CONSIDER THE CONCEPTUAL distance between these two statements:
(1) “Jesus Christ is not just another human being, but the paradigmatic human being… Christian faith is a matter of becoming a certain sort of person. It is a matter of becoming like Jesus.”1
(2) “Christian ethics purports to centre on the life of Christ, but little of it actually does so…. Christian thinkers no doubt agree that Jesus was paradigmatically good, but when this belief is incorporated into a theory [of Christian ethics], it too often amounts to nothing more than secular ethics plus an example.”2
This chapter offers a small contribution toward placing Jesus Christ as central for Christian living and ethics, in both theory and practice.3 A model for our formation practice today is proposed, based on the examination of Jesus’ distressful experience in Gethsemane.
J. P. Moreland affirms such a Christocentric focus for contemporary disciples in the kingdom:
[Jesus’] invitation to “follow him” is actually an invitation to enter a different kind of life and to learn from Jesus himself how to live well. Acceptance of this invitation provides the believer with the power and resources to learn how to live a radically new kind of life from above and in approximation to the sort of life Jesus himself lived.4
Within the scope of J. P.’s writing can be found contributions on matters of spiritual formation and Christian living (contributions that can also be found in the writings of his doctoral mentor, Dallas Willard). In J. P.’s manifesto, The Kingdom Triangle, he offers a renewed vision of a distinctively “thick” Christian worldview to overcome the encroaching “thin” worldviews that eviscerate a robust conception of truth. J. P. proposes that the Christian church give a concerted commitment to three kingdom emphases (i.e., the “Kingdom Triangle”)—identified in the book’s subtitle—“recover the Christian mind, renovate the soul, and restore the Spirit’s power.” J. P. asks, “Why can’t one be intellectually careful, emotionally together, and conformable with a life of intimacy with God and a vibrant inner life, and one who is learning to be naturally supernatural?”5
The present chapter on Jesus’ Gethsemane experience explores further terrain regarding J. P.’s second leg (Christian inner life and spiritual formation), while offering a cogent discussion that hopefully exemplifies valuing the first leg (Christian intellectual life). From Jesus’ example in Gethsemane it is possible to discover a patterned response to trying times that has application for the formation of our character in general. Furthermore in this Gethsemane episode, we hear Jesus’ teaching that without reliance on divine resources, we cannot effectively resist temptation, a critical component of experiencing a flourishing life. The first part of the chapter will set a context for developing the formation model, by considering the perspective Jesus brought with Him into the garden. Then we will look more closely at the Gethsemane encounter in order to clarify a pattern of actions from Jesus’ example to devise a framework for our practice of forming our inner life through God’s empowerment.
To understand Jesus’ mindset that informs the why behind His own concerted actions in the garden, consider His charge to the sleeping disciples. “Watch and pray so that you may not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41; Mark 14:38). We will consider the first line, and then the second line.
Notice that Jesus regards Gethsemane as a “temptation” scene. The Greek word peirasmos is translated as “test, trial, tempting, and temptation.”6 James chapter 1 employs this same Greek term with this array of meanings (e.g., a general trial, James 1:2, 12; temptation to do evil, James 1:13). Trials are common in this life (1 Cor. 10:13), even for Jesus—Hebrews informs us that Jesus was genuinely tempted (Heb. 2:18; 4:15). Trials are occasions to share the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 4:13) and to form Christian character (James 1:2–4). Through trials, God tests and approves our faith (1 Peter 1:6–7; 4:12), but God never tempts us to evil (James 1:13). God promises to limit the degree of trial we encounter (1 Cor. 10:13) and can rescue us from any trial (2 Peter 2:9). Although people can be the means of our trials (e.g., Matt. 16:1; Luke 10:25; Acts 20:19), Satan and his demons are the ultimate agents of evil whom Christians must stand firm against in any trial (Eph. 6:11–13); Satan is “the tempter” (Matt. 4:3), “the evil one” (Matt. 13:19), “the father of lies” (John 8:44), and “the deceiver of the whole world” (Rev. 12:9 NRSV). His strategy is to make us question God’s promises and thus separate us from God (Matt. 4:1–11).
