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S.D.A. Bible Commentary Vol. 5
forced the agonizing cry, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me:” but if there is no other way by which the salvation
of fallen man may be accomplished, then “not as I will, but as thou
wilt.” Human nature would then and there have died under the horror
of the sense of sin, had not an angel from heaven strengthened Him
to bear the agony.
The power that inflicted retributive justice upon man’s substitute
and surety, was the power that sustained and upheld the suffering One
under the tremendous weight of wrath that would have fallen upon
a sinful world. Christ was suffering the death that was pronounced
upon the transgressors of God’s law.
It is a fearful thing for the unrepenting sinner to fall into the hands
of the living God. This is proved by the history of the destruction of
the old world by a flood, by the record of the fire which fell from
heaven and destroyed the inhabitants of Sodom. But never was this
proved to so great an extent as in the agony of Christ, the Son of
the infinite God, when He bore the wrath of God for a sinful world.
It was in consequence of sin, the transgression of God’s law, that
the Garden of Gethsemane has become pre-eminently the place of
suffering to a sinful world. No sorrow, no agony, can measure with
that which was endured by the Son of God.
Man has not been made a sin-bearer, and he will never know the
horror of the curse of sin which the Saviour bore. No sorrow can
bear any comparison with the sorrow of Him upon whom the wrath
of God fell with overwhelming force. Human nature can endure
but a limited amount of test and trial. The finite can only endure
the finite measure, and human nature succumbs; but the nature of
Christ had a greater capacity for suffering; for the human existed in
the divine nature, and created a capacity for suffering to endure that
which resulted from the sins of a lost world. The agony which Christ
endured, broadens, deepens, and gives a more extended conception
of the character of sin, and the character of the retribution which
God will bring upon those who continue in sin. The wages of sin is
death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ to the
repenting, believing sinner (
Manuscript 35, 1895
).
(
Genesis 3:1-24
.) Eden and Gethsemane
—The Garden of
Eden with its disobedience and the Garden of Gethsemane with
its obedience are presented before us. What a costly work was that