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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 26:47

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And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people.

47 56. The Arrest of Jesus

St Mar 14:43-50; St Luk 22:47-53; St Joh 18:3-11

47. a great multitude with swords and staves ] St John more definitely, “having received a (strictly, the) band (of men) and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees” (Mat 18:3). The band of men here = the company of Roman soldiers, placed at the service of the Sanhedrin by the Procurator. The same word is used Act 10:1; Act 21:32; Act 27:1. St Luke names the “captains of the temple” (Luk 22:52). Hence the body, guided by Judas, consisted of (1) a company ( speira) of Roman soldiers; (2) a detachment of the Levitical temple-guard (Luke); (3) certain members of the Sanhedrin and Pharisees.

with swords and staves ] St John has “with lanterns and torches and weapons.” Staves, rather, clubs; different from the travellers’ “staves” of ch. Mat 10:10, where another Greek word is used.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

The account of Jesus being betrayed by Judas is recorded by all the evangelists. See Mar 14:43-52; Luk 22:47-53; Joh 18:2-12.

Mat 26:47

Judas, one of the twelve, came – This was done while Jesus was addressing his disciples.

John informs us that Judas knew the place, because Jesus was in the habit of going there with his disciples. Judas had passed the time, after he left Jesus and the other disciples at the Passover, in arranging matters with the Jews, collecting the band, and preparing to go. Perhaps, also, on this occasion they gave him the money which they had promised.

A great multitude with swords and staves – John says that he had received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees. Josephus says (Antiq. b. 20 chapter iv.) that at the festival of the Passover, when a great multitude of people came to observe the feast, lest there should be any disorder, a band of men was commanded to keep watch at the porches of the temple, to repress a tumult if any should be excited. This band, or guard, was at the disposal of the chief priests, Mat 27:65. It was composed of Roman soldiers, and was stationed chiefly at the tower of Antonia, at the northwest side of the temple. In addition to this, they had constant guards stationed around the temple, composed of Levites. The Roman soldiers were armed with swords. The other persons that went out carried, probably, whatever was accessible as a weapon. These were the persons sent by the priests to apprehend Jesus. Perhaps other desperate men might have joined them.

Staves – In the original, wood; used here in the plural number. It means rather clubs or sticks than spears. It does not mean staves. Probably it means any weapon at hand, such as a mob could conveniently collect. John says that they had lanterns and torches. The Passover was celebrated at the full moon; but this night might have been cloudy. The place to which they were going was also shaded with trees, and lights, therefore, might be necessary.

Mat 26:48

Gave them a sign – That is, told them of a way by which they might know whom to apprehend – to wit, by his kissing him.

It was night. Jesus was, besides, probably personally unknown to the Romans – perhaps to the others also. Judas, therefore, being well acquainted with him, to prevent the possibility of mistake, agreed to designate him by one of the tokens of friendship.

John tells us that Jesus, knowing all things that should come upon him, when they approached him, asked them whom they sought, and that they replied, Jesus of Nazareth. He then informed them that he was the person they sought. They, when they heard it, overawed by his presence and smitten with the consciousness of guilt, went backward and fell to the ground. He again asked them whom they sought. They made the same declaration – Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus then, since they professed to seek only Him, claimed the right that his disciples should be suffered to escape, that the saying might be fulfilled which he spake Joh 18:9; Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none.

Mat 26:49

Hail, Master – The word translated hail, here, means to rejoice, to have joy, and also to have cause of joy.

It thus expresses the joy which one friend has when he meets another, especially after an absence. It was used by the Jews and Greeks as a mode of salutation among friends. It would here seem to express the joy of Judas at finding his Master and again being with him.

Master – In the original, Rabbi. See the notes at Mat 23:7.

Kissed him – Gave him the common salutation of friends when meeting after absence. This mode of salutation was more common among Eastern nations than with us.

Mat 26:50

And Jesus said unto him, Friend – It seems strange to us that Jesus should give the endeared name friend to a man that he knew was his enemy, and that was about to betray him.

It should be remarked, however, that this is the fault of our language, not of the original. In the Greek there are two words which our translators have rendered friend – one implying affection and regard, the other not. One is properly rendered friend; the other expresses more nearly what we mean by companion. It is this latter word which is given to the disaffected laborer in the vineyard: Friend, I do thee no wrong Mat 20:13; to the guest which had not on the wedding-garment, in the parable of the marriage feast Mat 22:12; and to Judas in this place.

Wherefore art thou come? – This was said, not because he was ignorant why he had come, but probably to fill the mind of Judas with the consciousness of his crime, and by a striking question to compel him to think of what he was doing.

Mat 26:51

One of them which were with Jesus – John informs us that this was Peter.

The other evangelists concealed the name, probably because they wrote while Peter was living, and it might have endangered Peter to have it known.

And drew his sword – The apostles were not commonly armed. On this occasion they had provided two swords, Luk 22:38. In seasons of danger, when traveling, they were under a necessity of providing means of defending themselves against the robbers that infested the country. This will account for their having any swords in their possession. See the notes at Luk 10:30. Josephus informs us that the people were accustomed to carry swords under their garments as they went up to Jerusalem.

A servant of the high-priest – His name, John informs us, was Malchus. Luke adds that Jesus touched the ear and healed it, thus showing his benevolence to his foes when they sought his life, and giving them proof that they were attacking him that was sent from heaven.

Mat 26:52

Thy sword into his place – Into the sheath.

For all they that take the sword … – This passage is capable of different significations.

1. They who resist by the sword the civil magistrate shall be punished; and it is dangerous, therefore, to oppose those who come with the authority of the civil ruler.

2. These men, Jews and Romans, who have taken the sword against the innocent, shall perish by the sword. God will take vengeance on them.

3. However, the most satisfactory interpretation is that which regards it as a caution to Peter. Peter was rash. Alone he had attacked the whole band. Jesus told him that his unseasonable and imprudent defense might be the occasion of his own destruction. In doing it he would endanger his life, for they who took the sword perished by it. This was probably a proverb, denoting that they who engaged in wars commonly perished there.

Mat 26:53

Thinkest thou … – Jesus says that not only would Peter endanger himself, but his resistance implied a distrust of the protection of God, and was an improper resistance of his will.

If it had been proper that they should be rescued, God could easily have furnished far more efficient aid than that of Peter – a mighty host of angels.

Twelve legions – A legion was a division of the Roman army amounting to more than 6,000 men. See the notes at Mat 8:29. The number twelve was mentioned, perhaps, in reference to the number of his apostles and himself. Judas being away, but eleven disciples remained. God could guard him, and each disciple, with a legion of angels: that is, God could easily protect him, if he should pray to him, and if it was his will.

Mat 26:54

But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled … – That is, the Scriptures which foretold of his dying for the world.

In some way that must be accomplished, and the time had come when, having finished the work which the Father gave him to do, it was proper that he should submit to death. This was said, doubtless, to comfort his disciples; to show them that his death was not a matter of surprise or disappointment to him; and that they, therefore, should not be offended and forsake him.

Mat 26:55

Against a thief – Rather a robber. This was the manner in which they would have sought to take a highwayman of desperate character, and armed to defend his life.

It adds not a little to the depth of his humiliation that he consented to be hunted down thus by wicked people, and to be treated as if he had been the worst of mankind.

Daily with you teaching in the temple – For many days before the Passover, as recorded in the previous chapter.

Mat 26:56

Scriptures of the prophets – The writings of the prophets, for that is the meaning of the word scriptures. He alludes to those parts of the prophetic writings which foretold his sufferings and death.

Then all the disciples … – Overcome with fear when they saw their Master actually taken; alarmed with the terrific appearance of armed men and torches in a dark night, and forgetting their promises not to forsake him, they all left their Saviour to go alone to trial and to death! Alas, how many, when attachment to Christ would lead them to danger, leave him and flee! Mark adds that after the disciples had fled, a young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body, attempted to follow him. It is not known who he was, but not improbably he may have been the owner of the garden and a friend of Jesus. Aroused by the noise from his repose, he came to defend, or at least to follow the Saviour. He cast, in his hurry, such a covering as was at hand around his body, and came to him. The young men among the Romans and Jews attempted to seize him also, and he only secured his safety by leaving in their hands the covering that he had hastily thrown around him. It is not known why this circumstance was recorded by Mark, but it would seem to be probable that it was to mention him with honor, as showing his interest in the Saviour, and his willingness to aid him. See the notes at Mar 14:50-51. This circumstance may have been recorded for the purpose of honoring him by placing his conduct in strong contrast with that of the apostles, who had all forsaken the Saviour and fled.

Mat 26:57

The trial of our Lord before the council, and the denial of Peter happening at the same time, might be related one before the other, according to the evangelists pleasure.

Accordingly, Matthew and Mark relate the trial first, and Peters denial afterward; Luke mentions the denial first, and John has probably observed the natural order. The parallel places are recorded in Mark 14:53-72; Luke 22:54-71; and Joh 18:13-27.

To Caiaphas – John says that they led him first to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas. This was done, probably as a mark of respect, he having been high priest, and perhaps distinguished for prudence, and capable of advising his son-in-law in a difficult case. The Saviour was detained there. probably, until the chief priests and elders were assembled.

The high priest – Note, Mat 26:3. John says he was high priest for that year. Annas had been high priest some years before. In the time of our Saviour the office was frequently changed by the civil ruler. This Caiaphas had prophesied that it was expedient that one should die for the people. See the notes at Joh 11:49-50.

The scribes and elders – The men composing the great council of the nation, or Sanhedrin, Mat 5:22. It is not probable that they could be immediately assembled, and some part of the transaction respecting the denial of Peter probably took place while they were collecting.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Mat 26:47-52

And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come?

The last pleading of love

I. The patience of Christs love. The betrayer in the very instant of his treason has that changeless tenderness lingering around him, and that merciful hand beckoning to him still. Sin is mighty, but it cannot make God cease to love us.

II. The pleading of Christs patient love. There is an appeal to the traitors heart, and an appeal to his conscience. Christ would have him think of the relations that have so long subsisted between them, and of the real nature of the deed he was doing. The sharp question is meant to wake up his conscience. All our evils are betrayals of Christ, and all our betrayals of Christ are sins against a perfect friendship and an unvaried goodness. We too have sat at His table, heard His wisdom, had a place in His heart. It is the constant effort of the love of Christ to get us to say to ourselves the real name of what we are about. Wherefore art thou come? Almost all actions have a better and a worse side, prudence is called selfishness; we are clever men of business, he a rogue. It is, therefore, the office of love to force us to look at the thing as it is. He must begin with rebukes that He may advance to blessing.

III. The possible rejection Of the pleading of Christs patient love. We can resist His pleadings. It is easily done. Judas merely held his peace-no more. Silence is sufficient. Non-submission is rebellion. The appeal of Christs love hardens where it does not soften. The sun either scatters the summer morning mists, or it rolls them into heavier folds, from whose livid depths the lightning is flashing by mid-day. That silence was probably the silence of a man whose conscience was convicted while his will was unchanged. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Gods love embraces the worst man

As the sunshine pours down as willingly and abundantly on filth and dunghills, as on gold that glitters in its beam, and jewels that flash back its lustre, so the light and warmth of that unsetting and unexhausted source of life pours down on the unthankful and on the good. The great ocean clasps some black and barren crag that frowns against it, as closely as with its waves it kisses some fair strand enamelled with flowers and fragrant with perfumes. So that sea of love in which we live, and move, and have our being, encircles the worst with abundant flow. He Himself sets us the pattern, which to imitate is to be the children of our Father which is in heaven, in that He loves His enemies, blessing them that curse, and doing good to them that hate. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Man may reject the Divine love

We cannot cease to be the objects of His love, but we can refuse to be the recipients of its most precious gifts. We can bar our hearts against it. Then, of what avail is it to us? To go back to an earlier illustration, the sunshine pours down and floods a world, what does that matter to us if we have fastened up shutters on all our windows, and barred every crevice through which the streaming gladness can find its way? We shall grope at noontide as in the dark, within our gloomy houses, while our neighbours have light in theirs. What matters it though we float in the great ocean of the Divine love, if with pitch and canvas we have carefully closed every aperture at which the flood can enter? A hermetically closed jar, plunged in the Atlantic, will be as dry inside as if it were lying on the sand of the desert. It is possible to perish of thirst within sight of the fountain. It is possible to separate ourselves from the love of God, not to separate the love of God from ourselves. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Judas, why made a disciple

But why did Christ choose Judas as a disciple, knowing him a wicked man?

1. To teach us that He will tolerate in the Church militant evil men, and no society among men so small, so holy, but some will creep in.

2. To show His humility and patience in admitting to His board and bread so vile a person, yea, to dip his hand in the same dish.

3. To accomplish the ancient prophecy, that his familiar friend, and he that eats bread with Him, that went up to the house of God with Him as a friend, he should lift up his hand against Him (Psa 55:13-14.) (Thomas Taylor.)

Perishing by the sword if we use the sword

Human vengeance will produce its own punishment. Resist, and you will be resisted. Treat men unkindly and they will treat you unkindly. But, on the other hand, be gentle and you will rule. Be willing to bear injuries and you will triumph. Believe in martyrdom. Let martyrdom be possible. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Christ is the great fulfilment of that beatitude; and His example is here before us, consistent to the end. (Dean Howson.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 47. Judas, one of the twelve] More deeply to mark his base ingratitude and desperate wickedness – HE was ONE of the TWELVE-and he is a TRAITOR, and one of the vilest too that ever disgraced human nature.

A great multitude with swords and staves] They did not come as officers of justice, but as a desperate mob. Justice had nothing to do in this business. He who a little before had been one of the leaders of the flock of Christ is now become the leader of ruffians and murderers! What a terrible fall!

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Mark saith the same, Mar 14:43, adding also the scribes. Luke saith there was a multitude, and Judas went before them, adding, that he drew near to Jesus to kiss him, Luk 22:47. If any ask how Judas knew where Jesus was at that time of the night, or rather so early in the morning, John satisfieth us, Joh 18:2, And Judas also, which betrayed him, knew the place: for Jesus oft times resorted thither with his disciples. And then goeth on, Joh 18:3, Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons. Those skilled in the Jewish learning tell us, that the ordinary guard of the temple belonged to the priests, and such officers as they employed; but upon their great festivals, the Roman governor added a band of his soldiers, who yet were under the command of the priests. It is thought these officers, soldiers, and others came with a warrant to apprehend our Saviour from the Jewish sanhedrim, or highest court, which was made up of chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees, and the elders of the people: they had torches and lanterns, because it was yet dark, before the day was broke; swords and staves, to be ready against any opposition. Judas the traitor comes before as their leader.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

And while he yet spake,…. While he was thus speaking to his disciples, before the last words, he is at hand that doth betray me, were well out of his mouth; such an exact knowledge had Christ of every motion of Judas, of what he was about, and where he was:

lo! Judas, one of the twelve, came. The Persic version adds, “in sight”; of Christ, and the disciples; they saw him, and knew him, though some little distance: he came to Gethsemane, and into the garden, where they were, with a design to betray his master. He is described by his name Judas; as in Mt 26:14, for there was another Judas among the apostles; the Syriac and Persic read, Judas the betrayer, to distinguish him from the other: and also by his office, “one of the twelve”; i.e. apostles, whom Christ called from the rest of his disciples and followers, and bestowed extraordinary gifts upon, and sent forth to preach the Gospel, cast out devils, and heal all manner of diseases; and “lo!”, one of these betrays him! an apostle, and yet a devil! one of the twelve, one of his select company, and bosom friends, and yet a traitor!

and with him a great multitude, with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders the people. Judas was at the head of them, went before them to show them where Christ was, and to deliver him into their hands: he had not been asleep, he had been with the chief priests, and acquainted them with the opportunity he had of making good his agreement with him: he had got the band of soldiers, and other persons together, in order to make sure work of it. Thus we see how diligent wicked men are in the accomplishment of their evil designs, whilst good men are asleep and indifferent to godly and spiritual exercises. Judas is here described by his company; he who but a few hours ago was at table with his Lord, and the rest of the apostles, is now at the head of band of Roman soldiers, and other miscreants, and blood thirsty wretches, intent upon the death of his master. They may well be called a “multitude”, because made up of various sorts of persons, and these, many of them; of Roman soldiers, of the officers and servants of the chief priests; yea of the chief priests themselves, captains of the temple, and elders of the people, who were so eager upon this enterprise, that they could not forbear going in company with them, to see what would be the issue of it. And “a great one”; for the “band” of soldiers, if it was complete, consisted of a thousand men itself; and besides this, there were many others, and all to take a single person, and who had no more about him than eleven disciples; though the i Jews pretend he had two thousand men with him: and who came also “with swords and staves, or clubs”; the Roman soldiers with their swords, and the servants of the chief priests with their clubs: the reason of this posse, and of their being thus armed, might be either for fear of the people, who, should they be alarmed, and have any notice of their design, might rise and make an uproar, and attempt to rescue him; or that by having a Roman band with them, and the chief priests and their officers, it might appear, that what they did they did by authority; and that they seized him as a malefactor, as one guilty either of sedition, or heresy, or both. And this account is confirmed by the Jews themselves, who say k, that the citizens, of Jerusalem were , “armed”, and equiped, and so took Jesus: and this multitude also came “from the chief priests and elders of the people”. Mark joins the Scribes with them, Mr 14:43: these composed the sanhedrim, or great council of the nation, who had been consulting the death of Christ; had agreed to give Judas thirty pieces of silver to betray him into their hands; had obtained a band of soldiers of the Roman governor to apprehend him, and sent their officers and servants to assist herein; these all acted under their direction, influence, and authority. The Vulgate Latin, and Munster’s Hebrew Gospel read, “sent”, from them.

i Toldos Jesu, p. 16. k Ib.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Christ Betrayed by Judas; The Priest’s Servant Smitten by Peter; Christ Deserted by His Disciples.

47 And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people. 48 Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast. 49 And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him. 50 And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him. 51 And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s, and smote off his ear. 52 Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. 53 Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? 54 But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? 55 In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me. 56 But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.

We are here told how the blessed Jesus was seized, and taken into custody; this followed immediately upon his agony, while he yet spake; for from the beginning to the close of his passion he had not the least intermission or breathing-time, but deep called unto deep. His trouble hitherto was raised within himself; but now the scene is changed, now the Philistines are upon thee, thou blessed Samson; the Breath of our nostrils, the Anointed of the Lord is taken in their pits, Lam. iv. 20.

Now concerning the apprehension of the Lord Jesus, observe,

I. Who the persons were, that were employed in it. 1. Here was Judas, one of the twelve, at the head of this infamous guard: he was guide to them that took Jesus (Acts i. 16); without his help they could not have found him in this retirement. Behold, and wonder; the first that appears with his enemies, is one of his own disciples, who an hour or two ago was eating bread with him! 2. Here was with him a great multitude; that the scripture might be fulfilled, Lord, how are they increased that trouble me! Ps. iii. 1. This multitude was made up partly of a detachment out of the guards, that were posted in the tower of Antonia by the Roman governor; these were Gentiles, sinners, as Christ calls them, v. 45. The rest were the servants and officers of the High Priest, and they were Jews; they that were at variance with each other, agreed against Christ.

II. How they were armed for this enterprise.

1. What weapons they were armed with; They came with swords and staves. The Roman soldiers, no doubt, had swords; the servants of the priests, those of them that had not swords, brought staves or clubs. Furor arma ministrat–Their rage supplied their arms. They were not regular troops, but a tumultuous rabble. But wherefore is this ado? If they had been ten times as many, they could not have taken him had he not yielded; and, his hour being come for him to give up himself, all this force was needless. When a butcher goes into the field to take out a lamb for the slaughter, does he raise the militia, and come armed? No, he needs not; yet is there all this force used to seize the Lamb of God.

2. What warrant they were armed with; They came from the chief priests, and elders of the people; this armed multitude was sent by them upon this errand. He was taken up by a warrant from the great sanhedrim, as a person obnoxious to them. Pilate, the Roman governor, gave them no warrant to search for him, he had no jealousy of him; but they were men who pretended to religion, and presided in the affairs of the church, that were active in this prosecution, and were the most spiteful enemies Christ had. It was a sign that he was supported by a divine power, for by all earthly powers he was not only deserted, but opposed; Pilate upbraided him with it; Thine own nation and the chief priests delivered thee to me, John xviii. 35.

III. The manner how it was done, and what passed at that time.

1. How Judas betrayed him; he did his business effectually, and his resolution in this wickedness may shame us who fail in that which is good. Observe,

(1.) The instructions he gave to the soldiers (v. 48); He gave them a sign; as commander of the party in this action, he gives the word or signal. He gave them a sign, lest by mistake they should seize one of the disciples instead of him, the disciples having so lately said, in Judas’s hearing, that they would be willing to die for him. What abundance of caution was here, not to miss him–That same is he; and when they had him in their hands, not to lose him–Hold him fast; for he had sometimes escaped from those who thought to secure him; as Luke vi. 30. Though the Jews, who frequented the temple, could not but know him, yet the Roman soldiers perhaps had never seen him, and the sign was to direct them; and Judas by his kiss intended not only to distinguish him, but to detain him, while they came behind him, and laid hands on him.

(2.) The dissembling compliment he gave his Master. He came close up to Jesus; surely now, if ever, his wicked heart will relent; surely when he comes to look him in the face, he will either be awed by its majesty, or charmed by its beauty. Dares he to come into his very sight and presence, to betray him? Peter denied Christ, but when the Lord turned and looked upon him, he relented presently; but Judas comes up to his Master’s face, and betrays him. Me mihi (perfide) prodis? me mihi prodis?–Perfidious man, betrayest thou me to thyself? He said, Hail, Master; and kissed him. It should seem, our Lord Jesus had been wont to admit his disciples to such a degree of familiarity with him, as to give them his cheek to kiss after they had been any while absent, which Judas villainously used to facilitate this treason. A kiss is a token of allegiance and friendship, Ps. ii. 12. But Judas, when he broke all the laws of love and duty, profaned this sacred sign to serve his purpose. Note, There are many that betray Christ with a kiss, and Hail, Master; who, under pretence of doing him honour, betray and undermine the interests of his kingdom. Mel in ore, fel in corde–Honey in the mouth, gall in the heart. Kataphilein ouk esti philein. To embrace is one thing, to love is another. Philo Judus. Joab’s kiss and Judas’s were much alike.

(3.) The entertainment his Master gave him, v. 50.

[1.] He calls him friend. If he had called him villain, and traitor, raca, thou fool, and child of the devil, he had not mis–called him; but he would teach us under the greatest provocation to forbear bitterness and evil-speaking, and to show all meekness. Friend, for a friend he had been, and should have been, and seemed to be. Thus he upbraids him, as Abraham, when he called the rich man in hell, son. He calls him friend, because he furthered his sufferings, and so befriended him; whereas, he called Peter Satan for attempting to hinder them.

[2.] He asks him, “Wherefore art thou come? Is it peace, Judas? Explain thyself; if thou come as an enemy, what means this kiss? If as a friend, what mean these swords and staves? Wherefore art thou come? What harm have I done thee? Wherein have I wearied thee? eph ho parei—Wherefore art thou present? Why hadst thou not so much shame left thee, as to keep out of sight, which thou mightest have done, and yet have given the officer notice where I was?” This was an instance of great impudence, for him to be so forward and barefaced in this wicked transaction. But it is usual for apostates from religion to be the most bitter enemies to it; witness Julian. Thus Judas did his part.

2. How the officers and soldiers secured him; Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him; they made him their prisoner. How were they not afraid to stretch forth their hands against the Lord’s Anointed? We may well imagine what rude and cruel hands they were, which this barbarous multitude laid on Christ; and how, it is probable, they handled him the more roughly for their being so often disappointed when they sought to lay hands on him. They could not have taken him, if he had not surrendered himself, and been delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, Acts ii. 23. He who said concerning his anointed servants, Touch them not, and do them no harm (Psa 105:14; Psa 105:15), spared not his anointed Son, but delivered him up for us all; and again, gave his strength into captivity, his glory into the enemies’ hands, Ps. lxxviii. 61. See what was the complaint of Job (ch. xvi. 11), God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and apply that and other passages in that book of Job as a type of Christ.

Our Lord Jesus was made a prisoner, because he would in all things be treated as a malefactor, punished for our crime, and as a surety under arrest for our debt. The yoke of our transgressions was bound by the Father’s hand upon the neck of the Lord Jesus, Lam. i. 14. He became a prisoner, that he might set us at liberty; for he said, If ye seek me, let these go their way (John xviii. 8); and those are free indeed, whom he makes so.

3. How Peter fought for Christ, and was checked for his pains. It is here only said to be one of them that were with Jesus in the garden; but John xviii. 10, we are told that it was Peter who signalized himself upon this occasion. Observe,

(1.) Peter’s rashness (v. 51); He drew his sword. They had but two swords among them all (Luke xxii. 38), and one of them, it seems, fell to Peter’s share; and now he thought it was time to draw it, and he laid about him as if he would have done some great matter; but all the execution he did was the cutting off an ear from a servant of the High Priest; designing, it is likely, to cleave him down the head, because he saw him more forward than the rest in laying hands on Christ, he missed his blow. But if he would be striking, in my mind he should rather have aimed at Judas, and have marked him for a rogue. Peter had talked much of what he would do for his Master, he would lay down his life for him; yea, that he would; and now he would be as good as his word, and venture his life to rescue his Master: and thus far was commendable, that he had a great zeal for Christ, and his honour and safety; but it was not according to knowledge, nor guided by discretion; for [1.] He did it without warrant; some of the disciples asked indeed, Shall we smite with the sword? (Luke xxii. 49) But Peter struck before they had an answer. We must see not only our cause good, but our call clear, before we draw the sword; we must show by what authority we do it, and who gave us that authority. [2.] He indiscreetly exposed himself and his fellow-disciples to the rage of the multitude; for what could they with two swords do against a band of men?

(2.) The rebuke which our Lord Jesus gave him (v. 52); Put up again thy sword into its place. He does not command the officers and soldiers to put up their swords that were drawn against him, he left them to the judgment of God, who judges them that are without; but he commands Peter to put up his sword, does not chide him indeed for what he had done, because done out of good will, but stops the progress of his arms, and provides that it should not be drawn into a precedent. Christ’s errand into the world was to make peace. Note, The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but spiritual; and Christ’s ministers, though they are his soldiers, do not war after the flesh,2Co 10:3; 2Co 10:4. Not that the law of Christ overthrows either the law of nature of the law of nations, as far as those warrant subjects to stand up in defence of their civil rights and liberties, and their religion, when it is incorporated with them; but it provides for the preservation of public peace and order, by forbidding private persons, qua tales–as such, to resist the powers that are; nay, we have a general precept that we resist not evil (ch. v. 39), nor will Christ have his ministers propagate his religion by force of arms, Religio cogi non potest; et defendenda non occidendo, sed moriendo–Religion cannot be forced; and it should be defended, not by killing, but by dying. Lactantii Institut. As Christ forbade his disciples the sword of justice (Mat 20:25; Mat 20:26), so here the sword of war. Christ bade Peter put up his sword, and never bade him draw it again; yet that which Peter is here blamed for is his doing it unseasonably; the hour was come for Christ to suffer and die, he knew Peter knew it, the sword of the Lord was drawn against him (Zech. xiii. 7), and for Peter to draw his sword for him, was like, Master, spare thyself.

