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<p><em><a href='B:470 25:37'>Mat 25:37</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Then the righteous shall answer him, saying: Lord-</em>&nbsp;The parable implies the day of judgment will be such a surprise. Both righteous and wicked will find that they are criticized and commended for things which surprise them. There are several indications that because of this, the rejected will begin to argue back with Christ (e:g. <em><a href='B:470 7:22'>Mat 7:22</a></em>), until eventually they realize their errors, stop speaking (<em><a href='B:470 22:12'>Mat 22:12</a></em>) and gnash their teeth in anger against themselves (<em><a href='B:470 22:13'>Mat 22:13</a></em>). This should truly be a sobering thought to us all. We must strive, really, to examine ourselves, to know ourselves, to try to see our motives and actions a little more from God's perspective; because it is His perspective, not ours, which is ultimately important; and it is this lesson which the day of judgment will ultimately teach each of us.</p><p><em>When did we see you hungry and fed you? Or thirsty and gave you drink?-</em>&nbsp;“See”,&nbsp;<em>eido</em>, means effectively ‘to know’. The Lord has just used the same word in warning that He will have to tell the foolish virgins “I know you not” (:12). Here He explains that this is in fact because they knew&nbsp;<em>Him</em>&nbsp;not, in that they didn’t recognize His brethren. To not recognize His brethren means that He will not recognize us. It becomes crucial, therefore, to recognize the Lord’s brethren- and upholding a statement of faith as a basis of brotherhood seems to be a sure way&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;to do that. Such a system may work well in secular life, but in spiritual terms, we end up creating fellowship boundaries which effectively treat others as not the Lord’s brethren because we do not recognize them as&nbsp;<em>our</em>&nbsp;brethren, seeing they fail to meet some curious criteria of theology or practice.</p><p>One major characteristic of the judgment will be&nbsp;<em>surprise</em>- for both rejected and accepted (<em><a href='B:470 25:37'>Mat 25:37</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 25:44'>Mat 25:44</a></em>). Firstly, incomprehension (<em><a href='B:470 25:37'>Mat 25:37</a></em>) and surprised anger, then realisation of the Lord's verdict. Both sheep and goats register their surprise at their Lord's comments on various specific actions of theirs which he discusses with them- "When saw we thee:::?" (<em><a href='B:470 25:44'>Mat 25:44</a></em>). The judgment will be a surprise for all. The thought that at least some of our deeds will be discussed with us at the judgment should surely make some impact on our present behaviour. <em><a href='B:490 19:23'>Luk 19:23</a></em> implies not only that there will be a discussion with our judge, but that Jesus will point out to the rejected what they should have done to be accepted: "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee::. wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank?". The rejected are to be cut in two, shown as the two faced hypocrites which they were. But the idea of cutting in two was immediately associated in the Jewish mind with making a covenant. When Abraham placed the sacrifices in two parts and the Lord passed between them, the idea was really that God would cut in two the man who broke the covenant. Hence the Jews spoke of 'cutting a covenant'. Those who have made the covenant with God but not kept it will be cut in two, as they initially agreed. God will keep His side of the covenant.</p><p>We need to observe that the goats are rejected not so much for their lack of actions, but for failing to discern Christ in the least of His brethren. Then, the rejected will finally see their good works in context. They will realize how little works really meant. The faithful already knew that- for they objected when the Lord told them all the good things they had done. The list of works in <em><a href='B:470 25:35-36'>Mat 25:35-36</a></em> include the following: giving food to the hungry, clothes to the naked, a bed to the homeless, help to the sick. Yet these are the very things which Job claims he had done, when he clears himself from all his accusers (<em><a href='B:220 31:17-20'>Job 31:17-20</a></em>). But the voice in the whirlwind soon reduced him to realize "I am vile"; all his good works became as filthy rags before the supremacy of salvation by grace alone. The connection with the parable isn't merely incidental. Surely the Lord is saying that the self-righteous in the ecclesia may seem as righteous as Job was before his conversion; but they must either in this life realize the totality of grace, or the whirlwind of judgment condemnation will reduce them to the same realization. Job seems to oscillate between believing and not believing in the resurrection (consider <em><a href='B:220 14:7-15'>Job 14:7-15</a></em>). At the end, Job confesses he has not spoken the right things; and Yahweh then says that he has only spoken that which was right. The friends likewise said some true things and some false things; and yet because they did not repent, their bad words were remembered against them. The final revealing of Yahweh in Job was some kind of judgment day for all concerned. Job, the righteous, had only his good deeds and words remembered; whereas the wicked friends had only their bad words remembered. It seems it will take a while for the penny to drop for the rejected- that they're "out", and actually never were "in". This Jesus, in whose presence they had broken bread (although note the difference between this and Jesus breaking bread with us, <em><a href='B:490 13:26'>Luk 13:26</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:470 26:29'>Mat 26:29</a></em>), actually doesn't know them. The Lord has to repeat the very same words twice to the rejected: "I know not whence you are" (<em><a href='B:490 13:25'>Luk 13:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 13:27'>Luk 13:27</a></em>)- as if they are dumbfounded and slow to comprehend the eternal implications of His words.</p><p>The righteous gave to the poor, the sick, the hungry- without even realizing they had done it. They will confidently deny it when Jesus points it all out to them. They served with no expectation of reward; so much so that they even forgot what they did. And&nbsp;<em>every</em>&nbsp;one who is accepted at the judgment, all the sheep, will have been like that. Giving without any thought of getting anything back is a&nbsp;<em>must</em>&nbsp;for all of us who seek to truly manifest God: for this is exactly what He does and has done, minute by minute, down through the millennia of indifferent, unresponsive human history (<em><a href='B:490 6:35-36'>Luk 6:35-36</a></em>). The accepted will feel so certain of all this that they will almost argue with the Lord Jesus at the day of judgment that he hasn't made the right decision concerning them (<em><a href='B:470 25:37-40'>Mat 25:37-40</a></em>). It's only a highly convicted man who would dare do that. Thus the Father will have to comfort the faithful in the aftermath of the judgment, wiping away the tears which will&nbsp;<em>then</em>&nbsp;(see context) be in our eyes, and give us special help to realize that our sinful past has now finally been overcome (<em><a href='B:730 21:4'>Rev 21:4</a></em>). We will be like the labourers in the parable who walk away from judgment clutching their penny, thinking “I really shouldn't have this. I didn't work for a day, and this is a day's pay". Therefore if we honestly, genuinely feel that we won't be in the Kingdom, well, this is how in some ways the faithful will all feel.</p><p>There is surely an intended contrast between the accepted denying the righteous acts that the Lord reminds them of, and their telling Him how much they have gained (spiritually) by trading (<em><a href='B:470 25:37-39'>Mat 25:37-39</a></em> cp. 20,22). These quite different attributes of the accepted are recorded within the same speech of the Lord. He frames those parables as if He is getting over global lessons rather than describing the response of different people:&nbsp; Perhaps the point is that first of all, the accepted feel as if they have done no righteous acts, and feel their unworthiness so strongly that they even dare to genuinely disagree with the Lord's praise of them. But then they come to accept themselves as He sees them, and later on in the judgment dialogue, He teases out of them a realistic self-assessment of their spiritual growth. There is a similar intended contrast in the attitude of the rejected; they begin by denying the Lord's criticism of their spiritual barrenness, and later in the conversation claim that well, He is being unreasonable, looking for fruit which He can't reasonably expect. Their tone changes from a loving 'Lord, Lord:::' to a more bitter, critical spirit (<em><a href='B:470 25:4'>Mat 25:4</a></em> cp. 25).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 25:38'>Mat 25:38</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And when did we see you as a stranger and welcome you? Or naked and clothed you?</em>- They were commendably unaware that they had done these things. Or perhaps the focus is upon the word "You". Their genuine surprise is because they had never realized the degree to which their actions to their brethren were done directly to their Lord.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 25:39'>Mat 25:39</a></em><em>&nbsp;And when did we see you sick, or in prison and came to you?-&nbsp;</em>The parable of the sheep and goats clearly suggests that after the judgment, the worthy and unworthy will be in two distinct groups to the right and left hand side of the Lord. The group of "sheep" then enter the Kingdom all together, at the same moment. This explains how the Lord will address the faithful and unfaithful as groups (note "ye" in <em><a href='B:470 25:37'>Mat 25:37</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 25:39'>Mat 25:39</a></em>); how the men of Nineveh stand together in a group, as the men of Sodom and Gomorrah will (<em><a href='B:470 12:41'>Mat 12:41</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 6:11'>Mar 6:11</a></em>). In some way, there will be a collective sense at the day of judgment, as well as an individual one. If there will be a collective sense then, before the presence of His glory::. there ought to be now.</p><p>At judgment day, the Lord will commend the righteous for feeding Him etc:- and they will reply in genuine surprise, feeling that they truly have&nbsp;<em>not&nbsp;</em>done any of those things for which He commends them. The point is, their way of life was an unconscious doing of good; it is the mindset which legalistically remembers every act of righteousness which will be finally rejected:&nbsp;</p>


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<h4><em><a href='B:470 25:40'>Mat 25:40</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And the King</em>- The day of judgment was an important theme with the Lord. There is an element of unreality in the way he speaks of the King as being the judge (<em><a href='B:470 25:40'>Mat 25:40</a></em>); the implication is that our judgment will be an extremely important event; the King himself is the judge (actually, the King of heaven and earth). This indicates that the Lord wishes to put before us the picture of those who have been called to the Kingdom but reject His offer.</h4><p><em>Shall answer and say to them</em>- They answer to Him (:37), and He likewise to them.</p><p><em>Truly I say to you, inasmuch</em>- The Greek suggests an exact correspondence. Whatever is done to the Lord’s brethren is done to Him. This is the point of the Lord’s teaching. He is not simply saying that if we do good practical works we shall be saved, and if we don’t, then we shall not be. He is saying that it is what is done or not done&nbsp;<em>to Him</em>&nbsp;which is significant. So the point of the teaching is an appeal to recognize and serve His brethren, rather than to simply do good works. The rejected of <em><a href='B:470 7:22'>Mat 7:22</a></em> “<em>did</em>&nbsp;many wonderful works”- and the same word is used here, “you&nbsp;<em>did it</em>&nbsp;unto one of the least of these my brothers”. It’s not so much works that are being appealed for, as recognition of the Lord in His brethren. It’s the same word used in :16 for the faithful man who ‘made’ talents for his Lord. The making of talents is therefore parallel with serving the Lord’s brethren. It’s also the word used in <em><a href='B:470 24:46'>Mat 24:46</a></em> which introduces the parables of chapter 25- the watching servant will be found ‘doing’ care for his brethren.</p><p><em>As you did it to one of these my brothers</em>- This word may seem superfluous until we realize that ‘one of the least of these’ is an invitation to look at the group of sheep and focus upon any one of the faces. This is a unique insight into the day of judgment. We are enabled to imagine ourselves there. The Lord is inviting us to imagine the colossal importance of perceiving Him in His brethren, and treating them as Him. If only this principle were understood in church life now, the church would be a beacon of light in this world’s darkness. All rejection, spitefulness, hard speaking against other believers… would disappear. We are to treat others in Christ as if they were Him. And that is the basis of our acceptance or rejection.</p><p><em>Even the least, you did it to me-&nbsp;</em>See on :34&nbsp;<em>Then</em>. The ‘little ones’ in the Lord’s earlier teaching are believers in Him (<em><a href='B:470 10:40-42'>Mat 10:40-42</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 18:6'>Mat 18:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 18:10'>Mat 18:10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 18:14'>Mat 18:14</a></em>). <em><a href='B:470 10:42'>Mat 10:42</a></em> is strikingly similar: “And whoever gives one of these&nbsp;<em>little ones</em>&nbsp;even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple; truly I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward”. The least of the Lord’s brethren refer to His disciples, and not to needy humanity generally. The purpose of the parable is to continue the theme of watchfulness which began at the end of chapter 24. There the Lord taught that watchfulness and readiness for His return will be achieved by feeding the household, and here that is defined in terms of practical care for His brethren. Careful reflection on the parable surely indicates that the Lord doesn’t condemn people for not doing acts of kindness; that would be salvation by works. Rather is the basis of their condemnation whether or not they perceived the Christ in the least of the Christ’s brethren. The Lord’s point is that things were done or not done&nbsp;<em>to Him</em>. If He meant ‘If you feed the hungry, you’re a sheep; if you don’t, you’re a goat’, He would have expressed it otherwise. He’s not teaching salvation by works, but rather the crucial importance of perceiving Himself in His brethren and not denying their connection with Him. This lifts the whole issue to a far more personal and demanding level than doing a few acts of kindness to needy folks.</p><p>The ‘least’ of the Lord’s brethren are those who are spiritually weak. The “least in the Kingdom” are those who break commandments and teach others so (<em><a href='B:470 5:19'>Mat 5:19</a></em> s:w:); Paul felt “the least of the apostles” (<em><a href='B:530 15:9'>1Co 15:9</a></em> s:w:), “the least of all saints” (<em><a href='B:560 3:8'>Eph 3:8</a></em> s:w:). The parable describes those on whom the righteous expend effort as sick, hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, in prison:&nbsp;<em>every one of which</em>&nbsp;is a description used elsewhere in Scripture concerning our spiritually weak state. Therefore the parable is teaching that one of the grounds upon which we will be rejected or accepted relates to how we have treated spiritually weak brethren. The wondrous, wondrous thing is that the Lord of glory identifies himself with the spiritually&nbsp;<em>weakest</em>&nbsp;of his brethren: and structures his judgment seat around how others have behaved towards them. Yet the description of “the least” brethren exactly match the Lord’s own experience in His death- one who is imprisoned (<em><a href='B:470 26:50'>Mat 26:50</a></em>), sick (<em><a href='B:470 27:26'>Mat 27:26</a></em>), naked (<em><a href='B:470 27:35'>Mat 27:35</a></em>), thirsty (<em><a href='B:470 26:29'>Mat 26:29</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:48'>Mat 27:48</a></em>), friendless like a stranger (<em><a href='B:470 26:56'>Mat 26:56</a></em>). In responding to “the least” of the Lord’s brethren, we are responding to His cross. For our brethren, in their poverty, nakedness and imprisonment, are fellowshipping the sufferings of their Lord:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>As He says "Of these", we imagine a nod towards the crowd of sheep, with an invitation to focus upon “one” of those faces. There will be a public element to the judgment process. This is why the rejected shall walk naked and have their shame seen by others (<em><a href='B:730 16:15'>Rev 16:15</a></em>). The purpose of judgment is to teach us all, to prepare us for eternity together as we behold each other’s lives revealed and perceive the same patterns of God’s amazing grace. This is why hypocrisy is pointless; we shall then be revealed for who we really are before all.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 25:41'>Mat 25:41</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Then he shall also say to them on the left hand: You who are cursed, depart from me</em>- The same word has just been used about the foolish virgins when they were told to “Go s:w. ‘depart’” to buy more oil (:9). The rejected will be told: "Depart from me" (<em><a href='B:490 13:27'>Luk 13:27</a></em>); and yet in their lives, they will have already departed themselves. In time of temptation some&nbsp;<em>fall away&nbsp;</em>(s:w. "depart from"; <em><a href='B:490 8:13'>Luk 8:13</a></em>). Some&nbsp;<em>depart&nbsp;</em>(s:w:) from the faith (<em><a href='B:610 4:1'>1Ti 4:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:650 3:12'>Heb 3:12</a></em>). Demas departed (<em><a href='B:620 4:10'>2Ti 4:10</a></em>), as the rejected will depart (s:w. here in <em><a href='B:470 25:41'>Mat 25:41</a></em>). The same word is used about how the seed sown among thorns&nbsp;<em>goes forth</em>, it departs (<em><a href='B:490 8:14'>Luk 8:14</a></em>) to condemnation:&nbsp; They departed, and so He tells them to depart. Now they willingly absent themselves from the Lord, but then they will not want to depart from Him. God will gather up the nations to thresh them, but they gather themselves to Him (<em><a href='B:400 4:11-12'>Mic 4:11-12</a></em>).</p><p><em>To the perpetual fire which is prepared for the Devil and his messengers</em>– Clearly alluding to the Gehenna myth. This is a phrase taken straight from Jewish apocalyptic thinking and literature. It was the worst category of punishment conceivable in Judaism. And yet Jesus in the context is talking of the way that religious people who claim to believe in Him will not go unpunished for ignoring the needs of their poor brethren. This all too easy to commit sin::. The Lord uses Judaism’s toughest language to condemn. But this doesn’t mean that He actually believed in the literal existence of either “eternal fire” nor a personal Devil. The Devil’s angels are those who ignore their needy brethren. It’s a powerful and telling juxtapositioning of ideas by the Lord Jesus. The warning that the wicked will be cast into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil (<em><a href='B:470 25:41'>Mat 25:41</a></em>) was referring to the apocryphal fate of supposedly ‘wicked angels’ as recorded in 1 Enoch 54. The references to Tartarus and sinful angels in 2 Peter and Jude are also clear references to wrong beliefs which were common in Jewish apocryphal and pseudo-epigraphical writings. These wrong ideas- and they&nbsp;<em>are</em>&nbsp;wrong- are not corrected directly, but rather a moral lesson is drawn from the stories. This is the point of the allusion to them; but there is no explicit correction of these myths in the first instance. It is the Angels of Jesus, and not of the Devil, who punish the wicked (<em><a href='B:470 13:42-50'>Mat 13:42-50</a></em>). A wresting of Scripture to make out that the Devil is the tormentor of the wicked simply runs in straight contradiction to these plain statements of the Lord Jesus.</p><p>It is a common theme that the wicked snare themselves, falling into their own pit, rather than God specifically snaring them (e:g. <em><a href='B:230 7:15'>Psa 7:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 9:15'>Psa 9:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 57:6'>Psa 57:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:240 26:27'>Pro 26:27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:240 28:10'>Pro 28:10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:250 10:8'>Ecc 10:8</a></em>). Their condemnation, the nature of their punishment, will have been specifically "prepared" for them (<em><a href='B:470 25:41'>Mat 25:41</a></em>). The bitter self-hatred and ineffable regret of the rejected will be their punishment; and in accordance with the specific, personal way they mistreated and neglected God's Truth in this life, so they will mentally torture themselves. From their own mouth and words men will be judged (<em><a href='B:470 12:37'>Mat 12:37</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 19:22'>Luk 19:22</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:100 1:16'>2Sa 1:16</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 25:44'>Mat 25:44</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Then they shall also answer, saying: Lord-&nbsp;</em>The figures of judgment can be taken literally to an extent. However, the actual process will be slightly different for each of us. Thus for some, Christ gives his verdict immediately and then discusses it with them (<em><a href='B:470 25:33-34'>Mat 25:33-34</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 25:41'>Mat 25:41</a></em>). Others are apparently given the reasons for the verdict first, and then explicitly told the verdict (<em><a href='B:470 25:27'>Mat 25:27</a></em>). Others tell the Lord of their spirituality and are then told his comment (<em><a href='B:470 25:20'>Mat 25:20</a></em>). Others don't realize the spiritual growth they've achieved (<em><a href='B:470 25:37'>Mat 25:37</a></em>), others see it quite clearly (<em><a href='B:490 19:16'>Luk 19:16</a></em>). To some, Jesus speaks first; in other cases, the believer starts the dialogue (<em><a href='B:470 25:41-44'>Mat 25:41-44</a></em> cp. 11,12,24-26). Some sense their rejection coming and plead to be let in to the Kingdom (<em><a href='B:470 25:11-12'>Mat 25:11-12</a></em>); others complain at their Lord's apparent unfairness, as if they're sorry, but they just have to make their point to him (<em><a href='B:470 25:44'>Mat 25:44</a></em>).</p><p>The Lord points out their failings, then they give an explanation of their behaviour (<em><a href='B:470 25:24'>Mat 25:24</a></em>), justifying themselves (<em><a href='B:470 25:44'>Mat 25:44</a></em>). There is an intended contrast in the attitude of the rejected within the Lord's parables of judgment in Matthew 25; they begin by denying the Lord's criticism of their spiritual barrenness, and later in the conversation claim that He is being unreasonable, looking for fruit which He can't reasonably expect. Their tone changes from a loving 'Lord, Lord:::' to a more bitter, critical spirit (<em><a href='B:470 25:44'>Mat 25:44</a></em> cp. 25). According to the type of Cain, he was questioned by God, answered back, and then changed his tune and begged for mercy (<em><a href='B:10 4:9'>Gen 4:9</a></em>). Adam likewise began by answering back, blaming the woman and the fact God gave her to him (<em><a href='B:10 3:12'>Gen 3:12</a></em>). So they go through three mood swings: 'Lord, Lord', assuring Him they have never omitted to serve Him (<em><a href='B:470 25:44'>Mat 25:44</a></em>), then a more bitter feeling that He is unreasonable (<em><a href='B:470 25:25'>Mat 25:25</a></em>), and now a desperate begging for mercy.</p><p><em>When did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to you?</em>- This is the word commonly used about people ministering to Jesus, and the ministering women at the cross. Again the point is established that the language used about ministrations to the historical Jesus is applied to ministration to the least of His brethren. The shock of both sheep and goats reflects their shock at the degree to which their brethren really had been the very same as the Lord Jesus. The parable suggests that we shall never in this life appreciate the degree to which He perceives His brethren as Himself, and our actions to them are our actions to Him. Any exclusion or spitefulness towards them is directly felt as action against Him. The thought of not ministering unto the crucified Christ is unthinkable, and is so clearly expressed by the goats in their denial of having been guilty of this. And yet to ignore our brethren who are part of Christ, who are Him to us, is to do the same. We wish to minister to the Lord in His time of need. But He is not here personally. And yet effectively He is, insofar as His brethren are His body, and are right before our eyes.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 25:45'>Mat 25:45</a></em><em>&nbsp;Then he shall answer them, saying: Truly I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of these least, you did not do it to me</em>- See on :40&nbsp;<em>The least</em>.</p><p>Many of those who ungraciously storm out of fellowship with the rest of the body, do so because they complain that other believers are weak, unloving, hypocrites, don't practice what they preach etc. And in many ways, their complaints are true (seeing that the Lord came to heal those who need a doctor rather than shake hands with the healthy). And again, Paul has a comment on this situation. He says that those parts of our bodies "that seem to be weaker::. that we think are less honourable::. the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty::. with special honour" (NIV). The private parts of our bodies are the parts we are most sensitive to, although on the outside they seem weak and hidden. And so Paul reasons that the weaker parts of the ecclesial body should be treated the same. The Greek for "feeble" (<em><a href='B:530 12:21'>1Co 12:21</a></em>) is used (notably in Corinthians) to describe spiritual weakness: <em><a href='B:480 14:38'>Mar 14:38</a></em>; <em><a href='B:520 5:6'>Rom 5:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 8:7'>1Co 8:7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 8:10'>1Co 8:10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 9:22'>1Co 9:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 11:30'>1Co 11:30</a></em>; <em><a href='B:590 5:14'>1Th 5:14</a></em>. And in some ways, we are all "weak" (<em><a href='B:530 1:27'>1Co 1:27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 4:10'>1Co 4:10</a></em>):&nbsp;So those we perceive ("that seem to be::. that we think") to be spiritually weak in their external appearance, we should be especially sensitive towards. Significantly, the “sick" (s:w. "feeble") in the parable of <em><a href='B:470 25:44'>Mat 25:44</a></em> are the "least" of Christ's brethren, the spiritually weakest; and at the day of judgment, the rejected are condemned because of their attitude towards these spiritually weakest of Christ's brethren. As John realized the tendency of some to think they could love God without loving His Sons,&nbsp;so Paul tackled the same problem at Corinth. He reasons that "the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee::. if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if they were all one member, where were the body?" (<em><a href='B:530 12:21'>1Co 12:21</a></em>). He knew that some would want to go off on their own, and he shows that such behaviour would suggest that they alone were the whole body. He knew that some would think that they had no need of other parts of the ecclesial body; he saw that some would feel that they were so inferior to others that they had no place in the body. All these are reasons why believers push off on their own. But notice that Paul doesn't actually say 'the eye&nbsp;<em>shouldn't&nbsp;</em>say to the hand, I have no need of thee'; but rather "the eye&nbsp;<em>cannot</em>&nbsp;say to the hand::.". Although some may say or feel this, ultimately, from God's perspective, it's simply not valid. Christian disillusion with Christianity&nbsp;mustn't lead us to quit the body. The same logic applies to those who think that the body of Christ is divided; ultimately, there is one body, and from God's perspective this is indivisible. The divisions only exist in the minds of men. Those who say that they don't need fellowship with their brethren "cannot say" this, according to Paul. If they continue on this road, ultimately they declare themselves not of the one body of Christ; although I trust there are many brethren who have done just this who may still receive God's gracious salvation. &nbsp;</p><p><em>"</em>Of these" suggests that the righteous are present and visible at the time of the verdict given to the goats. Again we see the public dimension to the judgment process.</p><p>A telling chronology is suggested by putting together a few Scriptures. The foolish virgins will knock on the door, as it were, and be told by the Lord “I know you not” (<em><a href='B:470 25:12'>Mat 25:12</a></em>). <em><a href='B:490 13:27'>Luk 13:27</a></em> says that He tells the rejected&nbsp;<em>after</em>&nbsp;they have justified themselves to Him: “I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity”. <em><a href='B:470 7:22-23'>Mat 7:22-23</a></em> describes a dialogue in which the rejected justify themselves by listing their good works, and the Lord will profess unto them: “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity”. All their good works He will see as works of sin, because they were not of faith. <em><a href='B:470 25:41-45'>Mat 25:41-45</a></em> gives more information: the rejected are told “Depart from me”, but they argue back with self-justification, and then they are told that they had not shown love to the least of Christ’s brethren, and are sent away to punishment.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 25:46'>Mat 25:46</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And these shall go away into eternal punishment; but the righteous into eternal life-&nbsp;</em>After the pattern of Cain and Adam (<em><a href='B:10 3:24'>Gen 3:24</a></em>; <em><a href='B:10 4:14'>Gen 4:14</a></em>), and also the idea of the wicked being&nbsp;<em>cast&nbsp;</em>into the darkness of condemnation, it seems that the rejected will be forcibly driven away. Cain was driven out from the faces, the presence of the land of Eden, where the Lord's presence was (<em><a href='B:10 4:14'>Gen 4:14</a></em>). Presumably this driving out was done by the Angels. We are left to imagine the ultimate tragedy of Cain going forth from the presence of the Lord (<em><a href='B:10 4:16'>Gen 4:16</a></em> s:w. "face" <em><a href='B:470 4:14'>Mat 4:14</a></em>), and the rejected 'going away into:::' (<em><a href='B:470 25:46'>Mat 25:46</a></em>). The tragedy of rejection is well reflected in the way the Lord speaks of how "great was the fall" of the poorly built house (<em><a href='B:470 7:27'>Mat 7:27</a></em>). We are invited to see worthy and unworthy walking away from the throne&nbsp;<em>into&nbsp;</em>different futures. The sheep will enter&nbsp;<em>into</em>&nbsp;the city (<em><a href='B:730 22:14'>Rev 22:14</a></em>),&nbsp;<em>into</em>&nbsp;the temple (<em><a href='B:730 15:8'>Rev 15:8</a></em>),<em>&nbsp;into</em>&nbsp;their rest (<em><a href='B:650 4:11'>Heb 4:11</a></em>),&nbsp;<em>into</em>&nbsp;the Kingdom (<em><a href='B:510 14:22'>Act 14:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 3:5'>Joh 3:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 18:24'>Luk 18:24</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 18:3'>Mat 18:3</a></em>);<em>&nbsp;into</em>&nbsp;life (<em><a href='B:480 9:45'>Mar 9:45</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 18:9'>Mat 18:9</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 19:17'>Mat 19:17</a></em>);&nbsp;<em>into&nbsp;</em>the joy of Christ (<em><a href='B:470 25:23'>Mat 25:23</a></em>).</p><p>The rejected going away into::. (<em><a href='B:470 25:46'>Mat 25:46</a></em>) is only a reflection of the position they themselves adopted in their lives. They thought that they could flee away from the judgments of God (<em><a href='B:520 2:3'>Rom 2:3</a></em> Gk:)- and so they will flee from His judgment seat, although so, so unwillingly. The man who refuses to immediately respond to the Lord's call to service says that he must first&nbsp;<em>go away&nbsp;</em>from the Lord and bury his father (<em><a href='B:470 8:21'>Mat 8:21</a></em>); the young man&nbsp;<em>went away&nbsp;</em>in sorrow (<em><a href='B:470 19:22'>Mat 19:22</a></em>); people hear the Gospel and then&nbsp;<em>go away&nbsp;</em>to all their petty businesses of this life (<em><a href='B:470 22:5'>Mat 22:5</a></em>). Those who couldn't handle the demanding Lord&nbsp;<em>went away</em>&nbsp;from Him (<em><a href='B:500 6:66'>Joh 6:66</a></em>); and Judas&nbsp;<em>went away&nbsp;</em>of himself to hang himself (<em><a href='B:470 27:5'>Mat 27:5</a></em>). He condemned himself. These are all the same words as in <em><a href='B:470 25:46'>Mat 25:46</a></em> - those who of their own choice went away from the Lord now, although that isn't maybe how they saw it, will then go away from Him into condemnation. This point is made even within Matthew 25. The foolish virgins&nbsp;<em>went away&nbsp;</em>to buy oil- they didn't want to immediately go to their Lord (:10); the one talent man&nbsp;<em>went away</em>&nbsp;and buried his talent (:18,25). And then at judgment day they again&nbsp;<em>go away from</em>&nbsp;the Lord (:46). Their going away from the Lord is simply being confirmed by Him.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:1'>Mat 26:1</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these words, he said to his disciples-&nbsp;</em>The same rubric as in <em><a href='B:470 19:1'>Mat 19:1</a></em>, suggesting that this was a way of dividing up the material to assist in memorization. The earliest converts would have memorized the good news preached to them by e:g. Matthew, and then the material was written up under inspiration as 'the Gospel of Matthew' which we now have.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:2'>Mat 26:2</a></em>&nbsp;<em>You know</em>- The knowledge can refer to both the subsequent clauses in the sentence. The Lord said that they knew that Passover was coming, and that He must be handed over to crucifixion. Yet the disciples did not 'know' of His crucifixion in that clearly they had shut their minds to it. And the Lord knew that. But He is still trying to get them to understand. His effort in teaching the disciples is admirable; we would likely have sought to focus solely upon personally getting through with the trauma of death over the next few days. But He perceived that His perfection involved love for His chosen to the end.</p><h4><em>That after two days the Passover comes, and the Son of Man will be</em>- A present tense, when we expect a future. The essence of the Lord's function as the Paschal lamb was lived out throughout His life. Perhaps the Lord used this unusual tense because He wanted to prepare the disciples for the fact they were going to keep the Passover a day earlier than usual; but they need not worry about that, because the essence of Passover was ongoing in the Lord's life. John the Baptist had perceived that when commenting that the Lord was "the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world" (<em><a href='B:500 1:29'>Joh 1:29</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 1:36'>Joh 1:36</a></em>) even when it wasn't Passover time. See on :28&nbsp;<em>Is shed&nbsp;</em>and on :30&nbsp;<em>They went out</em>. Luke says "the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover". "Called the Passover" might suggest that it was only called Passover, but was not so in reality. This would connect with the theme of the feast being called a "feast of the Jews" rather than of Yahweh, and the temple becoming "your house" rather than God's.</h4><p><em>Delivered up to be crucified</em>- Literally, 'is being betrayed'. The next verse shows what was going on in justification of this statement. The Lord could have known of it through direct Divine revelation, but I prefer to think that His sensitivity was such that He perceived it of His own perception. The Greek can mean to be handed over, and also to be betrayed, with reference to Judas. The obvious double meaning indicates that the Lord did purposefully use words and ideas with more than one meaning, realizing that after His death, the other meaning would be made apparent. This means that we are quite justified in perceiving multiple meanings and intentions in inspired words, the Olivet Prophecy being a classic example, with its various possible applications. "Is betrayed" reflects a present tense in the Greek. The Lord's handing over to death, indeed His death itself, was in essence lived out throughout His life. His life was a form of ongoing death.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:3'>Mat 26:3</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered at the court of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas</em>- The record may wish to give the impression that it was because of the Lord’s prediction of His death that the Jews assembled and arranged it. He certainly planned His death consciously, and the Jews responded to His provocations. The gathering or assembling together of the Lord’s enemies is a major theme (:57; <em><a href='B:470 27:17'>Mat 27:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:27'>Mat 27:27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:62'>Mat 27:62</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 28:12'>Mat 28:12</a></em>); and uses the same word for the gathering together of the rejected to condemnation at the last day. Coming before Christ in His time of dying was and is a foretaste of the last judgment. The Lord Jesus causes people to gather together either for or against Him. This is the fundamental divide- not between brother and brother, but between the believer and the world, light and darkness.</p><p>The word translated “court” or “palace” is used 12 times in the New Testament, and eight of them refer to the court of the High Priest. It’s tempting, therefore, to think that the Lord may well have had this same court / palace in mind when He spoke of how an armed strong man “keeps his palace” s:w:, <em><a href='B:490 11:21'>Luk 11:21</a></em>, but the Lord Jesus through His death on the cross would overpower him, and take his goods and share them with His people. The strong man who kept the palace may have had some reference, therefore, to the Jewish High Priest; the good things of the temple were inaccessible to God’s people, until the Lord overpowered that entire system. The Lord also spoke of how He has a “fold”, the same word translated “palace” or “court”, into which He must gather His sheep (<em><a href='B:500 10:1'>Joh 10:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 10:16'>Joh 10:16</a></em>). He had to take over the whole temple system, and replace the Jewish religious leadership with His own bad of secular men, prostitutes and hangers on.</p>