Although no explicit reference to Satan occurs in the Gethsemane episode, sufficient clues confirm his diabolical participation. During the Passion week Jesus’ teaching included mention of the devil (Matt. 25:41). As He anticipated the cross and bearing the sin of the world, Jesus was troubled (John 12:27). Satan manipulated Judas into betraying Jesus (Luke 22:3; John 13:2). Jesus was troubled by Judas’s willing participation (John 13:21; cf. John 6:70–71; Luke 22:48). At the Last Supper, Jesus announced that one disciple would betray Him, and then gave a morsel to Judas (John 13:26). The Gospel reports, “After the morsel, Satan then entered into him [Judas]. Therefore Jesus said to him, ‘What you do, do quickly.’” (John 13:27 NASB).
Jesus had prayed for His disciples to be protected from Satan, especially for Peter. Note the plural reference in Jesus’ warning of Satan’s looming evil presence. “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you [Gk., ‘umas,’ “you all,” pl.] as wheat. But I have prayed for you [Gk., sou, sg.] Simon, that your faith [sg.] may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31–32). Nolland explains, “While Simon is addressed, it is clear that Satan has the whole band of disciples in view.”7 During His Farewell Discourse, Jesus said, “I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father” (John 14:30–31 NRSV). In His final high priestly prayer, Jesus prayed for His disciples again, “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15 NASB). At His arrest following Gethsemane, Jesus acknowledged, “But this is your hour, and the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53 KJV). Nolland notes, “‘Darkness,’ ‘power’ (as used here), and ‘Satan’ (as used in [Luke] 22:3) are drawn together in Acts 26:18…. In this hour, designated in the purposes of God, the Satanic assault is permitted.”8 Thus, although Jesus knew this time of suffering was ordained by the Father, yet Jesus was also aware of Satan’s culpable role in it.
With this temptation perspective in mind, Jesus challenges His prayerless disciples in Gethsemane, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation” (Matt. 26:41; Mark 14:38). In the New Testament, believers are commanded to “watch” (Gk., grēgoreō) regarding two particular situations, the most prominent relates to being ready, engaged in life, while awaiting the second coming of Jesus (Matt. 24:42–51; 1 Thess. 5:1–11). The other emphasis is to be alert to spiritual warfare (1 Peter 5:8), which is the particular focus of Jesus’ charge here. Jesus’ model prayer includes, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matt. 6:13). Asking for God’s help against Satan is required; we cannot do it in our own resources, as is emphasized in the second line of His teaching.
Jesus continues, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41; Mark 14:38). A common understanding of this passage is portrayed in Eugene Peterson’s rendering, “Part of you is eager, ready for anything in God; but another part is as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire” (Mark 14:38, The Message). So, Jesus seems to pat the sleeping heads of the disciples with compassion, and permits them to sleep on. But what if we understood that pneuma (“spirit”) was not referring to the human spirit, but to the Holy Spirit, the source of divine enablement to defeat Satan? That offers a more fitting and potent translation, in light of the spiritual warfare context. Elsewhere, I have developed an extensive argument to support the claim that Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, lived His life on earth predominantly using His human capacities, relying for His supernatural enablement on the Father and the Spirit as the agent of the Father (e.g., Luke 4:1–2, 14; Acts 10:38).9 Since Jesus relied on the Holy Spirit as His typical pattern, we would expect Jesus to be sustained by the Spirit during this most difficult trial in Gethsemane. Then, in this brief charge, Jesus is revealing to these disciples the key supernatural resource for His own success, and for their potential success as well.
