Why did Peter cut off the ear of Malchus, one of the people trying to arrest Jesus?

Such is man — yea, the very best of men! Self-confident, when he ought to be self-distrusting — sleeping, when he ought to be watching; and, we may add, fighting, when he ought to be submitting. "Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it, and smote the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus." How incongruous, how utterly out of place, was a sword in company with the meek and lowly Sufferer! "Then said Jesus to Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which My Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?" Peter was entirely out of the current of his Master's spirit. He had not a thought in common with Him in reference to His path of suffering. He would fain defend Him with carnal weapons, forgetting that His kingdom was not of this world.

(2) They take Him unresisting. But Peter is again to illustrate how far even a loyal heart may be from the mind of Christ. In speaking of the hostile attitude of the world in which He is leaving them, the Lord had enjoined one that had no sword to sell even his garment and buy one (Luke 22:36). Peter, taking this literally, as we may suppose, no sooner finds his beloved Master thus assailed than his weapon is out, and he smites a servant of the high priest and cuts off his ear. But he has belittled and misrepresented Him whom he would serve, who must be fallen low indeed to need His disciple's sword to extricate Him from such hands as these. If He yield, it is to God, not man; He yields, ― to take the cup from the Father's hand: and what should the sword do here? Were not heaven's legions dependent on His will? and would not the Father, if He had willed it, give Him, not twelve frail disciples, but more than twelve legions of angels?

It would appear as though Malchus, a slave of the high priest, vaunting a temporary authority, had offered some insult to the Lord, and Simon Peter, indignant and enraged, slashed at him with his sword; it was a rash stroke, and he no swordsman. His intention was to cleave the man's skull to its bases but he missed his aim and severed his ear. It was not given to John to record the healing of that ear e'er the hands of the Lord were bound, but we might well pause and consider the power and mercy of those hands that were only stretched forth to heal bound with cords. It was John's privilege to hear and record the Lord's words to Peter. "Put up thy sword into the sheath." He needed not that carnal blade, nor the feeble arm that wielded it; the voice that had made that hostile band fall backward could have called twelve legions of angels to His aid, but how then would the Scripture have been fulfilled? "The cup that My Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?" It was that that settled all things for Him. He looked at no second causes, hence the insults and ignominy did not move Him to resentment or resistance, when he suffered He threatened not for He suffered all in absolute subjection to His Father's will.

The servant of the high priest would hold a commission from his master to go with Judas into the garden and lead that multitude that went forth to take the Lord Jesus captive. He would carry the warrant for His arrest. How astonished Peter must have been when Judas stepped out of the throng and put the traitorous kiss upon the Master's cheek. He did not know how to deal with Judas, but he had no hesitation as to how to treat Malchus when he, vaunting himself in his temporary authority, laid hands upon the Lord, and in the name of the high priest directed the band to make Him their prisoner. At such audacity the natural indignation of Peter flamed up hotly, and drawing his sword he aimed one mighty blow at the dastard, meaning to lay him dead at his feet, cleft through the skull.

I have chosen the account that is given in the Gospel of Luke rather than that of Matthew or Mark, because the Spirit of God presents it very particularly in its moral links. In John, on which I shall dwell afterwards, all turns upon the person of the Lord Jesus, and we shall find, I think, this difference, when we come to look at it. But here the human heart is opened more; there the glory of the One who was making Himself known. Now the results of what we have already had before us begin to appear. The temptation has come, and Peter enters into it. We always do enter, where we are not found in prayer before the temptation. Then we are surprised. The Lord, on the contrary, had been in prayer, and he only makes the difficulty and the trial, when it came, an opportunity of manifesting the grace of God. Hence, therefore, when one of the persons that came to take the Lord — one of the servants of the high priest — presented himself, he became an object for one of the disciples. This was Peter. His very love for the Lord — his indignation — broke forth. It is not that the others were not just as ready to fall as Peter, for that is the solemn thing that appears. Our very love for His person, our very fervour of spirit, instead of being a preservative power, where there is not self-judgment, exposes one to go farther astray. Here it was, first of all, in the shape of violence. "He smote the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear." Thus the Lord's warning fell entirely powerless upon Peter; and in such a state of mind — and that is the importance of it — one perverts the word of God.

