“A Place Called Gethsemane”

IT is a part of the teaching of Holy Writ that man is a composite being; his nature being divisible into three parts — “spirit,” “soul,” and “body.” Iam not going to draw any nice distinctions between the spirit and the soul, or to analyse the connecting link between our immaterial life and consciousness and the physical condition of our nature and the materialism of the world around us. Suffice it to say, that whenever our vital organization is mentioned, this triple constitution is pretty sure to be referred to. If you notice it carefully, you will see in our Saviour’s sufferings on our behalf that the passion extended to His spirit, soul, and body; for although at the last ex- ’ tremity upon the cross it were hard to tell in which respect He suffered most, all three being strained to the utmost, yet it is certain there were three distinct conflicts in accordance with this threefold endowment of humanity.

The first part of our Lord’s dolorous pain fell upon His spirit. This took place at the table, in that upper chamber where He ate the Passover with His disciples. Those who have read the narrative attentively, will have noticed these remarkable words in the thirteenth chapter of John and the twenty-first verse: “When Jesus had thus said, He was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray Me.” Of that silent conflict in the Saviour’s heart whilst He was sitting at table no one was a spectator. Into any man’s spiritual apprehhensions it were beyond the power of any other creature to penetrate; how much less into the spiritual conflicts of the man Christ Jesus! No one could by any possibility have gazed upon these veiled mysteries. He seems to have sat there for a time like one in the deepest abstraction. He fought a mighty battle within Himself. When Judas rose and went out it may have been a relief. The Saviour gave out a hymn as if to celebrate His conflict; then, rising up, He went forth to the Mount of Olives, His discourse. with His disciples there is recorded in that wonderful chapter, the fifteenth of John, so full of holy triumph, beginning thus, “I am the true vine.” He went to the agony in the same joyous spirit like a conqueror, and oh! how He prayed! That famous prayer, what a profound study it is for us! It ought, properly, to be called “The Lord’s Prayer.” The manner and the matter are alike impressive. “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee.” He seems to have been chanting a melodious pzan just then at the thought that His first battle had been fought, that His spirit, which had been troubled, had risen superior to the conflict, and that He was already victorious in the first of the three terrible struggles. As soon as this had occurred there came another hour, and with it the power of darkness, in which not so much the spirit as the soul of our blessed Lord was to sustain the shock of the encounter. This took place in the garden. You know that after He had come forth triumphant in this death-struggle, He went to the conflict more expressly in His body, undergoing in,His physical nature the scourging, and the spitting, and the crucifixion; although in that third case there was a grief of spirit and an anguish of soul likewise, which mingled their tributary streams. Meditate upon each separately, according to the time and the circumstance in which the pre-eminence of any one of these is distinctly adverted to.

This second conflict well deserves our most reverent attention. I think it has been much misunderstood. Possibly a few thoughts may be given which shall ‘clear away the mist from our understanding, and open some of the mystery. It seems to me that the agony in the garden was a repetition of the temptation in the wilderness. These two contests with the prince of darkness have many points of exact correspondence. If carefully pondered, there is a singular and striking connection between the triple temptation and the triple prayer. Having fought Satan at the first in the wilderness, on the threshold of His public ministry, our Lord now finds him at the last in the garden as He nears the termination of His mediatorial work on the earth. Keep in mind that it is the soz of Jesus of which we now have to speak.

Jesus went to the GARDEN, there to endure the conflict, because it was the place of meditation. It seemed fit that His mental conflict should be carried on in the place where man is most at home in the pensive musings of his mind —

“The garden contemplation suits.”

As Jesus had been accustomed to indulge Himselt with midnight reveries in the midst of those olive

- groves, He fitly chooses place sacred to the studies

of the mind to be the place memorable for the struggles of His soul —

1s
“In a garden man became
Heir of endless death and pain.”

It was there the first Adam fell, and it was meet that there

Restored from a scan of the 1896 edition, with page headers and numbers removed and words rejoined across line breaks. Scan-derived text, still being proofread; compare the original scan before quoting.