Mark 14:12–72

The fact that it was already the first day of Unleavened Bread proves He did not keep the Passover before the appointed time, as many have thought. Matthew, Mark and Luke all give this same note of time, and Mark and Luke add that it was the day when they killed the Passover lamb.

People had kept the Passover for many centuries. Those who ate it knew it marked Israel's rescue from Egypt. Few, if any, realized that it also looked forward to the death of the Messiah. Now they would eat it one last time before it was fulfilled.

The Lord Jesus had no home of His own, but He knew exactly how to lay His hand on everything needed for the service of God. The owner of the guest room was no doubt someone who knew Him and honored Him. The disciples knew their Master was enough. They tried nothing on their own. They simply asked Him what to do, and did it. So the One who had nowhere to lay His head had no shortage of room for this last meeting with His own.

The disciples wanted to know His will about the preparations, so the Lord sent two of them to get the evening ready — the day began at evening. How good for us to depend on His guidance too whenever His people gather. We ought to admit that we are not able to settle this ourselves.

He was going to die, yet He went there with royal, Divine rights. He had not lost His place as Messiah, though He was going to suffer as Son of man on the cross. So He takes possession as the Master, and the owner of the house agrees to His claim at once. He saw it all. He had no shortage of power to work on people's consciences and hearts. He could have turned everyone else as He bowed this man's heart. But then how would the Scriptures be fulfilled, sin blotted out, and God glorified? So He had to go to the cross — not as a victim of forces beyond His control, but as One whose only will was to do the will of His Father.

The word used for the inn at our Lord's birth in Luke 2:7 appears only once more in the New Testament: the large upper room where the Lord ate the last supper with His disciples… In Mark 14:14 we find the same question as in Luke 22:11, but one word changes in the better reading of the Greek text: "Where is My guest room, where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?" Yes — it was His guest room, His disciples, and His supper.

We can be confident that the Lord and His disciples ate that first meal at much the same time as the rest of the Jews… Once you allow for Jewish custom, nothing in John 18:28 conflicts with Mark 14:12, and John 19:14 only fixes the day and hour of what Mark describes. The "mistake" critics have charged Matthew, Mark and Luke with is imaginary.

But there is no ground for thinking the Passover could be kept early. The law set one time only for killing the lamb: the evening of the 14th of Nisan. The Lord would certainly not have broken the law.

It was One who, though He was going to die, still went there with royal, Divine rights. He had not forfeited His place as Messiah, though going to suffer as Son of Man on the cross. He therefore takes possession as the Master, and the master of the house at once agrees to His claim. All was before His eyes. There was no lack of power to act on the conscience and affections of men. He could have turned every other heart as He bowed this man's heart. But then how could the Scriptures have been fulfilled, and sin blotted out, and God glorified? So He had to go to the cross — not as a victim forced by circumstances, but as One whose only will was to do His Father's will, accepting all His humiliation from Him.

The events that prepare the way for the supper are simple in themselves. Yet they display the glory of the Person of the Lord. He sends two disciples ahead to prepare the feast. The Lord is going to death, but He is still the King. His royal rights can claim the guest chamber, and everyone must submit to His sovereign will. What is more, He is a divine Person to whom everything is known. The man with the "pitcher of water," "the master of the house," the "large upper room furnished," are all before His eyes.

The Lord's foreknowledge is strikingly displayed. Carrying the water was the task of the women; a man bearing a pitcher of water was a very uncommon sight. Yet He knew there would be a man doing this unusual thing, and that Peter and John would meet him as they entered the city. He knew also that the master of the house would answer the message the disciples brought in the name of "the Master." No doubt that man recognised the Master as his own Master. He was one of the godly people in Jerusalem who acknowledged the Lord's claims, and the Lord knew how to lay His hand on him.

In Matthew the disciples come to the Lord to ask where to prepare the Passover supper, but we are not told who did it. Mark says it was two disciples. Luke tells us that these two disciples were Peter and John. John, with his usual reserve, says nothing about who prepared it.

The Old Testament often speaks of vessels of water. They stand for a small measure of the ministry of the Word of God. In the New Testament, "a well of water" and "rivers of living water" show the unlimited flowing out of the ministry of God's Word by the power of the Spirit of God. So the man carrying the pitcher of water shows that the limited ministry of the Old Testament leads somewhere — to the "large upper room furnished and prepared," a picture of the heavenly character of the church, in contrast with Israel's earthly inheritance and blessings.

This man may be seen as a picture of the Holy Spirit's activity in leading and guiding us, using the word of God.

How good to see that the disciples did not trust themselves to decide where to prepare the Passover. Instead, they asked Him to direct them. Without this simple faith, they could not have expected His miraculous answer to their question.

Now comes the supper of the Passover feast at Jerusalem. There the Lord acts as Master of that institution and Creator of a greater one… He was going to die, yet He went there with royal, divine rights. He had not given up His place as Messiah, though He was going to suffer as Son of Man on the cross. So He takes possession as the Master, and the master of the house at once agrees to His claim. All was before His eyes. He had no lack of power to work on the conscience and affections of men. He could have turned all the others as He bowed this man's heart. But then how would the Scriptures have been fulfilled, and sin blotted out, and God glorified? It was necessary that He should go to the cross — not as a victim forced into it, but as One whose only will was to do the will of His Father.

The Lord could provide for His royal entry, and He could provide this last token of love to His disciples too… He knew a faithful remnant in the middle of the evil and the rejection. The disciples did not know them. They were people no one had noticed, and to them it was enough to say, "The Teacher says."

The Lord Jesus had no home of His own, but He knew well how to put His hand on all that was needed for the service of God. The disciples knew that their Master was enough. They did nothing on their own. They looked to Him for direction and acted on it. So the One who had nowhere to lay His head had no lack of suitable accommodation for the last meeting with His own.

Records tell us that at feast times in Jerusalem many people came from distant places. Those living in the city who were able gave up a room for the use of any who came to worship. That is where we get the term "guest chamber." The disciples found such a room ready, furnished and prepared. There the Lord kept the last Passover with His disciples.

The Greek word for "guest room" is used in the story of our Lord's birth, in Luke 2:7, where "there was no place for them in the inn." The only other time it appears in the New Testament is when the Lord ate the last supper with His disciples in the large upper room. The Lord told Peter and John to say to the master of the house, "The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?" (Luke 22:11). In Mark 14:14 we find the same question, but one word is changed in the better reading of the Greek text: "Where is My guest room, where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?" Yes, it was His guest room, His disciples, and His supper.

The "guest chamber" is our true position in a world where Jesus is not. It is a place where a man puts up for the night. The place tells you the character of the one who occupies it. He does not belong to the established order of things… Let Christendom have its costly buildings and its grand temples. The "guest chamber" is the place that suits the followers of Him who had nowhere to lay His head.

He sends two of His disciples, and says to them, Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water: follow him... And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us. He was going to die, yet He still went there with royal, divine rights. He had not lost His place as Messiah, though He was going to suffer as Son of Man on the cross. So He takes possession as the Master, and the master of the house accepts His claim at once. All was before His eyes. There was no lack of power to act on the conscience and affections of men. He could have turned all others as He bowed this man's heart.

This is the word used in the story of our Lord's birth, in Luke 2:7, when "there was no place for them in the inn." The only other place this word appears in the New Testament is when the Lord ate the last supper with His disciples in the large upper room... "The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?" (Luke 22:11). Mark 14:14 has the same question. But in the better reading of the Greek text, one word changes: "Where is My guest room...?" Yes, it was His guest room; His disciples; and His supper.

The Lord Jesus had no home of His own, but He knew well how to put His hand on all that was needed for the service of God. The owner of the guest-chamber was doubtless someone who knew and revered Him. The disciples knew that their Master was enough. They attempted nothing on their own initiative, but simply looked to Him for direction, and acted on it. So the One who had nowhere to lay His head had no lack of suitable accommodation for the last meeting with His own.

Christianity is large, because it is eternal. It is large, because it has to do with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Christianity is large because it breathes the air of resurrection... Judaism was like a room on the ground floor: it offered earthly blessings... But Christianity offers no earthly blessings — ours are heavenly. The room is an upper one, because the disciples were, in figure, to be removed from the influences of the earth. The upper room is not the Father's house; that will be ours when we see Christ, and in heaven. But now the Lord can say of us, "They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world."

Christianity is complete in itself... The mind of man seeks to add what is impressive to the service of God... They seek the outside help of oratory, music, and various organisations. These cater to the cravings of unconverted men or worldly Christians for something less severe than early Christianity. And they forget that the Holy Spirit holds everything needed for life, enjoyment, and service. The upper room is furnished. A true sense of this would stop many from trying to help the Lord's things along with aids outside the Holy Spirit's power.

The incidents that prepare the way for the supper are simple in themselves, but they display the glory of the Person of the Lord. The Lord is going to death, but none the less He is the King with royal rights who can claim the guest chamber, and to whose sovereign will all must submit. Moreover, He is a divine Person to whom everything is known. The man with the "pitcher of water," "the master of the house," the "large upper room furnished," are all before His eyes. The disciples go out to carry out His instructions, and they find everything happening just as He said.

Though He was going to die, He still went there with royal, divine rights. He had not forfeited His place as Messiah, though going to suffer as Son of man on the cross. He therefore takes possession as the Master, and the master of the house at once agrees to His claim. All was before His eyes. There was no lack of power to act upon the conscience and affections of men. He could have turned all others as He bowed this man's heart. But how then should the Scriptures have been fulfilled, and sin blotted out, and God glorified?

He tells His disciples to go into the city, where they would find a man carrying a pitcher full of water. In the house where he would enter, they would find a heart prepared by grace to receive the Lord... He knows all circumstances and all hearts: the disciples find the man as He had told them, and prepare the passover.

The Lord Jesus had no home of His own, but He knew well how to put His hand on all that was needed for the service of God. The owner of the guest-chamber was doubtless someone who knew and revered Him. The disciples knew that their Master was enough. They attempted nothing on their own initiative, but simply looked to Him for direction, and acted on it. So the One who had nowhere to lay His head did not lack a suitable place for the last meeting with His own.

The Passover had been celebrated for many centuries. Those who ate it knew that it commemorated Israel's deliverance from Egypt. Few, if any, realized that it looked forward to the death of the Messiah. Now it would be eaten for the last time before it was fulfilled.

This man may picture for us the Holy Spirit, and the pitcher of water the Word of God. We are to go where the Spirit and the Word of God would lead us... So they went and found things just as He had said, and they ate the Passover supper with the Lord in this room. In that same room, after the Passover meal, the Lord's supper — the new institution for the Church — was also instituted.

In Mark 14:12, 17 we find that the two disciples appointed for the work went and made ready the Passover. They did it on the day when the lamb was to be killed — that is, between the evenings of the fourteenth of the month. And when evening came, the Lord gathered with the twelve to eat it. The lamb was killed between the evenings, and they ate it after its proper preparation in the evening — that is, at the start of the fifteenth of Nisan. This agrees with its original institution in Exodus 12. The phrase in Mark, "when it was evening," allows such a meaning, and really begins a new day.

The first of their qualifications is of special interest, because Mark alone mentions it — they were to be "with Him." … Here we have the calling of those destined to carry on the service and testimony of the gospel in the whole world after He left. Do we not therefore see how fitting this is? The writer who describes the perfect Servant of Jehovah shows us that the servants under Him learned their service in the company of the Master Himself.

In the evening He comes with the twelve, and they sat down to share the Passover. It was the memorial of the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. The Lord was about to carry out a far greater deliverance for His people. This eternal redemption required His death, and that death would come through the betrayal of one of the twelve.

"When it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve disciples" (Matt. 26:20). So also Mark 14:17. … Scripture clearly mentions Judas taking part in the feast and asking a question. … We do not see how anyone can question that Judas was present at the supper. Only the Lord knew his character. His fellow apostles did not seem to suspect him. But to argue from this case that we ought to allow known evil at the Lord's table is simply wicked.

One of that company which was chosen to be with Jesus here below was to prove this awful truth — that the nearer a man is outwardly to blessing, if he does not receive it into his heart, the further away from it he is morally.

Look at Mark 14. In Mark, as in Matthew, we find more attention to the order of events. Verses 17 to 21 give the Passover meal; verse 22 gives the Lord's Supper. Note here that the conversation about who should betray Him came before the Supper.

In the evening He comes with the twelve, and they sat down to eat the Passover. That meal remembered how God rescued the people of Israel out of Egypt. The Lord was about to win a far greater deliverance for His people. This eternal redemption required His death, and the betrayal of one of the twelve would bring that death about.

The Jews had adopted the Roman custom of reclining at meals.

The Lord then speaks of His betrayal. His words show, as other passages do too, how deeply He felt that one of the disciples would betray Him. He knew who it was, and He said so here. But what lay on His heart, in His love for His disciples, was that one of them should do it... The Lord's answer points back to the prophecy that told of His sorrow, and of what made it so painful. See Psalm 41:9; 55:12.

The greater and more perfect the love, the greater the anguish when such love is betrayed. Love was never shown in all its perfection as it was in Christ, and no one ever lived so close to Christ on the outside as Judas did. Yet it was all in vain. Even if he had some appreciation of that love, he loved money more.

It was man's sin, Satan's cunning, God's counsel, and Christ's love. But none of these things altered the wickedness of Judas... God did not make him wicked, but God shaped his wickedness to fulfil His own purposes. One of the company chosen to be with Jesus here on earth would prove this awful truth. The nearer a man stands to blessing on the outside, the further he stands from it in heart, if he never takes it in. There was only one Judas in Israel, and he was the nearest to Jesus.

Now they must learn from His own lips that one of the twelve would hand Him over. They needed to be prepared for this worst of all wickedness... Divine love needed it too, for that love would not give up even a Judas without warning. It let him know that even the night around him was light. Scripture had also warned in advance and pointed at him.

The Lord wanted others to share in His sorrows. It has been said, "He does not proudly hide them," but He wants to lay His sorrows, as a Man, in human hearts; love "counts upon love."

Here was an apostle — a preacher of the gospel, a man with a great religious name. Yet under that cover lay a heart trained in greed. It had plenty of room for "thirty pieces of silver," but not a corner for Jesus... He preached the gospel, but he never knew it, never believed it, never felt it... You who claim to be Christians, beware of head-knowledge, lip service, religious office, and religion done by routine. Beware of these things and seek to have a heart for Christ.

In His perfect love, the Lord felt it deeply. One of those who had lived in His holy presence, heard His words of grace, and seen His endless love and patience was going to act like this. His words came out of the anguish of His heart: "One of you who is eating with Me will betray Me." The greater and more perfect the love, the greater the anguish when someone betrays such love. Never had love in all its perfection been shown as it was in Christ, and no one ever lived outwardly so near to Christ as Judas. Yet it was all in vain. Even if he had some appreciation of that love, he loved money still more... The Lord wanted others to share with Him in His sorrows. It has been said, "He does not proudly hide them," but wants to lay His sorrows as a Man in human hearts; love "counts upon love."

As they eat the Passover, the Lord first uses an indirect way to stir the conscience of Judas. How good to see that the disciples were "very sorrowful" to hear this, rather than indignant against the guilty man. In fact, in wise distrust of themselves, they ask in turn, "Lord, is it I?"

He knew well who the traitor would be. Yet He expresses the anguish of His heart when He says, "one of you will betray me." He wanted to test their hearts again and bring to light what was inside. They believed the Lord's words. Each one was full of trust in Him and of holy distrust of himself, and said, "Lord, is it I?" What a fine testimony of upright and tested hearts! They thought about the fact and the possibility of such a crime with more confidence in Jesus' word than in themselves.

We can picture the scene, as each one, distrusting himself, asked, "Is it I?" No one apparently kept silent except Judas, who at last — since staying quiet any longer would give him away — had the nerve to say, as Matthew records, "Rabbi, is it I?"

One of that company chosen to be with Jesus here below was to prove this terrible truth. The nearer a man is outwardly to blessing, the further he is morally from it, if he does not take 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 companionship to all the guilt of betraying Him.

Not knowing our own weakness, we think we are safe even though others may fail. So Peter says, "Even though they all fall away, I will not." They would all fall away. But the one who takes the lead in expressing his self-confidence would have the greatest fall. We break down in the very thing we boast about.

Before your conscience is awakened, you look at other people. Then conscience begins to work, and each one says, "Lord, is it I?"... Have you ever, as a sinner, asked yourself the question — Is it I? Oh, but you say, I could not betray Christ. Well, I am perfectly sure I could, knowing my own heart. And, my dear friends, the person who is certain that he can never do it is the very person who will go and do it.

