Luke 22: 39 – 53
Men Arrest God
39 Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives, as He was accustomed, and His disciples also followed Him. 40 When He came to the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” 41 And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” 43 Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. 44 And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. 45 When He rose up from prayer, and had come to His disciples, He found them sleeping from sorrow. 46 Then He said to them, “Why do you sleep? Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation.” 47 And while He was still speaking, behold, a multitude; and he who was called Judas, one of the twelve, went before them and drew near to Jesus to kiss Him. 48 But Jesus said to him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” 49 When those around Him saw what was going to happen, they said to Him, “Lord, shall we strike with the sword?” 50 And one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear. 51 But Jesus answered and said, “Permit even this.” And He touched his ear and healed him. 52 Then Jesus said to the chief priests, captains of the temple, and the elders who had come to Him, “Have you come out, as against a robber, with swords and clubs? 53 When I was with you daily in the temple, you did not try to seize Me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.” 54 Having arrested Him, they led Him and brought Him into the high priest’s house. But Peter followed at a distance. 55 Now when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them. 56 And a certain servant girl, seeing him as he sat by the fire, looked intently at him and said, “This man was also with Him.” 57 But he denied Him, saying, “Woman, I do not know Him.” 58 And after a little while another saw him and said, “You also are of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not!” 59 Then after about an hour had passed, another confidently affirmed, saying, “Surely this fellow also was with Him, for he is a Galilean.” 60 But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are saying!” Immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. 61 And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had said to him, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” 62 So Peter went out and wept bitterly. 63 Now the men who held Jesus mocked Him and beat Him. 64 And having blindfolded Him, they struck Him on the face and asked Him, saying, “Prophesy! Who is the one who struck You?” 65 And many other things they blasphemously spoke against Him. 66 As soon as it was day, the elders of the people, both chief priests and scribes, came together and led Him into their council, saying, 67 “If You are the Christ, tell us.” But He said to them, “If I tell you, you will by no means believe. 68 And if I also ask you, you will by no means answer Me or let Me go. 69 Hereafter the Son of Man will sit on the right hand of the power of God.” 70 Then they all said, “Are You then the Son of God?” So He said to them, “You rightly say that I am.” 71 And they said, “What further testimony do we need? For we have heard it ourselves from His own mouth.”
We now come upon the most important part of Scripture. Here our God, Adoni Yeshua, our Lord Jesus Christ, has come to the place in time that He had volunteered to take. He came to earth in order to die in our place. He Is our Redeemer. Therefore, in holy reverence let us walk His Loving path.
39 Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives, as He was accustomed, and His disciples also followed Him. 40 When He came to the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
Our Lord Jesus now went forward with His disciples to ‘the place’ on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. Luke does not mention the Garden of Gethsemane. Perhaps he intended his readers to gather the implication that it was the place of the olive press where olives were crushed, as our Lord Jesus would now be crushed. And there, he tells us, on the Mount of Olives, our Lord Jesus pleaded to be spared from a different cup than that which He had given to His disciples in the Upper Room. This time it was the cup of suffering containing the full mixture of the wrath of God against sin. For it is made absolutely clear that His only desire was to do His Father’s will. If His Father required it He would go forward alone to meet His destiny, even though the whole of His Righteous Being did draw back in horror at the very thought of what lay before Him.
Luke has learned from his sources that it was our Lord Jesus’ custom regularly to go to the Mount of Olives. This was why Judas was confident that he knew where He would be. And yet our Precious King Jesus, knowing this, and knowing Judas’ intention, went there without a moment’s hesitation. He was no longer trying to prevent Judas knowing of His whereabouts. He knew that it was His hour.
Please note our Lord’s specific warning, “Pray that you enter not into temptation.” Once they were at ‘the place’ our Lord Jesus once more warned the disciples against the inevitable temptation and testing that was coming, and exhorted them to pray so that they would not find themselves enmeshed in it. His words should have been a danger signal to them, for He had never addressed them in quite this way previously. His unusual warning should therefore have brought home to them that they must pray as they had never prayed before.
For He was aware, as they should have been had they heeded His earlier warnings, that He and they were now involved on a spiritual battlefield such as they had never previously experienced. He knew that His trials and temptations, in which they had shared, were not only continuing but expanding. This was why He was exhorting them to pray. And His very exhortation, for He had never spoken in quite this way before, should have warned them that the matter was serious.
41 And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed,
He moved a short distance from them and Himself kneeled in prayer. As it was customary for Jewish men to pray standing, this attitude of prayer indicated the weight of the burden on our Master and King Jesus’ heart.
42 saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”
Our Lord Jesus then addressed His ‘Father’ and ours as well. We too are permitted to approach Him as ‘Our Father in Heaven.