In this teaching, Jesus makes a contrast between relying on the divine ability of the Holy “Spirit,” rather than solely relying on human resources (“flesh”), which can never stand alone against the assaults of Satan. To paraphrase Jesus’ comment: The Holy Spirit is ready to provide you help, if you only but ask, because you cannot defeat satanic temptation in your own human power. On two other occasions, Jesus made similar contrasts between the divine sphere and human sphere (John 3:6; 6:63). Such a Spirit-flesh juxtaposition has an Old Testament precedent in Isaiah 31:3 contrasting an Egyptian alliance (“flesh”) against relying on the Lord God (“Spirit”; see also Ps. 51:11–12), as is noted by Witherington. “The saying about the spirit being willing and the flesh weak in v. 38 refers not to the human spirit, but rather to the Holy Spirit, which is literally eager/ready (prothymon). This conclusion is supported by the OT texts to which Jesus here alludes—Isa. 31:3 and possibly Ps. 51:11–12.”10 Although Marcus interprets the word as “human spirit,” nonetheless he adds, “It is doubtful, more over, whether Mark’s Christian readers could have heard the sentence, ‘the Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,’ without thinking of their own continuing battle with ‘the flesh’ and supported by the Holy Spirit (cf. Gal. 5:17).”11
Furthermore, of the seven times the terms “spirit” and “temptation” occur in the same Gospel context, two occur in Gethsemane (Matt. 26:41; Mark 14:38), and four relate to Jesus’ earlier wilderness temptation in which the Holy Spirit was prominently active (Matt. 4:1; Mark 1:12–13; Luke 4:1–2, 13–14).12 Clint Arnold notes, “The [wilderness] temptation narrative thus becomes an example of how to successfully resist solicitations to evil brought to us by Satan or demonic spirits…. [and] suggest[s] that the Spirit’s presence and power were significant for Jesus resisting the Devil.”13 Jesus teaches, “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). Bock explains, “Since the prayer comes from a [believing] disciple, the request is for God’s presence, guidance, and intimacy.”14
In His Farewell Discourse, Jesus offered His disciples and today’s believers’ His most extensive teaching about the Holy Spirit, recorded in five passages (John 14:16–17, 26; 15:26–27; 16:7–11, 12–15). Each identifies the Holy Spirit as the paraclete, sometimes translated as “advocate,” yet Andreas Köstenberger proposes “helping presence” as a better way to capture Jesus’ point.15 The Holy Spirit is the divine agent of sanctification (John 7:38–39; Rom. 8:13). In sum, Jesus teaches His disciples, and us, that we need to watch and pray, being alert for spiritual warfare, and intentionally relying on Spirit empowerment to resist Satan to be able to stand firm in our faith.
With these contextual clues, we now examine more closely certain details of Jesus’ experience to discern a pattern of actions that can be followed in facing trials.
Jesus arrives in the garden of Gethsemane with the disciples for His usual time of prayer (Luke 22:39), yet this time is different. Jesus “began to be very distressed and troubled. And He said to them, ‘My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death; remain here and keep watch’” (Mark 14:33–34 NASB). Something has surprised Jesus (notice the word, “began,” Matt. 26:37; Mark 14:33). The Gospel writers portray the encounter using five different Greek terms of deep emotion: adēmoneō (“troubled/distressed,” Mark 14:33; Matt. 26:37), agōnia (“distressed /anguish,” Luke 22:44), ekthambeō (“distressed,” Mark 14:33), lupeō (“distressed/ grieved,” Matt. 26:37), and perilupos (“deeply distressed/grieved,” Mark 14:34; Matt. 26:38). Luke reports, “And being in anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44). Another record presents Jesus’ trial this way, “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death” (Heb. 5:7 NRSV).16
Jesus’ experience in the garden of temptation and of a deeply troubled heart may offer great comfort to us. First, Jesus’ human life affords us the insight that being tempted itself is not a sin. Second, by noting two facts—that Jesus did wrestle with such distress and Jesus never sinned (Heb. 4:15)—we can also infer that becoming distressed is not, in itself, a sin; it is a common human experience. Of course, it is imperative that we become alert to such distress for it signals us that we have entered a temptation zone. If we ignore this clue and give in to such internal pressure—to yield to the temptation—then our initial distress can grow into debilitating sinful anxiety and excessive worry (Matt. 6:25–34). In Gethsemane, Jesus wrestles to stand firm against this distressful temptation.
