Gospel of John [18:3-11]. Gethsemane, part 4.Title: Gospel of John [18:3-11]. Gethsemane, part 4.
Announcements/opening prayer:
After returning from His third prayer, no longer did He bid His disciples to keep watch. This changed to "let's get going and face My enemies."
Isa 50:7 For the Lord God helps Me, Therefore, I am not disgraced; Therefore, I have set My face like flint, And I know that I shall not be ashamed.
Flint is an imperfect type of quartz, is found in abundance in the limestone rocks of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt and is represented from the earliest occupational deposits there. Flint artifacts were prominent in the period of human history up to the Exodus, being used for a wide variety of purposes. Even after the introduction of copper, bronze, and iron they continued to be used for specific purposes. Figuratively, the impact of horses' hooves is likened to the hardness of flint (Isa 5:28).
So then, the phrase "set My face like flint" refers to a complete hardening of resolve towards the mission at hand, which is Cavalry and the salvation of mankind.
This is all revealed to us so that we may recall it when we face pressures and realize that what our pressures consist of is far less than the Lord's and yet we have the same power, prayer, faith, Father, Holy Spirit, word, etc.
If your motivation to be strong in the face of pressure is to impress people or garner fame then you will fail from lack of perseverance. If your motivation is the love of the ways and the power of God that can overcome any pressure or difficulty then you will find more perseverance in yourself than you ever imagined was possible.
The Father and His three closest friends witnessed Jesus at His weakest. It was the Father and not His friends who comforted and strengthened Him.
Friends can encourage and comfort but ultimately it is the Father who encourages and comforts us.
Heb 10:24-25 let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together
Stimulate, which is a Greek work that literally means a sharpening, is rightly translated stimulate or provoke, but a stimulation to love and good deeds does not mean that a person can produce them in another. God is the only One who can produce virtue in us, but others can help us sharpen them.
However, this night our Lord did not receive any comfort from the disciples as they slept. Once our Lord was comforted and empowered by the Father He attained more perseverance than anyone could have ever imagined.
Jesus had a certain divine pride - Satan, the KOD, the Sanhedrin, Pilate and the Roman army, the mob, will not, and I mean WILL NOT defeat the plan of God!!!
This becomes the mantle of our motivation. True motivation is love for God and that means love for His ways, love for His commands, love for His plan and purposes. Whatever in my life attempts to stop them from being a reality in me will be mowed down by them if I love them.
Heb 12:1 looking off and away to Jesus, the originator and perfecter of this aforementioned faith, who instead of the joy then present with Him endured the Cross, despising [can also mean to think lightly of] the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. [Kenneth S. Wuest]
Isa 50:7 For the Lord God helps Me, Therefore, I am not disgraced; Therefore, I have set My face like flint, And I know that I shall not be ashamed.
The opportunity of the disciples to assist Him in prayer is past and now the events are going to go forward. After a little time they return to the other eight disciples and witness the approaching band with Judas at its head. The silence of the Garden is broken by the movement of many armed men and their torches are clearly visible.
Joh 18:1 When Jesus had spoken these words, He went forth with His disciples over the ravine of the Kidron, where there was a garden, into which He Himself entered, and His disciples.
Joh 18:2 Now Judas also, who was betraying Him, knew the place; for Jesus had often met there with His disciples.
Joh 18:3 Judas then, having received the Roman cohort, and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons.
The fact that Romans are with them means that this was all planned and the arrangements made. The High Priest likely directed the affairs and a few days before first communicated with the Roman garrison in the city.
The Sanhedrin could no longer pronounce capital sentences. The Temple guard under their officers served merely for the purposes of police, and, indeed, were neither regularly armed nor trained. The Romans would not have tolerated an armed Jewish force in Jerusalem, and so the high priest decided he would need Roman soldiers. Yet it is clear that the Jews originated this excursion and arrest since Jesus led in chains to the house of Annas, the father-in-law of the high priest and immediately afterwards the Romans leave.
The reasoning given to the captain of the Roman cohort would have been that Jesus was going to cause a popular tumult since this is precisely why the Romans increased the amount of soldiers in the city for Passover.
