The Saviour’s standard
Our Lord spoke of His Father’s will several times in chapters 4 to 6 of John’s gospel. His statements reveal that will to be of paramount importance.
His food
First, He told His disciples in chapter 4 that God’s will was, metaphorically speaking, His food. When the disciples queried, “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?”, Jesus responded, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work” (vv. 33-34). And so, having spoken earlier to the Samaritan woman about water which she could never draw from the well at Sychar (vv. 10-14), Jesus spoke to His disciples about food which they could never buy in the city of Sychar (vv. 8,31-34). He had drawn His nourishment and satisfaction from a higher source—that of performing His Father’s will by ministering spiritual help to the needy Samaritan woman.1
His goal
But His Father’s will was not only His food. It was, He told the Jews of Jerusalem in chapter 5, His goal and His object in life. Having spoken to them of His God-given right to judge all men (vv. 22-27), He asserted, “As I hear [from God, that is], I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me” (v. 30). No assessment or judgment He pronounced was ever warped or tainted by self-interest or any personal considerations. Every judgment He pronounced He had first heard passed by the Father, and His perfect submission to His Father’s will was therefore the guarantee of the fairness and equity of His judgment.
His purpose
But His Father’s will was not only His food and His goal. It was, He informed the Jews of Galilee in chapter 6, His very purpose for leaving heaven (v. 38). He had just told them, “You have seen Me and yet do not believe” (v. 36). Did this mean that His ministry and mission would therefore prove fruitless and fail? Far from it! For He added, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me [‘will reach Me’, ‘will arrive with Me’2], and the one who comes to Me [‘the one on the way to Me’3] I will by no means cast out” (v. 37). He then gave the reason why He could never reject those who came: “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day” (vv. 38-39).
The very fact that He had come to carry out God’s will ruled out any possibility that He could ever discard even one of those whom the Father had given to Him for safekeeping. Here lay the absolute guarantee of their eternal security—and of ours!
His delight
Given that it was when “entering the world” that our Lord said, “I have come…to do Your will, O God,” we are not surprised to find that His first recorded utterance on the earth (spoken at the age of twelve to His mother in the temple court at Jerusalem) was “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Fathers business? [literally ‘that I must be in the things of My Father’; occupied with His affairs]” (Lk. 2:49). On four occasions, the Lord Jesus spoke of His Father’s will for Him in terms of His Father’s commandment (Jn. 10:18; 12:49; 14:30; 15:10). He made it clear that it was in obedience to His Father’s commandment that He laid down His life (Jn. 10:17-18). It was, as the writer to the Hebrews noted, “By that will,” which our Lord had come to do, that “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. 10:7-10).
Not My will, but Yours
In the Garden of Gethsemane, our Lord anticipated His horrific suffering. Matthew tells us that He “ fell on His face, and prayed, saying, ‘O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.’4 Then He came to the disciples…Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, ‘O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done’” (Mt. 26:39-42).
The olive trees of Gethsemane knew Him well. John tells us in his gospel that our Lord “often met there with His disciples” (Jn. 18:2). But those gnarled, twisted trees had never heard such prayers as these before, nor would they ever again.
The Saviour had used the very same words, “Your will be done,” on a previous occasion. “In this manner, therefore, pray,” He had said, “Our Father in heaven…Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt. 6:9-10). Oh yes, the One who had come down from heaven knew how perfectly His Father’s will was done in heaven. But He also knew that the fulfilling of that will (by Him or by any other, whether on earth or in heaven) had never proved so costly as it would then. And yet, knowing all this, our glorious Lord aligned Himself with the Father’s will.
It is not difficult to contrast our Lord’s submission to God’s will in Gethsemane with the first man’s rejection of God’s will in another garden. We have the highest authority for doing so. The apostle Paul drew out the contrast clearly: “As through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:18-19).
In effect, Adam said to God, “Not what You will, but what I will”, and proceeded to ratify his decision at a tree (that of the knowledge of good and evil), with devastating consequences, not only for himself, but for all linked with him, bringing condemnation and death to the entire human race. But our Lord Jesus reversed that decision, saying, “Not what I will, but what You will” (Mk. 14:36). He also proceeded to ratify His decision at a tree, walking the path of obedience all the way to death, even death on a cross, thereby securing the most blessed consequences for all linked by faith with Him, bringing justification and life to them all…to us all!
Endnotes
1 “To listen to the Father’s voice and to do His will were the joy and the strength of His life,” F. F. Bruce, The Gospel and Epistles of John (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983), p. 113.
2 The verb heko means “to arrive,” “to be present.” “In the papyri it means ‘to come to,’ ‘to reach’,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, volume 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1974), p. 926.
3 The present participle of erchomai.
4 It is possible to see something of the sin offering in the opening clause, and something of the burnt offering in the second. “Jesus bent to accept the chalice of suffering from which [He] could not but shrink,” H.P. Liddon, The Divinity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing), p. 263.