The Gethsemane account includes matters requiring more extensive study that must be passed over due to space limits (e.g., the specific content of His prayer and the implicit temptation that prompted the prayer).17 One comment worthy of note is that Jesus began His prayer, addressing the Father with the Aramaic Abba—the only record of this in the Gospels (Mark 14:36). By using Abba, Jesus introduced a new way of addressing God, conveying a deep relational intimacy, perhaps like our “Dad.” The Gospel writers offer brief glimpses that Jesus’ primary language was Aramaic (Mark 5:41; 7:34; 15:34; John 1:42). In his classic study, Joachim Jeremias concludes, “We have discovered that all five strata of the Gospel tradition report unanimously and without any hesitation that Jesus constantly addressed God as ‘my Father’ (with the exception of Mark 15.43 par. Matt. 27:46), and show that in so doing he used the Aramaic, Abba.”18 Thus, in the Gospels whenever we read Jesus saying “Father” (Gk., pater), we can infer Jesus was actually speaking the Aramaic Abba. Accordingly, the apostle Paul affirms that we too can pray to God with this same familial intimacy, “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Rom. 8:15 NASB cf. Gal. 4:6).
From the Mark 14:32–42 account, one can observe certain actions from Jesus’ Gethsemane experience as He responds to this distressing satanic temptation. The Gospel writers include an extensive record for our benefit so that we too can learn from Jesus how to face trying times. I propose that Jesus offers us a fundamental four-fold framework to guide our own spiritual formation into Christlikeness, that applies to any of life’s situations, whether distressful or not. I briefly identify the actions, offering a contemporary perspective to understand His actions.
When Jesus steps into the garden, He notices a disturbing dissonance within Him and shares His feelings with His disciples, with amazing frankness, “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death” (Mark 14:34 NASB). Two practical steps can be inferred. First, Jesus became aware of a major change within His inner being that was not there on the way to the garden (“began to be very distressed and troubled” Mark 14:33 NASB). Jesus then claims that those disturbing feelings He was experiencing are His own (“my soul is deeply grieved” Mark 14:34 NASB). To own and admit one’s feelings is a step further beyond becoming aware of one’s inner state.
Next, Jesus requests His three closest friends, Peter, James, and John (Mark 14:33) to “Remain here and keep watch” (Mark 14:34 NASB), implying He wants them to pray with Him and for Him (“Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” Matt. 26:40). Jesus then moves a little farther away and begins praying to His Abba for help. Jesus prays persistently for about an hour (Matt. 26:40) involving three periods in which He offers the same request to the Father (“Again He went away and prayed, saying the same words” Mark 14:39 NASB; on three-fold prayer see Ps. 55:17; 2 Cor. 12:8). Following each prayer time, Jesus goes back to Peter, James, and John hopefully to be affirmed by their support (“And He came the third time and said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and resting?’” Mark 14:41).19 Two more practical steps can be inferred. Third, Jesus asks for specific help, both from His human companions and from His divine Abba—He could not face such spiritual warfare alone. Repeated action steps to keep asking for divine and human help—three periods of persistent asking to the Father and three occasions of inquiry with His disciples—can imply a fourth step of repeated action.
I summarize this four-part pattern as: Awake, Admit, Ask, and Act (see Table A). I believe that Jesus’ own practice offers an illuminating and powerfully effective pattern for us to follow, if we are ready to learn. Note that, although it can be a simple task to list these four fundamental steps, yet practicing each step is very difficult. Each step involves a more difficult choice than the preceding one. The simple point is that we cannot target any blind spots, gaps, or character issues for which we are unaware. We can easily spot the problems in others but can remain clueless about our own issues, as Jesus articulates, using humorous exaggeration, “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye?” (Matt. 7:3–4 NASB). Without being awakened to our gap, we cannot make any movement forward. Yet, with increasing sensitivity, receptivity, and intentionality, many of our character issues can eventually get on to our radar screen. Once we become enlightened, then a choice must be made: Do we own the problem or not? Unhelpful responses include: ignore it, deny it, adopt a victim mentality and blame others, or just medicate it without addressing any non-physical source of the issue.
Table A: A Four-Step Formation Process Illustrated by Jesus in Gethsemane
If we decide to acknowledge the problem—what the Bible labels as “confession” (agreeing with God about the problem)—we are confronted with the next set of choices. Do we try to solve the problem in our own power, or with the help of others? In our culture, admitting a personal problem to others is embarrassing, so we tend to hide as Adam and Eve hid from God (Gen. 3:8–10). Furthermore, we highly value our independence and pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps, as is reflected in this common married joke: A couple is driving to an event in an area new to them and they get lost. If the man is driving the car, he will tend to want to figure it out for himself, rather than ask a local for directions (been there, done that). Jesus’ example encourages us to ask for both human and divine help. When we become distressed, we need not stay there. We can admit our distress and ask God for help, as Jesus did.20 Finally, do we tend to make it a one-time ask? Just as with learning a new foreign language, a new sports skill, or playing a musical instrument, so also in addressing a distressful situation or desiring to change a deep character problem, it will require intentionality and effort: practice, practice, practice.