One of the company chosen to be with Jesus here on earth would prove this awful truth. The nearer a man stands to blessing on the outside, if he does not receive it into his heart, the further he is from it in his soul. There was only one Judas in Israel, and he was the nearest to Jesus. Only one man joined all the privileges of such companionship with Jesus to all the guilt of betraying Him.

The betrayal was heartless and utterly wicked: the man who was about to betray the Lord could dip with Him in the dish. The Lord wanted others to share His sorrows with Him. Someone has said that He does not hide them out of pride. Instead He wants to lay His sorrows, as a Man, in human hearts; love "counts on love."

The Lord points out the traitor next, but He comes closer by degrees, as if to alarm the conscience and rouse it to repentance before the guilt was fixed. First it is one of you. Then it is the man who dips his hand with Me in the dish.

The Lord's answer was that the betrayer would dip his hand in the dish with the Lord Himself. That act would show a shameless attitude of resisting his own conscience.

There was sin in Judas's nature, and that sin showed itself in the shape of the love of money. Next Satan suggested a way to satisfy this desire, for he loved money more than he loved Jesus. Here we see the result of outward nearness to the Lord while the conscience stays untouched... His nearness served to harden him... And religious forms cannot improve the flesh, even where Christ Himself is.

It was man's sin, Satan's cunning, God's counsel, and Christ's love. But none of these things altered the wickedness of Judas... God did not make him wicked, but God shaped his wickedness into this form to fulfil His own counsels.

The believers at Corinth were in danger of the same kind of disloyalty to Christ that led Judas to betray his Master — not to the same degree, but the same kind. We must not curse Judas and forget that we could do the same. The Lord did not speak harsh words to him. Scripture records his shameful deed to warn us. But we are not to stare at Judas. We are to look at the Lord, and to think what sorrow this was to Him... The Lord Jesus cared for Judas, and yet Judas betrayed Him.

In His perfect love, the Lord felt it deeply. One of those who had lived in His holy presence, heard His words of grace, and seen His endless love and patience was going to act like this. The greater and more perfect the love, the greater the anguish at such a betrayal of love. Christ expressed love in all its perfection as no one else ever did. And no one ever lived as near to Christ, on the outside, as Judas. Yet it was all in vain, for even if he had any appreciation of the love, he loved money still more.

The Lord's answer refers to the prophetic statement which told of His sorrow and the reason it was so sharp. See Psalm 41:9; 55:12. The Son of man must go as Scripture had written of Him. But the doom of the man who did it was terrible.

In the end, Judas could only carry out the purpose of God... It is a great support to the believer's heart to know this: neither the wickedness of man nor the schemes of Satan can frustrate any divine plan. Rebels against their Maker, human or angelic, must contribute to the final result He planned, even against their own will. Of course this does not lessen their wickedness at all. God and His purposes have no place in their thoughts.

The Holy Writings had foretold that betrayal would take the Son of Man into death. That did not lessen the seriousness of the traitor's act in any way. God knows all things and can foretell men's acts. This does not relieve them of responsibility for what they do. By his act Judas revealed his true self. Jesus was about to reveal Himself fully by His death.

It was man's sin, Satan's cunning, God's counsel, and Christ's love. But none of these things altered the wickedness of Judas... God did not make him wicked. But God gave his wickedness this shape, to fulfil His counsels.

One of the company chosen to be with Jesus here on earth would prove this awful truth. The nearer a man comes to blessing on the outside, the further he really is from it, if he never takes it into his heart. There was only one Judas in Israel, and he was nearest to Jesus. And there was only one man who joined all the privileges of such closeness to Jesus with all the guilt of betraying Him.

Divine love would not give up even a Judas without warning. It had to let him know that even the night was light around him. Scripture too had forewarned and pointed at him. And the Lord adds His awful warning: "It would have been better for that man if he had not been born."

Suppose Judas' fall ended with the fallen one restored to a more secure blessedness. Then it would have been good for him to have been born — the highest witness of grace... What the Lord says of Judas is absolute — better for him not to have been born.

The words from such lips are awful: "It would have been better for that man if he had not been born." The same is true of everyone who rejects the Lord Jesus Christ and dies in sin.

Yet after the Passover with His disciples, as He created this new feast, "He gave thanks." Yes — the flames of love in His own heart could not be quenched. All the storms of Satan and the malice of wicked men failed to reach them. They burned on that occasion without a flicker. He rose above His griefs. He unselfishly looked forward to the blessings that would flow from His death. So, "for the joy that was set before him," He "endured the cross, despising the shame." He could find joy even in the sufferings ahead of Him — and so "He gave thanks."

In Scripture, blessing and giving thanks belong closely together. Scripture uses both terms for the Lord's Supper — blessing (Mark 14:22; 1 Cor. 10:16), and giving thanks (Mark 14:23; Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24).

"Drink of it, all of you" (Matt. 26:27) was the Lord's invitation to His disciples, and surely His invitation today to all His own is just the same. "They all drank of it," we read in Mark 14:23. Matthew's Gospel gives the invitation; Mark's Gospel gives the glad response. Who is the Lord's Supper for? Is it the badge of membership in one particular group of Christians? To raise the question is to answer it. Scripture is so plain about it. It is the LORD'S Supper. It is where He should be supreme. His invitation is for all the blood-bought children of God. If a Christian, sound in the faith and living a godly life, asks to remember the Lord in His death, he must be received. Otherwise it stops being the LORD'S Supper and becomes a feast for members of one group only.

Had Matthew's account been lost, we would not have known that the Lord said, as He gave the cup, "Drink of it, all of you." Had Mark's account not survived to our day, we would not have known that they all drank of it. Taking the bread without the cup was not practised in the Lord's presence, and nothing He said supports it.

It is His death that is before us: a broken body, and the blood separated from it, life given up in this world. Drinking the blood on its own marks it out as shed. It is a striking example of Satan's power that the cup is refused to ordinary worshippers. To comfort them, they are told that a whole Christ — body, blood, soul and divinity — is present in each: in the bread as well as in the wine. But if the blood is still in the body, there is no redemption. Then what they celebrate is a Christ still living on earth, who had shed no blood to redeem us. It is a sacrament of no redemption.

The order here is significant. The disciples share the cup before the Lord speaks of what it symbolises. This corrects the idea that the bread and wine work on their own, whatever the spiritual state of the person receiving them.

After giving thanks, one breaks the bread and eats in remembrance of Him; and it is the same with the cup. He gave it to them, we read (Mark 14:23), and they all drank of it. For the believer it is the simplest, the most touching, and the most solemn of observances.

When we drink from the cup we have communion with the blood of Christ. Not I alone have this, but "we", all the believers — and it is the same with the bread. All believers who celebrate the Lord's Supper have fellowship with it and with one another.

Can there be the shade of a doubt here, or in Mark 14:24? Our Lord is speaking of the cup He gave the disciples. First, where would be the fitness of "new" applied to a "testament" or will? Nobody ever talks about a "new" will. But secondly, there is another and stronger objection. What has "blood" to do with a testament or will? The moment we turn to the new "covenant" everything falls into place. The blood of Christ is exactly its foundation.

The blood of the old covenant sealed Israel's promise to obey. They were people in the flesh, under the Law. The blood of the new covenant sealed the accomplishment of grace for the people who believed in Jesus by the Spirit.

The first covenant may have had the blood of sacrifices connected with it. That blood was its warning, threatening death on those who proved unfaithful. It was as if it said: if you fail to obey the law, you must die, as these victims died. The blood of the new covenant has an entirely opposite character. Christ's blood, as a starting point, secures a perfect clearance for every soul who believes in Him.

His body ("This is My body"), and His blood, "the blood of the new covenant, shed for many." It was not for the Jew only, but shed for many.

In the Luke account we have the words "shed for you." That language was deeply personal to all at the table on that solemn night. But in Matthew the expression is more general, and deliberately so: "shed for many." Israel's unbelief has not stopped the tide of God's grace. In His wisdom, it has turned that grace aside from themselves for a while. It has made grace overflow every barrier, so that it may reach outsiders like us.

Hebrews 8 and 9 show the change of covenant. A new covenant is brought in, still to be made with Judah and Israel. The old was "ready to vanish away." Meanwhile a Mediator is introduced, before the time when Israel and Judah will be back in the land. This Mediator has shed the blood needed to establish the covenant, but has not yet established it with them. In Matthew 26:28 He says, "This is my blood of the new covenant" — not, This is the new covenant, but "the blood" of it. The covenant itself has not yet been established.

I do not say that we, Christians, have the new covenant itself, but we have the blood of the new covenant. We have that on which the new covenant is founded. The new covenant supposes certain spiritual blessings: the law of God written in the heart, and our sins forgiven. These spiritual parts of the new covenant we have received now.

The order here is significant. The disciples partake of the cup before the Lord speaks of its meaning. In this we have a corrective to one idea about the bread and wine. They do not work on their own, apart from the spiritual condition of the one receiving them.

Brevity marks Mark's record all through. Nowhere is it more marked than in his account of how this supper began. The essentials, however, are all here: the bread and its meaning, the cup and its significance. For the Lord Himself the fruit of the vine, and what it symbolised — earthly joy — was all past. All earthly hopes and joys on the old basis were closed for Him.

The Lord has used the cup as the symbol of His blood shed for many. Looking at the wine in its natural sense as the fruit of the vine, it would set forth earthly joy. The death of Christ breaks His links with earth and earthly things, until at last God sets up His Kingdom on the earth. Today the believers' links are with a heavenly Christ Who has suffered on earth. They wait for the future Kingdom, to share with Christ in the glories and joys of the earthly Kingdom.

This verse seems to present clearly this Nazarite character of Christ. And it seems to me to imply that this was in fact always His character. In openly taking this position of separation from sinners, He gives us to understand that in truth it was always so. "I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine" — "I cannot have it in joy with you. I cannot take the blessedness of what makes glad the heart of God and man, here with man in his present state. God's kingdom must come first."

The attentive reader may notice that this settles the force also of Matthew 26:29 and Mark 14:25: "until that day when I drink it new." The word here is not νέος, which would mean wine that has not yet grown old. It is wine of a new sort, a new kind. It is not the old wine at all.

The Lord has made the cup of His blood, which we drink, real and absolutely true for the soul and for faith. Yet He still goes on to declare plainly that the fruit of the vine is not His blood. For He says He will in no way drink of it until He drinks it new with us in the kingdom of His Father.

Mark 14:25 uses the words "kingdom of God." That confirms that the term "kingdom of God" takes in everything, the other terms being special features of God's kingdom… It is also interesting to see Luke 22:18. There, after the Passover meal, we may view the disciples as representing the remnant of Israel, and the Lord says He will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. For the remnant of Israel on earth in the coming day, it will not be the Father's kingdom in heaven. It will be the kingdom of God on earth.

If someone asks, "Has the kingdom of God not come?" I answer: in a certain sense, yes, in Spirit… But as for the earthly reality of it, plainly it has not come, and so the joy is not actually fulfilled.

He would drink no more of the fruit of the vine until He drank it new with them in the kingdom of God. He refused what was the sign of fellowship in things here below… That kingdom is founded on His suffering unto death. But meanwhile, before it comes, there is the remembrance of something wholly different. It is not the remembrance of a kingdom, power and glory, but of crucifixion in weakness: His body ("This is My body"), and His blood, "the blood of the covenant, poured out for many." It was not for the Jew only, but poured out for many.

These Psalms are sung in the family celebration of the Passover night. Delitzsch writes that they "are divided into two parts. The one half (113, 114) is sung before the meal. The other half (115–118) is sung after the meal, after the filling of the fourth cup. The words 'when they had sung a hymn' (Matt. 26:30, Mark 14:26) may refer to this, coming after the institution of the Lord's Supper, which was connected with the fourth festal cup."

The One hundred-eighteenth Psalm was therefore the last which they sang, before the Lord with His disciples went to the Mount of Olives that memorable night when He was betrayed. And speaking to the chief priests and elders our Lord applied this Psalm to Himself. See verse 22 and compare with Matthew 21:42.

It was for the disciples just the customary thing, no doubt; but what must it have been for the Lord? To sing, as He went out to fulfil the picture of the Passover by becoming the sacrifice. And Psalm 118, towards the end, speaks of binding "the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar." He went out to suffering and death, bound by the cords of His love; and the disciples to failure, defeat and scattering.

The two things are so marvellous. We could understand better His singing a hymn and remaining in the Upper Room, or going out without singing. But to sing a hymn when going out to meet His enemies — the betrayal, the denial, the agony of Gethsemane, the forsaking of the cross — would prove a calmness of spirit. That calm was surely the outcome of having the Father's will in view, and of the joy set before Him beyond the cross.

Moses, the servant of God, who was faithful in all his house, did not start that hymn. Christ Himself did — the Son over His own house, Jehovah-Jesus, the Deliverer of His people of old. That song of redemption at the Red Sea was addressed to Him! That same voice would soon appeal to His Father in the agonies of Gethsemane, and then cry from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Yet at that table we hear it leading the praises of His little flock.

"In the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise." We ought to feel, each time we meet as an assembly, that Christ is there, and leads the praise. Think what it is that Christ should be there, and raising the song! It is a wonderful thing, the present way He holds us as identified with Himself.

It is enough to know that they sang. And I ask, if they sang then with the Lord in their midst, was that not a precedent weighty enough to warrant our doing the same, even supposing there were not another verse of Scripture on the subject?

If ever there was an occasion on which shared sorrow might have outweighed shared joy at the remembrance of shelter from divine judgment by blood, it would have been that evening. But instead, before they left the upper room they sang together to God — a hint for us that no sorrow of any kind is to override the heart's joy which flows from the remembrance of redemption.

He announced the scattering of the sheep and His own striking by the hand of God. What must it have meant for Him to say, with His perfect knowledge, "I will strike the shepherd"! That striking took place on the cross. It is the heart and mystery of the atonement.

Does that mighty work of suffering for our sins, does the Atonement, "scatter" the sheep? Is it not, on the contrary, the only righteous foundation on which they are gathered? … But the striking of the Shepherd expresses His utter humiliation as Messiah, cut off and having nothing. "I will strike" refers to God's giving the Lord up to feel the reality of His rejection and death. No doubt atonement was accomplished in it. But "striking" is a wider term. Christ takes it from God, yet it was His enemies who actually did the deed. … All this humiliation of the Saviour, even before it was complete on the cross, scattered the disciples. They stumbled and fled the night before the blow actually fell on their Master.

The LORD calls Him "My fellow." So He is divine. In no sense and at no time was He ever inferior to God. "I and the Father are one," He said while He was here on earth — one in majesty, power, wisdom and glory. Yet the LORD of hosts also calls Him "the man." He became this in His grace, the offspring of the woman, so that He might bruise the serpent's head.

Had He ever once, in His whole life, acted against His character as the Good Shepherd? He feeds His flock. He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart, and He gently leads the nursing ewes (Isa. 40:11). And now this Shepherd had to be struck down in death!

They can sing together in the presence of the Lord. Yet that same night, away from His presence, they will take offence and be scattered. How solemn a picture they give of what has happened among the Lord's people! We can only sing together in His presence, with every heart taken up with Him… Away from His presence we take offence at Christ and at one another. And offended saints soon part company and become scattered sheep.

They did not know their own weakness. They did not know what it was to have the power of death pressing on them. They had never faced what total rejection by the world feels like… The disciples did not yet know what it was to be dead with Him. So not one of them could stand. Later it became their privilege, but they had not gone that way before. Jesus must go first.

But, blessed be His name, He never fails. So the scattering will end and the gathering time will come. The disciples found this in their own day. After He rose, they learned that the Lord had not changed in all the love and grace of His heart. He, the great Shepherd of the sheep, would go before them and once again His sheep would follow Him.

"Jesus says to them, 'You will all fall away because of me this night.'" To be ashamed of Him, wretched as we are! And yet how this brings out the indescribable love of Jesus! He tells His sheep, who are about to be scattered, that He will rejoin them soon. This whole work is to save His own. Sadly, it also shows all the weakness of the flesh in them, and all the perfection of obedience in Jesus. As soon as He has finished it, He will go before them into Galilee.

The word προάγειν ("go before") is used of the shepherd. It appears in the same way in John 10:4, and is also used of false leaders in 2 John 9.

"But after I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee." The Lord takes up again in resurrection His place of lowly service with the disciples.

