“Go to Dark Gethsemane” was written by James Montgomery (1771–1854) in Yorkshire, England, who was the son of Moravian parents. Montgomery wrote it in 1820 and revised it in 1825.
Stanzas 1 and 2:
Your Redeemer’s Conflict See
Go to dark Gethsemane,
You who feel the tempter’s pow’r;
Your Redeemer’s conflict see;
Watch with Him one bitter hour;
Turn not from His griefs away;
Learn of Jesus Christ to pray.
Follow to the judgment hall;
View the Lord of life arraigned;
O the worm-wood and the gall!
O the pangs His soul sustained!
Shun not suff’ring, shame, or loss;
Learn of Him to bear the cross.
We are invited into the unfathomable mystery of Gethsemane, where the final act of submissive and loving righteousness was completed by Jesus, Son of David. Hebrews describes “dark Gethsemane” as the time Jesus offered prayers and petitions with bitter cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death.
In accord with His worshipful fear in loving submission, the Father responded to the prayer with divine strength, enforced motivation, and perspective on final victory through this suffering. In these hours of struggle, Jesus perfected righteousness and went forth as the “author of eternal salvation” for those who obey the call of the gospel (Heb. 5:7–9).
Trial Before God, Trial Before Men
Verse one records the trial before the Father and verse two the trial before men. Verse one reminds us of the “tempter’s pow’r” and the “Redeemer’s conflict.” By Satan, not by any propensity to sin, temptation came in wave upon wave of the fallen angel’s deceitful reasoning. Jesus was tempted in all points as we are (Heb. 4:15) and even with greater force. Satan exhausted his power and skill of temptation on Christ, one stratagem after another, one round of rationalization after another, for Jesus never yielded. Satan held before Him the exquisite power of divine vengeance, for Satan knew something of it.
The “tempter’s pow’r” was focused with all the cunning the former “light bearer” could muster. The “bitter hour” in which His disciples slept was filled with heightened realization of His personal knowledge — even greater than the darkest picture Satan could present. Jesus faced a propitiatory experience, suffering the wrath due to those the Father had given Him by covenant before the world began, a covenant resident in the eternal righteousness of the triune God.
This was a deep and bitter conflict, a grief-producing, blood-sweating conflict of soul in which a loving submission to the Father’s wrath on behalf of others was irrevocably achieved.
The High Cost
Jesus was committed to it from the beginning (Luke 2:49; Matt. 3:15; Mark 10:45), but in these moments sensed in His true humanity, more than ever, the cost. He weighed the cost of retreating against the cost of proceeding and knew that the first was indescribably grievous but the second was infinitely more glorious.
He avoided ultimate evil by submitting to eternal righteousness. “My Father,” He said in loving submission, “if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done” (Matt. 26:42). Under the sway of internal voices that reason with us to avoid rejection and suffering “for the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:8), entering into Christ’s sufferings (Phil. 3:10), we should fearfully and joyously (Heb. 12:2) “learn of Jesus Christ to pray.”
The Judgment Hall
We are whisked away now (verse two) to the “judgment hall.” The Creator, the Giver and Sustainer of Life, and the Hope of eternal life now is placed before cruel, cowardly, and unjust judges. Arraigned before this kangaroo court, He is treated as guilty though He alone among them is without fault.
Struck in the face, beard pulled out, flesh-ripping flogging, crowned with piercing thorns — pangs of body and soul thrust upon Jesus by His creatures, sinful rebels against His law, in moments of the greatest bitterness that the world ever has seen.
Without murmuring and restrained from vengeance for the time, He feels within the cruel pain inflicted by men the increasing descent of wrath from the Father. This unjust treatment at the hands of men pictures by preview that He soon will die “the just for the unjust,” bearing our sin “in His own body” on the tree of crucifixion (1 Pet. 2:24, 3:18).
What an irony that the most unjust treatment and execution ever committed in the history of moral action becomes that which establishes God as “just and the justifier!” (Rom. 3:26). From Christ, in a righteous gospel cause, we learn to bear the cross of “suff’ring, shame, and loss.” Sing it with conviction, meditation, and fearful submission.
Stanzas 3 and 4:
The Work Finished, the Tomb Empty
Calv’ry’s mournful mountain climb
There’ adoring at His feet,
Mark the miracle of time,
God’s own sacrifice complete:
“It is finished!” Hear the cry;
Learn of Jesus Christ to die.
Early hasten to the tomb
Where they laid his breathless clay;
All is solitude and gloom;
Who hath taken Him away?
Christ is ris’n! He meets our eyes:
Savior, teach us so to rise.
Christ has been tried by God and men. In the first, He is declared perfect; in the second, He is declared guilty. Now Montgomery leads us to the place of joining these two opposing verdicts. We climb with Christ to the place of human execution and divine vengeance.
In either case, for this innocent One the scene is “mournful.” Callousness, cruelty, and ridicule all around, we lay aside these appearances for we know that He is to be adored and worshipped.
He is lifted up and we are closest to His nailed feet — bloody, the blood that brings us near and makes us bow (Eph. 2:13). That such a death in time, within six hours of bleeding, slow-dying, and unseen just vengeance, could produce eternal life is certainly a “miracle of time” that we must mark, revisit, perpetually, and contemplate endlessly.
Look at Christ and Learn to Die
The sacrifice of His humanity offered on the altar of His deity made the sacrifice effectual for the purpose of forgiveness, justification, eventual full holiness, and eternal blessedness. Don’t let it slip from your wonder and affections: “Mark the miracle of time” that in those hours of deepening bitterness and gall, God’s own sacrifice was complete, the work of eternity done in time.
God’s wrath ceased its descent into His soul and body, so the Lamb of God said, in a loud voice, “It is finished.” From His death we may learn to die without sting or fear. Viewing Calvary, adoring at His feet, hearing His confident voice of finality give us liberty to die with confidence. “There is therefore now no condemnation,” for who is he who condemns when Christ has died? Look at Christ and learn to die.
He Is Not There
To the tomb we rush, desiring to honor the body of our deceased Lord. As soon as the Sabbath rest is over, we go; there we find … nothing — the tomb is empty. How did breathless clay so soon disappear from its tomb? Did the soldiers take Him away? Did the gardener? How is it possible that the Beloved’s body is no longer here, and on the third day since He was laid here and wrapped for burial?
We are distraught that we cannot honor Him. “Where have you laid Him,” we ask. He calls our name! “Christ is risen! He meets our eyes.” Now we remember that He told us this would happen: “On the third day be raised to life” (Matt. 16:31, 20:19; Mark 8:31, 9:9, 10:34, 14:28; Luke 18:33, 24:7). Eyewitnesses in abundance verify the veracity of this prophecy (1 Cor. 15:1–8) and its theological connections are vital (1 Cor. 15:12–34). If there is no resurrection, then the wages of sin remain unpaid.
Dead Is Dead
“Savior, teach us so to rise.” Teach us that if we are buried with Him, for He has died for us, then we are risen to walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4). We are dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ.
Teach us that we must strive, even in this life, to attain to the holiness and purity of worship that we will have when we attain the resurrection of the dead (Phil. 3:11). When that time comes, He will “transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21).
— Tom J. Nettles taught church history for more than 40 years in Southern Baptist seminaries, including 25 at Southern Seminary in Louisville. He is the author of many important books on church history and historical theology including Baptists and the Bible, By His Grace and For His Glory, and most recently Baptist History for Kids, published by Courier Publishing.