July 2

Mark 14:32‑33
 
“They came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and He saith to His disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray. And He taketh with Him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy”— Mark 14:32, 3332And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray. 33And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy; (Mark 14:32‑33).
IN order to understand the true character of the work of Christ it is all-important that we distinguish carefully between the agony of anticipation in Gethsemane and the agony of abandonment upon the cross. In the Garden the Lord Jesus was not bearing our sins or making atonement for them. The suffering He there endured was in view of the drinking of the cup of wrath, which was the just portion of the wicked (Psa. 75:88For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and he poureth out of the same: but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them. (Psalm 75:8)), and which was not pressed to His lips until He hung upon the cross. This involved His being made sin for us; He, the sinless One, bearing the judgment that our iniquities deserved. As the holy and righteous One, His spotless soul shrank from the awful ordeal of being numbered with transgressors and accounted as though He were guilty of all the evils that the race had ever known or should ever be guilty of. It was the very perfection of His humanity that caused the Man Christ Jesus the agony depicted in the Synoptic Gospels in view of this fearful ordeal.
“Son of God, ‘twas love that made Thee
Die, our ruined souls to save;
‘Twas our sins’ vast load that laid Thee,
Lord of Life, within the grave;
But Thy glorious resurrection
Showed Thee conqueror o’er the tomb;
So the saints by Thy protection
Through Thy work shall overcome.”