<p>26:58&nbsp;<i>But Peter followed Him afar off</i>- This is recorded in the same words by all three Synoptics. It impressed them all as perhaps typical of so much of their &lsquo;following&rsquo; the Lord; it was a following, but far off from Him. His challenge to Peter had been to not just physically follow Him, but to pick up His cross and walk behind Him on His way to His cross (16:24 s.w.). Following Jesus in the shadows and avoiding identification with Him was hardly the kind of following which He intended. Yet Peter recognized this, because his appeal for repentance describes his audience as likewise &ldquo;afar off&rdquo; (Acts 2:39 s.w.); he is asking them to make the conversion which he did, and he thereby considers his &lsquo;following afar off&rsquo; as not really following at all, and being in a &lsquo;far off from Christ&rsquo; position from which he repented and thereby &lsquo;came near&rsquo; to Christ in conversion. The Greek words for &lsquo;followed&rsquo; and &lsquo;afar off&rsquo; are also used about how the few remaining disciples stood &lsquo;afar off&rsquo; from Christ on the cross. The sense is perhaps that the Gospel writers recognized how far they were from co-crucifixion with Christ, and this sense is one we can identify with. And we are those likewise described in Ephesians as &ldquo;far off&rdquo; as Peter was, but are now likewise reconciled.</p><p><i>To the court of the high priest; and entered in</i>- The same word used by the Lord in warning Peter not to &quot;enter into&quot; temptation (Lk. 22:46). And it is used again of how Satan entered into Judas (Jn. 13:27), again drawing a parallel between the path of both Peter and Judas- the difference finally being simply that Peter believed in the Lord's grace whereas Judas could not.</p><p><i>And sat with the officers</i>- The presence of the definite article suggests that &quot;the servants&quot; the Greek also means &quot;officers&quot; are a group which has already been mentioned, and surely they are the &quot;servants&quot; who comprised the crowd of armed men who arrested Jesus in the Garden. The same word is used three times about them in Jn. 18:3,12,18. The risk Peter was taking was considerable, seeing he had visibly been with the Lord in the Garden and had tried to kill one of the servants. We must give due weight to this- his devotion to his Lord was incomplete but all the same must be recognized for what it was as far as it was. So often those who aim higher than others in their spiritual devotions are those who fall the most publicly, and yet their devotion to their Lord should not be forgotten- for it is higher than the mass of other disciples.</p><p><i>To see the end</i>- Critically, we could say that the Lord had called His men to participate in His &quot;end&quot;, to die with Him, to carry His cross, and Peter (like us) wished merely to observe His end, rather than participate in it personally. I have thought the same about myself often in self-examination at the breaking of bread. And yet Peter's love for the Lord cannot be questioned, for it was not mere curiosity that led him to take the risk he did of sitting amongst &quot;the servants&quot;. The only other time the Greek phrase occurs is in James 5:11, where James says we have all seen the end of the Lord the Lord Jesus?, that He is very pitiful and of tender mercy. Writing as James was in the context of an early church led by Peter, it is not impossible that he is hinting that we are all in the place of Peter, and have an experience of pity and tender mercy none less than he experienced.</p>