the moving cause of the Saviour's prayer, and the Father's answer in

Whatever the Saviour asked for in Gethsemane, Hebrews 5:7 affirms that

He was heard.  The word usually translated, 'to hear' is the Greek akouo from

which the word 'acoustics' is derived.  This word occurs eight times in

Hebrews, but always in the sense of hearing the word

or voice of the Lord.  The word translated, 'heard' in Hebrews 5:7 is the

compound, eisakouo, which means 'to hear favourably' and sometimes in the LXX

it means 'to answer'.  Four of the five occurrences refer to the hearing of

prayer (Matt. 6:7; Luke 1:13; Acts 10:31 and Heb. 5:7).  The one reference

that means 'to hear' in the sense of obeying is 1 Corinthians 14:21.

Whatever request, therefore, that the Saviour made in Gethsemane, we have the

inspired warrant to believe that He was favourably heard and answered.

Something of the nature of His request is found in the title given here to

the hearer and answerer of this prayer 'Unto Him that was able to save Him

from death'.  Now, if this request be taken to mean that the Saviour, in view

of the cross, and in view of the natural shrinking of His holy soul from such

an ignominious end, asked the Father to spare Him this cup, then it is

impossible to proceed with Scripture and say, 'And He was heard in that He

feared', for the simple fact is that He was not spared the bitter cup of the

We are therefore compelled to give the passage a reconsideration.  If

the Saviour did indeed 'draw back', the inclusion of this act in such an

epistle is inexplicable, for the apostle's great object is to urge his

readers to emulate the example of all those who, though they died in faith,

nevertheless endured unto the end.  To teach that the Saviour drew back in

Gethsemane implies lack of knowledge on His part of the great Work He was

sent to do -- but this is absolutely contradicted by the revelation

of Hebrews 10:6 -9 where He said, 'a body hast Thou prepared Me ... Lo I come

... to do Thy will, O God' even as Hebrews 12:2, testifies to the fact that

'for the joy that was set before Him He endured the cross, despising the

shame'.  Let us go back to Gethsemane in chastened humility and view that

agony afresh.  In the record of the Gospel according to Matthew, the

threefold agony of the garden is in structural correspondence with the

threefold temptation in the wilderness.  We know that there was nothing but

victory in the threefold wilderness temptation.  Shall we say that there was

defeat in the threefold agony of the garden?  Shall He triumph as King, and

fail, even temporarily, as Priest?

Let us test the suggestion that the Lord began to realize the Work He

came to do for the first time in all its horror in Gethsemane.  Hebrews 10:5

gives us the words with which the Lord of heaven left the glory for

Bethlehem's manger:

'Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and

offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me'.

In the light of the context the birth of Christ was a necessary prelude

to His sacrificial death.  Are we to understand that the clear knowledge of

Hebrews 10:5 was lost to the Son of God after His birth?  Listen to His

rebuke of Peter in Matthew 16:21 -23.  'From that time forth began Jesus to

show His disciples how He must (1) go unto Jerusalem, and (2) suffer many

things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and (3) be killed, and

(4) be raised again the third day'.  Here is intimate knowledge, to which

further details are added in 20:18,19 where He reveals that (5) the Son of