Christ Protects His Own
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2022 · 6 March 2022
We have finished the prayer of our Lord, the example of His constant intercession for His own. It is by His ministry of mediation and intercession that He brings all His children to glory; and in His interceding for us at the Father’s throne, that we are secure. In John 18 is an illustration of the protection of believers, because of His personal love for them. John 18 gives the action He takes to protect us.
He is securing His own at a time that could have devastated them, while He Himself is in the midst of being betrayed and being arrested. John 18:1 – 11, “When Jesus had spoken these words, He went out with His disciples over the Brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which He and His disciples entered. 2 And Judas, who betrayed Him, also knew the place; for Jesus often met there with His disciples.”
3 Then Judas, having received a detachment of troops, and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons. 4 Jesus therefore, knowing all things that would come upon Him, went forward and said to them, “Whom are you seeking?” 5 They answered Him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am He.” And Judas, who betrayed Him, also stood with them.”
6 Now when He said to them, “I am He,” they drew back and fell to the ground. 7 Then He asked them again, “Whom are you seeking?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” 8 Jesus answered, “I have told you that I am He. Therefore, if you seek Me, let these go their way,” 9 that the saying might be fulfilled which He spoke, “Of those whom You gave Me I have lost none.”
10 Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus. 11 So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?” John says Christ knew His hour had come. What hour is this? This is the hour when He completes His work.
This is the time that begins with the cross, and then the resurrection, and then forty days of instruction, and then the ascension, and then the exaltation, and then the launching of His ministry of intercession; and all of that is going to happen in the next six weeks. We now come to the dark tragic part of His life. He has been verbally criticized, but He has never been touched physically.
Christ will die at this Passover as God’s true Passover Lamb. So we see the horror of, agony, sweating blood, anguish, loneliness, betrayal, arrest, injustice, torture, execution by being nailed to a cross. But Jesus is no victim. John 20:31 says, “These have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”
What on the surface may have looked as if it were the darkest of all times, in actuality puts the glory of Christ on majestic display. He always exhibited total control over all people and all circumstances. And that continues in His arrest, in His mistreatment, in His unjust trial, in His execution, in His burial, in His resurrection, and to His exaltation. It is Satan’s hour. But in reality, it is God’s hour.
Now, in these eleven verses, John wants us to see the glory of Christ in His betrayal and arrest. Judas, the traitor of all traitors is on display. It is in the middle of the night, everything is dark, and the darkest of it all are the hearts of the people surrounding Jesus and the disciples. But in the midst of this John shows us our Lord’s glory. We see His divine resolve and His divine power.
But it isn’t just Satan’s plot to kill Jesus, as we heard Peter say in Acts 2:23, it is God’s predetermined plan. So here, God and Satan come together on the same person for two different reasons, and God triumphs. Instead of debasing Christ, as the devil intended, He is exalted in these scenes to the highest heaven. His unbounded magnificence is shown to us in all these settings.
Verses 1 - 5, “When Jesus had spoken these words, He went out with His disciples over the Brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which He and His disciples entered. 2 And Judas, who betrayed Him, also knew the place; for Jesus often met there with His disciples. 3 Then Judas, having received a detachment of troops, and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.”
“4 Jesus therefore, knowing all things that would come upon Him, went forward and said to them, “Whom are you seeking? 5 They answered Him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am He.” This is His divine resolve. He moves to His own death in which He will absorb all the wrath of God for all the people who have ever believed in Him through all of human history.
And God will unleash that massive wrath in a period of three hours in which Christ will be forsaken by God. To undergo that event, Him being the eternally sinless Son of God, and to do it with resolve shows a divine level of courage. He knew exactly what was awaiting Him. He knew precisely what was going to happen, verse 4 says, “Jesus, knowing all things that would come upon Him.”
A symbolic reality must have faced our Lord because up in the temple ground, through that day and the next day, there was a massacre of lambs. All the Passover lambs were being slaughtered, and their blood was running down the altar like a river, and it would run into channels that would take that blood out the back side of the temple, down the temple slope, into the same Kidron brook.
Jesus would ascend up the slope of the Mount of Olives to that “garden of Gethsemane.” And “Gethsemane” means “oil press.” It is, after all, the Mount of Olives, and olives are pressed to make olive oil. Jesus and His disciples had been there many times. Jesus knew it well, and Judas knew it well. Jesus then enters the garden. It says, “He entered it,” the end of verse 1, “with His disciples.”
Why did He go to the Garden of Gethsemane? Well, it was a kind of home to Him. There’s an interesting comment made in John 7. It says at the end of our Lord’s conversation with the crowd, “Everyone went to his home.” And then John 8:1 says, “Jesus went to the Mount of Olives to pray.” He had already prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before and sweat drops of blood.
Verse 2, And Judas, who betrayed Him, also knew the place; for Jesus often met there with His disciples.” The reason Christ went there is because He knew that place was where Judas was coming, Luke 21:37 says, “During the day, He was teaching in the temple, but at evening He would go out and spend the night on the mount that is called Olivet.” Jesus knew Judas would know where He would be.
