WHAT a beautiful scene. It is a display of holiness, love, and submission all combined. It is inspirational and awesome. Many an artist has attempted to put the scene on canvas as it was in his imagination. People that read the Bible account of this prayer meeting endeavor to see this scene in their mind's eyes.
Yet, relatively few people grasp the full significance of what was happening in that Garden. The most significant error is to interpret the scene as one
God praying to another God.
That is a common error of Trinitarians, but that interpretation creates great problems for them. Consider the following; If one God is praying to another, then the praying God must be lesser than the God he prays to. The praying God is obviously not very powerful if he has to ask for help.
And another problem arises. The Son and the Father had two different wills, and the will of the Son was at odds with the will of the Father. When Jesus prayed, he said, Not as I will, but as thou wilt. Was there a division of wills in the Godhead?
Trinitarianism teaches that the three members of the Trinity were co-equal, but if one God is praying for help from another, then the two cannot be equal. One would be powerless and the other would be strong.
The Bible says that the Son prayed with strong crying and tears, and was heard in that he feared. Was one of the God's afraid? Surely, God is never afraid.
All of these issues disappear when we realize that we do not have one God praying to another in the Garden of Gethsemane.
We have, instead, the vessel in which God dwelt, which is the Son, praying to the Father. The Son, which is human, prayed to the Father, which is God. Humanity prayed to divinity. Flesh prayed to the Holy Spirit. When Jesus prayed, he prayed as a man, as a human being. Even his scriptural titles spoke of his humanity; the titles Christ and Son of God.
Now, Jesus was God, and he was man. He was God manifest in the flesh. He was the Son in whom the Father dwelt. See John 14:9-11
Somebody will then ask, was Jesus praying to himself?
The answer is an emphatic, No! But the flesh of Jesus did pray to the eternal omnipresent Father that dwelt within him. If you have the Holy Spirit, then God is in you. And even though God is within you, you will, never the less, pray to Him that is everywhere. That does not make you the God that you pray to. Neither does it make you a second God. Rather that is simply your flesh praying to the God that is within you, and is still everywhere.
So, what do we really see in the Garden of Gethsemane?
We see the Son of God, the human son, that would on the following day, die for the sins of the world. We see the Lamb of God preparing to suffer crucifixion. We see him that would suffer the agonies of torture, and give himself as our redeemer.
It was not God that died on that cross. It was not God bore the stripes, or crown of thorns. It was not God that was pierced, but it was the body in which God manifested himself to the world. It was the human Son of God submitting himself to the will of his Father for the atonement of mankind. It was the only begotten Son surrendering his will to the Father. What a beautiful scene.