Please take special note of one of the heaviest pressure ever experienced, ‘Remove this cup from me.’ Here our Righteous Lord Jesus had in mind the cup of the Lord’s ‘anger’, the cup of the righteous wrath of God against sin, the cup of which He had to drink to the full. Others had drunk of such a cup before, but in the past such a cup had always been taken out of the hand of His people by God, once He felt that they had drunk enough. And our Lord Jesus clearly hoped that this might also be possible for Him. But while the awfulness of what lay before Him made Him shrink from it, He immediately made His request conditional on the Father’s will. For while He shrank from what was in the cup, He would not shrink from the will of God, even if that involved, as it did, the drinking of that cup to the full.
This prayer reminds us again that our Lord Jesus had come as One who was truly human, for His words make clear the battle raging within Him. As One Who was holy, and uniquely separated to, and aware of, His Father, and to Whom sin was abhorrent, and to Whom death was a contradiction to all that He was as the Lord of life, He saw before Him the cup of suffering, and forsakenness, and death and His whole being cried out against it. For it not only contained within it for Him an intensity of suffering such as no other man could ever have known, but also the personal experience of the wrath of God against sin. This last especially must have torn at the very depths of His righteous and obedient heart.
Look at the Greatness of our Holy Redeemer, ‘Nevertheless not my will, but yours be done.’ Even all this agony our Lord Jesus was concerned more than all else in the will of the Father being done. Our Lord Jesus was perfectly exemplifying the prayer that He had taught to His disciples. Whatever it involved it was God’s will that was to be the final arbiter. And it was through this obedience that He would prove Himself to be a sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world. He went, not under the compulsion of another, but as a willing and voluntary sacrifice.
Have you ever thought about the situation in Genesis when Abraham was going to offer up his son Isaac, when he said, “God will Himself provide the lamb for a burnt offering”. Why was it a ram and not a lamb caught in the bush? Because in the future there was only one Lamb that was a perfect lamb and worthy enough Who could be the perfect sacrifice. Abraham prophesied about the Sacrifice of The Lamb of God Who took away our sins. Thank You Lord Jesus.
43 Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. 44 And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
The greatness of our Lord Jesus’ struggle against the horror that faced Him comes out in these words. On the one hand was the need of an angel to strengthen Him bodily in His humanness. On the other was the physical effect caused by His struggle, His ‘agony’ caused by His awareness of what He was facing, an agony in which He was aware of far more suffering than the cross could ever bring. His prayers became more earnest until He, as it were, sweated blood.
45 When He rose up from prayer, and had come to His disciples, He found them sleeping from sorrow.
On returning to His disciples after His bitter struggle He discovered that they had failed to maintain their watch. Once again He suffered the bitterness of seeing and experiencing the failure of His friends. No wonder that He had some doubts as to whether they were yet ready for the task that lay ahead.
I think many times we read things and do not firmly grasp what is said. For example look again at the statement, ‘Sleeping for sorrow.’ Do you know what this means or doesn’t it not mean much to you?
It possibly means that they were overcome by having watched His agony and were unable to bear it any longer. Perhaps this was something which was beyond their ability to comprehend. Perhaps they were deeply affected by the intense fatigue because our Holy Precious Lord had to undergo this terrible path Alone. I love You Lord Jesus. Thank You for You. You Are Everything Good.
46 Then He said to them, “Why do you sleep? Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation.”
How conscious our Lord Jesus was of the problems of the hour, and how unconscious the disciples were of the same, otherwise they would have remained awake as He did. These very words bring out that their failure has been deeper than at first appears here. For this last injunction would otherwise have had little point now that their time to pray seemed to have passed. So our Lord Jesus now stirred them again to rise and pray in order to fortify them against temptation. He knew how much they were going to need it. For only through prayer would they come through what lay ahead.
Here is one thing folks we all need to take to heart. We too must not sleep, but must rise and pray, for testing lies ahead for us all.
Having finally satisfied Himself that the way ahead was in accordance with His Father’s Will our Lord Jesus now awaited His fate. The battle having been fought and won in His mind and heart from this time on He goes forward without a moment’s hesitation. And in all His suffering we are made aware that He was in control. This passage deals very briefly with what happened in the Garden on the Mount of Olives. He was not taken by surprise to see Judas leading a party of Temple police towards Him, accompanied to the rear by a Roman cohort, who had presumably been warned of how dangerous this man was, with His band of bloodthirsty insurrectionists, whom they were coming to seize.
47 And while He was still speaking, behold, a multitude; and he who was called Judas, one of the twelve, went before them and drew near to Jesus to kiss Him.
The disciples must have watched, unbelievingly. They could understand the arrival of Judas, but why with this great crowd of people? And then the kiss and what followed betrayed all. It especially emphasized Judas’ hardness of heart. How many men could have carried such a thing through, or even have considered arranging it?
In reading these Scripture passages you have to remember that Luke wrote his Gospel over thirty years after all this happened. This is why the statement, ‘He who was called Judas,’ is so written. The reference brings out that at the time of writing Judas was a name that was forever on the hated list. Like Benedict Arnold he forever goes down on the list of traitors, which him being the chief of all traitors for he betrayed the Son of God. No one would ever take for their son the name of Judas.
