What Really Happened in Gethsemane
“No Power On Earth Could have Touched Him“
“The Final Victory“
“He who had moved among men before and disappeared at will prior to that time—do you not think that, if His disciples had been holding steady, He could have disappeared in any moment He had chosen?” —Uranda
URANDA: On this beautiful day, which gives promise of a springtime not too far away, let us meditate for a moment upon some of the principles that our Master revealed in relationship to this phase of our own progress along the way. The Master said, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do,” and that work which the Father gave was finished before that experience that was made necessary to our LORD by human imposition in the trial and the crucifixion. The work the Father gave Him to do was completed before that trial and before the crucifixion, for we have the Word from His own lips: “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” Why, then, was it necessary for Him to experience the mockery, the indignities of that trial, and the sufferings of the crucifixion? It was because man imposed those things upon our LORD. They were imposed by man’s rejection of the divine pattern.
The ill things that nullify the expression of the beautiful pattern of God’s design on earth are never God’s will. They are imposed by man’s rejection of that which God offers. The shame and the suffering, the indignities, are never the result of the divine pattern or of God’s will. They are the result of man’s denial and betrayal of his responsibilities, and they are imposed by that which man himself does. Very often those who consider themselves Christians, or who long to move along the spiritual path, are inclined to think: “If I had lived, if I had only had the privilege of living at that time when our Master Himself walked on earth, I would not have been among those who were scattered so quickly from that vast throng who were shouting, ‘Hosanna to the king.’ I would not have been like Peter, denying, or like Judas, betraying, nor like the others who followed afar off, for I would have appreciated my privilege and opportunity. And, cost what it might, I would have been among those who stood at the foot of the cross.” So many have felt that way—perhaps they would not express it in so many words.
Yet today, in this hour and in all the hours to come, we have the same privilege of remaining true, the same privilege of standing at the foot of the cross, the same privilege of proving the reality of our love and our trust. The passage of the centuries has not denied us any privilege that we might have had then, with the one exception of seeing the physical form through which our LORD was manifest. And He said of those who lived then, that for their sakes it was expedient that He should go away; and if it was expedient for them, there is nothing taken from us, because we do not have the privilege, as our minds might think of it, of seeing Him in physical form. It is expedient for us that He so arranged the divine pattern.
So, let us examine something of what happened and see if we can gain a deeper conviction of that which is necessary to ourselves, that we may come to a recognition that it is not what we feel out of the subconscious heart or mind, it is not what we feel externally, that is properly the directing force in our lives. It is what we see and recognize and realize with the conscious mind to be the truth of the matter, for the mind which is allowing the spirit of God to work in it is stronger than any feeling that can come surging up from the subconscious. It is stronger than any idea that may be buried somewhere in the subterranean phases of the mind. It is stronger than any current of feeling that may be imposed from the outside.
What you feel is beside the point. As long as the conscious mind continues to yield to the impulses that come from a distorted subconscious mind or heart, as long as it yields to the currents of feeling or action from without, it is saying, “I am not a guardian angel. I am not fortified by the spirit of God. I am a weak thing and I must of needs acknowledge the extent of my weakness and say that God cannot serve me because I am subject to all of these ill things.” He who says that betrays our LORD, as surely as Judas betrayed Him. He denies, as surely as Peter did, and he is not even following afar off. He is scattered into the darkness, hiding in the alleyways, lest someone see and say, “Are you not one of those who followed Him?”
Let us see what happened at the time of our Master. He had finished the work that God gave Him to do, but certain things were imposed upon Him. In either case, He was going away, as far as His physical form was concerned. But do you think He could cause His body to be changed more easily after all this humiliating experience than otherwise? He could have ascended without the suffering, the crucifixion and those days in the tomb. Man imposed that upon Him and made it necessary. Sometimes people ask a question and say, “But did not the prophets say He would have to die? Does not the Bible say there could be no salvation except as His blood was shed, etc.?” I grant you that after this experience was all over, certain ones developed some ideas with respect to it. And in the pattern of prophecy in the Old Testament you will find those things which recognized not only the possibility but the probability of the manner in which man would function. But because it worked out the way it did, the human interpretation has been on the basis of one idea only; and there has been a complete failure to recognize the fact that an alternate path, the ideal path, was foretold just as surely, as definitely, if man would have allowed it to have meaning.
That which was of God’s design was revealed by the prophets much more abundantly than those comparatively obscure texts that recognized the probability of what man would do. Because man did fail, the texts that relate to that possibility are picked out and held up as what was prophesied. And it is not so at all, because God’s provision of the pathway did not require that Jesus should die. It was human beings that condemned our LORD to the indignities of the trial, so-called, and to the sufferings of the cross. God did not require it. From God’s standpoint, it was not necessary, and I can take the book cover to cover and show you how the pattern was revealed there. Let us examine it.
