Darkness for the Sinless One—Justification for the Guilty Ones - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2025

My Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from Me; but not as I will, but as Thou wilt.
Matthew 26:39

Darkness for the Sinless One—Justification for the Guilty Ones
These words which Christ uttered in prayer in Gethsemane, when His soul was very sorrowful and His sweat like great drops of blood, were recorded for at least two reasons. First, that we may have a glimpse of the agony which the Lord endured. He, the gentle One who never harmed anybody, was to suffer first at the hands of sinful men. He knew all in advance: the spitting, the slapping of His face, the beating of His head with a rod, the crown of thorns, the piercing of His hands and feet, and finally the hanging on the cross. How He felt was expressed prophetically in Psalm 22:14-15: "I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint: My heart is become like wax; it is melted in the midst of My bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd."

Yet the cup He prayed about was specifically those three hours of darkness when He, whose food was to do the will of the Father, He who was always doing and saying what the Father was doing and saying, who was never for a moment separated from Him, was now to be made sin for us. This was the cup that was most painful to His holy soul, and which He had to drink to the last drop during the three hours of darkness, after which He cried, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me."

Second, it was recorded that we all may know the answer: There was no substitute for the death of Christ. There was no other way to satisfy the demands of God's holiness and love. God can only justify the ungodly because He made Him who knew no sin to be our Substitute (Rom. 3:26; 4:5; 2 Cor. 5:21).

A. M. Behnam
Oh, day of deepest sorrow, day of unfathomed grief,When Thou didst taste the horror of wrath without relief.

J. N. Darby