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"Jesus came with them to a place called
Gethsemane, and said to the disciples . . . . ’Stay here and watch with Me’ " —
Matthew 26:36, 38
We can never fully comprehend Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, but at
least we don’t have to misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and man in one
Person, coming face to face with sin. We cannot learn about Gethsemane through
personal experience. Gethsemane and Calvary represent something totally unique—
they are the gateway into life for us.
It was not death on the cross that Jesus agonized over in Gethsemane. In fact,
He stated very emphatically that He came with the purpose of dying. His concern
here was that He might not get through this struggle as the Son of Man. He was
confident of getting through it as the Son of God— Satan could not touch Him
there. But Satan’s assault was that our Lord would come through for us on His
own solely as the Son of Man. If Jesus had done that, He could not have been our
Savior (see Hebrews 9:11-15 ). Read the record of His agony in Gethsemane in
light of His earlier wilderness temptation— ". . . the devil . . . departed from
Him until an opportune time" ( Luke 4:13 ). In Gethsemane, Satan came back and
was overthrown again. Satan’s final assault against our Lord as the Son of Man
was in Gethsemane.
The agony in Gethsemane was the agony of the Son of God in fulfilling His
destiny as the Savior of the world. The veil is pulled back here to reveal all
that it cost Him to make it possible for us to become sons of God. His agony was
the basis for the simplicity of our salvation. The Cross of Christ was a triumph
for the Son of Man. It was not only a sign that our Lord had triumphed, but that
He had triumphed to save the human race. Because of what the Son of Man went
through, every human being has been provided with a way of access into the very
presence of God.
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