Peter's self-complacency and self-confidence, and the mighty energy of personal love to his master, which (working with mixed motives, and from an unhumbled heart in him,) led him to use the sword and to cut off the ear of the High Priest's servant, was fleshliness and worldliness when weighed in the sanctuary. There has been this, I judge, to be confessed by many of the best in our day - zeal without knowledge; right as to its object; wrong as to many a thing in oneself as vindicator; and wrong as to many a means and course pursued: and much of this through self-complacency and self-confidence in our own line of things.

But even His most honoured servants fail, and are apt to fail most where they push forward in natural zeal and their own wisdom, too self-confident to watch His ways and heed His word and thus learn of Him. So Simon Peter then displays his haste in total discord with the grace of Christ; for, having a sword, he drew it, and struck Malchus,326 the servitor of the high-priest, maiming him of his right ear. Had Peter watched and prayed instead of sleeping, it might have been otherwise; when we fail to pray, we enter into temptation.

Luke alone, true to his testimony to God's grace, tells us of the Lord's answer, "Suffer ye thus far," and of His touching the ear to heal the wounded man. Matthew alone, in harmony with the rejected Messiah but true King of Israel, gives the reproof which warned His servant of what it is for saints to resist carnally. Mark mentions the fact, but no more. John, agreeably to the purpose of God in his province, presents the Lord in unfaltering obedience to His Father, as before in Divine power and grace. Nothing more calm than His correction of Peter's energy; nothing more distinct than His submission to the Father's will, whatever it cost. "The cup which the Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?"

148 How comes this difference? In the first place with Peter the flesh is sleeping; he goes to sleep to get rid of the pressure of circumstances. Peter has not gone through the trial with the Father. At the moment when Jesus is going to be led away, the energy of the flesh wakes up, and Peter draws the sword. The flesh has just energy enough to carry us into the danger where it cannot stand - that energy deserts us then. How little real communion is here! When Christ was praying, Peter was sleeping; when Christ was submitting as a lamb led to the slaughter, Peter was fighting; when Christ was confessing in suffering, Peter was denying Him with cursing and swearing. This is just the flesh: sleeping when it ought to be waking; in energy when it ought to be still; and then denying the Lord when the time of trial comes. With Christ it was agony with the Father, but perfect peace when the trial came. Oh, if we knew how to go on in all circumstances in communion with the Father, there would be no temptation that would not be an occasion of glorifying Him!

Judas then approached, with a band of armed men. As he covered his Master with his false kisses, the disciples, perceiving that mischief was intended, asked, "Lord, shall we smite with the sword?" (Luke 22:49). Before the Saviour could reply, fiery Peter struck a blow at Malchus, one of the servants of the high priest, and cut off his right ear (probably intending to cleave his skull). It is John who records the names in this instance (John 18:10). Luke tells us that the Saviour touched the sufferer's ear, and healed him (Luke 22:51), an incident that would be specially interesting to "the beloved physician" (Col. 4:14). But the carnal courage of Peter and the rest soon failed them, for they all forsook Him and fled. The contrast is complete between the Son of God and every other, even the most distinguished. He, perfectly submissive under the Father's hand: they, hasty and violent. He, divinely strengthened to suffer His will, even to death; they, cowardly when the danger developed. He, understanding all that would result from His cross and shame; they, foolishly unintelligent as to all that He had told them concerning it. (Luke 24:25-27, 44) Truly, in the last dreadful scenes none shone but He. In no one but the Son of His love was the Father glorified.

At this juncture Peter, naturally of a forward disposition, drew a sword, and cut off the right ear of a servant of the high priest, whose name, we learn, was Malchus. Natural feeling, and a true love for his Master, prompted him to this act. But natural feeling is not always a safe guide. In this case it was not. God's work is not to be propagated now by the sword; and the Lord's kingdom being not "from hence," as He subsequently told Pilate, He did not require His servants to fight for it (36). Of old God's cause was furthered by the sword. The earthly people were concerned in that. Now there was the heavenly calling, and the kingdom of the heavens was not to be advanced by carnal weapons. Besides, what was taking place in the Lord's arrest was the carrying out of the Divine purpose. So, rebuking the zeal of His disciple, Christ added, "The cup which My Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?" The soldiers, with the chief captain and the Jewish officers, now surrounding Him, bound Him, and led Him away first to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest. The Lord had thus surrendered Himself.