Verse 1: “Jesus having said these things, went out with His disciples beyond the torrent Cedron, where was a garden, into which He entered, He and his disciples.” “The king also himself passed over the brook Kidron . . . and David went up by the ascent of mount Olivet, and wept as he went.” Jesus and David, each in rejection, found it a via dolorosa, a path of sorrow indeed! The outward path here was the same, but there the resemblance ceased.
By the new test of prosperity, the inner man of David’s heart was more fully revealed than by the conflicts and trials of earlier years. The faith and energy that distinguished him at that time had given way to moral relaxation. His own last words contain his own condemnation. The “ruler over men knew not how to deal with a son of Belial of his own house,” and therefore it was that his “house was not so with God,” nor himself “as the light of the morning.” But we turn to Him who was Himself “the day spring from on high.” That heart, as a sanctuary, was then God’s true dwelling-place upon earth; but He is now about to take the Victim’s place.
All is in contrast with John 17. There, no shade of sorrow can be found; He is looking forward to the infinite delight of being with His Father — “I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to Thee.” He thinks of the eternal glory He had with the Father before there was either man, or devil, or lost world.
But in this chapter He passes from the scene of communion with His Father and conscious victory (glorified Him, finished His work, made His name known), to one of conflict and agony (His sorrow, as another scripture tells us, was even unto death); from the demand to be glorified with Him, to the perfect submission of One who takes the cup and conquers agony — I mean that through agony He accomplishes His Father’s will; from, “Father, glorify Thy Son,” to, “but then, not My will, but Thine be done” — that is, from perfection to perfection. The Light pierces through the clouds that surround Him, and reveals His glory!
Verse 4. “Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that were coming upon Him, went forth and said to them, Whom seek ye?” Compare this with John 13: Jesus, knowing that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world to the Father, and that the Father had given all things into His hands, and loving His Sown unto the end, girded Himself to wash their feet. And here, the end being come, Jesus, knowing all things that were coming upon Him, that He was to be cut off and have nothing (Dan. 9:2626And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. (Daniel 9:26)), demands of His adversaries that, if they sought Him, they would let the disciples go. The word was fulfilled, “Of them which Thou gavest Me have I lost none.” He loved them unto the end. His foreknowledge was perfect, for Him there were no surprises, the reception of all things from the Father was not more present to His spirit, on the former occasion, than the loss of all things, His own cutting off, here.
How different the positions contemplated on these occasions! the glory and the suffering. Equal to each, He passes from one to the other in the unchangeableness of absolute perfection. Love reigned through suffering, as grace reigns through righteousness. His calmness in each scene is unbroken — the secret of it unknown to man. He has but to say, “I am He”! — Jesus of Nazareth! and the very murderers go backward and fall to the ground. “When the wicked, even Mine enemies and My foes, came upon Me to eat up My flesh, they stumbled and fell” (Psa. 27:22When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. (Psalm 27:2)). Already at the name of Jesus even His enemies were constrained to bow. “Let these go their way,” marks the Shepherd’s heart. A voice resembling this had been heard in David’s words, “These sheep, what have they done?” but it was his own sin that had brought destruction upon the sheep. The earthly shepherd, but for grace, would have lost his life with them; the good Shepherd gave His in grace for the sheep.
But His way in this final scene is marked by the utmost dignity. The conduct of the abject ones only makes it the more conspicuous. It was their hour, and the power of darkness; and He is before man here as He was before God in John 17; all is changed except Himself. He never changes, whether lifted up, or cast down; whether creating the heavens, the works of His hands, or when as a vesture He folds them up and they are changed, He is still the Same. “But Thou art the same.” And, when the saints were in danger of being carried away by strange and subversive doctrines, it was written, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” That which was from the beginning.
His word to Judas was, “Betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?” — was there no other way? He merely touches Malchus’s ear, and it is healed. To Peter He remarks that the cup was, from His Father — should He not drink it? His Father’s glory was what occupied Him while the murderers clamored around, nevertheless it was not from them, but from His Father, that He took it: from Him He had learned, in absolute surrender of will, that neither “the hour,” nor “the cup,” might pass from Him (Mark 14).
