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Mat_26:46. Observe the air of quick despatch about the words ἐγείρεσθε , ἄγωμεν , ἰδού .
ἄγωμεν ] is not a summons to take to flight, in consequence perhaps of a momentary return of the former shrinking from suffering (which would be inconsistent with the fact of the victory that had been achieved, and with the clear consciousness which He had that ὁ υἱὸς τ . ἀ . παραδίδοται , κ . τ . λ . Mat_26:45), but: to go to meet the betrayer, with a view to the fulfilling of the παραδίδοται of which He had just been speaking. Κἀντεῦθεν ἔδειξεν , ὅτι ἑκὼν ἀποθανεῖται , Euthymius Zigabenus.
REMARK.
On the agony in the garden (see, in general, Ullmann, Sündlos., ed. 7, p. 127 ff.; Dettinger in the Tüb. Zeitschr. 1837, 4, 1838, 1; Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 306 ff.; Keim, III. p. 306 ff.), the following points may be noted: (1) As to the nature of it, we must not regard it simply as bodily suffering (Thiess, Paulus), nor as consisting in sorrow on account of the disciples and the Jews (Jerome), nor as pain caused by seeing His hopes disappointed (Wolfenbüttel Fragments), nor as grief at the thought of parting from His friends (Schuster in Eichhorn’s Bibl. IX. p. 1012 ff.); but, as the prayer Mat_26:39; Mat_26:42 proves, as consisting in fear and dread of the cruel suffering and death that were so near at hand, the prospect of which affected Christ—whose sensibilities were purely human, and not of the nature of a philosophical abstraction, like the imperturbability of Socrates or the apathy of the Stoic (Celsus, in Origen, ii. 24, charges Him with cowardice)—all the more powerfully in proportion to the greater purity, and depth, and genuineness of His feelings, and the increasing distinctness with which He foresaw the approach of the painful and, according to the counsel of the Father, inevitable issue. For having been victorious hitherto over every hostile power, because His hour had not yet come (Joh_7:30; Joh_8:20), He realized, now that it was come (Mat_26:45), the whole intensity of horror implied in being thus inevitably abandoned, in pursuance of God’s redemptive purpose, to the disposal of such powers, with the immediate prospect before Him of a most dreadful death, a death in which He was expected, and in which He Himself desired, to manifest His perfect obedience to the Father’s will. The momentary disturbing of the complete harmony of His will with that of God, which took place in Gethsemane, is to be ascribed to the human ἀσθένεια incidental to His state of humiliation (comp. 2Co_13:4; Heb_5:7), and should be regarded simply as a natural shrinking from suffering and death, a shrinking entirely free from sin (comp. Dorner, Jesu sündlose Vollkommenh. p. 6 f.). Neither was it in any way due to the conviction, unwarrantably ascribed to Him by Schenkel, that His death was not absolutely necessary for the redemption of the world. That touch of human weakness should not even be described as sin in embryo, sin not yet developed (Keim), because the absolute resignation to the Father’s will which immediately manifests itself anew precludes the idea of any taint of sin whatever. To suppose, however, that this agony must be regarded (Olshausen, Gess) as an actual abandonment by God. i.e. as a withdrawing of the presence of the higher powers from Jesus, is to contradict the testimony of Heb_5:7, and to suppose what is inconsistent with the very idea of the Son of God (Strauss, II. p. 441); and to explain it on the ground of the vicarious character of the suffering (Olshausen, Ebrard, Steinmeyer, following Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, Beza, and the dogmatic writers of the orthodox school), as though it were to be regarded as “a concrete bearing of the whole concentrated force of a world’s sin” (Ebrard), and of the wrath of God in all its fulness (comp. Thomasius, III. 1, p. 69 f.; Weber, v. Zorne Gottes, p. 266 ff.), is erroneously to take a materialistic and quantitative view of the ἱλαστήριον of Jesus; whereas Scripture estimates His atoning death according to its qualitative value,—that is to say, it regards the painful death to which the sinless Son of God subjected Himself in obedience to the Father’s will as constituting the efficient cause of the atonement, and that not because He required to undergo such an amount of suffering as might be equivalent in quantity and intensity to the whole sum of the punishment due to mankind, but because the vicarious λύτρον on behalf of humanity consisted in the voluntary surrender of His own life. Comp. Mat_26:27 f., Mat_20:8; Joh_1:29; 1Jn_2:2; 1Jn_3:5; 1Ti_2:6; 2Co_5:21; Gal_3:13. But it would be unwarrantable, on the other hand, to ascribe the dread which Jesus felt merely to the thought of death as a divine judgment, and the agonies of which He was supposed to be already enduring by anticipation (Köstlin in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. III. p. 125). Those who adopt this view lay great stress upon the sinlessness of our Lord as tending to intensify this painful anticipation of death (Dettinger, comp. Ullmann, Neander). (2) John, notwithstanding the fact that he was both an eye and ear witness of the agony in Gethsemane, makes no mention of it whatever, although he records something analogous to it as having taken place somewhat earlier, Mat_12:27. With the view of accounting for this silence, it is not enough to suppose that John had omitted this incident because it had been sufficiently recorded by the other evangelists, for a mere external reason such as this would accord neither with the spirit of his Gospel nor with the principle of selection according to which it was composed (in opposition to Lücke, Tholuck, Olshausen, Ebrard). We should rather seek the explanation of the matter in the greater freedom which characterizes the composition of this Gospel, and therefore in the peculiarities of style and form which are due to this work of John being an independent reproduction of our Lord’s life. After the prayer of Jesus, which he records in ch. 17, John felt that the agony could not well find a place in his Gospel, and that, after Mat_12:23 ff., there was no reason why it should be inserted any more than the cry of anguish on the cross. Comp. Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 557 f. In John, too, ch. 18, the transition from acting to suffering is somewhat abrupt (in opposition to Hofmann); but after the high-priestly prayer, the suffering appears as one series of victories culminating in the triumphant issue of Joh_18:30; in fact, when Jesus offered up that prayer, He did so as though He were already victorious (Joh_16:33). It is quite unfair to make use of John’s silence either for the purpose of throwing discredit upon the synoptic narrative (Goldhorn in Tzschirner’s Magaz. f. chr. Pred. 1, 2, p. 1 ff.; Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 422 f.), or as telling against John (Bretschneider, Probab. p. 33 ff.; Weisse, II. p. 268; Baur, Keim; likewise Theile in Winer’s Journ. II. p. 353 ff., comp. however, his Biogr. Jesu, p. 62), or with a view to impugn the historical character of both narratives (Strauss, Bruno Bauer). The accounts of the two earliest evangelists bear the impress of living reality to such an extent that their character is the very reverse of that which one expects to find in a legend (in opposition to Gfrörer, Heil. Sage, p. 337; Usteri in the Stud. u. Krit. 1829, p. 465); nor is there any reason why, even after the high-priestly prayer, such an agony as that in question should not find a place in the Gospel narrative; for who shall presume to say what changes of feeling, what elevation and depression of spirit, may not have taken place on the eve of such a catastrophe in a heart so noble, so susceptible, and so full of the healthiest sensibilities, and that not in consequence of any moral weakness, but owing to the struggle that had to be waged with the natural human will (comp. Gess, p. 175; Weizsäcker, p. 563)? Comp. John, remark after ch. 17. (3) The report of Jesus’ prayer should not be (unpsychologically) supposed to have been communicated by the Lord Himself to His disciples, but ought rather to be regarded as derived from the testimony of those who, before sleep had overpowered them, were still in a position to hear at least the first words of it.