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<p>26:4&nbsp;<em>And they plotted together how they might seize Jesus using trickery and kill him</em>- The Greek specifically means to jointly decide. The collective guilt of Jewry is being emphasized, because their judgment was likewise collective. The same word is used four times later in this chapter about the ‘taking hold’ of the Lord Jesus in Gethsemane (:48,50,55,57). This ‘laying on of hands’ against the Lord is likewise strongly noted by Mark (s:w. <em><a href='B:480 14:44'>Mar 14:44</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 14:46'>Mar 14:46</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 14:49'>Mar 14:49</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 14:51'>Mar 14:51</a></em>). The sight of it was burnt into their memories. There are likewise parts and aspects of the Lord’s sufferings, and words associated with them, which are likewise burnt in the consciousness of all those who truly love Him.</p><p>"Trickery" is as AV "<em>By subtilty"</em>- an allusion to the Lord’s Jewish opposition as the seed of the serpent at whose hands the seed of the woman was wounded (<em><a href='B:10 3:15'>Gen 3:15</a></em>). But the word literally refers to a bait, implying some plan to deceive Him into a position in which they could arrest Him. But what were these plans? The Lord fell for no bait. Perhaps the idea was that Judas would come and kiss Him, and lead Him into some isolated ambush or compromising situation. When the Lord made it clear to Judas that He knew what Judas was up to, the plan fell apart and the soldiers simply grabbed the Lord. And they ended killing Him “on the feast day”, which was exactly what they had planned to avoid (:5).</p><p>The plan made ahead of time to kill Him was clearly typified by the brothers’ plans to kill Joseph.</p>


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<p>26:5&nbsp;<em>But they said: Not during the feast</em>- But they did crucify the Lord during the feast, at the same time as the Passover lambs were being killed. Their plan went wrong- see on :4&nbsp;<em>By subtilty</em>. Try as they might to not kill Him then, the Lord wanted to die as the Passover lamb, and this happened despite the Jews&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;wanting that. The Lord had control over the time of His death, because He gave His life rather than having it taken from Him.</p><p><em>Lest a riot arise among the people</em>- This indicates the popularity the Lord enjoyed even at that stage, and the fact He was crucified with the general goodwill of the masses is therefore an essay in the fickleness of human nature. And yet the careful plans of the leaders didn't work out- there was "a tumult" about it, the same Greek word translated "uproar" (<em><a href='B:470 27:24'>Mat 27:24</a></em>), and likewise they did end up killing Jesus "on the feast day" when it was not their intention to.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:6'>Mat 26:6</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper</em>- The anointing recorded in Mark 14 is clearly the same as that here in Matthew 26. But the anointing in Luke 7 appears to have occurred in the house of a Pharisee called Simon somewhere in Galilee. The anointing recorded in John 12 is very similar, but occurred six days before the Passover and one day&nbsp;<em>before</em>&nbsp;the triumphal entry (<em><a href='B:500 12:12'>Joh 12:12</a></em>), whereas the anointing recorded here in Matthew and Mark occurred&nbsp;<em>after</em>&nbsp;that. There are other differences, too. In <em><a href='B:500 12:3'>Joh 12:3</a></em> Mary uses "a pound of spikenard" whereas the anointing in Matthew seems to emphasize the use of spikenard as a liquid, in an alabaster flask that had to be broken to release the liquid. The spikenard was worth&nbsp;<em>more</em>&nbsp;than 300 pence (<em><a href='B:480 14:5'>Mar 14:5</a></em>), whereas that of <em><a href='B:500 12:5'>Joh 12:5</a></em> was worth 300 pence; it was used to anoint the Lord's&nbsp;<em>feet</em>&nbsp;(<em><a href='B:500 12:3'>Joh 12:3</a></em>), whereas that of <em><a href='B:470 26:7'>Mat 26:7</a></em> was used to anoint His&nbsp;<em>head</em>. In <em><a href='B:500 12:4'>Joh 12:4</a></em> it is Judas who complains at the apparent waste of the money, whereas in <em><a href='B:470 26:8'>Mat 26:8</a></em> it is the disciples. <em><a href='B:470 26:11-12'>Mat 26:11-12</a></em> record the Lord's word about "You will always have the poor with you" and goes on to record His explanation that the woman had done this for His burial; whereas in <em><a href='B:500 12:7-8'>Joh 12:7-8</a></em> these two sayings are the other way around. The wiping of His feet with her hair is stressed in <em><a href='B:500 12:3'>Joh 12:3</a></em>, but Matthew and Mark are silent about this. John 12 clearly identifies the woman as Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus; whereas Matthew and Mark are careful to preserve her as a nameless "woman" who "came unto Him" (<em><a href='B:470 26:7'>Mat 26:7</a></em>). I therefore have no doubt that John 12 and Matthew 26 / Mark 14 speak of two separate anointings, both in Bethany, separated from each other by four days. The anointing in Luke 7 is clearly framed as a similar incident, also in the house of a man called Simon:&nbsp;</p><p>The question, of course, is why these three anointings are described in such similar language. Higher critics immediately speak of textual dislocation and mistakes made by the writers in their chronology of events. These kinds of approaches arise from a focus upon the text before our eyes, rather than having a wider perspective on Scripture earned by years of careful Bible reading of the entire Bible text. Those who read the entire Scriptures over a period of time cannot fail to be impressed by the repetition of situations and events. The way Joseph is called out of prison to interpret a King's dream and is then exalted to rulership in a pagan land is clearly the basis for the language used about Daniel's experience in Babylon. This is not to say that text got dislocated, that Daniel was Joseph or vice versa. Rather do we perceive a single Divine mind behind the production of the Bible as we have it; and God's intention was clearly to show that circumstances repeat within and between the lives of His people. And the language He uses in recording history seeks to bring out those repetitions. This is why the lament of Jeremiah in depression is so similar to that of Job in his depression. And of course we are free to assume that Biblical characters were aware of and took inspiration from those who had gone before them. I suggest that this is what we have going on in the records of these three anointings of the Lord by despised and misunderstood women. They were inspired by each other- for the Lord comments that what the women did was to be told worldwide. This was a command, and it was surely obeyed. Mary of Bethany was inspired by the woman of Luke 7, and the anonymous woman of Matthew 26 was inspired by Mary's anointing of four days previously. Mary had given spikenard worth 300 pence; this woman used even more expensive ointment. And in this is our lesson- to be inspired by the devotion of others to their Lord. Heaven's record of our response is as it were recorded in similar language, in recognition of the inspiration provided by earlier acts of faithfulness by those we know or who have gone before us.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:7'>Mat 26:7</a></em>&nbsp;<em>A woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it</em>- The Greek&nbsp;<em>bar-utimos</em>&nbsp;uses a term,&nbsp;<em>utimos</em>, elsewhere used about the precious, costly blood of Christ. Matthew uses it about the "price" of the Lord's blood (<em><a href='B:470 27:6'>Mat 27:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:9'>Mat 27:9</a></em>), as does Paul (<em><a href='B:530 6:20'>1Co 6:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 7:23'>1Co 7:23</a></em>) and Peter (<em><a href='B:670 2:7'>1Pe 2:7</a></em>). The point is simple. The Lord's blood shed for us was and is the most valuable thing in existence, in the entire cosmos; and we should feel that when we take the cup which symbolizes it. And our response is to give our most valuable things, materially and otherwise, for Him.</p><p><em>On his head as he reclined at table</em>- The woman anointed the Lord’s head in order to reflect her belief that He really was the Christ, the anointed one. She gave her life savings for this belief. It can be apparently painless to believe that Jesus is Christ, and yet the implications of accepting this simple fact can transform a life. What she did was surely rooted in her understanding of <em><a href='B:260 1:12'>Son 1:12</a></em>, where Solomon’s lover has spikenard (s:w. LXX <em><a href='B:500 12:3'>Joh 12:3</a></em>) which sends forth its smell “While the king sitteth at his table”. Clearly enough she saw Jesus right there and then as the King- even though His Kingdom was not of that world. Her love for Him, her reflection upon the Old Testament, and her perception of Him as her future Lord and King to the extent that she even then treated Him as such, so certain was her faith in His future victory and worthiness… this all motivated her to give the quintessence of her life’s work for Him. And it should for us too.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:8'>Mat 26:8</a></em>&nbsp;<em>But when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying</em>- <em><a href='B:480 14:4'>Mar 14:4</a></em> adds that the indignation was within themselves, and so the words they are here recorded as saying were likely within themselves. We wonder how many other times when we read of people 'saying' something, the 'saying' was within their own minds. For self-talk is understood by the Lord as our actual words. Whether or not we hold our tongues back is not the ultimate issue. The words have been said within us. See on <em><a href='B:470 26:10'>Mat 26:10</a></em>&nbsp;<em>When Jesus understood</em>. If the reconstruction of events I offered in commentary on :8, we can better understand their frustration. They would have seen an identical 'waste' of wealth in the anointing of four days previously in the same village, perhaps in the same home; and they had seen it in Galilee at the incident recorded in Luke 7. And they were doing their math and calculating the total cost 'wasted'.</p><p><em>To what purpose?</em>- The Greek&nbsp;<em>eis tis</em>&nbsp;could equally mean 'For whom?', the implication being that the poor could have been benefitted far more than the Lord Jesus. Hence the Lord replies that the purpose of the anointing was to embalm Him ahead of time for burial. Just as the woman was inspired by the generous anointing of Mary four days previously and the Galilean prostitute of Luke 7, so the huge amount of spices purchased by Nicodemus in <em><a href='B:500 19:39'>Joh 19:39</a></em> was likely motivated in turn by her example. Critics claim that the amount of spices ("one hundred pound weight") bought was more than used in the burial of the Caesars. The woman here used a pound of spikenard, worth more than the 300 pence at which Mary's anointing liquid was valued. And in turn, Nicodemus was motivated yet more- 100 times more. She gave one pound, he gave 100 pounds' weight. This is the reason for the deja vu of our lives, of how experiences repeat between human lives- it's so that we may be inspired to greater&nbsp;service than even those who went before.</p><p><em>Is this waste</em>- This is the same Greek word used nearly 20 times in the NT for destruction and condemnation; it is the same word used in describing Judas as "the son of&nbsp;<em>perdition</em>". The tragedy of condemnation is the waste of what could have been. This is the sadness with which God sees condemnation. We note that four days before, it had been Judas who complained about the 'waste'. His attitude had spread to the disciples. But the paradox was that he was thereby the son of waste, he was condemning himself by complaining about the waste of devotion towards the Lord Jesus. The idea could even be that they were so angry that they thought that the woman was condemning herself by what she had done, because she could have given the money to the poor. This is seen so often in religious experience- those who stand on the sidelines become so bitter at how others actively express their devotions to their Lord that they go so far as to condemn them. We think of how Michal despised David for dancing before the Lord, and was punished with barrenness; and of the Lord’s observation: “Is your eye evil, because I am good / generous?” (<em><a href='B:470 20:15'>Mat 20:15</a></em>). The world's wealthiest individuals are often very generous to charitable causes- and yet they do so to a chorus of criticism from those who have given little or nothing to such causes.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:9'>Mat 26:9</a></em>&nbsp;<em>For this might have been sold for much and given to the poor</em>- The very words used by the Lord to the rich ruler, telling him to sell what he had and give to the poor (<em><a href='B:470 19:21'>Mat 19:21</a></em>). Their idea in saying this may have been to accuse the woman of disobedience to the Lord’s teachings. We see here how deep are the feelings aroused by spiritual jealousy. This woman had made a stellar commitment to her Lord; and quite unspoken, her devotion challenged the other disciples. And so by all means they had to condemn her, and were happy to misquote the Lord’s words to achieve that. This is one simple reason why those most active and sacrificial in church life are often the most viciously attacked by their fellow disciples.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:10'>Mat 26:10</a></em>&nbsp;<em>But Jesus perceiving it, said to them: Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a</em>- This translation is misleading; the idea of the Greek is that the Lord perceived the situation immediately. But the fact He perceived it confirms the suggestion that the words the disciples apparently spoke were in fact spoken within their minds and not out loud- see on <em><a href='B:470 26:8'>Mat 26:8</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Indignation, saying</em>:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Good work</em>- The Greek has the idea of beauty. The same Greek phrase rendered “a good work” is found in <em><a href='B:610 5:10'>1Ti 5:10</a></em> as something required of a mature spiritual woman, and for which she must be “reported”- clearly alluding to how this woman’s “good work” was to be told / reported worldwide. She thus became a model for other sisters to follow, in the same way as she herself had copied the examples of Mary four days previously, and the sinful woman of Luke 7. This is the intended power and purpose of good works- they serve as inspiration for others to likewise glorify the Lord. The Greek expression ‘to work a good work’ is used elsewhere regarding the Lord’s working of miracles (<em><a href='B:500 6:28'>Joh 6:28</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 9:41'>Joh 9:41</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 10:33'>Joh 10:33</a></em>). Her response was no less significant than the working of a miracle.</p><p><em>Upon me</em>- The Greek&nbsp;<em>eis eme</em>&nbsp;could as well mean ‘in Me’, as if the woman’s work gave the Lord huge encouragement within Himself.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:11'>Mat 26:11</a></em>&nbsp;<em>For you always have the poor with you-&nbsp;</em>Christ's love for us, His Father's spiritual house, was typified by His being likened to&nbsp;the poor slave under the Law who perpetually dedicated himself to serve his master's house. An extension of this idea is revealed by a connection between the Lord saying "Ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always" (<em><a href='B:470 26:11'>Mat 26:11</a></em>) and <em><a href='B:50 15:11'>Deu 15:11</a></em> "For the poor shall never cease out of the land”. Thus Jesus is associating himself with the "poor man::. of thy brethren" of <em><a href='B:50 15:7'>Deu 15:7</a></em>. Note how Jesus calls himself a "poor man", especially on the cross: <em><a href='B:230 34:6'>Psa 34:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 35:10'>Psa 35:10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 37:14'>Psa 37:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 40:17'>Psa 40:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 69:29'>Psa 69:29</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 69:33'>Psa 69:33</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 70:5'>Psa 70:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 86:1'>Psa 86:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 109:22'>Psa 109:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 113:7'>Psa 113:7</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:540 8:9'>2Co 8:9</a></em> - an impressive list. Christ exercised the rights of the poor to glean in the cornfield on the Sabbath (<em><a href='B:490 6:1'>Luk 6:1</a></em>); <em><a href='B:50 15:7'>Deu 15:7</a></em> warned the Israelites not to be hard hearted and refuse help to such a poor brother. Christ is alluding to this passage by saying that the disciples should not be hard hearted by stopping Mary give her rich ointment to Him, the poor. The following <em><a href='B:50 15:12-17'>Deu 15:12-17</a></em> is also concerning Jesus. Thus Jesus was spiritually poor and hungry, and was so grateful for Mary's encouragement.</p><p>Note that the Law also taught that if Israel were obedient, then there would be no poverty. And yet the same Law tacitly recognized the reality of human weakness in noting that “the poor shall never cease out of the land” (<em><a href='B:50 15:11'>Deu 15:11</a></em>). God’s law therefore also reflects His grace and understanding of human failure to be fully obedient.</p><p><em>But you will not always have me with you</em>- We would likely have been tempted to expose the root of the immediate problem- Judas was a thief, and wanted the cash because he would keep some of it and only distribute part to the poor. But the Lord as ever, was wiser than to confront issues in such a primitive way. He brushes past the complaint that this woman had ignored His principle of selling what we have and giving to the poor, and doesn’t expose the core reason for Judas’ trouble stirring about the issue. Rather He focuses upon what the woman&nbsp;<em>had&nbsp;</em>achieved, and bids the disciples look closer at His death and how they should be responding to it.</p><p><em>"</em>Always<em>" is&nbsp;</em>literally, ‘at all times’. There would always be opportunity, times of opportunity, to do good to the poor.</p>


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<h4><em><a href='B:470 26:12'>Mat 26:12</a></em>&nbsp;<em>For in that she poured this ointment upon my body</em>- A different word from that used to describe how she poured the ointment on His head (:7). Perhaps her focus was upon anointing Him- but because the ointment dripped from His head onto His body, the Lord imputed to her an understanding of His upcoming death and saw it as an embalming of Him, in line with the oft repeated idea that His life was in effect His death; as He sat at the meal table, it was as if He were already dead.</h4><p><em>She did it to prepare me for burial-&nbsp;</em>The RV has “to prepare me for burial”. This could be read as the Lord saying that what she did inspired Him to go forward in the path to death which He was treading. The Greek means specifically embalming. It was as if the woman perceived that the Lord was effectively the slain lamb of God even whilst He was alive. It is used only once more in the New Testament, describing the embalming of the Lord's body (<em><a href='B:500 19:40'>Joh 19:40</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:13'>Mat 26:13</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Truly I say to you: Wherever in the whole world this gospel is preached, what this woman has done shall also be spoken of-&nbsp;</em>Her generosity was set up as a cameo of the response to the Lord which all who believe the Gospel should make. The Gospel is not just a set of doctrines to be painlessly apprehended. It is a call to action after the pattern of this woman. The good news was to be of the Lord’s death and burial, and yet integral to that message was to be the pattern of response which was seen in her- to give our all, our most treasured and hoarded things, for His sake.</p><p>There is evident connection with the Lord's prophecy of how the Gospel would be preached in all the world (<em><a href='B:470 24:14'>Mat 24:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 16:15'>Mar 16:15</a></em>). He seems to have seen the 'Gospel' that would be preached as a re-telling of His life and incidents in it, such as the woman's anointing of Him. It is significant that her anointing is mentioned in all four Gospel records. In <em><a href='B:480 14:9'>Mar 14:9</a></em> we read that wherever the gospel was to be preached, what she had done would be narrated in memory of her. So ‘preaching the Gospel’ is defined there as a narration of the events and sayings of the Lord Jesus in His ministry. The Gospel records are transcripts of the Gospel preached by e:g. Matthew. The Gospel is therefore in the Gospels. The rest is interpretation and theology, necessary and helpful, but there is no avoiding the fact that the Gospel itself is in the records of the Gospel which we have in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.</p><p>The Lord foresaw that transcripts of His work and words would indeed be made, and He envisaged how the supreme devotion of this anonymous woman would be part of that message. The language is very similar to that of <em><a href='B:470 24:14'>Mat 24:14</a></em>: "This Gospel::. shall be preached&nbsp;<em>kerusso&nbsp;</em>again in all the world::. and then shall the end come". Matthew may have had in view how his version of the Gospel needed to be spread into all the world.</p><p><em>As a memorial of her</em>- The language of 'memorial' is typically used in contemporary literature about memorials to the gallant deeds of&nbsp;<em>men</em>. But the Lord was challenging such thinking by saying that the Gospel would include a memorial of an anonymous&nbsp;<em>woman</em>. And her humanly senseless pouring out of her wealth in a ten minute act of devotion to Him was none less than the bravest or noblest act of any man.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:14'>Mat 26:14</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests</em>- In all the Gospel records, the decision of Judas to betray the Lord follows on from the anointing incidents. The apparent waste of money in senseless devotion obviously irked Judas. People who are obsessed with money as he was often find such things unbearable to be part of. Judas is repeatedly called "Simon's son" at this time. And the anointing took place in Simon's house (:6). It could well be that Judas was a member of the family, possibly even a brother of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. To see the family wealth 'wasted' in this way was unbearable for him. The reasons for his betrayal were surely multi-factorial, but attitudes to money played a large part. "What will you give me, and I will betray Him:::?" clearly suggests a financial motive; and the records seem to give the impression that the apparent waste of money, especially if it was money he thought might be coming to him in the inheritance, was the final straw for him. After that, he went to the Jews and opened discussions about betraying the Lord. The way he threw the thirty pieces of silver down on the ground reflects his final realization of how foolish he had been. And yet the lesson is so often never learnt; men and women effectively betray their Lord for money; accumulation of wealth, development of career, take precedence over devotion to Him, and finally lead to betrayal.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:15'>Mat 26:15</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And said: What are you willing to give me</em>- The financial aspect was important to Judas. He, like so many after him, was prepared to betray the Son of God purely for money. The decision of Judas to make this offer is recorded as coming straight after the record of the woman anointing the Lord's feet with the expensive ointment. Judas's heart cried out as he saw all that money wasted; he knew that the perfume could have been sold for much and the money entrusted to him as the treasurer, and therefore he would have had the opportunity to take some for himself. As I read the records, the motivation of Judas was&nbsp;<em>fundamentally</em>&nbsp;financial, whatever we may like to speculate about his other reasons. It's almost too farfetched to believe; that a man who walked in the company of the Son of God, who entered into deep spiritual conversation with him, who is even described by the Spirit of Christ as "a man mine equal, my guide and mine acquaintance" (<em><a href='B:230 55:13'>Psa 55:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 55:4'>Psa 55:4</a></em>), could steal the odd few dollars (in our terms) out of the bag of those 12 travelling men. It couldn't have been any great sum that he notched up in those three years. And yet this led Judas to betray the Lord of all grace, for a sum no more than at most a few thousand US dollars (in our terms). They valued the Son of God at 30 pieces of silver (<em><a href='B:470 27:9'>Mat 27:9</a></em>)- and&nbsp;<em>all it could buy was a field</em>. And Judas was happy with that. The way he later hurled those coins down and stalked off to hang himself suggests that he saw the essence of his failure as being tied up with that money. "The reward of iniquity" was what Peter contemptuously called it (<em><a href='B:510 1:18'>Act 1:18</a></em>).</p><p><em>If I will deliver Him to you?</em>- The Lord had predicted this, using the very same words, concerning how He would be delivered over to the "chief priests" (<em><a href='B:470 20:18'>Mat 20:18</a></em>). The Lord had only just used the word translated "deliver" in predicting His betrayal (:2). And Judas did it. The Lord surely knew the power of self-fulfilling prophecies; to some degree He psychologically set up this situation so that this would indeed happen. For ultimately the Lord 'gave Himself', He handed Himself over the same Greek word for us (<em><a href='B:550 2:20'>Gal 2:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:560 5:2'>Eph 5:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:560 5:25'>Eph 5:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:670 2:23'>1Pe 2:23</a></em>). It is not at all unbelievable that Judas would do the very thing which the Lord had predicted the betrayer would do. It is true to human experience; people do the very thing they know they should not, performing to the letter the very situations which they have been clearly warned about. Yet through all this, it must be remembered that the same word for deliver up / betray is used about how&nbsp;<em>God</em>&nbsp;'delivered up' His Son for us all (<em><a href='B:520 8:32'>Rom 8:32</a></em>). Although Judas was without question guilty and did what he did of his own volition, God's hand was somehow in it, working through the freewill of men. And this is the great comfort to all those who suffer evil at the hands of evil men; the evil of the men and their actions doesn't mean that we have been forsaken by God, nor that His far higher hand is not in it all, working as He does for our ultimate good in the latter end:&nbsp;</p><p>We noted earlier that the very language of betrayal into the hands of the religious leaders and thence to the power of the Gentiles (<em><a href='B:470 20:18-19'>Mat 20:18-19</a></em>) was used about the experience of the faithful in the final tribulation (<em><a href='B:470 24:9-10'>Mat 24:9-10</a></em>). In the very last few days, the last generation will pass through the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, identifying with His death so that they might live with Him. This will be especially appropriate if the last generation are the only human beings to never taste of death. And even for those believers who do not live at that time, they too find that their experiences of betrayal are a part in their fellowship of their Lord's sufferings. For the same word is used in speaking of how we are all "delivered unto death for Jesus' sake" (<em><a href='B:540 4:11'>2Co 4:11</a></em>). For the sake of being in Him, identified with Him, we must all share in His sufferings and betrayal experience.</p><p><em>They paid him</em>- They weighed Gk. the money, fulfilling <em><a href='B:450 11:12'>Zec 11:12</a></em> "They weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver". The legalism of all concerned shines through. According to <em><a href='B:480 14:11'>Mar 14:11</a></em>, this was really an advance payment. The money was perhaps weighed out because the shekels were the temple shekels, those used in the temple:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Thirty pieces</em>- The legal price of a slave (<em><a href='B:20 21:32'>Exo 21:32</a></em>). The money intended for purchasing the temple sacrifices (see on&nbsp;<em>They covenanted</em>) was used to buy the Lord at the time when He appeared supremely "in the form of a servant".</p><p><em>Of silver</em>- They were "the price of Christ's blood" (<em><a href='B:470 27:6'>Mat 27:6</a></em>), "the price of Christ". We are surely intended to use this identification to interpret the parable of the pieces of silver s:w. given to the Lord's servants (<em><a href='B:470 25:18'>Mat 25:18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 25:27'>Mat 25:27</a></em>). He calls it "My money" s:w. "silver pieces", <em><a href='B:490 19:23'>Luk 19:23</a></em>. The money of Christ was the money paid to get His blood. Perhaps those to whom more silver pieces were given are those who had sinned the more, whose redemption was the more costly; or those who appreciate the price of their redemption the more.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:16'>Mat 26:16</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And from that time onward he sought opportunity to betray him</em>- One with the Lord's sensitivity would easily have realized what was happening. Yet He was so far above it all; for He was going to hand Himself over, and not be handed over by anyone.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:17'>Mat 26:17</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Now on the first day of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Where do you want us to</em>- This is noted so often, as if the Lord was alone, presumably in prayer to the Father, and wasn't with the disciples all the time.</p><p><em>Prepare the Passover for you to eat?</em>- <em><a href='B:490 22:8'>Luk 22:8</a></em> adds the detail that actually this was said in response to Peter and John being told to go and prepare the Passover. <em><a href='B:480 14:15'>Mar 14:15</a></em> brings out the paradox that the Lord directed them to an upper room that was already "prepared" (s:w:), and there they prepared the Passover. The Lord had taught that the festal meal was already prepared for His people (<em><a href='B:470 22:4'>Mat 22:4</a></em> s:w:). The Lord was surely using the language of Passover preparation in saying that He was going to the cross to prepare a place for us (<em><a href='B:500 14:1-3'>Joh 14:1-3</a></em>)- and He said that at the very time Passover was being prepared. His request that&nbsp;<em>they</em>&nbsp;prepare Passover was therefore asking for a mutuality in response from them.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:18'>Mat 26:18</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And he said: Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him</em>- Mark and Luke add that he was a man bearing a pitcher of water (<em><a href='B:480 14:13'>Mar 14:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 22:10'>Luk 22:10</a></em>). This water was carried upstairs into the upper room, and became, as it were, the wine of the new covenant. Carrying water was woman's work, and the Lord surely arranged this special sign in order to show how at His table, there was gender equality. He was so far ahead of His time. The vague "such a man" is perhaps to conceal the identity of the householder, given that the Gospels were distributed at a time of persecution. Or perhaps it was in order to avoid the identifying of the house and turning it into some kind of shrine, or special honour being given to the householder.</p><p><em>The Teacher said</em>- The anonymous man, unnamed perhaps for security reasons, was presumably a believer for this title to mean anything to the man. Likewise the reference to the Lord's time being at hand would've only been understandable by a disciple. The Lord wishes to assume that the man will appreciate that if the Lord's time of death was at hand, then He must first keep the Passover.<br/><em><br/>My time is at hand</em>- The Lord used similar language in teaching how in the very last days of the tribulation, we will likewise know that the Lord's time is at hand (<em><a href='B:470 24:32-33'>Mat 24:32-33</a></em>). This is another one of many suggestions that we who live in the last days will go through the essence of the Lord's sufferings:&nbsp;</p><p><em>I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples</em>- The use of&nbsp;<em>meta</em>&nbsp;carries the sense of amongst, in the midst of, and not simply 'together with'. <em><a href='B:650 2:12'>Heb 2:12</a></em> perhaps alludes to this by quoting and applying to Jesus the Old Testament passage which says "I will declare Your Name unto My brothers, in the midst of the church will I sing praise". This is quoted in the context of a sustained argument in Hebrews 2 that the Lord shared our nature. His breaking of bread with the disciples therefore was an essay in His humanity and solidarity with us- and that is the intention of the breaking of bread meeting to this day. The intended meaning is so much enhanced by correctly appreciating how the Lord shared our nature.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:19'>Mat 26:19</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And the disciples did as Jesus directed them, and they prepared the Passover</em>- The same rubric is used about Moses' obedience to all commanded him. Those secular men were being painted in terms of Moses, who was seen as without equal in Judaism. But the Lord often paints His secular followers in the very terms of the most stellar Old Testament heroes of Judaism.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:20'>Mat 26:20</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Now when evening had come, he was dining with the twelve disciples-</em>&nbsp;"Dining" is "reclined". Joachim Jeremias gives a whole string of quotes from Rabbinic and historical writings that indicate that “At the time of Jesus the diners sat down" to eat. Yet the Gospel records are insistent that Jesus and the disciples&nbsp;<em>reclined</em>&nbsp;at the last supper (<em><a href='B:470 26:20'>Mat 26:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 14:18'>Mar 14:18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 22:14'>Luk 22:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 13:12'>Joh 13:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 13:23'>Joh 13:23</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 13:25'>Joh 13:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 13:28'>Joh 13:28</a></em>). Yet at the Passover, it was apparently common to recline, because as Rabbi Levi commented “slaves eat standing, but here at the Passover meal people should recline to eat, to signify that they have passed from slavery to freedom". The breaking of bread is thus stressed in the records as being a symbol of our freedom from slavery. It should not in that sense be a worrying experience, taking us on a guilt trip. It is to celebrate the salvation and release from bondage which has truly been achieved for us in Christ our Passover.</p><p>"With the twelve" doesn't mean that only the twelve partook or were present. Matthew's record may simply be focusing upon them. There are reasons to think that there were others present too.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:21'>Mat 26:21</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And as they were eating, he said: Truly I say to you: One of you shall betray me</em>- The Lord had repeatedly predicted that He would be 'betrayed' or 'handed over'. But He had not defined who would do it, indeed the form in which He had spoken of being 'handed over' was vague and didn't necessarily require that one individual would do it. We must remember that&nbsp;<em>paradidomi</em>&nbsp;means literally 'to hand over' and doesn't carry the sense of personal betrayal which the English word 'betray' is loaded with. They were there shocked when He stated that "one of&nbsp;<em>you</em>" would do this.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:22'>Mat 26:22</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And they were exceedingly sorrowful</em>- It is commendable that their dominant emotion was of sorrow rather than anger. We perhaps would have expected anger more than sorrow. But their sorrow is a reflection of the degree of their love for the Lord, and their sorrow for the person who would face the awful consequences of doing so:&nbsp;</p><p><em>And all began</em>- The idea is that they all burst out with the same question at the same time. And yet <em><a href='B:480 14:19'>Mar 14:19</a></em> records that they asked this "One by one". The scene is imaginable- after initially all bursting out with the same question, they try to ask Him the same question personally in order to get an answer. Which is why Judas asks the question somewhat later (:25). Again it is commendable that their very first reaction was to wonder whether they personally could be the betrayer- rather than 'Lord, is it&nbsp;<em>him</em>?'. But after realizing that it was not them personally, naturally they began to look at one another, wondering whom He was speaking of (<em><a href='B:500 13:22'>Joh 13:22</a></em>). Although "doubting of whom He spoke" (<em><a href='B:500 13:22'>Joh 13:22</a></em>) really means they were at a loss to know. Clearly they had absolutely no suspicion that it was Judas. And when Judas is told "What you are doing, do quickly" and Judas exits (<em><a href='B:500 13:27-29'>Joh 13:27-29</a></em>), they still assume that he must have been sent out to minister to the poor suggesting there were beggars around the feast, again hinting that the last supper was not held behind closed doors. This again speaks to us who replicate the last supper week by week. Some will indeed betray their Lord, but we have absolutely no idea who they are:&nbsp;</p><p><em>To say to him: Is it I, Lord?</em>- The negative implies the answer 'No, you are not the one'. It was more than a question- it was a declaration of innocence. This is the basis for self-examination at the Lord's table; we should be able to do it and conclude that we are not the Lord’s betrayer. Some who sit at that table will betray Him, and we are to realize the very real possibility of our own ultimate failure, the eternity of the future we may miss. Perhaps "every one of them" excludes Judas, because he apparently asked the question later (:25), and replaces 'Lord' with "Master"Gk. 'rabbi' when he asks: "Master 'rabbi', is it I?" (:25). His usage of 'rabbi' to address the Lord may reflect how influenced he was by Judaism, and how he failed to appreciate the utter Lordship of Jesus. Judas maybe persuaded himself that this Jesus was just another itinerant rabbi, who Judaism would be better off without. Note that "Is it I?" is&nbsp;<em>eimi ego</em>, literally 'Am I?'. This is one of many examples of where&nbsp;<em>ego eimi</em>&nbsp;means simply 'I am', and contrary to Trinitarian claims the words do not mean that the speaker of them is claiming to be God.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:23'>Mat 26:23</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And he answered and said: He that dipped his hand with me in the dish</em>- The past tense is important, for if the Lord was predicting a future event, then all the disciples would be looking carefully at the dish. "Dipped",&nbsp;<em>em-bapto</em>, carries the suggestion that there was liquid or water within the dish. Lamb is greasy, and there would have been dishes of water on the table in which the diners dipped their hands. The Lord had done that at the same time as Judas, and must have pressed His fingers against those of Judas. But none of the others had noticed. <em><a href='B:500 13:26'>Joh 13:26</a></em> says that "It is he to whom I gave the morsel of bread after I dipped it"- perhaps meaning that the Lord had put a crumb of bread into Judas' fingers whilst their hands touched in the bowl. Any other reading of the incident faces the obvious difficulty that if indeed the Lord publicly pointed Judas out as the betrayer, there would have been no confusion as to why he went out into the darkness. And we would expect to read of an outcry amongst the 11 against Judas; but the record instead stresses that they totally didn't suspect Judas until he was out of the room. <em><a href='B:480 14:20'>Mar 14:20</a></em> adds that the Lord said that the man was "One of the twelve" who had dipped his hand with the Lord in the dish. This suggests there were others apart from the twelve eating at the table and dipping their hands in the dish. It was not therefore a closed communion. There would have been no need for such a "large" room (<em><a href='B:490 22:12'>Luk 22:12</a></em>) if only the twelve were present.</p><p><em>The same shall betray me</em>- The Greek word translated "betray" really means 'to hand over'. This was yet future for Judas. The 'betrayal' in the English sense of that word had already happened:&nbsp;</p>