What knew they, the abject ones, of this? What of the bloody sweat, and acceptance of His Father’s will? what, a little farther on, of the “smiting of God“? It was indeed their hour and the power of darkness, yet in another sense it was His hour. But then it is connected with the light of His own glory, the power and the glory of God characterize it; nothing is seen but that the hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.” God glorified in man, and man in God! What an hour was that! His coming into the world was marked by the announcement of God’s delight in man, His leaving it by His own declaration that God was glorified in man (the Son of Man); in this way has God’s love to man met with a full response.
They bind Him, and lead Him to Annas, who in turn sends Him bound to Caiaphas. The high priest asks Him concerning His doctrine. The Lord does not answer him, save to remark that He had spoken openly to the world, teaching in the synagogue and in the temple. He had not hidden God’s righteousness in His heart, nor concealed His loving-kindness and His truth from the great congregation, in secret He had said nothing.
And these unhappy men were the heads of the Jews religion, it was nothing more now — dignitaries without dignity, priests without knowledge, men without conscience and without mercy, gathered against the soul of the righteous One. In Mark, we are told, they accused Him of many things, but He answered nothing, so that Pilate wondered. The link in the chain of their successors, men like-minded, is seldom missing in the awful history of the professing church. But to these men He answered nothing — the silence of Jesus, how terrible its meaning!
To Herod also, we read in Luke, Jesus answered nothing. His father, Herod the Great, rebuilt and adorned the temple at Jerusalem, but slaughtered the children in the hope of destroying Him who was born King of the Jews. He (Herod Antipas) did not proceed quite as far as his father had done, his interests were not so nearly affected, as men would say. He mocked Him, and set Him at nought.
Jesus was sent by Pilate to Herod, as Annas had sent Him to Caiaphas, and then back again, an occasion for the exchange of complimentary messages, and the mutual reconciliation of these men. No fault being found in Him, He was, mocked by One, and put to death by the other; yet was the sin of the Roman governor and Idumean king thrown into the shade, so to speak, by that of the Jews. “Thine own nation and the chief priests,” as Pilate said, “have delivered Thee unto me.”
But the lowest place of all in this terrible scene, is filled by the only one in it who really loved and knew the Lord (vss. 24, 25). Annas sent Him bound to Caiaphas, and Peter warmed himself while he denied his Lord; for the moment, he was morally one of themselves. Peter and Judas, apostles; Pilate and Herod, Gentile rulers; Annas and Caiaphas, high priests. Never was there such a company before, and never had man fallen so low as Peter, who, as to privileges conferred (the special revelation by the Father of the Person of Christ, and the promise of the keys of the kingdom of heaven), held the first place amongst the apostles of Jesus. His smiting with the sword looked like devotedness to Jesus, it was the exact contrast to the mind of Him who opened not His mouth, save in testimony to the truth. Verse 25 reveals his real state — he denies his Lord! The crowing of the cock, coming immediately after, must have sounded in his ears like the knell of doom.
Yet gracious love still followed him, and gracious words would yet comfort that broken heart. But what a deep lesson for all, how good intentions and outward activities may hide from view the real state of the soul. The Lord Himself almost forgotten, while His name and glory are continually on the lips! There was not a more failing person in the scene than Peter. There one sees, not only in doctrine, but in a history, what the flesh is, the flesh in one that Christ had chosen, and to whom the Father had revealed Him as His Son. So that you could not imagine a person being in a better position, before redemption was known, and the sealing of the Spirit. But ignorant of self, and walking in his own strength, he found how quickly that turned into corruption.
How great a thing it is to have God’s mind dwelling in us (“we have the mind of Christ”) and God’s affections too (“God’s love shed abroad in our hearts”). But the mind of Christ, and God’s love shed abroad in, the heart, are blessings which flow from the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, as His presence is the believer’s power also. Poor Peter knew nothing of all this, nor had learned, as yet, what the flesh means, much less to distinguish between it and that new nature, in which he loved the Lord, but did not find strength to follow Him to prison and to death.