Three reasons Christ give to Peter for this rebuke:

[1.] His drawing the sword would be dangerous to himself and to his fellow-disciples; They that take the sword, shall perish with the sword; they that use violence, fall by violence; and men hasten and increase their own troubles by blustering bloody methods of self-defence. They that take the sword before it is given them, that use it without warrant or call, expose themselves to the sword of war, or public justice. Had it not been for the special care and providence of the Lord Jesus, Peter and the rest of them had, for aught I know, been cut in pieces immediately. Grotius gives another, and a probable sense of this blow, making those that take the sword to be, not Peter, but the officers and soldiers that come with swords to take Christ; They shall perish with the sword. “Peter, thou needest not draw they sword to punish them. God will certainly, shortly, and severely, reckon with them.” They took the Roman sword to seize Christ with, and by the Roman sword, not long after, they and their place and nation were destroyed. Therefore we must not avenge ourselves, because God will repay (Rom. xii. 19); and therefore we must suffer with faith and patience, because persecutors will be paid in their own coin. See Rev. xiii. 10.

[2.] It was needless for him to draw his sword in defence of his Master, how, if he pleased, could summon into his service all the hosts of heaven (v. 53); “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall send from heaven effectual succours? Peter, if I would put by these sufferings, I could easily do it without thy hand or thy sword.” Note, God has no need of us, of our services, much less of our sins, to bring about his purposes; and it argues our distrust and disbelief of the power of Christ, when we go out of the way of our duty to serve his interests. God can do his work without us; if we look into the heavens, and see how he is attended there, we may easily infer, that, though we be righteous, he is not beholden to us, Job 35:5; Job 35:7. Though Christ was crucified through weakness, it was a voluntary weakness; he submitted to death, not because he could not, but because he would not contend with it. This takes off the offence of the cross, and proves Christ crucified the power of God; even now in the depth of his sufferings he could call in the aid of legions of angels. Now, arti—yet; “Though the business is so far gone, I could yet with a word speaking turn the scale.” Christ here lets us know,

First, What a great interest he had in his Father; I can pray to my Father, and he will send me help from the sanctuary. I can parakalesai—demand of my Father these succours. Christ prayer as one having authority. Note, It is a great comfort to God’s people, when they are surrounded with enemies on all hands, that they have a way open heavenward; if they can do nothing else, they can pray to him that can do every thing. And they who are much in prayer at other times, have most comfort in praying when troublesome times come. Observe, Christ saith, not only that God could send him such a number of angels, but that, if he insisted upon it, he would do it. Though he had undertaken the work of our redemption, yet, if he had desired to be released, it should seem by this that the Father would not have held him to it. He might yet have gone out free from the service, but he loved it, and would not; so that it was only with the cords of his own love that he was bound to the altar.

Secondly, What a great interest he had in the heavenly hosts; He shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels, amounting to above seventy-two thousand. Observe here, 1. There is an innumerable company of angels, Heb. xii. 2. A detachment of more than twelve legions might be spared for our service, and yet there would be no miss of them about the throne. See Dan. vii. 10. They are marshalled in exact order, like the well-disciplined legions; not a confused multitude, but regular troops; all know their post, and observe the word of command. 2. This innumerable company of angels are all at the disposal of our heavenly Father, and do his pleasure, Psa 103:20; Psa 103:21. 3. These angelic hosts were ready to come in to the assistance of our Lord Jesus in his sufferings, if he had needed or desired it. See Heb 1:6; Heb 1:14. They would have been to him as they were to Elisha, chariots of fire, and horses of fire, not only to secure him, but to consume those that set upon him. 4. Our heavenly Father is to be eyed and acknowledged in all the services of the heavenly hosts; He shall give them me: therefore angels are not to be prayed to, but the Lord of the angels, Ps. xci. 11. 5. It is matter of comfort to all that wish well to the kingdom of Christ, that there is a world of angels always at the service of the Lord Jesus, that can do wonders. He that has the armies of heaven at his beck, can do what he pleases among the inhabitants of the earth; He shall presently give them me. See how ready his Father was to hear his prayer, and how ready the angels were to observe his orders; they are willing servants, winged messengers, they fly swiftly. This is very encouraging to those that have the honour of Christ, and the welfare of his church, much at heart. Think they that they have more care and concern for Christ and his church, than God and the holy angels have?

[3.] It was no time to make any defence at all, or to offer to put by the stroke; For how then shall the scripture be fulfilled, that thus it must be? v. 54. It was written, that Christ should be led as a lamb to the slaughter, Isa. liii. 7. Should he summon the angels to his assistance, he would not be led to the slaughter at all; should he permit his disciples to fight, he would not be led as a lamb quietly and without resistance; therefore he and his disciples must yield to the accomplishment of the predictions. Note, In all difficult cases, the word of God must be conclusive against our own counsels, and nothing must be done, nothing attempted, against the fulfilling of the scripture. If the easing of our pains, the breaking of our bonds, the saving of our lives, will not consist with the fulfilling of the scripture, we ought to say, “Let God’s word and will take place, let his law be magnified and made honourable, whatever becomes of us.” Thus Christ checked Peter, when he set up for his champion, and captain of his life-guard.

4. We are next told how Christ argued the case with them that came to take him (v. 55); though he did not resist them, yet he did reason with them. Note, It will consist with Christian patience under our sufferings, calmly to expostulate with our enemies and persecutors, as David with Saul, 1Sa 24:14; 1Sa 26:18. Are ye come out, (1.) With rage and enmity, as against a thief, as if I were an enemy to the public safety, and deservedly suffered this? Thieves draw upon themselves the common odium; every one will lend a hand to stop a thief: and thus they fell upon Christ as the offscouring of all things. If he had been the plague of his country, he could not have been prosecuted with more heat and violence. (2.) With all this power and force, as against the worst of thieves, that dare the law, bid defiance to public justice, and add rebellion to their sin? You are come out as against a thief, with swords and staves, as if there were danger of resistance; whereas ye have killed the just One, and he doth not resist you, Jam. v. 6. If he had not been willing to suffer, it was folly to come with swords and staves, for they could not conquer him; had he been minded to resist, he would have esteemed their iron as straw, and their swords and staves would have been as briars before a consuming fire; but, being willing to suffer, it was folly to come thus armed, for he would not contend with them.

He further expostulates with them, by reminding them how he had behaved himself hitherto toward them, and they toward him. [1.] Of his public appearance; I sat daily with you in the temple teaching. And, [2.] Of their public connivance; Ye laid no hold on me. How comes then this change? They were very unreasonable, in treating him as they did. First, He had given them no occasion to look upon him as a thief, for he had taught in the temple. And such were the matter, and such the manner of his teaching, that he was manifested in the consciences of all that heard him, not to be a bad man. Such gracious words as came from his mouth, were not the words of a thief, nor of one that had a devil. Secondly, Nor had he given them occasion to look upon him as one that absconded, or fled from justice, that they should come in the night to seize him; if they had any thing to say to him, they might find him every day in the temple, ready to answer all challenges, all charges, and there they might do as they pleased with him; for the chief priests had the custody of the temple, and the command of the guards about it; but to come upon him thus clandestinely, in the place of his retirement, was base and cowardly. Thus the greatest hero may be villainously assassinated in a corner, by one that in open field would tremble to look him in the face.

But all this was done (so it follows, v. 56) that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. It is hard to say, whether these are the words of the sacred historian, as a comment upon this story, and a direction to the Christian reader to compare it with the scriptures of the Old Testament, which pointed at it; or, whether they are the words of Christ himself, as a reason why, though he could not but resent this base treatment, he yet submitted to it, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled, to which he had just now referred himself, v. 54. Note, The scripture are in the fulfilling every day; and all those scriptures which speak of the Messiah, had their full accomplishment in our Lord Jesus.

5. How he was, in the midst of this distress, shamefully deserted by his disciples; They all forsook him, and fled, v. 56.

(1.) This was their sin; and it was a great sin for them who had left all to follow him, now to leave him for they knew not what. There was unkindness in it, considering the relation they stood in to him, the favours they had received from him, and the melancholy circumstances he was now in. There was unfaithfulness in it, for they had solemnly promised to adhere to him, and never to forsake him. He had indented for their safe conduct (John xviii. 8); yet they could not rely upon that, but shifted for themselves by an inglorious flight. What folly was this, for fear of death to flee from him whom they themselves knew and had acknowledged to be the Fountain of life?Joh 6:67; Joh 6:68. Lord, what is man!

(2.) It was a part of Christ’s suffering, it added affliction to his bonds, to be thus deserted, as it did to Job (ch. xix. 13), He hath put my brethren far from me; and to David (Ps. xxxviii. 11), Lovers and friends stand aloof from my sore. They should have staid with him, to minister to him, to countenance him, and, if need were, to be witnesses for him at his trial; but they treacherously deserted him, as, at St. Paul’s first answer, no man stood with him. But there was a mystery in this. [1.] Christ, as a sacrifice for sins, stood thus abandoned. The deer that by the keeper’s arrow is marked out to be hunted and run down, is immediately deserted by the whole herd. In this he was made a curse for us, being left as one separated to evil. [2.] Christ, as the Saviour of souls, stood thus alone; as he needed not, so he had not the assistance of any other in working out our salvation; he bore all, and did all himself. He trod the wine-press alone, and when there was none to uphold, then his own arm wrought salvation,Isa 63:3; Isa 63:5. So the Lord alone did lead his Israel, and they stand still, and only see this great salvation, Deut. xxxii. 12.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

While he yet spake ( ). It was an electric moment as Jesus faced Judas with his horde of helpers as if he turned to meet an army.

Let us go (), Jesus had said. And here he is. The eight at the gate seemed to have given no notice. Judas is described here as “one of the twelve” ( ) in all three Synoptic Gospels (Mark 14:43; Matt 26:47; Luke 22:47). The very horror of the thing is thus emphasized, that one of the chosen twelve apostles should do this dastardly deed.

A great multitude ( ). The chief priests and Pharisees had furnished Judas a band of soldiers from the garrison in Antonia (Joh 18:3) and the temple police (Lu 22:52) with swords (knives) and staves (clubs) with a hired rabble who had lanterns also (Joh 18:3) in spite of the full moon. Judas was taking no chances of failure for he well knew the strange power of Jesus.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

One of the twelve. Repeated in all three evangelists, in the narratives both of the betrayal and of the arrest. By the time Matthew’s Gospel was written, the phrase had become a stereotyped designation of the traitor, like he that betrayed him.

A great multitude. The Sanhedrin had neither soldiery nor a regularly – armed band at command. In Joh 18:3, Judas receives a cohort of soldiers and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees. Part of the band would consist of this regularly – armed cohort, and the rest of a crowd armed with cudgels, and embracing some of the servants of conspicuous men in the Sanhedrin.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

47. While he was still speaking. The Evangelists are careful to state that our Lord foresaw what happened; from which it might be inferred, that he was not dragged to death by external violence, except so far as wicked men carried into execution the secret purpose of God. Although, therefore, a melancholy and frightful spectacle was exhibited to the disciples, yet they received, at the same time, grounds of confidence to confirm them, since the event itself showed that nothing occurred by chance; and since Christ’s prediction directed them to contemplate the glory of his divinity. The circumstance of an armed multitude having been sent by the chief priests, and of a captain and band having been obtained by request from Pilate, makes it evident, that an evil conscience wounded and tormented them, so that they did every thing in a state of terror. For what need was there for so great a force to take Christ, who, they were aware, was not provided with any defensive arms? The reason for such careful preparation was, that the divine power of Christ, which they had been compelled to feel by numerous proofs, inwardly tormented them; but, on the other hand, it is a display of amazing rage, that, relying on the power of arms, they do not hesitate to rise up against God.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL NOTES

Mat. 26:47. A great multitude.See Joh. 18:3 (R.V.); Luk. 22:52. The body, guided by Judas, consisted of

(1) a company of Roman soldiers;
(2) a detachment of the Levitical temple-guard;
(3) certain members of the Sanhedrin and Pharisees (ibid.). Staves.I.e. clubs. Not the same word as in chapter Mat. 10:10.

Mat. 26:51. One of them.See Joh. 18:10. When the Evangelical tradition first assumed shape and form, prudence required that the name of Peter should not be publicly mentioned. Hence the indefinite expression in the Synoptists. But this necessity did not exist when John wrote his Gospel; therefore he gives the name (Lange).

Mat. 26:53. Twelve legions.In the Roman army a legion numbered about six thousand. Note the contrast to the twelve weak men, one a traitor, and the others timorous ; also to the company with Judas.

Mat. 26:56. But all this was done, etc.A continuation of the address of Jesus. See R.V.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Mat. 26:47-56

Forbearance.What the Saviour had just spoken of (Mat. 26:46), now comes to pass. Lo, Judas, and a great multitude with him (Mat. 26:47). This is the beginning of this part of the story. The end corresponds. Jesus is seen as a captiveand by Himselfin the hands of His enemies (Mat. 26:50; Mat. 26:56). How has all this come to pass? Through His own actionHis own inaction, ratherin very great part. What He has refrained from doing is the chief cause of these things being done. We may contemplate this forbearance of His, first, in His way of dealing with treachery; secondly, in His way of dealing with insult; thirdly, in His reasons for both.

I. His way of dealing with treachery.This was remarkable, first, because of the nature of the treachery in question. It was something, even for treachery, exceedingly base. Base, as noted before (Mat. 26:14), but noted again here (Mat. 26:47), as though a feature which should never be forgotten in telling the story, because of the position of the traitor himself. What he was doing was to betray the Man whom he had professed to follow and love in a specially eminent way! Wronging his Master! Selling his Friend! Base still more because of the nature of the sign which he fixed upon with this view. Was there no other way of effecting betrayal than by a protestation of loyalty? Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is He. You may know whom I am injuring by my pretending to love Him. Baser yet because of the wholly unnecessary effusion with which this vile purpose was effected. He said, Hail Rabbi, and kissed Him; kissed Him much (so R.V.); did more than was needed for the evil object in view; over-acted his affectation of friendship; went out of his way, as it were, to indulge in falseness. Basest of all because of the character of the Master whom he was treating with this basenesseven the Truth itselfthe Incarnation of Loveand the very last of men, therefore, to be treated thus, even if any man ought. Equally remarkable, therefore, in the next place, was the Saviours reply to this baseness. Friend, wherefore art thou come? This is all, according to one version, that He says in reply; as though He would thereby merely let the traitor know that His design was seen through. Friend, do that for which thou hast come. So we find given in another version of the Saviours reply, as though He would not only show to the traitor that He understood his design, but that He did not intend to resist or oppose it, even by so much as a word. In any case, there is not a trace of bitterness or sign of anger in any one of His words. Never, perhaps, was any man more cruelly wronged. Never, surely, did any wrong elicit less wrath in return.

II. His way of dealing with insult.How much there was of this here, on the one side, is shown in two ways. Partly, by what we read of those who had now come with the traitor. They were carrying swords some of them (Mat. 26:47; Mat. 26:55), and appear, therefore, to have been Roman legionaries engaged for this work. Others had staves (see as before), so, probably, came from the priests. Either way they had all come against the Saviour as against one of the dregs of mankinda double insult to One who had recentlyand so openlyclaimed to be a leader of men. (See especially Mat. 21:1-12; Mat. 21:23). Partly, by what we read here of the Saviour Himself, and by the express way in which He showed that He felt what their conduct involved (Mat. 26:55). And partly, once more, by what is related here of the conduct of one of His disciples. To the Apostle Peter (Joh. 18:10), the indignity offered appeared absolutely beyond endurance. Drawing his sword (Luk. 22:38), he struck violently at one of those on the opposite side; not impossibly at one of the foremost of them, and one forward, therefore, both with staff and gesture, to threaten the person of Christ. At any rate, in Peters judgment the insult offered warranted even the shedding of blood in return. Hence, therefore, on the other side, the exceeding wonder of Christs view of the same. What the disciple could not endure for His sake, He submits to with patience. More than that, what the disciple had done, He undoes, as it were. So we are told, be it observed, by the physician St. Luke (Luk. 22:51). He even goes so far as to lay down a law against the adoption, by those who are His, of any remedy of this kind, declaring it to be a remedy which could only in the end be productive of more harm (Mat. 26:52). It is not for Me, He saysit is not for any of Mineto have recourse to the sword. What a way of meeting all the violence with which He was threatened! Not even a breath of it in return!

III. The Saviours reasons for this twofold forbearance.Not want of feeling, as we have seen (see again Mat. 26:55; also compare the use of the word friend (= companion, or mate) in Mat. 26:50 with Psa. 41:9; Psa. 55:12-13). Nor yet want of capacity to take vengeance, had He so willed. The Saviour shows here, on the contrary, that what He had to do now lay in the exactly opposite line. Not to exert power, but to restrain it; not to call for help, but to forbid it; not to summon legions, but to prevent them from coming; not, in a word, to speak the word which would have destroyed all His enemies at one stroke (cf. Joh. 18:6)was what lay now upon Him (Mat. 26:53). Why, then, did He restrain Himself thus? Why restrain otherswhy such othersas well? His own answer is of the simplest and most definite kind. Because the Scriptures, if He had done otherwise, would have been set on one side. It is very observable that, even in this mere summary of the story, this is specified twice (see Mat. 26:54; Mat. 26:56). It is equally observable that no other reason is mentioned beside. All our attention is concentrated by the Saviourand by the Evangelist alsoon this one reason alone. Whatever other reasons there were in the backgroundand we can well believe there were not a fewthey are all hidden here behind this. Christ meets these marvellous wrongs in this marvellous manner because it was prophesied that He should! That is what He Himself leaves last on our minds!

1. How full of awe, then, on the one hand, are the Scriptures of truth! By them even the King of kings holds Himself bound. Not even the Holy One of God will allow Himself to set them aside (cf. Psa. 40:7)!

2. How full of grace, on the other hand, are the Scriptures of truth! For to what is it, when we come to inquire, that they thus bind the Messiah? Is it not to do that which had been predicted of Him of old? Even to bring in everlasting righteousness, and make reconciliation for iniquity and provide a ransom for all? The more binding, therefore, the more gracious, on this view of the case! The more stringent, the better! What can, indeed, be better for us than that such a Saviour should have thus bound Himself not to fail in His work?

HOMILIES ON THE VERSES

Mat. 26:49. The traitors kiss.

1. Holy things may be prostituted to basest uses.
2. Symbols of friendship may become signals of treason.
3. Deeds receive their moral worth from underlying motives.
4. Men betray Christ with a kiss, when they mask a hatred of His disciples beneath false shows of friendship.
5. When they mingle with His disciples, to make themselves familiar with, and then laugh over their defects.J. C. Gray.

Mat. 26:50. An important question.St. Bernard used often to ask himself the question which our Lord put to Judas, Friend, wherefore art thou Come? Why hast thou been created and placed in this world at all? Why hast thou been made a member of Christ in baptism? Why hast thou been led by Providence to this or that state of life? Art thou here to do thine own will? Or wouldst thou indeed serve God, and by labour and suffering such as He may appoint prepare for thine everlasting aim? Friend, wherefore art thou come? If we would sincerely press that question home, how different would be the aim and the perfectness of our work through each day?Canon Liddon.

Mat. 26:52. Christs condemnation of war.

I. The evils of war are the very evils Christ came to remove.What are they?

1. Reign of brute force.
2. Carelessness about cruelty.
3. Neglect of the interest of individual souls.
4. Stubborn hindrance of progress and brotherhood.
5. Setting up wrong standards of character; such as Roman honour of Mars and Hercules, and Scandinavian honour of Thor, rather than Christian honour of the Christ. The beatitudes are reversed, and a glamour is thrown around soldiery.

II. The advantages of war are only apparent gains.

1. War leads to war. The seeds of revenge are sown in the scars of the conquered.
2. There has to be recourse to arbitration at the end, as there might have been at the beginning.
3. If there is acquiescence in victory, it is a wicked confession that Providence is on the side of the strongest battalions.U. R. Thomas, B.A.

Mat. 26:53-54. Christs apprehension.

I. How easily our Lord could have rescued Himself.

1. God is pleased to work by the ministry of angels.
2. Our Lord might have had any number.

II. Why He forbore to rescue Himself.That the Scriptures might be fulfilled.

III. Practical observations.

1. Prayer will extricate us from trouble.
2. Be content to go to heaven in Gods way.
3. Christs solicitude for the fulfilment of the Scriptures was a pledge of His anxiety for their accomplishment in all that relates to our salvation.C. Simeon, M.A.

Mat. 26:56. The fickleness of friends.Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled.

I. The cruelty of this it would be hard to exaggerate.For three years and upwards their Divine Master had been building up their faith and binding them to Himself by a thousand heavenly acts.

II. A lesson of patience towards one another.Be more patient, more long-suffering and less ready to take offence and rail against the world and its ways; remembering that thou hast bound no one on the earths surface to theenor canst bindas Christ bound the eleven, who, when they beheld Him apprehended in the garden, at once forsook Him and fled.J. W. Burgon, D.D.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

SECTION 68
JESUS IS ARRESTED

(Parallels: Mar. 14:43-52; Luk. 22:47-53; Joh. 18:2-12)

TEXT: 26:4756

47 And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people. 48 And he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that is he: take him. 49 And straightway he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, Rabbi; and kissed him. 50 And Jesus said unto him, Friend, do that for which thou art come. Then they came and laid hands on Jesus, and took him. 51 And behold, one of them that were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and smote the servant of the high priest, and struck off his ear. 52 Then saith Jesus unto him, Put again thy sword into its place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. 53 Or thinkest thou that I cannot beseech my Father, and he shall even now send me more than twelve legions of angels? 54 How then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? 55 In that hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a robber with swords and staves to seize me? I sat daily in the temple teaching, and yet took me not. 56 But all this is come to pass, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples left him, and fled.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

What evidence of meticulous preparation do you see in this arresting party? Why so many armed men needed?

How does Jesus attitude in this section differ from that expressed during His agony in Gethsemane?

Why does each of the Gospel writers entitle Judas one of the twelve as if their readers had never heard of this man already well-introduced earlier in every one of the Gospels? Are they merely copying a stereotyped tradition, or is there some other reason that made this formula necessary?

To arrest a teacher believed heretical, how many men are needed? What does the number of armed men with Judas indicate about their attitude toward Jesus?

The Synoptics relate that Judas immediately approached Jesus to betray Him, but John completely ignores the betrayal kiss and gives attention to Jesus overawing the arresting party. Is a harmony of these facts possible? How should we treat the Gospels when one or more of them does not relate facts chronicled in the others? Are they completely unaware of information related by others?

Why do you think Judas needed to give a sign of recognition? Was not Jesus already well known? If so, why need the kiss to point Him out?

Why did Judas call Jesus Rabbi? Did not he know His personal name?

Who do you think Judas thought he was betraying: Jesus or the authorities? Do you think he really hated Jesus? Why did he betray Him?

Why did Jesus call Judas, Friend? Was He appealing to him or rebuking him or something else? What effect could this title produce in Judas?

If Judas had already given the betrayal sign by kissing Jesus, how could Jesus then say, Friend, do that for which you are come? Is not this nonsense? Or do we have a correct translation of Jesus words?

Why do you suppose the well-armed men of the arresting force had not attacked Jesus before, or at least when Peter started slashing with his sword?

What does Peters violent reaction reveal about the man?

In what way(s) was he so wrong for using the sword?

What impression did Peter give others of Jesus teaching that night?

What should everyone have understood when Jesus claimed the protection of an innumerable host of angels to avoid this arrest? That angels really exist? Would the Sadducean hierarchy have agreed with Him? Do you?

What should people have understood when Jesus asserted that the Scriptures foretold even this arrest? How would this help the Apostles?

Why did Jesus not hesitate to condemn the cowardly attack by His foes?

Why did the disciples abandon Jesus? Do you think that the soldiers would have arrested the disciples too?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

Now Judas, who betrayed Jesus, also knew about the Garden of Gethsemane, for He had often met there with His disciples. So Judas procured a Roman detachment of 600 infantry and some subalterns of the Temple police dispatched by the chief priests and Pharisees. These went there equipped with lanterns, torches and weapons.
Just as Jesus was still speaking about the near arrival of His betrayer, Judas, one of the Twelve appeared, accompanied by a great crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent by the clergy, theologians and rulers of the nation. Then Jesus, with full awareness of all the things that were going to happen to Him, stepped forward and addressed the mob, Who are you looking for?
Jesus of Nazareth, they answered Him.
I am He, Jesus told them. (Judas, the traitor, was standing there with them.) When the Lord said, I am He, they lurched backward and fell all over themselves. Once more He questioned them, Who is it you want?
Jesus of Nazareth, they repeated.
I already told you that I am your man, Jesus responded. So, if I am the one you want, let these other men go. This was how the word He had prayed came true, I did not lose a single one of these You gave me.
Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them, saying, The man I greet with a kiss is your man. Arrest him and lead him away well-guarded. Going at once to Jesus, he said, Hello, Teacher! and kissed Him affectionately.
But Jesus challenged him, What are you doing here, friend? Judas, would you use a kiss to betray me, your Messiah?

At this they stepped forward, grabbed Jesus and held Him tight. When those who were around Him saw what was going to happen, they shouted, Lord, shall we use our swords now? At this point Simon Peter, one of those who stood by Jesus, reached for his sword, drew it and slashed at the high priests slave and sliced off his right ear. (The slaves name was Malchus.) But Jesus stopped Peter, Sheath your sword! Killing only leads to more killing! Those who wantonly take justice into their own hands and kill, rightly deserve death. Do you suppose that I cannot appeal to my Father or that He would not instantly place more than 72,000 angels at my disposal? On the other hand, how could the Bible texts be fulfilled, that say it must happen this way? The Father has given me a cup of suffering to drink; shall I refuse to drink it?
(To those who held Him, Jesus said,) Let me do this much at least. He then touched the mans ear and miraculously restored it.
At that point Jesus said to the chief priests, the Temple police and the elders who were there to arrest Him, Did you have to march out heavily armed to capture me, as if I were a dangerous outlaw? Day after day, when I was in your reach, sitting in the Temple courts teaching, you never laid a finger on me. But this is the hour you choose and the authority darkness gives you! Yet all this has occurred just like the writings of the prophets said it would.
Then the Roman detachment and their colonel along with the Jewish subordinates took hold of Jesus and tied His hands. Then all the disciples deserted Him and escaped. But a certain young man, wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his naked body, was following Him. They grabbed him, but he slipped out of the linen cloth and escaped naked.

SUMMARY

Judas led a large continent of men armed with weapons and judicial authority to arrest Jesus. However, He overwhelmed them by offering Himself up to them. When they regained their composure, Judas brazenly gave the betrayal signal. This moved the authorities to action, but also unleashed the armed disciples. Peter started carving with his sword, but Jesus blocked any further action and healed the wounded man. Further, He attributed all that was happening to the express will and planning of God. He then reproached the authorities for their moral cowardice evident in this night arrest of a man whom they could easily have taken in broad daylight. But this too was foreseen in Scripture. Jesus permitted them to bind Him and lead Him away, while His followers made good their escape, that is, all but one who barely made it.

