How could Jesus say "not my will, but yours be done"? How could Jesus and the Father want two different things?


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How could Jesus say "not my will, but yours be done"? How could Jesus and the Father want two different things?


Ted's Response:

Jesus and the Father always have had the same goals and have wanted the same things. In Luke 22:42, Jesus' humanity and flesh had a brief moment of weakness, knowing the agony and affliction that He was about to undergo. But in the next moment, His diety acknowledged that He had to do the will of the Father.

It is important to understand the passage where Jesus spoke those words. Read Luke 22:39-44. At the Last Supper, Jesus said this to His disciples:

It is written: "And he was numbered with the transgressors," and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment. (Luke 22:37)
Here, Jesus was quoting something that the prophet Isaiah had written:
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:12)
Jesus was going to be "numbered with the transgressors" because He was going to be accused of transgressing the law of the Jews, even though He was completely innocent. Then He was going to be flogged and have to endure a horrible death by crucifixion. By doing this, He would make intercession for all transgressors (sinners).

Jesus knew that all of this was going to happen because it was prophesied to happen. After He and His disciples went out to the Mount of Olives, He knelt down and prayed, and then an angel strengthened Him:

"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. (Luke 22:42-44).
The angel strengthened Jesus because He was extremely distraught about all the pain, agony, suffering, and death that He was going to have to endure the next day. He was so distressed that His sweat was like drops of blood. Probably no human being was ever in such anguish as Jesus, since He knew that the sins and iniquities of the whole world were about to be laid on Him:

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

Jesus knew that He was about to undergo the most excruciating and agonizing torture, both physical and emotional, that anyone ever has experienced. Furthermore, He who never had sinned was going to be made sin on our behalf:
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Only Jesus, the perfect manifestation of God in human form, could absorb all the sins of the world into Himself. It was going to be worse than the pain and heartache that any normal human being could have endured.

Jesus knew how horrible it was going to be. Figuratively speaking, Jesus was going to have to drink the "cup" of the Father's wrath (Jeremiah 25:15; Isaiah 51:17) rather than allow that "cup" of wrath to be poured out upon the entire world of sinners and transgressors.

This is why Jesus' human nature momentarily cried out to the Father, asking if there was any other way for God's plan of human redemption to take place. Yet, Jesus knew that this was the only way; so He agreed that the Father's will, not His own human will, should be done.

So Jesus did not want something different from what the Father wanted. They both wanted for there to be atonement for the sins of the world. In a moment of physical and emotional weakness, Jesus asked if there could be any other way than for His shed blood to provide this atonement.

However, Jesus knew that the primary reason He was born as a human being was to die for the sins of the world. He was aware of this all of His earthly life. So He knew that this was the only way for God's goal to be accomplished, and the will of Jesus and the Father were one.


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