Here, for the first time, not doctrinally, but in an historical way, the character of the flesh in a saint is brought fully to light. The presence and grace of Christ had not modified it; the revelation of the Son by the Father, the call to apostleship, and association with the Lord, all this had left him without strength, the flesh (himself, one might say), unknown and unjudged. As he disregarded the Lord’s solemn warning, that Satan had demanded to have the disciples, that he might sift them as wheat, and that he himself would deny Him thrice before the cock crew; that is, of the power of Satan, and weakness of man, though born again, when there is nothing more; he has to learn, in the effectual, but most bitter way of experience, under the power of sin and Satan, not only what the flesh is, and whither its will leads, but what it is to neglect the word of the Lord.
But all is darkness in this chapter, save Jesus, the light of life; nothing but the flesh is in view, deepening in shade as it approached outwardly to Him; darkest of all in Peter, and next in him who, when he had eaten bread with Him, lifted up his heel against his divine Master. Such were the ways of the denier and betrayer — the latter never really knew Him, as Peter did; thus the darkness, when responsibility and privilege are the measure, was less deep in Judas than in Peter’s case.
After Judas come the priests, who had not known Jesus, as associated with Him in the days of His flesh, as Judas did; but they had the Scriptures, and they testified of Him, and “the priest’s, lips should keep knowledge — he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.”
Less guilty than the priests, when measured by the same rule, was Herod. What place had he in God’s nation, or city, or house? Yet he had heard the Baptist’s testimony, he had feared him, knew that he was a just and holy man, heard him gladly, and did many things (or, was much perplexed). It was evident that his conscience had been exercised, but that “holiday” showed what was in his heart; the just and holy man was sacrificed for the sake of the good opinion of the chief men of Galilee — as Jesus was given up for thirty pieces of silver.
And lastly, we have Pilate listening to the good confession, pronouncing Him to be without fault, a righteous person, and then giving Him up to death. Yet was the Roman governor, judged on the ground of privileges accorded, the least guilty of all.
Peter’s history, in this chapter, reminds one forcibly of the dark passages in that of David. Never, since man had taken his own way upon earth, had there been such a contradiction to the very nature of God, as that which was offered by the one whom He had sought, the man after His own heart. God had sought David, the Father revealed the Son to Peter. Where amongst the children of men had there been anything like these sins against light and love seen and tasted — that is, against what God is in Himself, against Him who said of old, “I am holy,” “I am gracious,” and who now, shining in Jesus, revealed Himself as “Light,” and “Love”? These “precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,” how dim they became! like earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the earthly potter. How grateful to the soul, after looking at these marred vessels, to turn to Him with,
Thou art the Potter, we the clay,
Thy will be ours, Thy truth our light.
Verse 28. They lead Jesus from Caiaphas to the praetorium (hall of judgment). The accusations brought against Him (see the other gospels) were, that He was a malefactor; perverter of the nation (as was afterwards charged against His saints, that they turned the world upside down); stirreth up all the people, beginning from Galilee; forbade to give tribute to Caesar; claimed to be a king. The charge of the false witnesses, who were discovered at last by the chief priests, elders, and all the council (the whole religious element in Judaea) was, that He said He was able to destroy the temple of God, and build it in. three days. His own confession, that He was the Son of God, formed the ground of another accusation.
Such were the charges, seven in number, the perfect expression of the deliberate refusal to let “this man reign over us”; of their hatred of the Father and the Son; and of the resistance, like that of their fathers, to the testimony of the Holy Ghost.
How Jesus met these charges is not only written in the book, but thence transcribed and engraven on the hearts of all true believers. The whole chapter is an illustration of that saying, “The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.” The nearer one is to it outwardly, when it is only that, the greater the darkness within. Who but Judas could betray Jesus with a kiss? In the far-off ones the virus of enmity is not evident in the same way; yet the same day that Herod sent back Jesus to Pilate, both Herod and Pilate became friends, and we know what the friendship of this world is. They thought, unhappy men, that that which occupied them (their worldly interests) was established upon a surer basis than ever. They both perished in exile a very few years afterwards, in a far-off land, and, as historians report, like Judas, by their own hands. Herod had commanded the putting to death of John the Baptist; his father, Herod the Great, just before his death, and during his last awful illness, had caused the slaughter of the infants, hoping to destroy Him who was born king of the Jews. “Man being in honor and understanding not, is like the beasts that perish.”