Also, please note how Luke emphasized, ‘One of the twelve.’ The phrase has a foreboding sound. This man had been one of the chosen few. He hung out personally with our Lord for over three years. He was The Lord Jesus’ own familiar friend who lifted up his heel against Him.
48 But Jesus said to him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”
Now stop and think about this scene. There were no street lights. Everything was dark. Our Lord was not standing out uniquely as compared to others. So, Judas had to come up with a plan to identify the Lord to all who came with him. The way he had chosen brought out just how hardened he had become. Indeed we cannot even feel pity for a man like this, for it indicates that he must have been callous through and through. For he betrayed The Son of Go, our Lord Jesus Christ with a kiss of friendship, a kiss which may well have been given deliberately in order to disarm our Lord Jesus’ companions, and which he had given from other motives in better days. To believe Judas guilty of betrayal would have been almost unbelievable. But to think that he would do it with a kiss of seeming friendship would have been seen as absolutely impossible.
Our Lord Jesus knew better what was happening, and He responded by looking Judas firmly in the eye and asking him whether he really felt that such infamy could be justified. Surely even he must recognize that any other way would have been better than this? Did he not think that it portrayed a callousness which was extreme, even for him? The mention of Judas’ name as though he were a friend stresses that our Lord Jesus was both hurt and at the same time seeking to somehow reach his heart, even though it was now a little too late. It was both a reproach and a plea.
49 When those around Him saw what was going to happen, they said to Him, “Lord, shall we strike with the sword?”
After a few moments some who were with our Lord Jesus caught on to what was about to happen, and turning to their Master and Ruler Jesus they asked whether they should act to defend Him, so that He could slip away while they engaged His opponents. Were they to use what swords they had? The question was really rhetorical. It expressed their intention rather than a suggestion, for speed was of the essence.
In the darkness it is quite possible that they did not realize immediately that this was an official arresting party, headed by the Temple police and supported by a Roman cohort, and thought that it was a band of thugs and would be assassins.
50 And one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear.
So one more impulsive than the rest did show the way, and immediately drawing his sword, and lashing out in the amateurish fashion of a man not used to swords, cut the right ear off the servant of the High Priest. We learn later from John’s Gospel that it was impetuous Peter who did it.
Peter drew his sword ready to defend his Master with his life. It was a foolhardy act, for even though he was probably not yet aware of the composition of the approaching crowd, they only had two swords between them. And what were they against so many? But Peter, ever precipitate, did not consider the consequences, and striking out wildly, took off the ear of a servant of the High Priest, who no doubt saw the blow coming and dodged, but not quickly enough. Peter was no doubt still feeling rankled about The Lord Jesus’ warning that he would deny Him.
51 But Jesus answered and said, “Permit even this.” And He touched his ear and healed him.
The Lord Jesus immediately told him to put his sword away, and restored to the man his ear. He did not want the disciples arrested as well. Nor did He want His own case to be marred by accusations of violence, and ‘resisting arrest’.
52 Then Jesus said to the chief priests, captains of the temple, and the elders who had come to Him, “Have you come out, as against a robber, with swords and clubs? 53 When I was with you daily in the temple, you did not try to seize Me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.”
He rebuked His opponents for their hypocrisy, and for this great show which He knew was only in order to impress the Romans and convince them that He really was a political danger. For all knew what He was. They had seen Him daily preaching in the Temple.
Some have expressed surprise at the presence of the chief priests, but it is probable that the chief priests had had to accompany the party in order to ensure the support of the Roman cohort. To justify the use of the latter the situation had to be revealed as very important. Roman cohorts did not just turn out for anyone. They would not have wanted to accompany what was simply an attachment of Temple police carrying out a simple arrest, and would have left them to do their own dirty work. But the chief priests and the lay aristocrats, knowing what they had in mind for our Lord Jesus, had constrained Pilate by their very presence that the matter was very important. It would have required such an impressive party to make him act. If the chief priests involved themselves it must have been important.
Our Wonderful Master Jesus then turned to them and asked them why, if they had wanted so badly to arrest Him, they had they not done it openly while He was preaching in the Temple? They were responsible for the Temple, were they not? And yet they had made no attempt to stretch forth their hands against Him there. It made it quite clear then that they were behaving deceitfully, and that they were afraid of what people would have said if they knew of it. Indeed the very hour that they had chosen revealed their villainous intent, and demonstrated that they were in league with ‘the power of darkness’. But it was not surprising. It was ‘their hour’ because that is the kind of people they were, dishonest and unscrupulous. No other types of people would have operated at such an hour. By it they were revealing the truth about themselves. He was thus pointing out that they were behaving like men of darkness, slaves of darkness, men who operated away from the light because their deeds were evil, men who avoided the light of God. They were doing the work of the Evil One under whose rule they were proving themselves to be.
We will end here for today. For in our next study we will find out that it is not good to be at the wrong places at the wrong times.
