Question for christians?

Question

When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemene, he said Father please let this cup pass away, ... but not as I wilt but as thou wilt.

If Jesus knew the reason for his going to the cross and it had to be done, why would He pray that? Was He really asking to be excused from all that he had to yet do?

Also, on the cross, why did Jesus say "My God why has thou forsaken me"? If Jesus knew who he was, and who his Father was, why did he say that? He knew that he had to do the work on the cross, why would He consider it God forsaking Him? or was something going on that he actually felt cut off from God?

What do these verses really mean?

Answer 1

First of all, Jesus while He was God in the Flesh..therefore fully God,...He was also FULLY man...with the fears that we also have about torture and human frailty...it would be a scary situation for any of us facing that kind of tortuous ending & not only that but to BECOME OUR sin..to BEAR it totally on Himself..(I couldn't even imagine! :( ...) When He did that..He became separated from the Father...forever in a sense..because the Father cannot be in the presence of sin.
As for when He was on the cross...he was actually quoteing from the Scriptures (as it was written of Him) Psalms 22:1-10
1 To the Chief Musician. Set to 'The Deer of the Dawn.' A Psalm of David. My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, And from the words of My groaning? 2 O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear; And in the night season, and am not silent. 3 But You are holy, Enthroned in the praises of Israel. 4 Our fathers trusted in You; They trusted, and You delivered them. 5 They cried to You, and were delivered; They trusted in You, and were not ashamed. 6 But I am a worm, and no man; A reproach of men, and despised by the people. 7 All those who see Me ridicule Me; They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, 8 "He trusted in the Lord, let Him rescue Him; Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!" 9 But You are He who took Me out of the womb; You made Me trust while on My mother's breasts. 10 I was cast upon You from birth. From My mother's womb You have been My God.
(This Psalm was written way before Christ was born..yet it was the very thing He was enduring while on that cross!!)
That is why He told the Pharisees: Joh 5:39 - You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.
To know who Jesus REALLY is...all we have to do is read the Old Testament..(along with the New) It IS who He is!!
The Word made Flesh & dwelt among us.
What an AWESOME God we serve!!

Answer 2

This is actually a good question, bravo.

When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemene, he said Father please let this cup pass away, ... but not as I wilt but as thou wilt. If Jesus knew the reason for his going to the cross and it had to be done, why would He pray that? Was He really asking to be excused from all that he had to yet do?

This is an example of Jesus' human/divine nature. His human side said, Father I don't want to do this. It's going to be really horrible.
His divine side said, But I know that there's no other way, so let Your will be done.


Also, on the cross, why did Jesus say "My God why has thou forsaken me"? If Jesus knew who he was, and who his Father was, why did he say that? He knew that he had to do the work on the cross, why would He consider it God forsaking Him? or was something going on that he actually felt cut off from God?

1: His statement is like you saying "How can you do this to me?" to someone who hurts you. You know "how" they do it, you're just venting.

2: God did forsake Jesus while He was on the cross. At that time, Jesus was taking the sin of the world upon Himself, and God cannot be where sin is.
2a: Humans that had direct contact with God sinned, causing the separation between God and man. Logically, a human who committed no sin must be separated from God to redeem man.
2b: During His 3 hours on the cross, Jesus was cut-off from God. Since He had never been cut-off from God before, this caused Him unthinkable pain - hence His crying to God when he turned away from Him.

Answer 3

Think of the cup being the cup which holds "His blood", I tend to think of Jesus in His humanity asking if there was not another way other than His being the sacrificial lamb. And saying, "not as I will but as thou will" as an acknowledgement that indeed His Father knows best... and so submitting to the utmost degradation. Jesus knew the sins of the world would be placed squarely on His faultless frame.
Was He really asking to be excused... I think perhaps in that moment of anguish He could have been. But to His credit and to my shame, He accepted the burden none the less.

As for "My God, my God why have you forsaken me." My understanding is this. If a person has always lived in perfect union and harmony with another,as only Jesus has with the Father, never known a moment of the darkness and humiliation of sin, never known a nanosecond of seperation (sin) from God, then at that moment when the seperation must take place because of who God is and what seperation is then I would suppose that the cry uttered is the most reasonable question to ask. Yes Jesus not only felt cut off... He was cut off. All the sin of the world engulfed Him, and yet He did not sin even in this... for God was still His God and Jesus still gave Himself to the Divine Plan of salvation.

He in that moment felt what we live day in and day out... the disharmony of living without God. God could not look upon His own Son.. it is a heartbreaking scenario.

