Mark 14:36 Commentary and Bible Study

Using the most personal and intimate terms, he appeals to the love of his Father, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.’ Can his Father’s love for him find a way for him to avoid this terrible baptism of fire? All things are possible to God. It is an expression of absolute confidence in the Father at the time of greatest possible need, but Christ understands why he has come to this moment. He submits to his Father’s will, and does not try to change it to escape the cross. It is evident that there was only one way to secure redemption: through a sin-bearer, a scapegoat, a Saviour, who would emancipate us by taking our penalty. ‘Therefore doth my Father love me,’ he says in John’s Gospel, ‘because I lay down my life, that I might take it again’ (John 10:17). That love was infinite, but it would not now grant him a way out of Calvary. He himself chose to go through with it in his divine and human nature: ‘No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father’ (John 10:18).It would seem that it was mainly the human part of him – though we cannot really distinguish entirely between his divine person and his human personality – they were in a sense as one – that cried out to the Father: ‘If it be possible, if there is some other way, Father’ But he knew there was no other way; he had to go to Calvary out of love for his people, whom he would redeem. He had to suffer and die for them in an excruciating way to bear their eternal weight of punishment compressed into six hours. It had to be an atoning death, a substitutionary atoning death. Father, thy will be done – which really means ‘our will’, the will of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God. That will was determined in what we call the eternal council: that the Son would come and be incarnate, and would enter into human flesh and human personality, and suffer and die.