“THE beloved physician” tells us of a very touching scene in the garden of Gethsemane. It happened on the eve of the Saviour’s last woe. The cross was looming before Him with all its anguish and shame. He had just risen from His distressful prayer when a band of armed men approached to apprehend Him. The kiss of the traitor indicated to them the One of Whom they were in search. Yet for such an One there was no peril, save as He chose to yield Himself to the malice of His foes. At the sound of His voice His assailants fell to the ground (John 18:1-8); and nothing would have been easier for Him than to walk away, had it pleased Him so to do. But having come from above to offer Himself as an atoning sacrifice He meekly submitted Himself to their will.
But those around Him were not of the same spirit. Peter, with his accustomed fire, drew a sword and cut off the right ear of Malchus, the servant of the high priest. How unlike the Lord are even the noblest of His followers! In Peter, at that moment, we see fleshly activity when his Masker was submissive, and an hour or two later when Jesus was confessing before Pontius Pilate the good confession, Peter was denying Him in the presence of the servants with oaths and curses (1 Tim. 6:13; Luke 22:54-62).
Now mark the Saviour’s grace. He rebuked His disciple for his unholy zeal, and forthwith touched the ear of the servant and healed him. It is Luke who tells us of this extraordinary display of healing grace, and it is John who records the names of the parties concerned (Luke 22:51; John 18:10). Truly, there is no limit to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not only during the days of His ministry, but when the clouds were darkening around Him, He was the willing servant of human misery and need. This is most beautifully shown in His kindness to the dying thief, and in His healing of Malchus’ ear.
An open antagonist healed and blessed! Can the annals of human nature show anything like it? Yet it is the very essence of the Gospel that the Saviour should act thus. Hence the words in Col. 1:21: “You who were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death.” He who penned these words had personally experienced the truth of them. Malchus was hardly so pronounced an antagonist of the Son of God as Saul of Tarsus, “who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor, and injurious; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” It is no marvel that one who had been so divinely favored delighted henceforward to proclaim: “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief” (1 Tim. 1:12-15). No one in the universe is so able to melt hard hearts as the Lord Jesus, and to transform the most violent adversaries into humble and devoted disciples. All His ways are ways of matchless grace.