And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's throw, and having knelt down he prayed,
Gethsemane opens with a separation: Jesus tells the disciples to pray, moves a short measured distance from them, and kneels. Both details — the distance and the posture — say something about who He is and what He was about to face.
Matthew says Jesus went a little farther. Older translations of Luke read "he was withdrawn," where the ESV reads "he withdrew." One writer ties that difference to how each Gospel presents Him.
He must leave them also; He must go "a little farther," and go alone — or, as we read in Luke, He must be "withdrawn from them about a stone's throw." In Matthew He is King, and David's royal Son has the right to act on His own; so there He went "a little farther." There it is His own act. In Luke He is the obedient and dependent Man, filled and anointed by the Spirit to do the Father's business. He was fully subject to the leading of the Spirit. So there He is, "withdrawn from them about a stone's throw," withdrawn by the Spirit and by the Father's will.
Luke gives a distance any reader can picture — the throw of a stone. The same writer notes how misleading that small measurement is.
His disciples could not travel with Him now. Only a stone's throw separated Him from them, but in reality the distance could not be measured. The road was one that no other human foot had ever walked, or ever could walk. They would never be joined with Him again in the old way. That chapter was now closed for ever. The links were broken, and He felt it deeply.
Luke records the posture: He knelt. One commentator reads it as part of what this Gospel shows all through about Jesus.
Here again we have the great evidence of the Lord's entire dependence as the perfect Man. A man's perfection lies in the absolute dependence that marks him as a man... What marks Gethsemane, the scene of His agony, above all is this. He went through it all in spirit with His Father. He carried in His heart, and passed through in His soul, all the shadows of the cross that fell across His blessed path here. And He did it in perfect, absolute dependence. And I do not believe it is recorded without reason that He "knelt down and prayed."
Some have turned that posture into a required rule. One writer answers that claim directly.
We find our Lord kneeling in prayer (Luke 22:41). We find the apostle Paul kneeling with the elders of Ephesus (Acts 20:36). It is in every way a fitting posture. But when people speak of it as "an imperative duty," we regard that as a claim with no warrant... let people kneel, or sit, or stand, as they feel led. But let them not try to force their preferences or their postures on other people as "an imperative rule."
Luke has shown Jesus praying again and again without telling us the words. Here that changes, and what breaks the silence is the cup.
He knelt down and prayed, "Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me. Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done" (Luke 22:42). Often in this Gospel we have read of the Lord in prayer, but never before has Luke recorded what He said. Now he does. To drink that cup — the cup of death with the judgment of God connected with it — was no light thing for the Holy Sinless One. In obedience to His Father He would drink it.
The conflict in the garden only grows heavier from here. One writer traces what deepens along with it.
The Lord's dependence as man is then displayed in the most striking manner. The whole scene of Gethsemane and the cross, in Luke, is the perfect dependent man. He prays: He submits to His Father's will. An angel strengthens Him... Afterwards, in deep conflict, He prays more earnestly: a dependent man, perfect in His dependence. The deeper the conflict, the deeper His communion with His Father. The disciples were overwhelmed by no more than the shadow of what made Jesus pray. They take refuge in the forgetfulness of sleep.
- Withdrawn. In Matthew He goes; in Luke's older wording He is withdrawn — moved by the Spirit and the Father's will, the obedient and dependent Man.
- Distance. A stone's throw was the visible gap; the real one was immeasurable, on a road no other human foot had walked or could walk.
- Kneeling. Luke records the posture for a reason: dependence shows in the body as well as the heart. Still, no writer here makes it a rule to force on others.
- The cup. Here Luke records His praying words for the first time. Their subject is the cup of death and judgment He would drink in obedience to His Father.
- Deepening. The heavier the conflict grew, the closer He drew to His Father. The disciples felt only its shadow, and slept.
saying, Father, if thou wilt remove this cup from me -- but then, not my will, but thine be done.
Luke sets this prayer a stone's throw from the sleeping disciples. Jesus kneels, asks His Father to take a cup away, then hands over His own will. Two questions follow. What was in that cup that made Him shrink from it? And what does it mean that the sinless One says "not my will"?
Jesus had already met hatred and cruelty from men, and He never asked to escape it. So why pray this way now?
In His life of obedience Jesus suffered the opposition of sinners. He never turned away from them, and He never asked that such a cup should be taken from Him. Why this, then? Because this was not merely the cup of the wickedness of men or of Satan's malice, but the cup of the wrath of God. In what He suffered before from men, He had the joy of doing His Father's will. But in this cup, the cup of wrath, there was not one drop of sweetness. Jesus prays that, if it is possible, this cup may pass far from Him. And why impossible? Here is the reason. God cannot bear with sin. And since Jesus Himself was made sin for us, God's wrath had to fall on sin.
The cup could not pass, and the reason has to do with us. Here is what would have happened if He had not drunk it.
He knew that if He did not drink that cup of judgment on the cross, you and I would have to drink it in eternity. If He did not drink the cup in our place, there was no deliverance, no pardon, no cleansing possible for you and me. As He looked at that cup He shrank from it in all the perfect holiness of His being. He pleaded against it with everything in Him. Then He took it, and drank it to the very dregs in the perfection of His love.