The band reached the garden, Judas went somewhat in advance of them, and reached Jesus just as He roused the three and was preparing to go and meet His captors. He saluted Him, “Hail Rabbi.”
Mat 26:48 Now he who was betraying Him gave them a sign, saying, "Whomever I shall kiss, He is the one; seize Him."
I'm confounded that he thought of this as a signal, a kiss, but then I remember that he was and maybe still is under satanic possession.
Mat 26:49 And immediately he went to Jesus and said, "Hail, Rabbi!" and kissed Him.
“kissed” – katafile,w[kataphileo; aorist active indicative] = to kiss fervently. Apparently Judas kissed Him intensely or with great emotion.
In this word the prefix kata signifies intensification of the verb phileo and it may even mean that he kissed him more than once.
Christ submitted to the indignity, and remember, He would allow Himself to be judged for all the evil done to Him this night.
As Judas beheld Him and may have been walking away from Him the Lord states:
Mat 26:50 And Jesus said to him, "Friend, do what you have come for."
/We can imagine a questioning facial expression on Judas to which the Lord answers:
Luk 22:48 But Jesus said to him, "Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?"
The one who was deceived by the ultimate deceiver Satan now becomes the deceiver, and a bad one at that. Acting the hypocrite and attempting to deceive Jesus and the disciples as if there was not an armed band behind him or as if he may have been warning them of their approach, these words were a mortal blow to the soul of Judas. Up to this point the Lord had been nothing but loving to Him and graciously offering salvation to him, not even calling him out when He knew that he was stealing from their money bag. But now Judas is way past the point of return and Christ’s words are a mortal spear through the soul of Judas. What next we see of him, he is trying to return the 30 pieces of silver and then hanging himself.
It is at this point that the Lord ignores the signal that Judas gave to identify Him and He proceeds right up to the armed band and asks them who they are looking for.
Joh 18:4 Jesus therefore, knowing all the things that were coming upon Him, went forth, and said to them, "Whom do you seek?"
Joh 18:5 They answered Him, "Jesus the Nazarene." He said to them, "I am He." And Judas also who was betraying Him, was standing with them.
Joh 18:6 When therefore He said to them, "I am He," they drew back, and fell to the ground.
The immediate effect of these words was, we shall not say magical, but Divine. They had no doubt been prepared for quite a different response; either compromise, fear, or resistance. But the appearance and majesty of that calm Christ - heaven in His look and peace on His lips - was too overpowering in its effects on that untutored heathen soldiery. Perhaps some of them had secret misgivings in their hearts of their orders. The foremost of them went backward, and they fell to the ground.
Php 2:9-11 Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
He says “I am” or ego eimi in the Greek which is the name of the divine. The calm, authoritative, sovereign divine nature was the force of these words.
These are temple guards who worked for the priests and the Sanhedrin and more shockingly, Roman soldiers who were to only bow to Caesar or those that Caesar gave authority to.
He said them several times before and in a similar fashion when He said, “before Abraham was, I am,” but we did not see anyone falling to the ground when He said them before. Now that His hour had come and His face is set like flint towards the cross the force of these two words are enough to cause heathens to bow before Him.
This happened to Paul when he first met the resurrected Lord.
Act 26:13-14 I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining all around me and those who were journeying with me. "And when we had all fallen to the ground,
F.B. Meyer makes a great point here.
/This 'occurring before His surrender would show His power over His enemies, and so the freedom with which He gave Himself up.' [F.B. Meyer]\
Joh 18:7 Again therefore He asked them, "Whom do you seek?" And they said, "Jesus the Nazarene."
Joh 18:8 Jesus answered, "I told you that I am He; if therefore you seek Me, let these go their way,"
"let" - avfi,hmi[aphiemi; aorist active imperative] = let go, forgive, permit. It is a command and not a request.
Joh 18:9 that the word might be fulfilled which He spoke, "Of those whom Thou hast given Me I lost not one."
If any one of them got the beating and scourging of our Lord they certainly would have died.
As always His mind is on others, on those He promised to protect, and here at His gravest hour. This is again fulfillment of His prayer.
Joh 17:12 "While I was with them, I was keeping them in Thy name which Thou hast given Me; and I guarded them, and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. |