John 18:11
The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): And Jesus did drink it, though it involved more suffering than we can imagine! Yet there was no resistance to that suffering. He suffered, but He never rebelled against it.
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): Let us carefully remember that our blessed Lord suffered and died of His own free will. He did not die because He could not help it; He did not suffer because He could not escape. All the soldiers of Pilate’s army could not have taken Him, if He had not been willing to be taken. They could not have hurt a hair of His head, if He had not given them permission. But here, as in all His earthly ministry, Jesus was a willing sufferer. He had set His heart on accomplishing our redemption. He loved us, and gave Himself for us, cheerfully, willingly, gladly, in order to make atonement for our sins. It was “the joy set before Him” which made Him endure the cross, and despise the shame, and yield Himself up without reluctance into the hands of His enemies.
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): When the Son of God appeared, and came to accomplish the full purposes of the covenant, every act of Christ, before the time arrived for His death, most fully proved that His entire consent was in it. “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me,” said Jesus, “and to finish his work,” John 4:34. “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business,” Luke 2:49. Yea, the zeal of the Lord’s house is said to have eaten him up, John 2:17. So that everything indicated how exceedingly His heart was engaged in this work.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Though what He did was done out of love for us, yet chiefly it was in subjection to God’s will, and out of love to Him. “But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave Me commandment, even so I do!” John 14:31.
THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): He never showed any sign of reluctance, till in the garden He saw what was in that cup His Father did present Him—even His wrath, and being made a curse, Luke 22:39-42. And to show what the nature of a man in itself might in such a case do—namely, show His abhorrency of so high an endurance, and merely to let us understand so much that we might see His love—for it was meet we should by something understand how much He was put to, He thereupon cries out, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass.” And the whole mind of this passage is but to show, His averseness, as to the thing in itself simply considered, because of the bitterness of it; and, that the whole ground of His submitting thereunto was His Father’s will; and how that, His will stood to it as high as ever—yet only upon that ground, “Not my will, but thy will be done.”
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): The manner of expression bespeaks a settled resolution, and that He would not entertain a thought to the contrary. He was willing to drink of this cup, though it was a bitter cup, an infusion of the wormwood and the gall, the cup of trembling, a bloody cup, the “dregs of the cup of the Lord’s wrath,” Isaiah 51:22. He drank it, that He might put into our hands the cup of salvation, the cup of consolation, the cup of blessing; and therefore He is willing to drink it—because His Father put it into His hand. If His Father will have it so, it is for the best, and be it so.
A. W. PINK: Thus the “joy” that was set before Jesus was the doing of God’s will, and His anticipation of the glorious reward which should be given Him in return—He “endured the cross,” Hebrews 12:2.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): In the same manner, we too ought to be prepared for enduring the cross.
A. W. PINK: Therein we have the Commander’s example to His soldiers of heroic fortitude. Those words signify far more than that He experienced the shame and pain of crucifixion: they tell us that He stood steadfast under it all. He endured the cross not sullenly or even stoically, but in the highest and noblest sense of the term—with holy composure of soul. He never wavered or faltered, murmured or complained: “The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?” And He has left us an example that we should “follow His steps,” 1 Peter 2:21; and therefore does He declare, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross,” Matthew 16:24. Strength for this task is to be found by “looking unto Jesus” by keeping steadily before faith’s eye the crown, the joy awaiting us.
C. H. SPURGEON: When John the Baptist said “Behold the Lamb of God,” the two disciples followed Jesus, John 1:36,37; and we read of some, “These are they which follow the Lamb wherever He goes,” Revelation 14:4. The Lamb is our Guide. The Lord is a Shepherd as well as a Lamb, and the flock following in His footsteps is safely led. My Soul, when you need to know which way to go, behold the Lamb of God! Ask, “What would Jesus do?” Then do what Jesus would have done in such a case and you can not do amiss—in every moral question we are bound to be on Christ’s side. In every religious question we are not on the side of predominant thought, nor on the side of fashionable views, nor on the side of lucre, but on the side of Christ! Make this your slogan: “What would Jesus do?” Go and do that. “How would Jesus think?” Go and think that.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): If we only honestly ask ourselves the question, “What would Jesus do?” it would close all discussion on this point as well as on a thousand other points besides.
C. H. SPURGEON: Child of God, are you vexed and embittered in soul? Then bravely accept the trial as coming from your Father and say, “The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?”
THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): We should trust God’s potion. We are dearer to God than we can be to ourselves; He is more solicitous for our good, than we are for our own. God loves the lowest saint infinitely more than the highest angels love God.
A. W. PINK: There is no higher aspect of faith than that which brings the heart to patiently submit unto whatever God sends us, to meekly acquiesce unto His sovereign will, to say “the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” Oftentimes the faith which suffers is greater than the faith that can boast an open triumph. “Love beareth all things,” I Corinthians 13:7; and faith when it reaches the pinnacle of attainment declares, “though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,” Job 13:15.
C. H. SPURGEON: Fear not, have confidence in God—all your sorrows shall yet end in joy and the thing which you deplore today, shall be the subject of tomorrow’s sweetest songs.