The link between Jesus and His disciples here below would indeed be broken, but not by His abandoning them... Yet the hand of God was in all this. He would strike the Shepherd. But once raised from the dead, Jesus would take up His relationship with His disciples again — with the poor of the flock. He would go before them to the place where that relationship began — to Galilee. It lay far from the pride of the nation. There the light had appeared among them, according to the word of God.

He warned them of what lay ahead. He pointed them to the prophecy of Zechariah, which foretold the striking of Jehovah's Shepherd and the scattering of the sheep. But the prophet went on to say, "and I will turn my hand upon the little ones," and this answers to verse 28 of our chapter. Those who were His sheep as a nation were scattered. But the "little ones," whom Zechariah elsewhere calls "the poor of the flock," were gathered again on a new basis, once the Shepherd had risen from the dead. So He was to meet them not in Jerusalem but in Galilee.

But, blessed be His name, He never fails; so the scattering will end and the gathering time will come. In their own day the disciples would find this. After He rose, they would learn that the Lord had not changed in all the love and grace of His heart. He, the great Shepherd of the sheep, would go before them, and once again His sheep would follow Him.

At the empty tomb the angel told the women to tell His disciples, and Peter, that He was going before them into Galilee, and that they would see Him there, just as He had said. So the disciples, knowing that their Master had risen from the dead, went in due course into Galilee to see Him. So far, this was commendable obedience.

But weak flesh has no patience with delay. It was too tedious for them to wait patiently for the Lord to appear and direct their steps. "I am going fishing," says one. "We will come with you," say the rest... Sheep of Christ, will you not wait patiently for the Great Shepherd who was struck for you? Do not spoil your obedience by your impatience!

The Lord has given the word of warning, followed by a word of encouragement. Sadly, like Peter, we too often ignore His warnings. Our self-confidence makes us miss the blessing of His words of encouragement. Not knowing our own weakness, we think we are safe even though others may fail. So Peter says, "Even though they all fall away, I will not." They would all fall away. But the one who takes the lead in expressing his self-confidence would have the greatest fall. We break down in the very thing we boast about.

There was more than self-confidence in what made him say, "I will lay down my life for Your sake; I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death." At the same time, his pride made him belittle the love of his fellow disciples. He implied that they might well give way and desert their Master. His own love for his Master, as he saw it, was so much deeper and truer than theirs that such behaviour was impossible for him.

No doubt Peter was sincere, but we have to learn that sincerity is not enough to keep us true to the Lord. We need to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Only then will we overcome the weakness of the flesh, escape the schemes of the devil and be free from the fear of man. Take an apostle who is out of touch with Christ. All the devil needs to bring him down is a simple question from a young girl.

Peter trusts his own strength, as he always does. He declares that he would never fall away, even if all the others did. But self-confidence in a disciple must be corrected by the humbling of self. If we are humble, we are safe, for God gives grace; if we are self-confident and not humble, we must be humbled. So it was with poor Peter. The Lord warns him, but he holds on to his confidence. So instead of watching and praying, he goes to sleep. The enemy was close at hand, though Peter did not know it… All the disciples are drawn into the same self-confident claim.

Peter has the false confidence of the flesh. Does Jesus reproach him for it? What does Peter's presumption produce in the heart of Jesus? He warns Peter, and prays for him. His love is steadfast, unchangeable, and never weakens. His heart is not discouraged. It is He, the One who was to bear all the pain, who encourages and comforts His disciples.

The Lord did not address Peter by the new name He had given him. He used his old name in nature, "Simon, son of John," and asked him, "Do you love me more than these?" This is just what Peter had claimed for himself when he said, "Even though they all fall away, I will not," as Mark tells us. This must have been a very painful question. Judging by his performance, it looked as though he loved Him far less. What could he say? Only this: "Yes, Lord; You know that I am attached to You." He used the lower word. It showed that he had already come down in his own estimate of himself.

Peter's total failure as a servant is drawn out in detail. All the while, Christ's grace toward him shines on to the end all the more brightly… Only here is the Lord's warning recorded in its most specific form (Mark 14:30), and only here its equally specific fulfilment. How gracious of the Master! How low in the servant, only to find His goodness still more abundant!

Mark alone notices the two crowings of the rooster. The second one came at the general crowing that the other Gospels speak of. The first fails to rouse Peter; so easily may the conscience become dull through the power of sin.

Ignorant of our weakness we think that we are safe though others may fail. So Peter says, "Even if they all fall away, I will not." They would all fall away. But the one who takes the lead in expressing his self-confidence would have the greatest fall. We break down in the very thing we boast about.

We do not in the least question Peter's sincerity. We are sure he meant all he said, and just as sure that he had no idea what he was about to do. He did not know himself. Ignorance and self-confidence usually go together. Self-knowledge destroys self-confidence.

He did not believe our Lord's warning. If he had, he would not have entered into temptation. He would have watched, prayed, and been kept through faith. So he must learn by bitter experience what the flesh is. The word was not mixed with faith in his soul when the Lord warned him so solemnly.

This forecast of his coming failure only makes Peter protest his devotion to the Lord more strongly… No doubt Peter was sincere. But we have to learn that sincerity is not enough to keep us true to the Lord. When an apostle is out of touch with Christ, all the devil needs to bring him down is the simple question of a young girl.

Peter has the false confidence of the flesh. Does Jesus reproach him with it? What does Peter's presumption produce in the heart of Jesus? He warns Peter, and prays for him. His love is steadfast, unchangeable, and never slackens. His heart is not discouraged. It is He, He who was to bear all the pain, who encourages and consoles His disciples.

"And Peter remembered the word that Jesus said to him." I do not say that his repentance was complete… Still, there was genuine feeling of his sin, shame, and anguish of spirit. He wept as he thought about it. It is always the word of the Lord that produces real repentance, whether in a saint or a sinner. It is not human feeling, nor shame, nor the fear of being found out — it was the word that Jesus spoke, working within. The word of the Lord does two things: it convicts and it heals.

The One who searches and knows is the One who alone is able to keep us from falling, and to restore us when we fall. So the restored Peter is brought to confess on resurrection day, "Lord, You know everything." No more will he talk about his own heart. No more will he boast about what he will and will not do.

This warning of his coming failure only makes Peter insist even more strongly on his devotion to the Lord. He says, "If I must die with You, I will not deny You." No doubt Peter was sincere, but we have to learn that sincerity is not enough to keep us true to the Lord. We need to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Only that strength can overcome the weakness of the flesh, escape the schemes of the devil and free us from the fear of man. When an apostle is out of touch with Christ, all the devil needs to bring about his fall is the simple question of a young girl.

In the things of God, nothing leads to a fall more surely than self-reliance… Peter was not the only one who pledged his faithfulness in vain. Mark adds, "and they all said the same." They did not know their weakness; they did not know what it was to have the power of death pressing upon them. They had not faced total rejection by the world… They did not yet know what it is to have died with Him, so not one of them was able to stand. Afterwards it was their privilege, but they had not gone that way before. Jesus must go first.

Peter had said, "Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death" (Luke 22:33). All the rest of the disciples really said the same… but we read elsewhere, "And they all said the same" (Mark 14:31). Peter's fall was really at the moment when he boasted of what he would do. What followed was the natural outcome of his inward fall.

While the Lord was praying in agony, Peter was sleeping. When the Lord submitted Himself like a lamb that is silent before its shearers, Peter used the sword to strike. When the Lord confesses the truth calmly and firmly before His enemies, Peter denies Him. This is what the flesh is, and the fruit of false confidence in self! Peter, too, had been fully warned… But Peter trusts in himself: "If I must die with You, I will not deny You."

It may happen to others besides Peter to say, "If I must die with You, I will not deny You," for "they all said the same." Where Christ is honoured and owned among His own people, among those who confess His name, people may easily own Him… But in other company, among those who reject Him, how ready the heart is to hide that it knows Him! And if you think it was evil in Peter to have denied Him like this, is it any less terrible in you?

Peter wanted credit for loving the Lord more than his fellow disciples did, and he based it on the strength of his own affection… But Peter had never yet learnt himself. Then he learnt that solemn but much-needed lesson. The love he saw in himself sank to its lowest point. The love and grace of Christ, of God in Christ, flooded in and displaced the poor, paltry thing in him that he had dared to exalt.

This is the garden somewhere on the Mount of Olives where the Lord often went with His disciples. Here He spent part of the night after the last Passover. Here He was in intense agony as He faced the cup of wrath due to sin. How significant is the name, which means "wine-press"! Angels came and ministered to Him. Here Judas also betrayed Him with a kiss, and He was arrested.

Gethsemane, the "oil-press," answers to its name. In it we do not find the wine-press, the suffering that accomplished atonement. We do not find the bearing of sin itself. We find the pressure on Him of that supreme sorrow, as He now touched the very edge of it.

They follow Him to Gethsemane. They had done so many times before, for Jesus often went there with His disciples. In the past they had watched with Him in the silence of the night beneath those olive trees, while He held communion with His Father. But now it was different.

As we approach the mysterious suffering in Gethsemane, every circumstance warns us to move with reverent care — even the small number of these weighty words. Eight of the eleven disciples are left behind, and with Peter, James, and John He goes on further. Soon He tells these also to stay and watch with Him, but He Himself still goes on to what they cannot share with Him.

In the presence of this great sorrow, as in all the other trials of His perfect life, He gave Himself to prayer. But whatever relief prayer may bring, its first effect is to make the trial felt more sharply. Prayer brings every circumstance into the presence of God, and there each one is felt in its true character.

He now reviews in spirit before God what He is about to suffer in drinking the cup of the wrath of God. Jesus was holy, and He had lived in the love of the Father. He alone understood what the holiness of God was, and what His love cost. So He was all the more able, as no one else was, to understand how horrible sin was, and how awful the wrath of God was.

On the cross it was a question between God and Him alone. There, made sin, and recovering the glory of God that the whole world had compromised, He alone endured everything in His own person. This is the difference between the cross and Gethsemane.

When He comes to the disciples He finds them sleeping. Think of it! The Master praying, and the servants sleeping. In that moment of unmatched sorrow the Master is in agony before God, showing perfect human dependence, while the servant is sleeping. Such is human nature. Peter slept in the presence of the glory of the Lord, on the Mount of Transfiguration. Now he is sleeping in the presence of His sorrow.

Here is another striking instance of Mark's vivid description: "He began to be greatly distressed and troubled," ekthambeisthai kai ademonein, in Mark 14:33... The word ademonein is a moving word. On one likely derivation, it means the homeless feeling of someone far from his country and his friends... Needless to say, the word is charged in the Gospels with a quite unique intensity of meaning: "Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow."

He now reviews in spirit before God what He is about to suffer in drinking the cup of the wrath of God. Jesus was holy, and He had lived in the love of the Father. He alone understood what the holiness of God was, and what His love cost. He was therefore all the more able to understand, alone, how horrible sin was, and how awful the wrath of God was. Only those who are in sin are indifferent to this wrath. They do not know the holiness of God. They are strangers to Him and have never tasted His love. It is awful to see us calm, content with ourselves, and careless. We know the pangs that sin cost the Lord Jesus, and why He was greatly distressed and troubled.

The men who had seen the glory of His transfiguration must also see the agony of His soul as He faced the greater agony of the cross. For He tells them His soul is very sorrowful, even to death, and asks that they watch. Why did His unusual words not have a more serious effect on them? Did they not realise this was no ordinary occasion?

Peter slept in the presence of the glory of the Lord, on the Mount of Transfiguration, and he is sleeping now in the presence of His sorrow.

He began to be greatly distressed and troubled. He felt as man what He had to go through — not mere pain or suffering. The power of death weighed on His spirit. It weighed on Him as man, yet with a weight no man could measure. Yet with what calm simplicity He tells it out!... His need was there, and told out to hearts that ought to have felt it and watched earnestly, occupied with Him. He looked for this, for someone to have compassion.

At Gethsemane our Lord was, as it is written, "greatly distressed and troubled."... It would not have been perfection if He had not felt it this way. It was impossible that He who was life could desire such a death from His Father — from God in wrath against Him. It would have been hardness, not love. He felt it perfectly, in keeping with God His Father. Yet He fully submits His human will to the Father's.

Was propitiation accomplished by all this? No, my friends. Propitiation means meeting the righteous claims of God, glorifying Him about sin, and making atonement for it. It was not accomplished by the living agonies of Jesus, nor by the sorrows He tasted, nor by the tears He shed. In the garden you see our Lord calmly and quietly thinking through everything, facing everything, looking at everything, weighing everything. That is what produced this deep sorrow in His blessed soul. But Gethsemane was not Golgotha. In the garden He took the cup, if I may say it, and looked at what was in it. On the cross He drank it.

Christ is Man, and so in every detail Scripture speaks of Him in language it would use of a man — always apart from sin, and holy by His very nature. It speaks of His body, as in Matthew 26:12 and Hebrews 10:5. It speaks of His soul, as in Mark 14:34 and John 12:27. It speaks of His spirit too, as in Mark 2:8 and Luke 23:46. All these speak of Him in Manhood, the Son having become Man.

There all that was before the blessed One came upon His spirit. He began to be sorrowful and very heavy. He felt as man what He had to undergo. It was not mere pain or suffering. The power of death weighed upon His spirit. It weighed on Him as man, yet with a weight no man could measure. Yet with what calm simplicity He tells it out! We ought to know it, though it may be beyond our knowledge.

He did not shrink from death. The agony was not because of the physical sufferings He knew He would face. Nor was Satan, as some foolishly teach, ready to kill Him. All such statements are dishonouring to Him. He was not in danger of death in Gethsemane. What was the cup He dreaded? The Sinless One, who knew no sin, would soon be made sin for us. God's face, on which He had always looked, would soon be hidden.

In Gethsemane, He was anticipating the cross; at Calvary, He was actually enduring it. In Gethsemane, "there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him"; at Calvary, He was forsaken by all. There was no angelic ministry there. In Gethsemane He addresses God as "Father," and so enjoys the full communion of that relationship. But at Calvary He cries, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

When the cross came, there was no such call to disciples to watch with Him. He was alone, absolutely, essentially, for us — that is, for our sins — with none of men or angels in any way or measure near Him.

They had already been the chosen witnesses of His glories on the mountain. Now they are given the opportunity to share His sorrows in the garden. No one could share the actual forsaking on the cross. But in what He felt in His soul as the cross drew near, others can have a part, in their measure.

When He comes to the disciples He finds them sleeping. Think of it! The Master praying, and the servants sleeping. In that moment of sorrow beyond compare, the Master is in agony before God, showing perfect human dependence. The servant is asleep. Such is human nature. Peter slept on the mountain where the Lord's glory shone out. Now he is sleeping in the presence of His sorrow.

For Him, as our holy substitute, death meant bearing the penalty of sin. That is why He can say, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death." He has borne that penalty, and so He has robbed death of its terrors for the believer. Stephen can rejoice in the prospect of death, and Paul can say it is far better to depart and be with Christ.

It was a deep sorrow to the Lord that the nation were plotting to put Him to death. One of His twelve disciples was about to betray Him. Another was going to deny Him. All of them would fall away because of Him. But in Gethsemane the Lord faces a far deeper sorrow: what He was about to endure at the cross, when, made sin, He would be forsaken by God. Faced with this great sorrow, as in every other trial of His perfect life, He gave Himself to prayer. But whatever relief prayer may bring, its first effect is to make the trial felt more keenly. Prayer brings every circumstance into the presence of God, where each one is seen for what it truly is.

Matthew has told us that He prayed three times in Gethsemane (Matt. 26:38-44). For His position, falling on the ground, Mark's statement is the plainest testimony (Mark 14:35). Luke alone tells us of His sweat like blood and of the angel who came to strengthen Him (Luke 22:43-44). He knew the power of darkness in all its might, so He can now fully enter into the trials of His people.

The Master praying, and the servants sleeping! The Master is in agony before God, showing perfect human dependence, in that moment of sorrow beyond compare, while the servant sleeps.

Face down on the ground, He prays in trusting faith to His Father, with whom all things are possible. Yet He adds that the Father's will, not His own, should be done. So what was possible did not decide the matter. Of course He could have avoided the cross. But then the solemn question of sin could never have been settled, and sinful people could never have been saved.

He prays that the hour may pass from Him, if it is possible. He had borne every cup of suffering from the hand of sinners without complaining. His Father's favour was enough for Him! But this cup was to be made a curse. The just One would be made sin. He who had always been in the Father's bosom, the object of an infinite love, would find Himself forsaken by God. Because He was devoted to God, He wished to draw back from this if He could. But if we were to escape the penalty of sin, He had to bear it for us.

