(46)Clearing Our Minds…Gethsemane

by Eugene Higgins

Most if not all of the previous emails have been somewhat formulaic: a mention of something about the virus and its effects, a (hopefully) encouraging light cast on things from the Word of God, and generally an attempt to end with the words of a relevant hymn in the hopes that its words and tune would remain in our minds throughout the day. I am sure you have wearied of the sameness many times. But this is different. Just for today, perhaps we could all forget about our worries and the world and the Wuhan virus and just spend a few moments thinking about the Lord Jesus.

Three Swords

Gethsemane! The name appears only twice in our Bible, but how sacred it is to our hearts! No matter what people say or write, none of us understands – fully understands – all that transpired in that garden, under those ancient Olive trees, in the heart and soul and spirit of our beloved Lord. Many have tried to explain it. And many of those efforts probably left you with a feeling of unease – at times almost cringing – as you listened to people attempting to explain the inexplicable. They have written that “as God,” He couldn’t have had any reservations so it was “as man” that He “hesitated”; but finally, resolving “the conflict,” He expressed His submission to the will of God. Please forgive all the quotation marks. I wanted to make it plain that – categorically – those were not my thoughts of Gethsemane. In fact, I’d rather not even write those words. There was no conflict in His mind; there was no hesitancy in His heart. How could there be? He delighted to do the will of His God. In all of our thoughts about the Lord Jesus, there is an overarching truth which should control our meditations and instill more than a little restraint in our comments, and it is this: no one knows the Son except the Father. Here are words of titanic import: “All things are delivered unto Me of My Father: and no man (fully) knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither (fully) knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” So although no human fully knows the Father, there was One Who came to reveal Him. But only one Person fully knows the Son – only One: His Father. Edward Bickersteth wrote, “He Who knows the Father is omniscient; He Who is known only by the Father is incomprehensible.” We are wiser being Job-like and putting our hand on our mouth than Uzzah-like and putting our hand to the ark, as though it needed to be steadied by our feeble efforts. What closed Job’s mouth and laid him in the dust was the sudden and overwhelming understanding of how incomprehensibly great God was. (40:4; 42:5, 6). Incomprehensible! You have sung that truth again and again in relation to His eternal Son:

But the high myst’ries of His name

An angel’s grasp transcend;

The Father only, glorious claim!

The Son can comprehend.

Not wishing to fall into the very pit of doctrinal difficulties just described, I want to carefully say only this: without Gethsemane the record of the life of the Lord Jesus would be missing something essential (not his life, but the record of his life would be lacking). Gethsemane allows us to see the reaction of absolute holiness to the concept of coming into contact with sin. It is unthinkable that the Lord Jesus would draw near to Calvary without drawing near to His Father (in the sense of retiring to a solitary place) to commune with Him about the awful experience that lay ahead. It is impossible for us – as sinners, surrounded by sin, living in a sinful world, and having sin in our heart from birth – to imagine the horror that it was to Him, the Holy One of God, the spotless Lamb, that He was about to be made an offering for sin. Rather than the events of Gethsemane detracting in some way from the record of His life, they only enhance and more deeply reveal His impeccability, His unrivaled courage, His unwavering confidence in His God, and His complete submission to His Father’s will, irrespective of the monumental demands involved.

You will recall in the upper room, when one of the well-meaning disciples blurted out, “Lord, behold, here are two swords,” (Luke 22:38), that the Lord answered “It is enough.” Two swords! We read how one sword was misused in that garden: “Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus” (John 18). But there were two swords! Where was the other? It was never used – whichever disciple wore it never drew it but fled from the garden in terror. So one sword was misused and one sword was never used … but there was another – a third sword; and this one was mightily used – fearfully and forcefully and mightily at Calvary. In that garden, on that night, there was only One Who knew about that third sword: the Man Who, forsaken by all but His Father, was moving to Moriah – Father and Son, “They went both of Them together.”

Hadn’t the truth of it been in His heart when He entered Gethsemane? He had told them, “All ye shall be offended because of Me this night: for it is written, ‘I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad’” (Matt 26:30, 31). He knew Zechariah’s prophecy of the awakened sword that would smite Him; and He alone knew the stabbing, penetrating, heart-piercing power of that sword when it would be plunged into His very soul, wielded by the unrestrained hand of Omnipotence.

Looking at the two swords in the hands of eager disciples who would very soon forsake Him, He had said, “It is enough.” He would not mount any defense Himself nor want them to do so. Two swords would be enough because there would be no resistance – in His heart or on their part. Thank God, when it came to that third sword, He also knew when it was enough; and bearing His soul to the excruciating, agonizing, almighty stab of infinite pain, He endured it all, until He could say, “It is finished.” His blood had quenched the flaming blade. As He hung on the cross, it was sheathed in His heart ………

“Now sleeps that sword for me.”

There is a remarkable verse in Deuteronomy chapter 11. Reading it in the past, I only thought that it revealed God’s love for His people and His plans for them. But, of course, there is something that goes deeper than that. Concerning Canaan, God said it was “a land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.” Is this not striking? God cares for the land! God watches it constantly (“always”); incessantly (“from the beginning … unto the end of the year”)! Why? Why constant, incessant, unbroken care and concern for a nanoscopic piece of real estate when He inhabits eternity and the cattle on a thousand hills are His? The answer: there was a place in that land, a spot outside a city that eventually would be called Jerusalem, where the Son He loved with all His heart, the Son He loved from eternity, His “own” Son, was going to die. In complete obedience to His Father, He would allow Himself to be hanged on a cross “that the world might know” that He loved the Father. This had been in the heart of Divine Persons from eternity. No wonder God cared for the land! His eyes had rested on that place from the dawn of creation – always and ever resting on that sacred spot. He drew Abraham to the land; He drew David to the city. Thank God He ever drew us to the cross.

Calvary! O Calvary!

Mercy’s vast unfathomed sea,

Love, eternal love to me: 

Savior, we adore Thee

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