Jesus is no victim. He moved to His betrayal resolutely. He moved to His arrest. He moved to His own execution. He is not deceived and He’s not surprised. The leaders of Israel wanted to get Him sooner, but they feared the people. Matthew 26:4-5 says: “They wanted to arrest Him, but they feared that if they did it, it would start a riot, because Jesus Christ was so popular.”
So Jesus made it easy for them. Judas informed the authorities that He would be there, and that’s why Jesus went there. He took the eleven with Him, so that they might know that He was not seized as a helpless victim. But that they could see that He voluntarily gave up His life. Jesus says in John 10:17-18, “No one takes My life from Me; I lay it down of Myself.”
Verse 3, “Then Judas, having received a detachment of troops, and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.” But, as He said in Luke 22:53, to the chief priests and the officers and the elders, the ones who came after Him when they finally arrived in the garden. He said, “I was with you daily in the temple; you did not lay hands on Me.”
The Romans and the Jewish temple police have been gathered together with the elders and the chief priests, led by Judas. Matthew 26:47 says, “A great multitude with swords and spears and clubs.” Usually the Romans were stationed at Fort Antonia during feasts. Here they are in the middle of the night, all converging on Jesus. They had their full force under full command.
This is a recognition on their part of the power of Jesus. They’d seen it on display in the temple. They knew that He had raised Lazarus from the dead. They knew He was a miracle worker. They were very aware of His power. Such is the idiocy of unbelief. They send an army to take an unarmed Galilean carpenter and teacher. They were all also aware of His popularity.
Why did they bring “torches”? They made an assumption that He was going to run and they would have to catch Him. Only “Judas” is mentioned, with the exception of “Malchus.” He was there so Jesus could do one more miracle, just to make their crime worse, creating a new ear for him. Why didn’t Judas just come and say, ‘It’s Jesus, over there’?” He wanted to tell Jesus that he was back.
The sign that this is Jesus is a kiss; as Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us. He goes up and kisses Jesus which is the traditional kiss of affection. His cunning turns into hypocrisy. Inferiors kiss the hand, slaves kiss the foot, but kissing the face is a sign of love, intimacy and affection between equals. He just wanted to make Jesus think He has nothing to fear so they can grab Him.
It is an unforgettable kiss. Jesus unmasks him immediately. Jesus says to him in Luke 22:48, “Are you betraying the Son of God with a kiss?” Verse 4, “Jesus therefore, knowing all things that would come upon Him, went forward and said to them, “Whom are you seeking?” He had known it since He told them that in Genesis 3, Genesis 22, Isaiah 53, and Zechariah 10-12.
He had known it as the Son of God from all eternity. He was the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. He knew exactly every single detail that was going to happen because of His omniscience. He knew He was walking toward physical pain, and into the furnace of the wrath of God, His Father. This is the divine resolve. And all the glory is given to Christ.
Verses 5, “They answered Him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am He.” And Judas, who betrayed Him, also stood with them.” Judas is under the full control of Satan. Jesus doesn’t wait for anybody to say anything. And then He faces them and says, “Whom do you seek?” verse 6, “Now when He said to them, “I am He,” they drew back and fell to the ground.”
All the many men collapsed in a heap on the ground, these strong soldiers; these angry, hostile temple police, the religious leaders and chief priests, they all went down like dominos. This is divine power. All authorities and powers are literally falling backwards at the power of His name, one single, unarmed figure. And they were armed to the teeth and ready for war.
There is power in His words. He created by words; and He can destroy by a word. He is no victim. He has complete control over them; one word is enough. He is the one of whom Isaiah says that “He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth” (Isaiah 11:4). He is the One of whom Paul says, “He will slay the lawless with the breath of His mouth.” He spoke and everything came into existence.
Divine resolve and divine power. Thirdly, divine love. And here’s where we see the illustration of His prayer in John 17. Verse 7, “Therefore He again says to them, ‘Whom do you seek?’ and they said, ‘Jesus the Nazarene.’” As they’re picking themselves up off the ground, He asks them the same question twice so they confirmed their order. You all have no official warrant to arrest My disciples.
Verse 8 – 9, Jesus answered, “I have told you that I am He. Therefore, if you seek Me, let these go their way,” 9 that the saying might be fulfilled which He spoke, “Of those whom You gave Me I have lost none.” He does not allow the disciples to be arrested, so that He will fulfill Scripture that they will not be lost. They scattered. Faith can fail, unless the Lord doesn’t let it fail.
What this does teach us is no matter how weak, how vacillating, how fast we run and scatter, we’ll never be put through something that would be destructive to our faith. Because Jesus will pray you into heaven, and He’ll protect you. “Simon Peter then,” verse 10, “has a sword.” So he takes a whack at the head of Malchus, who’s just a slave for the high priest. He ducks and only loses an ear.
We’ve seen His divine resolve and His divine power and His divine love. His divine righteousness comes through in verse 11. Jesus said to Peter, “Put the sword into the sheath.” He said in Matthew 26:52, “All who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Our Lord upheld capital punishment, “Peter, you take a man’s life, and they’ll take your life, rightly so.”
So Jesus says at the end of verse 11, “The cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?” This is no victim. This is the all-glorious Son of God, willingly, voluntarily - in an act of supreme obedience to which He agrees joyfully to give Himself up in our place. “The Father has given Me the cup to drink for the sake of all the people He has given Me to love everlastingly.” Let us pray.