NOTES
THE MAN WHO REFUSED TO FIGHT
Jesus, our model of forbearance and restraint
I. THE AUDACIOUS, ALL-OUT ATTACK BY EVIL MEN (26:4749)

Mat. 26:47 And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people. Matthew does not state when Judas left the Apostolic band to begin his evil mission, but simply presupposes what John records, that he rushed away from the Passover supper (Joh. 13:30).

Why continue to call Judas, one of the twelve, when he was already well-known to Matthews reader? (Cf. Mat. 10:4; Mat. 26:14.) Rather than term this expression a stereotyped, traditional formulation, there are simpler solutions:

Judas shared this common name with hundreds of Judases in first-century Israel. (Cf. Mat. 13:55; Act. 1:13; Jud. 1:1; Joh. 14:22; Act. 5:37; Act. 9:11; Act. 15:22.) Since Matthew had not reported Judas hasty departure from the apostolic group at the Passover supper (Joh. 13:30), he must now identify the posses guide as the Judas who was one of the twelve. And precisely because of the commonness of names, would not the Synoptics identify the man all the more carefully, lest confusion arise in later years? But could the treachery of Judas Iscariot ever be mistakenly laid at the door of any other Judas?

This descriptive, one of the twelve, repeated here also has the flavor of shame and anguish that such a betrayal by one of His chosen disciples could happen. (See on Mat. 26:14.) Cannot Matthew register his shock more than once? Is this any stranger than repeating the list of conspirators, chief priests and elders of the people, which, for the godly in Israel, must have been just as unbelievable, because these leaders might be presumed to welcome, not crucify, Gods Christ (Mat. 26:3; Mat. 26:47; Mat. 26:57; Mat. 26:59; Mat. 27:1)?

Judas could be surer of a decisive strike because Jesus habitually used this olive grove as a camping spot (Luk. 21:37) and possibly also a meeting place (sunchthe, Joh. 18:2). This detail points to Jesus consistent efforts to convince Jerusalem (Mat. 23:37 f.; Luk. 19:41 ff; Luk. 23:27 ff.; Joh. 2:13 ff.Joh. 3:21; Joh. 5:1 ff.; Joh. 7:10 to Joh. 10:39). Because Jesus knew Judas knew this, He facilitated the arrest for Judas by going there.

Great multitude, swords, staves, lanterns, torches and weapons, (Joh. 18:3), ropes or chains (Joh. 18:12) were prepared and Judas came as guide with his pre-arranged signal. That so many armed men were detached to bring in an itinerate Rabbi, Jesus Himself will term irresponsible overkill (Mat. 26:55). From this critics could reject the Gospel report as grossly overstated. However, looked at from the viewpoint of the Jews, every precaution underscores the thoroughness of their preparation, their fear of resistance or rescue by Jesus many friends then in Jerusalem, or their fear that He might simply elude them, as on previous occasions. (Cf. Joh. 7:45 f; Joh. 8:59; Joh. 10:31; Joh. 10:39.) So, if Judas were not totally trusted, or if a Zealot ambush were feared, or if personal misgivings about attacking a miracle-working prophet, should paralyze the manliest among them, perhaps they could find psychological strength in numbers.

Although the mob was from the chief priests and elders of the people, i.e. representing the entire authority of Israel including the Pharisees (Joh. 18:3; see on Mat. 26:3), the ecclesiastical leaders themselves came along. (See on Mat. 26:55.) Hendriksen (Matthew, 922) suggested that, because Jesus hurried Judas out into the night aware that his plot is discovered, he must have alarmed the authorities to take instant, decisive action lest the entire operation be compromised by some unpredictable reaction on Jesus part. Further, a secret night raid, when Jesus supporters were least expecting it, had a better chance of success, because any eventual resistance could be overcome more easily. Did the Jews among them simply not observe their Passover supper due to their primary preoccupation with capturing Jesus, or were they summoned away from it, being already alerted to assemble at a moments notice?

Matthews estimate, a great multitude, does not exaggerate the size of the contingent, because John specifies that the conspirators had been satisfied with bringing nothing less than the cohort (labn tn sepean, note the article). This military detachment, a tenth part of a legion, usually consisted of 600 men under the command of a Roman tribune or chiliarch (Joh. 18:3; Joh. 18:12). That Romans garrisoned the Castle Antonia during feasts to maintain order and quell riots is well-documented by Josephus (Ant. XVII, 10, 1; XX, 5, 3; Wars V, 5, 8). Johns language seems to distinguish the cohort from the Jewish officers, the Temple police (hoi huperti tn Ioudaon; strategos to hiero, Joh. 18:3; Joh. 18:12; Luk. 22:52). Because Jewish officers had been swayed by Jesus discourses before (Joh. 7:45 f.), implacable Romans are added to guarantee arrest this time.

Nevertheless, because speira is also used in the ancient authors to refer to the Latin manipulus, a detachment of 200 men. John may not mean the entire Roman cohort, since this would leave the fortress undermanned and the city dangerously unguarded, if Pilate had brought only a 600-man cohort for this feast. Even so, 200 Romans with their officers, not counting the Levitical guards and other Jews, still amounts to a multitude involved in the arrest of a teacher! However, if the authorities feared popular resistance and if the rest of the legionaries remained in the fortress, the larger number would by no means be thought exaggerated, and the Roman officers would lead a detachment adequate to meet the supposed need.

Therefore, the Romans were involved in Jesus arrest. But their participation at this early stage means that the Roman involvement began much earlier than the hearing of Jesus case before Pilate. Would not this, in turn, imply that the elimination of Jesus had already been decided by common agreement between the religious and political authorities, by the Sanhedrin led by the priesthood as well as by Pilate? Are Pilates attempts to save Jesus, then, to be written off as a farce? Again, one must explain the disappearance of the Romans during the Jewish trials of Jesus, as well as from the Synoptic accounts. Attempts to solve this mystery are varied:

THE SYNOPTICS REWROTE HISTORY. Some attribute the Romans absence from Jesus Jewish trials as due to a tendency in Christian tradition to transfer guilt for Jesus death from the Romans to the Jews. But by what right can theological interest of the Evangelist justify inventing fact? Such tampering with truth undermines confidence in any other fact they report, leaving nothing certain. Further, if Roman soldiers were needed only for the arrest which succeeded, why should they be further required to continue what Jewish guards can now safely handle?

JOHN EXAGGERATED. Others, taking the opposite point of view, say that John simply added the Roman participation at Jesus arrest for good measure to emphasize the numerical strength and superiority of Jesus enemies. John is thought to argue that this big multinational force needed to take Jesus could not capture Him, had He not turned Himself over to them spontaneously (Joh. 18:1 ff.). Further, Pilates question suggests that he knew nothing about the cause of Jesus arrest (Joh. 18:29). Hence, he could not have ordered his men to collaborate with the Jews in effecting it. Therefore, John too rewrote history. But Pilates purely formal question merely opens the trial and says nothing of what he himself already knew. (See also below.)

THERE NEVER WERE ANY ROMANS INVOLVED IN THE ARREST. Perhaps John used the military terms cohort (spera) and tribune (chilarchos) in a non-technical sense to indicate the size and organization of the Jewish band. Luke used captains (stratego) in a similar way, and by adding of the Temple, indicates their strictly Jewish character. However, by calling the Jewish Temple police hupertai (Joh. 7:32; Joh. 7:45; Joh. 18:12). John seems to distinguish them from the Roman cohort.

PILATE ENTRUSTED A COHORT TO CAIAPHAS. Is it not plausible that, in the interests of prejudicing Rome against the Nazarene. Caiaphas request a cohort from Pilate to capture a dangerous revolutionary? By not specifying further the exact character of Jesus movement the wily priest could avoid complications. Perhaps Caiaphas need not even address his request to Pilate, but to the tribune. Was not such a guard at Jewish disposal at other times (cf. Mat. 27:65)? However, is it unthinkable that Pilate should have granted it personally, on the assumption that political cooperation in this unthreatening way could relieve tension in Judea? And would not Pilates otherwise inexplicable availability early the next morning be more credible, if his men reported to him on their unusual activities the night before (Mat. 27:1 f.)? His reactions during the trials point to high-quality intelligence reports concerning the true character of their so-called dangerous subversive and indicate he possessed a good grasp of events (cf. Mat. 27:18; Mat. 27:23 f.; Luk. 23:4; Luk. 23:14 f., Luk. 23:22).

The audacity of hypocrisy

Mat. 26:48 Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that is he: take him. The kiss is decidedly part of the plot, not an afterthought on Judas part. With many Paschal pilgrims crowding around Jerusalem, in case of a fight they ran the risk of arresting the wrong person in the dark. Why select this signal? Because this type of salutation was common among Orientals when friends meet after a long absence, especially when a disciple greets his beloved teacher. However, it is unnecessary to think that the betrayer would select a signal as far as possible from his true sentiment, so as better to mask his perfidy. By contrast to the commentaries, the Gospel writers are surprisingly subdued in describing Judas and his betrayal kiss.

If the kiss were thought not absolutely necessary for the success of the plot, was this choice the backlash of vengefulness? Could not Judas have pointed Jesus out to the authorities without committing himself so openly, remaining in the background? Does not this hypocritical greeting prove that Jesus friend had been transformed into a mortal foe? If so, rather than be either revolting or repulsive to Judas, would not such a kiss be but part of the deep satisfaction of his demand for revenge? However, for men grimly determined to succeed, some definite, unmistakable sign of recognition was necessary in the semi-darkness to eliminate confusion and mistakes. So it is more likely that the kiss was selected, because it permits the betrayer to approach the victim for the most positive identification possible.

Was it that he was trying to assuage whatever in his conscience yet accused him of acting in a manner untrue to himself? Was this habitual act of formal respect and affection intended by Judas to hide from himself the full impact of his sin while doing it? Not too likely, because he may not have considered his act a sin in the final analysis, especially if he viewed the ensuing crisis as merely a crucial step in the final exaltation of Jesus to the Jewish Messiahship with its material throne, economic power and political clout. (See notes on Mat. 26:14.)

In harmony with his own warped views of Messiahship, this kiss was but an essential step toward the mistaken goal he envisioned. It was, thus, neither hypocritical nor vengeful, but simply part of the mechanism necessary to make his plan work. He himself could hold Jesus firm, distract Him and give the guards time to grab Him. At the same time, did Judas expect the kiss to have even a positive effect on Jesus, persuading Him of Judas loyalty despite the fierceness of the crisis now beginning? Judas stood to gain, if Jesus were convinced of this. Thus, for Judas, the kiss is not a betrayal of Jesus but of the enemies who stood in the way of Iscariots Kingdom of the Messiah. What Judas said publicly to the enemy (Mat. 26:15; Mat. 26:48) may have no relationship to his own secret motives. Here is his hypocrisy.

This agrees better with Judas consciousness of Jesus many miracles, even if he forgot the Lords ability to read the motives of his heart. This refusal to read baseness in Judas manner is not to clothe the man with motives more or less respectable, but to understand how a common disciple like me could ever become capable of committing so terrible a sin as turning the Savior of the world over to His enemies. In fact, The worst opponents of Christ are still those who betray with a kisssuch as those who oppose His claims while affecting to revere His character, and deny His Saviourship while acknowledging the excellence of His doctrine (P.H.C., XXIII, 543).

Mat. 26:49 And straightway he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, Rabbi; and kissed him. Straightway should be understood in a relative sense, i.e. immediately in reference to what? Did Judas, instantly upon arrival at the garden, walk right up to Jesus, give Him the betrayal kiss and turn Him over to His enemies who immediately hauled Him away, with the sole interruption of Peters defense? John, however, clearly remember Jesus bold self-surrender to the mob, an act that so overpowered them that He almost had to insist that they take Him (Joh. 18:4-9). Solutions are related to the respective locations of Jesus, Judas, the apostles and the various components of the arresting party inside or outside the garden:

Would Jesus bold challenge have had the startling moral ascendency that it did, if Judas strode straightway up to Jesus, as the mob expected him to, and gave the prearranged signal in a manner obvious to all? On the other hand, in the shadows cast by the flickering torches and the Paschal moon, Judas may have acted prematurely. If, in his eagerness to betray Jesus, he forged ahead of the mob, he may have approached Jesus directly and awkwardly betrayed Him with a kiss before the main body of troops and authorities could make out what he had done. (The same effect would occur, if, out of fear of Jesus, the troops and authorities held back somewhat, and consequently in the half-darkness missed Judas signal.) After Judas designation, then, Jesus identified Himself to the mob, majestically challenging them to arrest Him and free His men. Some prefer this view because Jesus regal bearing and unexpectedly bold challenge could still shake the sternest of men even after Judas kiss and precisely because they knew Him to be their quarry. See Lenski on John, 1181f., for his own and Luthers arguments in favor of a miracle.

The PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY presents the view that Jesus, alone and unarmed, anticipated Judas betrayal. Complete master of the situation, He offered Himself before Judas could act. This moral supremacy focused all attention on Him and avoided a universal round-up of His men. Then, to complete his part in the plot, Judas, who hitherto had been standing with the posse (Joh. 18:5), blundered forward to give the now practically superfluous confirming kiss that signaled for anyone yet in doubt that Jesus is the one to arrest.

However, this gesture was neither totally worthless nor without effect. If the soldiers took the foreground, leaving the priests who knew Jesus behind them, for those officers who did not know Jesus of Nazareth personally, His self-identification might have been interpreted as shielding the real insurrectionist they sought. If the Romans had orders from their superiors to arrest only the man whom Judas identified by the kiss, they would not have acted until he did. Further, by daring to approach their Foe and touching him, Judas broke the spell of whatever fear they had of His divine majesty or of some terrible miracle He might use to defend Himself from them. (Cf. Joh. 18:4-7.) This emboldened them to act.

By kissing Him with particular fervor (katephilesen) as opposed to a simple kiss (phileso, v. 48), some believe Judas merely prolonged the unrepeatable sign to assure the guards of Jesus identity. This would be consistent with his ostentatious, Hail, Rabbi. (Cf. Mat. 26:25, not Lord, but Rabbi. ) Some see in this his conscience and affection that struggle with a stern will to get it over with. However, the kiss expressed strong emotion not inconsistent with his secret soul which he never sold out to Jesus enemies. Dreaming only of future wealth, how would he treat the man who is his ticket to incalculable wealth and power? After all, he does not suspect that he is really turning Jesus over to His death. (Cf. Mat. 27:3; see notes on Mat. 26:14.)

II. HIS CHALLENGE TO MORAL SENSE (26:50)

Mat. 26:50 And Jesus said unto him, Friend, do that for which thou art come. Then they came and laid hands on Jesus, and took him. Addressing Judas as Friend (hetare), Jesus treats the man, not as a beloved friend (philos, cf. Joh. 15:14 f.), but holds him at the briefest of distance, Buddy, mate. As in English, Friend can be used to address someone whose name one does not know (Mat. 20:13; Mat. 22:12; Arndt-Gingrich, 314). Depending on context, hetaros refers to ones companion or comrade in arms, ones mate on ships, at table, in slavery, etc. Consequently, it can also mean lover, disciple, follower, adherent, partisan, body-guard (Rocci, 776).

Reminding Judas of all that they had shared together, this exquisite word combines a rebuke of Judas treachery with a touching appeal to his heart and conscience to dissuade the man from his determination. After all, Judas has not yet killed himself: he could yet repent as would Peter. This view harmonizes with the words whereby Jesus also challenged and shamed Judas, Would you betray the Son of man with a kiss (Luk. 22:48)? By calling Judas act by its real name, betrayal, His words were calculated to shock the man with the real enormity of his sin. These words should haunt him, if he would but abandon his own mistaken views of Messiahship, while the gentleness of Christs pleading could not yet arouse his conscience, break his heart and lead him to repent and ask forgiveness. Over Akeldama the noose was not yet tied for Judas Iscariot. . . .

Do that for which thou art come. Translated this way, this sentence is nonsense, for, by betraying Jesus with a kiss, Judas had already done that for which he had come. Jesus could know that his role in the entire procedure had just been played. So, why should the Lord still urge his betrayer to carry out his mission? Further, since the verb do does not appear in Greek here, the phrase (hetare, eph ho pirei) really breaks off suddenly, leaving His thought incomplete. Therefore, something must be supplied to complete it.

Some, like the RSV, treat it as a question: Friend, for what are you come? or, Friend, what are you doing here? Robertson (Word Pictures, I, 215). believes Deissmann has proven conclusively that it is a question, ephho in late Greek having the interrogative sense of epi ti (Robertson, Grammar, p. 725). . . . Most of the early translations (Old Latin, Old Syriac) took it as a question. However, ho is a not normally an interrogative pronoun, but a relative-demonstrative. Arndt-Gingrich (588) admit the possibility that the relative be used to take the place of the interrogative pronoun in a direct question but confess that the only example of this construction in our literature, i.e. Mat. 26:50, is much in dispute. Arndt-Gingrich (587) suggest as missing words, friend, (are you misusing the kiss) for that (purpose) for which you are here? or perhaps in connection with that (= the purposes), for which (= for the realization of which) you have appeared (do you kiss me)?

Blass-Debrunner ( 300) term it . . .

Controversial Mat. 26:50 . . .: hardly a direct question For what? The easiest solution is to take it as a painful, ironic reminiscence of a toast like the one attested on a goblet from Syria: . . . Enjoy yourself! for thats why you are here.

It could be viewed as an sad exclamation, almost a groan: What you are here for! Judas, Jesus companion, was on the wrong side, so the Lords reaction compels him to grasp the outrageousness of what he is doing.

Either way, because Judas hid his dream of self-aggrandizement from Jesus, the Lord rightly rejects this apparently real affection as expressive of Judas true motive.

Then they came and laid hands on Jesus, and took him. Matthew and Mark present this seizure before Peters attack, while Luke and John appear to place it afterwards. However, the latter give general summaries of the nights activities, not a calculated refutation of their colleagues affirmations. No one included a precise notation of the time or sequence. Accordingly, upon Judas signal, when guards began to seize Jesus, Peter dashed in, his sword flashing. This temporarily halted the arrest. When Jesus halted Peter, the guards finished what they had begun. Then, as everyone turned his attention on Jesus, the disciples were permitted to escape with greater safety.

Having given His consent to suffer what He Himself had predicted and the Scriptures foresaw, declining every form of rescue whether from earth or heaven, He now willingly accepted those bonds that would be removed only to nail Him to the tree. But the only bonds which would or could hold Jesus, were not the puny chains of human manufacture, but love: He loved me and gave Himself up for me.

The interruption by violence (26:51)

Mat. 26:51 And behold, one of them that were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and smote the servant of the high priest, and struck off his ear. Some other armed disciple (Simon the Zealot?), misinterpreting Jesus earlier remark about buying swords (Luk. 22:35 ff.) and ignoring Jesus demand that the disciples be permitted to leave (Joh. 18:8), and recognizing the imminent danger in which Jesus now stood, cried out, Lord, shall we strike with the sword? (Luk. 22:49). Not waiting for the answer and possibly emboldened by Jesus overpowering His would-be assailants (Joh. 18:6), the dauntless Peter drew his sword and rushed to attack a superior force single-handedly. With the courage of the desperate, he was determined to take out as many as he could before getting killed himself. He would show Jesus here and now the sincerity of his earlier promises of loyalty unto death!

But in doing so, he struck an ill-considered blow for worldly Messiahship, the same dangerous concept that drove Judas to create this crisis for Jesus. Peters violence reflected against the Lord Himself by justifying His enemies fear that the Lord was the revolutionary head of a band of cut-throats. He was robbing Jesus of His right to claim, My Kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my officers would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place (Joh. 18:36). Lenski (Matthew, 1050) wrote: Peter acts as though Jesus meant none of the things he said. His love does not listen and obey. . . .

We too fall for Peters temptation when we put our trust in material weapons for the advancement of the Church of Christ. Wealth, political influence, power-plays and materialistic world-views that secularize in order to popularize, are methods that possess no divine power to save. However well meaning, these attempts to grab a larger slice of power and prestige in a power-hungry world are but the same violent slashing of swords. It denies Jesus true goals and spiritual methods, and if unhindered, renders Scripture useless and effectually shuts the Kingdom of heaven against men. Such a program is as much an embarrassment to Jesus cause now as Peters violence was to Him then. (Contrast 2Co. 10:3-5.)

Smote Malchus (Joh. 18:10) the servant of the high priest. This slave was a trusted personal agent of the high priest, a fact that explains his intervention to arrest Jesus. Struck off his ear: unquestionably, Peter aimed a deadly blow that could have split the skull of Malchus, but the servants instinctive sidestep foiled Peters thrust, so he lost only his right ear (Luk. 22:49; Joh. 18:10). If the slave wore armor, the blow harmlessly thudded into his shoulder armor. Peter really intended to kill the man.

The indefinite description of Peter as one of them that were with Jesus (Joh. 18:10) furnishes incidental evidence of the early dating of Matthews document. In the darkness the soldiers did not learn the identity of the one who took up arms to resist arrest. To name him while he were alive could have meant unnecessary trials for the man who not only resisted in Gethsemane but also continued to be a thorn in the side of the Sanhedrin which was still ruling when the Synoptic Gospels were penned. (Mary of Bethany is a parallel case, Mat. 26:7.) Should Matthews book, supposedly current only among Christians, contain information that informers among false brethren could transform into vicious arms against the Church? (Cf. notes on Mat. 24:10.) But John, who alone names him, wrote long after Peters death under Nero sometime before 68 A.D. (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. II, 25; III, 24).

Alfords refutation of this hypothesis is ill-founded, because in the high priests courtyard Peters recognition as the assailant of the servant had lost its sting, precisely because Jesus had healed the man. Thereafter none could complain without admitting Jesus supernatural power to heal hence His God-given right to say what they rejected.

III. HIS CALL FOR RESTRAINT
A. The Law That Forbids Violence (26:52)

Mat. 26:52 Then saith Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into its place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. If the use of violence in defense of Christianity were ever justified, this is the moment to establish its appropriateness. Nevertheless, Jesus moved decisively to block His defenders. What did He mean here?

He did not proscribe the legitimate use of weapons of their ownership. It remained your sword to be put again into its place. However, some interpret these words as expressing Jesus repudiation of ownership of any sword and of every use of it as having nothing to do with His cause. However, Jesus never demanded that Peter throw it away, as if He had a policy of absolute non-resistance, for this would be a contradiction of Luk. 22:36. Rather, His defense is not the cause, time nor place to use it.

Nor does He repudiate the appropriate use of the sword in human justice (Rom. 13:4), as if He hereby threatened constituted authority. To the contrary, Jesus words may be considered as a legal sentence pronounced, not as a simple future, but as the imperative future (Alford, I, 278). Thus, His maxim becomes a virtual parallel to Gen. 9:6 to justify capital punishment: Those who wantonly take justice into their own hands and kill, rightly deserve death. Thus, Jesus stood up for the maintenance of law and order, even if His own trial would be illegal and its sentence unjust.

A divine law of retribution? Use the sword against men and God will similarly destroy you. In this violent spirit there is no time for mercy or forgiveness (Mat. 18:21-35). Despite their evil use of the legal system, these are little ones whose importance to God must not be despised (Mat. 18:6-14). They know not what they do!

A practical consideration? Killing leads only to more senseless killing. You cannot avoid escalation. Success in eliminating some does not mean destroying all. You too may be killed. (Cf. Sir. 3:26.) Ironically, this futile, bloody course was followed by many demagogues in Israel in their last desperate bid for freedom from Rome, and received what they deserved in blood.

An ethical principle? The use of bloodshed or violence, militariasm and inquisitions to advance Christs Kingdom, is hereby forbidden. (Cf. Joh. 18:36.) If even saving the King, the supreme justification, is interdicted, how much less justified is the use of force to defend its lesser interests? Otherwise, Christianitys foes will take up the sword, to attack the Kingdom, question its motives, block its interests, hinder its progress and silence its message,all in reaction to sword-swinging Christians. The only way to transform the course of history is through loving persuasion, not through belligerence and bluster.

So, Jesus commanded Peter to sheath his sword, not because all use of the sword is wrong, since Jesus Himself did not believe this, but because all taking the law into ones hands by violent measures is wrong. Because the rule applied to every instance of private vengeance, Peters was a case in point and required correction.

B. The Heavenly Might That Protects Him (26:53)

Mat. 26:53 Or thinkest thou that I cannot beseech my Father, and he shall even now send me more than twelve legions of angels? This reproaches His rash follower: Do you really suppose I could not escape if I wanted to? If a Roman legion was comprised of 6000 soldiers, He had 72,000 angels at His command. This potential Heaven-sent defense force provides two excellent reasons for not fighting to defend Jesus:

Peters feeble efforts are absolutely unnecessary and worse than useless in light of the virtually unlimited, formidable fire-power at His disposal, should He choose to use it. If little children are watched by the angels (Mat. 18:10), how much more Gods only Son? If Gods prophets are protected by heavenly might (Remember 2Ki. 6:8-17 : Elisha surrounded at Dothan!), how much more so His Son?

The mobs efforts to take Him against His will could avail nothing. It is immaterial whether or not Jesus overawing the soldiers (Joh. 18:4-6) be a supernatural expression of His divine power and majesty, no number of men on earth could touch Him, unless He permitted it.

If the Lord willingly surrendered, one arresting officer was enough. If He really resisted, all the worlds armies would never suffice! The irony of twelve defenders (Jesus and the eleven Apostles) against a multitude of Roman soldiers is only surpassed by the incomparably greater defence by twelve legions of angels whom Jesus sees ready to march but whom He refuses to summon. So He would die, not because unprotected or because a single foe got behind His line of defense, but because He deliberately abandoned His protection.

C. The Bonds That Hold Him (26:54)

Mat. 26:54 How then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? Here is another argument against fighting: Any kind of deliverance was completely irreconcilable with the destiny predicted for the suffering Servant of Jahveh (Isaiah 53; Psalms 22; Zec. 12:10). Therefore, by attempting Jesus defense, anyone who agreed with Peter was rejecting the deliberate purpose of God stated in the Scriptures.

In a critical moment such as this, a mans character and his confidence in his religion are revealed for what they are. The hardest character trait of all to duplicate is a patient, long-suffering love that quietlty submits to this outrage. But unfaked godliness is born of confidence in Scripture: it has to be this way, because the Bible says so. Despite the fact that those prophetic Scriptures predicted His suffering and revealed that His death was absolutely necessary, Jesus does not hesitate to point men to them as true and God-sent. (See on Mat. 26:56.) We trust the Old Testament, because our Lord did, even though it meant death for Him to believe it.

IV. HIS REPROACH OF COWARDICE (26:55)

The Moral Inconsistency of Their Tactics

Mat. 26:55 In that hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a robber with swords and staves to seize me? I sat daily in the temple teaching, and ye took me not. The specific group addressed is the chief priests and captains of the temple and elders, who had come out against him (Luk. 22:52). The presence of these dignitaries in this night raid is not at all improbable. They would have come to direct the arrest and make instant decisions, if such became necessary, as well as to give this lynch mob a show of legitimacy (Luk. 22:52 f.).

