Should Jesus have desired to become sin (2 Cor 5:21)? Should Jesus have desired to be forsaken by his Father, to drink the cup of his Father’s wrath (Matt 27:45-46)? If Jesus is holy man, he should not desire to become sin and should not desire to be forsaken by his Father.

Introduction

Matthew Lee Anderson recently received his PhD from Oxford University in Christian Ethics and is on the Advisory Council of Revoice. Revoice’s mission statement is, “To support and encourage gay, lesbian, bisexual, and other same-sex attracted Christians—as well as those who love them—so that all in the Church might be empowered to live in gospel unity while observing the historic Christian doctrine of marriage and sexuality.”[1] One of the main arguments that Revoice makes is that actualized same-sex sexual attraction is sin and actualized same-sex attraction is not sin. “Being Gay is good” according to Revoice leaders, if one turns his same-sex attraction to holiness and does not commit “actual sin.” In order to make such arguments, Revoice contends, contrary to the Reformers, their confessions, and theological descendants (see my dissertation), that inner temptation is not sin. Anderson uses this argument when he writes that Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, “seems to desire to not do something his Father commands.”[2] Why make such an argument? The answer is because if Jesus desired sin while remaining sinless, then “gay Christians” can be same-sex sexually attracted and same-sex attracted while not committing sin as well. One has no need to repent of desires that are merely temptations or desires for sin, as their argument goes. And we all agree that Jesus never repented of sin because He never sinned.

Yet, Anderson and Revoice are gravely mistaken in their understanding of Jesus, sin and temptation.

Jesus’ Prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane

Interacting with Jesus’ prayer in Luke 22:42, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done,” Anderson writes,

…in the Garden Christ specifically asks the Father to remove the burden of the cross from Him, even if He chooses to do the Father’s will anyway. The lacuna is striking, given the centrality of the episode to our understanding of how Jesus was ‘tempted and tried’…Christ seems to demonstrate a desire, to the point that He is recorded as petitioning the Father on its basis [Luke 22:42]. If such an expression does not come from within Jesus—if it is only an ‘external’ temptation, or no temptation at all—then Jesus’s humanity disappears in favor of a docetic Christology…[3]

A helpful response to Anderson’s assumptions about Jesus in Gethsemane comes from William Hendriksen, a late Professor of New Testament Literature at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan:

Though it will never be possible for our minds to penetrate into the mystery of the horror Jesus experienced in Gethsemane, we cannot be far amiss if we state that it probably included at least this, that he was given a preview of the agonies of the fast approaching crucifixion. He had a foretaste of what it meant to be “forsaken” by his heavenly Father. And is it not reasonable to assume that during these dreadful periods of anguish Satan and his demons assaulted him, with the intention of causing him to turn aside from the path of obedience to God? Cf. Ps. 22:12, 13.

The best commentary on what Jesus experienced in Gethsemane is surely the inspired statement of Heb. 5:7, “He offered up prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears. . .”

He prayed that “this cup,” this terrible impending experience climaxed by the cross and the sense of complete abandonment, might be spared him. As with his entire human nature he recoiled before this terror, he “knelt down” (so Luke), “fell on his face” (so Matthew). He was, as it were, being torn apart by agony.

To be noted especially, and this in all the reports, hence also here in Luke, is the Sufferer’s complete and unqualified submission to the will of his heavenly Father: “Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.”[4]

As Hendriksen noted, it is morally appropriate for Jesus in Gethsemane to not desire the unjust treatment that he will experience soon—the betrayal of Judas, his arrest, beating, scourging, mocking, and beard-plucking that resulted in his further humiliation, suffering, pain and death. Also, remember how Peter, when he preached at Pentecost, described Jesus’ death as both God’s will and sinful man’s will: “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23). Christ’s death was both God’s definite plan and the work of lawless men. Jesus’ agony indicates his understanding of these two realities at work in his coming death—God’s holy will and man’s sinful will. After all, when Jesus finished praying in Gethsemane, He said to the disciples, “See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand” (Matt 26:45-46). The angel God sent in Luke 22:43 evidently strengthened Christ, God the Son Incarnate, to endure the evil will of man, but Christ’s obedience to God’s will through His human nature, desires, and actions was never in question. What happened to Jesus was both just and unjust. God’s response to Jesus on the cross was just, but man’s response was unjust. Jesus desired God’s will but did not desire man’s evil.

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