Jesus’ statement “Not my will, but yours be done” in Luke 22:42 comes from the account of His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane shortly before His arrest and crucifixion. This single verse provides great insight into Jesus’ obedience to God the Father and His willingness to carry out God’s will even in the face of immense suffering.
To fully understand the significance of this statement, it is important to look at the context surrounding it in Luke 22. Jesus had just shared the Last Supper with His disciples and predicted Peter’s denial. Afterward, He went with His disciples to the Mount of Olives and specifically to the Garden of Gethsemane, where He frequently went to pray (Luke 22:39). He asked His disciples to pray that they would not fall into temptation, warning them that His betrayal was near. Then Jesus went off from them about a stone’s throw away to pray by Himself.
Jesus’ prayer in the garden is recounted in Luke 22:41-44. Verse 41 says that Jesus “knelt down and prayed.” This posture of kneeling indicates Jesus’ humility and submission before God. The content of His prayer, which begins in verse 42, reveals the depth of Jesus’ anguish and suffering as He looked ahead to the cross: “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”
In making this prayer, Jesus was facing something intense and distressing. He frankly shared His desire to avoid the suffering of the cross, which is represented figuratively as the “cup” of God’s wrath. Jesus had foretold of His sacrificial death, but now the hour of His suffering was imminent. In a very human moment, He expressed His anguished desire for the “cup” to pass from Him.
At the same time, Jesus submitted Himself fully to His Heavenly Father’s will. He prayed, “Yet not My will, but Yours be done.” This crucial statement reveals a central aspect of Jesus’ identity and mission. Although He was God in the flesh, Jesus lowered Himself to live in complete obedience to the Father and to carry out God’s perfect and redemptive plan.
There are several important reasons why Jesus prayed as He did and declared His commitment to the Father’s will:
1. To provide an example of obedience
One key purpose behind many of Jesus’ actions was to leave an example for His followers. His prayer in Gethsemane is a practical demonstration of what wholehearted obedience to God looks like even in the face of extreme difficulty and trial. Throughout His ministry, Jesus stressed the importance of surrendering one’s will to God. In John 6:38, He stated that He came “down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” His prayer in the Garden echoes and embodies this posture of obedience.
2. To show His humanity
Although Jesus was fully divine, He was also fully human. His honest expression of the desire to avoid suffering if possible revealed His human emotions and aversion to pain. But even with His human fears and distress, Jesus still chose complete obedience to the Father’s plan. His prayer expressed the tension between His two natures but showed that His divinity and humanity were both directed toward the Father’s will.
3. To provide strength in temptation
Jesus knew His disciples would face temptations and trials of many kinds. By demonstrating His own struggle, grief, and surrender in the Garden, He provided an example of persevering through temptation by fixing one’s eyes on obedience to God above all else. His willingness to accept the cross would then provide the way for believers to find strength to overcome temptation through His finished work.
4. To teach dependence on God
Although Jesus was God Himself, He modeled what it looks like for humans to depend on their Heavenly Father through prayer. His anguished prayer and cry for relief in the garden demonstrated that He truly felt the weight of all that awaited Him on the cross. As fully man, Jesus experienced the same need for divine strength. His example reminds believers to bring their own fears, desires, and wills before God and surrender them to His perfect will and plan.
5. To confirm His messianic identity
On multiple occasions Jesus directly tied His pending death on the cross to His identity as the promised Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. By demonstrating His willingness to suffer and die in fulfillment of Scripture, Jesus confirmed His identity. His prayer in Gethsemane reiterated His commitment to complete His mission as the suffering servant who would bear the sins of many (Isaiah 53:11-12).
Jesus knew that His arrest, trial, suffering and crucifixion must happen in order to accomplish God’s redemptive plan. His prayer in the garden revealed His anguish at the immense cost of salvation, yet also His resolute commitment to secure that salvation through obedience. There was simply no other way for the redemption of sinners than for the sinless Son of God to offer Himself up in their place. So in humility and submission, Jesus surrendered His own human will to the Father’s perfect and loving will.
In summary, Jesus’ statement “Not my will, but yours, be done” provides profound theological insight into Christ’s identity, His relationship to the Father, and His mission to suffer and die on the cross in absolute obedience to God’s will. His prayer in Gethsemane offers encouragement and strength to all believers as they follow Christ’s example of surrendering their own desires to the perfect, loving purposes of God.