It was part of His perfection to shrink from the cross. So He can say to the Father, "All things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me." But it was just as much part of His perfection to submit to the cross and carry out the Father's will. So He can add, "Yet not what I will, but what you will."

It would not have been perfection if He had not felt it in this way. It was impossible that He who was life could desire such a death from His Father — from God in wrath against Him. That would have been hardness, not love. He had a real soul, a truly rational human soul, not just a spark of life. He could not have prayed this if it were true, as some have claimed, that the divine nature in our Lord took the place of a soul. He would not have been perfect man had He not taken a soul as well as a body.

'Abba' appears three times in the New Testament, and 'Father' always follows it. Translators copied 'Abba' over instead of translating it; a translation would read 'Father Father.' In the Greek, the 'Abba' is Aramaic and the 'Father' is Greek... The only place where the Lord Himself says it is Mark 14:36. And the Spirit in the hearts of believers puts the very words He used into their lips. Some suggest that in the two words the Jew and the Gentile each say 'Father' in his own language.

It is Mark who tells us that He said, "Abba, Father." Mark writes of Him as the perfect Servant. His path of service had brought Him to this dark hour... To whom could He turn? Only to Him whom He served with that holy and perfect devotion and in whom was all His trust. He put the whole matter into His hands... It describes a relationship in which knowing a perfect love draws out perfect trust.

In His life of obedience Jesus suffered the hostility of sinners. He never turned away from them, and He never demanded that such a cup be taken away from Him. Why this one, then? Because this was not just the cup of the sin of men, or of Satan's malice, but the cup of the wrath of God. In what He had to suffer before from men, He had the joy of doing His Father's will. But in this cup, the cup of wrath, there was not one drop of sweetness... And why could the cup not pass? Here is the reason. God cannot bear with sin. And since Jesus Himself was made sin for us, God's wrath had to fall on sin.

It would not have been perfection if He had not felt it this way. It was impossible that He who was life could desire such a death from His Father — from God in wrath against Him. It would have been hardness, not love. He felt it perfectly, as before God His Father, and still He gives up His human will completely to the Father's... He had a real soul, not just a spark of life.

Face down on the ground, He prays in trusting faith to His Father, with whom all things are possible. Yet He adds that the Father's will, and not His own, should be done. So what was possible did not decide the matter. Of course He could have avoided the cross. But if He had, the solemn question of sin could never have been settled, and sinful creatures could never have been saved.

He was not one who had no will of His own, as people sometimes say. He had a will as a true man, but He subjected His will to the will of the Father. He never exercised His will in independence. He would not have been a perfect man if He had had no will.

But — wonderful thought — it is no longer our blessed Lord Jesus who uses this word of closeness. It is those whom His precious blood has redeemed. It is those who have received the adoption of sons.

This shows what the "Spirit of His Son" is. It also shows that the Lord at that moment was consciously enjoying His relationship with the Father, whatever agony He was passing through.

He and his two companions were only asked to watch for an hour. They could not do it. Yet the Lord spoke His gentle words of reproof only to Peter, who had been so boastful, and He used his old name of Simon. This was fitting, for at that moment he was not true to his new name. He was showing the marks of the old nature that was still in him.

The sorrows of the Garden were too deep for poor weak human nature, just as before the glories of the Mount were too great. On both occasions the disciples find relief in sleep. Peter had gone beyond the others in boasting of his devotion to the Lord. So the Lord speaks to him in particular when He comes to these sleeping saints and asks, "Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour?" Prayer expresses our dependence on God, and prayer alone will prepare us for coming temptation. Too often our natural self-confidence leaves us with little fear of temptation, and so with little sense of our need of prayer.

When He comes to the disciples He finds them sleeping. Think of it! The Master praying, and the servants sleeping. The Master is in agony before God in that moment of unequalled sorrow, showing perfect human dependence. The servant is sleeping. Such is human nature.

They slept. They had not enough affection for Him to watch one hour. Peter, who was willing to face prison or death, could not watch one hour. This uncovers the selfishness at the bottom of our hearts. That selfishness is a stranger to the affections that make our hearts enter into the glory of Jesus, and into His sufferings too.

How solemn is Peter's course in these scenes. It is recorded not so that we should dwell on his failure and belittle a devoted servant of the Lord. It is recorded so that we may learn the evil of our own hearts and take heed to ourselves. When the Lord warns Peter of his coming denial, Peter, in self-confidence, contradicts the Lord and boasts of his devotion. When, a little later, the Lord is watching and praying, Peter is sleeping. When, in the presence of His enemies, the Lord is silent, like a lamb before her shearers, Peter is actually striking with a sword. When the Lord is making the good confession before the high priest, Peter is denying the Lord before a servant girl.

With what touching grace He calls the strange inconsistency to view. Where was the strength that was going through everything just now? Yet with what grace He warns, with what grace He excuses: "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." … He was so perfectly with His Father about the depth of what lay before Him, and had taken it all to Him alone, that His free, unhindered grace could act in full liberty toward His poor, feeble, failing disciples. No weight lay on His spirit with them. He bore that with His Father.

He sees these three disciples fast asleep. It is the very moment when He might have expected them to watch with Him in His sorrow, though they could not share it. He longed to have those He loved with Him. … And then He tenderly adds, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." The day of the Holy Spirit had not yet come. Later they would have strength to suffer for Him in every circumstance.

The sorrows of the Garden were too deep, as before the glories of the Mount were too great for poor weak human nature. On both occasions the disciples find relief in sleep… Prayer, which expresses our dependence upon God, will alone prepare us for coming temptation. Too often our natural self-confidence leaves us with little fear of temptation, and so with little sense of our need of prayer.

It is blessed to fall into temptation, but it is never blessed to enter into temptation. There is all the difference between entering into temptation and enduring temptation. And that was exactly what Peter had to learn most bitterly — to enter into temptation. Now the man that endures temptation is the man that prays before the temptation comes. He does not enter into it. When it comes he is blessed; he endures. Peter did not. Peter entered; that is to say, the entrance into temptation shows that there is a lack of any sense of danger — a lack of any sense that I need God, that I need God now.

"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" is not given as a sympathetic remark about them, but as a reason for watching and prayer, and to mark its necessity. Do not rely on the readiness of your spirit. The flesh in which you walk is weak. So watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The Lord was also referring, with grace, to Peter's hasty promise to suffer with Him. Peter had not gone through it with God in spirit. So he would soon sink when he went through it with man.

Peter was so confident of his own strength. He said, "Though I should die with you, I will not deny you." Yet he failed most strikingly. What brought him into the judgment hall? Why did he "enter into temptation" like this? — this was entering into temptation. He had not been told to do so… There he was at that moment. He had not judged the flesh but trusted it. Prayer and watchfulness were missing. A moral distance had come between him and Christ. He had entered into temptation and sought unholy companionship.

But He can warn them, and warn them about what was just then going on. To Him it was now the path of obedience; but whatever was not that was temptation. So it is with everything: all we meet with is an occasion of temptation or of obedience… But this exchange with the disciples at this moment shows a depth and calmness in His path. That is divine perfection, though seen in man and in human ways. It is grace, and it calls for adoring recognition. We struggle or faint, or hide our sorrow in pride.

In saying to Peter, "The spirit indeed is willing," the Lord acknowledged something in His disciples that He could appreciate and recognize. Yet "the flesh is weak," and Satan just then was terribly active, so that nothing but watchfulness and prayer would have met the situation. Let us take the word home to ourselves. As the end of the age approaches, Satan's activities are to become greater, not less. We need to be awake, with every spiritual faculty alert. We also need to be filled with the spirit of prayerful dependence upon God.

Our Lord does not forbid frequent repetition. What He forbids is "vain repetition." He Himself, blessed be His name, prayed the same thing three times over in His agony in the garden. That is enough to prove that repetition can be very far indeed from being "vain." A person praying alone, or many Christians gathered together, may press a matter earnestly, fervently and urgently, again and again, when it weighs heavily on the heart. No one can call that "vain repetition."

He submitted completely to the Father, even in the bitterest trial anyone could imagine. This cup was the cup of wrath because of sin. If He had not said, "Remove this cup from Me," it would have shown that He did not feel what that cup was. But our Lord was perfect in everything. So He said: "Remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will."

He now reviews in spirit before God what He is to suffer in drinking the cup of the wrath of God. Jesus was holy, and He had lived in the love of the Father. He alone understood what the holiness of God was, and what His love cost. That is why He, more than anyone, could understand how horrible sin was, and how dreadful the wrath of God was.

The more He felt the depths of that dreadful cup which He was to drink, the more earnestly He prayed. With us, too often, the trouble that fills our minds turns us away from God; but "He prayed more earnestly." The agony brought Him to God, and that is just the right thing.

Prayer expresses our dependence upon God, and prayer alone will prepare us for coming temptation. Our natural self-confidence too often leaves us with little dread of temptation. So we feel little need of prayer.

The great moment came in the garden of Gethsemane. There He came face to face with the sorrows of death, and God heard His cries. He was heard "because of His reverence," or, "for His piety." His personal perfections as Man required that God hear Him. He asked to be saved out of death — the force of the word here is "out of" and not "from." Death did not pass Him by. God heard Him and brought Him out of death by resurrection.

They had missed the chance to watch with the Lord, and they had proved their own weakness. So the Lord has to say, "It is enough." The time for watching and praying had passed. The time of trial had come. The betrayer was at hand, and the One who had watched and prayed can now say, in confidence and dependence upon God, "Rise, let us be going."

They slept in the garden while Christ went through His agony. They were heavy with sleep when Christ's glory shone out. So man is utterly worthless for communion, whether with suffering or glory. And this is not man without life from God. It is the chosen disciples, the future pillars of the work, the most worthy and excellent of the earth.

It seems certain, though Mark does not mention it, that the power of Satan was also present in Gethsemane. That helps to account for the extraordinary sleepiness of the disciples. The power of darkness was too great for them, as it always is for us, unless divine power actively supports us. Let us note that the power of Satan does not only sometimes rouse believers to wrongful actions — it sometimes just sends them to sleep.

The Lord's warnings had been unheeded, for their eyes were heavy with sleep. They had missed the opportunity of watching with the Lord and proved their own weakness.

Now the Lord asks them to watch with Him that short time. Do you think their eyes were heavy when the armed crowd came, and afterwards? No; but the flesh was weak here. Had there been enough interest in what the Lord asked, there would not have been this display. They miss the opportunity of pleasing the Lord. And have we not often done the same, and been made to feel it keenly?

Take a passage that is often quoted in another way, and very wrongly applied. It is the Lord's tender defence of His disciples for sleeping in the garden: "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Here the "weak" flesh is clearly not the old nature at all. It is bodily weakness, which stops the flesh from yielding to the will of the spirit.

They had not enough affection for Him to watch one hour. Peter, who was willing to face prison or death, could not watch one hour. He had slept on the mountain during the transfiguration, and he sleeps in Gethsemane. This uncovers the selfishness at the bottom of our hearts. That selfishness is a stranger to the affections which make our hearts enter into the glory of Jesus, as well as into His sufferings.

He at least watched with His Father; for after all, dependent as He was by grace, what could man do for Him? Completely man as He was, He had to lean on One alone, and so was the perfect man. Going away again to pray, He returns to find them sleeping again, and again presents the case to His Father.

The third time the Lord returns to the disciples, He has to say, "Sleep on now and take your rest." They had missed the opportunity of watching with the Lord and had proved their own weakness. So the Lord has to say, "It is enough." The time for watching and praying had passed. The time of trial had come. The betrayer was at hand. And the One who had watched and prayed can now say, in confidence and dependence upon God, "Rise up, let us go."

Thank God the victory over sin and Satan does not depend on them! They may sleep on now, resting on their Lord's triumph over every enemy, which is perfect and enough. In spirit He had already gone through the conflict. No doubt remained that He would fully finish the work of redemption on the cross. Now He tells them that the hour has come. He will face it with no hesitation.

The New Testament is completely clear here. We read, "No one laid hands on him, for his hour was not yet come." From His own lips, "Woman, what have I to do with you? My hour has not yet come." He tells them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and that the elders, chief priests and scribes will reject Him … the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of men. Until His hour came, they could not do this, however hostile they were.

He was as one given up to be cut off from the last Passover. From that moment the hour had come. "Arise, let us go; see, the one who delivers Me up is at hand." It was not atonement only: the Shepherd was about to be struck, and the sheep felt it, and shrank away before the blow actually fell.

These are marvellous words of grace, calmness and dignity. The Shepherd is ready to give His life for the sheep, so that they might have life and rest. The sword will soon be drawn and fall upon the Shepherd, the man God calls "my fellow" (Zech. 13:7).

Was the love of Jesus discouraged or worn out by all that? No. He must, and He would, glorify His Father and save His own, and no difficulty stops Him. We could not be saved if He did not drink the cup, and He takes it. His love is mightier than death. He presents everything to God. And from the moment He found it impossible for this cup to pass without His drinking it, calm again fills His soul, and He takes it.

They had missed the opportunity of watching with the Lord and had proved their own weakness. So the Lord has to say, "It is enough." The time for watching and praying had passed. The time of trial had come. The betrayer was at hand. And the One who had watched and prayed can now say, in confidence and dependence upon God, "Rise, let us be going."

In calm firmness of faith the Lord Jesus says, "Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand." As the true Servant of God He will face the enemy. Immediately Judas comes with a great crowd of armed men sent by the chief priests, scribes and elders.

John 14:31: "Let us go from here." The Saviour here associates His disciples with Him in His conflict: Satan is their foe as well as His. Compare Mark 14:42.

His words were tender, yet they showed the disciples that their service was over, and that He had been alone. He says, "Sleep on now [the time for watching is finished, the power of evil in action is here]. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand." But they must be fully proved, He does not send them away. They must be with Him to the end, and learn the lesson, however gently they may learn it. There was over-confidence, as in Peter. Even so, it fitted him to strengthen his brothers once he was restored, by giving him a deeper knowledge of what human strength comes to in the things of God.

He had to go through the moral solitude He found among men, even among His own disciples. There is a solitude in which one is quite alone morally, although others are there. The traitor was coming near. "Sleep on now," says the Lord. "Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand." The Lord must receive the last witness to the weakness of man's heart, left to itself and hardened by Satan.

The Lord prayed on three distinct occasions in Gethsemane, and then He went forth, strong to meet His foes. Here then is the secret. We must follow the Lord into the place of prayer so that we can stand for Him in the place of testimony. When the Lord was alone praying on the mountain, the glory-light shone in His face. Those who come out of the place of private prayer will be clothed with the armour of light.

In calm firmness of faith the Lord Jesus says, "Rise, let us go; see, my betrayer is at hand." As the true Servant of God He will face the enemy. Immediately Judas comes with a great crowd of armed men sent by the chief priests, scribes and elders. Yet it seems that Judas was still acting in foolish deceit. He wanted to give the impression that he was not connected with these temple soldiers. So he goes ahead of them with the signal they had agreed on: his kiss for the Lord.

It was a trial of man under new circumstances. He was a "familiar friend" (Ps. 41:9) of the Lord Jesus. He heard His gracious words and saw His miracles, and was probably allowed to work miracles himself in His name. And yet, as in every other trial of man, he fell. Judas is a solemn instance of how far a person may be under the influence and power of Christianity, and yet become an apostate.

It seems he had counted on the Lord passing through the middle of His enemies, as on earlier occasions. The Lord would then deliver Himself from His enemies, and Judas would keep the money he wanted so badly. Judas knew nothing of the counsels of God or of the perfect obedience of the Lord. So he was not ready to see the Lord submit to His enemies to carry out the will of the Father.

Verses 42 - 52 occupy us with His arrest by the rabble sent by the chief priests under the leadership of Judas. They were, of course, not Roman soldiers but servants of the temple and of the ruling classes among the Jews.

But why such a great multitude and such precaution to capture one man, who was "gentle and lowly in heart"? What a testimony after all to His power, which they feared — and yet what blindness.

Here you have religion in a very imposing form. Remember how the professed people of God saw these priests, scribes and elders. They looked up to them as the great storehouses of sacred learning and as the only authority in all matters of religion. They held office under God in the system God had set up in the days of Moses.

The healing of the servant's ear is not mentioned in this Gospel. Here the Lord is simply the suffering Son of man, the rejected Prophet of Israel, the smitten Shepherd. The point here is not the proof of His undiminished power, but His bowing to all shame. The key is, "the Scripture must be fulfilled." He had never given them cause to treat Him like this — coming out against Him as against a thief. But the Scripture must be fulfilled.

