Matthew 26:42

‘Again a second time he went away, and prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cannot pass away, except I drink it, your will be done.” '

Then Jesus moves away again and His words reveal that He is still fighting His way through to full understanding of His Father's will, which He now senses that He has almost reached. ‘If this cannot pass away except I drink it, your will be done.' This sums up His whole attitude as He prays. For Him His Father's will is primary. And it was vital that it should be so (see Hebrews 10:5). It was necessary that He be a willing and ready sacrifice. The cup of God's ‘wrath' (aversion to sin) must be drunk to the full of His own free choice. But it was not going to be easy.

The writer to the Hebrews puts it, ‘He learned obedience by the things that He suffered' (Hebrews 5:8), that is, He learned in experience what the pathway of obedience fully involved in its most difficult manifestation. None other could ever learn that lesson, for no other could ever reach the point where it was required. They would fall at the first hurdle in the same way as the disciples. We benefit from His full and unreserved obedience (Romans 5:19).

Here indeed we find the distinction between sovereignty and free will at its greatest. The One Who is sovereign over all things and is one with His Father in the predetermining of His death, must here yet freely choose to die.

‘Your will be done.' We have a reminder here of how Jesus carried out His own teaching (see Matthew 6:10, and compare Matthew 7:21; Matthew 12:50), although the slant is slightly different. It is possibly also significant that He has only just referred to deliverance from temptation (Matthew 26:41). The disciples are to pray that they might follow His example. But this is because these things are central to the godly life, not through any conscious connection with the Lord's prayer.