This episode presents John 17 as the true “Lord’s Prayer,” prayed by Jesus the night before His crucifixion in the upper room, contrasting it with the model prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 that was given as a pattern for Israel during the future Tribulation. In this latter petition, Jesus first asks the Father to glorify the Son through His coming death and resurrection, granting eternal life to those the Father has drawn to Him under the gospel of the kingdom. He then prays specifically for His disciples’ protection, unity, sanctification, and fullness of joy, while extending the same requests to all future believers who will come to faith through the disciples’ word, so that the world may believe in Him.

The second part of this series contrasts the Garden of Eden—where the first Adam disobeyed God, choosing his own will and bringing sin and death to all humanity—with the Garden of Gethsemane, where the last Adam (Jesus) submitted to the Father’s will, taking the cup of divine wrath and the cross to bring deliverance and victory over sin. Deeply sorrowful, Jesus prays three times in agony, first asking “if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me,” then resolving “nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt” and “Thy will be done.” He then awakens the sleeping disciples as the betrayer Judas arrives, and then advances forward in perfect obedience to face the cross, where God’s love and justice meet in His substitutionary death for our sins.

This lesson describes the betrayal and arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Judas leads a large force of Roman soldiers and temple officers to seize Jesus, whom Judas identifies with a kiss. Jesus, the great “I AM” who spoke to Moses at the burning bush, voluntarily steps forward, declares “I am,” and the entire armed band is knocked backward to the ground by the power of His name. Despite Jesus’s effort to protect His disciples (“let these go their way”), Peter impulsively draws a sword and cuts off the ear of the high priest’s servant, but Jesus rebukes Peter, heals the ear, and willingly submits to be bound, declaring He must drink the cup the Father has given Him, laying down His life in obedience and love so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.