Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Matthew 26:36-46

THE CONFLICT IN GETHSEMANE.

This conflict presents our Lord in the reality of His manhood, in weakness and humiliation, but it is impossible to account for it unless we admit His Divine nature. (Hence there is no reason for supposing that John omits it because it presents the human weakness of our Lord; especially as John himself frequently alludes to such weakness.) Had He been a mere man, His knowledge of the sufferings before Him could not have been sufficient to cause such sorrow. The human fear of death will not explain it. The conflict of desire and will in Him shows a higher will than mere men have, a will which was so controlled in its ruling purpose, that even the first prayer (Matthew 26:39) breathed entire submission. Our Lord, as a real man, was capable of such a conflict. But it took place after the serenity of the Last Supper and before the sublime submission in the palace and judgment hall. The conflict therefore seems to be a specific agony of itself; the sorrow and grief was not about the future merely, but in and of that hour, though not to be accounted for by the merely human influences which would then affect Him. There was resting upon Him a sense of the world's sin, which He was bearing, a suffering for us, probably conjoined with the fiercest assaults of Satan. Otherwise, in this hour this Person, so powerful, so holy, seems to fall below the heroism of martyrs in His own cause. The language of His prayers shows that His sorrow did not spring from His own life, His memories or His fears, but was either sent directly from God, or purposely permitted by God. This involves the vicarious nature of the conflict. The agony was a bearing of the weight and sorrow of our sins, in loneliness, in anguish of soul threatening to crush His body, yet borne triumphantly, because in submission to His Father's will. Three times our Lord appeals to that will, as purposing His anguish; that purpose of God in regard to the loveliest, best of men, can be reconciled with justice and goodness in God in but one way: that which exalts His grace to us. Our Lord suffered anguish of soul for sin, that it might never rest on us. To deny this is in effect, not only to charge our Lord with undue weakness, but to charge God with needless cruelty.

ALL the Evangelists narrate this occurrence with interesting variety in details, showing their entire independence. It shows the glory and majesty of our Lord even in such an hour; the reference to the fulfilment of the Scriptures (Matthew 26:54-56) confirms the view that the preceding conflict was proposed and permitted by God.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Matthew 26:36-46

Old Testament

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