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<h4><em><a href='B:470 26:24'>Mat 26:24</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The Son of Man goes</em>- The Lord's 'going' was His going to the cross. The Lord used the same word in <em><a href='B:470 13:44'>Mat 13:44</a></em> in describing Himself as the man who 'goes'&nbsp;<em>with joy&nbsp;</em>and sells all that He has in order to buy / redeem s:w. the field (representing the world) in order to gain for Himself the treasure (the redeemed). His 'going' to the cross was therefore done with some form of "joy". Even when the only visible representative of the treasure were that band of mixed up men and a few doubtful women. He uses the word again in telling Peter to 'go' behind Him and carry His cross (<em><a href='B:470 16:23'>Mat 16:23</a></em>). Yet the Lord looked beyond the cross; He saw Himself as 'going' to the Father (<em><a href='B:500 7:33'>Joh 7:33</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:14'>Joh 8:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:21-22'>Joh 8:21-22</a></em> s:w:), in the same way as we do not only 'go' to our death, but ultimately even death itself is part of an onward journey ultimately towards God and His Kingdom. The Lord's attitude to His death was that He&nbsp;<em>knew</em>&nbsp;that He was now 'going to the Father' (<em><a href='B:500 13:3'>Joh 13:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 14:28'>Joh 14:28</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 16:5'>Joh 16:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 16:10'>Joh 16:10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 16:16-17'>Joh 16:16-17</a></em> s:w:). This unique perspective upon death and suffering is only logical for those who have a clear conception of future resurrection and personal fellowship with the Father in His future Kingdom.</h4><p><em>Even as it is written of Him</em>- <em><a href='B:500 13:18'>Joh 13:18</a></em> is specific: "But the scripture must be fulfilled: He that eats my bread lifted up his heel against me". The reference to the heel naturally suggests the Gospel promise of <em><a href='B:10 3:15'>Gen 3:15</a></em>. But it seems the wrong way around- it is the seed of the woman who lifts up a bruised heel with which to crush the seed of the serpent. There is no lack of evidence that on the cross, the Lord identified totally with sinners, to the point that He felt forsaken just as sinners are forsaken. Or perhaps Judas justified his actions by deciding that Jesus was a false Messiah, the seed of the serpent, and the righteous thing to do was to crush the serpent with his heel:&nbsp;</p><p><em>But woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is betrayed&nbsp;</em>- The Lord typically pronounced 'Woe' upon the Jewish world and their religious leaders. He classes Judas along with them, because his actions had been inspired by them. The devil, in this context referring to the Jewish opposition to Jesus, had put the idea of betrayal into the heart of Judas (<em><a href='B:500 13:2'>Joh 13:2</a></em>). "Woe" translates&nbsp;<em>ouai</em>, an intensified form of&nbsp;<em>ou</em>, "no". Perhaps in His word choice the Lord was still desperately saying to Judas 'No No Don't do it'. He knew that He had to be betrayed, but His appeals for Judas to repent were therefore rooted in an understanding that the Bible prophecies would come true in some other way than through Judas. For otherwise, Judas would have had no real possibility of repentance, and no real choice but than to do what he did.</p><p><em>It would have been better if that man had not been born</em>- "Better" shows how the Lord is sympathetically looking at things from the perspective of Judas. For in John 14 He reasons that His departure is good for all concerned. The Lord foresaw Judas' agony at the last day. But the Greek can bear a retranslation: 'It would be virtuous for that man if he did not conceive / gender'. In that case, there would be yet another appeal for Judas to stop dead in his heart the conception of sin. The Lord elsewhere uses words with two or more meanings in order to deliver a specific message to an individual, within a statement of general truth which appeared intended for others. The messages He sent back to the imprisoned John the Baptist are a clear example. The Lord's last ditch attempts to save Judas, rather than allow himself to be so hurt by him that He just ignored him, are a powerful encouragement to us in dealing with those who harm us and wilfully do evil:&nbsp;</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:25'>Mat 26:25</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And Judas, who betrayed him, answered and said: Is it I, Rabbi?</em>- See on :22&nbsp;<em>Lord, is it I?</em>&nbsp;If Judas openly asked the question and was told 'Yes Judas, it's you I'm referring to', then there is no easy explanation for why no reaction from the disciples is recorded, nor any attempt by them to persuade him otherwise or limit his actions. Likewise we must give full weight to the fact that when Judas exits, they assume he has gone to buy something for the feast or to minister to the poor (<em><a href='B:500 13:27-29'>Joh 13:27-29</a></em>). This leads to the conclusion that Judas asked the Lord this quietly and received a hushed reply. John likewise leaned on the Lord's chest and asked Him quietly who it was (<em><a href='B:500 13:24-26'>Joh 13:24-26</a></em>). Is it possible that Judas also at this stage also lay on the Lord's chest, so close to Him that he could whisper to Him out of earshot of the others? It was a "large upper room", and so it may well have been possible. In this case, Judas was indeed the Lord's "familiar friend in whom I trusted", and the closeness of Judas and Jesus would explain why the disciples were completely not suspicious of Judas. If the Lord had publicly answered Judas, then surely events would not have unfolded as they did. The Lord knew exactly what Judas was planning, more by His premonition and sensitivity to Judas' feelings than by a bolt of Divine revelation. The Lord freely gave His life, it was not taken from Him by betrayal and murder. He therefore set the situation up, on one level, to happen as it did. And He didn't want to stop it happening. And yet on the other hand, He so wished for Judas' repentance on a personal level. And this is how He works with men to this day:&nbsp;</p><p><em>He said to him: You have said it</em>- This is exactly the style the Lord adopts with Pilate in answering the question as to whether He is King of the Jews: "You said it" (<em><a href='B:470 27:11'>Mat 27:11</a></em>). He allows people to come to a point where they state the truth out of their own mouths, rather than Him putting words into their mouths. And He works likewise today.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:26'>Mat 26:26</a></em>&nbsp;<em>As they were eating</em>- Eating the Passover lamb. The bread and wine were accessories, side dishes, and the Lord takes these things and makes them so significant. He doesn't, e:g:, take some lamb and divide it between the guests with the message that "This represents My body". Even though the lamb was the more obvious symbol of Himself than the bread was. He wanted the last supper to be repeated by poor and ordinary people, who had bread but not lamb each week; He used common, readily available bread because that spoke more of His humanity, His ordinariness. He used what was to hand, just as we can for the breaking of bread.</p><p>Note that Judas was still present at this point. <em><a href='B:500 13:18'>Joh 13:18</a></em> makes the point concerning him that "He that eats bread with Me has lifted up his heel against Me". If Judas broke bread with the Lord, this surely indicates that there is nothing intrinsically sinful in breaking bread with sinners. The quotation from Psalms 41 is interesting in the LXX: "the man of my peace, on whom I set my hope". There was special potential in Judas, and the Lord on one hand had hopes for him. It has been argued that the giving of the "sop" to him was the sign of special love and fellowship. <em><a href='B:500 13:20'>Joh 13:20</a></em> goes on to say: "He that receiveth whomsoever I shall send, receiveth me". The 'receiving' in this context is receiving at the Lord's table. To reject others from His table is to reject the Lord.</p><p><em>Jesus took bread-&nbsp;</em>Taking bread, blessing and breaking it and giving to the disciples was exactly what the Lord did at the feeding of the 5000 and 4000 (<em><a href='B:470 14:19'>Mat 14:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 15:36'>Mat 15:36</a></em>), and we are thereby justified in seeing what He did then as having a religious dimension, practicing thereby an extremely open table. To 'take bread' can mean although not always to actually eat bread. Consider: "The disciples had forgotten to take bread,<em>&nbsp;neither</em>&nbsp;did they have with them more than one loaf" (<em><a href='B:480 8:14'>Mar 8:14</a></em>)- the force of "neither::." is that they had not eaten bread, rather than that they had forgotten to bring any with them. Philip complained that there would not be enough bread for each of the crowd to 'take' even a little, i:e. to eat just a little (<em><a href='B:500 6:7'>Joh 6:7</a></em>). So it could be that the Lord took and ate bread, blessed it, and then asked the disciples to eat it. This sequence of events would then make the eating of bread a more conscious doing of what Jesus had done. He took the bread, and then He asks them to take the bread ("Take, eat"). He is inviting them to mimic Him:&nbsp;</p><p><em>And blessed it</em>- It was usual to bless a meal, especially the Passover lamb, but here the Lord offers a special prayer for the accessory to the meal, the side dish of bread. He wanted to highlight the significance of the most ordinary thing on the table and show that it represented Him:&nbsp;</p><p><em>And he gave it to the disciples, saying: Take, eat</em>- The use of&nbsp;<em>didomi</em>&nbsp;is set in the context of all the talk about how the Lord would be&nbsp;<em>para-didomi</em>, betrayed / handed / given over to the Jews. The idea is that what happened was ultimately the Lord's choice. He gave Himself, to God and to His people, rather than being given over to death against His will. <em><a href='B:490 22:29'>Luk 22:29</a></em> says that the Lord then used the word&nbsp;<em>didomi</em>&nbsp;again: "This is My body, which is given for you". The giving of the bread to them was symbolic of how He would give His body to crucifixion, and how the 'giving over' of Jesus by Judas was not something outside of the Lord's control. It was not a misfortune which changed plans, rather was it precisely in line with the Lord's own giving of His body.</p><p><em>This is my body-&nbsp;</em>See on&nbsp;<em>Gave it</em>. He said "This is My body which is given for you" (<em><a href='B:490 22:29'>Luk 22:29</a></em>), and also "This is My body which is broken for you" (<em><a href='B:530 11:24'>1Co 11:24</a></em>). He surely said both, repeating the words as the disciples ate the bread. He chose bread and not lamb to represent His body because He wished to emphasize His ordinariness and thereby His presence in the human, daily things of life. To give ones’ body is a very intimate statement, almost to the point of being sexual. This is the sober intensity and extent to which the Lord gave Himself for us.</p><p>When Jesus said “this is My body” we are to understand that ‘this&nbsp;<em>represents</em>, this is a symbol of my body’. Jesus was clearly referring to what was usually said at the Passover: “This is the bread&nbsp;of affliction which our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt”. It wasn’t of course literally the same bread. “This is” clearly means ‘this represents’ in <em><a href='B:450 5:3'>Zec 5:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:450 5:8'>Zec 5:8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 13:19-23'>Mat 13:19-23</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 13:38'>Mat 13:38</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 11:25'>1Co 11:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 12:27'>1Co 12:27</a></em>. In some Bible versions, when we read the word ‘means’, it is simply a translation of the verb ‘to be’ (<em><a href='B:470 9:13'>Mat 9:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 12:7'>Mat 12:7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 15:26'>Luk 15:26</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 2:12'>Act 2:12</a></em>). ‘This is’ should be read as ‘this means / this represents’. The deftness of the way He broke that bread apart and held the cup comes out here in <em><a href='B:470 26:26'>Mat 26:26</a></em>. He knew what that breaking of bread was going to mean.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:27'>Mat 26:27</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And he took a cup</em>- This was by no means easy for Him, because in Gethsemane He struggled so deeply in order to take it. Surely Matthew was aware of this and wishes us to remember it every time we break bread. He&nbsp;<em>did</em>&nbsp;take the cup- the cup we go on to read about, that was so difficult for Him to accept. Luke's record records the taking of the cup twice. This could be a reference to multiple cups of wine drunk at the Passover; or it could be that Luke simply records the incident twice. Or perhaps the Lord was simply drinking from the common table wine, and more than once drew out the symbology.</p><p><em>And gave thanks and gave it to them, saying</em>- Here&nbsp;<em>eucharisteo</em>&nbsp;is used, but&nbsp;<em>eulogeo&nbsp;for</em>&nbsp;the 'blessing' of the bread. The difference may be in that the Lord took the bread, an accessory to the meal, and turned that which was so ordinary into something of spiritual symbolism; and His blessing of the bread was necessary for this. But&nbsp;<em>eucharisteo</em>&nbsp;includes the idea of grace,&nbsp;<em>charis</em>, and suggests more thankfulness for grace- a thought appropriate to the meaning of the Lord's blood shed for us by grace. And naturally we wonder whether the wine that was taken was one of the Passover cups, or simply some of the table wine, an accessory to the meal just as the bread was. Whilst there was a taking of four cups of wine at the Passover, this may not be the only explanation for Luke recording the taking of two of them. It could simply be that as they were eating the Passover lamb, they ate bread and drunk weak wine as part of the accompaniments which went with every Palestinian meal. And the Lord twice passed comment on the wine, that it represented His blood. This would be similar to the manner in which He chose the bread, the&nbsp;<em>artos</em>, the ordinary word for bread rather than one referring specifically to unleavened bread, as the symbol for His body- rather than the meat of the Passover lamb. He could have made use of the blood of the Passover lamb as a symbol in some way- e:g. He could have asked a servant to bring the blood of the lamb and asked the disciples to all dip their fingers in it. But instead He uses wine as a symbol of His blood. My hunch is that the wine was the ordinary table wine accompanying the meal, just as the bread was, and was not the ritually significant Passover cup. In any case, the tradition of drinking cups of wine at Passover was non-Biblical, and somehow out of keeping with the original spirit of Passover, which was to remember the haste with which the first Passover was eaten. <em><a href='B:530 10:16'>1Co 10:16</a></em> speaks of "the cup of blessing which&nbsp;<em>we&nbsp;</em>bless", with the emphasis on the "we". We are to do what the Lord did that night- not be mere audience figures, but actually do what He did:&nbsp;</p><p><em>All of you, drink it</em>- The appeal for all to drink it was surely said because some were doubtful as to whether they should take it. Perhaps there were others in the room apart from the twelve. But most likely this was yet another appeal to Judas- to drink the cup of salvation and forgiveness. He gave the reason in :28- "For", or because, this was the symbol of the means for the forgiveness of sins. The Lord's attitude to Judas leaves us realizing we should never give up with the lost. Even the very worst of them. And given the Lord's eagerness that Judas break bread, we can hardly conclude that any sinner is thereby unworthy of participation at the breaking of bread. It is after all His table and not ours. This isn't to say that forms of discipline may not be required at times, but welcome at the Lord's table should never be withdrawn.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:470 26:28'>Mat 26:28</a></em>&nbsp;<em>For this is My blood</em>- Given Jewish obsession with blood and ritual uncleanness arising from contact with it, such language was surely purposefully challenging and radical, just as He had spoken of eating His flesh and drinking His blood in <em><a href='B:500 6:53'>Joh 6:53</a></em>. This made many turn away when He said it, but the Lord realized that His followers had to make a total break with Judaism. The drift of some Christian believes back towards the mentality of Judaism is totally missing the Lord's point- He was speaking in such challenging terms to make His followers realize that there was no middle path of compromise between Him and Judaism. Although He never commanded them to leave the synagogue system, and assumed they would remain in it until they were thrown out of it, all the same the Lord stated His principles in such a way that it would've been effectively impossible for His followers to remain within that system:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Of the covenant</em>- The promises to Abraham were effectively the new covenant, even though they were given before the old covenant the law of Moses was given. The Lord's death confirmed those promises made to the Jewish fathers (<em><a href='B:520 15:8'>Rom 15:8</a></em>). But God's word is true as it stands and in that sense needs no confirmation, no guarantee of truthfulness. But in an effort to persuade us of the simple truth and reality of the promises of eternity in the Kingdom which were made to Abraham, God confirmed it through the death of His Son. This was foreseen in the horror of great darkness which Abraham experienced in Genesis 15. Abraham did nothing to confirm his side of the covenant; it was God who passed between the pieces of the slain animal, during a time of Divine darkness as there was on the cross, in order to demonstrate to Abraham and to us all how serious He was about keeping His promise. Through the death of Christ, God commended His love to us (<em><a href='B:520 5:8'>Rom 5:8</a></em>), He confirmed the covenant; not that He needed to do so, nor that His love needs any more commendation to us. But He did, in order to seek to persuade us of the truth of the promises which comprise the Gospel (<em><a href='B:550 3:8'>Gal 3:8</a></em>). In this sense "the promise was made sure s:w. 'confirmed' to all the seed" (<em><a href='B:520 4:16'>Rom 4:16</a></em>); the extra element of making sure or confirming the promise was in the death of God's Son. Our hope is therefore "sure<em>&nbsp;and</em>&nbsp;confirmed AV "steadfast"" (<em><a href='B:650 6:19'>Heb 6:19</a></em>). <em><a href='B:650 9:17'>Heb 9:17</a></em> puts it another way in saying that a will or legacy is only confirmed AV "of force" by the death of the one who promised the inheritance, and the death of Christ was God's way of confirming the truth of what He had promised. This same word meaning 'confirmed' is used by Peter in writing of how we have "the word of prophecy made sure / confirmed" (<em><a href='B:680 1:19'>2Pe 1:19</a></em>). The prophesied word is the word of the Gospel, the promise of the Kingdom which began in Genesis, and this has been confirmed to us, made even more sure, by the Lord's death. Peter isn't referring to prophecy in the sense of future events being predicted in the arena of world geopolitics; the prophesied word is the word of our salvation, of the Gospel- which is how Peter elsewhere uses the idea of "the word". God can save who He wishes, as, how and when He wishes. He was not somehow duty bound, left with no option, forced by an unpleasant logical bind to suffer the death of His Son. He gave His Son, according to His own plan from the beginning. But He did it that way in order to persuade us of His love and simple desire to give us the Kingdom He has promised from the beginning of His revelation to men. The Lord's blood is "of the new covenant" not in that it&nbsp;<em>is itself&nbsp;</em>the new covenant, but rather in that it is the blood associated with the confirmation of that covenant as true. And so it is understandable that the Lord should wish us to understand His blood as the blood of the new covenant, the supreme sign that it is for real, and desire us to regularly take that cup which reminds us of these things. <em><a href='B:650 6:17-18'>Heb 6:17-18</a></em> carries the same idea- that in order to demonstrate the utter certainty of the things promised to Abraham's seed, God confirmed it by an oath so that we might a strong consolation and persuasion of the certainty of the promise. The death of God's Son was not therefore unavoidable for Him; He could save us as He wishes. But He chose this most painful way in the ultimate attempt to persuade men of the reality of His Son. With this understanding we can better appreciate the tales of the old missionaries who went to pagan and illiterate tribes and reported a strange response to their message once they explained the idea of the Son of God dying on a cross to show us God's love. It must be persuasive to us too, week by week as we reflect on the blood of the covenant.</p><p>"Covenant" literally means that which is to be disposed of or distributed, and was used about the distribution of property upon decease. The Lord's parables about the Master who distributes all His wealth and possessions to His servants were surely looking forward to His death, at which He gave us all He had- and that was and is visually symbolized in the breaking of bread, the division even of His body and life blood amongst us, for us to trade with.</p><h4><em>Which is poured out for many for the remission of sins</em>- He perhaps followed this by saying "Shed for you" (<em><a href='B:490 22:20'>Luk 22:20</a></em>). This is often the way with Biblical statements- the general and global is stated, and then the scale is focused down to you personally. His blood was shed for many::. but for you. However we may also have here a similar idea to that expressed in the parable of the man Christ who finds treasure us in the field of the world, and therefore gives all in order to redeem the field, in order to get us as His own (<em><a href='B:470 13:44'>Mat 13:44</a></em>). Likewise His blood was shed for many, the redemption price was paid for humanity, that He might redeem us. Putting <em><a href='B:490 22:20'>Luk 22:20</a></em> and <em><a href='B:470 26:28'>Mat 26:28</a></em> together, the Lord may have said: ":::&nbsp; My blood which is shed for many for the remission of sins of you / for the remission of&nbsp;<em>your</em>&nbsp;sins". One wonders whether the Lord actually was pouring out the wine as He spoke the word "shed". The same word for "shed" is used of how the new wine put into old bottles "runs out". The idea may be that if we don't change, then we crucify Christ afresh. But the Lord may also have in mind that if Israel had accepted the wine of the new covenant which He preached, then the shedding of His blood could have been avoidable. The fact it could have been avoidable- for Israel didn't&nbsp;<em>have</em>&nbsp;to crucify their King- doesn't mean that God was not behind it, using it to confirm the covenant with us, nor that Christ did not of Himself give His own life. "Poured out" is ongoing, Gk. 'is being shed', another hint at the ongoing nature of His death:&nbsp;</h4>


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<p>26:29&nbsp;<em>But I say to you, I shall not drink of this fruit of the vine from this time forward, until</em>- An allusion to how the priest on duty was not to drink wine during his service. The Lord foresaw His work from then on, beginning with the cross, as an active doing of priestly work for us. This would imply that the essence of His work on the cross is the essence of His work for us today; there is a continuity between Him there and His work for us now, with elements of the same pain and passionate focus upon us and the achievement of our salvation. He is not waiting passively in Heaven for the time to return; He is actively busy for us. There is also the implication in His words that His future 'drinking' will be literal- He was holding literal wine in His hand, and He said He would not again drink it until the Kingdom. This suggests that at very least, He invites us to understand His future Messianic banquet as being in some ways a literal feast.</p><p>The Lord clearly taught the continuity between the breaking of bread and the future marriage supper by observing that He would not again drink the cup until He drinks it with us in the Kingdom. The parables of how the Gospel invites people as it were to a meal are suggesting that we should see the Kingdom as a meal, a supper, of which our memorial service is but a foretaste. We are commanded to enter the supper and take the lowest seat (<em><a href='B:490 14:10'>Luk 14:10</a></em>), strongly aware that others are present more honourable than ourselves. Those with this spirit are simply never going to dream of telling another guest 'Leave Don't partake of the meal'. But this is the spirit of those who are exclusive and who use the Lord's table as a weapon in their hands to wage their petty church wars. The very early church didn't behave like this, but instead sought to incarnate and continue the pattern of the meals of the Lord Jesus during His ministry. And this is one major reason why their unity drew such attention, and they grew. To exclude someone from the Lord’s table is to judge them as excluded from the Kingdom banquet. And those who make such judgment will themselves be rejected from it.</p><p><em>That day when I drink it anew with you</em>- This is not 'new' in the sense of freshly made (a different word is used for that), but new in terms of quality, not time. It speaks of a new quality, a freshness, rather than something 'new' in chronological terms. The new wine represented the blood of the new covenant which was shed on the cross. It could be argued that the drinking of this new wine became possible not simply at the last day, but in this life too, in the experience of the church after the Lord's shedding of that blood on the cross.</p><p><em>In my Father's Kingdom</em>- The reference is primarily to the literal Kingdom to be established on earth at His return (<em><a href='B:490 22:29-30'>Luk 22:29-30</a></em> goes on to speak of the disciples eating and drinking in the Kingdom as they sit with Christ on His throne judging Israel), but there is a sense in which His word is fulfilled in the breaking of bread service, where He drinks wine with us as the invisible guest. For His parables of the Kingdom all speak of the experience of God's reign / Kingship as a present experience in the lives of His people. <em><a href='B:490 22:16'>Luk 22:16</a></em> adds with reference to the bread: "Until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God". The fulfilment of Passover deliverance is finally in the last day, and yet the fulfilment of Passover is also to be seen in the breaking of bread service. Note in passing that the Lord's predilection for the term 'Kingdom of God' or 'Father's Kingdom' was perhaps to counterbalance the Jewish emphasis upon the Kingdom as being that of&nbsp;<em>our</em>&nbsp;father&nbsp;<em>David</em>&nbsp;(<em><a href='B:480 11:10'>Mar 11:10</a></em>). The Kingdom was God's, "<em>Yours</em>&nbsp;is the Kingdom", rather than simply and solely the re-establishment of Israel's Kingdom:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>26:30&nbsp;<em>And when they had sung a hymn</em>- Probably the Passover hallel of Psalms 115-118. It's worth reading those Psalms imagining them on the lips of the Lord at the last supper; they are pregnant with relevance for His forthcoming death, especially the reference to "I will take the cup of salvation". <em><a href='B:650 2:12'>Heb 2:12</a></em> surely has the scene in mind, quoting "In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto You" as being proof of the Lord's absolute humanity. The fact He sung praise to&nbsp;<em>God</em>&nbsp;surely reveals a human and not Divine Christ. But doing so amongst His brethren, "the church", as one of them, is an essay in His unity with us, both in nature and experience.</p><p><em>They went out to the Mount of Olives</em>- The Passover ritual required that nobody should go out of the house until morning (<em><a href='B:20 12:22'>Exo 12:22</a></em>). This is clearly teaching that the Passover deliverance had already begun, even before the Lord's blood had been shed, and would connect with the usage of present tenses concerning the Passover and shedding of the Lord's blood (see on :2,28). This sets the scene for the Lord's comment in :32 that He would go before them, and they should follow Him. He was as Moses and as the Angel which went before Israel on Passover night. The allusion to <em><a href='B:20 12:22'>Exo 12:22</a></em> shows that the old legislation had passed away, and in any case the type of Passover being kept by the Lord was not strictly the Mosaic one- for it's likely He was celebrating it a day earlier than stipulated. But the point perhaps was that the true Israel of God were now 'going out' from Egypt; so certain was the Lord that He would achieve deliverance that He could speak of that deliverance as already being achieved. He didn't, therefore, see His work on the cross as something which He might or might not successfully achieve- as we should, He went ahead in the certainty of ultimate success and victory.</p>


