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  • The Ransom, Marvelous Expression of Love and Justice
    The Watchtower—1971 | May 1
    • And going a little way forward, he fell upon his face, praying and saying: ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me. Yet, not as I will, but as you will.’”

  • The Ransom, Marvelous Expression of Love and Justice
    The Watchtower—1971 | May 1
    • Matt. 26:36-44.

      18. By Jesus’ expression in prayer to Jehovah, was he asking that he might be spared from death?

      18 When Jesus asked Jehovah, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me,” what did he mean? Was he saying that he was withdrawing, backing down from his decision to die and provide the ransom? No, for he had told his disciples right along that he was going to die. He explained that the chief priests and scribes would take him and he would be put to death and raised up by Jehovah on the third day. (Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22) Even the thought of avoiding the sacrificial death was repugnant to Jesus. (Matt. 16:21-23) The book of Hebrews shows that when he started on the sacrificial course at the time of his baptism he said: “You prepared a body for me,” that is, a perfect body as the ransom price. All along he was determined in that sacrificial course.​—Heb. 10:5.

      19, 20. (a) What did Jesus know he was facing, and what did he pray, if God should will it? (b) Why was the thing Jesus faced so hard for him?

      19 No, Jesus did not appeal to his Father to be spared from death. But he knew that in a few hours he was going to be arrested and brought before the Jewish Sanhedrin. They were going to declare him guilty of blasphemy against God, the worst possible crime. (John 10:33; Matt. 26:65) Remember, he was the one who ‘loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.’ Here he had come down from heaven as the Son of God, to vindicate his Father, and first of all, his essential nature​—his sonship—​was denied by God’s own professed people. (John 19:7) But now, they were going to hang him upon a stake as the worst kind of person there could be​—a blasphemer against God, as well as a seditionist. (Luke 23:2-4) What a defamation of God! He comes to vindicate his Father and exalt his name and here he is to be hung up as a curse and a blasphemer!

      20 To have that charge as a blasphemer and to have God’s chosen nation responsible for that accusation​—that was a terrible thing to Jesus Christ, for in the past he had been the one most zealous of all in the universe to please his Father, to uphold him, to avoid even the smallest thing that might reflect upon his Father. A blasphemer! Today, if a person is one of Jehovah’s servants, but turns away in apostasy and blasphemes God, he is detestable to all of God’s people. Jesus Christ, with his perfect mind, heart and understanding was far keener about this than we could be. Nevertheless, he said: “Yet, not as I will, but as you [Jehovah] will.”​—Matt. 26:39.

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