Because lests also means revolutionary, insurrectionist (Arndt-Gingrich, 474), as against a robber suggests two interpretations:

He draws an ironic contrast between His own conduct as He sees it and the way they see Him: on the one hand, a Jewish rabbi quietly lecturing in the Temple and, on the other, a dangerous terrorist engaged in subversive activity to support a revolution! Fully the Master of Himself, He scorns the crude arms to which they must now resort, since they have no other. Quiet Dialogue, convincing Scriptural argument, intelligent, fair-minded debate and honest, free decision are weapons they do not possess. But these are the arms with which He met His foes and with which He would have us promote His interests. (Cf. Mat. 28:18; 2Co. 10:3 ff.; 2Ti. 2:24 f.; Tit. 1:9 ff.) It is one of the paradoxes of history that, whereas Jesus enemies feared that He might be a dangerous revolutionary challenging the Establishments power structure, Judas probably betrayed Jesus precisely because He had refused to do just that!

As against a robber alludes to their manner of arrest, a night foray with its ridiculous show of force, that treated Him as a rebel leader and fugitive from justice, as if His privacy in the garden were an attempt to escape from His well-deserved fate as a nationalist guerilla who justified his lawlessness in the name of patriotism. Jesus was no Barabbas (Mar. 15:7; Luk. 23:19; Joh. 18:40). On the contrary, His daily teaching the way of truth and righteousness in broad daylight in the most public place possible, the Jerusalem Temple in the very heart of Judaism, proved that His was no clandestine, guerilla movement of opposition to the Roman regime, but one that was open, fearless and honest. He had made no effort to conceal Himself or flee. In fact, of His own accord, He had just come forward to turn Himself over to them. And yet they call out the army just to cope with a teacher (cf. Mat. 26:47)?

Unless Jesus refers exclusively to the events of the Last Week, I sat daily in the temple teaching points to a considerable ministry in Jerusalem, incidental Synoptic confirmation of Johns reports (John chaps. 2, 5, 710). Ye took me not. These treacherous leaders had made no public move to arrest Him and when they attempted something, their men returned empty-handed (Joh. 7:45 f.).

At His trial Jesus would again expose this cowardly attack launched in the absence of people who could more honestly judge of its injustice (cf. Joh. 18:20 f.). While the corruption, cowardice and malice of Jesus accusers do not prove His innocence, that He has such as enemies is circumstantial evidence in His favor and suggests further examination of His character and claims.

Some criticize Jesus rejection of their tactics as vengeful and unworthy of Him. On the contrary, His dignified protest reveals their sin to their face, that they might repent of it. That they did not immediately do so does not mean that His self-possessed, godly manner did not affect any of them or would not haunt them until their death and serve as their condemnation at judgment.

V. HIS SOURCE OF CONFIDENCE: EVERYTHING ACCORDING TO PLAN (26:56)

Mat. 26:56 But all this is come to pass, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples left him, and fled. Jesus calmly accepted the indignity of it all, because He was convinced that His suffering was part of a larger picture painted, even if in dark colors, by the prophets. This conviction of the true significance of His suffering tended to calm His spirit. His resignation here is tantamount to saying: Let the Scriptures be fulfilled (Mar. 14:49). Let Gods Word be true, even if it means a cross for me! Lenski (Matthew, 1055):

Here are the real forces at work in what is taking place this night: God is carrying out his prophetic plans, Jesus is thus voluntarily putting himself into his captors hands. That and that alone is why this army is scoring such a huge victory against a single humble man!

The hand that moved events that night, was not that of evil men but the divine purpose of God. Plummer (Matthew, 375) asks:

Did this serene statement of His reason for submitting without resistance convey to the disciples, and in particular to Judas, any impression of Christs confidence that His cause would in the end be triumphant? Here may be the turning-point in the attitude of Judas from greed and resentment to remorse. He [i.e. Judas] had been absolutely successful; and, at the very moment of his success, his Victim claims, with unruffled assurance, to be fulfilling the prophecies respecting the Messiah. . . . It is certainly remarkable that Judas is nowhere said to have borne witness against Jesus at any of the trials before the Sanhedrin or Pilate or Herod. And he could have quoted utterances which would have told against Christ in a prejudiced court; e.g. His predictions of His coming again in glory, and of the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem. . . . What was it that withheld him from doing so? Some change apparently had begun.

However, if Judas were already hoping for Jesus supernatural victory, whereby the betrayer manipulated Gods power for his own promotion, he would never desire to testify against Him, only for Him. Hence, Judas could believe in Jesus victory as he himself understood it, but would not change until his own dream were crushed by Jesus being sentenced to death (Mat. 27:3).

Then all the disciples left him, and fled. These courageous men had not fled. A word from their Commander would unleash their attack. But if they are not permitted to resist Jesus arrest, they are strangely unneeded. Stunned by His order prohibiting all resistance, they stood paralyzed by His inexplicable inaction. They lost their will to resist because He apparently had none, blindly convinced that Scripture justified the arrest. Since the soldiers were uninterested in the disciples, the temptation to flee now became imperious.

The disciples abandoning Him appears somewhat less cowardly in light of Jesus request of the authorities that the disciples should be permitted to go (Joh. 18:8). Further, their flight was less culpable than it was providential, because of what might have happened, had some of them been caught and tried either with Jesus or separately. Stunned more deeply than Simon Peter, they might not have stopped with denying Jesus. They might also have been shocked so irreparably that nothing could have saved them. Like the remorseful Judas, they might not have lived to see the resurrection nor be transformed by its victory. By opening the door for His disciples to leavewhether by precipitate flight or by prudently and quietly fading back into the protective cover of surrounding darknessJesus lovingly shielded them. This is one sense in which Jesus prayer found fuller realization: Of those whom you gave me, I lost not one (Joh. 18:9; Joh. 17:12).

However, He was abandoned by human friends, Gods Lamb in the hands of the wolves. The scandal they had earlier repudiated as unthinkable had just taken place, and they abandoned Him. They dismissed His promise to meet them in Galilee, unaware that it guaranteed their preservation and victory as much as His. As faithfully as he would record any triumph, Matthew records his own dishonorable failure in faith with absolute honesty. He too ran. . . .
What may be learned about ourselves in this section? How shortlived is human stedfastness, even when bolstered by earnest promises! How self-deceptive is the intention to promote ones own happiness while making loud protestation of loyalty to Christ! Religious noises do not equal costly submission to Gods will. Of what inconceivable wickedness are even godly men capable!
What may be learned about Jesus? Gone is the spiritual turmoil of His earlier agonizing over the cross. He is possessed by the peace of God that passes understanding. There is not even a hint of rage or contempt in His demeanor. Fully Master of Himself, He reigns as Lord of the situation. He responds to Judas with marvelous mildness. Peters wild onslaught is halted with remarkable decision. With reasonableness and effectiveness, without bitterness and spite, He exposed this night attack by the authorities as cowardly. Despite every attempt to humiliate Him, His every move reflects the majesty of God and the authority of Scripture in His life. Just as at His baptism, His every move says, Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness. Gods will is the only thing that counts. Barclay (Matthew, II, 388): . . . the man who would not fight is enthroned for ever in the hearts of men.

FACT QUESTIONS

State in detail what happened at the arrest of Jesus giving the correct order of the events.

How was the arresting force composed? Were Romans involved in it?

How did Judas act during the arrest?

What was Jesus reaction to Judas? Explain the meaning of Friend.

In what other ways should we translate Do that for which thou art come? Why?

How successful was Peters attack? What did Jesus do about Peters results?

What is the meaning of Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword?

To what Scripture(s) did Jesus allude which were fulfilled by His enemies ungodly attack on Gods Messiah?

With what words did Jesus rebuke the arresting party? What did He mean?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(47) A great multitude with swords and staves.St. Johns account (Joh. 18:3) is fuller. The multitude included (1) the band (not a band, as in the Authorised version), i.e., the cohort (the same word as in Act. 10:1) of Roman soldiers sent by Pilate to prevent a tumult. These probably were armed with swords; (2) the officers of the chief-priests, probably the Levites or Nethinim, who were the guards of the Temple, armed with staves or clubs. He adds, also, what lay in the nature of the case, that they were provided with lanterns and torches as well as weapons. It was now near the hour of dawn, but they must have left the city while there was at best only moonlight to guide them. They bent their steps to Gethsemane, as that was known to Judas as one at least of our Lords chosen resorts (Joh. 18:2), in which, we may well believe, He had spent some hours of each of the four preceding nights.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

132. APPREHENSION OF JESUS, Mat 26:47-56 .

While the solemn scenes of the Last Supper and of Gethsemane are transpiring, a very different business is going on between Judas and the Jewish authorities. The armed band is furnished; he knows the customary place of Jesus and his twelve; and now, lo! he comes. To show that he truly lays down his life with full power to retain it, our Lord for a moment by divine power overwhelms his assailants. (See Joh 18:4-9.) He meets with cutting rebuke the treacherous kiss of the betrayer. He arrests the sword of Peter and heals the wound it inflicted. He reproves the shamefulness of their armed band, and declares that he submits only to the divine necessity of fulfilling the prophetic Scripture. His disciples flee; the evangelist Mark is all but apprehended. (Mar 14:51.) The Saviour then is in the hands and at the mercy of his enemies.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

47. Lo, Judas The deed by which his name is forever a term of abhorrence is now in course of completion. Staves The plural of staff. They were nearer canes than clubs. Although it was full moon, they came, as John informs us, with torches and lanterns. Judas led the way, going before them. Luk 22:47.

With him a great multitude By what authority was Jesus now arrested? and of whom or what did this multitude consist?

To the first question we may answer, that in Judea there was an inferior native or Jewish government, under the dominion of the Roman government. Of the Jewish government the chief magistrate was the high priest. The legislative authority resided in the Sanhedrim. It was by the Jewish authority, or at least at their prosecution, that our Lord is now arrested and taken before their high priest, to answer for offence against the Jewish law.

The multitude who apprehended Jesus were of the following four classes:

1 . The band, (Joh 18:3,) being a detachment from the garrison of five hundred Roman soldiers, who, in the fortress of Antonia, overlooking the temple, kept the Jews in awe. A detachment was ever ready to be sent when the commander was informed that a disturber needed to be taken in custody. So that thus much Jesus was apprehended by the loan of a Roman body.

2. The captains of the temple, (Luk 22:52,) who came, doubtless, attended by their guard or police, men who kept order at the temple.

3. Several of the Jewish dignitaries attended to see the work carefully done; namely, (Mat 26:47,) chief priests, zealous Pharisees, and elders. 4. Servants of these dignitaries, (Joh 18:18,) both private and official, like Malchus. Our Lord was thus arrested by the Jewish authority, partly using Roman instrumentality.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘And while he yet spoke, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great crowd with swords and staves, from the chief priest and elders of the people.’

The description is both awesome and contemptuous at the same time. Awesome because it depicts a great crowd, armed to the teeth with swords and staves, descending on the relatively unarmed small party at night, and one that was coming as representing those who saw themselves as the power in the land (apart from Pilate). But contemptuous because of what it contained when considered more carefully. First there was Judas, ‘one of the twelve’. The unnecessary additional description is stressing the enormity of his betrayal. (‘My own familiar friend in whom I trusted, the same has lifted up his heel against me’). Then there was the ‘great crowd’. Matthew deliberately and contemptuously adds ‘great’. So many to deal with so few. And what do their swords and staves suggest if nothing less than a band of brigands? (see 1Sa 17:43). A motley crew indeed. It was as though Matthew was saying, ‘this was all that could be expected of those chief priests and elders’. None of the first three Gospels mention the Roman guard standing back in case of trouble. They do not want to so dignify this rabble.

Alternatively Matthew may have been seeking to draw out that it is the Jewish people, backed by the Jewish leadership, who are arresting Jesus (a ‘great crowd’ often surrounded Jesus, usually representing the lost sheep of the house of Israel). Their armaments then draw attention to their belligerence in total contrast to the usual crowds (which Jesus later draws attention to). This the other side of the Jewish nation. Their belligerence can be compared to Jesus’ quiet response. What a contrast between the two parties.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus in the Garden ( Mar 14:43-50 , Luk 22:47-53 , Joh 18:3-12 ) Mat 26:47-56 records the betrayal and arrest of Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Mat 26:51 Comments All four Evangelists records the event of Peter drawing his sword in the Garden and cutting off the ear of Malchus, the servant of the high priest (Mat 26:51, Mar 14:47, Luk 22:49-51, Joh 18:10). Only John records the man’s name as Malchus and that it was Peter who drew the sword, and only Luke records the fact that Jesus healed the man’s ear. Peter was the most zealous of the twelve disciples. He had taken Jesus literally in Luk 22:36 when Jesus told them to sell their garments and purchase a sword.

Joh 18:10, “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.”

Mat 26:51, “And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s, and smote off his ear.”

Mar 14:47, “And one of them that stood by drew a sword, and smote a servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear.”

Luk 22:50-51, “And one of them smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far. And he touched his ear, and healed him.”

Joh 18:10, “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.”

Luk 22:36, “Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.”

Mat 26:54 Comments Mat 26:54 reflects the secondary theme of Matthew’s Gospel as Jesus refers to the the events surrounding His being the fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures.

Mat 26:56 “But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled” – Comments Mat 26:56 a is understood by many scholars to be a comment made by Jesus Himself, although some view it as the author’s insertion. The support for the first view comes from the parallel passage in Mar 14:49-50, which clearly credits the statement to Jesus Himself, who says, “I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye took me not: but the scriptures must be fulfilled. And they all forsook him, and fled.”

Mat 26:56 reflects the secondary theme of Matthew’s Gospel as Jesus refers to the the events surrounding His being the fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures.

“Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled” – Comments Mat 26:56 b is most likely a fulfillment of Mat 26:31 in which Jesus cites Zec 13:7, saying, “All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.”

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Betrayal and Arrest.

The coming of the traitor:

v. 47. And while He yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the Twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people.

v. 48. Now he that betrayed Him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is He; hold Him fast.

v. 49. And forthwith he came to Jesus and said, Hail, Master; and kissed Him.

v. 50. And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took Him.

While Jesus was still urging His disciples to shake off the drowsiness to which they had given way, Judas came. One of the Twelve he is called, to heighten the effect of the contrast: A chosen apostle of the Lord, and yet His traitor. With him came a big crowd, as many as could be assembled late in the evening, rabble, for the most part, with a nucleus of Temple police, who were at the command of the Sanhedrin, servants of the chief priests and the leaders of the Jews. In the motley crowd some of the elders themselves may have appeared, though they kept in the background. They even bore arms of a kind, swords and staves, to quell any disturbance of Christ’s followers at the start. The traitor may have been considering the best way of approaching the Lord. It was, after all, not an easy matter, hardened though he was, to deliver his old Master to this composite crowd. Finally he hit upon the plan of making a kiss, the token of affection and fidelity, the sign by which they should recognize the Lord, and so informed his band. Upon Him whom he would kiss they should lay restraining hands, to hold Him with main strength, if need be. With a respectful salute: Rabbi, Judas stepped up to Jesus, and kissed Him most tenderly. And the Lord, kind, tactful, searching ever, addresses him with the salutation of disciple or companion, instead of spurning his traitorous kisses, the very essence of hypocrisy. At the same time Christ shows that He knows the purpose of his coming. For the last time He warns him: Remember what this treason means. “From this horrible case we should learn to fear God. For Judas was not a lowly man, but an apostle, and without doubt had many fine, excellent gifts; just as he, above other disciples, had a special office, and the Lord had ordained him to be steward, or treasurer. But since this man, who is an apostle, who in the name of Jesus preaches repentance and forgiveness of sins, baptizes, casts out devils, and performs other miracles, falls so grievously, becomes an enemy of Christ, sells Him for a little bit of money, betrays Him, and sacrifices Him as a lamb brought to the slaughter; since, I say, such a terrible mishap comes upon such a great man; we surely have reason not to be secure, but to fear God, guard against sins, and pray diligently that God would not lead us into temptation; but if we do fall into temptation, that He would graciously lead us out that we may not remain therein. For it happens very easily that one gets into trouble and commits sins, when one does not watch carefully and diligently make use of the protection of prayer.”

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Mat 26:47 . ] precisely as in Mat 26:14 , and repeated on both occasions in all three evangelists. In the oral and written tradition this tragic designation ( , Euthymius Zigabenus) had come to be so stereotyped that if would be unconsciously inserted without there being any further occasion for doing so. The same holds true with regard to , Mat 26:48 ; Mat 27:3 .

] Matthew makes no reference to the Roman cohort, Joh 18:3 ; his account, however, does not, at the same time, exclude it, as it is simply less precise. Luk 22:52 likewise represents the high priests and elders as appearing at this early stage among the throng; but this is an unwarrantable amplification of the tradition; see on Luke.

] cudgels, fustibus (Vulgate). Herod. ii. 63, iv. 180; Polyb. vi. 36. 3. Wetstein on the passage.

, . . .] belongs to ; see on Gal 2:12 .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

FIFTH SECTION

JESUS ON THE NIGHT OF HIS BETRAYAL: JESUS AND THE TRAITOR; JESUS AND THE DEFENDER; JESUS AND THE MULTITUDE; JESUS AND HIS DISCIPLES GENERALLY; OR THE GLORY OF JESUS IN THE NIGHTLY ASSAULT AND THE CONFUSION OF THE IMPRISONMENT.73

26:4756

(Mar 14:43-52; Luk 22:47-53; Joh 18:1-11)

47And while he yet spake [was yet speaking, ], lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves [clubs, ],74 from the chief priests and elders of the people. 48Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever [Whom, ] I shall kiss, that same is he; hold him fast. 49And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail [], Master [Rabbi];75 and kissed him. 50And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? [do that for which thou art here!]76 Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him [held him fast, as in Mat 26:48]. 51And, behold, one of them which [that] were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a [the] servant77 of the high-priest, and smote off his ear. 52Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all 53they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.78 [Or, ] Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently79 give me [place beside me, ]80 more than twelve legions of angels? 54But how then [How then, ]81 shall [can] the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? [fulfilled? For thus it mustbe.] 55In that same hour [in that hour, ] said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief [robber, ]82 with swords and staves [clubs] for83 to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me. 56But all this was done, that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples [the disciples all]84 forsook him, and fled.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Mat 26:47. Then came Judas.He knew the spot, as being the place where Jesus often met His disciples, Joh 18:2. During the completion of the meal, the final discourses of Jesus, and His agony in Gethsemane, Judas went out into the night, and consummated the work of his villany. His impetuosity induced the Sanhedrin to rescind their resolution of not taking Jesus at the feast. This it was first necessary that they should decide upon, and then summon the temple-guard; after which the permission of the Roman governor was to be obtained, and the requisite military protection. Judas had reckoned upon all this delay, and had calculated that time enough would be allowed for Jesus to hare reached Gethsemane. But that the preparation which the high-priests in league with Judas appointed, was exaggerated and excessive, all the Evangelists agree. According to John, Judas brought the Roman cohort (). Even if we do not understand this literallyas the one Roman cohort which was stationed in the Castle Antonia consisted of 500 menyet we may assume that the disposable portion of that force, representing the cohort, was there. To these must be added, according to Luke, the temple-watch. Such a watch belonged to the temple, and was commanded by a , Act 4:1. The plural (Luk 22:52), refers to the presence of other and subordinate officers. The torches also betray the excess of the preparation; although even the paschal full moon would not render these needless, when searching among the shady caverns of the gloomy valley of the Kedron.

One of the twelve.The significance of this expression here rests upon this, that Judas no longer comes in the train of the disciples as a follower of Jesus, but at the head of the hostile multitude.

With him a great multitude.The swords85 indicate that the Roman cohort (Joh 18:3) was the centre of this multitude: while the clubs, and so forth, indicate that the Jewish temple-watch, and other miscellaneous fanatics, were there also. According to Luk 22:52, there were also fanatical priests and elders who mingled in the procession,a circumstance which Meyer refers to a later and incorrect enlargement of the tradition. But Luke appears to regard representatives of the Sanhedrin as requisite for such a religious capture as this was (see Act 4:1); and Meyer under-estimates the fanatical impulses of Jewish fanaticism.

With swords and olubs, from the high-priests.Here we see the mingled religious and political relations. The Sanhedrin had the decision in all matters of spiritual jurisdiction. Thus it was for them to settle the question whether any one was a false prophet, and therefore worthy of stoning,the appointed punishment of that crime. That question they had already settled in the affirmative some time before, having determined to put Jesus to death (Joh 11:47); although they found themselves wanting in grounds of action, which therefore they endeavored by cunning to obtain from Himself, but failed. The right of putting offenders to death had been taken from them by the Roman government (Joh 18:31); hence the Roman crucifixion was afterward substituted for the Jewish stoning. Thus their undertaking was, on the whole, a daring experiment of wickedness. They were as yet without false witnesses and without grounds of accusation; they had not the thorough consent of Pilate; and they must silence and win over, by some sudden stimulant, the common people. On this account they aimed to give the capture, in which the Roman soldiers were at their disposal, a spurious character of importance; their excessive preparation would have the effect of creating the presumption that Jesus must be a very great criminal.

Mat 26:48. Gave them a sign.Meyer: The is commonly, but improperly, regarded as having a pluperfect sense. The Vulgate has it right, dedit. As he came he gave them a sign. [So also Alford].Whom I shall kiss.The kiss was among the ancients a sign of affectionate and cordial intimacy, and particularly a token of fidelity, Gen 29:11. More commonly, the teachers kissed their pupils; but examples of the converse are not wanting. Lightfoot, Hor, p. 484. It is doubtful whether the kiss of reverent submission (Psa 2:12) was impressed on the lips: probably on the hands or the feet.

Hold Him fast, seize Him.We take the as emphatic. Possibly there was a touch of irony in the language of the archtraitor, who expected that Jesus might in a magical manner elude them after all. For the darkened mind of Judas had now come to regard Him as a magician.

Mat 26:49. And forthwith he came.Excited, but also dissembling. He pretended that he did not belong to the procession of enemies, that he would precede them, point out the danger, and separate from his Master with sorrow.Kissed Him.The must be understood in all its emphasis, to kiss very tenderly, to caress. Comp. Xenoph Mem. 2:6, 33; Luk 7:38; Luk 7:45; Act 20:37. Meyer: The sign was the simple kissing; but the performance was more emphatic, a caressing, corresponding with the purpose of Judas to make sure, and with the excitement of his feelings. The kiss of Joab, 2Sa 20:9 (comp. 2Sa 3:27). The early Christians, who kissed each other at the Lords Supper, did it as appropriate to the time when the sufferings of Christ were remembered; they did not thereby intend to express their abhorrence of Judas kiss. Heubner.

Mat 26:50. Friend, .Comp. Mat 20:13 [and Crit. Note No. 4, p. 352.]

[Why did the Lord call Judas frienda term of civility, though not necessarily of friendshipand not a villain, or a traitor, and why did He not turn away, in holy indignation, from this Judas-kiss, the vilest, the most abominable piece of hypocrisy known in history, which the infernal inspirer of treason alone could invent? To give us an example of the utmost meekness and gentleness under the greatest provocation, surpassing even the standard which He holds up for His disciples, Mat 5:39. If the face of the Saviour was not disgraced by the traitors kiss, no amount of injury and insult heaped upon His followers by the enemies of religion can really dishonor the former, but falls back with double effect upon the latter. At the same time the words , whether they be taken as a question, or as an exclamation, or as an elliptical assertion or commandtogether with the question recorded by Luke: Betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss? conveyed a most stinging rebuke to Judas, whose force was doubled by the use of the word friend, and the deep emotion and holy sadness with which they were uttered. The effect appears from the subsequent despair of Judas.P. S.]

Do that for which thou art here!86 [Authorized Version: Wherefore art thou come?Meyer: Since the relative ( ) is never used in direct question, but only in indirect, the common acceptation of this as a question is not correct; and it is quite groundless (Winer, 192) to assume a corruption in the declining Greek in relation to . Fritzsche explains it as an appeal ad qualem rem perpetrandam ades! But the Greek would require this also to take the form of a question. The words are broken off with an aposiopesis: Friend, that for which thou art here comedo! Jesus thereby denounces the traitorous kiss.Ewald: I need not thy kiss; I know that thou meanest it in hypocrisy; do rather that which is thy business. Similarly Euthym. Zigab. This would certainly accord with the declining of the kiss in Luke: Betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss? But, in this case, it is better to assume that it is a concise form only: , . Or: , . By the Lords going out to meet the watch, the hypocritical play of Judas was interrupted. John alone relates the falling to the ground on the part of the multitude. But Jesus hastened to meet the multitude, in order to protect, not only the three, but also the other disciples on the outside of the garden.

Mat 26:51. And, behold, one of them.When the evangelical tradition first assumed shape and form, prudence required that the name of Peter should not be publicly mentioned. Hence the indefinite expression in the Synoptists. But this necessity did not exist when John wrote his Gospel: therefore he gives the name. The same remark applies to the omission of the raising of Lazarus in Bethany, which the Synoptists may have had good reasons for ignoring, but not John who wrote so much later.

Drew his sword.When he saw that they laid sands on the Lord. According to Luke, the question was first asked from among the disciples, Lord, shall we smite with the sword? (On the two swords, compare Luke.) Immediately thereupon followed the blow of Peters sword; and it struck the servant of the high-priest, called Malchus, according to John. He had cut off his right ear: Matthew and Mark, ; but Luke, , the ear itself, and not merely the lobe. It seemed that he would have split his head. The separation of the ear must have been not quite perfect; and Jesus healed the servant, according to the narrative of Luke the physician. Meyer, following Strauss, attributes this healing to a later tradition. The other Evangelists, however, appear to have regarded this healing as self-understood; as, otherwise, Peter would have remained a criminal, and the mutilation of Malchus would have furnished good ground of an accusation, which, however, was not preferred.

Mat 26:52. Put up again thy sword into its place.The sheath, Joh 18:11. Peter, therefore, still stood there with his drawn and brandished sword in his hand.For all they that take the sword.This is a judicial sentence, but also a threatening warning. In the former light, it rests upon an absolutely universal principle. The sword is visited by the sword in war; the sword of retribution opposes the arbitrary sword of rebellious sedition; and the sword taken up unspiritually in a spiritual cause, is avenged by the certain, though perhaps long-delayed, sword of historical vengeance. Peter was, in all these three aspects, in a bad position, and the representative of wrong. The warrior exposed himself to the superior force of the legions of Rome, the rebel to the order of the magistrate, and the abuse of the sword in the service of religion provoked, and seemed to justify, the same abuse on the part of the world. Peter had really forfeited his life to the sword; but the Lord rectified his wounded position by the correcting word which He spoke, by the miraculous healing of the ear, and by the voluntary surrender of Himself to the authorities. But Peter had not only with wilful folly entered on the domain of this world, he had also brought his Masters cause into suspicion. Indeed, he sought to bring his fellow-disciples, and his Lord Himself, into this wrong position, and to make his own Christ a Mohammed. Therefore the Lord so solemnly denounced his act, pronounced an ideal sentence of death upon his head, which, however, was graciously repealed. The Lords word from that hour became a maxim of Christianity (comp. Rev 13:10); and it was probably spoken to Peter with a typical significance. Even the Church of Rome says: ecclesia non sitit sanguinem, but only to have recourse to the stake and faggot, of which certainly the letter of this passage says nothing.

