Just so our Lord says, lastly, " The cup which my Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it ? " (John xviii. 11.)
The brief prayer which our Lord here offers, we should remember, is the highest, greatest thing that we can ask God to do. The utmost reach of the renewed will of a believer is to be able to say always, "Father, glorify Thy name in Me. Do with Me what Thou wilt, only glorify Thy name." The glory of God after all is the end for which all things were created. Paul's joyful hope, he told the Philippiaus, when a prisoner at Rome, was " that in all things, by life or by death, Christ might be magnified in his body." (Philip i. 20.)
Rollock says : " This is the language of one who now forgets the agony and pain, remembers only His Father's glory, and desires it even together with His own passion and death."— He also remarks that the experience of God's saints in great trouble, is in a sense much the same. For a time they forget every- thing but present pain. By and by they rise above their suffer- ings, and remember only God's glory.
[Then came there a voice from heaven.'] This voice was un- doubtedly a great miracle. God the Father was heard speaking audibly with man's voice to the Son. Three t'mes in our Lord's ministry this miracle took place : first, at His baptism ; secondly, at His transfiguration; thirdly, just before His crucifixion. Rarely has the voice of God been heard by large crowds of un- converted men. Here, at Mount Sinai, and perhaps at our Lord's baptism, are the only three occasions on record.
Of course we can no more explain this wonderful miracle than any other miracle in God's Word. We can only reverently believe and admire it. The intimate nearness of the Father to the Son, all through His ministry, is one of the many thoughts which may occur to our minds as we consider the miracle. Our Lord was never left alone. His Father was alway with Him, though men knew it not. How could it be otherwise? So far as concerned His Divine nature, He and the Father were " one."
How any one, in the face of this passage, can deny that the Father and the Son are two distinct Persons, it is very hard to understand. When one person is heard speaking to another, common sense seems to point out that there are two persons, and not one.
Hammond maintains that there really was a loud clap of thunder, as well as a voice from heaven. Burkitt also seems to think the same, and compares it to the thunder which accompa- nied the giving of the law at Sinai.
[I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.'] This solemn sentence — far more solemn in the pithy and expressive Greek language than it can possibly be made in our translation — admits, as Augustine says, of being interpreted two ways.