The name He uses here is worth weighing against the cry He would raise hours later on the cross.
Notice that our Lord says, "Father"; on the cross, "My God" (Matt. 27:46; compare Ps. 40:8).
Luke's Gethsemane shows a Man who leans wholly on His Father, right down to the angel who comes to strengthen Him.
The Lord's dependence as man is then displayed in the most striking way. The whole scene of Gethsemane and the cross, in Luke, is the perfect dependent man. He prays; He submits to His Father's will. An angel strengthens Him: this was their service to the Son of man. Afterwards, in deep conflict, He prays more earnestly. As dependent man, He is perfect in His dependence. The deepness of the conflict deepens His conversation with His Father.
Some read these words as Jesus fighting to bring His own will into line with God's. One writer answers that, for a reason that touches who He is.
To say He had to fight to bring His own will into line with the will of God suggests a struggle to do so. For His will not to have been at all times one with His Father's would have been sin. In such a statement, then, we have lost a perfect Saviour, and a Saviour who is not perfect is no Saviour at all. True, He said, "not my will, but yours, be done" (Luke 22:42). But that showed no struggle. It showed submission to His Father's will.
Another garden stands behind this one, and the outcomes run in opposite directions.
Will, which in us is sin, becomes obedience when He offers up Himself. He was perfect in all His ways, in all His life, in giving Himself wholly to God; and this perfect thing itself He offered up to God in perfect obedience — "not my will, but yours, be done." There was the perfection of glorifying God in it. In the first Adam, who sought himself, the purpose of self-will brought in death. In the second, the Lord Jesus Christ, the will to glorify God brought in life to us through death.
The cup stayed. That does not mean the Father turned a deaf ear — the answer came in a different form.
Then came the great moment in the garden of Gethsemane. He came face to face with the sorrows of death, and His cries were heard. He was heard "in that He feared," or, "for His piety." His personal perfections as Man required that He be heard. His cry was that He should be saved out of death. The force of the word here is "out of," not "from." He was not saved from death. He was heard and saved out of it by resurrection.
- The cup — not human cruelty, which He never asked to escape, but the wrath of God against sin, with no drop of sweetness in it.
- The impossibility — the cup could not pass, because God cannot let sin go unjudged, and He was the One made sin for us.
- The exchange — He drank it so we never have to. On no other terms is there pardon or cleansing.
- The will — no inner battle, but a will already one with the Father's. The first man's self-will brought in death. His obedience brought in life.
- The answer — heard, though not spared: saved not from death but out of it, by resurrection.
And an angel appeared to him from heaven strengthening him.
The angel comes in the middle of Gethsemane, while the Lord prays and His sweat falls like blood. Two questions follow: what can a creature give the Son of God, and why did heaven send help instead of rescue?
Matthew was in the garden. Mark likely heard the story from Peter. Neither of them mentions the angel. One writer takes that silence as deliberate, since each Gospel draws its own portrait of the Lord.
Neither Matthew, who was there, nor Mark, who may have heard much from Peter, mentions two things: the bloody sweat, and the angel from heaven who strengthened Him. Probably all eleven disciples knew the angel was there, and surely the three nearest Him did. Yet neither Matthew nor John hints at it. Was that by accident or by design? By design, we believe, since each Gospel writer presents the Lord in a character that belongs to his own Gospel. So Luke, who introduces Him as the Son of Man, records the appearance of the angel to strengthen Him — and it is fitting that he should.
One writer meets the strangeness of the scene head on.
Luke tells us of an angel who strengthened Him. How could an angel strengthen Him, who is the Creator of the angels? He certainly could not strengthen His holy soul. That an angel strengthened Him must belong to His deep humiliation.
The kind of help matters as much as the fact of it.
Only Luke mentions an angel from heaven strengthening Him. His distress was so intense that it weakened His body, and this is noted in particular in the Gospel that deals with His true manhood. The angel gave physical strength, not spiritual. Even in believers, it is the Spirit of God Himself who gives spiritual strength (Ephesians 3:16). His deep agony made His prayer more earnest, and it struck His body too: His sweat became like great drops of blood, falling to the ground. How truly and fully He is Man, with all the weakness that dependence brings — yet completely apart from sin, and always doing the Father's will.
One writer asks how far that strengthening went.
How do you interpret that word "strengthening"? It was not the same thing as "strengthen your brothers." It did not go beyond His body. That is the work of angels. They are the messengers who carry out God's providence. The Holy Spirit deals with your spirit. So I take it they were giving some supporting strength to His body. It is a proof that He was not yet forsaken. We find nothing of that in the three hours of darkness. He was left in deep unfathomable loneliness. Not a ray of light from the face of God gladdened Him there. But He had not yet been made an offering for sin, and angels can come and strengthen Him. He is strengthened for a fresh agony.
One writer asks what actually took place in that conflict, and what God sent in reply.
Gethsemane clearly marked out the scene of that conflict. What took place there? He rightly shrank from undergoing the judgment of God against sin. "And He was heard because of His reverence." He was heard because death, the wages of sin, had no claim on Him. God granted His claim to deliverance. Instead of sending His judgment to wither His flesh, God sent an angel to strengthen Him.
