Luke, more than the other gospels illustrates the anguish
of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane with the famous passage in Chapter
22:43,44: Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And
being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great
drops of blood falling to the ground.
Only in Dr. LukeÕs passage do we find this reference to
an angel and the sweat like Ògreat drops of bloodÓ. MatthewÕs account (26:36-45) discusses Peter, James, and
John sleeping while Jesus prays, which is essentially repeated in Mark
14:32-42, until Judas arrives with the mob coming to arrest Him. But this more
detailed account in Luke, I have always found fascinating, as have many
commentators over the years. Generally, their comments concern something about
Jesus being in sever anguish over His upcoming death and becoming, or taking
on, the sin of all mankind, on the cross. But if you think about these comments
seriously, you find that they are seriously flawed. These comments are really
self centered. Thoughts like you and I would have if we were to face these
circumstances. The nature of Jesus is never self centered, but always servant
and service centered, therefore it follows that while these thoughts may have
entered and tempted Jesus, they truly deny his Deity, and the whole reason that
the cross would work at all.
We therefore should look at the work that Jesus came to
perform in this world and any consequences of that work, as the source of this
blood sweating episode. These can be summarized as sacrifice, resurrection, and
sanctification. Let us look at these three points briefly, to see what might be
the most likely source.
Sacrifice: Jesus came into the world to offer His life as
a propitiatory sacrifice to the Father for the sins of man. When this
sacrificewas accepted on the cross, and theveil separating the main part of the
temple from the holy of holies was torn in half, the righteousness of Christ
was imputed by faith to all sinners who looked forward or backwards in time to this
act. Historic Protestant Christianity as consistently taught that this
salvation, or election is completely accomplished by God. All Christianity has
taught that salvation is by grace through faith, with differences in the
details. Does man really have any part to play in his own salvation? If the
historic Protestant view is correct, then any part that man thinks he plays in
this Divine election is really just of form of sin, with only God understanding
and drawing any lines of demarcation between the saved and the unsaved. There
are also those who have tried to take the mystery out of this act of God and
make it understandableto normal rational man. This is to try to make God in our
image, and again God alone is capable of making the judgment between the saved
and the unsaved according to His grace.
Resurrection: Jesus Christ raised from the dead after
three days, can only be considered an act of God. Jesus becoming the first
fruits of the eternal life offered to those elected by God for His glory. We
are saved from eternal perdition into eternal life, a life without pain or
suffering. It flows automatically out of JesusÕ sacrifice.
Sanctification: By living the sinless life,we who are in
Christ have been given the opportunity to be progressively sanctified into
Christ likeness by the working of the Holy Spirit. Without splitting too many
hairs, this is where historic Protestantism would say that true free will or
free agency plays an active role. In Jesus Christ is the only place were true
freedom exists. This I believe is where the anguish in the garden of Gethsemane
must be centered. Looking throughout time Jesus must have seen, even though on
the cross it would be finished, just how few would actually take advantage of
what He (Jesus) was about to accomplish. To put it another way, instead of His
disciples being transformed into His image and in turn into the image of the
Father, most of the redeemed would establish self centered ministries and
churches, either individually or corporately. These would seek to change the
focus of what Christ had done and provided at Calvary, into religious
institutions that would seek glory for man and his divinity. In this way they
woulo exercise their freedom to continue to promote sin for reasons of fear,
greed, or other forms of self service.
One of the hardest things for a human being to do is to
look honestly at his own humanity and see just how sinful he really is. Those
few who do seriously take a look at themselves are left with just two
possibilities.
In one instance they can assume that they are by nature
good and that their problems are just inconsistencies within their personality.
They are better than most, and are in the process of trying to get better,
according to their own strengths and abilities. This is the goodness seen in
all and part of common grace given by God to all men. After all we are only
human. This can be attributed to either man centered religion, or civil
humanity.
In the other instance, we have a working of GodÕs Holy
Spirit in a specific revelation of manÕs inherit and personal sinfulness. In
this specific instance, the travail is such that nothing but salvation offered
in Jesus Christ will suffice. This drives the individual to seek and search all
sources until he finds rest for his tormented soul. In the life of this
individual, we catch a glimpse of what Jesus was touching in Gethsemane. But
once he has accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior, as we like to say, that
travail ceases. But the question can then be raised, what follows?
The answer, of course, is nothing much. The reasons are
also quite clear from empirical evidence. The goodly portion of the churchÕs
discretionary revenue, both historically and temporally, is spent seeking to
make converts to Jesus, something by definition the church can not do, and
therefore little funds are left to truly make disciples of Jesus Christ. Which
is the true wording of the great commission in Matthew 28. This dilemma
therefore become self fulfilling. Lack of discipleship building by focussing on
conversion numbers, takes resources from the work of sanctification, or making
believers more like Christ, As fewer and less trained and sanctified believers
are produced, the focus on conversions becomes more pronounced, because there
we can see results, by counting heads, scalps, or sinners prayers prayed. That
in turn makes church leadership more focused upon converts, for we sinfully
believe there is a direct relationship between the work we do, and souls saved.
Bad doctrine at best, heresy in the extreme.
So we come back to the nature of Jesus and His blood
sweating experience in Gethsemane. If I am truly being sanctified into the
nature of Jesus Christ, I too should be looking for reasons, real Christ
centered reasons, for this period in the life of the Messiah. I am left with
only one conclusion. That conclusion must be the sin of man. Not the sin that
leads to damnation and perdition, but the sin that leads to religion and
religious arrogance. This is the sin that Jesus condemned most harshly in His
earthly ministry. For that sin, is the sin that more than any other attempts
and succeeds in keeping the finished work of Christ from being visible in the
church and in the world. Now this would be bad if the souls of the elect were
loss, which is not possible, but what is really blood sweating grief, is that
in the name of Christ, members of the body of Christ are in this world, kept
from being all they can be in Jesus Christ as a member of His body, paid for on
Calvary, resurrected as we celebrate Easter, this Sunday.
On Easter we celebrate that Christ conquered death, but
that is not true in His body today, for the religion of death, withholds that
resurrection from the liberty and freedom that Jesus Christ paid for, from most
of the members of His body. We are all guilty of that religious arrogance, but
by the grace of God alone, through Jesus Christ alone, working in concert with
our faith in Him, we can be transformed into His image and leave the works of
dead religion behind. This should be a new reason for us to celebrate and pray
this Resurrection Sunday. Just as Christ is alive forever more, the fruits of
that eternal life are again taking first breaths in us individually and
corporately as the church triumphant.
Well praise the Lord, it looks that I am pretty much
caught up on my most pressing bills after approximately 4 months with little or
no income. There is still a ways to go to get out of the woods entirely, but
things are definitely looking up. Looking back at that time, I would have to
say that it was in a way the most difficult period that I can remember. I
believed that I was probably doing the best I had ever done in should we say
Òliving for the Lord,Ó but no money or work appeared. In tight financial times
before, I could always look at events and say I probably could have done this
or that better. Recently, there was no such luxury.
I am tentatively planning on going over to Eastern
Washington Thursday and spending Easter over there. I will again look at the
place which I hope will one day be the Little Dalles Enterprise Center. I would
like to make an offer on the place, but I have no funds for earnest money and I
really donÕt feel that comfortable making a funny money deal. I have run the
numbers many ways and the whole thing looks as if it will take about $500,000
in some form to make the whole thing fly. Especially from the last few months,
there is no way I will be able to do this on my own. Please intercede for GodÕs
provision if this is the way He would like me to go, and if not to close the
door firmly and change my direction.
Have a blessed Easter Celebration
Jerry