Article April 22, 1916 Issue

"Thy will be done"

REV. JAMES J. ROME

In all ages the human heart that could turn from the turmoil of mortal sense and with faith in the divine control could say in sincerity, "Not my will, but thine, be done," has derived much comfort and solace even when believing that the suffering was directed or permitted by divine wisdom. Too often, however, the seeming comfort has resulted from the fact that a spirit of rebellion has been displaced by one of fatalistic submission, somewhat in the sense that "what can't be cured must be endured." It is not until we can use the words with a true understanding of what the will of God really means, that we are enabled to derive therefrom the true sense of peace and harmony.

The passage of Scripture from which this expression is taken is that in which the sufferings of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane are described, and is generally interpreted to mean that these sufferings were in accordance with the divine will, that the cup was given him by the Father. There are few if any, nevertheless, who do not feel a sense of aversion to the thought of an infinite, loving God forcing upon His innocent Son the agony from which he prayed to be delivered. To say that divine law demands restitution for sin by the suffering of the innocent for the guilty, is to violate the highest sense of even human justice and subvert the plain teachings of the Scripture: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die," and "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." What, then, did the expression used by Jesus mean?

It is evident, of course, that it was the human sense of Jesus which cried out, the sense which was conscious of the presence of suffering and fear. This was not by any means fear of the physical pain, however, but his prescience of that struggle to which Paul refers in writing to the Ephesians, that "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places," and of which Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 50), "The real cross, which Jesus bore up the hill of grief, was the world's hatred of Truth and Love."

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