Sunday, October 2, 2022

F. W. Dillistone on Jesus' Sufferings in Gethsemane

  

In the Markan account of the agony in the garden there are two words in the English version (Authorized Version) on which Whyte fastens attention. We read that Jesus began to be sore amazed. Luther in his day had claimed that the original Greek words at this point were the most astonishing in the whole Bible—a judgment reinforced by a modern commentator who affirms that they ‘depict the greatest possible degree of infinite horror and suffering’ (Lohmeyer). What caused the evangelist to use such an expression? Whyte freely confesses his own sense of bafflement. Yet he is convinced that the shudder of aversion can only have been brought about by one thing. ‘It was sin “laid upon Himself” till He was “made sin”.’ It had been amazement and horror enough to stand and see deceit and envy and pride, all of that kind, as He describes it in terrible worlds, ‘coming out of the heart’ of man. But it was a new thing to our Lord to have all that poured in upon Himself. To be made sin ‘amazed’ out Lord: it absolutely overwhelmed Him—cast Him into ‘an agony’: it was ‘loaded Him and sickened Him and slew Him’. And it was Whyte’s challenge and offer to his hearers and in such prayer they could enter into the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings and share in His work of saving the world from sin. (F. W. Dillistone, The Christian Understanding of Atonement [London: James Nisbet & Co. Ltd., 1967, 1968], 293; “Whyte” is Alexander Whyte, author of the book, Lord, Teach us to Pray)

 

(b) The words of Gethsemane: The narrative describing the intense struggles in the Gardne of Gethsemane has an extraordinarily dramatic quality. The triple sequence from the challenge to three to stay awake in the second discovery of their stupefaction through sleep to the final acceptance of their complete insensitivity: the reiteration of the phrase ‘the Hour’—the Hour of doom, the House of destiny: the Greek words translated into English as ‘deep amazement and anxiety’, suggestive of horror and shuddering and profound agitation: all these provide a setting for Jesus’ words which serves to intensify the sense of inner conflict which they portray.

 

As far as the authenticity of the reported words is concerned there are slight differences in the three Synoptic accounts and there are verbal echoes of the Lord’s Prayer which may have influenced the precise formulation. Yet the general character of the scene and of the words spoken in such that it is exceedingly difficult to imagine any motive for pure fabrication. A romancer would surely have depicted Jesus in an attitude of facing death with confidence and fearlessness and ready acceptance of the will of God. instead there is the fearful encounter with horror and darkness issuing in the cry: “My soul is weighed down with sorrow even to the point of death. And whatever links there may be with the clauses of the Lord’s Prayer, there is one outstanding image which seems to be the key to all, mainly ‘the cup’. Each evangelist reports the agonized plea that the cup might be removed. Matthew refers to it a second time—‘The cup’ represents that from which Jesus shrinks back in horror and amazement. For the significance of this cup-symbol we naturally look to the Old Testament. It is true that in the Old Testament ‘the cup’ is used in two different senses. On the one hand the cup represents joy, salvation, new life, refreshment.

 

What shall I render to the Lord
For all his bounty to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation
and all on the name of the Lord. (Psalm 116:13).

 

On the other hand, and even more frequently, it represents suffering, punishment, dereliction, woe: it is a ‘cup of wrath’ and a ‘bowl of staggering’.

 

‘For not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting up: but it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another. For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he will pour a draught from it, and all the wicked of the earth, shall drain it down to the dregs.’ (Psalm 75:6-8)

 

There has already been a reference to the cup in the incident recorded in Mark 10:35-45. In that context the cup is certainly the symbol of tribulation and suffering. And now in Gethsemane it is psychologically understandable that an image which had been gathering associations in Jesus’ mind should become overwhelmingly real and full of foreboding. The Cup. The cup to be drained to the dregs. The cup containing the final judgment upon human sinfulness. Must He drink this Cup? Must He face this Hour? He wrestles and prays, He falls prostrate on the ground. He agonizes in a sweat of blood. He falls prostrate on the ground. He agonizes in a sweat of blood. Yet the final word that issues as a cry from the depths, as simultaneously the acceptance and the overcoming, is the utter paradox of two wills made one:

 

Nevertheless now what I will but
may Thy will be done

 

Here again it is in the cry itself that the promise of final reconciliation is contained. (Ibid., 364-65)