[Shall perish.Alford: is a command; not merely a future, but an imperative future; a repetition by the Lord in this solemn moment of Gen 9:6. See the parallel in Rev 13:10 : . . This should be thought of by those well-meaning but shallow per sons, who seek to abolish the punishment of death in Christian states. Comp. also Rom 13:4. Thus the passage justifies capital punishment as a measure of just retribution for murder in the hands of the civil magistrate, but condemns at the same time the resort to all carnal and violent measures on the part of the Church, which is a spiritual body, and should only use spiritual weapons. Comp. 2Co 10:3-4. Rome agrees in theory (Ecclesia non sitit sanguinem), but violates it in practice by handing the heretics, wherever she has the power, to the state for execution, and thus using the civil magistrate as an instrument. Quod quis per alium facit, id ipse fecisse dicitur.P. S.]

Mat 26:53. Or thinkest thou?If Christ had refused to take the way of the passion, He might have adopted quite another way than that of wilful and violent opposition to the world: the way, namely, of coming to judgment upon it. Thinkest thou not that, if I did not desire to be a long-suffering Redeemer, I might at once appear to the whole world as its supreme Judge, rather than enter upon thy hypocritical way of half-spirituality and half-worldliness, half-patience and half-violence, of civilization with a sword in its hand? For, the twelve legions of angels which He might have prayed for, doubtless signified that multitude of angels which will actually attend Him when He returns to judgment (Mat 25:31). If the Church of the Middle Ages had not the courage to achieve the evangelization of the world in the way of Christs passion, she should have had faith to supplicate for the last day to come; but she did wrong to make Christ another Mohammed, and to continue His work by a hypocritical mixture of religious preaching and carnal violence. Meyer: The number twelve corresponds to the number of the Apostles, because it was one of those who had just endeavored to defend Him. But it is also and always the number of the developed perfection of life. The legion is the symbol of a great fighting host. Schaaf, Alterthumskunde: By legio (a legendo) was originally understood the aggregate of the Roman military collected for war. When that force increased, it became a great division of the host, which contained, at various times, from 2400 to beyond 6000 infantry, and from 300 to 400 horsemen. Since the time of Marius, the legion had reached more than 6000.It is well worthy of notice that Christ here numbers the angels by legions, as the counterpart of the Roman power, now leagued against Him with His enemies.

Mat 26:54. How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled? for, etc.Meyer: We must not supply before (Beza, Maldonatus, and others); but there must be a question after , and is for. For thus (in no other way) must it (that which now befalls Me) be. Thus there are two reasons: 1. The fulfilment of the Scripture concerning the suffering Messiah: Psalms 22; Isaiah 53; Dan 9:26 Zec 13:7. 2. The counsel of God Himself for the salvation of a sinful world, which is the foundation of all the prophetical Scriptures.

Mat 26:55. In that hour said Jesus to the multitudes.According to Luke, especially to the rulers and the guard of the temple, which Meyer vainly seeks to set aside.Starke: Jesus did not say this before he had been seized and bound. He would give no indication that He was not willing to be taken; and therefore not till after they had done their will did He rebuke their injustice.In the temple;that is, in the forecourt of the temple. In this space the Rabbins placed a synagogue (comp. Luk 2:46). Here also was to be sought Solomons porch (Joh 10:23; Act 3:11), with other hallsthe region of teaching and preaching.And ye laid no hold on Me.Certainly, because they durst not; but that exhibits their surprise by night as the work of evil conscience and malignity.

Mat 26:56. But all this is done that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.Luke: But this is your hour, and the power of darkness. The one supplements the other. Of this hour of darkness, and of the seeming triumph of evil, all the prophets prophesied: Isaiah 53; Dan 9:26, etc. The supposition of Erasmus, de Wette, and others, that this last word in Matthew was a remark of the Evangelist, takes off the point of our Lords address, as Meyer rightly observes. It was this last word which indicated His settled purpose to take the path of death. Hence it also gave occasion for the flight of the disciples. Their courage now failed them, and they fled. The flight, however, was not absolute, as appears from the narrative of the young man in Mar 14:51, and the conduct of Peter and John, according to Joh 18:15. They followed Him, but afar off. In reality, the scattering and flight was complete. [But while the eleven forsook the Lord, other disciples, as Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea, took a more decided stand for Him. The Church can never fail; new Christians always take the place of the old ones. Comp. Langes notes on Mar 14:51-52.P. S.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The Kiss of Judas.Its dark history in the world and the Church. This combination, the betrayal and the kiss of respect in one, could have been invented by no man, least of all by the soul of an Evangelist. He only who executed it could have devised it; or, rather, hell alone.

2. This wild combination of enemiessoldiers, temple-servants, and priestsfor the accomplishment of an act of hypocritical violence against Christ, is also a typical world-historical scene.87 Not less so is the surprise and capture of the Holy One in His Holiest of All, under the pretext of serving the sanctuary.

3. Peter showed by his first stroke that he was no soldier; happily he had missed his blow. That it was the ear of Malchus which he struck, is very significant. It has always been the ear, the spiritual hearing, and willing susceptibility, which carnal defenders of Christs cause have taken away from their opponents, when they have had recourse to the sword of violence.
4. They who take the Sword shall perish by the Sword.That this was said to Peter, had its typical historical meaning. The early Christians, amidst all the slanders heaped upon them, were never charged with having risen in insurrection against their Gentile oppressors. Comp. Tertull. Apol. cap. 37. Luther (in the peasant insurrection) quoted this passage against the peasants. Duels also are by this sentence absolutely forbidden. The punishment of death for certain offences is clearly enjoined. See Rothes Ethik, iii. 877. Heubner. How far a Christian state may be justified in giving this punishment another form, may be matter of reasonable question. In its essential significance the death penalty is an inalienable legal ordinance, but the form of social death and its execution has been in many ways subject to modification.

5. Thinkest thou that I cannot.Christ rejects once for all that unholy and disturbing mixture of judgment and salvation into which carnal zeal is so much disposed to turn His cause. What He here says applies to every moment in the history of Christianity. If it were Gods will that at any time (before the end) the economy of grace, effectual through the sacred cross, should be suspended, at that moment the infinite preponderance of heavenly forces over the violence of the enemy of earth would at once be exhibited. But then the work of salvation would be broken off before its consummation. This no man should ever think of. Whenever men act on this principle, they tempt God, and summon such powers against the cause of evil as prove themselves to be, not angels of light, but disguised powers of darkness; and the enmity which these exhibit against the cause of evil is only apparent. Of such carnal violence against conscience we must distinguish educational legal discipline within the Church, as we must distinguish also between theocracy and hierarchy.

6. The assurance of Christ to those who came against Him with weapons in the night,that He had been ready to give them an account in broad day,has also a symbolical meaning for all ages. The persecutions of the faithful are always stamped with the mark of calumny.

7. The last word of Christ is the expression of His consummate preparation for His passion. Therefore it is the crisis when the disciples, not yet mature in faith, forsook Him. Old Testament martyrdom had in it some affinity with the self-sacrifice of a hero in battle: they hoped for the speedy triumph of the theocracy. The New Testament martyr must, in the patience of the saints (Rev 13:10; Rev 14:12), tarry for the manifestation of victory until the last day. For this the disciples were not ripe: they had not the joyful testimony of victory within their own spirits. This New Testament martyrdom could flourish only after the blood of Christ was shed.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The betrayal.The first betrayal as the germ of the second.Jesus and His company in the hour of betrayal.An old and always new event, and yet an event standing alone.No place upon earth is a perfectly secure refuge for the Church: God alone is that. (Luther sung: A tower of strength our God is still, but many sing: A tower of strength our Church is still.)88Gethsemane: 1. Consecrated by Christs prayer; 2. desecrated by the betrayal; 3. for ever consecrated by the voluntary resignation of Jesus.The temple dishonored in the name of the temple.Judas, having left the company of the Twelve, now at the head of Christs enemies: a fearful image of a deep apostasy.The sign of treachery, the self-condemnation of the traitor: 1. As the hypocritical sign of his acquaintance, of his discipleship, of his apostolical vocation; 2. as the token of his apostasy, of his ingratitude, of his reprobation.The kiss of Judas, the most cunning and the maddest imagination of hell.The serpents bite in its historical consummation and spiritual meaning: 1. Consummated in the connection of hellish betrayal with the sign of heavenly honor (Psa 2:12); 2. the sign of all treason against all faith and fidelity, taken from the sign of love and confidence.Supreme cunning, one with supreme infatuation (stupidity).Friend, wherefore art thou here; or, the counter-greeting of Christ to the traitor: 1. Infinitely gentle (although friend in Greek was no more than companion):89 a mild allusion to his ingratitude. 2. Infinitely earnest and severe: Take the mask away! Stand forth as thou art! 3. Infinitely effectual: the subsequent despair of Judas.How different, although related, the kiss of Judas and the sword-stroke of Peter!The unholy use of the sword, and all the acts of spiritual violence do but dull the spiritual ear in their false zeal.Christ between His friends and His enemies: oppressed by both, righteous to both.The decree of the Lord, All who take the sword, etc.: 1. A decisive action (the perfect action of perfect suffering); 2. a sacred principle; 3. a prediction scarcely half-fulfilled.The connection between Peters smiting with the sword and his denial: 1. Presumption, despondency; 2. wounded conscience, anxiety (Joh 18:26, Malchus relation); 3. his misinterpretation of the word: He that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword; as if it were to be at once literally fulfilled.Christ enters upon the path of His passion in the full consciousness of His heavenly glory (Thinkest thou that I could not?)Not weakness restrains the judgment upon the wicked, but only the divine compassion.One of the deadliest evils to Christs cause is the intermixture of gospel and judgment in carnal zeal for the advantage of the Church: it makes both the gospel mercy and the judicial severity matter of contempt and scorn.The protest of the Lord against the cunning violence of the assault, an eternal protest of the spirit of truth.The cunning violence of the enemies of the truth condemns itself: 1. The violence and force condemns the cunning; 2. the cunning condemns the force.Swords and staves mixed, and both lost: the honor of the sword, of the State; the dignity of the staff, of the Church.The Scriptures of the prophets concerning Christ taken and bound.Christs peace in the great word that the dark hour of uttermost darkness was perfectly in accordance with the word and will of God.The flight of the disciples at the end of their human enthusiasm was their guilt, and yet mercifully they were delivered from its consequences by their Lords protection.Christ the great Martyr, the Founder of New Testament martyrdom.

Starke:Wickedness is often stupid and shameless. The wicked* are bold, Mat 7:22.Zeisius: The Lord abhors the bloody and deceitful man, Psa 5:6.Psa 2:12, the kiss of genuine homage and love.Quesnel: The world is full of deceitful courtesies and flatteries.Everywhere we should be able to answer the question: Wherefore art thou come?Osiander: When Christians are bound and put in prison without any guilt of their own, they should reckon it no disgrace, but rather the highest honor.Even among the saints is much lust of revenge, Rom 12:19.Provocation to anger and vengeance the most deadly temptations of Satan in the time of external tribulation.Young and rash preachers are too apt to brandish Peters sword, before they have learned to use the sword of the Spirit90.But when our carnal zeal smites wrongly, the injury is done to the ear, which should hear the word of God.Canstein: God rules the sins and infirmities of His people in such a way, that they cannot do more evil than He has decreed to permit, Rom 13:4.Luther: They take the sword who use it without orderly authority. They have fallen under the judgment of the sword, although repentance may prevent the execution of the decree. Thus Christ approves a right use of the sword.Rambach: Peter says (1 Eph 4:15): Let no man suffer as a murderer or as an evildoer, probably with allusion to this very event. If he had cut off the servants head, he would have fallen under the condemnation of the law as a murderer, and then could never have died as a martyr.1Pe 2:13 : No man must oppose lawful authority.Hedinger: Christs kingdom needs no sword; suffering and praying are the best weapons.Cramer: The seditious go never unpunished, 2Ki 9:31; 2Sa 18:14.The angels of Dan 7:10; Heb 1:14.That all the angels of God serve the Saviour, a great consolation for Gods children.Canstein: When God suffers His people to be overcome in external trouble, that is no sign of His weakness, but that these sufferings are decreed for His own glory and His peoples good.Nova Bibl. Tub.: The weapons of the false Church are swords and staves, external violence.True Christians never shun the light: their words and deeds are manifest.The heart, Jer 17:9-10, with reference to Peter.

Braune:Jesus suffering His greatest deed.Gerlach: The sword out of its sheath is not in its place, except when it is subserving the wrath of God.

Lisco:The sad fall of Judas should be a warning to every one not to indulge a vain reliance in the mere external fellowship of Christ.

Heubner:The frightful transformation of Judas.Judas at their head.A studied dishonor to the Lord,that they should come with so great a multitude.Jesus, taken and suffering in the night, atones for the sins which are done in the night.There is always a Judas-kiss among us (insincerity of profession, in office, in sacramental pledges, in the holy communion).Jesus endures still the kiss of many false members of His Church.Jesus, according to Luk 22:48, names his name: Judah! Thou art named confessor, and art become a traitor.This Bound One is the Captain of Gods host, the Leader of all mankind.Jesus is free even in His bonds.Peter not yet free from revenge and ambition.How often must the Lord repair what the rashness and folly of His disciples have done amiss!He who has full faith in God, his Father, sees himself without amazement surrounded by enemies; invisible defenders are around him, and the Almighty is his help.Look on all sufferings as the Lords good pleasure; so will all their bitterness be gone.Wrong for ever shuns the light.Goodness can always appeal to its open, frank, and known behavior before the world.The forsaken Jesus is the atonement of our unfaith-fulness.He knows what the forsaken feel.

Kapff:What we may learn from Jesus when taken captive: 1. Courage and strength; 2. humility and submission to the will of God; 3. meekness and love for our enemies.Brandt: Because Adam would not be bound by Gods commandment and his own obedience, Christ must be bound by human bonds.Grammlich: Christs fettered hands tear away the bonds of our death.

[Burkitt:None sin with so much impudence and obstinacy, as apostates.There is so much hypocrisy in many, and so much corruption in all, that we must not be too confident. Peters heart was sincere, but his head rash in drawing the sword.Gods intentions are no warrant for irregular actions.Christ will thank no man to fight for Him without a warrant and commission from Him.Christ was more concerned for our salvation than for His own temporal preservation.Had He been rescued by the power of angels, we would have fallen into the paw of devils. Matthew Henry:Many betray Christ with a kiss, and Hail, Master, who, under pretence of doing Him honor, betray and undermine the interests of His kingdom.Mel in ore, fel in cordeHoney in the mouth, gall in the heart. To embrace is one thing, to love another.Jacobs kiss and Judass kiss were much alike.Religio cogi non potest, et defendenda non occidendo, sed moriendo. [From Lactantius: Institutiones div. Similar remarks might be quoted from Tertullians Apologeticus, and other ante-Nicene writers, who opposed religious persecution and claimed toleration as an inalienable right of conscience.P. S.] Men hasten and increase their own troubles by blustering, bloody methods of self-defence.Persecutors are paid in their own coin, Rev 13:10.God has no need of us, of our services, much less of our sins, to bring about His purposes; and it argues our distrust and disbelief of the power of Christ, when we go out of the way of our duty to serve His interests.There is an innumerable company of angels, Heb 12:22. (Twelve legions=above seventy-two thousand, and yet a mere detachment which would not be missed in heaven.)Let Gods word be fulfilled and His will be done, whatever may become of us.The Scriptures are fulfilling every day.What folly, to flee, for fear of death, from Him who is the fountain of life! Lord, what is man!Christ, as the Saviour of souls, stood alone; as He needed not, so He had not the assistance of any other. He trod the wine-press alone, and when there was none to uphold, then His own arm wrought salvation, Isa 63:3; Isa 63:5.P. S.]

Footnotes:

[73]All these significant headings are omitted in the Edinb. trsl.P. S.]

[74]Mat 26:47.[The Vulgate translates : cum gladiis et fustibus; Lange: mit Schwertern und mit Keulen; other German Versions: Stangen, or Knitteln, or Prgeln; staves was introduced by Tyndale, and retained in the subsequent English Version, except that of Rheims, which renders : clubs. Staff is the proper translation for in Mat 10:10; Mar 6:8; but the Authorized Version renders and alike. Comp. Mat 26:55; Luk 22:52. John mentions also lantern and torches, to search perhaps in the secret parts of the garden and the dark caverns of the valley of the Kedron.P. S.]

[75]Mat 26:49.[The colder and more formal Rabbi ought be retained here and in Mat 26:25 in the translation, as Matthew retained it from the Hebrew for , and as the English Version itself did in Mat 23:7-8.P. S.]

[76]Mat 26:50.[The words: , are generally understood as a question and so punctuated in most editions; but Fritzsche takes them as an exclamation: For what (dreadful deed) art thou here! Meyer, Ewald, Lange, as an elliptical command, as to say: Away with your hypocritical kiss; do rather that for which thou art here! See the Exeg. Notes. But the ellipsis might also be supplied by an : I know for what thou art here.P. S.]

[77]Mat 26:51.[ , the well known servant, viz., Malchus, Joh 18:10. Comp. Mar 14:47, where the English Version likewise substitutes the indefinite article.P. S.]

[78]Mat 26:52.Some uncial Codd. read [for ].

[79]Mat 26:53.[Presently should be omitted, as it arose from confounding two readings in the text, some authorities placing , now, after , others after , but none repeating it. Cranmers Bible first put now (over now) after both verbs, while Tyndale, the Genevan Bible, and the Bishops Bible have it only after cannot, and the Rheims N. T. (following the Vulgate) after give me. King James revisers substituted presently for the second now. P. S.]

[80]Mat 26:53.[Or: cause to stand by, as the Bishops Bible literally renders , and Scrivener commends Conant prefers send with Coverdale. Campbell: send to my relief.P. S.]

[81]Mat 26:54.[But is an insertion to make the connection plainer, or it was supposed to be implied in . But the meaning is: Considering then that God could place such a mighty force at My disposal, how is it possible, etc.P. S.]

[82]Mat 26:55.[Not: , which is expressly distinguished from in Joh 10:1; Joh 10:8. Comp. Mat 21:13, and note. Scrivener; All these precautions would be futile against a petty thief, though very proper against a bandit, such as Barnabas for example.P. S.]

[83]Mat 26:55.[For before the infinitive is obsolete and should be omitted in a revised translationP. S.]

[84]Mat 26:56.[This is the emphatic form of the Greek: , and so rendered by Conant and others. P. S.]

[85][Not: these words, as the Edinb. edition reads.P. S.]

[86]So Lange: Freund! (nur das) wozu du da bist! Similarly Ewald: Freund, das wozu du da bist! But Luther, de Wette, and other German Versions, agree with the English in taking the phrase as a question.P. S.]

[87][Not: symbolical, as the Edinb. trsl. reads. In German: ein tupisches weltnistorisches Bild, i.e., an event of typical significance which is frequently repeated and fulfill ed in history.P. S.]

[88][Dr. Lange alludes, of course, to the famous hymn of Luther: Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (based upon Psalms 46 and composed 1529), which may be called the spiritual [illegible]r-song of the Reformation, and which has been very often translated into English, by Thomas Carlyle, Mills, Cath. Winkworth. Bunting, and others. It is omitted in the Edinb. edition, together with a number of homiletical hints in this section.P. S.]

[89][Comp. note 4 on p. 352.P. S.]

[90][The Edinb. edition has godly,no doubt typograpical error for godless.P. S.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

“And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people. (48) Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast. (49) And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him. (50) And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him. (51) And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s, and smote off his ear. (52) Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. (53) Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? (54) But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? (55) In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me. (56) But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.”

We now arrive to that part in this momentous transaction, as is connected with the voluntary surrender of Jesus. The great feature, in redemption, to give efficacy and merit to it, is the freeness of Christ in the work. On this Jesus had particularly dwelt, when he said: Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. Joh 10:17-18 . But I postpone the observations on this grand feature of Christ, to the review of the subject, in the Gospel of John. See Joh 18:4 . for there we meet with it more strikingly.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 90

Prayer

Almighty God, grant us thy peace. The peace of God passeth all understanding. Great peace have they that love thy law. O that we had hearkened unto thy commandments, then had our peace flowed like a river, and our righteousness had been as the waves of the sea. Jesus, Lamb of God, Saviour of the world, grant us thy peace. Not as the world giveth dost thou give say unto us, “Peace be unto you,” and there shall be a great calm. Thou art the Prince of peace, the Son of peace, the Spirit of peace: may we know that thou art present in the soul by the peace that reigns there. Deliver us from all quietness that is deceitful, save us from lulling our souls into unholy slumber, and grant us thy peace, thine only, too deep to be measured, too calm to be expressed in words.

We have sinned against thee, and therein has our peace been destroyed. Truly we can say, there is no peace unto the wicked. We have felt the sting of conscience, the torment of remorse, the gloom of guilt and despair, but in the night of our sorrow and woe thou hast sent unto us angels of light with promises of pardon, and we have been led to the cross on which there died thine only-begotten Son, our Saviour and Priest and Surety. He is our Peace, he hath made both one. He is our Daysman, and he has laid his hand upon thee and upon us, and has made reconciliation. Great is the mystery of godliness; we cannot penetrate it with our understanding, we cannot receive it into our minds, but we can feel it in the heart, our love answers it, and the appeal of thy grace is replied to by the cry of our penitence.

We have come to worship God and to eat bread at his table. He establishes the feet of his saints, and watches the outgoings of them that are his. Behold we have in our hearts the sacred vow, upon our tongues is the holy word, and in our understanding is the conviction of thy presence and grace. We have done the things we ought not to have done, we have left undone the things that we ought to have done, and when we say there is no health in us, we feel how dead we are. We do not interrupt our confession with excuses and pleas; we fall down before thee, infirm, broken, shattered, without one word of self-defence. Thou knowest our frame, thou rememberest that we are dust, a wind that cometh for a little time and then passeth away. Thou wilt not thunder upon us with thy great power, thou wilt not magnify thine almightiness in our destruction, thou wilt rather lift up thine omnipotence in pledge of thy pity, and in the great power of God shall we find the tabernacle of his grace. In wrath remember mercy: remember how frail we are, remember that we are of yesterday and know nothing: see how few are our years, a handful at the most, and pity us and love us with continual compassion.

We bless thee for the year now closing around us as a church and people. Thou hast brought us to the day of temporary farewell: looking back upon all the past we bless thee with full heart, we thank thee for every revelation of thy truth, for all the light which has gleamed upon us from the upper places, and for all the comfort that has strengthened and encouraged our life. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Thou wilt conduct us to the end, thine hand of defence will never be withdrawn; when heart and flesh do fail, thou wilt be the strength of our heart and our portion for ever.

Pity all that has been amiss. Come with thine infinite forgiveness upon every guilty deed, and from the cross of thy Son our Saviour, absolve us from all sin. Wherein we have been good and have done good, to thy name alone be the praise.

Help us to resume our work with all thankfulness of energy and of hope, with invincible strength, with perfect consecration of mind and heart. Thus may we spend the years and prepare for the great eternity.

Comfort all that are sore of heart, speak a message of encouragement to those who need to be touched gently, or they will surely die. To the stranger within our gate speak home words that shall touch the heart and comfort the life with a new solace.

Pardon our sins, forgive our enemies, include within thy love our friends who are absent from us but who are longing to hasten back. Take up the lambs in thine arms, thou Shepherd of Israel; save with thine almightiness those who cannot save themselves, and when the discipline of life is perfected, may we begin the study and the service of immortality. Amen.

Mat 26:47-75

47. And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people.

48. Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.

49. And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him.

50. And Jesus said unto him, Friend (comrade), wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him.

51. And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s, and smote off his ear.

52. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

53. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels (the possible and the impossible)?

54. But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?

55. In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief (as against a robber with swords and clubs) with swords and staves for to take me? I sat (a sign of authority) daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me.

56. But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.

57. And they that had laid hold on Jesus led him away to Caiaphas (already committed to the policy of condemnation, Joh 11:49 ) the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled.

58. But Peter followed him afar off unto the high priest’s palace, and went in, and sat with the servants, to see the end.

59. Now the chief priests and elders, and all the council, sought (a word which implies a continued process of seeking) false witness against Jesus, to put him to death;

60. But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses,

61. And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.

62. And the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee?

63. But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.

64. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power ( the power), and coming in the clouds of heaven.

65. Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy: what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have hard his blasphemy.

66. What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death.

67. Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands,

68. Saying, Prophecy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote thee?

69. Now Peter sat without in the palace: and a damsel came unto him, saying, Thou also wast with Jesus of Galilee.

70. But he denied before them all, saying, I know not what thou sayest.

71. And when he was gone out into the porch, another maid saw him, and said unto them that were there, This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth.

72. And again he denied with an oath, I do not know the man.

73. And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewayeth thee (the Galilean patois was probably stronger when he spoke under the influence of strong excitement).

74. Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the (the Greek has no article) cock crew.

75. And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.

The Arrest of Christ

Our concern is to know the spirit and conduct of Jesus in this transaction. How does he hold himself, by what spirit is he animated, how does he stand the stress of his infinite trial? We have little to do with the rabble gathered around him: we have only to do with the ruffian band in so far as it shows, in luminous contrast, the spirit and service of Jesus Christ. Observe what a grasp of principles Jesus Christ displayed in this culminating hour of his life. There are crises in which men are obliged to look about them for their principles. There are occasions upon which men of wit can answer surprising assault; there are other days and nights wherein a man has no wealth if he be not rich in doctrine, principle, and conviction. Riches of an earthly kind make themselves wings and flee away, but there are unsearchable riches that reveal themselves in glittering brightness when the soul would otherwise be in its poorest and most painful condition.

There was one impetuous man on the side of Christ, who stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck a servant of the high priest and smote off his ear. That was a little man: he mistook the range and scope of energy he was the victim of the continual sophism which debases our thinking and causes our action to palpitate with vicious life, that it is necessary to do something. Jesus found a place in life for Simon. Jesus Christ showed what could be done by submission. Peter was anxious to meet force with force, a sophism so plausible that statesmen have been victimised by it, and men of every age have fallen down to worship that golden calf. It seems to be born in us, does the feeling that force must be met by force. There is a force of passiveness, there is an energy of silence, there is the magnificent retort of non-resistance, which puzzles men of common mind and ordinary heart, the very mystery of heroism to those who mistake noise for music and tumult for power.

The answer which Jesus Christ made upon the occasion showed that he was not too absorbed to neglect even the trifling incidents connected with the infinite tragedy. “Put up again thy sword into his place.” That would have been a mere instruction, but following that instruction is the philosophy of civilization, the key of all definite and lasting progress, the very glory of human statesmanship and political and spiritual security. Who then could have expected another gospel? who could have said that even upon so trifling an occasion Christ would have interjected a revelation that would gleam in ever-growing brightness upon the mind of the ages? Yet that was exactly what he did. Not only did he give the instruction, “Put up again thy sword into his place,” but he gave the reason for the instruction, namely, “For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” If he had never said anything in his life but that one word, he would have laid down a rule that the world would have grown up lo in all its education, disappointment, falling, and failure which it has experienced. We pass over the words lightly as we pass over all the grandest words ever spoken by the human tongue. We are so occupied with the anecdote, the moving panorama, the startling incident, that we overlook the philosophy of the grand, moral revelation, and hasten on, like impetuous Peter, to “see the end.”