How many solemn statements of Scripture touching the vanity and corruption of the creature, are illustrated in the life and death of these men, which show us how far natural conscience and the religion of the flesh may lead, and where they fail, and fail for ever. Herod the Great built the temple at Jerusalem; but sought to kill Him who was worshiped there; his son had listened to the Baptist, and, having heard him gladly, had done many things; but, in the end, had killed him for his oath’s sake, with other motives. Such is the religion of the “world which lieth in the wicked one,” or of the flesh, in itself a deadly evil, so that they that are in it neither are, nor can be, subject to God.
Pilate’s conscience seems to have been troubled, he washed his hands indeed, but not “in innocency.”
The pride of careless greatness,
Could wash its hands of Thee;
Priests that should plead for weakness,
Must Thine accusers be.
Yet the threefold testimony of the representative of the fourth kingdom is of the greatest interest. The first he repeated three times, “I find no fault in this man” — thus spoke the fourth beast in him (Dan. 7). His second testimony was, “Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered Thee unto me”; the third, the inscription on the cross, “Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews.” In substance Jesus’ own testimony, “Thou sayest that I am a king”; as, I find no fault in Him,” recalls His own words, “Which of you convinceth Me of sin?” Thus was the truth declared by one who knew not what truth is, constrained by a power he knew not of; while the only one in this dark scene who possessed the truth, thrice denied that he knew Him.
Their enemies, the Roman soldiers, having crowned Him with the crown of thorns, Pilate, thinking that might move them, says, “Behold the man!” — their only answer, “Crucify! crucify!” then, “Behold your king!” — their answer, “Take Him away, take Him away; crucify him!” And again, “We have no king but Caesar.”
In Luke we see, that when it was day, the elders, chief priests, and scribes led Him into their council, where the question was raised as to His Messiahship, and His being the Son of God, and settled for themselves in His rejection. They led Him first to the palace of the high priest, from that to the council in the morning, then to the hall of judgment; after this Pilate scourged Him, and permitted the soldiers to insult Him.
Such was their treatment of Him whose goings forth had been from everlasting. Could any of these “goings forth” have been more glorious than the present? God was glorified in each step, each word. On their part, all was ready for the last dread act of human iniquity — “In truth against Thy holy servant Jesus, whom Thou hadst anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the nations, and peoples of Israel, have been gathered together in this city, to do whatever Thy hand and Thy counsel had determined before should come to pass.” When He was drawing near to and weeping over the city, He had said: “If thou hadst known, even thou, even at least in this thy day . . . but now they are hid from thine eyes.” They forced the sword of judgment into the hands of the weeping Savior. “O Jerusalem, how often would I . . . but ye would not.” To the Father, His word was, “O righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee.”
No! they know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness, all the foundations of the earth are out of course, presently to be replaced by those which cannot be moved, deeper these “than depths beneath.” God’s glory amongst His creatures is now upborne, and the new creation has its immovable basis in the death and resurrection of Him who is its Head. The throne of the Father, and the Holy Ghost Himself, bear witness that the work is finished. Does any one ask, “Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner-stone thereof?” The testimony is in the hearts and on the lips of the sons and daughters of God, they shout for joy, a joy as lasting as the foundation itself.
Verse 29. In the details of what took place when they had crucified the Lord, we find a fourfold accomplishment of scripture; in Mark a fifth is given: And he was numbered with the transgressors. “It was not until He had borne the forsaking of God, and all had been accepted from His hand (Why hast Thou forsaken Me? ) “I am a worm and no man,” “But Thou art holy, O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel,” that He said to His mother: “Woman, behold thy son,” and to the disciple, “Behold thy mother” — holy human affections are not forgotten even at such an hour.
To the dying malefactor He had spoken of paradise, “today . . . with Me in paradise”; for Mary, who was to remain some time, He provided a home with the disciple whom He loved. All is perfect, and in place. He speaks with as much simplicity of a place with Himself in paradise for the thief, as of a home with John for His mother. The place in paradise and the home with John were alike the result of His gracious will.
And now was come the hour for Joseph and Nicodemus to shine. They come, the first with the precious body of Jesus, and Nicodemus bearing precious spices. Surely, this carefulness, and desire to give all honor to the precious body of Jesus, was divinely ordered. When Moses the servant of the Lord died, He buried him in the land of Moab; but of His holy Servant Jesus, He says: “He made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.”