The crowd showed their violence with swords and clubs. Judas showed the lowest treachery, betraying the Lord with a kiss. Peter sprang into sudden action in the energy of the flesh. All the disciples abandoned Him and fled... violence, treachery, false and mistaken activity, fear and shame. Again we say, What a story! And such are we when brought face to face with the power of darkness, and out of communion with God.

It is terrible to think of Judas urging them to hold Him fast! In Judas you get lust of money; you see a progress of sin. He was a thief and had the bag, and carried what was put in it. Then Satan tempts him to betray Him — with the idea, I do not doubt, that the Lord would get free. Then after supper Satan enters into him. He was hardened against all natural feeling, for many a bad man would not betray his friend with a kiss.

Judas was absorbed with satisfying his own lust, and blind to the glory of Christ. So he dares not only to betray the Lord, but to do it with a kiss. A little later the enemies of the Lord will spit in His face. With equal grace the Lord submits to the awful hypocrisy of the betrayer who kisses Him, and to the insulting contempt of enemies who spit on Him. Wonderful Saviour, who endured such opposition from sinners!

It seems Judas was mocking them when he said, "Lead Him away safely." He seems to have counted on the Lord passing through the middle of His enemies, as on earlier occasions. Then the Lord would free Himself from them, while Judas kept the money he wanted. Judas knew nothing of God's purposes or of the perfection of the Lord's obedience. So he was not ready for the Lord to submit to His enemies to carry out the will of the Father, as He had just said in the Garden: "Not what I will, but what You will."

The traitor had given the sign of a kiss, and told them to seize the One he kissed… Peter, ready enough to fight though not to pray, draws his sword, strikes the high priest's servant and cuts off his ear. The healing is not mentioned in this Gospel, because here the Lord is simply the suffering Son of Man, the rejected Prophet of Israel, the smitten Shepherd. Proof of His unbroken power is not the point here, but His bowing to all shame; and the key is, "the Scripture must be fulfilled."

What is the heart of man not capable of? God has allowed all the treachery of the heart to be laid bare, and man to betray Jesus with a kiss. There is not a pang, not a trial, that Jesus does not have to endure to put His heart to the test. Without that, something would have been missing from the cup He had to drink, and the trial of the Lord would not have been complete… All that could wound and crush — God's wrath, Satan's wickedness, man's iniquity — crushed His heart to pieces. And all of it made the immeasurable excellence of Jesus shine before God… And what, after all that, is the position of sinners? Nothing remains but the cost and worth of Jesus for them. In the eyes of God, the one who believes has all the worth of Jesus before God.

Reader, think of this! Here was an apostle — a preacher of the gospel, a man who made a great profession of faith. Yet under that cloak lay "a heart trained in greedy practices." It was a heart with a wide place for "thirty pieces of silver," but not a corner for Jesus… He preached the gospel, but he never knew it, never believed it, never felt it… Professing Christians, beware of head-knowledge, lip profession, official piety, mechanical religion. Beware of these things and seek to have a heart for Christ.

A title of respect among the Jews, meaning 'master, teacher'... It was applied to the Lord, though often translated 'master' in older English Bibles. Among the Jews the levels of honour rose from Rab to Rabbi, and then to Rabban or Rabboni.

It is a significant fact that while John and his companions addressed the Saviour as "Lord," the betrayer called Him "Rabbi" only. There is no recorded instance of Judas ever giving Him the higher title. To truly acknowledge Jesus as Lord is the fruit of a work of the Holy Spirit within.

The word for "kissed Him" is changed from the word Judas used when he gave them this sign. Then he had used the word phileo, I love, or, I kiss. But in his eagerness to make sure they seized the One whom he had once followed, he "covered Him with kisses": kata-phileo, a much stronger word. It is hard to imagine anything more horrible than the way Judas betrayed his Master. And we know from the Psalms how deeply our Lord felt it. See, for example, Psalm 41:9: "Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me."

Judas is taken up with satisfying his own desire and blind to the glory of Christ. He dares not only to betray the Lord, but to do it with a kiss. A little later the enemies of the Lord will spit in His face. He submits to the awful hypocrisy of the betrayer who kisses Him with the same grace as He submits to the insulting contempt of the enemies who spit on Him.

It seems Judas was still acting a foolish, deceitful part. He wanted to look as though he had no connection with these temple soldiers, so he goes ahead of them with the signal he had arranged: his kiss. How could he think that such miserable treachery could remain concealed? The Lord knew his every motive. Yet when Judas used the flattering words, "Teacher, Teacher," and kissed Him, the Lord did not answer in anger. In fact Mark records no answer at all, though Matthew and Luke do.

Of what is not the heart of man capable? God has allowed that all the treachery of the heart should be laid bare, and that man should betray Jesus by a kiss. There is no pain and no trial that Jesus does not have to endure, to put His heart to the test. Without that, something would have been lacking in the cup which He had to drink... Everything that could wound and crush — God's wrath, Satan's wickedness, man's sin — bruised His heart to pieces. And all of it made the immeasurable excellence of Jesus shine before God.

No gift of power is a sign of eternal life, not even the edifying gift of prophesying. A man might be an apostle of Christ, but not a child of God. "You must be born again," begotten by the word of truth; which Judas never was. He was near on the outside and far off in truth — not only a stranger in heart but an enemy.

What is meant by this "hour"? How long did it continue? How is it distinguished from all that went before it, and all that followed after it? As to what went before, they could not touch Him till that hour had come. He must be a willing captive as He was a willing victim. But now the hour of the evening has arrived, and He becomes their captive. The moment you leave that hour, which stretches on to the three hours of darkness, you have a completely new era... Now He puts Himself into their hands. He was a willing captive now, as He was a willing victim on the cross. They took Him!

And now they laid hands upon the Lord and seized Him. The rough hands of the inhuman Roman soldiers took hold of that sinless body of the Lamb of God. So did the cruel hands of the hate-filled Jewish crowd. Satan energized them all, and he stands behind all this and what follows. It is the hour of darkness, when darkness displays its power upon Him, the willing sacrifice.

So, absorbed with satisfying his own lust, and blind to the glory of Christ, Judas dares not only to betray the Lord, but to do it with a kiss. A little later the enemies of the Lord will spit in His face. With the same grace, the Lord submits to both: to the awful hypocrisy of the betrayer who kisses Him, and to the insulting contempt of enemies who spit on Him. What a wonderful Saviour, who endured such hostility from sinners!

Judas the betrayer was not ready for the Lord to submit to His enemies. Neither was Peter, a true disciple. His name is not given here, but we know it was Peter who drew his sword and struck a servant of the high priest. Moved by lust, Judas betrays the Lord; moved by love, Peter defends the Lord. Yet despite his sincerity, Peter was opposing the path of the perfect Servant of Jehovah.

Judas comes with his kiss. Jesus submits. Peter, who slept during the earnest prayer of his Master, wakes up to strike when his Master yields Himself as a lamb to the slaughter.

The healing is not mentioned in this Gospel, for here the Lord is simply the suffering Son of man, the rejected Prophet of Israel, the Shepherd struck down. Proof of His undiminished power is not the point here. His bowing to all shame is. The key is, "the Scripture must be fulfilled."

Jesus reasons with those who had come to take Him. He reminds them that He had been within their power all along, humanly speaking, and they laid no hands on Him. It happens now for a very different reason — the purposes of God and the word of God must be fulfilled.

Judas, the betrayer, was not ready for the Lord to give Himself up to His enemies. Neither was Peter, a true disciple. His name is not mentioned, but we know that it was Peter who drew his sword and struck a servant of the high priest. Moved by lust, Judas betrays the Lord; moved by love, Peter defends the Lord. Still, sincere as he was, Peter was opposing the path of the perfect Servant of Jehovah.

Peter was pleased with himself and sure of himself, and he had a strong energy of personal love for his Master. These worked with mixed motives, out of an unhumbled heart, and led him to use the sword and cut off the ear of the high priest's servant. Weighed in God's presence, this was fleshly and worldly. Many of the best in our day have this to confess: zeal without knowledge. The object was right. But much in the defender himself was wrong, and so were many of the means and paths he took.

Simon Peter shows his haste, completely out of step with the grace of Christ. Having a sword, he drew it and struck Malchus, the high priest's servant, taking off his right ear. If Peter had watched and prayed instead of sleeping, it might have been different. When we fail to pray, we enter into temptation.

If our warfare were with flesh and blood, would two swords be enough? The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh. Not the material sword to resist the world, but a hint that the world would draw its sword against them. Peter failed to see this, and in the garden he used the sword he had boasted of against the high priest's servant. The Lord then spoke more plainly, "Put your sword into its sheath," and at once healed the servant's ear. So He rebuked Peter's fleshly impulse by word and by deed. And how many believers since have followed not His teaching but Peter's example.

It was Peter who did it, and that was the very action that gave him away. In the high priest's hall, the wounded man's relative recognised the man who had used the sword. He asked, "Did I not see you in the garden with him?" Peter again denied it, and at once a rooster crowed. Peter may have thought he was very devoted, and that he was doing a fine thing.

This Gospel does not mention the healing. Here the Lord is simply the suffering Son of Man, the rejected Prophet of Israel, the smitten Shepherd. The point here is not proof of His undiminished power, but His bowing to all shame. The key is that the Scripture must be fulfilled.

Night was gathering thick and dark over the world, but He was still its light. There was one more work of mercy He must do before the devil and men had their way. It was done not for a friend but for a foe, who had come against Him with murder in his heart. So, with a word of gentle rebuke to Peter, He stretched out His hand, touched the severed ear and healed it. Here was the miracle of all miracles: good triumphing over evil, divine and infinite mercy pouring itself out on men at the very height of their sin.

(ληστής, lestes) 'robber, bandit.' The Lord used it of those who bought and sold in the temple. Matt. 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46. In the parable of the Good Samaritan the traveller fell among robbers. Luke 10:30, 36. When the Lord was arrested He asked if they had come out as against a robber. Matt. 26:55; Mark 14:48; Luke 22:52. The two criminals crucified with the Lord were also men of this kind. Matt. 27:38, 44; Mark 15:27.

Judas had at his disposal the officers and a detachment of Roman soldiers, most likely several hundred. These carried swords and other weapons, besides lanterns and torches. These were Gentiles... But there were others, and they carried sticks. The temple guard had turned out in full force; these were the paid men of the chief priests and elders. No doubt the street crowd was there too, for it was a great crowd. What a scene! Gentiles and Jews come to lay their hands on the Prince of Life, the Lord of Glory... But why such a great multitude and such precaution to capture one man, who was "gentle and lowly"?

The greed of Judas has been exposed, and so has the energy of the flesh in Peter, who was ready enough to fight, if not to pray. Now the cowardice and meanness of these Jewish leaders comes out. They could have taken the Lord any day in the temple, out in the open, for He had taught there in full view of everyone. But their cowardly fear of the people, and their lack of all principle, led them to act as if they were dealing with a thief. They understood a thief, and how to deal with a thief, but the infinite perfections of Christ were far beyond them.

He speaks a searching word to the consciences of the crowd. He had taught in the temple in front of them every day, and they did not arrest Him. Now they come looking for Him in the dark of night, as though He were a thief dodging the law. So He exposes the unrighteousness of their cause — a cause they were afraid to push through in the light of day.

Peter draws his sword and cuts off the ear of the high priest's servant. That healing is not mentioned in this Gospel, for here the Lord is seen only as the suffering Son of man, the rejected Prophet of Israel, the smitten Shepherd. What proves His undiminished power is not the point here. The point is His bowing to all shame, and the key is, "the Scripture must be fulfilled." Nothing in Him had ever called for such treatment at their hands — coming out against Him as against a thief. But the Scripture must be fulfilled.

Mark, like Matthew, mentions the robbers (indeed, all do) as a testimony to the complete humiliation of God's Servant and Son on the cross. Men would not even let Him have that place alone. He was indeed alone in the grace and moral glory of the cross. But to increase the shame, they crucified two robbers with Him, one on His right hand and the other on His left.

The greed of Judas has been exposed, and also the fleshly energy of Peter, who was ready enough to fight, if not to pray. Now the cowardice and meanness of these Jewish leaders is exposed. They could have taken the Lord any day in the temple, out in the open, because He had taught there openly and publicly. But they were cowards, afraid of the people, and they had no principle at all. So they acted as if they were dealing with a thief. They understood a thief, and they knew how to deal with a thief. But the infinite perfections of Christ were beyond their understanding.

Now they come to search for Him in the dark of night, as though He had been a thief trying to evade the law. In this way He exposes the unrighteousness of their cause, which they were afraid to carry out in the light of day.

(λῃστής) 'robber, bandit.' When the Lord was arrested He asked if they had come out as against a robber. Matthew 26:55; Mark 14:48; Luke 22:52. The two criminals crucified with the Lord were also men of this character. Matthew 27:38, 44; Mark 15:27.

The Lord wishes to bear witness to the authority of the Scriptures; if these announced His death, He must die. The Scriptures are the revelation of God's counsels and purpose as well as of all His thoughts. The Lord too, as a man on earth, took them as the rule and motive of everything He did and said. Yet He was always in unspeakable communion with His Father.

Peter, ready enough to fight, though not to pray, draws his sword and strikes the high priest's servant, and cuts off his ear. The healing is not mentioned in this Gospel, for here the Lord is simply the suffering Son of Man, the rejected Prophet of Israel, the smitten Shepherd. What proves His power unbroken is not the point here. The point is His bowing to all shame. The key is, "the Scripture must be fulfilled." He had never given them any cause to treat Him like this, coming out against Him as against a thief. But the Scripture must be fulfilled.

It is a good thing to think of the Lord's anguish before God, when He opens all His heart to His Father. And we see His deep sufferings and His perfect calmness before men, the fruit of His perfect submission. Men counted as nothing in it. Satan could do nothing — for the Lord had taken the cup from His Father's hands. This is most important teaching for us.

First, the sheep are scattered. This came true on the night of His arrest. All His disciples, the men who had owned Him as the Shepherd of Israel, left Him and fled. In another way, we cannot doubt, it has also come true in the scattering of the Jews over the face of the whole earth. He came to gather His sheep. But when they as a people refused to listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd, and He was struck, God, acting in government and in judgment, scattered the flock.

"And all left Him and fled." Power would have kept them, but yielding to suffering began to take effect on them. "The sheep were scattered."… Man is powerless to face death. The only reason believers are able to face it — even to welcome it and rejoice in it — is because of Christ Himself and His death. He has taken out the sting, but it was not yet done. So the disciples left Him and fled. In Christ alone, who suffered for us, we stand.

It shows perfectly that divine grace alone can be the hope of anyone. Whoever thinks he stands must take heed lest he fall — not because of the general danger only, but as being then most of all in danger. Our own strength is just our weakness, as our weakness realised will be our way to strength — a strength not our own. Every one of the Gospels presses this most solemn lesson. Matthew and Mark assure us that the other disciples shared Peter's dangerous self-confidence. Anyone who would claim exemption condemns himself by that very claim.

Still we must consider the time of stress that came into their lives. A storm of fear and confusion swept over them. They were alarmed and shocked at the turn events had taken. The danger unnerved them. Panic seized their hearts when "they all left Him and fled." So, before we are tempted to throw stones at them and call them cowards, let us ask ourselves one thing. Have we ever sought our own interests at the expense of His company, His reproach and His concerns?

Christ did feel the absence of love in Peter, and in His friends in Israel. But when everything else was gone, when all left Him and fled, He still had God left to Him. He looked ahead to the anguish of God forsaking Him. Yet, perfect as He was in His divine nature, His purpose never wavered and His focus never changed. That, in its fulness, was His alone to bear. God forsook Him so that He might never have to forsake us.

Even His disciples left Him and fled; while, far deeper, no one could share the burden of atoning work, no one was able to assist in that — it was His alone.

But how could they meet the risen Lord? Had they not left Him in the middle of His deep sorrow? Might He not then discard them for others more faithful and worthy? They might have thought so, and gone to hide from Him out of sheer shame — but He had "appeared to Simon."

Only Mark tells us about the young man who followed, wearing nothing but a linen cloth over his bare body. He left it behind rather than be arrested with Jesus.

Some dare to treat the record of this incident as trivial. It is the same kind of thing as Paul's request to Timothy in his second letter (2 Tim. 4:13)… Nothing seems too ordinary for the Holy Spirit to use.

Some have thought he was the "young man" with the cloth thrown around his bare body who followed the Lord to the Garden… Only Mark tells us about this incident, but we cannot be sure it was him.

But whatever the answer, I always think that no other small detail gives such a vivid picture of the dismay and horror that fell on the disciples of Christ on that terrible night.