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<p>26:31&nbsp;<em>Then Jesus said to them: You will all fall away because of me this night</em>- They would spiritually stumble and fall because <em><a href='B:450 13:7'>Zec 13:7</a></em> predicted this would happen. But the Lord goes on to urge them to watch and pray so that they do not succumb to temptation (:41). He saw Biblical prophecy as being open ended in fulfilment- the prophecy of spiritual failure didn't have to come true. They could resist, sin and failure is never inevitable. He spoke to them in the upper room specifically so that they would&nbsp;<em>not&nbsp;</em>be offended (<em><a href='B:500 16:1'>Joh 16:1</a></em> s:w:); the prophecy didn't have to come true in the disciples, and the Lord did His utmost to provide the potential for it not coming true for them:&nbsp;</p><p><em>For it is written: I will smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad</em>- His death was to be as that of Moses, which left the Israel of God as sheep without a shepherd (<em><a href='B:40 27:17'>Num 27:17</a></em>). And yet the Lord's death would gather together the scattered s:w. people of God (<em><a href='B:500 11:52'>Joh 11:52</a></em>), His death was as a shepherd giving His life for the sheep (<em><a href='B:500 10:11'>Joh 10:11</a></em>). His death and resurrection was to be the means of reviving the lost faith of the disciples- when they meditated upon it. The people of Israel at the Lord's time had had no true shepherds and were therefore as scattered sheep (<em><a href='B:470 9:36'>Mat 9:36</a></em>):&nbsp; The Lord's death would therefore temporarily leave the disciples just like the rest of Israel- they would return to the mentality of Judaism, the 'satan' of the Jewish system and its thinking would tempt them and they would give in. The wolf of Judaism would scatter the sheep (<em><a href='B:500 10:12'>Joh 10:12</a></em>). The disciples were therefore as sheep who scattered because of the thinking of the Jewish world around them, who saw death on a cross as the final defeat for a man; and yet were to be gathered by that very death. Peter was one of those disciples, even though he insisted that&nbsp;<em>he&nbsp;</em>would not be scattered even if others were. He surely had this in mind in appealing to other believers who were falling under the influence of Judaism: "You were as sheep going astray, but are now returned s:w. 'converted'- just as he was 'converted' to strengthen his brethren unto the Shepherd::. of your souls" (<em><a href='B:670 2:25'>1Pe 2:25</a></em>). Peter was therefore appealing to others to follow his own pattern- of revival and conversion after spiritual failure. This is the basis for all powerful pastoral appeal.</p>


text:
<p>26:32&nbsp;<em>But after I am raised up</em>- There is no equivalent of "after" in the Greek text. This is an insertion by translators in order to try to give sense to the three brief Greek words which simply say "And I rise again". The idea is that 'By My rising again, I will go before you:::'. The Lord's plan was that His resurrection would re-ignite faith in His disciples, and He would go before them as a shepherd leads His sheep, into Galilee.</p><p><em>I will go ahead of you into Galilee</em>- This is the language of the shepherd going before the sheep (<em><a href='B:500 10:4'>Joh 10:4</a></em>), in obedience to His voice. The Lord is saying that although they will stumble and lose faith, His resurrection will provide them with a credible word from Him which they would obey by following Him into Galilee. This is why the resurrected Lord's first instruction to the women was to "Go tell My brothers that they go into Galilee; there shall they see Me" (28:10). But it actually didn't work out like that. His meeting with them in Galilee was in fact the third time He revealed Himself to them (<em><a href='B:500 21:14'>Joh 21:14</a></em>). He appeared to them twice before that. And the picture we have of the disciples fishing in Galilee in John 21 is of them still relatively faithless, depressed and having returned to their fishing; they are hardly pictured as eagerly awaiting the Lord's promised appearance in Galilee. So it seems to me that the Lord changed His intended program with them. Their faith was so weak that He appeared to them in Jerusalem twice, whereas He had originally planned for the women to tell them His word- to go before Him into Galilee, and there He would reveal Himself to them. But in His love for them, His own desire to see them, His awareness of their weakness in faith::. He appeared to them twice&nbsp;<em>before</em>&nbsp;Galilee. And even then, we sense from the fishing incident of John 21 that they were still floundering in their faith, and may well have returned to Galilee in order to return to their fishing business, rather than in obedience to His word. Why did He so wish to meet them in Galilee, rather than in Jerusalem? Their journey to Galilee would've been a test of obedience for them, for sure. But surely the Lord reflected by this choice the paramount importance He placed upon the conversion of families. He wanted to appear to them there, surely, because that was where most of them were from, and where their families were. He wanted them too to be persuaded once and for all time of the reality of His resurrection:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>26:33&nbsp;<em>But Peter answered and said to him: If they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away</em>- Peter three separate times states that he will not fail the Lord (also in <em><a href='B:490 22:33'>Luk 22:33</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 13:37'>Joh 13:37</a></em>). Literally, 'not at any time', i:e. 'not even once'. Hence the Lord's comment that Peter would deny Him not once but three times. Yet he denied the Lord three times, and it was on the Lord's third appearance to him (<em><a href='B:500 21:14'>Joh 21:14</a></em>) that the Lord undid the three denials by His three questions concerning whether Peter really loves Him, and three times (again by a charcoal fire) re-instates Peter in the work of strengthening his brethren. These tripilisms and repetitions serve to make the record memorable, and also reflect how somehow the Lord worked through Peter's failures with some overarching plan; there was a higher hand at work through all of the failure, reflected in these tripilisms which could only have been effected by a Divine, higher hand. The Lord's question to Peter "Do you love Me more than these?" surely has reference to the other disciples, whom Peter had thought himself spiritually superior to. He was sure that even if they stumbled, he would not. And the Lord paid special attention to undoing this attitude in Peter and specifically bringing him to realize that he was no better than his brethren. Any sense of spiritual superiority over others is so obnoxious to the Lord. And He will work in our lives to remove it from us, as He did with Job, Jonah and many others. Peter continually alludes to his denials throughout his appeal for Israel's repentance in Acts 2 and throughout his pastoral letters; it is our own failures and receipt of such utter grace which serve as the basis for our credible and persuasive appeal to others to repent. He spoke in <em><a href='B:670 2:8'>1Pe 2:8</a></em> of how the Lord Jesus is a stone of stumbling 'offence', s:w. to those who do not believe- and yet he said this fully aware that he had been one of those who stumbled over Jesus. <em><a href='B:470 21:44'>Mat 21:44</a></em> offers us to the choice- to stumble upon the stone and be broken, or for the stone to fall upon us and grind us to powder, in the figure of judgment and condemnation used in Daniel 2. We either stumble in failure upon Christ and rise up as Peter did, broken men and women, to do our best in serving Him- or that stone shall crush us in condemnation. That is the choice before us, and Peter is the parade example in this to all:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>26:34&nbsp;<em>Jesus said to him: Truly I say to you, that this night</em>- Much of the Lord's knowledge and foreknowledge of events ahead of time can be explained in terms of His incredible sensitivity to others, His understanding of human psychology and behaviour patterns. But there are times when it seems He was given direct foreknowledge from the Father. And this seems one of them- to predict the exact number of denials that would be made that night, and to predict they would happen before the cock crew. This leads to the possibility that whenever He prefaces His words with "Truly I say unto you::.", He is stating something received by direct revelation. Another example is when He uses this rubric to introduce His prediction of how Peter would die (<em><a href='B:500 21:18'>Joh 21:18</a></em>). This would be His equivalent of how the Old Testament prophets introduced their directly inspired words with the rubric "Thus says the Lord". "Truly" (AV "verily") is literally 'amen', as if the Lord Jesus is saying that He is aware of the words of His Father and in uttering them from His lips, is giving His personal agreement, stamp or 'Amen' to them.</p><p><em>Before the cock crows</em>- There is no article in the Greek. 'Before cock crow' is the idea, before the earliest sign of morning when the first cock crew, that very night, before that night even began to come to a close:&nbsp;</p><p><em>You shall deny me three times</em>- See on :35&nbsp;<em>Deny You</em>.</p>


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<p>26:35&nbsp;<em>Peter said to him: Even if I must die with you-&nbsp;</em>Gk. 'If I must die' or 'If it be necessary that I die, I will'. And yet the Lord had taught that He was going to die on the cross, and that all who would truly follow Him should likewise die with Him. When the Lord stated this in Matthew 16, Peter had earnestly sought to dissuade the Lord from that course of action because He didn't want to die with Him. Peter had a problem accepting the inevitable reality of the cross and its demand that we likewise lose our lives for Him. He considered it the most extreme possibility, rather than an obviously necessary sacrifice which is part and parcel of being a true follower of Jesus. We likewise can consider that extreme self-sacrifice is something we might possibly be called to make. But in fact if we are truly signed up to carrying the Lord's cross, it is exactly such radical self-sacrifice which is indeed required of us. The Lord said that Peter was not yet able to die for Him, he would deny Him rather than follow Him, but one day he would be strong enough, and&nbsp;<em>then</em>&nbsp;he would follow Him to the end (<em><a href='B:500 13:36-37'>Joh 13:36-37</a></em>). Peter thought he was strong enough then; for he followed (s:w:) Christ afar off, to the High Priest’s house (<em><a href='B:470 26:58'>Mat 26:58</a></em>). But in ineffable self-hatred he came to see that the Lord’s prediction was right.</p><p><em>I will not deny you-&nbsp;</em>Surely the allusion is again to 16:24, where the Lord has urged Peter to accept that he must deny&nbsp;<em>himself</em>&nbsp;and take up the Lord's cross and die with Him. But instead, because Peter didn't want to do that, he would end up denying Jesus. This is the intensity of our choice- if we will not deny ourselves, then we shall deny Jesus. The Lord had clearly taught that whoever denied Him before men would be denied by Him at the last day (10:33), and Paul repeats this (<em><a href='B:620 2:12'>2Ti 2:12</a></em>). Peter stood condemned by that denial, and yet we can be condemned in this life and change the verdict if we repent. It is this which releases such fervency into our lives if we go through the experience of condemnation but perceive that the verdict has been mercifully changed. Peter appealed to Israel to recognize that they had denied Jesus (<em><a href='B:510 3:13-14'>Act 3:13-14</a></em> "You denied Him in the presence of Pilate"); and he made that appeal a stone's throw and only a few weeks after his own denials of Jesus in the presence of all. And yet this was why his appeal was so credible, as was his later appeal to believers not to do the worst imaginable thing, namely to deny the Lord who had bought them- for that was exactly what, as everyone knew, Peter had himself done (<em><a href='B:680 2:1'>2Pe 2:1</a></em>). John speaks of denying Christ as the hallmark of the antichrist (<em><a href='B:690 2:22'>1Jn 2:22</a></em> "He that denies Jesus::. is the antichrist"), and he wrote this knowing full well that Peter was the rock upon whom the early church had been built. His point, therefore, is that even those who had done that, the antichrist, could still repent as Peter had done:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Likewise said all the disciples-&nbsp;</em>AV "Likewise also". Two words are used when one would suffice, such is the emphasis upon the fact that they all said the same. Peter was the one who went furthest in seeking to live out his claim, and yet he it is whose failure is the most emphasized. And that is how it is often is amongst God's people. But it is because we are asked to identify specifically with Peter.</p>


text:
<p>26:36&nbsp;<em>Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane</em>- The Lord often went to this garden (<em><a href='B:500 18:2'>Joh 18:2</a></em>), but the record at this point emphasizes its name, meaning 'oil press', a common metaphor for judgment. There the Lord as it were passed through His judgment, and there the disciples had their judgment- and ran away into the darkness condemned. Even though through repentance they were later saved out of that condemnation:&nbsp;</p><h4><em>And he said to his disciples: Sit here</em>- The Greek can equally mean 'stay here'. The separation between the Lord and His people, to go away and pray with His senior followers with Him, clearly was based upon Moses going up into the mountain to pray to God, taking Joshua with him, leaving Israel behind. And like Israel, the disciples failed miserably, and were met with the Lord's rebuke on His return from prayer. The Lord is clearly making the point that He now replaces Moses, and that the new Israel were comprised of those 11 mixed up men of weak faith and very limited understanding. The Greek text here has the Lord saying to the disciples: “Sit in this place&nbsp;<em>kathisate autou</em>&nbsp;until going away, I pray there”, and then He takes along with him&nbsp;<em>paralambanein</em>&nbsp;Peter. These are the very words used in the Genesis 22 LXX account of Abraham taking Isaac to ‘the cross’. Jesus is seeking to encourage Peter to see himself as Isaac, being taken to share in the cross. Now whether Peter discerned this or not, we don’t know. But the Lord gave him the potential possibility to be inspired like this. &nbsp;</h4><p><em>While I go yonder and pray</em>- Literally, 'there', as if the Lord was pointing out a location not far distant. He was seeking to help them perceive the similarity with Moses going away to pray, hence His warnings for them&nbsp;<em>not&nbsp;to</em>&nbsp;give way to temptation were asking them to consciously make the effort to not be like the Israel whom Moses left behind when he went away to pray. Of course the Lord could have baldly drawn the similarities between Himself and Moses, but He acted in this way in order to provoke in them the association with Moses, and to realize that they were as Israel, tempted to fall away. And this is His style to the present day. Instead of flashing red lights and words dropping from Heaven, instead we find ourselves set up in situations which recall Biblical situations, and appeal to us to perceive ourselves within that history. That is why daily Bible reading and continual familiarity with the recorded histories of the Bible is so essential, it is all part of the Lord's way of working with us.</p>


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<p>26:37&nbsp;<em>And he took with him</em>- As Moses took Joshua with him:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed</em>- This was the fulfilment of <em><a href='B:290 53:3'>Isa 53:3</a></em>, "a man of sorrows", an intensive plural, implying 'great sorrow'. The fact He 'began' to feel this suggests that the prophecy of Isaiah 53 is specifically about the Lord in His time of sufferings, rather than generally in His life. It was there, at the end, that there was no beauty that He should be desired. And yet <em><a href='B:290 53:4'>Isa 53:4</a></em> defines those 'sorrows' as the sorrows of our sins. His sorrow was therefore in that He felt His identification with our sins, our sorrows. And He felt that identification very intensely as He prayed. Likewise the weight He felt, in that He began to feel heavy, refers to the weight of human sin which He felt Himself carrying.</p><p><em><a href='B:480 14:33'>Mar 14:33</a></em> adds that He was “amazed”. The amazement was perhaps because He came to realize that His subconscious hopes for a deliverance, akin to Isaac’s at the last minute, were not going to come true. This element of surprise is reflected later in His desperate question “Why have You forsaken Me?”. This crisis of understanding contrasts strongly with His calm assurance and assumption that He must now die and resurrect. And yet to be tempted just as we are, He had to go through the experience of things not working out as expected, of crisis and desperate desiring to understand. For these things are what are at the root of our hardest human experiences.</p>


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<p>26:38&nbsp;<em>Then he said to them: My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even to death</em>- The Lord’s psychological struggle was so intense that it was almost killing Him. Yet Peter had said that he was ready to go with the Lord even unto death (<em><a href='B:490 22:33'>Luk 22:33</a></em>). But he failed to perceive that the Lord’s death involved huge psychological suffering- and Peter opted out of that by falling asleep. To physically die was not so much the issue as sharing the psychological trauma of carrying the cross.</p><p>The fullness of the Lord's humanity is of course supremely shown in His death and His quite natural fear of that death. Perhaps on no other point do human beings show they are humans than when it comes to their reaction to and reflection upon their own death. I would go further and suggested that the thought of suicide even entered the Lord's mind. It's hard to understand His thought about throwing Himself off the top of the temple in any other way. His almost throw away comment that "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death" (<em>heos thanatou</em>) is actually a quotation from the suicidal thoughts of Jonah (<em><a href='B:390 4:9'>Jon 4:9</a></em>) and those of the Psalmist in <em><a href='B:230 42:5-6'>Psa 42:5-6</a></em>. Now of course the Lord overcame those thoughts- but their very existence is a window into the depth and reality of His humanity.</p><p><em><a href='B:650 5:7-8'>Heb 5:7-8</a></em> clearly refer to the Lord’s prayer in Gethsemane. The Lord had a quite genuine "fear of death" (<em><a href='B:650 5:8'>Heb 5:8</a></em>). This "fear of death" within the Lord Jesus provides a profound insight into His so genuine humanity. We fear death because our human life is our greatest and most personal possession::. and it was just the same with the Lord Jesus. Note that when seeking here to exemplify Christ's humanity, the writer to the Hebrews chooses His fear of death in Gethsemane as the epitome of His humanity. <em><a href='B:650 5:7'>Heb 5:7</a></em> comments that&nbsp;Christ prayed "with strong crying and tears". These words are certainly to be connected with <em><a href='B:520 8:26'>Rom 8:26</a></em>, which speaks of Christ making intercession for us now&nbsp;with "groanings which cannot be uttered". <em><a href='B:520 8:26'>Rom 8:26</a></em> says that his groaning is so intense that it cannot be audibly uttered; the physicality of sound would not do justice to the intensity of mental striving. The point is that the same agonizing depth of prayer which the Lord achieved for us is what he now goes through as he intercedes for us with the Father.</p><p>Oscar Cullmann translates <em><a href='B:650 5:7'>Heb 5:7</a></em>: "He was heard in his fear (anxiety)". That very human anxiety about death is reflected in the way He urges Judas to get over and done the betrayal process "quickly" (<em><a href='B:500 13:28'>Joh 13:28</a></em>); He was "straitened until it be accomplished" (<em><a href='B:490 12:50'>Luk 12:50</a></em>). He prayed to God just as we would when gripped by the fear of impending death. And He was heard. No wonder He is able therefore and thereby to comfort and save us, who lived all our lives in the same fear of death which He had (<em><a href='B:650 2:15'>Heb 2:15</a></em>). This repetition of the 'fear of death' theme in Hebrews is surely significant- the Lord Jesus had the same fear of death as we do, and He prayed in desperation to God just as we do. And because He overcame, He is able to support us when&nbsp;<em>we</em>&nbsp;in our turn pray in&nbsp;<em>our</em>&nbsp;"time of need"- for He likewise had the very same "time of need" as we have, when He was in Gethsemane (<em><a href='B:650 4:16'>Heb 4:16</a></em>). Death was "the last enemy" for the Lord Jesus just as it is for all humanity (<em><a href='B:530 15:26'>1Co 15:26</a></em>). Reflection on these things not only emphasizes the humanity of the Lord Jesus, but also indicates He had no belief whatsoever in an 'immortal soul' consciously surviving death.</p><p><em>"</em>Exceeding sorrowful" uses the same word used about the exceeding sorrow of the men of the world (Herod- <em><a href='B:480 6:26'>Mar 6:26</a></em>; the rich young man, <em><a href='B:490 18:23-24'>Luk 18:23-24</a></em>). Those who will be rich pierce themselves through with sorrows, they go through the crucifixion pains for the sake of this world (<em><a href='B:610 6:10'>1Ti 6:10</a></em>). So it's a cross either way, and it may as well be in identification with the Lord, leading unto eternal life, than unto eternal death. The same point is made in <em><a href='B:540 7:10'>2Co 7:10</a></em>, where the same word translated "sorrowful" is found- the sorrow of the world leads to death, but Godly sorrow leads to salvation. The disciples fell asleep, and yet by pure grace the record says that they slept for "sorrow" (<em><a href='B:490 22:45'>Luk 22:45</a></em>), using a related but less intense word as used here for the Lord's&nbsp;<em>exceeding</em>&nbsp;sorrow; and the Lord attributes such "sorrow" to them repeatedly at this time (<em><a href='B:500 16:6'>Joh 16:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 16:20-22'>Joh 16:20-22</a></em>). But the point is that His sorrow was of an altogether more intense and higher order than theirs, and yet by grace they are counted as having some part in His sorrow. We speak and read of our sharing in the Lord's sufferings, and yet our sufferings are nothing compared to His; yet by grace they are counted as a sharing in those sufferings.</p><p><em>Stay here</em>- This is&nbsp;<em>meno</em>, the word the Lord has just used multiple times in the upper room discourse, translated "abide". Now He leads them out of the upper room into the real world, and gives them the concrete outworking of abiding in Him- to enter into His struggles, to watch and pray with Him, to share His intensity with the Father. And they fell asleep:&nbsp;</p><p><em>And watch with me</em>- The Greek means to literally keep awake, but is used about watching in prayer. The fact the disciples physically fell asleep, and three times, is a clear statement of their failure. And it is used by the disciples here in their own account and preaching of the Gospel, of which the Gospel records are transcripts, as if to emphasize their own failure, and on that basis appeal to others to likewise accept the Lord's forgiveness and salvation by grace. It is the same word used repeatedly by the Lord in appealing for watchfulness in the very last days before His coming (<em><a href='B:470 24:42-43'>Mat 24:42-43</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 12:37'>Luk 12:37</a></em> etc:), as if the disciples in Gethsemane were going through their judgment, their last days. Likewise the sufferings and experiences of the very last generation will give them the opportunity to uniquely identify with the Lord's crucifixion sufferings. Seeing that generation will never taste of death, this identification with His death will be necessary for them as for no other generation, and the tribulation will be designed to elicit that identification. We are therefore invited to enter into Gethsemane and not repeat the failures of the disciples- the same words are used by Paul in encouraging us all to 'pray and watch' (<em><a href='B:580 4:2'>Col 4:2</a></em>). "Let us not sleep as others, but let us watch" (<em><a href='B:590 5:6'>1Th 5:6</a></em>) could be asking us to not be as the disciples there, but rather to learn from their failure and watch. And yet the comfort of grace is that whether we watch s:w. or sleep, we shall be accepted by Him (<em><a href='B:590 5:10'>1Th 5:10</a></em>), just as the disciples were saved by grace despite their failure. Likewise we are asked to watch and keep our garment (<em><a href='B:730 16:15'>Rev 16:15</a></em>), unlike the disciple present in Gethsemane who did not watch and fled naked having lost his garment (<em><a href='B:480 14:52'>Mar 14:52</a></em>).</p>


text:
<p>26:39&nbsp;<em>And he went forward a little and</em>- <em><a href='B:490 22:41'>Luk 22:41</a></em> “About a stone’s cast”, pointing us back to David’s conflict with Goliath as a type of the Lord’s final conflict with sin.</p><p><em>Fell on his face and prayed, saying: My Father-&nbsp;</em>Paul's description of himself on the Damascus road falling down and seeing a Heavenly vision, surrounded by men who did not understand, is framed in exactly the language of Gethsemane (<em><a href='B:510 22:7'>Act 22:7</a></em> = <em><a href='B:470 26:39'>Mat 26:39</a></em>); as if right at his conversion, Paul was brought to realize the spirit of Gethsemane. His connection with the Gethsemane spirit continued. He describes himself as "sorrowful" (<em><a href='B:540 6:10'>2Co 6:10</a></em>), just as Christ was then (<em><a href='B:470 26:37'>Mat 26:37</a></em>). His description of how he prayed the same words three times without receiving an answer (<em><a href='B:540 12:8'>2Co 12:8</a></em>) is clearly linked to Christ's experience in the garden (<em><a href='B:470 26:44'>Mat 26:44</a></em>); and note that in that context he speaks of being “buffeted” by Satan’s servants, using the very word used of the Lord being “buffeted” straight after Gethsemane (<em><a href='B:540 12:7'>2Co 12:7</a></em> = <em><a href='B:470 26:67'>Mat 26:67</a></em>).</p><p>To fall on the face is used in the Old Testament to describe men like Abraham and Moses falling on their face in the visible presence of God, e:g. before an Angel (<em><a href='B:10 17:3'>Gen 17:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:40 16:4'>Num 16:4</a></em>; <em><a href='B:40 22:31'>Num 22:31</a></em>). Yet there was no visible manifestation of God’s presence at this time; so we are to assume that the Lord Jesus intensely perceived the Father’s presence even though there was no visible sign of it. It could be that the Angel from Heaven strengthening the Lord had already appeared, but this appears to come&nbsp;<em>after</em>&nbsp;the Lord had fallen on His face.</p><p><em>If&nbsp;it&nbsp;be possible, let this cup pass away from me</em>- This may not simply mean 'If it's possible, may I not have to die'. The Lord could have meant: 'If&nbsp;<em>it</em>- some unrecorded possible alternative to the cross- is&nbsp;<em>really</em>&nbsp;possible, then let&nbsp;<em>this</em>&nbsp;cup pass'- as if to say 'If option A is possible, then let the cup of option B pass from me'. But He overrode this with a desire to be submissive to the Father's preferred will- which was for us to have a part in the greatest, most surpassing salvation, which required the death of the cross. “Such&nbsp;<em>great</em>&nbsp;salvation" (<em><a href='B:650 2:3'>Heb 2:3</a></em>) might imply that a lesser salvation could have been achieved by Christ, but He achieved the greatest possible. "He is able also&nbsp;<em>to save them to the uttermost</em>&nbsp;that come unto God by him" (<em><a href='B:650 7:25'>Heb 7:25</a></em>) may be saying the same thing. Indeed, the&nbsp;<em>excellence</em>&nbsp;of our salvation in Christ is a major NT theme. It was typified by the way Esther interceded for Israel; she could have simply asked for her own life to be spared, but she asked for that of all Israel. And further, she has the courage (and we sense her reticence, how difficult it was for her) to ask the King yet another favour- that the Jews be allowed&nbsp;to slay their enemies for one more day, and also to hang Haman's sons (<em><a href='B:150 9:12'>Ezr 9:12</a></em>). She was achieving the maximum possible redemption for Israel rather than the minimum. Paul again seems to comment on this theme when he speaks of how Christ became obedient, "<em>even</em>&nbsp;to the death of the cross" (<em><a href='B:570 2:8'>Phi 2:8</a></em>), as if perhaps some kind of salvation could have been achieved without the death&nbsp;<em>of the cross</em>. Perhaps there was no theological necessity for Christ to die&nbsp;<em>such</em>&nbsp;a painful death; if so, doubtless this was in His mind in His agony in the garden.</p><p>The Lord had taught more than once that “with God all things are possible” (19:26; <em><a href='B:480 9:23'>Mar 9:23</a></em>), and yet He inserts here a condition: “If it be possible”. He recognized that God’s plan was possible of fulfilment by any means, and yet He recognized that there was a condition to that. This issue is not really resoluble, at least not by any intellectual process. If, or rather when, we struggle with these issues, this balance between God’s ultimate possibility and the fact there appear to be terms and conditions attached- then we are there with the Lord in Gethsemane. But we need to note that it was God who was being pushed to the limit here as well- for literally all things are indeed possible to Him, and He could have saved the world any way He wished. In His allowing of this chosen method we see the degree to which the cross was indeed His plan that He so wanted to see worked out.</p><p><em>"</em>Let this cup pass" is interpreted in <em><a href='B:480 14:35'>Mar 14:35</a></em> as “That the hour might pass”. He saw the cup and His “hour” of death as the same thing. The challenging thing is that He invites us to drink His cup, to share in His final hour… even when He Himself found this so hard to drink.</p><p>Paul uses the same Greek term "from me" in describing how also three times he asked for the thorn in the flesh to “depart&nbsp;<em>from me</em>” (<em><a href='B:540 12:8'>2Co 12:8</a></em>). He saw his prayers and desires as a sharing in the Lord’s struggle in Gethsemane, just as we can too.</p><p><em>Nevertheless</em>- The saying of these brief words lasted long enough for the disciples to fall asleep. “Could you not watch with Me for one hour?” (:40) suggests not ‘even just for one hour’ but rather ‘We’ve been here an hour, and you couldn’t watch with me even for that short period of time’. So it took the Lord an hour to say the words recorded here, which can be spoken in a few seconds. We have a window here into the essence of prayer; the words can be spoken quickly, but saying with meaning can take far longer. There may well have been many minutes in between each word here. And doubtless He said the same words and repeated the ideas several times, which would explain the slight differences in wording at this point between the Gospel records.</p><p><em>Not as I will, but as You will</em>- Trinitarians need to note that the Lord’s will was not totally the same as that of His Father.</p>


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<p>26:40&nbsp;<em>And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter: What- "</em>Comes… and finds" are the very words used of the Lord’s coming in judgment to ‘find’ the state of His people (21:19; 24:46 “whom his Lord when He&nbsp;<em>comes</em>&nbsp;shall&nbsp;<em>find</em>&nbsp;so doing”; <em><a href='B:490 18:8'>Luk 18:8</a></em> “When the Son of Man comes, shall He find faith…?”). And His ‘coming’ to the disciples found them asleep and unprepared. This was exactly the picture of <em><a href='B:480 13:36'>Mar 13:36</a></em> (and <em><a href='B:490 12:37'>Luk 12:37</a></em>), using the same Greek words: “Watch… lest coming suddenly, He find you sleeping”. We can be condemned in this life, as Peter was when he denied his Lord, and yet be saved out of it by repentance.</p><p><em>Could you not watch with me for one hour?</em>- Peter later urged his converts to “be watchful” (<em><a href='B:670 5:8'>1Pe 5:8</a></em> RV), watching unto prayer as the end approaches (<em><a href='B:670 4:7'>1Pe 4:7</a></em>), as Peter had&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;been watchful in the garden and had earned the Lord’s rebuke for going to sleep praying (<em><a href='B:470 26:40-41'>Mat 26:40-41</a></em>). They were to learn from his mistake. Their watchfulness was to be because the devil was prowling around, seeking whom he could desire (<em><a href='B:670 5:8'>1Pe 5:8</a></em>). This was exactly the case with Peter: Satan desired to have him, he should have prayed for strength but didn’t do so sufficiently (<em><a href='B:490 22:31'>Luk 22:31</a></em>). He was warning his brethren that they were in exactly the situation he had been in, a few hours before he went into that fateful High Priest’s house:&nbsp;</p><p>Paul was deeply moved by the Gethsemane record: <em><a href='B:590 5:6-7'>1Th 5:6-7</a></em> = <em><a href='B:470 26:40-41'>Mat 26:40-41</a></em>; <em><a href='B:560 6:18'>Eph 6:18</a></em> = <em><a href='B:470 26:4'>Mat 26:4</a></em> <em><a href='B:510 22:7'>Act 22:7</a></em>= <em><a href='B:470 26:39'>Mat 26:39</a></em>; <em><a href='B:540 6:10'>2Co 6:10</a></em> = <em><a href='B:470 26:37'>Mat 26:37</a></em>; <em><a href='B:540 12:8'>2Co 12:8</a></em> = <em><a href='B:470 26:44'>Mat 26:44</a></em>; ; <em><a href='B:520 8:15'>Rom 8:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:550 4:6'>Gal 4:6</a></em> = <em><a href='B:480 14:36'>Mar 14:36</a></em>.</p>


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<p>26:41&nbsp;<em>Watch and pray</em>- The repeated emphasis upon their lack of watching contrasts with the Lord’s stress upon the need to watch in the last days, and how lack of watching would lead to condemnation (<em><a href='B:470 24:42-43'>Mat 24:42-43</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 25:13'>Mat 25:13</a></em>). Their lack of watching meant they were condemned- and yet they were redeemed by their recognition of their state, as evidenced in the Gospel records.</p><p><em>That you may not enter into</em>- These words are addressed to Peter in the singular, and yet the “you” here is plural. The Lord is telling Peter that he is no different to the rest of the disciples, despite his assertion that even if they all denied the Lord, he would not do so. Peter’s sense of spiritual superiority was especially displeasing to the Lord.</p><p><em>Temptation-&nbsp;</em>Each statement of the apparently simple model prayer needs careful reflection. The Lord told the disciples in Gethsemane to earnestly pray the simple saying: “Pray not to fail in the test” (<em><a href='B:470 26:41'>Mat 26:41</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:470 6:13'>Mat 6:13</a></em>). The prayer that they could gabble mindlessly must be prayed with intense attention to every phrase. They presumably did pray as directed, but the Lord later warns them: “Why do you sleep? Get up and pray, so that you will not enter into temptation”. He intended them to keep on praying, as He spent an hour praying the same words; and not just rattle off a few words and think we have done our praying. Just as the tribulation of the last days seems to be conditional upon our faith, so the Lord may imply that entering into the time of trial or testing was avoidable by their prayer and faith. Again we see the final time of tribulation as reflective of the Lord’s sufferings, enabling the very last generation to identify with the Lord’s death so that they might share in His resurrection.</p><h4><em>The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak</em>- The question is whether the Lord is making a general observation about human nature, or whether He is specifically criticizing them for being spiritually weak at that specific time. He could be saying that they underestimated the power of human nature, and needed to pray that they would not enter into the temptation posed by their own flesh, their humanity. This is a clear demonstration of the source of spiritual weakness- our own flesh, rather than any superhuman being. Or it could be that the Lord has in view the specific weakness of the flesh- to disown Him in the face of opposition and the risk of arrest and death.</h4><p>The word "weak" is often used about spiritual weakness. Paul describes all of us as having been saved although we were weak, using the same word used about the disciples asleep in Gethsemane (<em><a href='B:470 26:41'>Mat 26:41</a></em> “weak” = <em><a href='B:520 5:6'>Rom 5:6</a></em> “without strength”). He saw the evident similarity between them and us, tragically indifferent in practice to the mental agony of our Lord, failing to share His intensity of striving- although we are so willing in spirit to do this. And yet, Paul implies, be better than them. Don't be weak and sleepy as they were when Christ wanted them awake (<em><a href='B:470 26:40-41'>Mat 26:40-41</a></em> = <em><a href='B:590 5:6-7'>1Th 5:6-7</a></em>). Strive for the imitation of Christ's attitude in the garden (<em><a href='B:470 26:41'>Mat 26:41</a></em> = <em><a href='B:560 6:18'>Eph 6:18</a></em>). And yet in Romans 7, a depressed but realistic Paul laments that he fails in this; his description of the losing battle he experienced within him between flesh and spirit is couched in the language of Christ's rebuke to the disciples in Gethsemane (the spirit was willing, but the flesh weak).</p>