Jesus Christ did not attempt to snatch a transient victory. “Suppose you, Peter, could cut down all these men to the ground, it would amount to nothing: their progeny will come up: evil has an indestructible posterity, if it be encountered only by force. There must be another method of attacking this disease: it cannot be cut down with cold steel, it must be met by heavenly ministries, by spiritual and regenerative influences put up again thy sword into his place.” It could do nothing in the spiritual kingdom; when force meets force, death falls upon all who use it. There are triumphs, there are defeats, and there are failures that are successes: do not suppose that to smite down an enemy is to overcome the enmity. One wonders that men, reading these great sentences, so great yet so small that they do not instantly un-cover in the presence of a Peasant who laid down in terms so luminous and definite the philosophy which underlies every beneficent and stable civilization.

Jesus Christ reminded Peter that all that was happening was in fulfilment of the Scriptures. “But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” Connect yourself with Destiny if you would be calm: do not live in the spluttering and dying anecdotes of the passing day. Consider that all things are elect of God, and move you in the current of His foreknowledge and forearrangement of things. You will be troubled, tossed about with every wind of doctrine, if you are living only from day to day, and upon the breath which is breathed from the human mouth. We must live in the eternity of God if we would be quiet amid all the storm and stress of life. There are some who resent the idea of a supreme will, or must boast of the predominance of Fate. This is a doctrine you cannot escape: your life is either gripped and driven by Fate, or must be ruled and blessed and sanctified by a Supreme Will.

But observe how evilly do they think and speak, who suppose that, having ignored the reigning will of God, they can rush into the cold and chilling sanctuary of impassable and inexorable Fate. Life, come upon me as thou wilt, I live in the will of the Father; whatever happens to me happens that the Scriptures must be fulfilled. The writing is old, and is rewritten every day every life is a revelation, every breath is a miracle. Stand thou, O living man, in this sanctuary, and no fool shall be able to throw a stone into the depths of thy peace. Do not suppose that men come around you accidentally with swords and staves: they know not what they do: if your purpose is right, if your prayer is pure, if your face is set steadfastly, even with hardness, towards the Jerusalem of your destiny, you will be an ever-quiet and all-quieting presence in life.

The mistaken thinker is always caught in his own snare. Those who would escape from Will, fall into the arms of iron Fate, and those who decline to be guided by the Scriptures, which were fulfilled in the case of Christ, go straight over to another revelation which is incomplete without the written one. You cannot escape from prayer. You can run away from the altar of the church, red with blood glowing with fire, but you go to an altar of ice, and breathe out your soul’s wish into a dead ear. Still you pray. You run away from the living paternal beneficent will, and try to quiet yourself with such narcotics as are handed to you by the iron hand of unpitying Fate.

One of the ablest minds that ever led the sceptical thinking of his time I do not hesitate to say that I refer to Thomas Paine, a resolute and energetic thinker, and a man not without beneficence of purpose and patriotism of heart has laid down the sophistical and monstrous proposition, that a revelation can only be made to one man, that no revelation has been made to us, therefore the revelation which Christ claimed to be fulfilled in his history was no revelation to after ages. How truly has every Achilles a vulnerable heel! A revelation granted only to one man? But there is a daily revelation, there is a lasting revelation of nature, providence, history, law, and when this lasting revelation, which comes to repeat its story every day, confirms the revelation that was given to minds and hearts in the ancient time, the revelation of today repeats in modern tones, and with present-day applications, all that was true in the immemorial time.

But the Scriptures must be fulfilled. Fulfilment of Scripture is the rewriting of Scripture. No promise can be realized without being written over again in its very realization. It is because human life takes up and repronounces divine words that the Bible keeps its hold upon human confidence and human love. Were it an old book, in the sense of speaking terms that have no immediate meaning, it would by mere lapse and effusion of time disable itself from holding supremacy over human thinking. It is because its words are old as eternity, yet new as the present morning, that the Bible is what it is and where it is.

So Jesus Christ rested in the fulfilment of Scripture. He laid his hand upon Destiny as ruled by a personal Will, and getting such hold of such principles, he was calm to apparent passionless-ness. Once indeed there was a ripple upon his placidity: said he, “Are ye come out as against a thief?” His soul was stung there. He knew that was the way thieves were taken, and to be thought a thief, to have all evil names fastened upon him, did seem to sting him into a question that might have in it one spark of sacred resentment. Or was he mocking the fools, was he showing them to what an unnecessary expenditure of strength and force they were going? Was he a man who would run away? Judas indeed said to those who were with him, “Hold him fast,” probably not through any spirit of cruelty, but where a man lays hold upon the lightning he must hold it fast if he would keep it. Was there not some subtle tribute in this very exhortation addressed by Judas to the ruffian band? Did he not in this one exhortation seem to say, “I know his strength: I have seen his power: there is no limit to his resource. This is no ordinary culprit or criminal, if so we may describe him. Having touched him, surround him, draw a cordon round his life, or he will surely elude you?”

Sometimes men pay compliments unconsciously, as many men pray to a God they profess to ignore. Instinct may be relied upon more than argument: the inborn impulse of the heart will assert itself above all controversy and logic and intellectual creed. So the time will come when even Judas shall add a laurel to the chaplet which binds the temples of the Saviour, and therein shall the word be fulfilled, “His enemies will I clothe with shame, but upon himself shall the crown flourish.” I know not but that when Judas himself will yet come to write the epitaph of Christ, we may find that grim monster of iniquity carving upon the marble rock “INNOCENT BLOOD.”

Then how grandly does Christ move between the possible and the impossible. When he said, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? I can, and yet I cannot. The possible is impossible.” Have we not lived that strange experience? To the man who lives only in the letter the statement that the possible is the impossible will appear to be a contradiction in terms. It is the very key of life! you can do things which you cannot do: you cannot do things which you can do. Learn that lesson and life will have new aspects, and every day will have new experience. As a mere matter of ” can,” you could do the most outrageous and monstrous things this very day, and yet you could not do anything of the sort. You can burn your property, insult your friends, dismiss your servants, if it were a mere matter of literal ability, and yet you could not do one of these things! What keeps you back? Not force, not a sword an invisible principle, a conviction, common sense, thought all unknowable, unnamable, immeasurable qualities. As a mere matter of literal ability there is no length of absurdity to which you could not go, and yet you cannot take a single step in that direction cannot, because of will, thought, sense of the fitness of things, because of the inspiration of righteousness, the dictation of justice and the regulation of common sense. So Jesus Christ says, “I could pray for angels and yet I cannot: there is a pressure upon me which I will not resist: how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” How they tried to kill him: they wanted to be murderers without having the remorse of murder in their souls. That is what many men wish to be; if there were no hot blood in the case they would kill so quickly: it is the stain they cannot rub out, that they fear. Blood spouts out of the veins and splashes things that are a long way off; it is difficult to erase, it tells its burning story to scientific inquiry, falls in unlikely places, and comes up with speech of horrible eloquence to those who are in quest of the murderer.

How the Saviour was watched, malignly watched, always watched, watched with eyes theological, eyes political, eyes of envy, eyes of passion. No wonder. He opposed himself to the religion of his times whoever does that, dies. He opposed himself to the orthodoxy, the respectability, and the self-security of his age, and whoever does that, dies!

When they urged him, and sought to drive him to extremities, we read these wonderful words, “But Jesus held his peace.” That was probably the crowning miracle this side the cross. The great Speaker dumb, the Man of eloquence without a word upon his lips silence was then truly golden. What made him so quiet? The struggle in Gethsemane. There was nothing more to be said: the Man who had passed through such experience was bound to be quiet. This is no arrangement or trick or expedient: it comes up out of the philosophy of the case. When we return from some grave-sides we cannot speak. When we leave some altars after all-night prayer, we cannot speak for the next three days. We seem to our friends to be distrait, absent, lost, with a singular shining in the face, a new gentleness in the hand: it is not derangement, it is the fulfilment of the unwritten Scripture that sorrow conquered must be followed by eloquent silence. Have we not sat together when the favorite child has been taken out of the house to come back no more, and have spoken to one another never a word? Have we not sat down with our smitten friends seven days at a time and never said a syllable because their grief was very great?

The battle was won in Gethsemane: to have spoken after that would have been to degrade the grandeur of all that made the life of Christ sublime. Yet when he did speak, under the pressure of the High Priest, he spoke in a fitting tone. “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven.” What could you do to a man who talked so? You cannot smite that man to his hurt: he is above your touch. You smite, and he does not feel the smiting: the soul in that hour is so much greater and grander than the body, that the body is but as a dead surface to the hand that ill uses it. Live in heaven, live in the actual possession of God’s blessing, have your tabernacle and your pavilion in Eternity, and not a hair of your head shall perish. What could death be to a man who talked so? He had abolished death: they met, they caught one another in their terrific arms, and Death was left where the blood-sweat fell!

Now the hounds of hell have their turn. Who could find such reading as this “Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him, and others smote him with the palms of their hands?” six fists fell on him in a shower, and the villains said, “Who smote thee, thou Christ?” Then all spat together, and asked him to name them one by one. But they touched him not! All bad men do this selfsame thing. This is not an old villainy, it is a daily crime. We sit in church and shudder at the old Pharisees and Romans and Jews, and therein do we put the Scriptures eighteen hundred years away from us and make them a storybook, whereas we all live in this sixty-seventh verse.

Something did grieve Christ more than the enemy. Peter cut his heart in two. The enemy cannot hurt a man: if it had been an enemy that had done this, he could have borne it, but it was thou, a man mine equal, my acquaintance; we went to the house of God together, and together kept holy day. That is the sting! Peter said, “I know not what thou sayest.” Then he added, “I do not know the man.” In the third instance he began to curse and to swear, saying, “I know not the man.” That surely is an ancient anecdote? so it is yet it is not a day old: it was done this morning, we do it in some instances day by day. We are orthodox in conviction, we are heterodox in spirit and action. No enemy can hurt Christ as a friend can hurt him. The enemy does not get at his heart, the friend does. Peter is living now, he is living perhaps in the very most of us not in this rough* and violent form, but in some mood more subtle yet not less deadly in its expression. O Searcher of hearts, have I denied the Saviour have I made light of his name in order to avoid the mocking sneer of some enemy? Have I pledged his name in order to sanctify some bad transaction? Yet there was one thing about Peter that gives one hope: this was the weakness of violence, and therefore it will have suitable reaction. When he began to curse and to swear, I began to have hope of him. If he had coldly said, “I know not what thou sayest,” he might never have been recovered. The violence of some cases is their hope. Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, “I know not the man.” The lips now foaming with such madness will presently pray. We say it is never so dark as before the dawn. Have hope of your worst ones: they may come back yet. Backsliders return. Do not give up those who have left you as if they would never, never be seen at home again. You tell me their last words were so violent and so severe. That is my very hope of them. It is very dark just now: let us go to the door open it and perhaps, there in the darkness, we shall find the violent one, “weeping bitterly.”

Note

At the end of this volume In the separate Reference Library Book, will be found a special examination of the character of Judas Iscariot. The line of thought which is there pursued may be novel to some readers.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

XXVI

JESUS BETRAYED, ARRESTED, FORSAKEN; TRIED BY ANNAS, BY CAIAPHAS, AND BY THE SANHEDRIN

Harmony, pages 186-196 and Mat 26:47-75 ; Mat 26:59-75 ; Mat 27:1-2 ; Mar 14:48-15:1 ; Luk 22:47-23:1 ; Joh 18:2-28 .

In the last chapter we considered the sorrow of Christ in Gethsemane, and dipped somewhat into the account of the betrayal of our Lord. Just here we call attention particularly to the supplemental testimony of John’s Gospel that the Roman band or cohort, under its own prefect or miltary tribune, or chiliarch, was present when Jesus was arrested, and participated therein, indeed, themselves arresting, binding, and conducting Jesus to the Jewish authorities. This is a little difficult to understand, but we find no difficulty in the presence of the Temple guard, under the leadership of the Sanhedrin, and the mixed multitude irregularly armed, that came out for the purpose of arresting Jesus. Our trouble is to account for so strong a Roman force, under a high Roman officer, and the part they played in the matter, inasmuch as it was not an arrest for violating a Roman law, nor did they deliver the prisoner to Pilate, but to Annas and Caiaphas. From this supplemental story of John (Joh 18:2-14 ), certain facts are evidenced:

Judas, the betrayer of Christ, and who guided the arresting party, “received the Roman cohort,” usually about 600 men, under its own commanding officers. This could not have been without the consent of Pilate.

They evidently did not go out to make an ordinary arrest under Roman law, else would the prisoner have been delivered to Pilate. Yet the facts show that they did seize and bind Jesus and deliver him to Annas, one of the acting high priests, and thence to Caiaphas. As it was not customary for Roman legionaries in conquered states to act as a constabulary force for local municipal authorities in making an arrest touching matters not concerning the Empire, and as it is evident there were present an ample force of the Jewish Temple guard, besides an irregularly armed Jewish multitude subordinate to the Sanhedrin, then why the presence of this Roman force at all, and more particularly, why their participation in the arrest? The answer is as follows:

First, both the Sanhedrin and Pilate feared tumults at the crowded feasts when the city swarmed with fiery, turbulent Jews gathered from all the lands of the dispersion. Doubtless the Sanhedrin had represented to Pilate the presence in the city of a dangerous character, as they would charge, yet one so popular with the masses they dare not attempt to arrest him in the daytime, and even feared a mob rising in the night.

Second, their presence and intervention was necessary to protect the prisoner himself from assassination or lynch law. When they came to the garden and found Jesus there with a following of at least eleven men disposed to resist the arrest, and when they saw the whole Jewish guard fall before the outshining majesty of the face of Jesus as if stricken by lightning, and when they saw at least one swordstroke delivered in behalf of Jesus, then only, it became proper for the Roman guard to intervene. This necessity might arise from the fact that they could not trust the turbulent Jews with the management of this case. “We will arrest this man and protect him from their violence until delivered to their authorities to be tried for whatever offense with which he may be charged under their laws.” Indeed, humanly speaking, if that Roman cohort had not been present, he would have been mobbed before he reached any kind of a trial. The case of Paul (Act 21:30 ), and the intervention of Lysias, the chiliarch, illustrates the grounds of Roman intervention. It must be borne in mind that the Romans were silent, and did nothing until they saw the Temple guard unable to face the dignity of Jesus, and that a commencement, at least, of the struggle had been made by Peter to resist arrest.

As we are now coming to the climax of our Lord’s earth life, his betrayal, his trials, condemnation, execution, and resurrection, the literature becomes the richest in the world, and the bibliography most important. Particularly do we here find a unique and most powerful literature from the viewpoint of lawyers. They do not intrude into the theological realm to discuss the trial of Jesus as the sinner’s substitute before the court of God on the charge of sin, with the penalty of spiritual death, nor the trial of Jesus as the sinner’s substitute before the court of Satan on the charge of sin, with the penalty of physical death, but they discuss the legal aspects of his trial before the Jewish supreme court, the Sanhedrin, on the charge of blasphemy) with the penalty of stoning, and the trials of Jesus before the Roman courts of Pilate and Herod on the charges of treason and sedition. They answer the question: Under the Jewish law, which was not only civil and criminal, but ecclesiastical, was Jesus legally arrested, legally prosecuted, and fairly condemned, or was the whole case, as tried by the Sanhedrin, a case of malice, violating all the rights of the accused, and culminating in legal murder? In the same way these great lawyers and jurists expound the case before the Roman courts of Pilate and Herod, and from a lawyer’s viewpoint pronounce upon the Judgment of these cases under a judicial construction of the Roman law.

Under this first head of bibliography I give a list of these books by the great lawyers, every one of which ought to be in every preacher’s library. Do not waste money on inconsequential and misleading books. Do not fill your libraries with rubbish. Have fewer and greater books, and study them profoundly.

The Testimony of the Evangelists, by Dr. Simon Greenleaf. He was a law partner of Chief Justice Story, was for quite a while professor of law in Harvard University, and the author of that noted book, The Law of Evidence, which has been accepted in two continents as the highest and safest authority OD this great theme. Indeed, when we consider this splendid contribution by Dr. Greenleaf, we may almost forgive Harvard for its erratic infidel president emeritus, Dr. Charles v. Eliot, and many of its radical critic professors. This book of Greenleaf’s, over 600 pages, is divided into the following distinct parts:

The legal credibility of the history of the facts of the case, as given by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, of which there are no known existing autographs, but only copies. The question he raises is from the lawyer’s standpoint: “Before a human court, could these confessed copies be accepted as legal evidence of the history of the case?” That part of the case he demonstrates affirmatively in the first fifty-four pages.

Then he gives a harmony of these histories, pages 55-503, in order to compare the several histories on each fact given, not only of our Lord’s life and death, but of his resurrection and appearances. The point of this section is to show that the books, having been accepted as legal evidence, then these are a legal harmony of the testimony of the books.

He gives on pages 504-549 Tischendorf’s discussion of the various versions or translations of these histories, with notes of variations from the King James Version, to show that the legal harmony is not disturbed.

Having thus shown the legal credibility of the histories, and their legal harmony as witnesses, he applies the case by giving his account of the trial of Jesus before these three earthly courts, demonstrating that it was a case of legal murder, pages 550-566.

Then on pages 567-574 he gives an account of the trial of Jesus from a Jewish viewpoint. Mr. Joseph Salvador, a physician and a learned Jew, published at Paris a work entitled A History of the Institutions of Moses and of the Jewish People, in which, among other things, he gives an account of the course of criminal procedure in a chapter on the administration of justice, which he illustrates in a succeeding chapter by an account of the trial of Jesus, which he declares to be the most memorable trial in history. This last is the chapter Mr. Greenleaf publishes. Mr. Salvador ventures to say that he shall draw all of his facts from the evangelists themselves, without inquiring whether their history was developed after the event, to serve as a form of new doctrine, or an old one which had received fresh impulse. This was a daring venture on the part of Mr. Salvador. Relying upon these historians Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John for the facts, he contends that Jesus was legally arrested, legally tried, according to all the forms of Jewish law, and legally condemned.

The rest of Mr. Greenleaf’s book, pages 575-603, he gives to a reply to Salvador by the very distinguished French advocate and doctor of laws, M. Dupin, which is a most overwhelming demonstration of the fallacy of Mr. Salvador’s argument. This sixth section of Mr. Greenleaf’s Kook makes it invaluable to a biblical student.

The late Judge Gaynor, a jurist, and who later became mayor of New York City, delivered a legal exposition on the trial of Jesus Christ, purely from a lawyer’s standpoint. His conclusions are in harmony with Dr. Greenleaf and Dr. Dupin.

In two octavo volumes Walter M. Chandler, of the New York bar, has written perhaps the most critical examination of the whole subject from a lawyer’s standpoint. He devotes his first volume to the Jewish trial, and his second volume to the trials before the courts of Herod and Pilate. On all substantial points, and after a most exhaustive investigation of the legal points involved, he agrees substantially with Dr. Greenleaf, Dr. Dupin, and Judge Gaynor.

In only one point would the author think it necessary to criticize this great book by Mr. Chandler, and that does not touch the merits of the law of the case he discusses. I refer to that part of his second volume where, after bearing his most generous testimony to the many excellencies of the Jewish character and its many illustrious men and women in history, whether as prime ministers, financiers, philanthropists, or as contributors to special forms of literature, and after denouncing the persecution to which the Jewish people have been subjected by all nations, except the United States, he then seems to deny national responsibility to God and, particularly, any connection of the worldwide sufferings of the Jews with their national sin of rejecting the Messiah.

All my life shows my abhorrence of the persecutions of Jews and my admiration for their great men and women who have conferred lasting benefits on the race. The only point upon which I would raise a criticism is that he does not write as a lawyer when he seems to deny that nations, like individuals, are under responsibility to God for what is done by them, and through their acknowledged leaders. That part of his book cannot be sustained in either nature, law, or revelation. To sustain his contention on this point he must repudiate the univocal testimony of the entire Jewish Bible, whether law, prophets, or psalms, as well as the entire New Testament, Christ and the apostles, universal history, and nature as interpreted by true science.

Among the general works on the trial of Jesus (i.e., not confined to the legal phases of the case), I commend Edersheim’s Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah , a part of Farrar’s Story of a Beautiful Life, with Broadus’ Commentary on Matthew. It would cover the limits of a whole chapter to even name the books on the cross.

It was a strange episode of the young man in the linen garment: “And a certain young man followed with him, having a linen cloth cast about him, over his naked body: and they lay hold on him; but he left the linen cloth and fled naked” (Mar 14:51-52 ). Commentators have supposed that this young man was John Mark, who alone recounts the fact. They account for his presence and state thus: The upper room in which the Lord’s Supper was established was the house of his mother. When Judas gathered his arresting force he could not yet know that Jesus had left that room, and so first, he led his armed force to that house. This aroused the house, and Mark, himself a Christian, threw a linen robe about him and followed to Gethesame and so was present at the arrest of Jesus.

It is at least worthy of notice, that Melville, a great Scotch preacher, preached a sermon on the passage (Mar 14:51 f), contending that the young man in the linen robe was the antitype of the scapegoat (Lev 16 ). The sermon is a classical model in diction and homiletics, but is absolutely visionary. There is not a hint anywhere in the New Testament that his conjecture is at all tenable. I cite this fact to show you that preachers, in their anxiety to select texts that have the suggestion of novelty in them, will sometimes preach a sermon that will be sensational in its novelty, and yet altogether unscriptural in its matter, and to warn you against the selection of texts of that kind.

The next thought is the manner in which Judas identified the person of Christ, that he might be arrested. They were sure that some of the disciples would be with him, and they wanted to get the right man. So Judas gave this sign: “When we get to them I will step out and kiss the One that we want to arrest: that will be the sign to you. When you see me step out from you and kiss a certain Man in the group, that is the Man you want.” Christ submitted passively to the kissing of Judas, but said to Judas, “Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?” And that has gone down into history. Traitors betray with a kiss. It is to that incident Patrick Henry refers in his famous speech before the House of Burgesses in Virginia, when he said to them, “Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss,” that the English government would furnish bouquets in compliments, while mobilizing armies and fleets for conquest.

The incident of the sword. Some-find, it difficult to reconcile Luk 22:22 with Mat 26:51-55 ; Luk 22:51 ; Joh 18:10-11 ; Joh 18:24 . The explanation seems to be simple. In his charge (Mat 10 ), while he was alive and they were in his service, they must depend upon him for defense and support. But while he was dead they must defend and support themselves. This, of course, could apply only after his death and until his resurrection. Peter was both too soon to fight, for he was not yet dead, and too late to go back to his fishing, for Christ was then risen.

Only those preachers whose Christ is dead should use the sword or resume self-support.

When Christ was arrested, all the disciples, without any exception (and there were eleven of them), forsook him and fled, and now at midnight he is led through the silent streets of Jerusalem, hemmed in by a cohort of Roman soldiers, who are attended by officers of the Sanhedrin and their servants. They bring him, strange to say, first to the house of Annas. This man Annas is one of the most remarkable men in Jewish history. He had himself been high priest; his son-in-law, Caiaphas, is high priest at this time; six of his sons became high priests. It made no difference to him who was official priest, he, through sons and sons-in-law, was the power behind the throne. He was very wealthy, lived in a palatial home, and was a Sadducee, like Dr. Eliot, and believed in neither angel, spirit, nor resurrection of the dead. He believed also in turning everything over to the Romans. That is, he aligned himself with what is called the “Herod party,” or “Roman party.” The patriot Jews hated him. Josephus draws an awful picture of him.

Mr. Salvador, in alleging that Christ was tried according to the forms of Jewish law, forgets that the Jewish law forbade the employment of spies in their criminal trials, and yet they brought Judas. He forgets that Jewish law forbade a man’s being arrested at night that it forbade any trial of the accused person at night. He forgets that an accused person should be tried only before a regular court. And yet the first thing they did was to bring Jesus to the house of Annas for a private examination, while the guard waited outside at the door till Annas got through with him. On page 190 of the Harmony we have an account of what took place in the house of Annas. The high priest catechised Jesus. Annas is called the high priest as well as Caiaphas. He asked Jesus about his disciples and about his doctrines. Jesus said, “I have spoken openly to the world; I ever taught in synagogues, and in the Temple, where all of the Jews came together; and in secret spake I nothing. Why asketh thou me? Ask them that have heard me.” So to conduct an examination of that kind at all; to conduct it at night; to conduct it not in the presence of a full court; to allow the prisoner to be struck, were all violations of the Jewish law concerning the administration of justice.

Notice what the Jewish trial is. Dr. Broadus shows the preliminary examination before Annas; second, the trial before the Sanhedrin that night, in the house of Caiaphas; third, the meeting of the Sanhedrin the next morning. It was not proper that a man should be tried except in the place of meeting, the Sanhedrin, and in this they violated the law. It was not proper that he should be tried at night, as Jesus is tried this night in the house of Caiaphas.

Let us now see what were the developments that night at the house of Caiaphas. “Annas therefore sent him bound unto Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were gathered together” (Joh 18:24 ; Mat 26:57 ). That constituted the Sanhedrin chief priests, elders, and scribes. The chief priests were Sadducees; the scribes were Pharisees. The Sanhedrin, according to a Jewish account, consisted of seventy-two twenty-four chief priests, twenty-four elders, and twenty-four scribes. The Sanhedrin was the supreme court in matters ecclesiastical and criminal. They had some lower courts that were appointed by the Sanhedrin. Any town of just 100 or 200 population had a court of three. If it was a larger population it had a court of twenty-three, but the Sanhedrin was the high or supreme court in all matters ecclesiastical and criminal. When the Romans conquered Judea, as was usual with the Romans, they took away from the people the right of putting anybody to death by a sentence of their own courts. They refer to this, saying, “We are not allowed by the Romans to put a man to death under sentence of our law.” That is, when Pilate had said to them, “Why do you not try him before your own law?” they said, “We are not permitted to put a man to death under our law.” That night there were assembled the Sanhedrin, as the record says: “Now the Sanhedrin was seeking [imperfect tense, denoting continued action, not only sought, but were seeking] false witnesses against Jesus.” They were seeking these witnesses with a view to putting him to death. They had previously decreed his death; and now they were simply trying to find somebody that would swear enough to justify them. Not even that Sanhedrin, when they heard the multitude of these false witnesses, could find two of them agreed upon any one point. And the Mosaic law solemnly declared that there must be two witnesses to every fact. But at last there came two false witnesses, and here is what they testified: “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.’ “

That is the sum of the evidence, and all the other testimony was thrown out as incompetent. Both these men lied. He never said that, but away back in his early ministry, when he first cleansed the Temple, and when he first came into conflict with these people, he had said these words: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it again.” He was speaking of the temple of his body, but he never said that he would destroy that Temple (of Jerusalem) and in three days build another.

But they were not satisfied with that, so the high priest violated the law by asking Jesus to speak. It was a principle of the Jewish law that one should not be forced to testify against himself. A man might testify for himself) but he is protected by the judge who sits on the bench from giving evidence against himself. Jesus knew all that, so he paid no attention. So the chief priest had to get at that matter in another way He did have a right in certain cases, to put a man on oath before God, and this is what he did: “I adjure thee [which means to swear by the living God, the highest and most solemn form of the judicial oath put thee on thy oath] before the living God that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.” To that Jesus responded.

