Richard made a nice pickup in Bible study tonight. We were looking at the cross as it reveals what’s going on in the Trinity, working our way through Matthew 26.
In the Garden, of course, Jesus prays ‘Not my will but yours’. He submits his own desire to please the Father he loves. This, we kind of expect. He’s a good Son.
But the fact that he prays it is suggestive. Could he have been more insistent and got out of the crucifixion? Would the Father have honoured such a request?
The answer comes soon afterwards. v. 53:
Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?
The Son could, it seems. And the Father would. The Father would submit his own desire to please the Son he loves.
It’s a marvellous moment – when we realise that the Son is prepared to serve the Father, just as the Father is prepared to serve the Son. Not for our sake (though this is also true!), but for the sake of the other.
Either of them could pull the pin. The other would submit to it. And the world, the whole of creation, would miss its moment and be lost.
But neither did, because neither willed it. The love within the Godhead spills over into a love for that which lies outside the Godhead.
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