Not Left Alone
Jesus knew what He was and what was coming, and He carried it by trusting the Father who did not leave Him alone.
Scripture shows this in five steps:
It all comes together in Luke 23:46.
Underneath it all lies Psalm 22:24.
Jesus knew He was going to the cross. How did He carry that? Some say His calm came from being God, and His fear came from being man, as if He were two in one. But it is one man who speaks in every one of these verses. He knew what was coming, and He carried it by trusting that His Father was with Him.
John 8:28
“Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.”
John 8:28
“I am he”: the Messiah. And He tells the very men who will put Him on the cross that they will lift Him up. He is not guessing. He knows. And in the same breath He says, “I do nothing of myself.” He does not lean on His own power.
John 8:29
“And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.”
John 8:29
This is the heart of the chain. Knowing the cross was coming, what did He hold on to? Not His own strength. He held on to this: the One who sent me is with me. The Father has not left me alone.
John 16:32
“Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.”
John 16:32
The same words again, on the last night. This time He says them to His friends, a few hours before the garden. They are about to run away. Every person He could lean on will be gone. But He is not alone, because the Father is with Him.
I am one of those friends. I would have run too.
Matthew 26:39, 42
“And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”
Matthew 26:39
“He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.”
Matthew 26:42
Now the trust is tested under the full weight. “His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). He knew He was the Lamb, and still He asked if the cup could pass. Only a man asks that.
Listen to how the prayer changes. First: “let this cup pass.” Then: “if this cup may not pass… thy will be done.” Knowing what was coming did not make it easy. Trusting His Father is what carried Him through.
Hebrews 5:7
“Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared…”
Hebrews 5:7
This is how the Bible itself explains the garden. “In the days of his flesh.” “Strong crying and tears.” “And was heard.” The cup was not taken away. And still He was heard. The Father did not keep Him from death. He saved Him out of it.
Psalm 22:24
“For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.”
Psalm 22:24
On the cross Jesus cried the first line of this psalm: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). That cry is hard, and we do not claim to know all it means. But the same psalm answers itself: God did not hide His face, and when he cried, He heard. And even in that cry, Jesus still says “my God.” He is still trusting Him.
So two witnesses say the same thing: the psalm and the letter to the Hebrews. The Father heard the man who trusted Him.
Luke 23:46
“And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.”
Luke 23:46
His last breath is the same trust one last time. He gives His spirit to the Father who had not left Him alone. Peter says He “committed himself to him that judgeth righteously” (1 Peter 2:23).
What this means
He knew what He was. He knew what was coming. And He carried it by trusting the Father who did not leave Him alone.
The calm of John 8 and the agony in the garden are not two natures. They are one man’s trust: spoken, said again, kept, heard, and finished. God is not sent, and God needs no one to be with Him. When Jesus said “Before Abraham was, I am,” He was not claiming to be God. He meant the opposite. He was the man the Father sent and did not leave.
And what the Father was to Him, He is to me. “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5). Whatever is coming, God is with me.
Connected chains
This cluster is built on The One God Is the Father and The Two Gardens. It also goes hand in hand with Before Abraham Was, I Am.