Jesus Arrested
47 While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. 48 Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” 49 Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.
50 Jesus replied, “Friend, do what you came for.”
Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. 51 With that, one of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.
52 “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. 53 Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? 54 But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”
55 At that time Jesus said to the crowd, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I sat in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me. 56 But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.
Before the Sanhedrin
57 Those who had arrested Jesus took him to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the teachers of the law and the elders had assembled. 58 But Peter followed him at a distance, right up to the courtyard of the high priest. He entered and sat down with the guards to see the outcome.
59 The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death. 60 But they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward.
Finally two came forward 61 and declared, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’”
62 Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?”63 But Jesus remained silent.
The high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”
64 “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
65 Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. 66 What do you think?”
“He is worthy of death,” they answered.
67 Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists. Others slapped him 68 and said, “Prophesy to us, Christ. Who hit you?”
Peter Disowns Jesus
69 Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. “You also were with Jesus of Galilee,” she said.
70 But he denied it before them all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
71 Then he went out to the gateway, where another girl saw him and said to the people there, “This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth.”
72 He denied it again, with an oath: “I don’t know the man!”
73 After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, “Surely you are one of them, for your accent gives you away.”
74 Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, “I don’t know the man!”
Immediately a rooster crowed. 75 Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: “Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.
We cover a lot of ground in today's passage!
First Jesus' arrest which occurs immediately after His battle with temptation - over which He is victorious as always.
We see the betrayal by Judas. When you think of it, this must be one of the most painful moments of the entire crucifixion. It's one thing when your enemies mock you and hurt you. But to be betrayed by one of your closest friends, someone you've discipled day and night for 3 years, must have been absolutely heart wrenching.
We also see the desertion of all the remaining disciples - a direct result of what we talked about in yesterday's passage as they were overcome by temptation they had not prepared for.
Throughout the arrest, we see 3 forces at work - the forces of evil, the hatred of evil men and the plan of God.
Until this point, Satan was trying to prevent Jesus from going to the cross to perform His redemptive work. But now that Satan realizes it's inevitable, he changes course and now tries to make it as brutal as he can. I'm sure he enjoyed heaping abuse, mockery and pain on the God he wanted to overthrow. This was the hour for evil to reign, and I'm sure it was done with relish.
There was also the hatred of evil men. Judas, who betrayed Jesus so personally. The religious leaders who long ago had begun to conspire against Jesus and figure out a way to eliminate Him somehow, despite His popularity with the people. That's why the betrayal occurred at night, in private.
And yet, despite all the evil involved, amazingly this was all a part of God's holy redemptive plan. An excellent point from MacArthur....
what we're seeing here is the coming together of the plotting of hell, the coming together of the plan of God and the coming into that picture of the hatred of evil Christ-rejecting people of that time. And I want you to understand this, because it is the plan of God, in no way lessens the evil of hell's conspiracy and because it is the plan of God, in no way lessens the evil of the men who carried it off on earth. Their evil guilt is not mitigated at all. It is the plan of God but it is their will to do it. They have chosen to the compatriots of hell by their own volition. And so there's no elimination of guilt because this is God's plan, it is that God overrules their chosen evil to do His good work.
What's amazing is how blind these men are. From the other gospel accounts we know that when the crowd (of up to 1000!) came to arrest Jesus they all fell to the ground simply by the power of His presence. And when Peter cuts off the ear of Malchus (names not mentioned until John's much later writing - likely to protect Peter), Jesus creates a new one in it's place. And somehow, this does not give them pause to reconsider at all. Not at all. They are so consumed with evil that they are completely blind and unmoved by the power of Jesus.
Moving on to the trial by the Sanhedrin we see how low they had sunk because they broke every legal safeguard they had.
the supreme court of Israel was built on the premise that everyone in a trial is entitled to three things. One is a public trial, two is an opportunity for defense, and three, no conviction without the conformation of at least two or three witnesses. So the Sanhedrin guaranteed public trial, the right of defense and two or three witnesses before any conviction.