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<p>26:42&nbsp;<em>Again a second time he went away and prayed, saying</em>- This is saying the same thing twice. We are enabled to imagine the Lord again walking away from them, as if Matthew’s camera is located amongst the disciples and focused upon the rear view of the Lord Jesus.</p><p><em>My Father, If-&nbsp;</em>The Lord in Gethsemane took a long time to pray the simple words: “Father, if :::.". It was long enough for the disciples to fight a losing battle against drowsiness and fall fast asleep (the Greek implies). But how do you pray? With simple, staccato words and phrases like His? Or do you desperately seek for words, any words, just to make it seem you prayed, trying to be like the more mature brethren you hear praying at gatherings? Or after many years of prayer, can I ask, are you just churning out the same old phrases and ideas, with little meaning put into the words:::? If the Son of God Himself prayed in such simple terms, surely we ought to likewise.</p><p><em>This cup</em>- The use of “this…” suggests the Lord had so clearly in mind the course of events which were to follow. ‘<em>The&nbsp;</em>cup’ would have been less specific, as if He simply knew that an ordeal was ahead. But “<em>this</em>&nbsp;cup” suggests He knew what the cup was specifically, and was holding that understanding in His mind as He prayed to the Father.</p><p><em>Cannot pass, except I drink it</em>- The same word translated “possible” in :39 “If it be possible”. Both Father and Son clearly were aware that all things are possible for the Father, and yet those who seek to do His will must accept that He will not use that possibility in a boundless sense. The contrast is between the Father’s will / desire on one hand, and His boundless potential possibility on the other. If we seek to do His will or desire, to please Him, as the Lord did, then the fact He can potentially do anything for us somehow recedes in significance. We above all wish to please Him. Therefore the fact He could save us from any pain no longer weighs so heavily with us. It is primitive indeed to complain that God could have stopped a certain painful course of events. He indeed could have done. But the issue is, whether or not we wish to do His will, to please Him, to do His work in this world. This is the significance of the Lord saying “Your will be done”.</p><p><em>Your will be done-&nbsp;</em>He had the authority to call down legions of Angels to change the course of events- implying the Father would have allowed that. All things were possible to God. The fact this possibility remained for the Lord suggests that the prayers in Gethsemane were really the Lord coming to the conclusion that He Himself wished to go ahead with the cross. It wasn’t so much that He asked for the cross to be taken away from Him, and the Father said “No”, and He meekly accepted it. Prayer functioned for Him as it often does for us- a means of dialogue with God and thereby with ourselves, the process of which in itself provides the answers to our deepest questions. The will of the Father is never presented in Scripture as immutable and some predestined code which we are to follow. Rather is God open to change in response to the cry of His beloved people. So the Lord’s conclusion “Your will be done” is not a shrugging acceptance that in this case, He couldn’t change some preordained will of God; but rather a willing desire on His own part to do the ideal wishes / will of the Father. The Lord’s statement was therefore His own conclusion, His own decision to continue in the way of the cross, even though the practical realities of what it meant were now becoming more practically apparent to Him than ever before. No wonder the Father sent an Angel to strengthen His beloved Son in this fine resolve. See on 26:54&nbsp;<em>But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled?</em></p>


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<p>26:43&nbsp;<em>And he came again and found them sleeping</em>- See on :40&nbsp;<em>Comes… and finds</em>.</p><p><em>For their eyes were heavy</em>- It’s clear from all the allusions to the need for watchfulness and the moral failure associated with sleeping, that there was really no adequate excuse for their failure. And yet the record gracefully takes note of the human weakness they were facing. We should not dismiss circumstantial ethics too quickly. Whilst sin remains sin, there is every reason for thinking that God does take circumstance into account in His final judgment of human failures. The only other time the Greek word translated “heavy” occurs in the Gospels is in <em><a href='B:490 9:32'>Luk 9:32</a></em>, where again it is used of heaviness with sleep, and again about Peter, James and John sleeping whilst the Lord was involved in active dialogue with the Father about His forthcoming death: “Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep”. <em><a href='B:480 14:40'>Mar 14:40</a></em> adds that “They did not know what to answer Him”, and this likewise was the situation at the transfiguration (<em><a href='B:480 9:6'>Mar 9:6</a></em> s:w:). The events of the transfiguration were to prepare Peter, James and John for the events of Gethsemane; they were supposed to see the similarities, and learn. But they didn’t. Likewise circumstances repeat in our lives, as the Father seeks to teach us, hoping we shall learn from one event which is then in essence repeated later. The way the situation here repeats three times, and each time they fail and fall asleep, is another example of how circumstances repeat in the hope that we will learn.</p>


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<p>26:44- see on :39.</p><p><em>And he left them again and went away and prayed</em>- The language of leaving to be with the Father and coming again to the disciples is very much the language of the Lord’s ascension and return (<em><a href='B:500 16:28'>Joh 16:28</a></em> has just recorded the Lord using this language in the Upper Room). His coming to them and finding them sleeping is therefore an enactment of the condemnation of the last day- but we can be condemned in this life, but be saved out of it by repentance.</p><p><em>A third time</em>- The three failures of Peter to keep awake were clearly meant to portend his forthcoming triple failure. The Lord was seeking to educate him as to his own weakness. But he failed to perceive it. After each failure he would've urged himself not to fail again, and he would've gone through the same thoughts as time after time he denied his Lord later that night. We gasp with wonder at how the Lord was not so focused upon His own struggles that He had no thought for desperately trying to educate his beloved Peter. This is surely the mark of spiritual maturity- being able to never be so obsessed with our own struggles that we forget our responsibilities to our brethren. So often we reason that we must sort out our own issues before we can help others, but this kind of self-centredness would've meant that the Lord failed Himself to be the One He needed to be, both for Himself and for others.</p><p><em>Saying again the same words</em>- If the idea was simply that He repeated again the previous words, another word would've been used:&nbsp;<em>Hautou</em>&nbsp;definitely means something like 'His own words', 'The words of Himself'. And in this we see a powerful picture of what prayer to the Father really is- praying our very own words to the Father. The intimacy of the Son with the Father is thus brought out:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>26:45&nbsp;<em>Then he came to the disciples and said to them: Sleep on now</em>- The Lord spoke this to them whilst they were asleep, because in :46 He asks them to arise. A lesser man than the Lord would've been bitterly disappointed, full of fear that His entire mission was open to failure if the material He had so especially focused upon saving was so incredibly weak. But instead in tenderness He speaks to them as a loving parent speaks to their sleeping children. For this seems the only credible interpretation of His words- for immediately afterwards He tells them to awake:&nbsp;</p><p><em>And take your rest</em>- Seeing the Lord proceeds to immediately awake them from sleep, He must have had some other idea in view apart from taking literal rest. Surely He had in view His earlier invitation to His followers to find rest in Him (<em><a href='B:470 11:28'>Mat 11:28</a></em>); He knew that He was dying so that they might have this ultimate rest to their souls:&nbsp;</p><p><em>The hour is at hand</em>- Gk. 'is approaching'. Perhaps the Lord noticed the approach of Judas and the soldiers. <em><a href='B:480 14:41'>Mar 14:41</a></em> has "the hour is come". 'It is approaching::. it has come' would be an appropriate thing to say in soliloquy as the Lord saw the men approaching closer:&nbsp;<em>Eggizo</em>, “is at hand”, is the very word used specifically about Judas in :46: “He is at hand that betrays Me”:&nbsp;</p><p><em>And the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners</em>- Remember that the Greek word behind 'betrayal' means simply to be handed over. Earlier the Lord had spoken of being handed over into the hand or power of men (<em><a href='B:470 17:22'>Mat 17:22</a></em>), to the chief priests (20:18), to the Gentiles (<em><a href='B:480 10:33'>Mar 10:33</a></em>). But now the Lord introduces a moral dimension- He was to be handed over into the power of sin, but would break that power by His resurrection. For the resurrection of the Lord was not simply a vindication of Himself against men, but against the power of sin. And this is what opens up the path to deliverance for all likewise under the power of sin. Surely <em><a href='B:650 2:14'>Heb 2:14</a></em> had this in mind when speaking of how the Lord destroyed "him that had the power of death, that is, the devil"- sin manifested in the powers of Rome and Judaism:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>26:46&nbsp;<em>Arise</em>- See on :45.</p><p><em>Let us be going</em>- If this were the simple sense of the Greek, another construction would’ve been used. The sense is definitely ‘Let us lead on’. Although going into the hands of sinners, the Lord was in control- for He insisted that His life was not taken from Him, but rather He gave it of Himself.</p><p><em>He that betrays me is nearby</em>- See on :45&nbsp;<em>The hour is at hand</em>.</p>


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<p>26:47&nbsp;<em>And while he yet spoke</em>- This, along with the repeated use of “Behold” or “Lo” (:45,46,47,51) encourage us to play Bible television with these events. The scene was clearly etched upon the memory of the Gospel writers. <em><a href='B:480 14:43'>Mar 14:43</a></em> puts it all in the present tense: “There comes Judas…”, to encourage us to re-live the incident.</p><p><em>Judas, one of the twelve</em>- Emphasized in all three synoptics.</p><p><em>Came, and with him a great crowd</em>- This was a tacit recognition of the fanatic loyalty of the eleven; Judas reckoned that they could put up enough of a fight to require this great multitude.</p><p><em>With swords and staves, from the chief priest and elders of the people</em>- This little detail accords well with the reality of the situation. Although the Chief Priests had some authority to use the Roman guards to control difficult situations in the temple area, they surely didn’t have use of Roman soldiers to arrest a civilian in a garden at night. So these were ruffians rustled up by Judas and the Jewish leaders, which explains why they had staves as well as swords. Staves were hardly the military equipment of professional soldiers, but it fits the idea that the leaders gathered together a crowd of hoods to do this dirty work. And it was only later that the Jews handed the Lord over to Gentile power. “Staves” translates&nbsp;<em>xulon</em>, the word meaning ‘stake’ or ‘tree’ which is used about the cross. See on :48 “That is He”.</p>


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<p>26:48&nbsp;<em>Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying</em>- These are the very words more commonly used together about signs being given to the Jewish world by the Lord. Judas was in every way a fake Christ, acting as the real disciple and the true Christ, when in fact he was the very opposite. This is why he as the “son of perdition” becomes the prototype of the antichrist figure in 2 Thessalonians 2. Note that ‘anti-Christ’ doesn’t mean so much one who is<em>&nbsp;against</em>&nbsp;Christ as one who mimics the real Christ but is in fact a false one and not the original, despite all appearances.</p><p><em>Whomsoever I shall kiss</em>- The Greek&nbsp;<em>phileo</em>&nbsp;literally means ‘to love’. I have mentioned several times the essential similarity between the betrayals of Judas and Peter that same night. When the Lord later asks Peter whether Peter has<em>&nbsp;phileo</em>&nbsp;for Him (<em><a href='B:500 21:17'>Joh 21:17</a></em>), He is as it were asking ‘Do you kiss Me, as Judas did?’. He is probing Peter to see the similarities between himself and Judas, and to recognize that he was not in fact more loyal and devoted to Jesus than any of the others as Peter had once claimed- and that included even Judas.</p><p><em>That is He. Take him</em>- The Lord was a well known public figure, having taught openly in Jerusalem in the presence of huge crowds. The need to identify Him indicates that the crowd of hoods being used didn’t know who He was, because they were not the types to attend teaching sessions in the temple, or perhaps they weren’t locals, or maybe not even Jews. Again we find the ring of truth in how these records are written; if they were anything other than Divinely inspired, there would be all manner of lack of congruence in the details and information given.</p>


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<p>26:49&nbsp;<em>And immediately he came to Jesus, and said, Greetings, Rabbi; and kissed him</em>- Most of the 74 NT occurrences of&nbsp;<em>chairo</em>, "hail", are translated "rejoice". Perhaps the Lord was reminded of His recent words about the cross being His "joy". But why did Judas address Him in this way? It could be that the crowd of armed men were still hidden, and he came alone to make this act of identification of Jesus- again suggesting that the crowd of hired hoods were unclear as to which one of the group of disciples was Jesus. This is why :50 says that after the kiss, "then came they"- Judas was alone when he first approached the Lord. Although the Lord later protests that He had been with 'them' in the temple teaching, presumably that comment was directed only at the leadership of the group. Or perhaps it was simply because in the darkness it was not clear who was who, and Judas needed to make the identification for that reason. He needed to be alone to make that identification- he would've been unable to do it if he had approached Jesus and the disciples with the crowd of men next to him.</p>


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<p>26:50&nbsp;<em>And Jesus said to him: Friend</em>- During the few seconds between the kiss and the appearance of the armed men. See the reconstruction suggested at :49:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Do what you came to do-&nbsp;</em>AV "Wherefore". The Greek&nbsp;<em>epi hos</em>&nbsp;doesn't simply mean 'Why?'. In this a word like&nbsp;<em>tis&nbsp;</em>would have been used. 'For what' is a reasonable translation. RV "Do that for which thou art come"- confirming a wicked man in the evil way he had chosen to take. And yet it seems to me that the Lord tried to save Judas to the last. This rhetorical question asked Judas to consider&nbsp;<em>why&nbsp;</em>he was doing this. One reason which the record gives is that he was interested in the money. He was a chronic materialist. He enquired how much he could receive for the job of betraying, and only then did he do it. The way he flung the coins down before committing suicide surely indicate how significant the money was to him. And the Lord knew that, and was asking him, even at this late moment, to consider&nbsp;<em>why</em>&nbsp;he was doing this- just for coins, pieces of metal. The Lord really was the good shepherd who searched for the lost until the very end, and sets a supreme example to us all.</p><p>'For whom' would be another possible translation of&nbsp;<em>epi hos&nbsp;</em>"Wherefore:::?". But why say this, when it was obvious? The Lord clearly knew what was happening- He knew the armed men were with Judas although hidden, and that they would now appear. He also knew that at least Peter had a sword and was keen to use it. In the crucial few seconds between the identification of Jesus with the kiss and the appearance of the armed men from the trees, the Lord knew that Peter could easily have killed Judas. The Lord may have been playing for time- to preserve Judas' life. Primarily this would've been in order to give Judas the possibility of repentance; but it was also to enable the foreseen sequence of events leading to the cross to happen. This makes sense of the Lord's statement at His trial, that if His Kingdom was immediate, then His servants would fight (<em><a href='B:500 18:36'>Joh 18:36</a></em>). They wanted to fight, as Peter's rash action with his sword made clear, but the Lord disallowed them from doing this. We marvel at how conscious the Lord was on so many levels in bringing forward God's purpose, whilst allowing men the maximum possible opportunity to display faith, loyalty and repentance:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Then they came&nbsp;</em>- See the reconstruction suggested at :49.</p><p><em>And laid hands on Jesus</em>- The Lord uses the same expression about the sufferings of the faithful in the very last generation (<em><a href='B:490 21:12'>Luk 21:12</a></em>), as He seeks to bring them to know the essence of His death, seeing that that generation will not taste of death but be given immortality at the judgment seat:&nbsp;</p><p><em>And took Him</em>- Literally, they had power over Him. The same word is used in <em><a href='B:650 2:14'>Heb 2:14</a></em> about how the Lord overcame the 'devil' who had the 'power' of death. They had the power, apparently, externally. But the paradox was that by willingly giving Himself over to it, He had power over the 'devil' of sin, both abstractly as sin, and also in all forms of its political manifestation, in this case, the Roman and Jewish authorities.</p>


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<p>26:51&nbsp;<em>And one of those with Jesus</em>- Peter.</p><p><em>Stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear</em>- The camera, as it were, is zoomed in close upon Peter. Perhaps the detail is provided as backdrop for the Lord’s response- that whoever&nbsp;<em>takes</em>&nbsp;the sword shall perish by it (:52). Peter did indeed take the sword- but by grace was saved from the consequence. He clearly aimed to strike off the man's head, but he ducked and Peter only caught his ear.</p><p>The material from Mark is about the same as in Matthew, but Luke and John add various details. Here is Matthew’s account of the arrest in the Garden, with the details from Luke 22 and John 18 (on which see commentary) added in square brackets:</p><h4>“The hour is at hand and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise Let us be going. He that betrays me is nearby. And while he yet spoke, 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. Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying: Whomsoever I shall kiss, that is he. Take him. <em><a href='B:490 22:47-48'>Luk 22:47-48</a></em> He drew near to Jesus to kiss him. But Jesus said to him: Judas, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss? And immediately he came to Jesus, and said, Greetings, Rabbi; and kissed him. And Jesus said to him: Friend, do what you came to do. Luke 22 And when they that were about him saw what would follow, they said: Lord, shall we strike with the sword?. Then they came. <em><a href='B:500 18:4-9'>Joh 18:4-9</a></em>&nbsp;Jesus knowing all the things that must come upon him, went forward and said to them: Whom do you seek? They answered him: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said to them: I am he (Judas, the one who betrayed him, was standing with them). When he said to them: I am he, they drew back and fell to the ground. Again he asked them: Whom do you seek? And they said: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered: I told you that I am he. If therefore you seek me, let these go their way- that the word might be fulfilled which he spoke: Of those whom you have given me I lost not one. then they laid hands on Jesus and took him. And one of those with Jesus John 18 Simon Peter stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear John 18 his right ear. Now the servant's name was Malchus. Then said Jesus to him: No more of this <em><a href='B:490 22:51'>Luk 22:51</a></em> Put away your sword into its place, into its sheath, John 18 for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Do you think I cannot ask my Father and He shall, even now, send me more than twelve legions of Angels? <em><a href='B:500 18:11'>Joh 18:11</a></em> The cup which the Father has given me, shall I not drink it? <em><a href='B:490 22:51'>Luk 22:51</a></em> And he touched his ear and healed him. But how then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way? In that hour Jesus said to the mob: Have you come out as against a robber with swords and staves to seize me? I sat daily in the temple teaching and you did not take me. Luke 22 But this is your hour, and the power of darkness. But all this is happening so that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples left him and fled. Luke 22 And they seized him and led him away, and brought him into the high priest's house. And Peter followed from a distance”.</h4>


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<p>26:52&nbsp;<em>Then said Jesus to him: Put away your sword into its place</em>- When Peter speaks of how the Lord Jesus will ‘turn away’ sinners from their sins (<em><a href='B:510 3:26'>Act 3:26</a></em>), he is using the very word of how the Lord Jesus told him to “put up again” his sword (<em><a href='B:470 26:52'>Mat 26:52</a></em>), thereby turning Peter away from his sin. Whether Peter's allusion was conscious or unconscious isn't clear; we tend to use language which has recently been used to us even in other contexts, especially if we have meditated upon it and feel it personally relevant to us. Again we see that Peter's appeal to Israel to repent in Acts 2, 3 was so successful because it was shot through with reference to his own failures and experience of repentance, conversion and forgiveness. Peter’s appeal for repentance and conversion was evidently allusive to his own experience of conversion (<em><a href='B:490 22:32'>Luk 22:32</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:510 3:19'>Act 3:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 9:35'>Act 9:35</a></em>). In this he was following the pattern of David, who sung his ‘Maschil’ (teaching) psalms after his forgiveness in order to convert sinners unto Yahweh (<em><a href='B:230 51:13'>Psa 51:13</a></em>). Like Peter, David did so with his sin ever before him, with a broken and contrite heart (<em><a href='B:230 51:3'>Psa 51:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 51:17'>Psa 51:17</a></em>). He invited them to seek forgiveness for their denial of their Lord, just as he had done. He dearly wished them to follow his pattern, and know the grace he now did. The same word used of how Judas "brought again" his pieces of silver to the Jews (<em><a href='B:470 27:3'>Mat 27:3</a></em>). This is part of a series of similarities between Judas and Peter at this time. They both in essence did the same thing, but Peter repented and trusted in the Lord's grace, whereas Judas didn't know the Lord's grace.</p><p><em>For all that take the sword</em>- Peter was the one who had literally just put forth his hand and taken a sword (:51). So it was by grace that he didn't "perish" by the sword at this time. Again, we see how grace ran through the Lord's actions at this His greatest moment of personal stress. The same word&nbsp;<em>lambano</em>, "take", is used of how Judas had 'received' a band of men armed with swords in order to capture Jesus (<em><a href='B:500 18:3'>Joh 18:3</a></em>). Again, the similarities are being developed between Peter and Judas; both in essence made the same mistakes and committed the same sins, in this case, taking the sword. But Peter repented and trusted in the Lord's grace:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Shall perish with the sword</em>- Not particularly in this life, but at judgment day, because "perish" is repeatedly used about final condemnation (e:g. <em><a href='B:470 5:29-30'>Mat 5:29-30</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 10:28'>Mat 10:28</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 10:39'>Mat 10:39</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 16:25'>Mat 16:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 22:7'>Mat 22:7</a></em>). The word is specifically used of the 'perishing' of Judas (<em><a href='B:500 17:12'>Joh 17:12</a></em>, AV "lost"; <em><a href='B:470 18:9'>Mat 18:9</a></em>). Again, the warning to Peter was not to be like Judas, even though the similarities between them were great at this time:&nbsp;</p><p><em><a href='B:500 18:11'>Joh 18:11</a></em> adds: "The cup which My Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?". If Peter had entered into the Lord's struggle in Gethsemane concerning the cup, then he wouldn't have made this mistake of attempting violent resistance. But he fell asleep, and as with us so often, failure or laziness at one point leads to failure in others later on.</p>


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<p>26:53&nbsp;<em>Do you think I cannot ask my Father and He shall, even now</em>- The word "now" is all significant. Even then, the Lord could have changed the nature and sequence of events which lay ahead of Him, and this possibility was uppermost in His mind, the temptation He struggled with. This factor must be given due weight in seeking to understand His struggle in Gethsemane. It wasn't a case that He Himself didn't want to drink the cup, but the Father insisted He must, and therefore He resigned Himself to the Father's will. There was another way, indeed there were multiple ways forward. He could have called down legions of Angels. But He made the Father's will His own, He willingly agreed to do it, because He wanted to fulfil the Scriptures, to be obedient to them rather than merely bring about a neat correlation between them and events. He rose up from the final prayer in Gethsemane having committed Himself to do this, even though there were other options. So His willing giving of Himself over to death wasn't merely an iron-willed submission to the Father's will, in the spirit of 'islam' submission. Rather did He arise from the final prayer resolved to do the Father's will as His will, and this meant turning His back upon all the other possibilities before Him. This makes His decisions and death even more awesome, knowing that there could have been other legitimate ways to bring about the plan of salvation- indeed, it could be argued that God's hands were not tied, and He could forgive and save who He wished with no requirement for the cross. But the cross was powerful in order to persuade others of the need to respond to it, and therefore the Lord died as He did for our sakes, in order to persuade us. And we should therefore allow the cross its full and maximum persuasive power in our lives. See on :28&nbsp;<em>The new testament</em>:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Send me more than twelve legions of Angels?</em>- But the Lord had learnt the lesson of Elisha, who could have himself seen legions of Angels but chose not to, so certain was he that they were potentially there (<em><a href='B:120 6:17'>2Ki 6:17</a></em>). "Give Me",&nbsp;<em>paristemi</em>, has a wide range of meaning, and it is used of how Peter was one of those who "stood by" the Lord in Gethsemane (<em><a href='B:480 14:47'>Mar 14:47</a></em>); the Lord is saying that as Peter stood by Him with drawn sword, just one man against so many, so in fact there were legions of Angels standing by or 'given' to assist the Lord; but He was not going to make use of them. The same word is used of the officers who "stood by" Jesus and struck Him at His trial (<em><a href='B:500 18:22'>Joh 18:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 4:26'>Act 4:26</a></em> s:w:); the Lord must have reflected that actually there were legions of Angels standing by / given unto Him. His self-restraint in not using them is remarkable, and highlights the way in which His life was not taken from Him but He willingly gave it. The reference to "twelve" legions of Angels was perhaps therefore in contrast with the twelve disciples; even if all twelve of them had stood up to fight for the Lord's deliverance, actually He had not twelve men, but twelve&nbsp;<em>legions</em>&nbsp;of Angels at His disposal. But He was not going to use them, and so He would not make use of the twelve disciples. The use of "legions" naturally contrasts with the Roman legions who were ultimately going to be used by the Jews to destroy the Lord. Peter's letters are absolutely full of his reflections upon these incidents, and this is why he could write of how the Angels are not subject unto the Lord Jesus (<em><a href='B:670 3:22'>1Pe 3:22</a></em>):&nbsp;</p><p>The Lord Jesus could’ve called upon legions of Angels to help Him; but He chose not to (<em><a href='B:470 26:53'>Mat 26:53</a></em>); He could have taken power there and then in His ministry and declared Himself King- but He walked off to the hills instead (<em><a href='B:500 6:15'>Joh 6:15</a></em>). In these examples we see what we could call a renunciation of power. Time and again we are called upon to decide whether we will renounce what power we have, or use it or abuse it for our own selfish ends. A parent faces this issue so often with a young child. The parent has more power; but how and for what reasons should she / he use that power? We can use ‘power’ in many ways in the trivia of daily life; but actually in most of those micro level decisions we are challenged with a choice as to what level of spirituality and unselfishness we are going to show.</p>


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<p>26:54&nbsp;<em>But how then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?</em>- See on :42&nbsp;<em>Your will be done</em>. The Father was willing to allow another way- legions of Angels could have been sent to change the course of events. In this lay the intensity of the temptation, and the height of the Lord’s achievement in rising up to the highest level. Scriptural prophecy has all kinds of possible fulfilments, as we noted in discussing the Olivet prophecy. There is not only one possible fulfilment. I suggest therefore that the Lord saw the Scriptures as speaking to Him by way of personal commandment, and He knew that to fulfil them was to obey them. To be disobedient to those Scriptures would not have falsified them, because another way of fulfilment could have been found. But the Lord felt strongly the need to make the word become flesh to utter fullness and perfection.</p>


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<p>26:55&nbsp;<em>In that hour Jesus said to the mob</em>- The size of the crowd of armed men is an indirect indication of the fierce loyalty of the eleven disciples to the Lord. Judas expected that they would or at least could put up major resistance.</p><p><em>Have you come out as against a robber with swords and staves to seize me?</em>- The same word used about Jesus and the disciples ‘going out’ from the Upper Room to Gethsemane (:30; <em><a href='B:500 18:1'>Joh 18:1</a></em>), and Jesus ‘going forth’ to meet the crowd of armed men (<em><a href='B:500 18:4'>Joh 18:4</a></em>). The impression is given of a head on meeting between the forces of light and darkness.</p><p><em>I sat daily in the temple teaching and you did not take me</em>- The Lord was addressing the leadership of the group, who had sat daily in the temple over the past week and heard Him. They knew what He looked like, He had sat&nbsp;<em>pros humas,&nbsp;</em>"with you" (AV), not so much “with you” as ‘directly facing you’, sitting down in front of them and therefore at close range. Therefore the need for Judas to identify the Lord with a kiss, to prove “that same is He”, was because the mass of armed men didn’t know who He was, and had therefore not sat in the temple. Again we see the Lord recognizing that men are only who they are, the hired thugs were no more than hired thugs acting in ignorance; but the leaders who were present were the ones He wanted to address. This is confirmed by <em><a href='B:490 22:52'>Luk 22:52</a></em> stating that “Jesus said to the chief priests and captains of the temple and elders that had come against him: Have you come as against a robber, with swords and staves?”. The priests and elders were in that large crowd, and the Lord directly addresses them. So although He addressed “the multitudes”, His message was aimed at specific individuals within the crowd. This is true of much of Scripture; perhaps those parts we personally fail to understand are speaking to a particular group in need of that message, perhaps in a previous age, and it may not be as directly intended for us as it was to them. The correspondence between the narratives is detailed and deeply credible. Uninspired writers would surely not only contradict themselves, but lack this artless congruence between each other which we find in the inspired Gospel records. <em><a href='B:490 22:53'>Luk 22:53</a></em> adds that the Lord continued to say: “But this is your hour, and the power of darkness”. The sense is surely that in broad daylight they dared not lay hold on Him- they had to do it under cover of darkness, because they were of the darkness.</p>


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<p>26:56&nbsp;<em>But all this is happening so that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled</em>- This can be read as part of the Lord’s words, or the comment of Matthew. “Is happening” is translated “was done” in the AV. See on :54; the emphasis upon the fulfilment of Scripture is not merely noting a correspondence between New Testament event and Old Testament scripture. Rather I suggest is the idea that the Lord chose to be obedient to God’s word and will, to make it His own, to the highest possible extent, to the point of total personal identification with it; when by its nature, God’s prophetic word has various possibilities of fulfilments on different levels, some of which would have enabled the Lord to bypass the cross. The specific reference may be to <em><a href='B:230 31:11'>Psa 31:11</a></em>. This refers to how David's family appear to have later disowned him during Saul’s persecution, fleeing from him, as the Lord’s friends also did.</p><p>John inserts at this point that the Lord was revealed in glory and the crowd of armed men fell to the ground; He asked them to let the disciples “go their way”. And yet He had earlier lamented that their scattering from Him would be related to their lack of faith: “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written: I will smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad”. This has to be compared with John’s account in <em><a href='B:500 18:4-9'>Joh 18:4-9</a></em>: “Jesus knowing all the things that must come upon him, went forward and said to them: Whom do you seek? They answered him: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said to them: I am he (Judas, the one who betrayed him, was standing with them). When he said to them: I am he, they drew back and fell to the ground. Again he asked them: Whom do you seek? And they said: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered: I told you that I am he. If therefore you seek me, let these go their way- that the word might be fulfilled which he spoke: Of those whom you have given me I lost not one”. The scattering from the Lord was part of their falling away. And yet the Lord sets them up to flee, he apparently urges them to do so, in order that He would not spiritually lose any of them. We see here a profound principle- that there are times when it would be better to allow disciples to follow a lower principle, to even fail, to run away from the highest principle of dying with Christ; lest otherwise the height of the demand means they become lost totally. The church of my youth forbad divorce and remarriage, and yet by forcing disciples who divorced to never remarry, they ended up causing many of them to be lost to Christ’s cause. And there are multiple other examples.</p><p><em>Then all the disciples left him</em>- Although the Lord had set up the opportunity for them to flee by stunning the armed men and telling them to allow the disciples free exit, they were still forsaking Him by doing so. And it still hurt the Lord. He simply knew their spiritual capabilities, and was giving them a lower level escape route. One size simply doesn’t fit all; He didn’t deal with them on a legalistic level of demanding obedience to a certain standard, failing which they were rejected. Neither does He work like that today. Their forsaking of Him sets the scene for His final agonized cry to the Father: “Why have&nbsp;<em>You</em>&nbsp;forsaken Me?” (<em><a href='B:470 27:46'>Mat 27:46</a></em>). His disciples had, the inner circle of ministering women and His own mother had walked away from the cross- and now He felt even the Father forsaking Him, despite earlier having said that “He that sent Me is with Me: the Father has not left Me alone s:w. ‘forsake’” (<em><a href='B:500 8:29'>Joh 8:29</a></em>).</p><p><em>And fled</em>- Their action is emphasized by the usage of both words, forsake and fled. Typically the Gospel writers emphasize their own weakness and failures, all as part of their compelling appeal to others to respond to the message they themselves had been so slow to grasp.</p>