This help fits the picture Luke draws throughout: a Man who lives in dependence on His Father.
The Lord's dependence as man then appears in the most striking way. In Luke, the whole scene of Gethsemane and the cross shows the perfect dependent Man. He prays: He submits to His Father's will. An angel strengthens Him: this was their service to the Son of Man. Afterwards, in deep conflict, He prays more earnestly: dependent Man, He is perfect in His dependence. The deepness of the conflict deepens His fellowship with His Father.
- Cause. Real anguish brought real bodily weakness. That is why strength was needed, and why Luke, who presents Him as Son of Man, is the one who tells us.
- Gift. Heaven did not take the cup away. It sent an angel to support the Man who would drink it — help sent, not judgment.
- Limit. The help reached His body, not His soul. Spiritual strength comes from the Spirit of God, not from angels.
- Proof. Because an angel could still come near, the garden was not yet the forsaking. In the three hours of darkness no such comfort appears.
- Pattern. Under greater pressure His prayer grew more earnest, not less. Dependence deepened where it was tested most.
And being in conflict he prayed more intently. And his sweat became as great drops of blood, falling down upon the earth.
Shortly before His arrest, Jesus prays in a garden, and Luke alone shows what that prayer cost Him. The scene raises hard questions: what was in the cup He shrank from, and why did the agony make Him pray more, not less?
In Luke, Gethsemane shows a man leaning wholly on God.
The Lord's dependence as man is then displayed in the most striking manner. The whole scene of Gethsemane and the cross, in Luke, is the perfect dependent man. He prays; He submits to His Father's will. An angel strengthens Him — this was their service to the Son of Man. Afterwards, in deep conflict, He prays more earnestly: dependent man, He is perfect in His dependence. The deeper the conflict, the deeper His fellowship with His Father.
The same writer points out what is missing later, at the cross.
When we come to the cross in this Gospel, we find no trace of the agony. He had gone through it in spirit in Gethsemane, and is then above it all.
The agony had a cause outside Himself. An enemy was setting death before His soul.
Here, then, in Gethsemane, we see Satan presenting death in all its horrors. He seeks to bring that in between Christ and all His perfection as Man before God. On God He leaned in perfect dependence as a Man. That is what the agony in the garden is. It is hardly a subject to discuss, but rather one to think about on your knees before God.
Some read the little word "like" to mean His sweat only looked like blood. One writer answers from Luke's own use of that word elsewhere.
I agree that the Greek word here for "like" does not mean a mere appearance without reality. Weigh the same word in Luke's account of Saul's conversion and baptism (Acts 9). He means that something with the appearance of scales fell from Saul's eyes. He raises no question of whether they were real, for indeed they were really there. So here. Further, as Bengel remarked, the force of that word "like" falls on the clots rather than on the blood. So there is even less reason to disturb the common belief.
Here the cup was still before Him. Another writer draws a sharp line between the garden and the cross.
Was propitiation accomplished by all this? No, my friends. Propitiation means meeting the righteous claims of God, glorifying Him about sin, making atonement for it. It was not accomplished by the living agonies of Jesus, nor by the sorrows He tasted, nor by the tears He shed... Gethsemane was not Golgotha. In Gethsemane He looked at and measured everything. In the garden He took the cup, if I may say so, and looked at its ingredients; on the cross He drank its contents... In that cup, not one single element of sorrow was missing that either the hand of man or the hand of God could supply.
The verse ties the agony to the praying. That link is where it reaches us.
The more He felt the depths of that dreadful cup which He was to drink, the more earnestly He prayed. With us, too often, the trouble that fills our minds turns us away from God. But "He prayed more earnestly." The agony brought Him to God, and that is just the right thing... The poor disciples were sleeping for sorrow while He was praying more earnestly, in agony.
Measured against Him, our own praying often runs at the opposite temperature.
Christ was in an agony at prayer (Luke 22:44). Many, when they pray, are in a lethargy rather than an agony. When they are busy about the world, they are all fire; when they are at prayer, they are all ice.
He leaves the garden calm. One commentator traces that calm to what happened while He prayed.
So, the more pressed by Satan, the nearer to God He is. Therefore it is said, "being in agony, he prayed more earnestly." As a result, He receives nothing at the hand of Satan, but from His Father. "The cup that my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?" Before He left Gethsemane, the whole power of Satan was morally destroyed. He had gone through the hour with His Father, and now takes the cup from His Father's hand, as an act of obedience. He is now as calm as when doing any other miracle.
- Conflict. The agony was a real struggle. Death and Satan's power pressed on the soul of a man who leaned on God alone.
- Anticipation. He measured the cup here; He drank it on the cross. Gethsemane weighed the ingredients, Golgotha emptied them.
- Reality. The word "like" does not soften the fact. The clots of blood were there, as real as the scales that fell from Saul's eyes.
- Response. Pressure did not drive Him from God. It drove Him into deeper prayer. Sorrow put the disciples to sleep and put Him on His knees.
- Result. He left the garden calm and took the cup from His Father's hand. What He settled with God in prayer, He could then face.