Let us summarize each of the four steps from Jesus’ example, incorporating additional points of explanation to offer a practical guide for today’s disciples, as I have written elsewhere.21
Awake—We invite God the Holy Spirit and those we trust to help us to become aware and wake up to our formation gaps, to help us be present in the gap, being sensitive to the Spirit’s movement within.
Admit—We do not hide or deny, but admit the gap with honesty and transparency. If the act is sinful, then we confess it to God and accept His forgiveness and peace. And we can continue to receive God’s unconditional love for us—just as we are, gaps and all.
Ask—We ask the Holy Spirit for formation grace to be empowered to live beyond our human ability as Jesus did, being bathed in God’s love and anchored in truth, so we can address our gaps. On the human plane, with close Christian friends, family, and church small groups at our side, we can feel safe to share our journey about our gaps and invite their help.
Act—We plan, with purpose and effort, to take some realistic initial steps to address our gaps on a more permanent basis, slowly chipping away at them, as we follow Jesus’ example and relying on God’s empowering grace.
Jesus teaches that the root of our formation requires changing the heart. “The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45 NRSV). To glean more insights from Jesus’ model, consider further synthesis of these four steps into two broad categories, proactive and reactive. The final two steps of “ask” and “act” involve the pro-active element of deciding to participate in relevant formation practices (e.g., solitude, Bible meditation, driving in the slow lane) that can indirectly change one’s character over time.
The first two steps of “awake” and “admit” are more challenging, in that we must become awakened to our blind spots, in which the Holy Spirit has an important role, if we are prepared to listen. These two steps involve a re-active component of formation. I have become convinced that attending to our reactions, as Jesus did, is a critical component for character formation.22 Our reactions can uniquely inform us of the inner state of our soul. Listening to feedback from trusted others is another essential avenue. Attending to our reactions offers an opportunity for reflection and to begin a movement through this four-step formation process, modeled by Jesus. Thus, there is an “active” aspect of both components, pro-active and re-active, summarized in the concept of intentionality. Character formation requires our intentionality.
Jesus’ distressing emotions in Gethsemane have been an interpretative problem for a greater part of Church history, while the topic of emotions continues to be often marginalized, ignored or even censured in the Church today. According to Kevin Madigan, “It was a plague and embarrassment to patristic and medieval interpreters,” particularly due to the theological (mis)understanding at that time that God was impassible—that God could not experience any emotions. 23 Jesus wept (John 11:35), yet we tend to apologize about our tears. Jesus experienced frustration and could freely vent His frustration (Matt. 16:6–11; Mark 9:19), yet we tend to judge that as unworthy. Jesus could freely share His inner turbulence with His friends (Mark 14:34), yet we tend to be embarrassed, keeping them to ourselves and get busy in order to be distracted and suppress our feelings. In his book-length treatment of Faithful Feelings, New Testament scholar Matthew Elliot claims that “as a man, [Jesus] set an example for the emotions of the Christian. As God, Jesus shows us the emotions of the creator…. if Jesus was one with the Father this is also good evidence for the emotional nature of God himself (John 10:30; 14:9).” 24
Although contemporary theology has revised the doctrine of God’s full impassibility, we continue to hold to the negative implications from the earlier view that there is little place for a robust emotional life for Christians. According to Elliott, “The [published] theologies of the New Testament, as we have seen, do not do a good job in incorporating emotion into their framework. As it is in secular ethics, in New Testament ethics and theology, emotion is often belittled, trivialized, or ignored.”25
To make a way forward, we need to reconsider our ways by looking back again,
“fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” (Heb. 12:2–3 NASB)26
*An earlier version of a few ideas included in this chapter appeared in my Living into the Life of Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2012).
1. Joseph Kotva, The Christian Case for Virtue Ethics (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, 1996), 79, 89.
2. Linda Zagzebski, “The Incarnation and Virtue Ethics,” The Incarnation, eds. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 329.
