What is the significance of the rooster crowing in regards to Peter denying Jesus three times?

There and then it was that Peter heard a cock crow twice immediately after he denied his Master thrice. How insignificant such a sound ordinarily! Then how pregnant with the deepest consequence, not to the penitent apostle only, but to his brethren whom he soon began to strengthen, and to the multitudes whom he was honoured of God in bringing by the word he preached, out of darkness into His marvellous light! But it was the Lord's look upon Peter, and the remembrance of His words, which gave it all the force that wrought in conscience and heart, the look and words of the Saviour brought home by the Holy Spirit where there was life Godward. But alas! flesh had shrouded all and the believer, having slept, had cursed and sworn as if he never knew the Master. Now in bitter grief he learns himself humiliatingly, and what the world is in its highest religious pretensions; yet what would all else have been, had he not learnt the grace of Christ and His moral glory, and God Himself in the cross of Christ and the purpose and ways of redeeming love?

Mark alone notices the twofold crowing of the cock, the latter being at the general cock-crowing of which the other Gospels speak. The first fails to arouse Peter; so easily may the conscience become torpid through the power of sin. Only Luke notices the tender reproof of the Lord's look, which followed the second: in fact those eyes had never been withdrawn from him; though the "look" was more than this: it was the divine recall of the wanderer to himself and to God.

Now we have the little episode of Peter warming himself. Cannot you fancy him sunk down into humanity? He became not the companion of Jesus of Gethsemane, but of a poor man in the outer court of the palace. Here we have two things, the crow and the look. How do you interpret them? They are symbols of very different things, but two things we must all have to do with: conscience and Christ. The crow awakened his conscience; the look placed him with Jesus. I want to have an awakened conscience and an eye by faith directed to Jesus. Then let Jesus close the story of my soul. If we are not all conscious of the cock-crow and the look, we are not yet in the school of God. My intellectual activity about the things of God will not do. Conscience must be occupied, and faith must be occupied. "And Peter went out, and wept bitterly." But his faith did not fail. He may be sent through sorrow and tears, but his faith does not fail.

Take the familiar case of the Apostle Peter. When, on the night of the Paschal supper, the Lord spoke to His disciples of the sorrowful scattering about to ensue, the son of Jonas expressed his own determination of remaining faithful to the Lord, whoever else might deny Him. The Lord, however, warned the self-confident man that before cock crowing that same night he would thrice deny that he so much as knew his Master.

And it was so. The warning words of the Lord appear to have faded from Peter's memory. And three times the apostle, with all possible emphasis, declared that Jesus was utterly unknown to him. It was then that the stillness of the night was broken by the crowing of the cock. It was then too that the eyes of the Lord encountered those of Peter. And the word of the Lord hitherto forgotten was brought afresh before his soul in all its living power: "Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice." Poor Peter remembered this (Luke 22:61), was convicted of what he had done, and went out weeping bitterly. The word and the look of the Lord wrought repentance in his heart, and, unlike Judas, he was restored.

Such is the method of the advocacy; and we have a striking illustration of it in one of the Gospels, and again in connection with Peter. The Lord had forewarned him of his danger; but the warning, if not unheeded at the moment, was soon forgotten; and time after time, this devoted disciple denied that he even knew Christ. Truly this was sin of the darkest hue. But the question is, Will he ever repent? No; he will never repent — if still left to himself; and he never would have repented — but for the gracious action of his Lord. Even the crowing of the cock, which had been given him as a sign, failed to recall his sin. But at that moment, "The Lord turned and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had said to him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny Me thrice. And Peter went out, and wept bitterly" (Luke 22:61-62). So is it now. When we fall into sin, we should never repent but for the gracious ministry of Christ as our Advocate. Thereby He secures by His intercession, as He did with Peter by His look, that the sin shall be brought to our minds by the action of the Holy Ghost through the instrumentality of the Word, and our consciences thus be awakened, so that we also might take the place of self-judgment and confession, and thereupon be brought back into fellowship both with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. And let us never forget, that it is the propitiation which He made for our sins by His death which gives Him the title thus to act. Peter shrunk from permitting the Lord to wash his feet. Ah! it was necessary that He should thus humble Himself — yea, that He should go down even to the death of the cross, — down under all God's waves and all God's billows of judicial wrath, that He might make propitiation, and be able, on that foundation, to serve us throughout the whole course of our earthly pilgrimage. What love and what grace! Surely our hearts would cry for ever, Blessed be His Name!