And deeper yet we see that His Father, Our Father is faithful.
Jesus was resurrected bodily, and remains triumphant over death. This is my proof for believing in Jesus the Savior.

Answer 4

It's a weird bit of the Bible, and you've got to take for it yourself what you can, I guess, but you asked, so I'll have a go - deeply sorry if I'm wrong.

Jesus is meant to be part of the Trinity, and so is God. At the same time, though, Christians believe him to be the "Son of Man". Ie. he is God in human form...in some way...and so shared human emotions and feelings.

Naturally, the prospect of death in such a terrible way, which He must have known about, would terrify a human, and they would ask for it to be taken away.

Basically it's all about the sacrifice. If God had just painlessly died on the cross, there would have been no self-sacrifice, and no forgiveness of sins. But Jesus really had to suffer. He had to become detached from God for that while as a human entity, to suffer true suffering as a human would. By doing this, he supposedly "paid the price".

It was a very real sacrifice, and the detachment, whilst at the same time being part of God, is what forgave sin. Jesus the man hated what he was going through, and wondered how God could do that to him. Jesus, as part of God, knew he had to, and was willing to do that for his people.

It's a bit of a hazy concept, so sorry if that didn;t make much sense - it's just how i see it, so i hope it's at least been some help, combined with other answers...

Answer 5

I can't fully answer these questions. To do so would require writing a book.
I'll briefly address the issues.
When Jesus walked the earth he was a man.
He also knew his duty, but that knowledge didn't make doing it easy. I wouldn't doubt he would rather have an easier task given to him. The fact is, he avoided the temptation and did it anyway.
On the cross, he had to die. He also had to be fully tested. If his Father hadn't forsaken him, neither of those events would have been possible.
To full prophecy and satisfy the requirements needed to accomplish the goals of his sacrifice, the events had to proceed in the manner they did.
If not, we would not have salvation.
(Further understanding can be gained by studying the situation presented in the book of Job. Satan challenged God's RIGHT to rule in a manner that set up the situation requiring the death of Jesus. It is a situation that not only involves mankind, but also involved ALL of God's creation INCLUDING all the angles of heaven! It is a VERY important issue.)

Answer 6

Jesus was 100% man and 100% God, so the human side of Him dreaded what He knew had to be done. God could not look on all the sin that He took on Him, when He died for our sins, so Jesus said that. God is triun, God the Father, God the son(Jesus, Messiah) and God the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the flesh part of God.

Answer 7

Jesus knew the reason he had come to earth, it was to die for our sins....he knew the pain was going to be unbearable so he was telling God that he will do it but asking him if there is any other possible way.....Jesus said that on the cross because he had taken upon him the sins of everyone in the past, present and future (us), God cannot look upon sin, so he turned his back on Jesus because he was burdened with the sins of man. hope that helped a little bit

Answer 8

I love this question! I've asked myself the same question before and in research, one of the answers that I've found, (and there are many different theories) is that Jesus while on the cross was in deep prayer as he always was and one of the prayers he recited was Psalm 22, 2 22-25 which says:
"My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? …
Save me from the lion’s mouth,
my poor life from the horns of wild bulls.
… For God has not spurned or disdained
the misery of this poor wretch,
Did not turn away from me,
but heard me when I cried out."

No one truly knows, but remember, Jesus was fully human and fully felt the pain of death.

Another explanation I once read was that keeping in mind, that Jesus was fully human and when any human suffers that kind of pain they are subject to hallucinations and major confusion.