"And they all left Him and fled." Power would have kept them, but giving in to suffering began to work on them… Strength fails, and so does shame. The first attack was enough to drive him away. Man has no power to face death. Believers can face it — and even welcome it and rejoice in it — only because of Christ Himself and His death. He has taken out the sting, but it was not yet done. So the disciples left Him and fled, the young man and all. In Christ alone, who suffered for us, we stand.

One young man did try to go farther. But as soon as the officers seized him and grabbed his linen garment, he fled and left it in their hands. Without the power of the Holy Spirit, the farther you go along the path where the power of the world and of death is at work, the greater the shame you escape with — if God lets you escape at all.

the young man who wants to follow only shows his shame, since the linen cloth thrown around him is no part of his real clothing — taking it as a symbol. Anyone who follows in nature's own strength will only show his own shame and lose the righteousness he seemed to have.

It seems significant that the sindon, though usually called a nightdress, was the kind of wrapper people used to wrap the dead. In the only other place it appears in the New Testament, it is the cloth the Lord's body was wrapped in (Matt. 27:59; Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53).

But this figure only deepens our sense of bleakness and loneliness. It fits the sight we are given here of that ever blessed One, Who during this hour was lonely and forsaken, exposed and humbled, as the Servant of the glory of God in the redemption of sinners.

Some are ready to treat the record of this incident as trivial. It is of the same order as Paul's request to Timothy in his second letter (2 Tim. 4:13)... Nothing seems too ordinary for the Holy Spirit to use.

It is that the young man who followed the Lord at a distance, on the night of His betrayal, was John Mark himself. The soldiers, seeing him, snatched at his linen cloth, the only garment he had on him... Only Mark records this... But whatever the truth may be, I always think no other small incident gives such a vivid picture of the dismay and horror that fell on the disciples of Christ that terrible night.

They all forsake Him and flee. Who besides Himself could follow this path to the end? One young man did try to go farther. But as soon as the officers seized him and grabbed his linen cloth, he fled and left it in their hands. This path is where the power of the world and of death is at work. Without the power of the Holy Spirit, the farther a man goes into it, the greater the shame he escapes with — if God allows him to escape at all.

The young man who wants to follow only shows his shame. The linen cloth thrown around him is no part of his real clothing — taking it as a symbol. Anyone who follows in the strength of his own nature will only show his own shame and lose his apparent righteousness.

Strength fails, and so does shame. The first attack was enough to drive him away. Man is powerless to face death. Believers can face it — and even welcome it and rejoice in it — only because of Christ Himself and His death. He has taken out the sting, but it was not yet done... In Christ alone, who suffered for us, we stand.

But this figure only deepens our sense of bleakness and loneliness. It fits the picture we are given here of that ever blessed One. In this hour He was left alone and forsaken, exposed and humbled, as the Servant of the glory of God in the redemption of sinners.

The word for the linen cloth in Mark 14:51 is the same word used for the linen wrappings that held the Lord's body in the grave (Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53).

People have spoken of it as showing how empty human effort is against the Christ of God. The priests and people, Herod and Pilate, all combined against this Man. All they got of Him was the grave-clothes, empty of the One who had worn them for a short time. The living Person had escaped: the true life was untouched. And this might be a parable about all His followers... who carry a hidden life that death cannot touch. In a hostile world, the Lord of life has provided well for His own.

In submission to the Father's will, the Lord allows Himself to be led away to appear before the Jewish council.

The Jewish religious authorities all assembled to sit in judgment upon Him. So, as far as they were concerned, this was not done in secret. It shows how deep their feeling ran. A crowded council, and it was at the dead of night!

Their hatred toward the Son of God could not wait to have Him condemned. They had not arrested Him for any accusation of wrong doing, but after arresting Him His enemies try to find some evidence against Him, ready to welcome any false witness.

Here we find a fresh trial… "Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, but they found none." They found the will, but not the power; readiness to testify, but even in that they could not succeed. Man fails in everything, except in malice against Jesus… So they rejected Jesus, not for the false testimony of man, but on the true testimony of God. It was for His own testimony that they condemned Him.

The prophet Micah had predicted that "the Judge of Israel" would be brought under human judgment. This came to pass. Yet it is most striking: when the great Judge stood before human judges, every effort to convict Him on human evidence failed. All the human witnesses fell into confusion. They condemned Him for the witness He bore to Himself. Even in doing that, they broke the law themselves. It was written: "The priest who is chief among his brothers … shall not … tear his clothes" (Lev. 21:10). The high priest ignored this. He was so agitated in the presence of his Victim, so carried away with anger and hatred.

The speed of the whole trial completely broke Hebrew law. Even trials about money had to be held in the daytime. Trials for life also had to take place during the day. And if the verdict was condemnation, the sentence had to wait until the next day. They condemned the Lord Jesus and declared Him worthy of death, and all before the night of His arrest was over. Their own law also said: "Our law condemns no one to death upon his own confession." So when Caiaphas put the question to the accused and founded a condemnation on the answer, that was the last violation of formal justice.

We see the Servant now handed over to men, and behind them stood Satan. Man's wickedness and Satan's power are there. In the middle of it all, alone and majestic, stands the perfect Servant-Son. Mark alone tells us that the witnesses brought against Him did not agree. The Holy Spirit still holds Him up as the perfect Servant. No one could find a single flaw in His character or His service.

What the Lord Jesus suffered at the hands of men was very great. Yet it becomes small when we consider what He endured at the hands of God as the Victim, when He was made sin for us. Yet Mark compresses all this far greater matter into two verses — Mark 15:33 and 34 — while his account of the lesser matter covers 52 verses. The fact is, of course, that the lesser could be described, while the greater could not be.

In submission to the Father's will, the Lord allows Himself to be led away to appear before the Jewish council. Peter truly loved the Lord, and he "followed Him." But he acted in self-confidence. So he follows without the mind of the Lord, and follows "afar off." It is too often the same with us. Following without divine guidance, he enters into temptation without divine support. There he learns the utter weakness of the flesh.

What steps we see in Peter's downward course, leading to his denial of the Lord he loved! First, he declared he was ready to die for Him. Yet the Lord had just told him that Satan wanted to have him, and that He was praying for him. Next, he slept when he should have been watching. Then he fought when he should have been quiet. Then he followed afar off when he should have been near. And now he sits down, side by side, with the enemies of Christ, warming himself! With such a beginning one can only expect what followed.

Another word is hupēretēs, translated "servant." Two other words, doulos and diakonos, are translated the same way. Doulos is a slave. Diakonos is an ordinary servant, at table and so on. But hupēretēs is more official. The first meaning of the word is a "rower," so it usually means someone who has a distinct service.

Then there is another step. They take the Lord; and then we read that Peter went and sat down in the hall among the enemies of Christ, warming himself by the fire. Think of that! Men are striking the blessed Lord, despising Him, insulting Him and treating Him badly. The enemies of Jesus are expressing the malice of their hearts towards Him. And there is Peter, one of His own loved disciples, sitting down and warming himself by the enemy's fire!

Away from Christ the disciple is always cold. No worldly warmth, no company, no associations, no pleasures can make up for His absence. The heart that prefers the world to Christ must always be cold. Nor did Peter become truly warm until he left the fireside and went out, and there wept bitterly.

What brought him into the judgment hall? Why did he thus "enter into temptation"? — this was entering into temptation. He had not been told to do so. He followed Christ "afar off," and "went in and sat with the servants to see the end." He "entered into temptation." See where he was at that moment. His flesh was unjudged and trusted in. Prayer and watchfulness were missing. A moral distance stood between him and Christ. He had entered temptation and had sought ungodly company. What a fit vessel he was at that moment to be the plaything of Satan.

If Peter had been right, he would not have said, "I am ready." He would have prayed, "Lord, keep me; Lord, help me; Lord, do not let me fall under Satan's power." But he was self-confident. Self-confidence, I believe, is the cause of all our failure. Self-distrust is the secret of getting on with the Lord.

Note, the Lord did not say, "I have prayed for you that you may not fall." No; but "that your faith may not fail" when you have fallen. Precious, matchless grace! This was Peter's resource. He was a debtor to grace from first to last. As a lost sinner, he was a debtor to "the precious blood of Christ"; as a stumbling saint, he was a debtor to the all-prevailing advocacy of Christ. The advocacy of Christ was the basis of his happy restoration. Peter went out as a restored soul to "strengthen his brothers."

In the scene that follows we see, in the chief priests and their council, how low religious flesh can sink. They had already decided to put Christ to death. So the trial that follows was not held to find out whether He had done anything worthy of death. It was a horrible device to cover murder with a show of justice. With malice in their hearts, they look not for the truth, but for witnesses "against Jesus to put Him to death."

"And the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin sought for witness against Jesus to cause Him to be put to death; and found none." They found the will, but not the power; readiness to testify, but even in that they could not succeed. Man fails in everything, except in malice against Jesus. The witnesses had been bribed, and the judges were ready to condemn. Even so, everything failed. The testimony did not agree. As the law required, there must be two or three witnesses in agreement; but these did not agree.

Moreover, as a nation, Israel was especially guilty of false witness against the Messiah. The Spirit of Christ foreshadowed this sin in the prophets: "False witnesses rise up against me, and men who breathe out cruelty"; "they charged me with things I knew nothing about" (Ps. 27:12; Ps. 35:11, older wording). And so it turned out when in the fullness of time the Anointed One presented Himself to the chosen people. The mob did not do this. The religious leaders of the Jews looked for false witness against Jesus to put Him to death. In this they broke the very law they were appointed to enforce (Ex. 23:1).

There was no thought of an impartial trial. His judges were shamelessly looking for such witness as would let them pronounce the sentence of death on Him. But the power of God was at work behind the scenes, and every attempt to fasten the trumped-up charges on Him came to nothing. They made many efforts, and verse 58 gives us one sample. One accusation after another broke down as the false witnesses fell into confusion and contradicted one another. It seems as though God wrapped their normally sharp minds in a fog of confusion.

Throughout His three and a half years of ministry the Saviour lived under the fierce glare of hostile criticism. He did not live apart from people, as John the Baptist did. The desert was not His home. He moved freely in and out among the people. All the facts of His life were therefore fully known. If His enemies could have found a single flaw in Him, how it would have delighted their evil hearts! But He was God's holy One. The Passover lamb had to be "without blemish". Only such a lamb could picture Him, who was holy in nature and stainless in all His ways. In the end His judge had to say, "I find no guilt in him" (John 19:6).

The Lord's condemnation was a settled thing: the chief men of the Jews were only looking for the means to carry out injustice and murder under a show of law. They sought witness against Him to put Him to death; but it was false, and the witnesses did not agree together. Many were ready to give evidence, but their testimony counted for nothing: the Lord had to be condemned on His own witness. It is painful to look at the enmity of the human heart against the Lord, who had never done anything but good to men.

It is deeply instructive to see how a religion that has fallen away from God always leads the way in insulting God, persecuting His people, and bloodthirsty cruelty. Nothing sears the conscience, hardens the mind, and steels the heart like the form of godliness without the power.

In the scene that follows, the chief priests and their council show how low religious human nature can sink. They had already decided to put Christ to death. So the trial that follows was not an enquiry into whether He had done anything worthy of death. It was a horrible device to cover murder with a show of justice. With malice in their hearts, they seek not the truth, but witnesses "against Jesus to put Him to death." When they could not find any, they fall back on false witnesses. These do not serve their purpose either. The false witnesses condemned themselves by contradicting one another.

They found the will, but not the power; readiness to testify, but even in that they could not succeed. Man fails in everything, except in malice against Jesus. The witnesses gave bribed testimony and the judges were ready to condemn, yet everything failed. The testimony did not agree. As the law required, there must be two or three witnesses in agreement; but these did not agree.

There was no thought of an impartial trial. His judges were shamelessly looking for witnesses who would let them sentence Him to death. But the power of God was at work behind the scenes, and every attempt to pin the invented charges on Him came to nothing. They made many attempts... Accusation after accusation broke down as the perjurers fell into confusion and contradicted one another. It seems as though God wrapped their normally sharp minds in a fog of confusion.

As a nation, Israel was especially guilty of false witness against the Messiah. The Spirit of Christ foreshadowed this sin in the prophets: "False witnesses have risen against me, and they breathe out violence" — "they ask me of things that I do not know" (Ps. 27:12; Ps. 35:11). So when the set time came, the Anointed One presented Himself to the chosen people. It was not the mob but the religious chiefs of the Jews who sought false witness against Jesus to put Him to death. In this they broke the very law they were meant to enforce (Ex. 23:1).

We must understand that the Lord's condemnation was already settled. The chiefs of the Jews were only looking for a way to complete their wickedness and murder under a show of justice. They sought witness against Him to put Him to death; but it was false, and the witnesses did not agree together. Many were ready to give evidence, but their testimony counted for nothing. They could condemn the Lord only on His own witness.

For three and a half years the Saviour served in the fierce glare of hostile criticism... All the facts of His life were therefore fully known. If His enemies could have found a single flaw in Him, how it would have delighted their evil hearts! But He was God's holy One... At the end His judge had to say, "I find no guilt in him" (John 19:6). His enemies could only produce the look of a charge against Him by bribing men to lie under oath in their court.

In front of the high priest, the false witnesses condemn themselves by contradicting each other. They looked for witnesses to serve the purpose already in their hearts. And are not those who bring such testimony usually, if not always, of that spirit? Do they not even dare to search Scripture to justify a condemnation they have already settled on? And yet how often they are forced to throw out their own witnesses! How little they can quote without misquoting.

"Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, but they found none." They found the will, but not the power; readiness to testify, but even in that they could not succeed. Man fails in everything, except in malice against Jesus.

Only one of the accusations has come down to us. It shows how careful we must be in repeating the words of another person. Misrepresenting what someone said does great harm, even when no harm was meant. "We heard him say," two witnesses claimed, "I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands" (Mark 14:58). What the Lord had said was this: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). Within three days of this examination before Caiaphas those words came true. The Jews put Him to death. They destroyed the temple of His body. On the third day He rose again.

They had to go all the way back to the very beginning of the Lord's public ministry, in John 2. He said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." They were to do the work of destruction. He would do the restoring and reviving as a Divine Person... But He was speaking about the temple of His body. They implied that He had said He would destroy it. It does not agree at all.

There was no thought of a fair trial. His judges were shamelessly looking for testimony that would let them pass the death sentence on Him. But the power of God was at work behind the scenes, and every attempt to pin the invented charges on Him came to nothing. One accusation after another broke down. The perjurers fell into confusion and contradicted each other. It is as though God wrapped their normally sharp minds in a fog.

They themselves were seeking, even then, to destroy the temple of God, just as His words had implied they would. No one else could replace it, but He would raise it up again.

To man's testimony against Him the Lord gives no answer. Defending Himself was not His object, nor even teaching now. He stood as the willing Victim, as the Lamb for the slaughter. As a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth.

The testimony did not agree. The law required two or three witnesses to agree, but these did not. So Jesus was rejected, not on the false testimony of men, but on the true testimony of God. It was for His own testimony that they condemned Him. He came bearing witness to the truth, and He bore witness to it to the point of death.

In the scene that follows we see, in the chief priests and their council, how deep religious human nature can sink into wickedness. They had already decided to put Christ to death. So the trial that follows was not to find out whether He had done anything worthy of death. It was a horrible device to cover murder with a show of justice.

There was no thought of a fair trial. His judges were openly looking for any witness who would let them pass the death sentence on Him. But the power of God was at work behind the scenes, and every effort to pin these invented charges on Him came to nothing. They tried many times; verse 58 gives us a sample, and we recognise in it a distortion of what He said in John 2:19. One accusation after another broke down as the perjurers fell into confusion and contradicted each other. It is as though God wrapped their normally sharp minds in a fog.

This is a good illustration of how careful we need to be when repeating a person's words. How much harm is done by misrepresenting what someone said, even unintentionally. What the Lord had said was this: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). Within three days of His examination before Caiaphas those words came true. The Jews put Him to death. They destroyed the temple of His body. On the third day He rose again. The Lord's words and the witnesses' statement were completely different. Yet even their testimony did not agree.

It shows how they had to go right back to the beginning of the Lord's public ministry in John 2. He said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." They were to do the work of destruction, and He would do the restoring and the raising, as a Divine Person. It is in John that we find this. Usually Scripture says, "God raised Him."… "But He was speaking about the temple of His body." They made out that He had said He would destroy it. It does not agree at all.