Under the solemn oath before God he swore that he was the Messiah, and that hereafter that very crowd of people would see him sitting at the right hand of the throne of God in heaven.

I preached a sermon once from this text: “I adjure thee by the living God.” A young lawyer was present. He had never heard such a thing before. In the sermon I presented the character of Christ, against whom no man could prove an accusation; the devil himself found nothing in him; all the enemies of the great doctrines of the New Testament admitted the spotless character of Jesus of Nazareth. And yet this Man swore by the living God that he was the Messiah. All of the latent infidelity in the lawyer disappeared under that sermon. To this day he will testify that there got on his mind in the discussion of that single fact that Jesus was the Son of God. Would such a man swear to a false-hood? Is it credible that he would? He knew what “Messiah” meant that it meant he was the God-anointed One, to be the Prophet, the Sacrifice, the Priest, and the King, and he swore that he was. After his oath they should have tried his claims by the law, the prophets, and the facts of his life.

When he had given that testimony under oath the high priest rent his robe. The law required that whenever they heard a blasphemy they were to rend their clothes, and unless Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God; unless God was his Father, while Mary was his mother; unless he was the God-anointed Prophet, Sacrifice, Priest, and King, then it was blasphemy. And therefore Mr. Greenleaf, who is the author of The Law of Evidence, a law book which passes current in all the law books on this continent and in Europe, in mentioning the trial of Jesus Christ, says, No lawyer of any reputation, with the facts set forth in the Gospels, would have attempted to defend Jesus Christ, except on the assumption that he was the Messiah and divine, because all through the Book that is his claim. If he was not divine, he did blaspheme. Therefore when he took that oath, that court should have investigated the character of his claim as the Messiah, but instead of that they assumed the thing that they should have investigated and called it blasphemy.

Another great violation of the law takes place: “What further need of witnesses have we? We have heard the blasphemy; what think ye?” And now they vote that he is worthy of death; they condemned him to be worthy of death. Their law declared that a vote of condemnation should never be taken the day of the trial. There had to be at least three intervening days, and here at night they pass sentence on no evidence but the oath of Jesus Christ, and that without investigating the matter involved. Then they allowed the following indignities: They spat in his face and buffeted him; they smote him with the palms of their hands after they had blindfolded him. Then one would slip up and slap him, saying, “Prophesy who hit you.”

I shall omit in my discussion here all this testimony concerning the denial of Peter, because I want to bring all of the history of Peter together. I pass that point for the present. I merely remark that the case of Judas and the case of Peter, connected with the arrest and the trial of Jesus Christ, have an immensity of pathos in the tragedy of the twelve the first one and the last one on the list.

That is the Jewish trial except this one additional fact: When it was morning, or as soon as it was day, they held their final meeting, and confirmed their night decision. They had a law that the Sanhedrin must come together for a final meeting in a case of this kind, and that if anybody had voted to acquit in the first meeting he could not change his vote, but if anybody had voted to condemn in this meeting he might ratify or he might change his vote and acquit. There were to be three days between these meetings. Having thus finished the Jewish trial, which was in violation of all the forms of the law, as soon as daylight comes they carry Jesus to Pilate.

The first trial of Jesus, then, was before the Jewish Sanhedrin; the accusation against him was blasphemy; the penalty under that law was to be put to death by stoning, but they had not the power to put to death. So now they must bring the case before the court of Pilate. And here Mr. Salvador says that the Jewish Sanhedrin’s condemnation of Jesus Christ on the charge of blasphemy was confirmed by Pilate. There never was a statement more untrue. Pilate declined to take into consideration anything that touched that Jewish law. When he tried him he tried him ab initio, that is, “from the beginning,” and he did not consider any charge that did not come under the Roman law. Therefore, we see this people, when they bring the case before Pilate, present three new charges. The other case was not touched on at all, but the new charges presented were as follows: First, “he says that he himself is King”; the second is, “he teaches that Jews should not pay tribute to Caesar”; and third, “he stirreth up the people,” which was one of the things that the Roman was always quick to put down anywhere in the wide realm of the Roman world. A man who stirred up the people should be dealt with in a speedy manner. Treason was a capital offense. So they come before Pilate and try him in this court on the threefold charge, viz.: “He says he is King; he forbids this people to pay tribute to Caesar,” interrupting the revenue coming into Rome, which was false, for he taught to the contrary; and “he stirreth up the people.” We have had, then, the history of his case, so far as his trial before the Jewish Sanhedrin is concerned. In the next chapter we will take up his first trial before the court of Pilate.

QUESTIONS 1. What two facts concerning the arrest of Christ are evident from John’s supplemental story?

2. Why the presence of the Roman legionaries and their participation in the arrest of Jesus?

3. What illustration in Acts of the intervention of the chiliarch to protect a prisoner?

4. What unique and powerful literature on the trials of Jesus is mentioned?

5. What question do they answer?

6. What three books from the viewpoint of the lawyer commended?

7. What are the six distinct parts of Greenleaf’s Testimony of the Evangelists?

8. On what one point does the author dissent from Mr. Chandler?

9. What general works on the trials of Jesus commended?

10. Who was the young man spoken of in Mar 14:51-52 , and how do the commentators account for his presence and state on this occasion?

11. What noted Scotch preacher preached a sermon on this incident, what was his interpretation of this young man and what the lesson here for the preacher?

12. How did Judas identify Christ as the one to be arrested, what saying originated from this incident and what reference to it in the early history of our country?

13. How do you reconcile Luk 22:22 with Mat 26:51-55 ; Luk 22:51 ; Joh 18:10-11 ; Joh 18:24 ?

14. Upon Christ’s arrest what prophecy of his was fulfilled?

15. After his arrest where did they lead him, why to him, and what were the characteristics of this man?

16. Of what did the Jewish trial consist?

17. Give an account of what took place at the house of Annas.

18. Where did they take Jesus when they left the house of Annas, by what body was he tried there, of what was that body composed, and what were the limitations of its power under the Roman government?

19. Describe the trial of Jesus before this court.

20. What was the testimony of Jesus under oath, what should have been their course after his oath, what charge did they bring instead, and under what circumstances would their charge have been sustained?

21. What indignities did Jesus suffer in this trial?

22. What two pathetic cases connected with the arrest and trial of Jesus?

23. What the last act of the Jewish trial?

24. After the Jewish trial where did they lead Jesus, how did Pilate try him, what the threefold charge brought by the Jews against Jesus, and what the legal name of these offenses?

25. In what great particulars did the Jews violate their own law in the arrest and trial of Jesus as defined by Mr. Salvador?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

47 And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people.

Ver. 47. Lo, Judas, one of the twelve ] Lo, for the reason next mentioned before. The truth hath no such pestilent persecutors as apostates. Corruptio optimi pessima, sweetest wine maketh sourest vinegar.

With swords and staves ] What need all this ado? But that the hornet haunted them, an ill conscience abused them, Exo 23:28 . When he put forth but one beam of his Deity, these armed men fell all to the ground: nor could they rise again till he had done indenting with them, Joh 18:6 .

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

47 56. ] BETRAYAL AND APPREHENSION OF JESUS. Mar 14:43-52 .Luk 22:47-533Jn 1:2-113Jn 1:2-113Jn 1:2-11 . Mark’s account has evidently been derived from the same source originally as Matthew’s, but both had gained some important additions before they were finally committed to writing. Luke’s is, as before, an abridged narrative, but abounding with new circumstances not related by the others. John’s account is at first sight very dissimilar from either: see text above cited, and notes there. It may suffice now to say, that all which Joh 4:1-54 ; Joh 5:1-47 ; Joh 6:1-71 ; Joh 7:1-53 ; Joh 8:1-59 ; Joh 9:1-41 , relates, must have happened on the first approach of the band and is connected with our . Some particulars also must have happened, which are omitted by all : viz. the rejoining of the eight Apostles ( not alluded to in Luk 22:46 , as Greswell supposes), and the preparing them for what was about to take place. On the other hand, John gives a hint that something had been passing in the garden, by his word , Mat 26:4 . The two first Evangelists were evidently unaware of any such matter as that related by John, for they (Mat 26:49 ; Mar 14:45 ) introduce the Kiss by an .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

47. ] Judas is specified as , probably because the appellation, as connected with this part of his history, had become the usual one thus we have in Luke . fuller still. To the reader , this specification is not without meaning, though that meaning may not have been intended.
] consisting of (1) a detachment of the Roman cohort which was quartered in the tower of Antonia during the feast in case of an uproar, called , Joh 18:3 ; Joh 18:12 . (2) The of the council, the same as the , Luk 22:52 . (3) Servants and others deputed from the high-priest to assist, see our Mat 26:51 . (4) Possibly, if the words are to be taken exactly ( Luk 22:52 ), some of the chief priests and elders themselves, forward in zeal and enmity. There is nothing improbable in this (as Meyer, Schleiermacher, &c. maintain), seeing that we have these persons mixing among the multitude and stirring them up to demand the crucifixion of Jesus afterwards.
] not clubs but staves, or any tumultuary weapons. The intention of the chief priests evidently was to produce an impression to the effect that a seditious plot was to be crushed, and resistance might be expected. John mentions also lanterns and torches to search perhaps in the dark parts of the garden, most of which would by this time be in the shade.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Mat 26:47-56 . The apprehension (Mar 14:43-52 , Luk 22:47-53 ). . , as in Mat 26:14 , repeated not for information, but as the literary reflection of the chronic horror of the apostolic church that such a thing should be possible. That it was not only possible but a fact is one of the almost undisputed certainties of the passion history. Even Brandt, who treats that history very sceptically, accepts it as fact ( Die Evangelische Geschichte , p. 18). , etc.: the description of the company to whom Judas acted as guide is vague; . . is elastic, and might mean scores, hundreds, thousands, according to the standard of comparison. does not suggest soldiery as its constituents, neither does the description of the arms borne swords and staves. Lk. (Luk 22:52 , . ) seems to have in his mind the temple police, consisting of priests and Levites with assistants, and this view appears intrinsically probable, though Brandt ( E. G. , p. 4) scouts it. The Jewish authorities would make arrangements to ensure their purpose; the temple police was at their command, and they would send a sufficiently large number to overpower the followers of their victim, however desperate their resistance.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat 26:47-50
47While He was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, came up accompanied by a large crowd with swords and clubs, who came from the chief priests and elders of the people. 48Now he who was betraying Him gave them a sign, saying, “Whomever I kiss, He is the one; seize Him.” 49Immediately Judas went to Jesus and said, “Hail, Rabbi!” and kissed Him. 50And Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you have come for.” Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him.
Mat 26:47 “Judas, one of the Twelve, came up accompanied by a large crowd with swords and clubs” There has been much discussion about the motivation of Judas. It must be said that this remains uncertain. His kiss of Jesus in Mat 26:49 either (1) was a sign to the soldiers that this was the man to arrest (cf. Mat 26:48) or (2) lends support to the modern theory that He was trying to force Jesus’ hand to act, (cf. Mat 27:4). Other Gospel passages state that he was a robber and an unbeliever from the beginning (cf. Joh 12:6).
From Luk 22:52 we know the makeup of this crowd. There were Roman soldiers involved because they were the only ones who could legally carry swords. Also, the Temple police were involved because they usually carried clubs. Representatives from the Sanhedrin were also present at the arrest (cf. Mat 26:47; Mat 26:51).
Mat 26:48 “kiss” This was a sign of respect and greetings among rabbis. In Mat 26:49 Judas calls Jesus “Rabbi” (” my teacher”).
Mat 26:50
NASB”Friend, do what you have come for”
NKJV”Friend, why have you come”
NRSV”Friend, do what you are here to do”
TEV”Be quick about it, friend”
NJB”My friend, do what you are here for”
There has been some disagreement over the meaning of this Greek idiom. It could be
1. a question (NKJV)
2. a reproach (TEV)
3. an idiom for “do what you came to do” (NASB, NRSV, JB)
The American Standard Version and the Williams translation agree that it is a statement of irony or purposeful understatement. However, King James and the Revised Standard Version see it as a question, also of veiled irony. The use of the term “friend” may have been an attempt to remind Judas of their discussions in the Upper Room (cf. Mat 26:23) or an idiom of sarcasm (cf. Mat 20:13; Mat 22:12).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

lo. Figure of speech Asterismos. App-6.
one of the twelve. So in all three Gospels. Had probably become almost an appellative by the time the Gospels were written (as “he that betrayed Him “had).
multitude = crowd.
staves = clubs. As in Mat 26:55 and Mar 14:43, Mar 14:48. Luk 22:52. Not “staves”, which is plural of rabdos = a staff for walking, as in Mat 10:10. Mar 6:8. Luk 9:3 and Heb 11:21.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

47-56.] BETRAYAL AND APPREHENSION OF JESUS. Mar 14:43-52. Luk 22:47-53. Joh 18:2-11. Marks account has evidently been derived from the same source originally as Matthews, but both had gained some important additions before they were finally committed to writing. Lukes is, as before, an abridged narrative, but abounding with new circumstances not related by the others. Johns account is at first sight very dissimilar from either: see text above cited, and notes there. It may suffice now to say, that all which Joh 4:1-54; Joh 5:1-47; Joh 6:1-71; Joh 7:1-53; Joh 8:1-59; Joh 9:1-41, relates, must have happened on the first approach of the band-and is connected with our . Some particulars also must have happened, which are omitted by all: viz. the rejoining of the eight Apostles (not alluded to in Luk 22:46, as Greswell supposes), and the preparing them for what was about to take place. On the other hand, John gives a hint that something had been passing in the garden, by his word , Mat 26:4. The two first Evangelists were evidently unaware of any such matter as that related by John, for they (Mat 26:49; Mar 14:45) introduce the Kiss by an .
Fuente: The Greek Testament

Mat 26:47. , staves) as in a sudden tumult; see Mat 26:55.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Mat 26:47-56
SECTION SEVEN
ARREST, TRIAL, CRUCIFIXION, BURIAL, AND
RESURRECTION OF JESUS; THE COMMISSION
Matthew 26:47 to 28:20
1. BETRAYAL AND ARREST
Mat 26:47-56
47-56 And while he yet spake.-Jesus had just finished his prayers in Gethsemane and had comforted his disciples; even before he had finished speaking to them, “Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude.” Other records are found in Mar 14:43-52; Luk 22:47-53; and Joh 18:3-12. The Judas who led the company is designated as “one of the twelve”; he knew the place as John informs us because Jesus was in the habit of going to it for prayer. He had left Jesus and the other disciples after the supper and had gone to the temple guard and informed them that he was ready to betray Jesus into their hands. John says that Judas had received “the band of soldiers, and officers” from the chief priests and that they came with lanterns and torches. They needed these lanterns and torches to search out the dark nooks of the garden and explore the secret places of it. The temple guard was set to preserve order in the temple during the time of the great feasts and was at the command of the chief priests. (Mat 27:65.) Other citizens accompanied them and so there was “a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people.” They were armed with such weapons as were at their command , it was a perilous adventure, if Jesus had chosen to resist. They were armed with sticks or clubs as though they were taking some violent criminal. All of the company was acting by the authority of the Sanhedrin.
Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign.-Judas led the company;his part was to lead the company to Jesus and point him out or designate him from the others who might be in the garden. He had it understood with them that he would use the kiss as the sign; and said that they should take the one that he would kiss. The kiss as a common mode of salutation implied intimacy and affection; it showed how base was the disposition of the traitor who dared, by such a style of address, to point out his familiar friend and Master to his enemies. They may have feared that Jesus would escape; they did not know what to expect. John informs us that Jesus awed the multitude with words, so that both his disciples and his enemies would know that he was yielding himself into their hands and that they were unable to do anything except by his willingness. The multitude fell back and fell to the ground in confusion; Jesus then made provisions for the safety of his disciples before yielding himself into their hands. (Joh 18:12.) When Judas approached Jesus he said, “Hail, Rabbi.” He then kissed him. There was hypocrisy in the salutation; it means rejoice, be happy. The Hebrew word “Rabbi” was a term of salutation from a disciple to his teacher. Judas put himself on this plane with cunning art; he denied by his salutation any higher confidence in Jesus than one might have in any learned scribe, and yet he appeared to show Jesus great respect. Judas showed himself here as a master of the arts of deception; he is smooth-tongued, pious-seeming, crafty, self-seeking, and able to deceive the mind of the people; he was known only by him whom he was betraying. He “kissed him”! We do not know whether to wonder at his boldness or to be shocked at the shamelessness of such hypocrisy. Either he was a man of singular confidence to dare this act, or was in a grievous strait from fear of the multitude, lest they should remember that he too had been till then a disciple of Jesus.
Jesus simply said “Friend, do that for which thou art come.” “Friend” ,means companion, or fellow; it means one who has followed or kept company with another, for the sincere Savior could hardly call him “friend” in the sense that he was in sympathy with him. The band rushed forward and took hold of Jesus and bound him. John tells us that Peter drew his sword and “smote the servant of the high priest, and struck off his ear.” There were two swords among the disciples. (Luk 22:38.) The name of this servant was Malchus; Jesus rebuked Peter for this rash act and touched the ear and healed it. This rash act of Peter was partly the cause of his second denial, as some relative of Malchus was among those who questioned him. (Joh 18:26.)
In rebuking Peter for this rash act Jesus said, “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” Jesus did not resist force by force, nor take the sword to conquer earthly kingdoms. Those who use the sword shall perish by the sword; the sword will be the source of their destruction. Individuals, communities, states, or nations that rely upon force, physical force, for maintenance and existence shall perish. The kingdom of God is not supported by physical force. Jesus would not let his disciples defend him and his cause with physical force, surely he will not permit his disciples to go to war to maintain other causes by force. He informed them that if his cause should be defended by physical force he could beseech the Father and that he would send “more than twelve legions of angels.” This was a rebuke to those who had come out to take him with physical force as well as a rebuke to Peter for attempting to defend him with a sword. It emphasized that Jesus was giving himself into their hands and not that they were simply taking him contrary to his will by force. “Twelve legions” means a great number; a legion was a division of the Roman army containing six thousand men; twelve legions would mean that there was a legion for each of his disciples and himself. This was a legion for each of his disciples and himself. This was said, not as if Jesus needed the help of angels, but to convince Peter and others that if it were the Father’s will he could summon the heavenly hosts to help him and that he did not need the help of any man bearing a sword. (2Ki 6:17; Dan 7:19; Mat 4:11.)
All that Jesus did was a fulfillment of the prophecies; it was the plan of God foretold by the prophets that the Messiah should be treated in this way, and that if Peter and others should attempt to defend him with physical weapons, they would defeat the purpose of God as foretold by the prophets. Jesus then addressed the multitude and said, “Are ye come out as against a robber with swords and staves to seize me?” This implied that they could do nothing against him unless he permitted it. It was ridiculous; why did they come out against Jesus and his little company of eleven men with such armed band?Why such a force against a harmless and defenseless group? Why should they with a multitude of armed men come out in the silence of the night against this defenseless one? Jesus had not avoided them during this week; he had “sat daily in the temple teaching” and they had not taken him. His question put them to shame and emphasized again that they could do nothing with him without his permission. Jesus pointed out that their conduct was a fulfillment of prophecies. “Then all the disciples left him, and fled.” If Matthew and the other writers of the gospel had been impostors, they would never have forged such a report as this! They would not have represented themselves as fleeing. Matthew was one of the apostles and he records that he with the others forsook Jesus and fled. We are not told where they went and what they did for the next twenty-four hours; two of them recovered courage enough to return and witness the scenes
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Betrayed and Forsaken
Mat 26:47-56
We cannot fathom the secret thoughts of the traitor. Did he hope that his act would compel Christ to take the course of self-vindication, which His mighty acts appeared to make possible? It seems unthinkable that there was not some explanation other than mere greed! Yet, when we look into our own hearts, can we be altogether surprised? How often have we betrayed the Lord by our reticence, when we should have spoken; by the kiss of the lip, when we were selfishly exploiting our association with Him to our own advantage!
Our Lord did not die a martyrs death. The martyr is led to the scaffold or stake because he is overpowered by superior force. But our Lord knew that the invisible world was full of help if only He had expressed the slightest wish. Others die because they are born; He was born that He might die. He laid down His life that He might take it again. He would not receive help from the Father, or the angels, or Peters sword, but poured out His soul unto death, because of a love that was stronger than death. See 1Pe 2:21, etc.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Chapter 81
The Betrayal
And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people. Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast. And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him. And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him. And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priests, and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me. But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.
(Mat 26:47-56)
Nothing in human history more vividly portrays the depravity, blackness, vileness and deceit of the human heart than the betrayal of our Lord Jesus Christ into the hands of his enemies by Judas Iscariot. Nothing more woefully displays the evil of the hypocrites heart than this vile deed of Judas. Nothing more fearfully exemplifies the hardness of heart that is produced by a profession of faith in Christ without the possession of the grace of God and the knowledge of Christ. If we are wise, we will read the passage before us with fear and trembling, lest we should at last found with Judas.
What a sad picture the Holy Spirit has painted with these words. Here we see the beginning of our Lords sorrows. The cup of his woe is beginning to be filled. One of his disciples betrays him. All of his disciples forsake him. He is arrested like a common thief by his enemies. Behold these things, the beginning of his sorrows, and know that there never was or ever shall be any sorrow like his sorrow. May we never forget that the cause of all his sorrows was our sin. The Son of God was delivered for our offences (Rom 4:25). In the verses before us we are given clear instructions concerning both our Redeemer and ourselves. May God the Holy Spirit take the things of Christ and show them to us.
Kiss of Treachery
Who is not familiar with the kiss of hypocrisy, called the Judas kiss? All are familiar with the event; but few, I fear, pause to consider its implications. The most abominable and dangerous men in the world are those who betray Christ with the kiss of friendship. Judas betrayed the Lord of glory with a kiss! Though treachery was in his heart, familiarity, kindness, peace, and love was what he wished to convey. In eastern countries a kiss is a common form of greeting. It suggests respect, friendship, affection, and a wish that the one kissed may enjoy every blessing.
Judas kiss was the kiss of a betrayer, a kiss of treachery and hypocrisy. When he said, Hail, master, he was saying, Joy and happiness to you, my master. Thus, the hypocrite, with brazenness and hardness of heart, pretended to worship, honor, love, and serve Christ, even in the act of betraying him! May God save us from the treacherous kisses of self-righteousness, false religion, idolatry, and hypocrisy.
This kiss of treachery is also manifest in all who pretend to serve and honor our Lord Jesus, while betraying him with false doctrine, by which they deny the saving operations of the triune God: the work of God the Father in the accomplishment of our salvation by his eternal decree (Rom 8:29-30; Eph 1:3-6), the work of God the Son in the accomplishments righteousness and redemption at Calvary (Eph 1:7-12), and the works of God the Holy Spirit imparting righteousness to us, making us partakers of the divine nature in regeneration, sanctifying chosen, redeemed sinners by his grace in the gifts of life and faith in Christ. Our Saviors warning needs to be rung out often and heard distinctly. He said, Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheeps clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves (Mat 7:15). These wolves would not be so dangerous if they did not come in sheeps clothing (2Co 11:1-15). C. H. Spurgeon wrote, This sign of Judas was typical of the way in which Jesus is generally betrayed. When men intend to undermine the Scriptures, how do they begin their books? Why, always with a declaration that they wish to promote the truth of Christ!
An Accessible Savior
The Lord Jesus Christ is such a friend of sinners that he is readily accessible to them. I recognize that we are never told that any of the other apostles kissed the Savior; but that does not mean that they did not. In fact, it would be a very strange thing if they had failed to do so. As I said, this was then, as it is now, a common form of greeting in eastern countries (Exo 18:7; 1Sa 20:41). Our Lord rebuked Simon the Pharisee because he did not greet him in this manner (Luk 7:45).
When Judas made his deal of treachery he told them to arrest the one that he kissed. His object was to betray the Master in a way that would appear the least suspicious. Therefore, he said, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he. Apparently, this was the common way in which our Lord was greeted by his disciples after a time of absence. It was a custom maintained by the disciples long afterward. Paul frequently admonishes believers to greet one another with a holy kiss. Peter urges us to greet one another with a kiss of charity.
There is a word of instruction, comfort, and encouragement in this. Our Lord Jesus Christ is gracious. He condescends to be accessible to and approached by sinners such as we are in the most intimate manner. In fact, we are commanded to kiss the Son. What a blessed commandment of grace that is! What the Son of God was to sinners in his humiliation, he is in his exaltation. He is just as ready to save, just as accessible today as he was when he walked upon the earth. Sinners may freely come to the Son of God without fear of being rejected or cast off by him (Joh 6:37; Heb 4:16).
Sinners Jesus will receive,
Sound this word of grace to all!
Spiritual Warfare
Let all who seek to serve the cause of Christ in this world learn from Mat 26:51-53 that the cause of Christ and his kingdom cannot be established, maintained, defended, or even helped by carnal means.
And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priests, and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?
In Mat 26:53 we see Peter acting very rashly. He drew out his sword and began to take on a band of soldiers single handedly. While we admire his courage, we must not fail to see his folly in this. Our Lord rebuked him for it. He did not commend him. John Trapp wisely observed: A wonderful work of God it was surely, that hereupon he was not hewn in a hundred pieces by the barbarous soldiers. Two things need to be understood here.
1.Our Lord does not condemn the lawful use of the sword, of deadly arms and force.
There are many that make this verse an argument against believers going to war in defense of the nation, or against a man arming himself to defend his family and property against criminal intruders, or against the exercise of capital punishment by the state. While I am not interested in debating any of those issues, I will state that the Word of God does, without question, allow the use of the sword, of deadly force, in such circumstances. But that is not the subject here, either pro or con.
2.Our Lord is here teaching us that his cause, his kingdom, his church, his gospel can never be established, maintained, defended, or even helped by carnal weapons.
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds (2Co 10:4). While he specifically speaks of the sword, the sword is but a symbol for all carnal things. The church and kingdom of God cannot be established by carnal means; and we must never attempt it. Christ builds his church by the power of the Holy Spirit, through the preaching of the Gospel. Every other means by which men attempt to advance the cause of Christ in this world (civil law, political power, religious entertainment, religious philosophy, human reason, the doctrines of men, eloquent speech, etc.) is but wood, hay, and stubble that will be burned (1Co 3:13-15).
A Voluntary Sacrifice
All that our Lord Jesus Christ endured as our Substitute he endured freely and voluntarily. One great feature in the redemption of our souls is the freeness with which our Redeemer performed the work. In fact, in great measure it was the voluntariness of our Saviors sacrifice that gave it merit and efficacy. Our Savior said, Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father (Joh 10:17-18).
Our Lord Jesus was not taken captive against his will, or because he could not escape. That would have been a very easy thing for him to do. But he had come here on purpose to fulfill the will of God, to fulfill the types and prophecies of the Old Testament, and to fulfill all righteousness for the salvation of his people. His heart was set upon accomplishing this great work. He was a voluntary Scapegoat, a willing Victim, and a willing Sacrifice for us.
Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me. But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled (Mat 26:53-56).
The Lord Jesus said, Thus it must be. Why? Why must it thus be? It must be, because it was ordained by God the Father, it was agreed upon in the covenant of grace, and it was prophesied in the Old Testament Scriptures. Every detail of our Lords sufferings and death, from this vile betrayal to the piercing of his holy side, was foretold in the Old Testament. It must be, because it was typified in the sacrifices and ceremonies of the law. There was no other way for God in his holy justice to forgive and pardon the sins of his people.
Depraved Sinners Still
Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled (v.56). We see in the conduct of our Lords disciples a clear picture of that which the Word of God constantly holds before us with regard to saved sinners. Though loved and chosen of God, though redeemed and justified by the blood of Christ, though born of his Spirit, sanctified, and given a new, righteous nature by him, Gods saints in this world are sinners still. None of us really knows what evils we are capable of committing.
Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled. How little we know of the weakness and sin of our own hearts! All these disciples had, just a few hours earlier, protested our Lords prophecy, and said, We will not forsake you (Mat 26:35).
There was no reason for their fear. The Lord Jesus had already demanded of these soldiers that they let his disciples go (Joh 18:8). They had witnessed his sovereign power over these soldiers. Yet, when left to their own strength, every one of the disciples forsook their Master. In the time of testing they forgot everything. They forgot Gods goodness, grace, and power, their past experiences, their fervent resolutions, and their Masters love. They forgot everything.
This is here recorded to remind us again that there is no evil we are not capable of committing or will not commit if left to ourselves, and that salvation is by grace alone. Our only righteousness is Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Our only hope of preservation is that God, who saved us by his grace, will keep us by his grace.
Let us learn from this passage lessons of humiliation and self-abasement. Let us resolve, by Gods grace, to cultivate a spirit of lowliness and self-distrust. Let us settle in our minds, that there is nothing too bad for the very best of us to do, unless he is held up by the grace of God; and let it be one of our daily prayers, Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe (Psa 119:117). (J. C. Ryle)
After these things, after suffering the wrath of men, our Savior yet had to endure the wrath of God to save us. That, too, he voluntarily endured for us as our Substitute (2Co 5:21; Gal 3:13-14).
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

