Could Jesus have refused to go to the cross?

In your description you said:

As the God-man, could Jesus have refused to go to the cross?

The short answer to this is, Yes of course He could have refused. As a God of love no forcing of the will exists in Him and He does not expect this of His Son. He does not force His Son in any way. My reasons for saying this are, among other things, informed by the typology of the crucifixion as found in Gen. 22.

It is clear that Isaac had to willingly offer himself. No young man of his age would have allowed himself to be bound to an altar by a weak old man like Abraham would have been at this point in the story.

You then said:

If he could have, then wouldn't that mean that he disobeyed the Father and would have sinned which would have been against his very nature? Would that have meant that the triune God would've been broken?

Here is where it may get tricky for some to understand. There are two things that could have happened here - the one would not have been a sin and the other would.

1. Jesus would not have sinned if He simply chose to not go to the cross for us, for the same reason that it is not an offense of the law if you decide not to pay someone else's traffic fine. The law will still demand that the penalty be paid by the offender. It will not come after the one who wanted to step in and pay it on the offender's behalf but who, for some reason, decided not to.

If Jesus decided not to die on the cross, we would be damned indeed. Damned to the bondage of Satan with no hope of escape.

2. Jesus would have sinned if, at any point in His life on earth as a human being, He cherished selfishness instead of unselfishness as the motive of any of His actions. If He did this, then the Godhead would have been broken up. Why? Because He would have chosen to operate on selfish principles instead of the unselfish principles that are the very nature of God.

Now you would say, But wouldn't it be selfish of Him to refuse to die on the cross for us? No, it wouldn't. Just as it is not selfish for a parent to decide not to serve the sentence of their child that got locked up for breaking the law. The parent is not required to do so BUT can do so from free choice.

The good thing about unselfishness is that it cannot be required (forced). It can only be allowed to intervene or not. If God did not intervene by dying on the cross, no one could accuse Him of being selfish. The fact that He did is what makes the gospel such good news - He did not have to - BUT HE DID!

You then said:

If he couldn't have, then he wouldn't have willingly gone to the cross but would have been forced to by God the Father. It wouldn't have a sacrifice out of love but out of obligation.

Exactly! I would add to this that if Christ was in any way forced to sacrifice Himself then the beauty of the gospel ceases because God is in no way obligated to us. This concept is what Jesus teaches in the parable of the unprofitable servants.

Could Jesus have refused to go to the cross?

The short answer is no.

Jesus’ human will was so united to that of the Divine Trinity that this would have been an impossibility.

It was the will of the Divine Trinity that Jesus should offer his life on the Cross in order to save mankind from sin and restore mankind to to grace and sanctifying grace. In no uncertain words , would Jesus have disobeyed the will of the Father.

In his human nature, Jesus feared what was about to happen, but he subjugated his will to that of the Father’s will. Although Jesus had not been crucified or resurrected, he still was united totally to the Holy Trinity and he already, in his human nature possessed the Beatific Vision.

Being a perfect Son, he was obedient unto death.

Jesus went the distance, despite the gearing of the bystanders to dare him to come down from the cross. Christ had a mission to complete and his love of the Father in his human nature knew no bounds.

The gospels contain an account of the time the disciples and Jesus spent in the Garden of Gethsemane, just before Jesus was arrested. In the garden Jesus prayed to his Father three times, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will”—the KJV says, “Let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39). A little later, Jesus prays, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done” (Matthew 26:42). These prayers reveal Jesus’ mindset just before the crucifixion and His total submission to the will of God.

The “cup” to which Jesus refers is the suffering He was about to endure. It’s as if Jesus were being handed a cup full of bitterness with the expectation that He drink all of it. Jesus had used the same metaphor in Matthew 20:22 when prophesying of the future suffering of James and John. When Jesus petitions the Father, “Let this cup pass from me,” He expresses the natural human desire to avoid pain and suffering.

Jesus is fully God, but He is also fully human. His human nature, though perfect, still struggled with the need to accept the torture and shame that awaited Him; His flesh recoiled from the cross. In the same context, Jesus says to His disciples, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mathew 26:41). In praying, “Let this cup pass from me,” Jesus was battling the flesh and its desire for self-preservation and comfort. The struggle was intense: Jesus was “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Matthew 26:38), and Luke the physician observed that Jesus was sweating blood—a sign of extreme anguish (Luke 22:44). If anything shows that Jesus was indeed fully man, this prayer is it.

Jesus knew of what was to come (see Mark 8:31). The agony He faced was going to be more than physical; it would be spiritual and emotional, as well. Jesus knew that God’s will was to crush Him, to allow Him to be “pierced for our transgressions” and wounded for our healing (Isaiah 53:5–10). Jesus loves mankind, but His humanity dreaded the pain and sorrow He faced, and it drove Him to ask His Father, “Let this cup pass from me.”

Jesus’ prayer to “let this cup pass from me” contains two important qualifications. First, He prays, “If it is possible.” If there was any other way to redeem mankind, Jesus asks to take that other way. The events following His prayer show that there was no other way; Jesus Christ is the only possible sacrifice to redeem the world (John 1:29; Acts 4:12; Hebrews 10:14; Revelation 5:9). Second, Jesus prays, “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Jesus was committed to the will of God, body, mind, and soul. The prayer of the righteous is always dependent on the will of God (see Matthew 6:10).

In Gethsemane, Jesus conquered the flesh and kept it in subjection to the spirit. He did this through earnest prayer and intense, willful submission to God’s plan. It is good to know that, when we face trials, Jesus knows what it’s like to want God’s will and yet not to want it; to act out of love yet dread the hurt that often results; to desire righteousness and obedience, even when the flesh is screaming out against it. This conflict is not sinful; it is human. Our Savior was “fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God” (Hebrews 2:17). He had come “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10), and He accomplished His mission, even though it meant drinking the cup of suffering to the bitter end. - Why did Jesus ask God to “let this cup pass from me”?

Jesus makes his unity with the Father quite clear: I and the Father are one.

• What did Jesus mean when He said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30)?

A massive distinction lives between "could have" and "would have". We can see by "Nevertheless, not my will but Yours be done" that a decision was made but not when it was made. His thrice repeated petition to remove this cup if there be any other way does not indicate a willingness to go against the Father's plan. Rather, "if there be" sounds more like Jesus making known, by prayer and petition, his requests (as Philippians 4 exhorts us).

True Jesus "could have" said, "I won't do it but, if there's any other way,...". But He did not express any negation of the Father's will and He "would not have" because, as He oft repeated, "I and the Father are one".

In Luke 9 we see Jesus' resolution:

And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem

And in Isaiah 50 we see similar language regarding the Lord's servant:

The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.

In eternal council God the Father sends God the Son. God the Son is willing because He and the Father are one. His face is set like a flint toward Jerusalem (and the cross) from the very beginning.

Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. - John 12:27-32

Those who would have the Son wrestling against the desire to disobey the Father in the garden of Gethsemame are conflating "could" with "would". "Could He have"? Sure, if the semantics are necessary for understanding choice and temptation. "Would He have"? Absolutely not for the choice was made long before there was a garden in Gethsemane.

His face is set like a flint to save His people! When was His decision made? From the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8).