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<p>26:57&nbsp;<em>And they that had taken Jesus led him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes-&nbsp;</em>There is great emphasis on the Lord being&nbsp;<em>led</em>&nbsp;(<em><a href='B:470 26:57'>Mat 26:57</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:2'>Mat 27:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:31'>Mat 27:31</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 15:16'>Mar 15:16</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 18:13'>Joh 18:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 18:28'>Joh 18:28</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 19:16'>Joh 19:16</a></em>). And notice how <em><a href='B:510 8:32'>Act 8:32</a></em> changes the quotation from Isaiah 53 to say that Christ was&nbsp;<em>led</em>&nbsp;(this isn't in the Hebrew text). His passivity is another indication that He was&nbsp;<em>giving</em>&nbsp;His life of His own volition, it wasn't being taken from Him.</p><p><em>And the elders</em>- Sometimes a technical term for the Sanhedrin.</p><p><em>Were gathered together</em>- This word is often used in connection with the Lord’s opponents being gathered together against Him at His death (<em><a href='B:470 26:3'>Mat 26:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 26:57'>Mat 26:57</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:17'>Mat 27:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:27'>Mat 27:27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:62'>Mat 27:62</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 28:12'>Mat 28:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 22:66'>Luk 22:66</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 4:26-27'>Act 4:26-27</a></em>); and yet it is also used of the gathering together of the faithful, especially at the breaking of bread, around the symbols of the Lord’s death (<em><a href='B:510 20:7-8'>Act 20:7-8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 5:4'>1Co 5:4</a></em>). The cross becomes the essence of the division between the believers and the world; each group gather together around it. The cross and the person of the Lord Jesus therefore divide the believer from the world; and this is where the line really is, rather than between believer and believer. To make the breaking of bread service and the emblems of the crucified Jesus the means of dividing between believers is therefore extremely serious; at best, it totally fails to perceive the intention of the Lord Jesus and His death. His suffering, He there in His time of torture, is intended to be the focal point of the gathering together of the believers for Him, and likewise it becomes the focal point of the unbelieving world’s gathering together against Him:&nbsp;</p>


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<h4>26:58&nbsp;<em>But Peter followed Him afar off</em>- This is recorded in the same words by all three Synoptics. It impressed them all as perhaps typical of so much of their ‘following’ 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 “afar off” (<em><a href='B:510 2:39'>Act 2:39</a></em> s:w:); he is asking them to make the conversion which he did, and he thereby considers his ‘following afar off’ as not really following at all, and being in a ‘far off from Christ’ position from which he repented and thereby ‘came near’ to Christ in conversion. The Greek words for ‘followed’ and ‘afar off’ are also used about how the few remaining disciples stood ‘afar off’ 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 “far off” as Peter was, but are now likewise reconciled.</h4><p><em>To the court of the high priest; and entered in</em>- The same word used by the Lord in warning Peter not to "enter into" temptation (<em><a href='B:490 22:46'>Luk 22:46</a></em>). And it is used again of how Satan entered into Judas (<em><a href='B:500 13:27'>Joh 13:27</a></em>), 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><em>And sat with the officers</em>- The presence of the definite article suggests that "the servants" the Greek also means "officers" are a group which has already been mentioned, and surely they are the "servants" who comprised the crowd of armed men who arrested Jesus in the Garden. The same word is used three times about them in <em><a href='B:500 18:3'>Joh 18:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 18:12'>Joh 18:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 18:18'>Joh 18:18</a></em>. 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><em>To see the end</em>- Critically, we could say that the Lord had called His men to participate in His "end", 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 "the servants". The only other time the Greek phrase occurs is in <em><a href='B:660 5:11'>Jas 5:11</a></em>, 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>


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<p>26:59&nbsp;<em>Now the chief priests and the whole council</em>- Gk. 'the Sanhedrin'. All of them participated in desiring or requiring Gk:; AV "sought" false witness against Jesus. And yet within that group was Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews (<em><a href='B:500 3:1'>Joh 3:1</a></em> - and "all" the Jewish leaders condemned Jesus to death, 27:1); and Joseph, who is specifically called a member of the Council (<em><a href='B:480 15:43'>Mar 15:43</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:50'>Luk 23:50</a></em>). Perhaps this is an example of where "all" is used in Biblical languages in a general but not strictly literal sense. <em><a href='B:490 23:51'>Luk 23:51</a></em> says that Joseph had not "consented" with the Council. The Greek can mean specifically to vote, but also to simply 'agree'. Perhaps he voted against their decision; or perhaps his lack of consent was deeply internal. In any case, it seems that it was only after the Lord was pronounced dead that he 'came out' publicly in open identification with the Lord (note "after this::.", <em><a href='B:500 19:38'>Joh 19:38</a></em>). We see here the grace of God, in not holding against those men the way that they passively went along with the decision to crucify God's Son. Their strong internal disagreement was noted. We are reminded of how not all Joseph's brothers went along with the plan to kill him, but their silence meant that the plan went ahead. We likewise should show grace to those who go along with decisions which are deeply wrong and hurtful. This is not to say that they were correct in their lack of commitment, but we may well have done the same. And we can take a lesson from the Father's gracious attitude to those who would not immediately stand up and be counted for the Lord's cause. This affects our decision making in terms of disciplining those who do things like responding to military call up, voting under duress or other things which are against the Lord's will, which are failures::. and yet ultimately God may very well extend the same grace to them as He did to Joseph and Nicodemus. And He tends to use circumstances to make a person finally come out in the open about their views, because secret discipleship is an oxymoron and His desire is that we are as a city set on a hill which cannot be hid.</p><p><em>Sought false witness against Jesus, that they might put him to death</em>- The word is only used elsewhere in the Gospels about the way that the faithful will experience being 'put to death' in the final tribulation (10:21; <em><a href='B:480 13:12'>Mar 13:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 21:16'>Luk 21:16</a></em>). The sufferings of the tribulation will enable the last generation to identify with the sufferings of Christ, and thus to share His resurrection life.</p>


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<p>26:60&nbsp;<em>And they did not find any, though many false witnesses came</em>- This is twice emphasized in this verse. Yet there were many false witnesses made. Presumably their legalistic minds insisted on giving the Lord 'a fair trial'; part of their minds were clouded by hatred and wickedness, and yet another part of their minds was set on strict legalistic obedience to God and the principles of legal integrity. In this we see the schizophrenic nature of the human mind. No matter what heights of devotion and understanding we may reach, we can never assume that we are totally with the Lord. And likewise we should not assume that others are either perfectly, totally spiritual or totally unspiritual. Sadly the human mind is capable of operating in different directions at once:&nbsp;</p><p><em>But afterwards came two</em>- The semblance of legal integrity they were following required that at least two and preferably three witnesses made the same accusation. The legalism of the Jews is emphasized, not least in their fear of ritual defilement at Passover time (<em><a href='B:500 18:28'>Joh 18:28</a></em>). They held themselves to legal obedience and integrity, whilst committing the ultimate sin, of condemning the Son of God to a cruel death. The hatred they unleashed upon Him was done by men who were rigorously obedient to commandments; their abuse of Him would therefore have been justified by them as some form of obedience to Divine principle. And this is why religious people can be the most abusive and cruel of any- if the principles they are wedded to are wrong, and if they have not perceived grace.</p>


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<p>26:61&nbsp;<em>And said: This man said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days</em>- They were misquoting Him, and their witness did not agree, each of the two men reported His words differently (<em><a href='B:480 14:59'>Mar 14:59</a></em>). And this lack of agreement between witnesses, "many" of them, was what had delayed proceedings to this point. But finally these evil men gave up all semblance of legal integrity- for time was running out. They thus condemned themselves even by the legal standards they were holding themselves to. The technical reason for His death sentence, therefore, was a supposed plan to destroy the temple, to commit the ultimate sacrilege. But what the Lord had said was that&nbsp;<em>they&nbsp;</em>would destroy the temple, referring to Himself, but after three days He would raise it up (<em><a href='B:500 2:19'>Joh 2:19</a></em>). It was in fact they and not Him who were guilty of the crime of destroying the temple; indeed, the literal temple was finally destroyed exactly because of them. They condemned Him for what they themselves were guilty of. Legalists are so often led by the Lord to positions wherein they condemn themselves by their own standards, words and demands. The trial of Jesus is the ultimate expose of legalism.</p>


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<p>26:62&nbsp;<em>And the high priest stood up and said to him</em>- As a judge arises to give the verdict.</p><p><em>Do you answer nothing?</em>- One reason for the Lord's silence was in order to allow them to condemn themselves- see on :61. But His self-control at His trials caused marvel amongst those who observed it, and it should to us too. For when justice and truth are so obviously not being upheld, all that is within us as humans cries out against it. Campaigns against injustice always gather mass support- it's very much a part of our human nature. But the Lord in this context said nothing. He let the unjust condemn themselves:&nbsp;<br/><em><br/>What is it that these testify against you?</em>- The Greek could equally be translated 'Who are these that these testify against you?'. We wonder whether one of them was Judas, and whether the other was some other former disciple. The High Priest's point would therefore have been 'Come on, these are Your own men who are testifying You said this. And you remain silent?'. The pain of betrayal would have been intense. Surely the deal with Judas had involved his being a legal witness at the trial. But the fact his witness did not agree with the other man’s witness showed yet again that their careful plans simply didn’t work out; see on :5. The Lord Jesus freely gave His life, rather than having it taken from Him by the working out of carefully laid clever plans. Those plans failed. But He gave His life.</p>


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<p>26:63&nbsp;<em>But Jesus held His peace</em>- The High Priest 'answered' to this silence. Silence is itself a statement, a word. <em><a href='B:290 57:11'>Isa 57:11</a></em> reasons with Israel that despite their sins, God had 'held His peace' in not judging them, and yet they still did not respect Him. Perhaps the Lord held His peace because all He could really speak in response was judgment against them. And He did not want to do that overmuch, He wanted to give them the maximum time for repentance before having to speak the inevitable judgment upon them. The answer He finally gives is not an answer to the accusations, but rather a pronouncement of judgment. And this is why, it seems to me, that He 'held His peace'- in order to give them the maximum opportunity to repent, and He was counting almost every second now. This desire for human repentance is a fundamental part of the Lord, as it should be part of our basic personality in Christ. This same Lord works moment by moment with us likewise, to bring us to repentance. This is His earnest desire.</p><p><em>And the high priest said to him: I bind you under oath to the living God, tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God</em>- The technical reason for condemning Him was a supposed plot to destroy the temple building, but now the judge moves on to make another accusation, the issue which was most important to him and the Jews, but which was not of itself a criminal accusation which could be then transferred to Roman judgment with a request for a death penalty. But&nbsp;<em>contra</em>&nbsp;this there is the possibility that because Caesar declared himself to be the son of God and the anointed one, any man claiming to be that could be reported to the Romans and be condemned to death. In terms of legal procedure, their behaviour was wrong. The accusation shifted from one count to another, reflecting the clear desire of the judge to secure a condemnation regardless of procedure or witnesses. If this line of thought is correct, then it follows that confession of faith in any person as being "the Christ, the Son of God" was a criminal offence worthy of death. The crucifixion of the Lord for making this claim was therefore creating a legal precedent for the death by crucifixion of anyone else who believed there was such a person alive within the Roman empire. And the Gospels are studded with examples of confession of faith in "the Christ, the Son of God" (16:16; <em><a href='B:490 4:41'>Luk 4:41</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:69'>Joh 6:69</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 11:27'>Joh 11:27</a></em>). The whole intention of the Gospel records was to bring people to make that same profession of faith in "the Christ, the Son of God" (<em><a href='B:480 1:1'>Mar 1:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 20:31'>Joh 20:31</a></em>). Those parchments and the rehearsing of them would therefore have been forbidden material. In our age it may appear painless to confess faith in "the Christ, the Son of God", but it is no less radical in the separation it requires from the spirit of the societies in which we live.</p>


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<p>26:64&nbsp;<em>Jesus said to him: You have said it; nevertheless I say to you, from this time forward- "</em>You have said" shows how again, the Lord sought to elicit confessions from men in their own words:&nbsp;<br/><em><br/>You shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven</em>- The allusion is clearly to Daniel's vision of the Son of Man coming in glory to judge the Gentile world. And the Lord is saying that those hyper religious Jews were effectively condemned Gentiles before God. But those men to whom He spoke died in their beds. Lifespans were short in first century Palestine, most males were dead by 40. Most of them wouldn't even have lived to experience the calamity of AD67-70. They will only therefore "see the Son of Man sitting::." at His return, when they are resurrected and see Him in His glory. And this will be of itself their condemnation- to see Him there enthroned in glory, and themselves not in His Kingdom. This was exactly His teaching to them in <em><a href='B:470 23:39'>Mat 23:39</a></em>: "You shall not see Me from this time forward, until you shall say: Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord". They will then bless Him- but all too tragically late.</p><p>At His trial, the Lord warned them that He would come again as judge (<em><a href='B:470 26:64-65'>Mat 26:64-65</a></em>), as if He realized that they were living out a foretaste of the final judgment. The thief likewise understood the Lord's presence as being the presence of the judge who would finally judge him (<em><a href='B:490 23:44'>Luk 23:44</a></em>). Harry Whittaker points out that the cross divided men: there were women who followed and mourned insincerely, and the women who really followed. There were soldiers who gambled over the Lord's clothes, and one who really repented. There was a thief who repented and one who wouldn't. There were those who mocked and others who watched and believed.</p>


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<p>26:65&nbsp;<em>Then the high priest tore his garments, saying</em>- Declaring the end of his priesthood, to be replaced by the Lord Jesus. The Lord was crucified for blasphemy; this was the charge on which He was found guilty at His trial by the Jews, and the basis upon which they demanded His crucifixion. The Mishnah claims that this was only possible if someone actually used the Yahweh Name:&nbsp;<em>Sanhedrin</em>&nbsp;7:5 outlines the protocol for condemning someone for this, in terms which have accurate correspondence with the Lord’s trial: “The blasphemer is not guilty until he have expressly uttered the Name::. When the trial is over::. the judges stand up and rend their clothes" (Quoted in F:F. Bruce,&nbsp;<em>The Spreading Flame (</em>Grand Rapids: Eerdmans<em>,&nbsp;</em>1995 ed:), p. 53). So when the Lord responded to their question as to His Messiahship by saying “I am", and went on to appropriate the Messianic words of <em><a href='B:340 7:13'>Dan 7:13</a></em> and <em><a href='B:230 110:1'>Psa 110:1</a></em> to Himself, He must have explicitly used the Yahweh Name about Himself. This is why they were so quick to accuse Him of blasphemy, and why the High Priest rent his clothes. The Lord died because He declared the Yahweh Name, unashamedly, knowing that His declaration of it would take Him to the cross. Our declaration of the essence of Yahweh, by truthfulness, forgiveness::. this may cost us, although maybe not so dearly. Yet we can be inspired by the Lord’s example:&nbsp;</p><p><em>He has spoken blasphemy. What further need have we of witnesses? You have now heard the blasphemy</em>- Again, legal procedure, which they had tried so carefully to follow, was made a mockery of. They began with a conviction of plotting to destroy the temple buildings, then turned that into an accusation that He was a "Christ, the Son of God", a rival to Caesar; and now they jump on the charge of blasphemy, for which they gave Him the death penalty. And yet the Jews had no legal power to execute people; they had to present their case to the Roman authorities. And blasphemy was not a capital offence under Roman law. Their careful attempts to follow legal integrity broke down in pathetic collapse, and thereby they condemned themselves. The same word,&nbsp;<em>blasphemeo</em>, is then used of how the Jews "reviled" or blasphemed the Lord as He hung on the cross (27:39; <em><a href='B:490 22:65'>Luk 22:65</a></em>). They had earlier accused the Lord of blasphemy at least twice during His ministry (<em><a href='B:470 9:3'>Mat 9:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 10:36'>Joh 10:36</a></em> s:w:). So they should have thought of that earlier in the trial, seeing they themselves were the witnesses of that supposed crime. We are left with the impression of a judge and jury increasingly desperate to find the Lord guilty, progressively throwing their integrity and legalism to the winds in their obsession to make Him guilty of death. Little wonder that Pilate later remonstrated with them that Jesus was simply not legally guilty of any capital offence. But the more he made that point to them, the more they screamed for His death:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>26:66&nbsp;<em>What is your judgement? They answered and said</em>- No note is made of Joseph or Nicodemus speaking out against it. The mob ruled, despite all the appearances of jurisprudence, spiritual and legal integrity. And yet the record speaks so positively of those two men. Perhaps this is because the Gospel records were encouraging those who had offered a pinch of incense to Caesar, or in some other way been silent in the Roman world when they should have stood up and been counted, that God's grace was still with them- even though ultimately, providence tends to overrule circumstances so that we do have to stand up openly.</p><p><em>He is worthy of death</em>- The Lord had earlier taught that whoever calls their brother 'Raca', worthless, would be "guilty" s:w. before "the Council", the Sanhedrin (<em><a href='B:470 5:21-22'>Mat 5:21-22</a></em>). He had in mind that the Sanhedrin of the Jews was not the ultimate court of judgment for God's people, but rather the Heavenly council of Angels, presided over by God Almighty. The Lord must surely have been aware of this as the men of that human Sanhedrin condemned and abused Him. Human committees, courts or even groups of friends and family members are not the ultimate Sanhedrin; judge us as they may, the ultimate court is in Heaven. The same word for "guilty" is found in <em><a href='B:530 11:27'>1Co 11:27</a></em>, where Paul urges us to self-examination at the Lord's table lest we be guilty of His body and blood. The allusion shows that we as baptized believers can be no better than those evil men- unless we perceive Him and His death for what they really are.</p>


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<h4>26:67- see on :39.<br/><em>Then they spat in His face and beat Him with their fists</em>- This was done by men who just minutes beforehand had been carefully upholding some isolated principles of Divine law and general legal integrity. Their appearance of culture vanished. They only could have been so crude and cruel if they first justified it in terms of their religion; spitting and beating would have been justified by them as the punishment due to a heretic. But here we see how they were justifying their own natural anger and jealousy by taking a tiny shard of Biblical precedent- for only in <em><a href='B:50 25:2'>Deu 25:2</a></em> do we have any justification for legal beating, and once it was finished, then there was to be no other punishment. The beating was to be on his back and not on his face; and there was no talk of spitting. But the Jews took that and used it to justify spitting in the Lord’s<em>&nbsp;face</em>, beating Him with their fists and then further condemning Him to death. The only command to spit in the face of a man was if he refused to raise up children for his dead relative (<em><a href='B:50 25:9'>Deu 25:9</a></em>); but this was totally irrelevant to the Lord Jesus. He in any case was the ultimate example of a man who did build up His Father's house. There is anger in each of us, and religious people at times give full vent to that anger by justifying it as righteous anger, grabbing hold of the vague implication of some Bible verse and taking it way beyond the obvious meaning of the verse. In doing so, they are behaving no better than these the very worst of men who have ever lived, committing the worst ever crime ever committed in the cosmos. The face of Jesus shone at times with God's glory; He was the face of God to men. And they spat in that face, and beat it. The wonder was that the Lord had specifically foreseen this- He had predicted that they would spit at Him (<em><a href='B:480 10:34'>Mar 10:34</a></em>). He foresaw how they would fuel their anger against Him with their persuasion that He was a heretic:&nbsp;</h4><p><em>And some slapped Him with the palms of their hands</em>- A Semitic insult to a heretic. Again, their anger was fuelled by and excused by their religious convictions. This slapping (whilst He was blindfolded, <em><a href='B:490 22:64'>Luk 22:64</a></em>) was connected to their question: "Prophesy to us, you Christ Who is he that struck you?" (:68). Clearly they were seeking to test His claim to be the Christ. They thought that the Christ could demonstrate supernatural knowledge; and He had already demonstrated that multiple times. They clearly had in mind a section from the uninspired Psalms of Solomon, where false Messiahs were to be tested in this way. The warning to us is to never allow fragments of Scripture or our religious tradition or beloved writings to justify us in expressing our anger in this way:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>26:68&nbsp;<em>Saying: Prophesy to us, you Christ Who is he that struck you?</em>- They had blindfolded Him, and were challenging Him to exercise the prophetic gift of discernment by saying the name of the soldier who had struck Him. We note that 'prophesy' is not to be understood solely as the prediction of future events. The fact is, the Lord did know who had struck Him. They were clearly alluding to the fact that the Jews had concluded the Lord was a false prophet and false Christ and were punishing Him as such.</p>


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<p>26:69</p><table><tr><td></p><h4>Matthew</td><td>Mark</td><td>Luke</td><td>John</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Accusation 1</td><td>Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, and a maid came to him, saying: You also were with Jesus the Galilean.</td><td>And as Peter was downstairs in the courtyard, there came one of the maids of the high priest:&nbsp; And seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said: You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus</td><td>And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat among them. And a certain maid seeing him as he sat in the light of the fire and looking earnestly upon him, said: This man also was with him.</td><td>Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. Now that disciple was known to the high priest; and he entered with Jesus into the court of the high priest:&nbsp; But Peter was standing outside the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the maid who kept watch at the door. The maid keeping watch at the door said to Peter: Are you also one of this man's disciples?</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Denial 1</td><td>But he denied before them all, saying: I do not know what you say.</td><td>But he denied it, saying: I neither know, nor understand what you say; and he went out into the porch; and the cock crew.</td><td>But he denied it, saying: Woman, I do not know him.</td><td>He said: I am not</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Accusation 2</td><td>And when he went out to the entrance, another maid saw him and said to the bystanders: This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.</td><td>And the maid saw him and began again to say to them that stood by: This is one of them</td><td>And after a little while another person saw him and said: You also are one of them.</td><td>Now the servants and the officers were standing there, having made a fire of coals. For it was cold, and they were warming themselves; and Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself::. Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They said to him: Are you also one of his disciples?</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Denial 2</td><td>And again he denied with an oath: I do not know the man.</td><td>But he again denied it.</td><td>But Peter said: Man, I am not.</td><td>He denied and said: I am not</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Accusation 3</td><td>And after a little while they that stood by came and said to Peter: Of a truth you also are one of them, for your dialect makes you known.</td><td>And after a little while, again they that stood by said to Peter: Of a truth you are one of them; for you are a Galilean.</td><td>And after the space of about one hour another confidently affirmed, saying: Of a truth, this man also was with him. For he is a Galilean.</td><td>One of the servants of the high priest, being a relative of him whose ear Peter cut off, said: Did I not see you in the garden with him?</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Denial 3</td><td>Then he began to curse and to swear: I do not know the man And immediately the cock crowed.</td><td>But he began to curse and to swear under oath: I do not know this man of whom you speak. And immediately the second time the cock crew</td><td>But Peter said: Man, I do not know what you say. And immediately, as he spoke, the cock crew.</td><td>&nbsp;Peter denied again; and immediately the cock crew.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Peter's response 1</td><td>And Peter remembered the words which Jesus had said: Before the cock crows, you shall deny me three times.</td><td>And Peter remembered what Jesus had said to him: Before the cock crows twice, you shall deny me three times.</td><td>And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord that he had said to him: Before the cock crow this day, you shall deny me three times:&nbsp;</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Peter goes out</td><td>And he went out and wept bitterly.</td><td>And as he thought upon it, he wept.</td><td>And he went out and wept bitterly.</td><td></td><td></td></tr></table><br/><p><em>Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard</em>- But likely within earshot. "Outside" translates&nbsp;<em>exo</em>, and the idea of being 'outside' from the Lord Jesus, especially in the context of Him being in a court, is exactly the picture of the rejected- Jesus at the day of judgment, with the rejected 'outside', away from Him. The term is used of the rejected being "cast out" (5:13), the rejected 'standing without' seeking entrance with the door closed (<em><a href='B:490 13:25'>Luk 13:25</a></em>), the Jews "thrust out" of the Kingdom (<em><a href='B:490 13:28'>Luk 13:28</a></em>), saltless salt 'cast without' (<em><a href='B:490 14:35'>Luk 14:35</a></em>), the rejected 'cast out' (<em><a href='B:500 6:37'>Joh 6:37</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 15:6'>Joh 15:6</a></em>). The word is used again to describe how Peter finally "went outside" into the final darkness (:75). He was living out the very picture of condemnation. We too can sin and be condemned in this life, yet the verdict can be changed. And that explains the intensity of zeal and desire in responding to such grace with all our hearts. If we do not perceive our condemnation nor the gracious change of verdict, there can be no real flame of zeal in response, no true humility, no deep seated motivation to service, forgiveness and grace to others.</h4><p><em>And a maid</em>- Gk. 'a servant girl', "one of the servant girls of the High Priest" (<em><a href='B:480 14:66'>Mar 14:66</a></em>). Her claim that "You also were with Jesus" may specifically refer to Peter's presence with Jesus in Gethsemane, for”&nbsp;the servants" of the High Priest had been there. Perhaps she was one of them. She describes Peter as being&nbsp;<em>meta&nbsp;</em>Jesus "you were with Jesus", and the same phrase&nbsp;<em>meta&nbsp;</em>Jesus is used to described the disciples being&nbsp;<em>meta&nbsp;</em>Jesus in Gethsemane (:36,51). Or since the Lord was a public figure in Jerusalem, it would be likely that Peter was known as one of those ever to be seen hanging around Him. <em><a href='B:500 18:17'>Joh 18:17</a></em> gives further information about her: "The maid keeping watch at the door said to Peter: Are you also one of this man's disciples? He said: I am not". The only other time we read of a servant girl who was a door keeper is in <em><a href='B:510 12:16'>Act 12:16</a></em>, where the servant girl s:w. called Rhoda was the door keeper at the home of the disciples in Jerusalem, and is thrilled when she realizes that it is Peter knocking at the door asking her to let him in. Note that "door keeper" is likely a technical term, a kind of profession. This heightens the similarity between the two characters. The similarities with the scene in <em><a href='B:500 18:17'>Joh 18:17</a></em> are too strong to be passed off as unintentional; for here Peter has to have the door to the courtyard opened by the servant girl, and it is at the gate that she recognizes him. Peter's failure, his denials, were the basis of his successful appeals for Israel to follow his pattern of repentance. Thousands heard him make those appeals in Jerusalem, for if a few thousand were baptized in one day, we can be sure that many others heard the message and didn't act upon it. It's highly likely that that servant girl was in the crowd, and was one who responded. I suggest that Rhoda was that servant girl, converted by Peter's failure, repentance and experience of forgiveness. She converted from serving the Jewish High Priest to serving the Heavenly High Priest, the Lord Jesus; from being one of the crowd who went out to arrest Jesus, to being one who glorified His resurrection:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Came to him-&nbsp;</em><em><a href='B:500 18:17'>Joh 18:17</a></em> says that the girl was keeping the door and let Peter through. As the door keeper she would have looked carefully at his face in the light of a torch. And then she came to him as he was sitting by the fire (Lk:), say some minutes later, as she realized who he was. This again has the ring of congruence about it, indicating how perfectly the records dovetail:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Saying: You also were with Jesus the Galilean</em>- Another passing evidence of the Lord's utter humanity; He spoke like a Galilean and was clearly a man brought up there, and not a pre-existent Divine being that came to earth:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>26:70&nbsp;<em>But he denied before them all, saying</em>- Again, Peter was living out the scene of condemnation at the last day, where the verdict likewise will be manifest "before all". The Lord had used the same word in saying that whoever denied Him "before men" cp. "before all", He will deny before the Father at the last day (<em><a href='B:470 10:33'>Mat 10:33</a></em>). Peter appealed for Israel to repent on the basis that they had "denied" Christ (<em><a href='B:510 3:13-14'>Act 3:13-14</a></em> s:w:)- he is appealing for them to realize that they had done what he had done, and yet they could repent, convert and experience the same grace he had done. His appeal, made a stone's throw from where the denials were made and only 6 weeks later, was therefore so powerful. Peter likewise used his failure in his pastoral work with his converts, warning them that to even deny the Lord who redeemed us is the worst possible thing we can do (<em><a href='B:680 2:1'>2Pe 2:1</a></em>). Likewise <em><a href='B:690 2:22-23'>1Jn 2:22-23</a></em> speaks of denying Christ as being the characteristic of the AntiChrist. And John wrote in the context of the early church having Peter as its first leader, and John of course was fully aware of Peter's failure that night.</p><p>Peter in this life denied his Lord&nbsp;<em>in front of men</em>&nbsp;(<em><a href='B:470 26:70'>Mat 26:70</a></em>)- and the record of his failure intentionally looks back to the Lord's warning that whoever denies Him&nbsp;<em>before men&nbsp;</em>will be denied by Him at judgment day (<em><a href='B:470 10:33'>Mat 10:33</a></em>). He sinned, and in the court of Heaven was condemned. There is a passage in <em><a href='B:240 24:11-12'>Pro 24:11-12</a></em> which has a strange relevance to Peter's self-condemnation. Having spoken of those being led away to death (the very context of Peter's denial), we read: "If thou sayest, Behold we know not this man: doth not he that weigheth the hearts consider it? And shall not he render to every man according to his works?". This last phrase is quoted in <em><a href='B:730 22:12'>Rev 22:12</a></em> about the final judgment. Paul seems to consciously link Peter’s church hypocrisy and legalism with his earlier denials that he had ever known the Lord Jesus. He writes of how he had to reveal Peter’s denial of the Lord’s grace “before them all” (<em><a href='B:550 2:14'>Gal 2:14</a></em>), using the very same Greek phrase of <em><a href='B:470 26:70'>Mat 26:70</a></em>, where “before them all” Peter made the same essential denial. &nbsp;</p><p><em>I do not know what you say</em>- Again, Peter was acting as the condemned, to whom the Lord will say "I know you not" (25:12; <em><a href='B:490 13:25'>Luk 13:25</a></em>). The whole idea of ‘I don’t know Him’ must, sadly, be connected with the Lord’s words in <em><a href='B:470 7:23'>Mat 7:23</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 25:41'>Mat 25:41</a></em>, where He tells the rejected: “I never knew you”. By denying knowledge of the Saviour, Peter was effectively agreeing that the verdict of condemnation could appropriately be passed upon him:&nbsp; In one of his many allusions to the Gospels, Paul wrote that “If we deny him, he also will deny us” (<em><a href='B:620 2:12'>2Ti 2:12</a></em>). Peter in this life denied his Lord&nbsp;<em>in front of men</em>&nbsp;(<em><a href='B:470 26:70'>Mat 26:70</a></em>)- and the record of his failure intentionally looks back to the Lord’s warning that whoever denies Him&nbsp;<em>before men&nbsp;</em>will be denied by Him at judgment day (<em><a href='B:470 10:33'>Mat 10:33</a></em>). He sinned, and in the court of Heaven was condemned; and yet he could change the verdict by repentance.</p>