The temple at Jerusalem could be corrupted. Nothing could corrupt the temple of the Lord's body, though men could use violence to try to destroy that body. Again and again they tried to stone the Lord, and at last, when the hour had come, they were allowed to "destroy" the temple of His body. Man's wickedness becomes one more occasion for showing His glory as the Son… Man may destroy, but he cannot raise the dead. Christ says, in effect, "When you have done your worst, when you have destroyed the temple of My body, I will raise it up." His resurrection will declare in power that He is the Son of God.

They found the will, but not the power; readiness to testify, but even in that they could not succeed. Man fails in everything except malice against Jesus. They had bought the witnesses, and the judges were eager to condemn. Still everything failed. The testimony did not agree. The law required two or three witnesses to agree, and these did not. The result was that Jesus was rejected, not on the false testimony of man, but on the true testimony of God. It was for His own witness that they condemned Him. He came bearing witness to the truth, and He bore witness to it to the point of death.

In the scene that follows we see, in the chief priests and their council, how deep into wickedness religious human nature can sink. They had already decided to put Christ to death. So the trial that follows was not an enquiry into whether He had done anything worthy of death. It was a horrible device to cover murder with a show of justice. With malice in their hearts, they do not look for the truth. They look for witnesses "against Jesus to put Him to death." When they find none, they fall back on false witnesses. Even these do not serve their purpose, because they condemned themselves by contradicting one another.

False witnesses were of no use — their witness did not agree. At last two men came who claimed to have heard Him themselves: "We heard Him say, 'I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another not made with hands.'" The statement was very definite. Surely such witnesses could be relied on? Yet the inspired historian adds his quiet remark: "Yet even about this their testimony did not agree." To all this the Lord answered not a word. Condemning Him by bribed testimony was impossible.

There was no thought of an impartial trial. His judges were looking, without shame, for witnesses who would let them sentence Him to death. But the power of God was at work behind the scenes. Every attempt to pin the made-up charges on Him came to nothing. They made many efforts. Verse 58 gives us a sample, and there we recognise a twisted version of what He said in John 2:19. One accusation after another broke down. The lying witnesses fell into confusion and contradicted each other. It seems as though God wrapped minds that were sharp at other times in a fog of confusion.

Before the high priest the false witnesses condemn themselves by contradicting each other. And are not those who bring such witness usually, if not always, of that spirit? Do they not even dare to search Scripture to justify the condemnation they have already decided on? And yet how often they are forced to throw out their own witnesses! How little they can quote without misquoting. It was they who at that very moment were seeking to destroy the temple of God, just as His words had implied they would, and no one else could replace it — but He would raise it up again.

They found the will, but not the power; readiness to testify, but even in that they could not succeed. Man fails in everything except malice against Jesus. The witnesses were bribed and the judges were eager to condemn, yet everything failed. The testimony did not agree. As the law required, there had to be two or three witnesses in agreement; but these did not agree. The result was that Jesus was rejected, not for the false testimony of man, but on the true testimony of God. It was for His own testimony that they condemned Him. He came witnessing to the truth, and He witnessed to it to death.

We see the Servant handed over to men, and behind those men stood Satan. In the middle of man's wickedness and Satan's power stands the perfect Servant-Son, alone in His greatness. Mark alone tells us that the witnesses brought against Him did not agree. The Holy Spirit keeps holding Him up as the perfect Servant, in whose character and service not one flaw could be found. But He witnesses the good confession, and on that blessed word of truth from His lips He is condemned.

In front of the high priest the false witnesses condemn themselves by contradicting each other. They looked for witnesses to serve the purpose already in their hearts. ... How little can they quote without misquoting. ... Still there was no agreement. The high priest then turns to Jesus, to make Him answer what needed no answer, and so make something out of nothing. He is therefore silent.

They found the will, but not the power; readiness to testify, yet even in that they could not succeed. Man fails in everything, except in malice against Jesus. ... The testimony did not agree. The law required two or three witnesses to agree; these did not.

Here in this chapter we find the Lord as a lamb that is silent before her shearers. He does not answer the accusation of His enemies. They were there to put Him to death, and He knew it. And He was there to give His life a ransom for many.

In the presence of all this hatred and malice the Lord "remained silent and made no answer." Peter saw these solemn scenes. Years later he could tell us that "when He was reviled" He "did not revile in return." "Like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth" (Isa. 53:7). To the accusations of malice He had nothing to say. But when challenged about the glory of His Person, He witnesses to the truth without hesitation, whatever it costs — the perfect example for all His servants.

The Lord Jesus was always right. There is a time to speak, and a time to be silent. He knew the time. So with us there is a time to be silent when it is a question of ourselves. But there is a time when it would be treason to be silent — when it is a question of the glory of God.

The result was that Jesus was rejected, not on the false testimony of man, but on the true testimony of God. It was for His own testimony that they condemned Him. He came witnessing to the truth, and He witnessed to it unto death.

All the devil managed to do was to bring to light the truth about the glory of the Person of Christ, and to expose the utter wickedness of religious human nature. If that wickedness is allowed to reach its evil ends for a moment, it is still only an instrument carrying out what God has determined beforehand.

The prophet Micah had predicted that "the Judge of Israel" would be made subject to human judgment. This came true. Yet it is striking that when the great Judge stood in a human court, every effort to convict Him on human evidence failed. All human witnesses fell into confusion. They condemned Him on the ground of the witness He bore to Himself; and even in doing this they broke the law themselves. It was written: "The priest who is chief among his brothers ... shall not ... tear his clothes" (Lev. 21:10). This the high priest ignored, so agitated was he in the presence of his Victim, so carried away with anger and hatred.

In the presence of all His accusers His resource was in God. He committed Himself to Him who judges righteously. When falsely accused before the Jewish council, He "remained silent" (Matthew 26:63). ... He was silent before men because He had a resource in God.

Finally the high priest has to appeal to Christ Himself. In the presence of all this hatred and malice the Lord "remained silent and made no answer." Peter, who witnessed these solemn scenes, can tell us years later that "when He was reviled, He did not revile in return." "Like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth" (Isa. 53:7). To the accusations of malice He had nothing to say. But when challenged about the glory of His Person, He witnesses to the truth without hesitation, whatever it costs. He is the perfect example for all His servants.

Still there was no agreement. So the high priest turns to Jesus, to make Him answer what needed no answer, and so make something out of nothing. That is why He is silent.

This lowly One stood bound in their presence. Did the high priest and his associates know that He is the Son of God, the promised Messiah? They knew He had given witness to that effect throughout His public ministry... The high priest knew he would succeed if he put that question about His Sonship to Him. But he little knew what he was doing; false witnesses could not condemn the blessed One. His own confession of who He was — the confession of the truth alone — could bring about His condemnation.

But the direct question He will not fail to answer. He must answer "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" with nothing left unclear. It will give them what they seek against Him. But it will also give rest to those who truly seek the truth, and bring blessing to people through the ages. Yes, He is the Son of the Blessed, while He is the Son of Man as well.

The Son holds no lower or secondary place in Deity, because the whole fullness of the Godhead has a permanent home in Him. It was not an incomplete fullness. It was not just a part of the fullness. It was the fullness in its perfect entirety, with nothing of Deity lacking or reduced in any way, or at any time. He is "the Son of the Blessed," and "God blessed for ever" (Mark 14:61-62; Rom. 9:5).

Here in this chapter we find the Lord as a lamb that is silent before its shearers. He does not answer the accusation of His enemies. They were there intending to put Him to death, and He knew it. He was there to give His life a ransom for many... He is rejected and crucified for His own witness to the truth.

They found the will, but not the power; readiness to testify, but even in that they could not succeed. Man fails in everything, except in malice against Jesus... So they rejected Jesus, not because of man's false testimony, but on the true testimony of God. It was for His own testimony that they condemned Him. He came witnessing to the truth, and He witnessed to it to the point of death... The Lord answers, "I am." He makes a good confession, not only before Pontius Pilate, but before the high priest.

The high priest asked Him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" He received the reply, "I am." He understood the nature of the claim Jesus was making. "And the high priest tore his garments and said, 'What further witnesses do we need? You have heard His blasphemy. What is your decision?' And they all condemned Him as deserving death" (Mark 14:61-64).

Notice what we have here. He was the Christ, the Son of God, as One who had come among the Jews on earth, living among men. Besides that, we have the double position of the Son of man — sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

He adds a clear, positive declaration. His accusers would yet see not only the Son of God, but the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. Though being the Son of God, He had come in lowly humility as the Son of Man. But as Son of Man He would come again, no longer in lowliness, but as the Man of God's right hand in power and majesty.

Of this One Daniel had written, and in a vision he had seen Him (Dan. 7:13)... The Lord Jesus also clearly applied this title to Himself, showing that He was the one the prophet had written about (Mark 14:61-62). Stephen now saw Him as the Son of man and in heaven, and there standing in the place of honour — at the right hand of God. Power, then, belongs to the crucified One, and as Son of man He will one day exercise it... Many members of the council had probably been present when the Lord Jesus declared that He was the Son of man. They had a part in judging Him worthy of death for that.

The Son of Man thus stood before the leaders of Israel. What a moment when the leaders of Israel shall stand before the Son of Man.

But He will not fail to answer the direct question. "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" — He must answer that with no ambiguity at all. It will give them what they seek against Him. But it will also give rest to honest seekers, and through the ages it will bring blessing to people. Yes, He is the Son of the Blessed, while He is the Son of man as well.

We must understand that the Lord's condemnation was already settled. The chief men of the Jews were only looking for a way to carry out wickedness and murder while keeping up the appearance of justice. They looked for witnesses against Him to put Him to death. The testimony was false, and the witnesses did not agree with each other. Many were ready to testify, but their evidence counted for nothing. The Lord had to be condemned on His own witness.

The result was that Jesus was rejected, not on the false testimony of man, but on the true testimony of God. It was for His own testimony that they condemned Him. He came bearing witness to the truth, and He bore witness to it to the point of death.

Blasphemy in Holy Scripture, while sometimes used for evil speech against man, also refers to speaking evil against God or about God. The unspoken charge of blasphemy against our Lord on this occasion came from an assumption of the scribes. They held that by pronouncing forgiveness of sins He was taking to Himself one of the attributes of Godhead. The Jews saw His claim to be the Son of God in the same way. As the Lord said to them, "Do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?"

They condemned Him on the ground of the witness He bore to Himself; and even in doing that they broke the law themselves. It was written: "The priest who is chief among his brothers … shall not … tear his clothes" (Lev. 21:10). The high priest ignored this, so shaken was he in the presence of his Victim, so carried away with anger and hatred.

Such words from such lips should have brought the high priest to broken repentance. Instead he put on a shameful, unlawful show of being shocked. He tore his clothes and charged the Lord of glory with blasphemy. He had no interest in asking honestly whether it was true that Jesus was the Son of God.

In his frenzy the high priest tore his clothes. By that act he destroyed his priesthood, and he pronounced the Lord guilty of blasphemy.

In Israel, tearing your clothes was a sign of mourning. Signs of mourning did not fit priestly character, because the priest draws near to God, and mourning has no place in His presence. A priest was never to tear his garments. Caiaphas did this when questioning the Lord Jesus (Matt. 26:65), an offence for which the law demanded the death penalty. For above all, the High Priest is a picture of the Lord Jesus. Will His garments of priestly dignity ever be torn? Absolutely not! That would point to some failure or fault in His priestly work. Thank God this is impossible. He remains faithful and true forever!

It is a solemn thing to think about this — to consider Who He was, while men heaped all these insults on Him! But this is no part of His atoning work. Atonement was made when He suffered at the hand of God. He suffered at the hands of men for righteousness — for God. He suffered at the hand of God for sin — for us.

Man fails in everything, except in malice against Jesus. Bribed testimony from the witnesses, judges ready to condemn — and still everything failed. The testimony did not agree. As the law required, there must be two or three witnesses in agreement; but these did not agree. The result was that Jesus was rejected, not for the false testimony of man, but on the true testimony of God. It was for His own testimony that they condemned Him. He came witnessing to the truth, and He witnessed to it to death.

We must understand that the Lord's condemnation was a settled thing. The chiefs of the Jews were only looking for a way to carry out wickedness and murder while keeping up the appearance of justice.

Blasphemy in Holy Scripture, while sometimes used for evil speech against man, also refers to evil speaking against or about God. The charge of blasphemy brought against our Lord on this occasion came from an assumption of the scribes. They held that by pronouncing forgiveness of sins He was taking to Himself one of the attributes that belong to God alone. The Jews saw His claim to be the Son of God in the same way. As the Lord said to them, "Do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?"

The prophet Micah had predicted that "the Judge of Israel" would be made subject to human judgment. This came to pass. They condemned Him on the ground of the witness He bore to Himself, and even in doing this they broke the law themselves. It was written: "The priest who is chief among his brothers … shall not … tear his clothes" (Leviticus 21:10). The high priest ignored this. He was so agitated in the presence of his Victim, so carried away with anger and hatred.

In his frenzy the high priest tore his clothes. By that act he destroyed his priesthood, and pronounced the Lord guilty of blasphemy. Their verdict recalls the command in Deuteronomy 21 about a man put to death and hanged on a tree: "a hanged man is cursed by God." From then on they were determined that He should be hanged on a tree — the object not only of their accusations but, as they hoped, accursed of God.

In the eyes of these leaders, blinded by unbelief, the truth appears as blasphemy. Without a single dissenting voice "they all condemned Him as deserving death." In perfect submission to the Father's will, He offers no resistance to the outrages of those who spit in His face and strike Him with their hands. Yet He is the One who will soon be exalted to the right hand of power, and come again in glory.

On earth there was a power strong enough to drive away all the effects of sin, for the power of God showed itself in goodness. But this only awakened the natural enmity of the human heart against Him. There was no motive for the death of Jesus; this enmity was the only cause. What took away the terrible effects of sin did not take the sin itself out of man's heart. It revealed God enough to awaken the natural enmity of the heart, and so to show what that heart is.

Goodness in human form had been shamefully betrayed, cruelly treated and rejected. A solemn legal process, religious and civil, condemned Him as worthy of death in its most shameful form. "This is the heir. Come, let us kill him," had been the language of the leaders of the nation. But God "raised him from the dead and gave him glory," and so reversed the verdict of the world.

By condemning the Lord Jesus they had badly broken their own law. Now some of the council, though they sit in the highest court in Israel, lower themselves further and turn to physical abuse, spitting and mockery. They vent their hateful spite against this gentle, faithful, harmless Man of sorrows. This is what moral weakness falls back on — and it comes from men who held the place of religious prominence in the land.

It teaches us much to see that religious apostasy always leads the way in insulting God, in persecuting the people of God, and in bloodthirsty cruelty. Nothing sears the conscience, hardens the mind and steels the heart like the form of godliness without the power. Where grace and truth are not the rest of the mind and the stay of the heart, the fuss and busy activity of outward religious worship and service has always destroyed even the kinder feelings of people.

So they condemned Him to death. They spat on Him and struck Him. They covered His face so that He could not see who was hitting Him. Then they scornfully called on Him to say, as a prophet would, who had struck Him. Mark notes that the officers hit Him with their hands.

All this was outrage and inhuman cruelty and anguish and suffering. Was there no human heart to pity Him or feel for Him? No... But what of Peter, who really loved Jesus in his heart; Peter, who sincerely thought and said he would die for Jesus? What was he doing when brutal men blindfolded Jesus and struck Him cruelly? Hush, while we tell it: he was denying Jesus, with cursing and swearing. Can we want any greater proof that we cannot trust ourselves, or our love, or our promises?

In the eyes of these leaders, blinded by unbelief, the truth looks like blasphemy. Not one voice speaks against it: "they all condemned Him as deserving death." The One who will soon be exalted to the right hand of power, and will come again in glory, submits perfectly to the Father's will. He offers no resistance to those who spit in His face and strike Him with their hands.

The insults of men only served to bring out the perfection of Jesus. It was all met in the spirit of perfect submission. No rebellious word escaped His lips, no angry look clouded the face that man spat upon.

"I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting." How solemn the thought! What a picture of God standing in the presence of man! His humiliation should have made Him infinitely more precious, since it was the unmatched proof of His love. Instead it gave man, led by Satan, the chance he wanted to insult Him to the utmost — and He did not revile in return.

What will those men feel when they stand before Him! "I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting" is the language of the One before whose face earth and heaven flee away in Revelation 20. So glorious is He!... The Lord said to the chief of sinners, "Why are you persecuting me?" There are none too vile and loathsome for a Saviour's grace.