We also said that it was built into their laws that any false witness would pay the same penalty he sought for the one he witnessed against. That they could not prosecute, they could only try, so they couldn't be a kangaroo court. They built into their safeguard system also that no court could convene at night or in any other place than the Judgment Hall itself. That no courts could convene even in the late afternoon, lest justice be hurried up to get over before the day was ended...that no one could be executed the same day in which he was tried...that no trial for execution could be held on a feast day, or the day before a feast day, that there always had to be a day intervening, that all the votes had to be carefully counted, that no one could incriminate himself by giving testimony against himself which testimony could stand alone against him. All those were built-in safeguards. They violated every single one of them...every single one of them.
They, for one things, did not give Jesus a public trial. They held it privately. They did not give Him any defense. They brought no witnesses to speak on His behalf. They could not find two or more witnesses to convict Him of anything. They actually bribed false witnesses, contrary to their own system of punishing false witnesses. They were not allowed to prosecute, they did that. There was no prior prosecution. There was no arraignment. There was no indictment. There was no crime. They met in the middle of the night. They sentenced Him one day, executed Him the same day, and it was a day before a feast day...actually on a feast day. They met outside the Hall of Judgment and never bothered to count the votes. Every way you look at it, they violated their own laws.
A kangaroo court if there ever was one. They were so consumed by evil that they didn't even care that they were breaking every single law in order to convict and execute Jesus. And the fact that they condemned Him for blasphemy is the most ironic thing of them all.
And finally, we see Peter's denial of Jesus. Again, a result of yesterday's passage, with the spotlight on Peter specifically.
MacArthur (this is a bit long, but so powerful!)....
you ask yourself the question: how in the world could Peter ever sink to that depth? I mean, how could anybody ever do that? How can it happen?
Let me remind you very briefly. Here are the path...here are the footprints down the path. One, self-confidence, he felt he could handle anything. He could follow Christ anywhere. His own warm feeling and affection would be enough to make him able to handle any circumstance. It was self-confidence. He thought he could stand. And secondly, it was insubordination, the Lord told him twice and he denied it both times. He defied the Word of the Lord. He would not submit himself. He would not become subordinate to the Word of God. He didn't take the Word of God seriously. He rejected reproof. He ignored the voice of the living God...just like a believer who reads it and then goes out and ignores it. We're not invincible. We cannot defy the Word of God and survive. And the third step was prayerlessness. He slept instead of praying. He slept instead of watching for temptation. Spiritual neglect, he omitted an essential spiritual duty and that generated a downward impulse. Spiritual indifference leads to ruin, lack of prayer leads to disaster.
And then the next footprint in his path to disaster was independence. He acted on his own. He didn't need to seek God's will. He didn't need to ask the Lord what to do. He acted on his own. Therefore he got himself into situations that were disastrous to him. And finally, the fifth step was compromise. He followed Jesus in, he goes right into the lion's den, he sits by the fire, he mingles with the crowd that was the enemy of Christ. He reminds me of Psalm 1:1, "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful," remember that? He walked in, he stood around and finally he...what?...sat down. And he sat among the scornful. He took his place in a compromising way. Either he should have been where Christ was, not a far off, or he should have been gone from the temptation that he knew he wasn't able to handle. But to sit in the midst of the temptation and yet far enough from Christ not to be able to count on that resource was to be in the place of compromise.
Spiritual self-confidence, thinking you're invulnerable, insubordination, prayerlessness, independence leads to compromise. If you think you can handle every situation, you're going to get into some situations, believe me, you can't handle. And that's where he was. And that led to defeat. The darkest hour in human history, this was the hour of the power of darkness, hell was running at full tilt, the forces of demons and the enemy were going at all their power and Peter was no match for this in the flesh...no match. And we shudder. And frankly we wouldn't be too shocked if he just went out and hanged himself like Judas, but he didn't.