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<p>26:71&nbsp;<em>And when he went out to the entrance, another maid saw him</em>- John says that a group of men made the second accusation; see the parallel texts at the commentary on :69. Luke says that Peter replied to the second accusation which Matthew says was made by a<em>&nbsp;woman</em>&nbsp;by saying “<em>Man</em>, I am not”. Clearly the accusations and denials were in groups- the second ‘denial’ involved a number of people a man, a woman and plural men making accusations and Peter denying them all. If we put together the various records of Peter’s three denials, it seems clear that a number of accusations were made, and he replied slightly differently each time. But there were three groups of accusations and denials. We can imagine the scene- there was a whole group of men and women present, all within earshot, and once one person made the accusation, others would’ve chimed in. But the account is stylized to group the denials in three groups, and Peter obviously perceived this after his final oath of denial. But in fact it seems that each denial was a series of separate denials. Indeed the tense of the verb “denied” in :70 suggests he kept on and on denying.</p><p><em>And said to the bystanders: This man was with Jesus of Nazareth</em>- Peter overheard her talking to the men about him, and jumped in with a denial (:72). This is absolutely psychologically credible:&nbsp;By "with Jesus" she meant, ‘There in the Garden’, for&nbsp;<em>meta&nbsp;</em>Jesus is how the disciples are described there. See on :69&nbsp;<em>A maid</em>.</p>


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<p>26:72&nbsp;<em>And again he denied with an oath</em>- Not an expletive, but rather a Jewish oath. Many of them wished condemnation on the person making the oath if it were not true. Again, Peter is entering into condemnation, signing himself up for condemnation. James wrote to the very early church, probably to the Jerusalem ecclesia, who were clearly led by Peter. He urged them “Above all things, my brethren, swear not… neither by any other oath” (<em><a href='B:660 5:12'>Jas 5:12</a></em>). He was clearly saying, in effect: ‘Don’t be like Peter’. The weakness of Peter, and the way he had repented and been forgiven, was the basis of his success as a preacher and also of his special commission to feed the lambs of the early flock. He did not present himself as the flawless pastor, and neither did his fellow elders like James present him as such. But as with his Lord, it was his humanity which was the basis of his exaltation.</p><p><em>I do not know</em>- See on :70&nbsp;<em>I know not.</em></p><p><em>The man</em>- As if he didn't even know Jesus' name. He protested too much, for Jesus was a well known public figure in Jerusalem at the time (<em><a href='B:490 24:18-19'>Luk 24:18-19</a></em>).</p>


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<p>26:73&nbsp;<em>And after a little while</em>- Luke says it was after an hour.</p><p><em>They that stood by came and said to Peter</em>- Luke says it was one individual who made the third accusation, and John says it was specifically a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off. The three episodes of accusation and denial were therefore each comprised of a series of accusations and a series of denials. See on :71&nbsp;<em>Another maid</em>. This means that the Lord was being generous in saying that Peter would deny Him three times before the cock crowed. Each episode of denial contained many separate denials.</p><p><em>Of a truth you also are one of them, for your dialect makes you known</em>- This implies that the band of disciples were perceived as a group of Galileans:&nbsp; Matthew has earlier recorded the first accusation as being that “You also were with Jesus the Galilean”. Mark is explicit that they now said: “You are a Galilean”. And Luke records the statement of their simplistic logic: “Of a truth, this man also was with him. For he is a Galilean”. The fact Jesus was a Galilean and Peter was clearly a Galilean didn’t, surely, have to mean that therefore Peter had to have been with Jesus as one of His disciples. But their reasoning shows to what extent they perceived Jesus and His followers to be all from Galilee. Remember that Galilee was despised as the most backward and least spiritually ‘Jewish’ of all of Palestine; their accent was noted and perceived as harsh and crude, full of grammatical mistakes. But it was from the larynx of a Galilean Jew that there came the words of God Almighty, clothed as they were in the country accent and provincial style which was so despised. Christianity began as a peasant religion, a group of men perceived as simpletons. And it is in such communities or those perceived as such that the true spirit of Christ has often prospered most. Christianity has become a culture, and often the culture of the Western wealthy. But that is not at all how it began, and ‘Christianity as culture’, merely following the faith of our fathers, churchianity, is not the real, raw Christianity of Jesus and His Galileans.</p>


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<p>26:74&nbsp;<em>Then he began</em>- The implication could be that he began to call down the curses of eternal condemnation and rejection at judgment day upon himself, but the crowing of the rooster made him stop.</p><p><em>To curse</em>- Not with expletives, but a declaration of himself as anathema to God and Messiah if he was on the side of Jesus. The Greek&nbsp;<em>kata-anathematizo&nbsp;</em>means just that; to declare oneself anathema, to exclude oneself from the body of God’s people.</p><p><em>And to swear</em>- Peter was in total disobedience to the Lord’s teaching: “Swear not at all” (5:34,36 s:w:). See on 26:72&nbsp;<em>With an oath</em>.</p><p><em>I do not know the man And immediately the cock crowed</em>- See on :70&nbsp;<em>I know not.</em></p>


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<p>26:75&nbsp;<em>And Peter remembered-&nbsp;</em>The letters of Peter urge his readers to “be mindful of the words which were spoken before” (<em><a href='B:680 3:2'>2Pe 3:2</a></em>). Yet this is evidently alluding to the frequent references to the disciples being slow to “remember” s:w. “mindful” the words which their Lord had “spoken before” (<em><a href='B:490 24:6'>Luk 24:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 24:8'>Luk 24:8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 2:17'>Joh 2:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 2:22'>Joh 2:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:16'>Joh 12:16</a></em>). Indeed, the same word is used about Peter ‘remembering’ s:w. “be mindful” all too late, the words which his Lord had “spoken before” to him (<em><a href='B:470 26:75'>Mat 26:75</a></em>). So Peter was aware that his readers knew that he had not ‘remembered’ the words his Lord had “spoken before” to&nbsp;<em>him</em>- and yet, knowing that, he exhorts his readers to ‘remember’ or ‘be mindful’ s:w. of words which had been previously spoken. His readers likely had memorized the Gospels by heart. And yet Peter asks them to learn from his mistake, not to be as slow to remember as the disciples had been, and he especially. This is the basis of powerful exhortation- a repentant life, not an appearance of sinlessness:&nbsp;</p><p><em><a href='B:480 14:72'>Mar 14:72</a></em> adds that Peter “thought thereon”, using the Greek word usually translated ‘to lay hands upon’. We can hear the Lord’s word but not really engage with it. This in fact is likely the status of so much of God’s word which we have read, heard and stashed away in our memory cells. We heard it, we are reminded of it as Peter was by the first cock crow after the first denial episode, but we fail to lay hands on it, to bring it to mind ‘remember’ it, to engage with it until it is paramount in our consciousness.</p><p><em>The words which Jesus had said: Before the cock crows</em>- The problem is that Mark says that the cock crowed after the first denial; and it is Mark who says that the Lord’s warning was that “Before the cock crows&nbsp;<em>twice</em>, you shall deny Me three times”. Matthew and the others seem to speak of only one cock crow. There are various solutions. One is that we give full weight to the fact we are dealing with three episodes or groups of denials- see on :71<em>Another maid</em>. If the first ‘denial’ involved three separate denials, then this fulfilled the prediction that there would be three denials before the cock crew. And the third episode of denials occurred before the second cock crow, this fulfilling the Lord’s word as recorded by Mark “Before the cock crows&nbsp;<em>twice</em>, you shall deny Me three times”:&nbsp; Another is to go with the NIV footnotes on <em><a href='B:480 14:30'>Mar 14:30</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 14:72'>Mar 14:72</a></em>, which claim that earliest manuscripts omit the word “twice” and “second time”:&nbsp; Another textual approach is to reflect that the record of the cock crowing after the first denial (<em><a href='B:480 14:68'>Mar 14:68</a></em>) is omitted by most later translations after the AV. The text also could be suspect at that point. But I am distinctly uneasy at resolving apparent difficulties by claiming that verses are spurious and uninspired. Issues of translation, however, are of another order. I submit that <em><a href='B:480 14:72'>Mar 14:72</a></em> is capable of another translation. Most versions have to the effect that “Before the cock crows twice, you shall deny Me three times”. But it could equally be translated ‘You shall deny Me three times for each two crows of the cock’. This would make a total of six denials. I believe I established beyond doubt in commenting on :71&nbsp;<em>Another maid&nbsp;</em>that there were multiple denials by Peter. I suggest therefore that there were three denials from Peter during the first denial episode, before the first crowing of the cock; then another one or two denials during the second denial episode, and then another one or two during the third denial episode- and then the cock crew a second time. Another possible reconstruction was offered by Michael Cortright:</p><p>First denial:&nbsp;<br/>A girl at the door to the courtyard (<em><a href='B:500 18:17'>Joh 18:17</a></em>).<br/>Second denial:&nbsp;<br/>A servant girl, by the fire in the courtyard (<em><a href='B:470 26:69'>Mat 26:69</a></em>, <em><a href='B:480 14:66'>Mar 14:66</a></em>, <em><a href='B:490 22:56'>Luk 22:56</a></em>).<br/>Third denial:&nbsp;<br/>A man by the fire in the courtyard (<em><a href='B:490 22:58'>Luk 22:58</a></em>).<br/>First crow:&nbsp;<br/><em><a href='B:480 14:68'>Mar 14:68</a></em> (King James Version).<br/>Fourth denial:&nbsp;<br/>Another girl, at the gateway (<em><a href='B:470 26:71'>Mat 26:71</a></em>) or entryway (<em><a href='B:480 14:68-69'>Mar 14:68-69</a></em>).<br/>Fifth denial:&nbsp;<br/>Some anonymous (standing) people by the fire in the courtyard (<em><a href='B:470 26:73'>Mat 26:73</a></em>, <em><a href='B:480 14:70'>Mar 14:70</a></em>, <em><a href='B:500 18:25'>Joh 18:25</a></em>).<br/>Sixth denial:&nbsp;<br/>Another man who happens to be a male servant of the high priest (<em><a href='B:490 22:59'>Luk 22:59</a></em>, <em><a href='B:500 18:26'>Joh 18:26</a></em>).<br/>Second crow:&nbsp;<br/><em><a href='B:470 26:74'>Mat 26:74</a></em>, <em><a href='B:480 14:72'>Mar 14:72</a></em>, <em><a href='B:490 22:60'>Luk 22:60</a></em>, <em><a href='B:500 18:27'>Joh 18:27</a></em>.</p><p><em>You shall deny me three times</em>- Pliny records how Christians were asked to make a threefold denial of Christ (<em>Epistles</em>&nbsp;10:97). It has been suggested that the account of Peter's threefold denials of Christ has been included in the Gospel records as an encouragement to those whose faith failed them that still there was a way back to restoration with the Lord Jesus, just as there had been for Peter. When Peter encourages his persecuted brethren to resist the "roaring lion" of Roman / Jewish persecution (<em><a href='B:670 5:8'>1Pe 5:8</a></em>), he is therefore to be seen as writing against a background in which he had actually failed the very test which his brethren were facing. Yet he can therefore even more powerfully encouraged them, because he had also experienced the Lord's restoring grace.</p><p><em>And he went out and wept bitterly</em>- There are connections between Peter’s position at this time and that of the rejected before the judgment seat. His bitter weeping connects most obviously with the weeping and gnashing of teeth of the rejected. He was ‘remaining outside’ of the Palace where the Lord was (<em><a href='B:470 26:29'>Mat 26:29</a></em> AV “sat without”). Yet the Greek&nbsp;<em>exo</em>&nbsp;translated “without” or “outside” is elsewhere used about the rejected being “cast out” (<em><a href='B:470 5:13'>Mat 5:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 13:48'>Mat 13:48</a></em>), ‘standing without’ with the door shut (<em><a href='B:490 13:25'>Luk 13:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 13:28'>Luk 13:28</a></em>), like a fruitless branch cast out into the fire (<em><a href='B:500 15:6'>Joh 15:6</a></em>). When we read that Peter “went out” from the Lord’s presence (<em><a href='B:470 26:75'>Mat 26:75</a></em>), the same Greek word is used. The oaths which Peter used would probably have included ‘Before God’. He was anticipating the judgment seat: before God he admitted he did not know His Son. But in this life we can be condemned- and yet be reprieved through repentance. But remember that Judas likewise “went out” into the darkness. Judas is described as "standing with" those who ultimately crucified Jesus in <em><a href='B:500 18:5'>Joh 18:5</a></em>. Interestingly the same idea occurs in <em><a href='B:500 18:18'>Joh 18:18</a></em> where Peter is described as standing with essentially the same group; point being, that Judas and Peter in essence did the same thing, they both denied their Lord and stood with His enemies. But one repented real repentance, whereas the other couldn't muster the faith for this. Lesson: We all deny the Lord, but the two paths before us are those of either Peter or Judas. Peter of course is our pattern. Perhaps Peter was encouraged towards repentance by recalling that just hours before, the Lord had predicted that the disciples would weep s:w:, but their sorrow would be turned to joy (<em><a href='B:500 16:20'>Joh 16:20</a></em>), in harmony with the Lord’s earlier teaching of blessedness for those who weep now. His weeping was intense, and he must’ve wondered how ever such weeping could be turned to joy. The only answer was that Jesus would have to die for Peter’s sin, be resurrected, forgive Peter and restore fellowship with him, even using him again in His service. It was upon this, then, that Peter desperately set his hope and faith- and it was rewarded.</p>


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<p>27:1&nbsp;<em>Now when morning had arrived</em>- Trying a man through the night was hardly transparent or in accordance with the most basic standards of integrity. And yet on some issues, at this very same time, those men sought to carefully uphold their integrity and obedience to Divine principles. In this we see the tragic, cruel dualism of the human mind- and we understand again the call of God’s word to give ourselves to Him with our&nbsp;<em>whole</em>&nbsp;heart.</p><h4><em>All the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death</em>- We sense their nervousness and conscious desire to try to spread the responsibility for their decision as wide as possible. We can imagine the learned, pseudo-spiritual shaking of heads amongst those men, arguing that they had, sadly, no option but::. struggling, somewhere, with their own consciences, and desperately seeking support from others.</h4>


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<p>27:2&nbsp;<em>And they bound him and led him away</em>- Israelites binding a man and delivering him over to Gentiles sounds very much like what Israel did to Samson. The Lord must’ve reflected how easily He likewise could have burst those bands and destroyed them all. The similarity with Samson is surely to remind us that He had those possibilities, but He was consciously choosing to give His life. The great paradox was that by accepting those bonds, He was thereby binding the strong man of sin and sin as manifested in the Jewish system (<em><a href='B:470 12:29'>Mat 12:29</a></em>). For "Led Him away" see on <em><a href='B:470 26:57'>Mat 26:57</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Led Him away.</em></p><p><em>And delivered him up to Pilate the governor</em>- The Lord knew that He was the Messianic “Governor” (2:6 s:w:), just as He was in fact the judge rather than the accused. He had only the previous evening pointed out that He was “the chief”, the same word used for “Governor”, but chose to be the servant (<em><a href='B:490 22:26'>Luk 22:26</a></em>). The whole scenario was a total inversion of what was actually the case.</p>


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<p>27:3&nbsp;<em>Then Judas, who betrayed him</em>- "Betrayed" is the same Greek word as translated "delivered" in :2. Judas handed Him over to the Jews, and the Jews handed Him over to the Romans. We see here a reflection of the unity between Judas and the Jewish system, which is why both of these entities are called 'satan' or 'the devil'. Satan entered into Judas in the sense that he was taken over by the spirit of Judaism, the world system around him, just as we can be. The Lord foresaw all this; He realized that He must die by crucifixion, and therefore since the Jews didn't have the power to do it, He knew they would have to hand Him over to the Romans. There were elements of His sufferings which were clearly revealed to Him by the Father, but many of His predictions are also explicable in terms of His sensitivity and intense perception of the nature of human behaviour.</p><p><em>When he saw that he was condemned</em>- Perhaps the emphasis should be upon the "he". I speculated earlier that part of the deal with Judas was that he was to be the key witness for the prosecution at the Sanhedrin trial. He surely would have been present, and seen Jesus condemned. But he perceived that actually Jesus was the judge, and it was he that was condemned by the Lord's condemnation at the hands of men. He was in the same position as Peter, who also at that same time realized that he was condemned, weeping the bitter tears of the rejected. But Judas simply didn't trust the Lord's grace.</p><p><em>Changed his mind</em>- Literally, 'to care again / afterwards'. A different word is used for repentance in a moral sense. This word suggests that Judas was selfish to the last, and realized the best way to care for himself was to commit suicide. Faced with our sin, we have the option of responding either as Peter, in sincerity and vowing our loyalty again to our Lord, or as Judas did- caring for ourselves, trying to make the most of a bad situation, taking what we perceive to be the lesser of various evils which now face us. This latter option does of course involve an element of re-thinking, but that is not of itself repentance in the Biblical sense. As with all facets of spirituality, there is the true repentance and the false one, just as there is true peace and false peace, sincere love and feigned love, faith unfeigned and faith which is merely hoping for the best, prayer from the heart and prayer as a form of words. The Jews left in the land just after the Babylonian invasion had a sense of guilt, a knowledge that they were sinners and were suffering for their sin; but they had to be exhorted to truly&nbsp;<em>repent</em>: "This is what you are saying: 'Our offences and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?'. Say to them::. I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn Turn from your evil ways Why will ye die, O house of Israel?" (<em><a href='B:330 33:10-11'>Eze 33:10-11</a></em> NIV). Like so many a prisoner, so many a Christian, like Judas and Achan, like you and me, they had the sense of desire to come back to God, the detailed realization of wherein they had failed; but not enough real strength of purpose to seriously repent.</p><p><em>And brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders</em>- The same word "brought back" used for how the Lord bade Peter put again his sword into the sheath (<em><a href='B:470 26:52'>Mat 26:52</a></em>). Again the similarity between the positions of the two men is being developed. The concern of Judas for the money surely reflects how financial motives had played a large part in his decision to betray the Lord. "What will you give me, and I will betray Him unto you?" makes clear that he was obsessed with money. The record here emphasizes his attitude to the money- he brought it again to the Jews and then cast it down on the floor. Clearly he felt that the money had been a large part in his motivation. And again we should be aghast at what men will do for money, how strong is our love of it, our desire for it::. and this led Judas to commit the greatest sin ever committed in the cosmos.</p>


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<p>27:4&nbsp;<em>Saying</em>- As if he was speaking, admitting that "I have sinned", whilst holding the silver pieces in his hand. Again the impression is given that quite simply he did what he did from the love of money.</p><p><em>I have sinned</em>- The very words of the repentant prodigal son, Job, Micah and David (<em><a href='B:490 15:18'>Luk 15:18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 15:21'>Luk 15:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:100 12:13'>2Sa 12:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:100 24:10'>2Sa 24:10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:220 7:20'>Job 7:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:400 7:9'>Mic 7:9</a></em>). But instead of going back to the Father, Judas went and killed himself. Again we see that recognition of sin and regret for it are one thing, but this is not at all the same as repentance and conversion. Peter, who was in the same position as Judas, truly repented and converted. Instead of going to his own death, Peter went to the cross to see the death of God’s Son, and perceived in that the possibility of his own forgiveness. “I have sinned” were likewise the words of Pharaoh (<em><a href='B:20 9:27'>Exo 9:27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:20 10:16'>Exo 10:16</a></em>), Balaam (<em><a href='B:40 22:34'>Num 22:34</a></em>), Achan (<em><a href='B:60 7:20'>Jos 7:20</a></em>) and several times of Saul (<em><a href='B:90 15:24'>1Sa 15:24</a></em>; <em><a href='B:90 15:30'>1Sa 15:30</a></em>; <em><a href='B:90 26:21'>1Sa 26:21</a></em>). But although these men all said the same words as the prodigal son, Job, Micah and David- they all perished in condemnation. Recognition of sin, therefore, is not the same as true repentance. To admit that we are, of course, sinners… is not the same as repentance and conversion. And so it was with Judas.</p><p><em>In that I have betrayed innocent blood</em>- Judas at his final end recognized that Jesus was sinless; and he refers to Jesus not by His name, but as “the innocent blood”. He had a good theoretical grasp of the principles of the atonement and the nature of Jesus. But that didn’t help him. He recognized the ultimate innocence of Jesus. Correct knowledge concerning Jesus and recognition of personal sin is not enough to save us. There has to be the faith in grace which Peter had, and because Judas lacked this, he remained condemned. This highlights the fact that appreciation of grace is not just a cosmetic issue, but is fundamental to the Gospel and our personal salvation. The Greek word for “innocent” means literally ‘not guilty’; Judas recognized that the Lord’s trial at the hands of the Jews had been nothing but farcical, and the innocent had been condemned as guilty.</p><p><em>But they said: What is that to us? See to it yourself</em>- Maybe their idea was that Judas had given his testimony in court and it could not now be retracted. Again we note their strict legalism on one hand, whilst behaving in the most unconscionable way on the other.</p>


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<p>27:5&nbsp;<em>And he threw the pieces of silver into</em>- The Greek&nbsp;<em>rhipto&nbsp;</em>literally means to disperse and is used in classical Greek for depositing money; it may be a technical term for a donation to the poor, or some sort of charitable donation. Perhaps this was his final repentance for stealing what had been intended as donations for the poor. This would explain why he didn’t give the money back to the priests and elders, but rather took it to the temple and cast it / dispersed / donated it there; hence they decided that it could not remain in “the treasury” (:6). He now gave it back, even though he had no personal hope of salvation because he didn’t trust the Lord’s grace.</p><p><em>The temple</em>- Judas presumably had been at the High Priest’s palace for the trial, and it was a fair walk from there to the temple. His visit to the priests and elders may have been at the High Priest’s palace, not at the temple. So he went to the temple purposefully, to throw his money down in the temple, perhaps throwing it into the ‘trumpets’ into which people poured their money, and where the Lord had commented upon the widow throwing in her two last pennies. It would seem, therefore, that he did repent of his materialism, in the sense that he realized he had done wrong and wished to give those thirty pieces of silver at least to God’s house and work. And yet he did not ultimately repent. See on :4&nbsp;<em>I have sinned:&nbsp;</em>It is one thing to recognize our sin of materialism and to even give the wealth to the Lord’s cause, but true repentance is another matter. It is a state of heart, and is modelled in Peter as opposed to Judas. It seems Judas did externally what was appropriate for someone who ‘repented’; he returned the money to God, but this is still not enough. All that ‘putting things right’ was rather irrelevant compared to the need for faith in the Lord’s grace and forgiveness.</p><p><em>And departed, and he went away and hanged himself-&nbsp;</em>Adam attempted to hide from God's presence, the Hebrew implying 'to drawn oneself back'. Judas went away (Gk. he retired away), from the house of God, the temple, to try to hang himself, once he knew his condemnation (<em><a href='B:470 27:5'>Mat 27:5</a></em>). He went to the Potter's field (<em><a href='B:510 1:18'>Act 1:18</a></em>), which was in the Valley of Hinnom. He went to Gehenna, the place of condemnation, of his own accord. His own legs carried him there. <em><a href='B:230 112:10'>Psa 112:10</a></em> has echoes of the scenario: "The wicked shall see it (the Kingdom) and be grieved; he shall gnash with his teeth (judgment day language), and melt away". In similar vein the apostle speaks of the rejected as those who even now "<em>draw back</em>&nbsp;unto perdition" (<em><a href='B:650 10:39'>Heb 10:39</a></em>). The implication is that by our attitude now, we effectively judge ourselves; if we draw back from Christ in this life, we will slink away from him in the day of judgment. The types of judgment also stress this slinking away. As there will be a slinking away at the final judgment, so there was at the cross, which was "the judgment of this world". Early on in the crucifixion, the people hurled confident insults at Him. But we get the impression that this died out over the hours; until "<em>all</em>&nbsp;the people that came together to that sight::. smote their breasts, and returned" (<em><a href='B:490 23:48'>Luk 23:48</a></em>). They slipped away, one by one, as those who brought the adulterous woman to the Lord (this was another type of the judgment; they slipped away from Him, self-condemned- (<em><a href='B:500 8:9'>Joh 8:9</a></em>). All this was a foretaste of how there will be an ashamed slinking away from the judgment seat by the rejected, being "ashamed from before him at His coming", the Greek suggesting the idea of slinking away in shame (<em><a href='B:690 2:28'>1Jn 2:28</a></em> Gk:). The wicked will melt away from the Lord's presence (<em><a href='B:230 68:2'>Psa 68:2</a></em>). Rejected Israel are described as being "ashamed away" (<em><a href='B:360 1:12'>Joe 1:12</a></em>)- the same idea. This is the idea behind <em><a href='B:650 12:15'>Heb 12:15</a></em> RVmg: "…man that falls back from the grace of God". What they did in this life in slinking away from the reality of pure grace will be what is worked out in their condemnation experience. There seems a certain similarity between this and how the combined Gospel records imply that men initially mocked Jesus on the cross, and then eventually slipped away in silence (<em><a href='B:650 6:6'>Heb 6:6</a></em>).</p>


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<p>27:6&nbsp;<em>And the chief priests took the pieces of silver and said</em>- See on :5&nbsp;<em>Cast down:&nbsp;</em>I suggested there that Judas actually put the silver pieces into the trumpet-like collection bowls, and thereby into the temple treasury. But the priests literally had to fish them out of there because of their legalistic obsession with not having blood money in the temple treasury. Even though they had likely taken that money out of the treasury themselves in the first place. Their self-contradictory legalism is a great theme of the record here.</p><p><em>It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is the price of blood</em>- “Put” here translates&nbsp;<em>ballo</em>, to throw. Although it is a different word to that used about Judas ‘casting’ the silver pieces in the temple I suggested, into the collection containers, the idea is similar. They were now trying to find fault with Judas- and were claiming that he had acted incorrectly by ‘casting’ blood money into the temple treasury. Their idea that it was not lawful was based around their extension of the commandment of <em><a href='B:50 25:18'>Deu 25:18</a></em> “You must not bring the hire of a prostitute or of a male prostitute into the house of Yahweh your God”. But there was not actually any direct Divine law which forbad those pieces of silver going into the temple treasury. Their extension of the&nbsp;<em>implication</em>&nbsp;of a Divine law had become, in their minds, itself a law which they had to obey. This is the problem with legalistic attitudes- more laws are spawned. Their concerns about what was lawful and “not lawful” run throughout the Gospel records (<em><a href='B:470 12:2'>Mat 12:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 12:10'>Mat 12:10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 19:3'>Mat 19:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 22:17'>Mat 22:17</a></em> etc:). The Law of Moses was intended for the time and place it was given, and was part of an ongoing dialogue between God and His people; and the legal code given by Moses in places contradicts itself, or allows various options for obedience or various outcomes for disobedience e:g. adultery. It wasn’t intended to be used in a casuistic sense, and parts of it were overridden or abrogated even before the Lord Jesus came. If it is used in a casuistic, black and white sense, then like any law, it logically spawns hosts of other requirements. What ‘logically follows’ becomes the deciding issue, rather than the spirit of loving God and doing what He wishes.</p>


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<p>27:7&nbsp;<em>And they took counsel</em>- As in :1. They were eager to spread responsibility for their actions in the entire business of killing the Lord; human beings feel safer beneath the umbrella of a committee, a group. And yet those men, like us, will each have to meet the Lord personally and face the consequence of their actions.</p><p><em>And bought with them the potter's field</em>- <em><a href='B:510 1:18'>Act 1:18</a></em> says that Judas “obtained it with the reward of his iniquity” (RV). And yet the thirty pieces of silver were still in his hand right up to the end of his life. Purchase of property was a slow business in Palestine, and nobody would have been doing business over the Passover feast. Neither is there any time in the narrative for Judas to have bought or obtained the field. And yet <em><a href='B:510 1:18'>Act 1:18</a></em> states that Judas “obtained” the field with the silver pieces, the reward of his iniquity, and killed himself there. I suggest the reconciliation is that the Jews bought the place where Judas had committed suicide&nbsp;<em>in Judas’ name</em>, even though he was dead. This again would’ve involved a fair amount of fiddling books and behaviour of low integrity. And yet it was ostensibly done in strict and careful obedience to the idea that money earned by dishonest means should not be brought into the temple; this was based on <em><a href='B:50 25:18'>Deu 25:18</a></em> “You must not bring the hire of a prostitute or of a male prostitute into the house of Yahweh your God”. Again and again we see how these men who committed the worst possible sin in the entire universe… were strictly legally obedient to some Divine laws and the principles arising from them. This is a powerful warning to all of us religious people; we can so easily serve God with only part of our mind, one half of our brain. And the results are disastrous. Nothing less than the entire heart and soul and mind must be given over to Him.</p><p>The Potter’s field was in the Valley of Hinnom, Gehenna; Judas went to Gehenna to kill himself, the ultimate proof that all who shall finally be condemned will in essence have condemned themselves.</p><p><em>To bury strangers in</em>- Thus through the death of Christ it became possible that Gentiles could have a place within Jerusalem, the city of God.</p>


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<p>27:8&nbsp;<em>Therefore that field is called to this day, The field of blood</em>- This was surely not what the Jewish leadership wished it to be called. Time and again we see that their careful plans didn't work out. Likewise they bribed the soldiers guarding the tomb to say that the Lord's body had been stolen- and the news of their bribery became widespread. "Unto this day" suggests an early date to the Gospels.</p>