Answer 9

A messianic Jew is a Jew that believes that Jesus is the Messiah. Christians and Messianic Jews believe that Jesus is the Messiah. They are Jews. The point of view of the anti Messianice Jews is best summed up by Mark JPAS when he said "it is acceptable to blend some degree of foreign spiritual elements with Judaism. The one exception is Christianity, which is perceived to be incompatible with any form of Jewishness. This is the double standard that is applied to Christianity even though Jesus is considered the Jewish Messiah in Christianity. Messianic Jews are looked at with even greater disdain. Why? its a cover for there own deviations from Judaism. Some Jews need to maintain a connection to Jewish family because they have deviated so much from traditional Judaism that many Orthodox question their Jewishness. They need find some way to distract attention because of there deviation from the Torah. This is done by pointing their finger at others to direct attention away from their own actions. You can't give yourself a title and expect that it makes you something. This is the argument that has been used against Jews that decide that Jesus is the Messiah. We are told that the mere belief of a different nature of God immediately invalidated a Jews Jewishness. At the same time Jews that become atheists, pantheists or stop practicing any element of their religion we are told are still Jews. They say that you can believe in anything but Jesus. Jews call conversion "joining the tribe". Things that would never fly in Orthodox or for that matter Messianic Judaism can be found in the Reform and Reconstructionist movements. A good example of this is a previous question asked here. The person asking worshiped the God Ferris but did not believe in him or the Jewish God. The focus of the question was" ...would you PERSONALLY feel comfortable welcoming me not just as a fellow congregant at your Synagogue, but as a member of the Tribe?" (so he was clearly asking about converting to Judaism). The response was "Reform Judaism covers a wide swath of beliefs and practices and I am sure you will be wholly accepted. ... I personally would accept you whole heartily as a fellow Jew." So some Jews will accept all kinds of deviations from the Torah but not belief in "Jesus". Let's not forget the Reform movement wanted to change the sabbath to Sunday to be more like Christianity. Most Messianic Jews are Torah observant yet you can become an atheist, stop practicing their faith, become a Buddhist, join a Unitarian Church and still be a Jew in the eyes of Reform/Reconstructionist Jews. Most Orthodox when asked about other Jews will say they don't know what non Orthodox Jews are. The same applies to the other sects. Speaking of sects Jews will tell you there are no sects but its not true. Rabbinical Jews follow an understanding of their faith that was established 1,900 years ago. They have their own canon of Scripture. There are also non Rabbinical Jews such as the Ethiopian Jews that follows the pattern of the Christian Old Testament and they have many additional books that they consider to be scripture. A group called the Karaites is the opposite of the Ethiopian and only believe in the 5 Books of Moses. Rabbinical Jews call Karaites "a sect of Judaism". You can goggle it and see for yourself. Don't let anyone tell you that there are no sects in Judaism. They say the the teachings of Jesus are very different from Judaism. They also claim that Jesus taught nothing new from the rabbis before him. Then they we tell you that there were no rabbis until a hundred years after the time of Jesus. Its all about winning the argument to them not about what's true. The problem is not differences but similarities. You should know ALL the writers of the Christian Bible were Jews but one. Much of our Scriptures are shared. The vast majority of early believers in Jesus were Jews. So when you hear the exact opposite you need to keep that in mind. A Jew can believe in Jesus and still be a Jew. Edit: those that make personal accusations should include links or shut up.

Answer 10

To me Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane is one of the most awesome, most revealing prayers of all. It helps me understand Jesus better and love him all the more. It is a simple prayer, but not simplistic. I find it profound.

Jesus has a mission, a destiny. On earth, Jesus wasn't all knowing. This was part of the glory of divinity that he had voluntarily laid aside for a time (Philippians 2:7) when he "emptied" himself (Greek kenoo). As a baby, of course, he did not know all things; he learned them (Luke 2:52). As a boy he began to comprehend. In his teen years he knew more (Luke 2:49). And as he prepared for his ministry before and after his baptism, and then in the desert, the Father revealed to him the full scope of the "cup" that he would drink, the destiny to which he was called, the mission he was sent to accomplish. The scriptures spoke to him as his Father interpreted them to him.

One may contest here the finding that "Jesus couldn't save himself" in this situation - there is, after all, no indication that he tried to save himself, and failed - but even so, our objector is confusing categories here: Salvation from sin, as offered by Christ, is not the same thing as "salvation" from temporal suffering.

"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
--These aren't the words of a man who is voluntarily dying for our sins, those are the words of a man who can think of a hundred places he would rather be. How could this be a savior? In the same light it is often asked why Jesus prayed for the cup of his suffering to be taken from him in Gethsemane.

Here again we have a confusion of categories. Obviously it is quite possible to do something unpleasant voluntarily: One weighs the consequences and the results, and makes a decision, and even then can cry out from the hardship. The attitudes are not mutually exclusive. But it is also untrue that these were the words of "a man who can think of a hundred places he would rather be."

When Jesus cried "My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me?", He was drawing the attention of the Jews who were present at the crucifixion to Psalm 22. In effect, Jesus was saying that He is the fulfillment of Psalm 22, a Psalm which the Jews had always seen as a Messianic Psalm. A quick glance at Psalm 22 will reveal that the fist words are "My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me?"
Further evidence to this claim is given by Jesus Himself, after the resurrection. Appearing before His disciples, Jesus says, "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." .