He beheld the death for sin He was about to die; no wonder He “sweat great drops of blood.”

The practical lesson for us is, like Christ, to glory in the will of God, for His will is our highest good.

By: DR. F. E. MARSH