And may I say something to you that's the key to this whole message? The true Peter is seen not in his denial but in his repentance. Did you get that? The true Peter is seen not in his denial, but in his repentance. We don't ask the question whether Judas was a real believer, because we know how the story ended. He went out and hanged himself. There was no real repentance. Peter went out and wept bitterly and came back to be restored. And therein lies the difference between a Judas and a Peter. Both will sin, but one will be repentant and restored and the other will be damned. And you know what the difference is? Remember Luke 22:32, Jesus said, "Peter, Satan desires to have you but I have prayed for you that your faith fail not." Remember that? You know why Peter's faith didn't totally fail? Because the Lord had what? Prayed for him. Listen, the reason that we stay saved is not because of something we've done but because the Lord holds us. He didn't hold Judas because He never had Judas. But He held Peter. And Peter's faith didn't fail....
It wasn't until he saw the face of Jesus and it wasn't until he remembered the words of Jesus that he repented. His sin didn't make him repent, it was the Savior that made him repent. And here's a very important principle, listen to it. It is not our sins that make us weep, it is not our sins that make us repent, it is when we see what kind of Savior we have sinned against. And so we ever and always need the vision of who He is. The sin alone didn't do anything to Peter. He would have kept it up. But it was when he saw Jesus and he remembered His words, it is the repentance born of a recognition of the kind of Savior we have sinned against. That is why, beloved, the ministry here, the ministry that I'm committed to is not a ministry of just telling you to turn from your sin but a ministry of lifting up our God of glory, of lifting up the Lord Jesus Christ so that in seeing Him you understand the heinousness of sin.
And then the wrenching agony of repentance, things were made right with the Lord he had sinned against. He like Isaiah cried out to God, "I am a man of unclean lips." And he like Isaiah was purged.
And the end of the story is the sinner's restoration. And if we had time we could go to John 21 and in John 21, Peter's in Galilee and the Lord appears after the resurrection. And He comes to restore Peter and He comes to Peter and says, "Simon, son of Jonah...what?...do you love Me?" And He says it to him how many times? Three. And three times Peter says, "I love You, I love You, I love You." Why do you think the Lord gave him three opportunities to say that? Pretty obvious, isn't it? The Lord was bringing him back. For the three times of denial, there were three times of affirming love.
And the Lord accepted Peter's testimony and the Lord restored Peter and He said, "Feed My sheep, feed My lambs, feed My sheep," and He put him back on his feet and back in the ministry and he became the great proclaimer of the gospel in the early church. And I'm telling you, folks, that's a hopeful story, isn't it? God is in the business of giving grace to sinners. God is in the business of restoring the fallen. God is in the business of picking up the person who has even denied Him, who has shown himself to be weak and putting him in a place of strength. I'm glad we have a God of forgiveness, aren't you?
I went back and read 1 and 2 Peter this week because I wanted to see if Peter talked about self-confidence. And he does and says you ought to turn yours in for humility. And I wanted to find out if he talked about insubordination, and he does and calls people to obey the Word. And I wanted to find out if he talked about prayerlessness and he does and he says watch and pray. And I know where he got that. And I wanted to find out if he had anything to say about compromise, and he does. He calls for faithfulness to death and an answer to every man who asks you of the faith that is in you with meekness and fear. He learned all his lessons right here.
And I suppose we could sum up his own testimony of this occasion in his own words. "Ye therefore, beloved," 2 Peter 3:17, "seeing that you know these things before, beware lest you also being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness." Peter says, "Beloved, don't you do what I did, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Good word from Peter, isn't it? He ought to know. He was there.
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Matthew 27:1-14
1 comment:
I love this post. I love the excerpt about Peter denying three times, repeating three times that he loves Jesus, and then what he has to say in his letters about the lessons he'd learned. Great, great, great stuff.
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