3. “The actual life and teachings of Jesus have not been central.” Jonathan Pennington, Reading the Gospels Wisely (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2012), 233; he also claims that the Gospels should be considered as “the archway” of biblical studies, 229. Also see Glen Stassen and David Gushee, Kingdom Ethics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003) and Daniel J. Harrington S. J. and James F. Keenan S. J., Jesus and Virtue Ethics (Lanham, MD: Sheed & Ward, 2002).
4. J. P. Moreland, Kingdom Triangle (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan 2007), 144.
5. Ibid., 196.
6. W. Schneider and C. Brown, “Tempt, Test, Approve,” The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. Colin Brown (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1978), 3: 798.
7. John Nolland, Luke 18:35–24:53 (Dallas, TX: Word, 1993), 1072.
8. Ibid., 1089.
9. For further study of Jesus’ human example, see my “Jesus’ Example: Prototype of the Dependent, Spirit-filled Life,” Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective, eds. Fred Sanders and Klaus Issler (Nashville: B&H, 2007), 189–225; “Learning from Jesus to Live in the Manner Jesus Would if He Were I: Biblical Grounding for Willard’s Proposal Regarding Jesus’ Humanity,” Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care, 3:2 (Fall 2010): 155–80, and Living into the Life of Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2012), chap. 5, 107–34.
10. Ben Witherington, The Gospel of Mark (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 380.
11. Joel Marcus, Mark 8–16, Anchor Bible (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2009), 980.
12. The seventh occurrence of “spirit” and “temptation” appearing together is in Mark 8:11–12 NRSV, in which Jesus “sighed deeply in his spirit.”
13. Clint Arnold, “The Kingdom, Miracles, Satan, and Demons,” The Kingdom of God, eds. Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 167.
14. Darrell Bock, Luke 9:51–24:53 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1996), 1062–63.
15. Andreas Köstenberger, John (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2004), 436n70.
16. For a list of some commentators affirming that Hebrews 5:7 includes a reference to Gethsemane, see George H. Guthrie, Hebrews (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 190n9.
17. For further study, consult recent commentaries on these passages. I think Craig Blaising’s article offers a promising avenue for an alternative interpretation that presents Jesus’ prayer as one of faith that was actually answered, which Hebrews 5:7 also claims “and [Jesus] was heard because of his reverent submission.” See “Gethsemane: A Prayer of Faith, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 22:4 (December 1979): 333–43.
18. Joachim Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967), 57.
19. First Peter 5:6–10 could be regarded as Peter’s meditation on Jesus’ triumph in Gethsemane and his own tragedy; note the overlapping themes with Gethsemane as developed in this chapter.
20. J. P. Moreland honestly shares a time of his own deep depression in J. P. Moreland and Klaus Issler, The Lost Virtue of Happiness (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2006), chap. 7, “Defeating Two Hardships of Life: Anxiety and Depression.”
21. Klaus Issler, Living into the Life of Jesus, 55.
22. I provide more details regarding the formation implications of indirect doxastic voluntarism in, “Inner Core Belief Formation, Spiritual Practices, and the Willing Doing Gap,” Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care, 2 (Fall 2009): 179–98.
23. Kevin Madigan, “Ancient and High-Medieval Interpretations of Jesus in Gethsemane: Some Reflections on Tradition and Continuity in Christian Thought,” Harvard Theological Review, 88 (1995): 157.
24. Matthew A. Elliott, Faithful Feelings (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2006), 205–6.
25. Ibid., 256. In addition to Elliot’s resource, for further study on the emotional life from a Christian perspective, see Robert C. Roberts, Spiritual Emotions (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), B. B. Warfield, “On the Emotional Life of Our Lord,” The Person and Work of Christ, ed. S. G. Craig (Philadelphia: P&R, 1970), 93–145.
26. For discussion of a larger framework of five “formation gaps or barriers” in which Jesus’ distress-filled Gethsemane encounter depicts the “Distressed Gap,” see chap. 2 in my Living into the Life of Jesus and “Five Key Barriers to Deep Learning and Character Formation Based Primarily on Jesus’ Parable of the Four Soils,” Christian Education Journal, Supplemental Issue, (Spring 2012): S–138–156.