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.
When the prayer of chapter 17 ends, the Lord leaves the city. He crosses a valley and enters a garden His betrayer knew well. Commentators read every detail here as deliberate: the timing, the brook, the garden, and the company He keeps.
The verse ties what follows to what came before.
He went to the garden only when His testimony was finished, when He "had spoken these words." There He met those who thought they could arrest Him. He had completed His testimony about the Father. All that was now left was to glorify Him in His death. He would now fulfil His divine predictions about His own death. He would become the Lamb of God (1:29), the serpent lifted up (3:14), the good shepherd (10:11), and the grain of wheat that was to fall into the ground and die (12:24).
The brook is named because another rejected king had crossed it. David fled that way when his son Absalom seized the throne (2 Samuel 15:23). Writers set the two crossings side by side and find the later one heavier.
How very solemn was this crossing of the brook Cedron. Far, far more solemn and sorrowful than David's crossing. For a time David had to give up his throne, and many of his people were against him. But the nation rejected the Son of God, and so did the world, and so did the leaders of Israel who claimed to be the servants of God. One of His disciples was about to betray Him. All would leave Him. The leaders of Israel would ill-treat Him, and so would Pilate and Herod, the kings of the earth. He would be crucified and slain, suffering death at the hands of His God as the judgment of sin.
The valley already had a grim history.
In Old Testament times people treated it as a defiled place. Asa burnt his mother's idol there. 1 Kings 15:13. Josiah also burnt there the symbols of idolatry. 2 Kings 23:4, 6, 12; and from 2 Kings 23:6 and Jeremiah 31:40 it would appear to have been the common burial ground.
Matthew and Mark call this place Gethsemane. John calls it only a garden. Some have pressed the meaning of that name too far.
It was the same orchard or garden which the other Gospels call Gethsemane. The name is formed from the Hebrew words meaning "a winepress" and "oil". But that gives no real ground for what some have said: that the dark words of Isaiah 63:3, "I have trodden the winepress alone," were fulfilled here in particular, as the name suggests. For the treading of the winepress is when the Lord comes to judge, not to suffer... These prophecies do not describe agony. They describe vengeance — not His bloody sweat with strong crying and tears, but His treading the peoples in His anger.
One writer ties that silence to the aim of this Gospel.
John mentions that He went into the garden of Gethsemane, and that His disciples were with Him. But he says nothing here of His prayer of agony in the garden, where He lay prostrate in supplication "with strong crying and tears." For that prayer belongs to the lowliness of His spotless Manhood, not to the sublime glory of His deity. In John we see Him in full control of every circumstance He faced. His way was in every moral respect the triumphal march of a Conqueror.
The order of the words matters: He went out, and the disciples came with Him.
In the opening verse we read, "Jesus… went forth with His disciples." So we see the Good Shepherd going before and the sheep following.
Another writer looks past the garden to where that leading finally arrives.
He goes over the "black" winter-torrent Kidron. It is such a fitting picture of the "brook in the way" of which He had to drink, so that with His work finished He might "lift up the head." For the refreshment He obtained for others was what was His own. It broke out of the dark abyss of suffering which now lay before Him. Over Kidron, then, He passes to the garden, carrying His disciples with Him. He was indeed carrying them, though by a way they did not know, to the paradise of God.
Of all the spots in Jerusalem, He chose the one His betrayer could find.
It was a place well known to the betrayer, and we might have thought that, given the errand Judas was on, this garden was the one place to avoid. But the Lamb was to be led to the slaughter. The Victim will take no precautions against the scheming wickedness of the man who had lifted up his heel to destroy Him. Once He hid Himself. At other times He walked right through the crowd and went His way. But tonight He will surrender, for this was man's hour and the power of darkness.
- Timing — He faced arrest only after His testimony about the Father was finished. Only the death was left.
- Crossing — David crossed the Kidron when he lost his throne, and the valley took the ashes of Judah's idols. The rejected Son of God walks the same route.
- Garden — Matthew and Mark name it Gethsemane. John leaves out the agony and shows a Man in full command of His circumstances.
- Leading — He carries His disciples with Him, by a way they did not know, toward the paradise of God.
- Surrender — He walks into the very place the betrayer knew. He takes no precautions, because tonight He gives Himself up.
And Judas also, who delivered him up, knew the place, because Jesus was often there, in company with his disciples.
Between the upper room and the arrest comes one quiet line about a place. Judas knew where to find Jesus, so why did the Lord walk into a garden His betrayer could name?
The detail matters. Commentators see the depth of the traitor's guilt here. Judas took the place where Jesus met His friends and made it the address for an arrest.
The wickedness of Judas is as strongly marked here as in John 13. He knew the place well, because Jesus was in the habit of going there with His disciples. What a thought — to choose such a place for His betrayal! What unimaginable hardness of heart! But sadly, he had given himself up to Satan, as it were. He became the tool of the enemy, the display of Satan's power and of his true character.
Judas knew a place that had held a great deal. One writer lists what those visits contained.
Think what that garden had known! Communion with the Father, prayer, intercession. Tender care for the weak disciples, and self-sacrificing interest on their behalf. The watchful love of the good Shepherd, pity for Israel, a heart going out to the sheep that are not of this fold. Yes, Judas knew it. Under Satan, he made his plans to please the chief priests and Pharisees.
But why did He keep going back? One writer sees the same desire in Him now.
How did Judas know the place? The Spirit tells us, "Jesus often met there with His disciples." He loved to have them all to Himself. He is the same Jesus, the unchanging One up in the glory, yet with us here. He cannot give up that place. It is the joy of His heart to be the centre of His saints.
Judas had information. What he lacked was everything that mattered.