What sad repetitions of Peter's fall in the lives of God's people. The absolute worthlessness of the flesh is learned and learned over and over again by many a sad experience. The consciousness of our utter weakness in ourselves must ever lead us into a closer fellowship in prayer with Himself. But over this sad scene of failure and denial was the gracious, loving praying Lord. Peter was His own; he could not go the way Judas went. He had foreseen all. Ere it happened He told Peter what he would do and how Satan's power linked with the flesh would result in his denial. But more than that the Lord had prayed for him. "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." Where would have Peter been, if it had not been for that prayer of the Lord. And so His loving eye watched him, and when the sin was committed and the right moment came, there was not a word spoken to Peter, but the Lord looked upon Peter. Their eyes met. That was enough. What was in that look? An angry reminder what Peter had done? A frown which showed displeasure? Far from that. It must have been a tender, loving, sad look. It went home to Peter's heart. He remembers now. The horror of his denial breaks upon him. Had he not been the Lord's own, had he not known the Lord, Satan who had led him gradually on, would have rushed him into despair. But we see him rushing out and behold him in the night, the dawning morning in the East, convulsed with bitter weeping. What a weeping it was, the tears of repentance, self judgment flowed freely. Broken in heart and broken in spirit with that tender look burning in his soul, he weeps and weeps. Reader do you know anything of such tears? You do if you walk with the Lord. Another one rushes out too when that morning had come. He went out and -- hanged himself. Satan claims his own. Oh what a loving Saviour and Lord we have. How He dealt with Peter. How He has dealt with us and still cares for His own, prays for them and keeps them and restores them to service as He did with His denying Peter. _286

When, for the third time, Peter has denied his Master, whom at bottom he really loved, the cock crows again. The cock had already crowed once, and 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 cock crowing for you today? that is, Is the Word of the Lord speaking home to you today about something? Oh, if so, give heed to it, get nearer to Jesus; may God draw you nearer to His blessed Son, that you may not go on, as Peter did, to still greater lengths. Peter heeded not the first crowing of the cock, but went on to deny Him again, with oaths and cursings; and then I think I see that man, as the cock crowed a second time, and he pulled himself up to remember that he had done the very thing his Master had said he would do.

In divine faithfulness, Peter's denial is placed side by side with the holy confession of our Lord: the One, undeterred from the purposes of His love by the malice, bigotry, and certainty of death at the hands of His enemies; the other, too weak to stand before the word of a maid. Thrice he repeats his denial, but the crowing of the cock foretells, at the darkest hour, the coming of the morning, and Peter's tears are precursors of a new day for himself.

In Mark (Mark 14:53-72), the narrative follows closely that of Matthew. In addition to Peter's following afar off, we have the added touch,: "He … warmed himself at the fire" — in too close association with the enemies of our Lord. The false witnesses, the adjuration of the priest, and the condemnation follow in the same order. The denial, with the exception that the crow of the cock is twice repeated, is the same as in Matthew.

"And the second time a cock crew. And Peter remembered the word that Jesus said to him, Before [the] cock crow twice, thou shalt deny Me thrice.158 And when he thought thereon he wept." I do not say that his repentance was complete; you will find that the Lord touched him to the quick some time after. Nevertheless, there was genuine feeling of his sin, shame, and anguish of spirit, though he had not yet been probed to the bottom. He wept as he thought thereon. 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 — the word wrought within that Jesus spake. It is the washing of water by the word. The word of the Lord does two things: it convicts and it heals; it cleanses as well as detects our evil after a Divine sort. Had Peter believed Christ's word as to his own entire weakness, he would have been kept. But he believed it not. "Though all," he said, "shall be offended, yet will not I." He was ready to die with Him, whereas in truth the mere surface of the scene of Christ's death frightened him so that the more urgently the truth of his relation to Jesus was brought before him, the more he swore that he knew Him not. Such is flesh even in the saint of God — good for nothing everywhere! "And the second time": so AC, later uncials, almost all cursives Syrsin hcl, etc. Edd. insert "immediately" after "and," with ℵBLC, Syrpesch, and Old Latin.

It was a mercy the cock crew. It was a mercy he remembered the word of Jesus. I have no doubt you get right through here the difference between Peter and Judas. The sorrow of the world works death. You see this in Judas. Peter, on the other hand, was a real penitent. He had godly sorrow.