I'm reminded in today's reading that I need to be thankful that God gave us His Word, the Bible! It is here where we can go to understand what He has revealed of Himself and all the events of redemption history. And now we continue to look at redemption history by peaking in and observing this moment of Christ's submission to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane.
"Without the inspired record of the Redeemer's agony in Gethsemane, we would have a much less vivid impression of the peculiar intensity of his griefs and the crushing weight of the load that he bore. Gethsemane is not a place for hurried theological tourism: it is where the believer must linger, watch and pray."
"He made himself of no reputation" is what Philippians 2.7 teaches us. But just because we have a bright moment into the humanity of Christ, it does not mean that Christ laid aside His deity even for one second and we must remain steadfast in our defense that Christ did not give up His divine attributes, but
merely subjected Himself in position "taking the form of a servant." We must boldly reject the heresy that has pervaded history, saying that Christ emptied Himself of His deity. B.B.
Warfield says,
"No Christian heart will be satisfied with a Christ in whom there was no Godhead at all while He was on earth, and in whom there may be no manhood at all now that He has gone to heaven. There is no half-way house between the doctrine that Christ is both God and man."
So we see in His humanity the restraint of Christ. His submission to His Father--the covenant of Grace. As we see the agony in the garden of Christ looking to this 'cup' of wrath from the Father and the Father's deafening silence. The climax of the gospel and the covenant of grace is what we should be thinking of, as well, in this moment in the garden.
"The real truth is that while He came to preach the Gospel, His chief object in coming was that there might be a Gospel to preach."
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