trembllDg, under the apprehension of the wrath of His Father, that we must have done. And as an imputed sin drew with it the obligation to punishment, so it did by necessary consequences, raise all those storms and compassions in the soul of Christ, as it would have done in the person of a sinner, sin only excepted."
[His sweat.., great drops of blood.] It is observed by all the 1)e8t commentators, that there is good medical evidence that such a mixture of blood and sweat as that here recorded, can take place, and has taken place, in cases of great mental and bodily distress.
It is worthy of remark, that St. Luke is the only one of the four evangelists who mentions the circumstance now before us, and that he was himself a physician.
Theophylact observes, that this bloody sweat is one among many strong evidences that our Lord's body was a real body, like our's, with flesh, blood, and all other things pertaining to man's constitution. He observes also, that it supplies an un- answerable argument against the heresy of those who maintained that our Lord's body was only a seeming, or " phantastic " body, but not a real one.
An unworthy question has been started by some as to the manner in which St. Luke knew of this bloody sweat, when our Lord was manifestly alone at the time of its occurrence. And we are gravely told, as a solution of the supposed difficulty, that probably " the marks of such drops would be visible after the termination of the agony ! " Questions like this are calculated to strike a blow at the root of all inspiration. If we are not to suppose the Gospel writers recorded anything except what they obtained from eye-witnesses, or saw with their own eyes, we shall take a miserably low view of the real nature of the inspiration of Scripture. We need not doubt that in this, and many other instances, St. Luke simply wrote down what was revealed to him by the Holy Ghost, and that in supplying or withholding facts in our- Lord's history, he was not dependent on mere human information, but was entirely guided by God.
The whole subject of this verse and the preceding one will be found very fully and ably discussed in the Commentary of Calovius, the Lutheran commentator.
45. — [Sleeping for sorrow.'] Let it be noted here, that St. Luke is the only evangelist who mentions the cause of the disciples being asleep. Flesh and blood cannot endure much either of sorrow or joy, without giving way. The same three who slept in Geth- semane were the three who slept at the transfiguration.
46. — [Rise and pray.] Bengel remarks here with much shrewdness, that a standing posture of the body is best suited for overcoming drowsiness in prayer.