"The expression, τὸν δυνάμενον σώζειν αὐτὸν ἐκ θανάτου, corresponding with πάντα δυνατά σοι of Mark 14:36, confirms the view that the "cup" which he prayed might pass from him, was the death before him, and that
the purport of his prayer was, not to be raised from death after undergoing it, but
to be saved from undergoing it."
"the prayer expressed, not the deliberate desire of his Divine will, but only the inevitable shrinking of the human will from such an ordeal as was before him. As man, he experienced this shrinking to the full, and as man he craved deliverance, though with entire submission to the will of the Father. H
is human will did not oppose itself to the Divine will: it conformed itself in the end entirely to it; but this according to the necessary conditions of humanity, through the power of prayer. Had it not been so with him, his participation in human nature would have been incomplete; he would not have been such as to be "touched with a feeling of our infirmities, being in all things tempted like as we are;" nor would he have stood forth for ever as the great Example to mankind. St. John, who so deeply enters into and interprets the mind of Christ, records an utterance before the agony which anticipates its meaning (
John 12): "The hour is come" (ver. 23); and then (ver. 27), "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour [cf. σώζειν ἐκ θανάτου]; but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy Name." The "hour" was that of the drinking of the cup (cf.
Mark 14:35,
"And prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him"). "Father, save me from this hour" was the human craving of the agony; but still, "Father, glorify thy Name" was the essence of the prayer; and perfect submission to the Divine will was the outcome of it, after this troubling of his human soul. The mystery surrounding the whole subject of the Divine and human in Christ remains still."