The idea of the shedding of the blood, from the standpoint of the spear in the side and the nails in His hands and feet, is supposed to have had some particularly efficacious result—that God, being a hardhearted something-or-other, would not accept the salvation of a single man, woman, or child unless His own Son should physically bleed. Anyone who stops to consider that which is revealed of God in the Bible will recognize that that is so completely out of character that there is no reasonable excuse for any person believing it. It is completely out of character. The blood is the symbol of life. He had shed His blood, in the true sense, before He ever reached the agonies of Gethsemane or the sufferings of the cross. He had shed His life upon the earth. He had shed the currents of His life in the revelation of Deity. He had revealed the principles of life. He had given His life to the revelation of the things of God, and He Himself said before any of these things took place, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” There was a recognition that certain things were yet to be faced because of what man had imposed upon Him, but it was not the divine plan or purpose or necessary from the standpoint of God, as if He were a bloodthirsty being who demanded that blood be shed. No. That is not the character of God. It was not the plan or purpose of God. And the only reason why our Master accepted that outworking was because man imposed it upon Him.
Who imposed it upon Him particularly? Who among men? Herod or Pilate or the power of the Caesars? Oh, no. Who imposed it upon Him? His disciples were the ones who imposed that upon Him. It is true. They simply accepted the focalization of the world in the hour of stress, rather than remaining true to their focalization in Him. But consider if the hour of crisis had come and all twelve of the disciples had remained steady. There are those who say Judas, poor creature, was predestined to do it; someone had to do it in order for God’s plan to be fulfilled. Someone on earth had to be a traitor and betray our LORD! Oh, no. God is out of character the moment anyone begins to conceive such an idea. God never predestined anyone to be a traitor or to betray the things of God, let alone the Son of God! Judas did not have to betray Him. It was not necessary; it was not a part of the divine plan. It was a part of human failure.
Consider. If it had worked out according to that which God had made available to them, if according to God’s true plan there had been a following through—of course the Master knew, particularly toward the last, that they were not going to hold when the crisis came; but, even so—suppose Judas had not betrayed Him, suppose Peter had not been of that type who would deny Him, suppose twelve men had stood faithful and true to their LORD on earth—twelve men, not one wavering, not one breaking in the face of the crisis—then His Body on earth, the body of these twelve men who were supposed to be the key men of the Christ Body which should fill the earth, holding steady, would have allowed Him to carry out God’s plan. Not from the standpoint of continued work on earth in the sense of His doing it, but His doing it through the members of His Body—the very principles He had outlined to them such a few hours before, the principles and Laws that He had expounded to them over and over again through the three and a half years of His ministry with them. But if that Body, the focalization of the Body in twelve men, would have held the pattern, hundreds and thousands who had received blessings at His hand, who had cried “Hosanna to our king,” would have stood if the twelve disciples had stood. And there would have been a Body on earth.
He who had moved among men before and disappeared at will prior to that time—do you not think that, if His disciples had been holding steady, He could have disappeared in any moment He had chosen? Could humanity have heaped the indignities of the cross or mockery of the trial upon Him? No. Why did He accept that imposition? The Body that He had been building through the years of ministry died, scattered first—the scattering of the disciples. When they broke, when they slept in Gethsemane instead of watching with Him one little hour, when they slept, when He came to face the final pattern, of course the LORD would not have suffered as He did—even in Gethsemane—had this pattern been holding properly. Because already Judas had gone out to betray, His body had started to decay and die, the body of His disciples. That body of the disciples was scattered, brought to the point of death before His physical body as a man was brought to the point of the crucifixion.
If that body of twelve disciples had remained steady and true, no power on earth could have touched Him, because then the victory would have been assured without His going through what He did. The same truths would have been revealed in the outworking of the cycles of time, but there would have been a Body established—twelve key points, with others rallying around vibrationally. And if they had sought to touch Him, whether He would have used spiritual power to prevent it or whether He would have disappeared is beside the point. That would have been for Him to choose and it is not for me to speculate upon, but they could not have touched Him. That we know. If the body He had built, or undertaken to build—the Body of many members—had held true, His physical body would not have had to be on the cross. But on the cross of spiritual creative activity, the crossing between heaven and earth, there would have been a revelation of divine power that would have carried through effectively and saved man centuries of suffering, sorrow, misery and death. The Body would have been complete and this world would have been restored already.
It is not until after this plan had failed to carry through that we have the prophetic portrayal, for instance in Revelation, of that which should yet be done. Because in Isaiah, and many other places, there is mention made: “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” That is part of the prophecy of what was divinely ordained for the time when Jesus Christ should come on earth, that which could have been, but man prevented it. Man spoiled the pattern of God, so there was a divine reorganization and a re-projection of the same goal under a new pattern. Not all was lost, it is true. Our Master had finished the work. He had revealed Deity, established the truth on earth, set the pattern. And somewhere there would be those who would follow through, those who would not be so quick to betray for thirty pieces of silver or their own human desires. (Emphasis added)
I wonder how many of you know why Judas betrayed, what the working of his mind was. . . .
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Credits: Great Cosmic Story blog, David Barnes, Author
Until my next post . . .
Be love. Be loved.
~Anthony
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