bserve some symptoms of the turmoil
within--symptoms which it is probably best to speak of in His own words:
"Now is My soul troubled; and what shall I say? Shall I say, 'Father,
save Me from this hour'? But for this cause came I unto this hour.
Father, glorify Thy name." This Evangelist does not describe the agony
in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was needless after this indication of
the same conflict. Here is the same shrinking from a public and shameful
death conquered by His resolution to deliver men from a still darker and
more shameful death. Here is the same foretaste of the bitterness of the
cup as it now actually touches His lips, the same clear reckoning of all
it meant to drain that cup to the dregs, together with the deliberate
assent to all that the will of the Father might require Him to endure.

In response to this act of submission, expressed in the words, "Father,
glorify Thy name," there came a voice from heaven, saying, "I have both
glorified it, and will glorify it again." The meaning of this assurance
was, that as in all the past manifestation of Christ the Father had
become better known to men, so in all that was now impending, however
painful and disturbed, however filled with human passions and to all
appearance the mere result of them, the Father would still be glorified.
Some thought the voice was thunder; others seemed almost to catch
articulate sounds, and said, "An angel spake to Him." But Jesus
explained that it was not "to Him" the voice was specially addressed,
but rather for the sake of those who stood by. And it was indeed of
immense importance that the disciples should understand that the events
which were about to happen were overruled by God that He might be
glorified in Christ. It is easy for us to see that nothing so glorifies
the Father's name as these hours of suffering; but how hard for the
onlookers to believe that this sudden transformation of the Messianic
throne into the criminal's cross was no defeat of God's purpose, but its
final fulfilment. He leads them, therefore, to consider that in His
judgment the whole world is judged, and to perceive in His arrest and
trial and condemnation not merely the misguided and wanton outrage of a
few men in power, but the critical hour of the world's history.

This world has commonly presented itself to thoughtful minds as a
battle-field in which the powers of good and evil wage ceaseless war. In
the words He now utters the Lord declares H