In the verses that follow we see the wolf coming. Judas "knew the place" where Jesus had often met with His disciples, but he had never known Jesus. He knew nothing of the glory of His Person. He knew nothing of His mighty power over all His foes, His infinite love for His poor sheep, or His perfect obedience to the Father.
Kelly presses the same point from the side of the arrest itself, noting that Judas used what he had picked up from being near.
He brings before us the truly appalling sight of Judas using his close knowledge of the Saviour's habits and haunts to guide those who wanted to take and kill Him... But Judas really did not know Him any more than his companions did.
If closeness to Christ guaranteed anything, Judas would have been safe. Kelly draws out the opposite rule.
One of the company chosen to be with Jesus here below would prove this awful truth. The nearer a man is on the outside to blessing, the further away he is morally, unless he takes it into his heart. There was only one Judas in Israel, and he was nearest to Jesus. Only one man joined all the privileges of that closeness to Jesus with all the guilt of betraying Him.
The Lord did not change His route to avoid a place His betrayer could name. The garden's name — Gethsemane means oil-press — is read as fitting what He came there to face.
But He is going forward with perfect knowledge of everything on His own part. It matters that we are told here that Judas knew the place as one the Lord often went to with His disciples. He is not avoiding but now seeking the "oil-press" of sorrow. Eternal joy is to be the sure result.
This small explanation also says something about the record itself.
John 18:2. — Here we clearly have the comment of an eyewitness. Every attempt to turn this into a weapon against such testimony must fail.
- The place — Jesus had a habit. The garden was where He met His disciples, and Judas used that against Him.
- The love — He went there because it is His joy to be the centre of His own. He has not given that up.
- The knowledge — Judas knew the location. He knew nothing of the Person: not His glory, not His power, not His love for His sheep.
- The warning — being close to blessing on the outside saves no one. Judas was nearest of all, and furthest away in heart.
- The choice — He knew it all, and still walked toward the press of sorrow. Eternal joy is the sure result, and His steps are ours to follow.
Judas therefore, having got the band, and officers of the chief priests and Pharisees, comes there with lanterns and torches and weapons.
Night has fallen outside Jerusalem. Judas arrives at a garden he knows well, at the head of an armed column. John alone tells us what that column carried. The details raise one question: why so much force against a Man who had never lifted a hand?
The word translated "band" points to Roman troops. One writer sets out who came, and why they came after dark:
He now came with the band. These were Roman soldiers from the fortress of Antonia, under the command of a chief captain, a military tribune. With them came officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, carrying lanterns, torches, and weapons (18:3). Those lanterns and torches cast a harsh light on the scene. The account does not say under what pretext they asked for the help of the Roman soldiers. But there they were. The Jewish authorities seem to have feared a disturbance, so they decided to make the arrest at night. And they had clearly gathered this formidable force to frighten the disciples out of any try at a rescue. These details as to the company are unique to John.
The weapons they carried show who was in that crowd:
The swords show that the Roman cohort (John 18:3) was the centre of this crowd. The clubs and so on show that the Jewish temple watch, and other assorted fanatics, were there too. Jew and Gentile, men of different nationality and different classes, were ready to take part in the world's crowning sin — and they did.
Judas needed no help finding the place. He knew the Lord's routine, and that was the limit of what he knew.
Judas knew well the Lord's usual habits, but knew nothing of His heart. He could not find the Lord as his Savior, but it was no trouble at all for him to find Him so he could betray Him to His enemies! He brings the soldiers and officers, well equipped with lanterns, torches and weapons (v. 3). It was a formidable array to arrest a Man whom they knew was no revolutionary or rabble-rouser! All of this on their part was empty folly. They found that their show of strength was utter weakness in His presence, and He never offered the least physical resistance.
The garden was where the Lord had prayed. Judas turned that knowledge into a map:
Think of what that garden had known! Communion with the Father, prayer, intercession, tender care for the feeble disciples. Self-sacrificing interest on their behalf, the watchful love of the good Shepherd, pity for Israel, a heart going out to the sheep not of this fold. Yes, Judas knew it, and he took his measures accordingly, under Satan, to please the chief priests and Pharisees.
Picture the night, and the gear they carried looks absurd. The lights and the weapons were both pointless:
Judas leads the band and the officers from His enemies to the place of the nightly prayer. They bring lanterns and torches and weapons to make sure of their prey — though a full moon was shining, and He had never struck a blow in self-defence. But Judas really did not know Him any more than his companions did. How terrible the sight of a soul blinded to the deadly malice at work, and to the Saviour's glory and His love!
Against all that hardware, the Lord neither ran nor fought:
Was this the time for flight or fight? For neither. Without panic, surprise, or hesitation Jesus faces the crisis. He never did hesitate. Not once in all His earthly life was He at a loss how to act, never had He to seek the advice of any, or change His mind or purpose.
The soldiers were never the deciding factor in what happened that night:
Not all the treachery of Judas, not all the hatred and enmity of the Jews, not all the power of Rome could have seized the Lord. They could take Him only when the time had come for Him to give Himself up. His hour was now come. He could have destroyed the company that came to arrest Him. That was as easy for Him as making them fall face down before His Name.
- Knowledge — Judas knew the place, the habit, the hour; he never knew the Person. Nearness to Christ is not the same as knowing Him.
- Coalition — Roman swords and temple clubs met in one crowd. Jew and Gentile shared in the world's crowning sin.
- Overkill — Lanterns and torches under a full moon. Weapons against One who never struck a blow. Fear dressed up as strength.
- Composure — No flight, no fight, no hesitation. He had never once been at a loss how to act, and He was not now.
- Surrender — Neither Judas, nor Israel's rulers, nor Rome could have taken Him. They took Him only because His hour had come and He gave Himself up.