Hebrews 5:7-9 Who in the days of his flesh… Here we have Gethsemane, apart from external circum-stances - the treachery of Judas, the apathy, ignorance, and drowsiness of the disciples. The one thing of supreme importance is set before us, even the struggle and suffering in the heart of Jesus himself. Note - I. THE ELEMENTS OF THE SUFFERING. 1. The possession of a suffering nature. This struggle happened in the days of his flesh. It was nothing wonderful that he should shrink from physical pain, especially when he knew it was to be such pain as of the scourging and the cross. 2. The possession of a sinless nature. To find a sinless human being shrinking with peculiar horror from death, accords with the great theological dictum that death is the result of sin. The right of Jesus could not be less than to pass from this world as Enoch did, by translation into glory. Death is the thing from which he shrinks. And full of life as Jesus was, life of the whole being, spiritual life most of all, how should he not shrink from death? II. INTENSITY OF THE SUFFERING. This is shown by the urgency of the supplications. Jesus had had his times of intercession, his times for sweet remembrance of his disciples, and of a sinning, sorrowing world; but now here is a prayer out of keen personal agony - agony with an overpowering effect on the very thoughts and intents of the heart. Here in Gethsemane is the field of the Lord's supreme temptation. He who had raised others from the dead, it was not for him to submit to death without clear proof that such was the will of his Father. We have to submit. We look on death as a constant possibility; in us there are no resources for warding it off or recovering us from its captivity, as there were in Jesus. Hence the considerations which would press on him, "Can it be right that I should die? Shall I let myself sink into the hands of this approaching band, and finally into the grasp of Pilate, to become passive and yielding in everything save spiritual integrity?" What wonder was it that in such a struggle of the heart he should sweat as it were great drops of blood! III. SUCCESSFUL ENDURANCE OF THE SUFFERING. Jesus goes into this struggle of Gethsemane with one great practical truth in his heart, viz. that his Father's will was the supreme determining guide of his course. To adopt a subsequent metaphor of the Epistle, this was the anchor within the veil. That will, his guide hitherto, had led him to Gethsemane, had led him into the very midst of plots and treacheries, into a thick circle of the wicked, each with his own special interest, and yet all wonderfully combined in bringing Jesus to the cross. This great truth, that he was in the midst of these things by God's will, kept Jesus as on the rock in the great hour of his temptation. There was more to be done for God's glory and the world's good through death, than through mere continuance of life. A dying Jesus is infinitely more than a translated Enoch. IV. RESULT OF THE SUFFERING. His obedience becomes the measure of obedience to others; and also their inspiration - the thing that prompts ever to ask inquiringly, earnestly, with singleness of heart, as to what the will of God is. To the right-hearted. God ever gives an infallible intimation; and. before such ever stands also the figure of their perfected Leader. By the will of God he went to the cross, yielded to death; and then came the ascension, the passing within the veil, the entrance on the functions of the true High Priest. And so he became the cause of eternal salvation - eternal as distinguished from temporal. To Lazarus he had once been the cause of temporal salvation; but Lazarus would die again, and needed, through faith and obedience, eternal salvation. That is the salvation which transcends death. Death may get mixed up with the process, may for a time even conceal, or at least dim, the reality; but in due course death is left behind, and eternal salvation shines forth in all its Divine glory. - Y. Parallel Verses KJV: 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; |
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