18. *No man taketh it away from me; but I lay it down of myself.* Christ declares that His death would be voluntary, because He would lay down His life _freely_. But a difficulty here presents itself. How was He free in laying down His life, if, as He declares, in the end of this same verse, He had a command from His Father to do so? Surely He was bound not to disobey that command, and thus bound to die, and so not free in dying? The difficulty then is to reconcile Christ’s freedom in dying with the Father’s command that He should die. Many answers have been given. (1) The command of the Father was not really a command or precept, but only a wish, with which Christ, without sinning, was free not to correspond. But this answer is commonly rejected by commentators and theologians, who hold that there was a strict command. Hence:— (2) Christ was commanded to redeem man, but not to die. He could have redeemed us in many other ways; therefore in choosing death as the way, He died freely. But it is replied to this that St. Paul tells us that Christ was _obedient even unto death_ (Phil. ii. 8), thereby implying that His death was commanded. (3) Christ was commanded to die, but was left free as to the manner and circumstances of His death, and therefore was free as to the actual death He underwent upon the cross. But it is again replied that St. Paul declares “He was obedient unto death, even the _death of the cross_” (Phil. ii. 8). (4) De Lugo and others hold that Christ’s freedom in dying consisted in the fact that He could have asked and obtained a dispensation from His Father. He freely chose not to ask a dispensation; therefore He died freely. (5) Franzelin inclines to the view that the will of the Father was merely a “beneplacitum,” a wish, until Christ freely accepted it, when it became a command: consequent, however, upon Christ’s free acceptance. Thus, in virtue of this free acceptance, Christ died freely, though having a command from His Father that He should die. (6) Lastly, there is the opinion of Suarez, who explains thus: Christ’s human will had, strictly speaking, the _power_ of resisting the will of God, and of sinning, and was therefore free: consequently, His human will was free in accepting the command to die, because, strictly speaking, it had the power to resist. No doubt this power could never be reduced to act in our Divine Lord, for the Second Divine Person, in virtue of its hypostatic union with Christ’s humanity, was bound to preserve His human will from sin by the operation of grace.