The King’s Betrayal
Mat 26:47-49. And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people. Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall hiss, that same is he: hold him fast. And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him.
It is a remarkable fact that we do not read, in the New Testament, that any one of the twelve, except Judas, ever kissed Jesus. It seems as if the most impudent familiarity was very near akin to dastardly treachery. This sign of Judas was typical of the way in which Jesus is generally betrayed. When men intend to undermine the inspiration of the Scriptures, how do they begin their books? Why, always with a declaration that they wish to promote the truth of Christ! Christ’s name is often slandered by those who make a loud profession of attachment to him, and then sin foully as the chief of transgressors. There is the Judas-kiss first, and the betrayal afterwards. Thus Judas said, “Sail, master;” and kissed him much (E.V. margin); betraying him by the act that ought to have been the token of firmest friendship.
Mat 26:50. And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him.
The meek and lowly Jesus spake not as any mere man might have done under such circumstances. He did not address Judas as, “Wretch! “or, “Miscreant! “but his first word, after receiving the traitor’s kiss, was, “Friend!” He did not denounce him as the vilest of mankind, but quietly said, “Wherefore art thou come? “or, “Do that for which thou art come.” (R.V.) Eight royally did our King behave in that trying hour. Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him. He offered no resistance, although the whole multitude would have been powerless to seize him unless he had been willing to be taken. They came to take him, so ho shielded his disciples from arrest while he yielded up himself to his captors, saying, ” If therefore ye seek me, let these go their way.” Jesus was always thoughtful of others; he was so in the garden, and even when hanging on the cross.
Mat 26:51-52. And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant cf the high priest’s, and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
A good man’s hand is never more out of place than when it is on the sword-hilt; yet there is always a tendency, even among Christians, to draw the sword from its scabbard. It would have been far better if Peter’s hands had been clasped in prayer. That act of cutting off the ear of Malchus helped to identify him as one who was with Christ in the garden, and directly led to one of his denials of his Lord (Joh 18:26-27). The sword never helps to establish Christ’s kingdom; all that is ever done by it will have to be undone. Brute force will throw down what brute force has built up.
Mat 26:53-54. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures he fulfilled, that thus it must be?
How royally our King speaks! He was the true Master of the situation. He had but to pray to his Father, and “more than twelve legions of angels” would come flashing down from the court of heaven. Each timid disciple might have found himself captain of an angelic legion, while their Lord might have had as many more as he chose. There was, however, one difficulty in the way: “How then shall the scriptures he fulfilled, that thus it must be?’7 Jesus thought more of fulfilling the Scriptures than of being delivered from the hands of wicked men. Neither Jewish bands nor Roman ropes could have held him captive if ho had not been under the bond of a mightier force, even that eternal covenant into which he had entered on behalf of his people.
Mat 26:55. In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me.
Luke says that this question was put to “the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and the elders.” Yet even to them Jesus only addressed a mild expostulation, instead of the terrible denunciation that their conduct deserved. It did seem a great farce for multitudes with swords and staves to go out from Jerusalem, at midnight, to arrest “the Man of Sorrows “, who would not allow one of his followers to draw a sword in his defence. Yet even his foes knew that he possessed extraordinary power if he only chose to exert it; and their numbers, arms, and authority were so many unconscious tributes to his royal dignity and might.
Mat 26:56. But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.
Our Lord’s one great concern was that he might finish the work he had come to perform, and that so the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.
Jesus was not surprised that all the disciples forsook him, and fled; for he had foretold that they would do so. He knew them better than they knew themselves, so he prophesied that the flock would be scattered when the Shepherd should be smitten. So it was; for when the fierce wolves came and seized him, the sheep all fled.
It would have been to the eternal honour of any one of the disciples to have kept close to Christ right up to the last; but neither the loving John nor the boastful Peter stood the test of that solemn time. Human nature is such poor stuff, even at the best, that we cannot hope that any of us would have been braver or more faithful than the apostles were.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s The Gospel of the Kingdom

lo: Mat 26:55, Mar 14:43, Luk 22:47, Luk 22:48, Joh 18:1-8, Act 1:16
Reciprocal: 1Sa 26:20 – the king 2Ki 6:14 – sent he thither horses Psa 18:4 – floods Psa 55:13 – mine acquaintance Psa 119:150 – draw nigh Psa 119:157 – Many Jer 36:26 – to take Mat 2:4 – the chief Mat 10:1 – called Mat 10:4 – and Mat 16:21 – chief priests Mat 27:3 – Judas Mar 3:19 – Judas Mar 14:20 – It is Joh 18:3 – Judas
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

6:47
Jesus was concluding his speech to the disciples when Judas arrived in his immediate presence. To avoid confusion as to why he was not with the group of disciples that Jesus left at the border of the garden, the reader should see the passages, cited at verse 20. He should particularly note from Joh 13:30 that Judas left them while the passover was still taking place, hence he was never near them again until the present verse. Staves is from a Greek word that means “clubs,” and the possession of such weapons indicated an attitude of cruelty and disrespect. Even an ordinary policeman usually refrains from using his club (billy) unless there is resistance, but Jesus had never even indicated that he would “resist arrest” as a guilty lawbreaker might do. No wonder he asked them (Luk 22:52) if they thought they had to deal with him as they would a thief.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

WE see in these verses the cup of our Lord Jesus Christ’s sufferings beginning to be filled. We see Him betrayed by one of His disciples, forsaken by the rest, and taken prisoner by His deadly enemies. Never surely was there sorrow like His sorrow! Never may we forget, as we read this part of the Bible, that our sins were the cause of these sorrows! Jesus was “delivered for our offences.” (Rom 4:25.)
Let us notice, for one thing, in these verses, what gracious condescension marked our Lord’s intercourse with His disciples.
We have this point proved by a deeply touching circumstance at the moment of our Lord’s betrayal. When Judas Iscariot undertook to guide the multitude to the place where his Master was, he gave them a sign by which they might distinguish Jesus in the dim moonlight from his disciples. He said, “Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he.” And so, when he came to Jesus, he said, “Hail! master, and kissed him.” That simple fact reveals the affectionate terms on which the disciples associated with our Lord. It is an universal custom in Eastern countries, when friend meets friend, to salute one another with a kiss. (Exo 18:7; 1Sa 20:41.) It would seem therefore, that when Judas kissed our Lord, he only did that which all the apostles were accustomed to do, when they met their Master after an absence.
Let us draw comfort from this little circumstance for our own souls. Our Lord Jesus Christ is a most gracious and condescending Savior. He is not an “austere man,” repelling sinners, and keeping them at a distance. He is not a being so different from us in nature, that we must regard Him with awe rather than affection. He would have us rather regard Him as an elder Brother, and a beloved Friend. His heart in heaven is still the same that it was upon earth. He is ever meek, merciful, and condescending to men of low estate. Let us trust Him and not be afraid.
Let us notice for another thing, how our Lord condemns those who think to use carnal weapons in defense of Him and His cause. He reproves one of His disciples for striking a servant of the high priest. He bids him “put up his sword into his place.” And he adds a solemn declaration of perpetual significance, “all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword.”
The sword has a lawful office of its own. It may be used righteously in the defense of nations against oppression. It may become positively necessary to use it, to prevent confusion, plunder, and rapine upon earth. But the sword is not to be used in the propagation and maintenance of the Gospel. Christianity is not to be enforced by bloodshed, and belief in it extorted by force. Happy would it have been for the Church if this sentence had been more frequently remembered! There are few countries in Christendom, where the mistake has not been made, of attempting to change men’s religious opinions by compulsion, penalties, imprisonment, and death. And with what effect? The pages of history supply an answer. No wars have been so bloody as those which have arisen out of the collision of religious opinions. Often, mournfully often, the very men who have been most forward to promote those wars, have themselves been slain. May we never forget this! The weapons of the Christian warfare are not carnal, but spiritual. (2Co 10:4.)
Let us notice for another thing, how our Lord submitted to be made a prisoner of His own free will. He was not taken captive because he could not escape. It would have been easy for Him to scatter His enemies to the winds, if he had thought fit. “Thinkest thou,” He says to a disciple, “that I cannot pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?”
We see in those words the secret of His voluntary submission to His foes. He came on purpose to fulfill the types and promises of Old Testament Scriptures, and by fulfilling them to provide salvation for the world. He came intentionally to be the true Lamb of God, the Passover Lamb. He came to be the Scape-goat on whom the iniquities of the people were to be laid. His heart was set on accomplishing this great work. It could not be done without the “hiding of his power” for a time. To do it he became a willing sufferer. He was taken, tried, condemned, and crucified entirely of His own free will.
Let us observe this. There is much encouragement in it. The willing sufferer will surely be a willing Saviour. The almighty Son of God, who allowed men to bind Him and lead Him away captive, when He might have prevented them with a word, must surely be full of readiness to save the souls that flee to Him. Once more then let us learn to trust Him, and not be afraid.
Let us notice, in the last place, how little Christians know the weakness of their own hearts, until they are tried. We have a mournful illustration of this in the conduct of our Lord’s apostles. The verses we have read conclude with the words, “Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.” They forgot their confident assertions made a few hours before. They forgot that they had declared their willingness to die with their Master. They forgot everything but the danger that stared them in the face. The fear of death overcame them. They “forsook him, and fled.”
How many professing Christians have done the same! How many, under the influence of excited feelings, have promised that they would never be ashamed of Christ! They have come away from the communion table, or the striking sermon, or the Christian meeting, full of zeal and love, and ready to say to all who caution them against backsliding, “Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?” And yet in a few days these feelings have cooled down and passed away. A trial has come and they have fallen before it. They have forsaken Christ.
Let us learn from the passage lessons of humiliation and self-abasement. Let us resolve by God’s grace to cultivate a spirit of lowliness, and self-distrust. Let us settle it in our minds, that there is nothing so bad that the best of us may not do it, unless he watches, prays, and is held up by the grace of God. And let it be one of our daily prayers, “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.” (Psa 119:117.)
Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Mat 26:47. Judas knew the place. He had probably represented to the rulers the ease with which our Lord could now be taken, and overruled their decision to wait (Mat 26:5). This haste favors the view that avarice was his leading motive.
One of the twelve. Usually thus termed; here the phrase emphasizes the treachery.
With him a great multitude. Composed of a detachment of the Roman cohort stationed in the castle Antonia (Joh 18:3; Joh 18:12; the band); of the Jewish temple-watch (Luk 22:52; the captains of the temple ); of others, including servants and dependents of the high-priest (Mat 26:51) and, in all probability, some fanatical chief-priests and elders also (Luk 22:52), who wished to witness the religious (!) capture.
With swords and clubs; the latter in the hands of the rabble accompanying the armed soldiers. The size of the crowd may have been a recognition of our Lords power or designed to produce the impression on Pilate that some great plot was to be crushed, and on the people that Jesus was a great criminal. They had lanterns and torches (Joh 18:3), for although the moon was full, they expected to take Him in a deep valley, where these might be needed.
From the chief-priests and elders of the people, the national authorities, at whose wish the Roman authorities acted.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

CCXXIV.
JESUS BETRAYED, ARRESTED, AND FORSAKEN.
(Gethsemane. Friday, several hours before dawn.)
aMATT. XXVI. 47-56; bMARK XIV. 43-52; cLUKE XXII. 47-53; dJOHN XVIII. 2-11.
d2 Now Judas also, who betrayed him, knew the place: for Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with his disciples. [See 2Ki 6:8-12). Jesus asked, “Whom seek ye?” (1) To openly and manfully declare his identity; (2) to make the Jewish rulers fully conscious that they were arresting him, an innocent man; (3) to confine the arrest to himself and thus deliver his disciples. The older commentators regard the falling to the ground as a miracle, but modern scholars look upon it as a result of sudden fear. Jesus merely manifested his dignity and majesty, and the prostration followed as a natural result.] a48 Now he that betrayed him gave {bhad given} them a token, aa sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that is he: take him. band lead him away safely. cand he drew near unto Jesus to kiss him. 48 But Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss? b45 And when he was come, astraightway he came to Jesus, and said {bsaith,} aHail, Rabbi; and kissed him. 50 And Jesus said unto him, Friend, do that for which thou art come. [Some place this event before the preceding paragraph. It comports better with the fitness of things to place it here. Jesus made Judas feel his utter nothingness, and his worthlessness even as a betrayer. Before Judas can in any way identify Jesus, the Lord had twice declared himself to be the party whom they sought. When he approaches to carry out his contract, the Lord’s question exposes him before all as a betrayer, and not a disciple as he wished to appear to be (for kissing was the common mode of salutation between men, especially between teacher and pupils), and when Judas brazenly persists in completing the sign, Jesus bids him do it, not as a friend, but as a traitor. Little did the betrayer think that the kiss of Judas would become a proverb in every nation.] Then they came [690] and laid hands on Jesus, and took him. [The sight of Judas touching him no doubt reassured them, and they laid hands on Jesus.] c49 And when they that were about him saw what would follow, they said, Lord, shall we smite with the sword? b47 But {a51 And} behold, d10 Simon Peter ba certain one of them that stood by athat were with Jesus dtherefore having a sword astretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and smote {dstruck} athe servant of the high priest, and struck {dcut} off his right ear. [We have seen that the apostles were but scantily armed, there being only two swords in their possession. See Joh 18:16). He knew Malchus by name, and he also knew his kindred– Joh 18:26.] c51 But Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye them thus far. And he touched his ear, and healed him. [Some think that Jesus spoke these words, “Suffer ye thus far,” to those who held him, asking them to loose him sufficiently to enable him to touch the ear of Malchus. But the revision committee by inserting “them” make Jesus address his disciples, commanding them not to interfere with those who were arresting him, making it a general statement of the idea which the Lord addressed specifically to Peter in the next sentence.] a52 Then d11 Jesus therefore said {asaith} dunto Peter, aPut up again thy {dthe} sword into the sheath: aits place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. dthe cup which the Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? [By the healing of Malchus’ ear and the words spoken to Peter, Jesus shows that the sword is not to be used either to defend the truth or to advance his kingdom. Had he not thus spoken and acted, Pilate might have doubted his words when he [691] testified that his kingdom was not of this world ( Joh 18:36). While we know better than to rely upon the aid of the sword for the advance of truth, we are often tempted to put undue trust in other “carnal weapons” which are equally futile. Wealth and eloquence and elaborate church buildings have but little saving grace in them. It is the truth which wins. By using the word “cup” John gives us an echo of the agony in Gethsemane, which suggests that he expects his readers to be conversant with the other Gospels. The other Evangelists, having shown that Jesus was fully resolved to drink the cup, do not regard it as necessary to repeat these words.] a53 Or thinkest thou that I cannot beseech my Father, and he shall even now send me more than twelve legions of angels? 54 How then should the scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be? [Jesus still addresses Peter. Had it accorded with the divine purpose that Jesus should resist this arrest, angels and not men would have been his proper and infinitely more effective rescuers. But, on the contrary, it was God’s purpose that he should be arrested, as the Scripture had foretold.] 55 In that hour bJesus answered and said unto them athe multitudes, cthe chief priests, and captains of the temple, and elders, that were come against him, Are ye come out, as against a robber, with swords and staves? ato seize me? c53 When aI sat {bwas} daily with you in the temple teaching, cye stretched not forth your hands against me: band ye took me not: cbut this is your hour, and the power of darkness. a56 But all this is come to pass, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. [The party which came to arrest Jesus was large. The word “band” used by John to describe part of it is speira, which is the Greek name for the cohort, a division of the Roman army which in the time of Augustus contained 555 men. Ten cohorts, or a legion, were usually quartered in the castle Antonia, at the northwest corner of the temple enclosure. That the whole cohort was present is not likely ( Mat 27:27), but there was a large enough body to represent it. The [692] Evangelists therefore properly style it a great multitude. Moreover, it was a motley crowd. Its strength and diversity suggest the fear that Jesus might miraculously defend himself. Each part of the crowd found courage in the strength possessed by the other part, the priests relying upon the solidity of the soldiers, the soldiers superstitiously trusting to some spiritual power residing in the priests, etc. Now, because of these fears, the preparation was as great as if some band of robbers was to be taken. The questions of Jesus, therefore, show two facts: 1. By their extensive preparation the rulers bore an unintentional testimony to his divine power. 2. By their failure to arrest him openly in the temple, they bore witness to his innocence. With his divinity and his innocence, therefore, Jesus challenges them, referring to their own conduct for testimony thereto. In conclusion, he cites them to the Scriptures which they were fulfilling. Our Lord’s dual reference to the Old Testament at this sacred time should cause us to handle them with awe and reverence.] b50 And aThen all of the disciples left him, and fled. b51 And a certain young man followed with him, having a linen cloth cast about him, over his naked body: and they lay hold on him; 52 but he left the linen cloth, and fled naked. [All the predictions of Jesus had failed to prepare the apostles for the terrors of his arrest. Despite all his warnings, each apostle sought his own safety. The young man who fled naked is usually presumed to be Mark himself, and it is thought that he thus speaks impersonally after the manner of Matthew and John. The manner of his description shows that he was not an apostle. As Mark’s mother resided in Jerusalem ( Act 12:12, Act 12:25), Canon Cook advances the theory that the Lord’s Supper was eaten in the upper room of her house, and that when the disciples retired with Jesus from thence to Gethsemane, Mark slipped from his bed, threw his sindon about him, and followed after them. The sindon, or linen vestment, was very costly, not being worn even by the middle classes: no apostle would be thus attired.] [693]
[FFG 689-692]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

THE ARREST
Mat 26:47-56; Mar 14:43-52; Luk 22:47-53;Joh 18:2-12. And Judas, the one betraying Him, knew the place, because frequently, Jesus, with His disciples, had resorted thither. Then Judas, taking a band and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, comes thither with lanterns, torches, and arms. The lantern was a closed- up light of some kind, fortified against the wind, while the torches were large, blazing flambeaux. Though the moon was very bright, as she was nearly full, it was exceedingly important to have plenty of light as a fortification against the liability of mistaking the wrong person, as they surmised that an effort would be made on the part of the disciples to elude them in that way; their great confidence, however, being in Judas, who was so intimately acquainted with Him. Thus they had taken every precaution to make sure that they arrested the One whom they had been pursuing these three years, and who had baffled them so frequently by rendering Himself invisible, and in various ways eluding their grasp till His work was done.
Mar 14:43 : And immediately, He speaking, Judas, being one of the twelve, comes, and a great multitude with him, with swords and clubs, from the chief priests, scribes, and elders. A huge club, four or five feet long, is an exceedingly common weapon in that country now. I saw persons incessantly thus armed quite a formidable weapon in the hands of a stalwart man.
Joh 18:4-9. Then Jesus, knowing all things which are coming upon Him, having gone out, said to them, Whom do you seek? They responded to Him, Jesus the Nazarene. Jesus says to them, I am He? Never did the world see another such a man as Jesus. When they came to crown Him King, He fled away; but when they came to kill Him, He went out to meet them. Judas, the one betraying Him, also stood with them. Then, when He said to them, I am He, they went back, and fell upon the ground. This is His last miracle, except healing the amputated ear, which speedily followed. Though He boldly comes out from the dense shade of those great olive-trees into the clear light of the moon, shining so brightly from that cloudless, Palestinian sky, and also into the strong light of a hundred flambeaux, so that it was as bright as day, and there was no trouble about recognition, yet, lo! an awful panic strikes them, so they retreat back and fall upon the ground like dead men. How easily He could have utterly baffled and defeated them, striking them all with the paralysis of incorrigible terror! But the time has come for Him to meet the bloody avalanche from the bottomless pit, and lay down His life for a lost world.
Then again He asked them, Whom do you seek? And they said, Jesus the Nazarene. Jesus responded, I said to you that I am He. If then you seek Me, let these retire in order that the word which He spoke may be fulfilled, That I lost none of them whom Thou hast given Me. They did not consider His disciples sufficiently important to deserve their attention at that time, as they were satisfied if they could only get the One who had given them so much trouble, and whose life they had so long been seeking in vain. Really, all their energies, aspirations, and wits were laid under contribution to secure the arrest and execution of Jesus.
Mat 26:48-50. And the one having betrayed Him gave them a sign, saying, Whom I shall kiss is He; hold Him fast. And immediately coming to Jesus, he said, Hail, Master; and kissed Him copiously. Jesus said to him, Comrade, for what do you come? Then they, coming, laid hands on Jesus, and bound Him. Joh 18:12. Then the band, the chiliarch, and the officers of the Jews took Jesus and bound Him. Such was their fear, solicitude, and anxiety for success that they all united in arresting and binding Him. Joh 18:10 : Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the servant of the high-priest, and cut off his right ear. And the name to that servant was Malchus. Mat 26:52 :
Then Jesus said to Peter, Put up thy sword into its place; for all taking the sword shall perish by the sword. (Gen 9:6.) Of course, those who use the sword are all liable to perish in that way. Luk 22:51 : Jesus said, Hold on a little, and touching his ear He healed it. The moment Peter smote Malchus, Jesus ordered him to put up his sword, stepped instantly to the wounded soldier, touched his ear and healed it, thus in His last miracle manifesting His loving kindness even to His enemies, who had that moment arrested Him, and He knew they were going to take His life. You see in the assault Peter made on the enemies of Jesus a brilliant manifestation of his native heroism. He feared the face of no man, but was brave enough to fight that whole army. It is a great mistake to conclude that he was deficient in natural courage because in the subsequent events of that awful night he displayed so signal cowardice. All this was because Jesus would not let him fight, and consequently he felt he was at the mercy of His enemies, who knew no mercy.
Mat 26:53-56. Do you not think that I am able now to call on My Father, and He will send Me more than twelve legions of angels? How then can the Scriptures be fulfilled, because it behooveth it thus to be? Those angels were ready, hovering around, and eager for the opportunity to snatch Him away from the cruel manacles of the bloodthirsty rabble and bear Him on pinions of light to the home of the glorified. Right there at Jerusalem a solitary angel had slain a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrian soldiers in one night. Doubtless the same angels who ministered to Him when tempted in the wilderness were hovering round. At that hour Jesus said to the multitudes, You have come out as against a thief with swords and clubs to take Me. I sat daily with you, teaching in the temple, and you laid not hands on Me. But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets may be fulfilled. Then all of His disciples, leaving Him, fled. When the mob first came they surrounded them altogether. Now that they have secured the only One they wanted, they break ranks, leaving an opening for the others all to run away, as they did not want to be encumbered with them at that time. If Jesus had not risen from the dead, thus creating a great popular sensation and weakening the hands of His enemies, they would have arrested and executed every one of His apostles, except Judas, as accomplices in the criminality in which they had falsely implicated Jesus. Now the apostles see that He is arrested and bound, completely in the hands of His enemies; hence, yielding to desperation and affright, they flee away.
Luk 22:53. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness. His enemies had repeatedly tried to arrest Him, stone Him, and destroy Him in any way they could; but invariably suffered utter defeat till now, when He is turned over to the powers of earth and hell to execute their vilest venom against His innocent person, and He thus becomes the vicarious substitute for every guilty sinner.
Mar 14:51-52. And one certain young man follows Him, clothed with a linen cloth on his naked body. The young men arrest him; but he, leaving the linen cloth fled from them in a state of nudity. It is believed that this young man was none other than the Apostle John and it is said that he fled away to the house of Rabbi Amos in the city, and there procured the robe of a Jewish priest, invested in which he returned, and remained with the Savior in all of His troubles, walking by His side to the tribunal of Annas, thence to the judgment-hall; of Caiaphas, thence to Pilates bar and to Herods tribunal, then back to Pilate, and on His way to Calvary. Standing by His side when He hung bleeding on the cross all this time hoping that He would revive, exercise His wonderful power, and extricate Himself from the hands of His enemies, till the Roman soldier came along and plunged the spear into His side, thus tearing His heart to pieces. It is said that when this cruel deed was done, all hope of His reviving taking its flight, John, yielding to despair, fainted. Let this be as it may, we see here that John was with Him after the flight of the other ten.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Mat 26:47-56. The Arrest (Mar 14:43-50*, Luk 22:47-53).Mt. omits Judas request that Jesus should be led away safely, but inserts a word of Jesus to Judas (Mat 26:50; cf. Luk 22:48). When the servants ear is cut off. Jesus rebukes the use of force (Joh 18:11 gives a different reason). Lk. alone records a miracle of healing, Jn. gives the wounded mans name. With Mat 26:52 cf. Rev 13:10apparently the precept (like the example) was a guiding principle of the primitive Church in time of persecution. The phrase In that hour (Mat 26:55) picks up the story of Mat 26:50.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

26:47 And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, {u} from the chief priests and elders of the people.
(u) Sent from the high Priests.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

2. The arrest of Jesus 26:47-56 (cf. Mar 14:43-52; Luk 22:47-53; Joh 18:2-12)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The reader, who has been aware of Jesus’ submissiveness to lay down His life voluntarily, may view the large armed mob as unnecessary. However the religious leaders had feared the reaction of the people if they arrested Jesus. The people who accompanied Judas probably did not come along just to restrain Jesus but also His disciples and other sympathizers. They probably thought they were going to have to contend with at least 11 frightened and belligerent disciples. Evidently everyone in this mob was either Jewish, from the Sanhedrin, or Roman (Joh 18:12).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

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