I do not doubt that Satan pressed on the spirit of Jesus what must be the consequences if He was determined to go on to the end that He had in view: death, as God’s judgment on man, and being forsaken by God on the cross. But oh, blessed be His name, He did not turn from it. If you and I saw sorrow coming, we would try to avoid it. Were some great crushing blow about to fall on you tomorrow, would you not avoid it if it were possible? You would not be human if you did not. Jesus saw what was coming. He weighed it, fathomed it, measured it to the bottom, if I may say so; and then He said to His Father, “Not as I will, but as You will.”

Jesus is here seen as the perfectly subject Man. What a Man! That Man is my Savior, thank God! Is He yours? That Man has redeemed me by His obedience even to death, and by drinking the cup. Could you but see what was in that cup, you would trust and adore Him. It was the cup of judgment, the cup of wrath, the cup of indignation, the hiding of God’s face, the expression of what God must be in regard to sin. Do you not see that it was the expression of God’s holy nature in respect of sin. It was the expression of the judgment of God against the sin of the first man. Christ drained that cup. Blessed be His name, on the cross He drank that cup to the very dregs; but in this night of sorrow I see the blessed Lord anticipating it all, and, as He prays in an agony, deprecating what He was willing to drink, “His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Lk. 22:44).