Notice in this corrected version of the various accounts that the word is the high priest's "court," not palace. The word "palace" fits the governor's residence better. Confusion on this point has hidden the truth. Peter was not where they held the first questioning. He was "outside" and "below" in the courtyard.

How solemn is Peter's path in these solemn scenes! Scripture records it not so that we dwell on his failure and belittle a devoted servant of the Lord. It records it so that we may learn the evil of our own hearts and take heed to ourselves. When the Lord warns Peter of his coming denial, Peter, in self-confidence, contradicts the Lord and boasts about how devoted he is. When, a little later, the Lord is watching and praying, Peter is sleeping. When the Lord is silent in the presence of His enemies, like a lamb before her shearers, Peter is actually striking with a sword. When the Lord is making the good confession before the high priest, Peter is denying the Lord before a simple servant girl.

What steps we see in Peter's downward course, leading to his denial of the Lord he loved! First, declaring he was ready to die for Him, although the Lord had just told him that Satan was asking to have him, and that He was praying for him. Next, sleeping when he should have been watching. Then fighting when he should have been quiet. Then following at a distance when he should have been near. And now sitting down side by side with the enemies of Christ, and warming himself! With such a lead-up, one can only expect what followed.

Let us beware of fires, of warmth and comfort and pleasure, created by the enemies of the Lord Jesus. How many young Christians have forgotten this, and paid dearly for it. Peter identified himself with the world. He is now ashamed to identify himself with a rejected Master.

There seemed to be nothing here to cause terror. Yet even this most devoted of the disciples was powerless — the most ardent in his love, at least, and the most eager to show it. He was too powerless to face even the nearness of death. A servant girl's word was enough to bring out his denial of the Lord!

The early church generally accepted that Peter the apostle dictated and approved Mark's Gospel. Where something is to Peter's discredit, as in his denial of Christ, Mark gives the details of his failures — much detail, and no excuse. But Mark passes over anything to Peter's credit. For instance, John says that Peter drew his sword in Gethsemane to defend his Master and struck one of the attacking party. Mark records the event, but does not give Peter's name; he simply says, "one of those who stood by."

He was confident in himself. It was not the crude confidence of an unbeliever, no doubt. But it was still confidence built on his own estimate of what his love for Jesus would let him do or bear... Now, in this way, he was humbled. He had learnt what man is on the one hand, and what God is on the other. If the Lord was to use Peter more than all, it was fitting that Peter should learn by experience, more than any, his own more-than-nothingness.

There he was, among the enemies of the Lord, far away from Jesus. No wonder Satan was too strong for him. If we, who belong to the Lord now, go among worldly people and try to warm ourselves at the world's fire, we can only expect Satan to trip us up too. It was a frightening position for Peter. He was sitting at the fire among the men who had just taken his Master prisoner, tied Him up, and were plotting His death.

His first denial happened when the servant girl let him in through the small gate of the courtyard. John tells us that the girl who kept the door was the first to challenge him. Matthew says she came to him as he sat outside in the courtyard. Both Mark and Luke tell us the first denial took place as he sat by the fire. There is no inconsistency in these statements. The facts, I conclude, are these: the girl began to challenge him at the door, then followed him to the fireplace. There others joined in her taunting.

While the people of Judea looked down on Galilee, the people of Galilee looked down on Nazareth. The "honest" Nathanael, himself a Galilean, said of Jesus in mild contempt, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"

Here his failure, repeated under pressure, first drew out his shame and fear of confessing Jesus the Nazarene… So he is a self-confident servant who must learn from the only Perfect Servant. By grace he becomes faithful at last.

There seemed to be nothing there to cause terror. Yet this was the most devoted of the disciples — at least, the most ardent in his love and the most energetic in showing it. He was so powerless to face even the nearness of death that one servant girl's word brought out his denial of the Lord!

Step by step he had approached this sad and sorrowful moment. He did not plunge suddenly into the outright denial of the Lord; he never meant to say what he said. Suppose someone had told him, "Peter, you are going to curse and swear, saying, I do not know the man." He would have shuddered in horror and vowed he could never do such a thing. Little by little he moved towards that awful denial. "Watch and pray," the Lord had said, "that you may not enter into temptation." Peter had slept; he had neglected prayer. He could not watch one hour with his Lord. Here he took the first step.

How solemn is Peter's course in these scenes! Scripture records it, not so that we should dwell on his failure and belittle a devoted servant of the Lord. It records it so that we may learn the evil of our own hearts and take heed to ourselves. When the Lord warns Peter of his coming denial, Peter, in self-confidence, contradicts the Lord and boasts of his devotion. When, a little later, the Lord is watching and praying, Peter is sleeping. When the Lord is silent before His enemies, like a lamb before her shearers, Peter is actually striking with a sword. When the Lord is making the good confession before the high priest, Peter is denying the Lord before a simple servant girl.

It is a question of the high priest's "court," not palace. The word "palace" fits the governor's residence better... Confusion on this point has hidden the truth. Peter was not where the first questioning took place. He was "outside" and "below" in the courtyard.

In Peter's case the stages of decline are clearly marked. First, boasting in his own strength. Second, sleeping when he should have been praying. Third, drawing his sword when he should have been bowing his head in meekness. Fourth, following at a distance. Fifth, making himself comfortable among the open enemies of Christ.

However sincere a man may be, he must come to recognise his utter weakness. It is a humbling lesson, but a very useful one, and it makes the Lord's grace and patience shine out. It is very important to remember — and we learn it clearly here — that sincerity is not enough to keep us right. It is quite a human quality! We also need the Lord's strength against the schemes of the devil and the fear of the world. If the Lord is not there, a young girl can upset an apostle. The fear of man is a dreadful snare for the soul, and this fear worked powerfully in Peter's heart.

Peter saw the net of evidence closing in around him with its fine mesh. So his denials became more violent. First, a pretence that he did not understand. Second, a flat denial. Third, a claim that he did not even know the Lord, along with curses and swearing.

Still, he could not stay in the presence of his own falsehood. He goes out into the porch: "and the rooster crowed." This was the Lord's warning to him... There was nothing there to cause terror. Yet even this most devoted of the disciples — or at least the most eager in his love and the most forceful in his declarations — was so powerless to face death even close at hand that a servant girl's word was enough to bring out his denial of the Lord!

In the account of Peter's fall, Mark has noted that the Lord said to His self-confident disciple, "Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times." He has also noted how it came true. A rooster crowed just after Peter's first denial. About an hour later the rooster crowed a second time, just after Peter had denied his Master for the third time. Peter, we read, remembered the words and wept.

Peter should have remembered the word that Jesus had said to him, and been warned by it. I ask you, my Christian reader: is the rooster crowing for you today? That is, is the Word of the Lord speaking home to you today about something? If so, pay attention to it, get nearer to Jesus... Peter paid no attention to the first crowing of the rooster, but went on to deny Him again, with oaths and curses.

It is always the word of the Lord that produces real repentance, whether in a saint or a sinner. It is not human feeling, nor shame, nor the fear of being found out... Had Peter believed Christ's word about his own complete weakness, he would have been kept. But he did not believe it. "Even though they all fall away," he said, "I will not."

When a girl says plainly that he too had been with Jesus of Nazareth, he denies it just as plainly. The words of a girl defeat the courage of this bold, strong fisherman. Then another girl told those standing nearby that Peter was one of them. It seems they took this up and spoke to Peter himself about being a disciple of Jesus (John 18:25). Having once given in to his fear, what could he do now but deny it a second time?

The word "again" certainly seems to belong to "began" in any case. How little poor Peter gained by having the fire, and going out into the porch! It is no use.

Matthew speaks of another servant girl. Mark speaks of the same girl as before (the doorkeeper of John). Luke speaks of "another," but a "man." John gives the key to all this with moral certainty by his use of the plural — "they said therefore." He clearly shows, even to a doubter, that what each of the three writers says may be all and equally authentic... The two girls and a man may have taken part in what the fourth Gospel sums up this way. Matthew and Mark make it plain that the second charge was made in front of several bystanders on the spot, probably the porch or forecourt where Peter had gone out. And Peter's denial was then repeated — not a single act like the first.

What steps we see in Peter's downward course, leading to his denial of the Lord he loved! First, he declared he was ready to die for Him — and the Lord had just told him that Satan was asking to have him, and that He was praying for him. Next, he slept when he should have been watching. Then he fought when he should have been quiet. Then he followed far off when he should have been near. And now he sits down side by side with the enemies of Christ, warming himself! With such a start one can only expect what followed.

Peter's total failure as a servant comes out in detail, while Christ's grace toward him shines to the end all the more brightly... Here his repeated failure under pressure first drew out his shame and his fear of confessing Jesus the Nazarene. Only here do we find the Lord's warning in its most exact form (Mark 14:30), and here too its no less exact fulfilment (verses 68, 72). How gracious of the Master! How base in the servant — only to find His goodness still more abundant! Truly, where sin increased, grace abounded all the more!

It has been well said, "Watchfulness and prayer are always needed. But only one person will be blameless, shameless, and without offence: the one who walks in the solemn conviction that he has to fear the outbreak of the foulest sins, unless his soul is occupied with Jesus."... The One who searches and knows is the One who alone is able to keep us from falling, and restore us when we fall.

When a girl says firmly that he too had been with Jesus of Nazareth, he denies it just as firmly. The words of a girl defeat the courage of this bold, strong fisherman. Then another girl told the people standing nearby that Peter was one of them. They clearly took this up and spoke to Peter himself about being a disciple of Jesus. Once he had given way to his fear, what could he do now but deny it a second time?

The Galileans probably pronounced words differently. Or the language spoken in Galilee was not as polished as the language spoken in Jerusalem. Either way, Peter's speech gave him away. But the voice of that same Peter, under the power of God, was mighty on the day of Pentecost — even though his hearers said, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?" (Acts 2:7)

There was nothing there to cause terror. Yet even this most devoted of the disciples — or at least the warmest in his love and the most eager to show it — was completely powerless. He could not face even the nearness of death. A servant girl's word was enough to bring out his denial of the Lord! … But the more they pressed the truth on him, the more he backed away, and in his utter fear he began to curse and to swear.

The Lord was silent in grace in the face of His enemies' malice. Peter was silent in fear as he warmed himself at the world's fire, among the Lord's enemies. When the Lord speaks, He confesses the truth. When Peter speaks, he denies it.

Think of the sad steps that led to his open denial of his Lord: the sleep in the garden, the following far behind, the sitting down in the judgment hall to warm himself at a fire lit by Christ's enemies. Let us beware of fires — of warmth and comfort and pleasure made by the enemies of the Lord Jesus. Many young Christians have forgotten this and paid dearly for it. Peter identified himself with the world. He is now ashamed to identify himself with a rejected Master.

In truth Peter had fallen before he ever got into the high priest's palace. Self-confidence was his ruin. … These were boastful words, and he meant them at the time, for Peter was plainly no hypocrite. But his self-confidence threw him off his guard and took him away from Christ. "Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall" had no place in his mind. He failed to pray that he might not be led into temptation, though the Lord had told him to. So he slept when he should have been gathering strength.

Peter was as truly a saint of God in the high priest's palace as on the mountain where he saw the Lord's glory. But he had to learn what he was, through a process as humbling and painful as any soul could pass through. … We do not know what we may do until we are in the situation. The great thing for all of us is to walk humbly with our God day by day. We should stay deeply aware of our own complete weakness, and cling to Him who is able to keep us from falling.

Real repentance always comes from the word of the Lord, whether in a saint or a sinner. It does not come from human feeling, or shame, or the fear of being found out. The word Jesus spoke did the work inside him. … The word of the Lord does two things: it convicts and it heals. … If Peter had believed Christ's word about his own complete weakness, he would have been kept.

"I do not know this man of whom you speak." Yet "this man" was his Saviour, and he knew it — too well, and too little. What a contrast now! "Who do you say that I am?" Jesus had asked him long before. His answer was, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Now he says, "I do not know this man." Jesus to him now was a mere man, unknown to Peter.

It was first a simple denial, in answer to the challenge of the maid who kept the high priest's door (Matthew 26:69-70). In answer to the questions of several in the porch, he added an oath to his second denial. Then a relative of the man whose ear he cut off in the garden recognised him (John 18:26). He broke out into a whole volley of oaths and curses. "I do not know this man of whom you speak" (Mark 14:71). Only the first two Gospel writers record the cursing and swearing. Luke and John are content with the denial itself.

He did not believe our Lord's warning. If he had, he would not have entered into temptation. He would have watched, prayed, and been kept through faith. He must therefore learn by bitter experience what the flesh is... He was confident in himself. It was not the crude confidence of an unbeliever, no doubt. But it was still confidence built on his own estimate of what his love for Jesus would enable him to do or bear.

When the Lord warns Peter of his coming denial, Peter, in self-confidence, contradicts the Lord and boasts of his devotion. When, a little later, the Lord is watching and praying, Peter is sleeping. When the Lord is silent before His enemies, like a lamb before her shearers, Peter is actually striking with a sword. When the Lord is making the good confession before the high priest, Peter is denying the Lord before a simple servant girl.

Does the reader feel inclined to doubt that Peter was, despite all this, a genuine saint of God? Some do question it, but their questioning is a serious mistake... Peter was as truly a saint of God in the high priest's palace as he was on the mount of transfiguration... We do not know what we may do until we are in the circumstances. The great thing for us all is to walk humbly with our God day by day, deeply aware of our own utter weakness.

The real Gospel of Peter is the one that stands in our Bibles with the title "Mark": at least that view was generally accepted in the early church, by men who regarded the Gospel by Mark as dictated and approved by Peter the apostle. Besides the historical evidence, there is this. Where anything discreditable to Peter comes up, as in his denial of Christ, Mark gives the particulars of his failure with much detail and no excuse. But anything to Peter's credit he passes over.

It is always the word of the Lord that produces real repentance, whether in a saint or a sinner. It is not human feeling, nor shame, nor the fear of being found out — it was the word Jesus had spoken, working within him... The word of the Lord does two things: it convicts and it heals.

Why did Peter say to the enemies of his Lord, "I do not know this man of whom you speak"? To save his life. He then felt, "If I own Him, I shall die." And so to save his life he denied Him. "Now," says Christ, "you shall get another opportunity of glorifying God."

I do not say that his repentance was complete. You will find that the Lord touched the deepest part of him some time afterwards. Still, there was genuine feeling of his sin, shame, and anguish of spirit... It is always the word of the Lord that produces real repentance, whether in a saint or a sinner. It is not human feeling, nor shame, nor the fear of being found out — it was the word that Jesus spoke, working within. The word of the Lord does two things: it convicts and it heals. Had Peter believed Christ's word about his own complete weakness, he would have been kept. But he did not believe it.

We exercise our minds when we use them for reflection and meditation... We do not often think of Peter as a man given to reflection, yet twice we find him so engaged at critical moments in his life. "Peter called to mind the word Jesus said to him… and when he thought about it he wept" (Mark 14:72). "While Peter thought (or pondered) on the vision, the Spirit said to him, Behold, three men are seeking you" (Acts 10:19).

"Wept," or "kept weeping" (imperfect tense).

Mark gives what the other two Gospel writers leave out: the rooster crowing twice. The lessons from Peter's fall are simple. He had to go through this terrible experience so that he would break down and learn his own weakness. And how we all need to know that in ourselves we are good for nothing.

The real Gospel of Peter is the one that stands in our Bibles under the title "Mark"... many in the early church regarded it as dictated and approved by Peter the apostle... Whenever Mark mentions something that puts Peter in a bad light, such as his denial of Christ, he gives the details of the failure in full, with no excuse. But anything to Peter's credit he leaves out.

Repentance did its proper work in his soul, as he saw his folly and sin in the light of his Lord's love. Here is the difference between repentance and remorse. Repentance is the judgment I form of my sin in the light of love and grace known. Remorse comes from viewing the sin only in the light of its probable results. Repentance gives birth to hope; remorse leads only to despair... Judas, who did not know what grace was, went out and hanged himself in remorse over his terrible wickedness. Peter, who did know what grace was, and who knew then better than ever how deeply the Lord loved him, went out and wept bitterly. The last thing Peter had done was to deny his Master, and the next thing his Master did was to die for Peter.

Peter has broken down; but the Lord remains, and the Lord is the same. He was rejected by the nation, betrayed by a false disciple, denied by a true disciple, and forsaken by all. None of these sufferings could turn the Lord from His own or dry up the love of His heart... The words Jesus had spoken broke poor Peter's heart and led to tears of repentance... The One who searches and knows is the One who alone is able to keep us from falling, and to restore us when we fall.