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<h4>27:9&nbsp;<em>Then was fulfilled what was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying: And they took the thirty pieces of silver</em>- The quotation is from Zechariah (<em><a href='B:450 11:12'>Zec 11:12</a></em>). The standard explanations are that the volume of the prophets in which Zechariah was included began with Jeremiah and was therefore referred to as "Jeremiah"; or that in fact Jeremiah wrote Zechariah 9-11 and this was included in the prophecy now known as Zechariah. For more on this, see on :10&nbsp;<em>The potter's field:&nbsp;</em>Given the very detailed congruence between reality and the Gospel records, it would be unlikely that such an obvious error was made. We who believe in an inspired Bible should rather, in any case, say with humility "I am still searching for more light on this question" rather than assume that here we have an evidence of a fallible Bible. If one part is inaccurate, what about the rest::. The context of <em><a href='B:450 11:12-13'>Zec 11:12-13</a></em> is significant- note the pronouns in the Hebrew text, in that the money was cast to the potter by the same prophet who had been valued at the low price of 30 pieces of silver:&nbsp; "If it seem good to you, give me my wages; but if not, let it alone: and they weighed me as wages thirty silverlings. Then Jehovah said to me, Throw it to the potter, the splendid price at which I am valued by them; and so I took the thirty silverlings, and threw it into the house of Jehovah to the potter". Throwing it to the potter was a response of sarcasm as was the reference to "the splendid price", in that this was the price of a dead slave (<em><a href='B:20 21:32'>Exo 21:32</a></em>), and far below what a prophet should have been valued at, let alone the Son of God. Just as Judas threw the coins into the temple treasury, so the Jews threw them to the potter. Judas and the Jewish leadership are thereby once again connected, they were part of the same 'satan' system which was the adversary to the Lord. Those learned Jews, steeped as they were in the text of Scripture, surely closed their minds to these words as they so clearly fulfilled them. We too can know Scripture, and yet the flesh has a way of hiving off the part of our minds that is aware of them. And according to the prophecy, it was the undervalued prophet himself who threw the coins to the potter. The action of the Jewish elders was therefore directly controlled by the risen Lord. This connection between the prophet (Jesus) and the Jews is surely reflected by the way in which the Hebrew text speaks of the prophet himself throwing the coins to the potter, whereas that is quoted here in Matthew as if they, the children of Israel, cast them to the potter. See on :10&nbsp;<em>As the Lord appointed Me:&nbsp;</em>If they had thought upon Zechariah 11 with open minds, they would have seen in their own actions the very evidence that He was alive and working through them to their own condemnation. And the context of <em><a href='B:450 11:12-13'>Zec 11:12-13</a></em> is God's breaking of His covenant with Israel because of their undervaluing of His prophet. This is precisely what happened in that the new covenant was confirmed to the extent that the old covenant was abrogated.</h4><p><em>The price of him on whom a price had been set</em>- The implication is that the Lord's price was 30 pieces of silver. This is strong evidence against the suggestion often made that the 30 pieces were a down-payment made to Judas. That suggestion is perhaps so frequently offered because 30 pieces of silver seems such a low price. But Judas had asked: "What will you give me, and I will betray Him unto you?", and the price agreed was 30 pieces of silver. But we need not be so surprised. Because surely we have all seen people make the most&nbsp;unwise and sinful decisions for the sake of money, even relatively small amounts of it. And the more I reflect upon these records, the more convinced I am that the crime of the cosmos, of all time in eternity, the worst action at any point of infinite time and space, was committed for love of money. And so pathetically little of it. It truly is the root of all evil. And such a pathetically small amount, the compensation price of a dead slave, that could only buy a piece of ground in the despised valley of Hinnom, the Potter's field, muddy and useless for building, from which much of the clay had already been dug out by the potters, surrounded by the smell of burning bodies and garbage that remained constantly in the valley of Hinnom. In these reflections is surely the most powerful warning which there could be against petty materialism. Peter had surely reflected upon all this when he wrote of "the precious blood of Christ::. unto you therefore who believe He is precious" (<em><a href='B:670 1:19'>1Pe 1:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:670 2:7'>1Pe 2:7</a></em>), using the same word translated here as "valued". Indeed, that family of Greek words is used around 12 times by Peter in his letters; the tragedy of how the Lord was not "valued" by Judas and Israel was a tragedy to Peter, and he wanted the church to compensate for it:&nbsp;<em>We</em>&nbsp;are to value Him and His blood, far more than Judas and the Jews did.</p><p><em>By some of the sons of Israel-&nbsp;</em>Jesus was “Him… whom they priced on the part of the sons of Israel” (<em><a href='B:470 27:9'>Mat 27:9</a></em> RVmg:). The reference to “the sons of Israel” is surely an allusion to the sons of Jacob selling Joseph for his value.</p>


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<p>27:10&nbsp;<em>And they gave them for the potter's field</em>- We cannot miss the fact that the potter is a clear Old Testament symbol for God (<em><a href='B:290 41:25'>Isa 41:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 64:8'>Isa 64:8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 18:6'>Jer 18:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 19:11'>Jer 19:11</a></em>; <em><a href='B:520 9:21'>Rom 9:21</a></em>). And "the field is the world" (<em><a href='B:470 13:38'>Mat 13:38</a></em>). The price of the Lord's blood bought the potter's field, God's field, the world, as a resting place for faithful Gentiles who had come on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and died there. We noted on :9&nbsp;<em>By Jeremiah&nbsp;</em>that <em><a href='B:450 11:12-13'>Zec 11:12-13</a></em> was likely written by Jeremiah. And that now makes sense. Because it was at "the potter's house" that Jeremiah had uttered his prophecies, stating that God was the potter, He was manifest in that potter to whose field Jeremiah had 'gone down' (<em><a href='B:300 18:2'>Jer 18:2</a></em>; 'going down' implies it was in a valley, as was the Potter's Field bought by the Jews). The money being cast to the potter therefore suggests that ultimately, all returns to God. No silver pieces are ours for ever, as they were not the Jews' nor Judas's. It was ultimately thrown to the potter in the Potter's Field, the very place where Jeremiah had prophesied and explained that that potter was in fact representative of God.</p><p><em>As the Lord directed me</em>- See on :9&nbsp;<em>By Jeremiah</em>. The throwing of the coins to the potter by "the children of Israel" was in fact done by the undervalued prophet, the Lord Jesus. Their purchase of the field was surely done after Passover had finished- after the Lord's resurrection. And actually He was controlling what they did. If they had compared their actions against Zechariah 11, a passage they knew well, then they would have perceived this.</p>


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<p>27:11&nbsp;<em>Now Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him</em>- This is Matthew’s preferred term for Pilate. Perhaps he doesn’t name Pilate because he wants to draw out the similarity between how the Lord stood before a governor, and how those in Christ (especially in the last days) will likewise be brought before “governors” (<em><a href='B:470 10:18'>Mat 10:18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 13:19'>Mar 13:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 21:12'>Luk 21:12</a></em> “You shall be brought before governors”). This is yet another example of how the faithful in the very final days of the tribulation will share in the spirit of Christ’s passion; even if they do not literally die, they will be led by the tribulation experience to identify with the spirit of the suffering Christ, so that they can legitimately share in the spirit of His resurrection life.</p><p><em>Are you the King of the Jews?</em>- Out of the various Jewish accusations against the Lord, this was the only one which directly affected the Romans, and was the technical reason for Pilate agreeing to the death penalty; it was this reason which was written over the Lord’s head on the cross. The irony of the situation must have rubbed hard upon the Lord; He was dying as the King of a people, not one of whom would openly show loyalty to Him. In any suffering we may have because of feeling utterly alone, betrayed, having lived life to no end, not being shown loyalty by those we expect it of- we are connected with the spirit of the cross.</p><p><em>And Jesus said to him: You say it-&nbsp;</em>Jesus before Pilate said just one word in Greek; translated "You say it". It is stressed there that Jesus said nothing else, so that Pilate marvelled at His silent self-control. Yet Paul speaks with pride of how the Lord Jesus "before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession" (<em><a href='B:610 6:13'>1Ti 6:13</a></em>). You'd expect him to be alluding to some major speech of Jesus. But it seems, reading his spirit, Paul's saying: 'Lord Jesus, your self control, your strength of purpose, was great. I salute you, I hold you up to Timothy as the supreme example. Just one word. What a witness'. &nbsp;As He witnessed in His ministry, so must we (<em><a href='B:520 2:19'>Rom 2:19</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:470 4:16'>Mat 4:16</a></em>). As He witnessed before Pilate, so must we witness (<em><a href='B:610 6:12-13'>1Ti 6:12-13</a></em>).</p>


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<p>27:12&nbsp;<em>And when he was accused by the chief priests and elders</em>- The accusations were of course false (as Pilate himself pointed out, <em><a href='B:490 23:14'>Luk 23:14</a></em>), making the chief priests and Jewish system the 'devil', the false accuser. In my&nbsp;<em>The Real Devil</em>&nbsp;I demonstrated at length that the terms 'satan' and 'devil' often refer specifically to the Jewish system in the first century. The paradox was that it was those very Jews who were standing in the dock before God, accused by the writings of Moses (<em><a href='B:500 5:45'>Joh 5:45</a></em>). And yet we must give <em><a href='B:500 12:42'>Joh 12:42</a></em> its due weight- many of the chief rulers believed in Jesus as Christ but were fearful of the Pharisees and exclusion from the synagogue. So it has so often been- fear of religious excommunication leads believers to crucify their Christ brethren. Their behaviour is explained by the repeated descriptions of the Jews ‘gathering together’ to take their decisions about killing the Lord. In company, men adopt positions far beyond those they personally hold, and even strongly against their own personal convictions. Reading the account of Jewish treatment of Jesus, it seems incredible, at first blush, that some or even “many” of those men “believed in Him”. But this is the power of group think and the fear of appearing strange to others, or being rejected by others, especially from their religious fellowship.</p><p><em>He said nothing</em>- Perhaps for the same reason that He remained silent during the Jewish trial (see notes on 26:63). His only answer would be to speak judgment against them, and He wished to delay this until the last possible moment, in order to give them the chance for repentance. So many times in the Gospel records, in Matthew especially, we read that during His ministry the Lord "answered and said::.". The same Greek word is used. He had given His answer to their accusations and positions throughout His ministry, and now the time for providing fresh evidence was over. They knew His answers.</p>


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<p>27:13&nbsp;<em>Then Pilate said to him: Do you not hear how many things</em>- The implication was 'Are you deaf?'. The Lord was fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies that Messiah would be as deaf before His accusers (<em><a href='B:230 38:13'>Psa 38:13</a></em> "I as a deaf man don't hear"; <em><a href='B:290 42:19'>Isa 42:19</a></em> "Who is blind, but My servant? Or who is as deaf as My messenger whom I send? Who is as blind as he who is at peace, and as blind as Yahweh’s servant?"). The quotation from Psalms 38 is from one of the Psalms David wrote concerning his failure with Bathsheba and subsequent sufferings. Many other of these Psalms, especially Psalms 22, 69, are full of material relevant to the Lord's sufferings. We observe therefore that through suffering for his sin, David came to know the sufferings of his future Messiah. We marvel at how God works through sin. He doesn't ignore it, nor simply punish men for the sake of needing to punish them. Those sufferings and the very experience of sin are somehow worked through by God in order to bring men to His Son and to His cross. We likewise should not turn away from sinners but rather seek to work with them to bring them to know Christ, knowing that this is indeed God's game plan with them too. The allusion to <em><a href='B:290 42:19'>Isa 42:19</a></em> must be understood likewise in the context of that passage. The preceding verse has appealed to the blind and deaf within Judah at that time: "Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind" (<em><a href='B:290 42:18'>Isa 42:18</a></em>), and then goes on say that sinless Messiah likewise was deaf and blind. We see here a principle that was to be worked out throughout the Lord's passion- He identified with sinners. They were deaf and blind, and He now acted as deaf and blind, He identified with sinners to the point that He felt as a sinner. His silence to the accusations was therefore also capable of being understood as the silence of a guilty man before His accusers. Not that the Lord was guilty, but He identified with sinful man to the extent that He felt that way, and this all came to its final term in His genuine feeling that He had been forsaken even by God (:46). Not that He was, for God only forsakes sinners and never forsakes the righteous (see notes on :46). But He so identified with sinners that the Lord felt as one of us, although He was not a sinner. Yet as the Lord stood before His accusers silent, He knew great peace; so <em><a href='B:290 42:19'>Isa 42:19</a></em> assures us: "Who is blind, but My servant? Or who is as deaf as My messenger whom I send? Who is as blind as&nbsp;<em>he who is at peace</em>, and as blind as Yahweh’s servant?".</p><p><em>They testify against you</em>- The Greek is used only four times in the New Testament; twice at this point (in <em><a href='B:480 15:4'>Mar 15:4</a></em> also) and twice in the comment of the High Priest at the Lord's earlier trial (<em><a href='B:470 26:62'>Mat 26:62</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 14:60'>Mar 14:60</a></em>). Circumstances repeated. The Lord learnt silence at the first trial, and there was the same reaction from the judge; and now the situation repeated itself, although Pilate had not been present at the first trial. He overcame that first test, and repeated the victory. We have seen how in contrast to this, Peter was given various tests which he failed the first time and then subsequent times when they were repeated (e:g. the three failures to keep awake in Gethsemane, and the triple failure to not deny the Lord later that evening).</p>


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<p>27:14&nbsp;<em>And he gave him no answer, not even one word, so much so that the governor was astonished</em>- This is the same response by the judge as at the Lord's earlier trial (<em><a href='B:470 26:62-63'>Mat 26:62-63</a></em>; see on 27:13&nbsp;<em>They testify against you</em>). Pilate had presided over many such cases of men being falsely accused. He was astounded at how a man in the face of such blatantly false accusation could be so self-controlled. This, in spiritual terms, was our Lord at one of His most supreme moments. He sets a supreme example to all those falsely accused. Pilate was also staggered at how the Lord had a good human chance of getting off the hook by answering what was blatantly false. But the Lord's mission was to give His life- it was not taken from Him, He gave it. And therefore He made no attempt to get Himself off.</p>


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<p>27:15&nbsp;<em>Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd</em>- The Greek is also translated 'to forgive', and there was within the 'release' the idea that the crime had been forgiven. This was not, therefore, completely appropriate for the Lord Jesus, who had done no wrong. The same word is used in <em><a href='B:510 2:24'>Act 2:24</a></em> of how God "loosed" Jesus from the pangs of death. The Lord's temptation would have been to hope against hope that each of the human possibilities of release would come true. But He had resolutely decided to do God's will unto the end, and therefore He knew that the only ultimate release would be in resurrection, and that would be performed by the Father rather than by any human power. The language of loosing or releasing s:w. is used about what the Lord achieved by His death (He 'loosed' the works of the devil, <em><a href='B:690 3:8'>1Jn 3:8</a></em>; loosed the middle wall of partition, <em><a href='B:560 2:14'>Eph 2:14</a></em>; loosed the seals on the book of life, <em><a href='B:730 5:5'>Rev 5:5</a></em>). As ever, the paradox was that this release, this form of salvation, falsely appeared to be in the power of those who crucified the Lord. But the Lord saw through it all. Likewise, they appeared His judges and He appeared the guilty; when the opposite was the case.</p><p><em>Any one prisoner whom they wanted</em>- In essence, they had made their choice earlier. The Lord had used the same word in 12:7: "But if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not s:w. "wanted" have condemned the guiltless". The Lord perceived that the essence of the cross, the essence of all that was happening to Him, had already happened during His ministry. They had already condemned the guiltless. This would have helped Him not to hang too intensely on the possibility of the outcome of events changing suddenly at the last minute through some failure in their legal process. And we perceive too that there was no great divide between His final intense sufferings, and what He went through during His life. Our carrying of the cross likewise is a daily matter, rather than a few moments of intense choice which occur during our lives. The same Greek word translated "wanted" occurs three times in describing how they 'wanted' to condemn Jesus and 'wanted' Barabbas (:15,17,21). <em><a href='B:490 23:25'>Luk 23:25</a></em> concludes the section by saying that Pilate "delivered Jesus to their will". It is the same word which the Lord had agonized over in Gethsemane- "Not as I&nbsp;<em>will</em>, but as You&nbsp;<em>will</em>" (<em><a href='B:470 26:39'>Mat 26:39</a></em>). Even though it appeared that the will of evil, conniving men was being done, it was in fact the Father's will. And we can take similar comfort when it appears that the will of evil men is being done. Ultimately, there is the Father's will far over and above them, working on a far higher level, although we cannot see the final picture of His purpose in specific moments. It can be painless of itself to pray the Father's will be done (<em><a href='B:470 6:10'>Mat 6:10</a></em>), but this is what it meant for the Lord. It took Him an hour long enough for the disciples to fall asleep to pray for the Father's will to be done, and not His (<em><a href='B:470 26:42'>Mat 26:42</a></em>). In the Lord's ministry, He had sought to do not His own will but the Father's (<em><a href='B:500 5:30'>Joh 5:30</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:38'>Joh 6:38</a></em>), and this came to its ultimate moment in His situation in Gethsemane facing the cross. Again we see that the essence of Gethsemane and of the Lord's choice to die on the cross was not simply in these final intense moments, but was an outflow of a life daily lived by that principle, in which to do the Father's will was the food He ate and the air He breathed (<em><a href='B:500 4:34'>Joh 4:34</a></em>). John doesn't record the Lord's struggle in Gethsemane concerning doing the Father's will rather than His own will, but as so often John has made the same point in other ways earlier in his Gospel; John has shown the Lord making this choice throughout His life, and inviting His followers to do likewise (<em><a href='B:500 4:34'>Joh 4:34</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 5:30'>Joh 5:30</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:38'>Joh 6:38</a></em>). This is John's way of showing that the essence of Gethsemane and the cross was to be found throughout the Lord's life.</p>


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<p>27:16&nbsp;<em>And they had then a notable prisoner called-&nbsp;</em>The Greek<em>&nbsp;epi-semos&nbsp;</em>literally means 'one of sign'; we are thereby invited to see the name 'Barabbas' as signifying something. Before the Jews were two men claiming to be sons of Abba, and they chose the false one. The Lord's claim to be Son of God was the reason why the Jews particularly wanted to kill Him.</p><h4><em>Barabbas</em>- Son of Abba, the father. This man was clearly an anti-Christ, a fake Christ, a man set up in appearance as the Christ, the son of God, when he was the very opposite. And Israel chose him. His similarity with the Lord is made even more interesting by the fact that some early manuscripts (such as the Caesarean, the Sinaitic Palimpsest and the Palestinian Syriac) here read ‘Jesus Barabbas’ (Referenced in Craig A. Evans,&nbsp;<em>Matthew (New Cambridge Bible Commentary)&nbsp;</em>(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012 p:&nbsp;453:). The four gospel records only occasionally all record the same incident. When they do all mention the same thing, it seems that the Spirit intends us to see an especial significance in this. The fact that the crowd chose Barabbas rather than the Lord of glory is one of those aspects of the Passion which is recorded by all four writers. There is much information given about Barabbas, emphasizing the kind of criminal he was (<em><a href='B:470 27:16'>Mat 27:16</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 15:7'>Mar 15:7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:19'>Luk 23:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 18:40'>Joh 18:40</a></em>). That men would reject the righteousness of God, the Spotless Lamb of God, for such a man::. this is the tragic story of our race and our nature. And it was the ecclesia of those days which made this dastard choice, and crucified the Lord Jesus. The same nature, the same blindness, is in us all.</h4>


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<p>27:17&nbsp;<em>Therefore, when they were gathered together, Pilate said to them: Who do you want me to-&nbsp;</em>See on 26:57. The way the Jews were "gathered together" at this time, literally 'synagogued', is significant in that we see how the Lord's passion gathered men together, either for or against Him. And it is the same today.</p><p><em>Release to you</em>- This word is used of how Paul could have been released or "let go" because after examination by the Romans, "there was no cause of death in me" (<em><a href='B:510 28:18'>Act 28:18</a></em>). Paul's trials are full of connection with those of the Lord, and Paul (like us) took special comfort in any similarity between the Lord's sufferings and his own. For this is indeed why we have such a mass of detail about the Lord's final sufferings- we are to see endless points of connection between His experiences and our own. And as Paul says, if we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him. It was to this process which we signed up to at baptism, in which we dedicated ourselves to a life of dying and living with Him.</p><p><em>Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?</em>- Not 'who claims to be Christ' or 'is called by some 'the Christ''. Pilate is reminding them Jesus was the Christ, and they had stated that they thought this was a capital offence. Pilate was offering them the choice between Barabbas and Jesus exactly because he knew they would choose Barabbas. He had a conscience about the matter of this Jesus of Nazareth, and he wanted the choice to crucify Him to be theirs and not his. He cleverly reasoned that he had pronounced Jesus innocent, but the choice to kill him would effectively have been the choice of the Jews if they chose Barabbas over Jesus. This is all the sense of the following explanatory comment "For he knew that they had delivered him up out of envy".</p>


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<p>27:18&nbsp;<em>For he knew that they had delivered Him up out of-&nbsp;</em>See on :17&nbsp;<em>Jesus which is called Christ</em>. Pilate was encouraging them to choose Barabbas over Jesus so that the guilt of Jesus' crucifixion would be upon them and not him. Bible critics have pointed out that this was unusual behaviour for Pilate, renowned as he was for being a brutal and apparently conscienceless man. Indeed he was that- but the point is that the Lord Jesus in His time of dying can touch even the person whose conscience appears to be otherwise untouchable. This was and is the power of the cross of Christ. I suggest we are mistaken in reading this as if Pilate wanted them to choose Jesus for release and was mystified they chose Barabbas. He asked them to choose, knowing they had delivered Jesus to him out of envy. He wanted them to take the choice, in an attempt to assuage his own conscience.</p><p><em>Envy</em>- <em><a href='B:660 4:5'>Jas 4:5</a></em> reminds us that "The spirit that dwells in us lusts to envy" (s:w:). Envy is a basic human tendency which we must restrain. In the whole process of the Lord's betrayal, abuse and crucifixion we see the end result of basic human tendencies when they are let go unrestrained. The crucifixion of God's Son is where they lead. This is the shocking message of the whole process the Gospels record concerning the Lord's death at the hands of the Jews. The point is that we have the same nature, and unrestrained, we shall end up in essence doing the same.</p>


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<p>27:19&nbsp;<em>And while he was sitting on the judgment seat</em>- This may not be strictly chronological. The AV offers: “When he was set down…”, as if he had no sooner sat down to consider the case when the message came from his wife, implying that Jesus was a righteous man and should not be crucified with Pilate’s involvement. In any case, I suggest that this piece of information is given to explain why Pilate acted as he did in offering the Jews a choice between Jesus and Barabbas, knowing full well that “they had delivered Jesus out of envy” and therefore blindly wanted his destruction. Although usually conscienceless, Pilate’s own nagging conscience was confirmed by the message from his wife, and therefore he came up with this idea of trying to offload responsibility onto the Jews, forcing them to effectively chose that Jesus should be crucified. Of course, the power was ultimately with Pilate, and this was but a desperate ploy to avoid ultimate guilt; but the fact he did it reflects the degree to which the Lord Jesus can touch even the hardest consciences.</p><p><em>His wife</em>- It seems it was Origen who started the tradition that she later became a Christian thanks to a dream given her about Jesus.</p><p><em>Sent a message to him, saying: Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him</em>- These are the very same Greek words used at least four times to record the Lord’s prediction of His crucifixion as being a ‘suffering of many things’ (<em><a href='B:470 16:21'>Mat 16:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 9:12'>Mar 9:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 9:22'>Luk 9:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 17:25'>Luk 17:25</a></em>). This sensitive woman had a correct premonition of what was to happen to the Lord, and dreamed about it; and sensing His innocence and origin from God, she didn’t want her husband to be involved in bringing those sufferings about. Again this claim has the ring of truth to it the more it is meditated upon.</p>


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<p>27:20&nbsp;<em>Now the chief priests and the elders</em>- The Greek&nbsp;<em>deh</em>&nbsp;translated “Now” is often untranslated in English, it’s a connecting word meaning ‘Now… And…’. The idea is not so much that Pilate wanted to release Jesus&nbsp;<em>but</em>&nbsp;the priests worked against that. Pilate knew they envied Jesus and were intent on having Him executed, and wished to place the decision as far as he could in their hands in order to not have the Lord’s blood on his hands. Such were his attempts to ease his conscience.</p><p><em>Persuaded the crowds that they should ask for Barabbas, and destroy Jesus</em>- It could be that the Jewish leadership also had an uneasy conscience. Pilate wanted to shift the responsibility onto them, and they in turn wanted the crowd to be the ones who made the decision. Because it seems that the person to be released at Passover was not usually chosen by mass decision or request, rather the decision was made by Pilate. But in this case, he gets the Jewish leadership to choose between Jesus and Barabbas. And they in turn get the crowd involved in the choice, just as they kept ‘consulting together’ before each decision regarding Jesus. This all indicates how conscience was being touched in all those concerned. It is a powerful insight into the degree to which the Lord Jesus and His death can touch the most hardened conscience; and even those who appear to have absolutely no conscience do in fact have one, which can be touched by Christ. We see too the fickleness of the crowd- those who once welcomed Jesus as Messiah just a few days before, were so soon turned around against Him. And then turned back again a few weeks later by Peter’s preaching.</p>


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<p>27:21&nbsp;<em>But the governor answered and said to them: Which of the two do you want me to release to you? And they said: Barabbas</em>- Putting together the Gospel records at this point, it is clear that Pilate first asked the Jewish leadership which of the two they wanted, and then he asked the crowd; and it would seem Pilate asked each group the same question at least twice, whilst emphasizing that he did not consider that Jesus was worthy of death and would be happy to release Jesus to them. At first blush this may appear as if Pilate was seeking to persuade first the leaders and then the crowd to allow him to release Jesus to them- and failed to get their agreement. I take a slightly different position. We have noted that Pilate gave the choice to them exactly because he knew that the leaders had delivered Jesus to him&nbsp;<em>because they envied Jesus</em>&nbsp;and therefore wanted Him dead. I would understand Pilate's offers to release Jesus as carefully calculated to produce the obvious result- each time the offer was made, the leaders and then the crowd shouted yet louder to destroy Jesus. Those outcomes were not hard to predict. Pilate knew they would respond like this, and he was playing the crowd, rather than simply making the same appeal to them and being shouted down ever louder each time. But the point to note is surely that he was doing all this to assuage his own conscience; he wanted the Jews to take absolute, widespread and public responsibility for the death of Jesus, and therefore once he had the crowd worked up into a frenzy of desiring Barabbas rather than Jesus, he solemnly washed his hands before them all, claiming that this was totally their choice. Of course, it was ultimately his choice, and he was indeed concerned to hear himself being called 'not Caesar's friend'. My point is that this conscienceless man did in fact have a conscience, which was touched by Jesus and the prospect of His crucifixion. And that is to me the only satisfactory explanation of his long drawn out psychological game with the Jews, and even then it was not ultimately successful nor convincing in distancing himself from the decision to crucify Jesus. See on :22&nbsp;<em>What then shall I do to Jesus</em>.</p>


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<p>27:22&nbsp;<em>Pilate said to them: What then shall I do to Jesus who is called Christ? They all said: Let him be crucified</em>- This is asking an obvious question, seeing that the record has noted that Pilate knew they had delivered Jesus to him out of envy, and they had made it abundantly clear that they sought the death penalty for Him. Pilate asked the question knowing full well the answer they were going to give. But he wanted to elicit from them in clear, specific and public terms that it was&nbsp;<em>their&nbsp;wish</em>&nbsp;that Jesus be crucified. See on :21&nbsp;<em>Which of the two do you want me to release to you?&nbsp;</em>It was all part of an extended psychological game Pilate was playing with them, leading them to so clearly take the blame for the Lord's crucifixion. But he only bothered doing this because his conscience was troubling him, and in this we see a powerful insight into the way the Lord's death can touch the hardest of consciences. This is the very reason why reflection upon the Lord in His time of dying leads on naturally to true self-examination. And in this lies the connection between self-examination and the breaking of bread service.</p>


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<p>27:23&nbsp;<em>And he said: Why, what evil has he done?</em>-&nbsp; Pilate knew that they had delivered Jesus to him from envy, and that there was no legitimate reason for the death sentence. But in line with my commentary on :21 and :22, I suggest he is not so much seeking to change their minds, but rather purposefully seeking to elicit from the Jews a clear statement that they wanted Him crucified.</p><p><em>But they cried out exceedingly, saying: Let him be crucified</em>- When people are pressed for a reason for their unreasonable positions and behaviours, they simply say the same thing again, but more loudly (in various ways). This is the classic example- they repeated their cry "Let Him be crucified". Surely Pilate knew that they would respond like this, and I see him as stage managing the entire crowd, purposefully leading the crowd to cry out ever louder, in order to set the stage for his public washing of his hands. But he played this elaborate game because he had a conscience, and wanted to try to separate himself from the decision to crucify the Lord.</p>


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<p>27:24&nbsp;<em>So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying</em>- I do not take this as meaning that Pilate tried to prevail upon the crowd to change their mind, but now gave up. Rather do I take this as meaning that he realized that he had played his psychological game with the crowd long enough (see commentary on the previous three verses), and saw that if he played it any longer, then a riot could break out. And so he brought his game to an end, having successfully elicited from them a clear taking of responsibility for the decision to crucify Jesus, and now he washes his hands publicly. But this of course did not take away his ultimate responsibility- for he could have simply thrown the case out of court. But he correctly perceived that if he were to do that, then there would be major rebellion against him.</p><p><em>I am innocent of this man's blood</em>- The historical Pilate is recorded as killing men for any or even no reason, and being apparently conscienceless. But he is clearly concerned with declaring his own innocence, using a Greek word which means 'without penalty'. He realized there was going to be a penalty paid for crucifying Jesus. Surely he wasn't fearful of his Roman overlords or Caesar himself demanding a penalty for crucifying Jesus. Pilate was clearly aware that there was someone who was going to execute a penalty upon those who crucified Jesus; and Pilate wanted to publicly declare his innocence and to protest that he at least should be without penalty. That someone was the one true God. Pilate could not see the death of God's Son without realizing that men are held accountable by God for their part in it. Again we see the power of the cross in touching even the most callous and concealed conscience. We are left to reflect that of course Pilate was not ultimately without responsibility in the decision making- he could have refused. And we therefore reflect further that no man can just declare himself right or innocent before God; that declaration can only be made by God. This is the whole idea of justification, of being counted right. But this requires faith in God and Jesus.</p><p>Guilt for the Lord's blood was placed clearly upon the Jews (23:35 "That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth", "You intend to bring this man's blood upon us", <em><a href='B:510 5:28'>Act 5:28</a></em>). <em><a href='B:510 3:14'>Act 3:14</a></em> condemns Israel for desiring a murderer and rejecting "The Just", the same word used by Pilate "this&nbsp;<em>just</em>&nbsp;person". These Scriptures, and many others, clearly place the blame for the Lord's crucifixion upon the Jews rather than Pilate and the Romans, even though Pilate was clearly not innocent. Hence the Lord's observation to Pilate that "he" who had handed Him over to Pilate had "the greater sin" (<em><a href='B:500 19:11'>Joh 19:11</a></em>). The "he" was the Jewish system. We marvel at the Lord's grace to Pilate, who clearly was weak and didn't do what he knew he should have done; it's as if He perceived Pilate's struggle of conscience and felt sorry for him about it, and as it were comforts Pilate that although he is sinning, the greater sin was being committed by the Jews. In this again we see how grace and pity ran through all the Lord's actions at this time; facing death, who He essentially was became revealed the more intensely. And He was and is grace, pity and love to their utmost.</p><p><em>This just person</em>- AV. Even the deeply immoral Pilate perceived the Lord's sinlessness. He uses the same word as used by his wife in :19 "Have nothing to do with that&nbsp;<em>just man</em>". The immoral Herod likewise perceived that John was "a just man" (<em><a href='B:480 6:20'>Mar 6:20</a></em> s:w:). The Centurion echoed Pilate's words as he beheld the Lord's death: "Certainly this was as Pilate had famously said a righteous / just man" (<em><a href='B:490 23:47'>Luk 23:47</a></em> s:w:). If Pilate was purely dealing with this case with no conscience, then he would not have used this term, involving as it does a moral judgment and commendation of Jesus. And we wonder at how Pilate insisted upon writing on the inscription over the cross "Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews", rather than as the Jews wished, 'He&nbsp;<em>claimed to be</em>&nbsp;King of the Jews':&nbsp; Is it too much to think that Pilate had indeed grasped the elemental truth about Jesus and even believed it? Perhaps at that moment, he did- but didn't maintain his faith.</p><p><em>See to it yourselves</em>- The very phrase just recently used by the Jews to Judas (:6). It's as if Pilate was aware of how they had treated Judas, and is quoting their own words back to them. It's as if Pilate perceived the Jews as Judas. God certainly saw the Jews and Judas as connected, for they are both termed the great satan / devil / adversary to the Lord Jesus. Pilate' perception and insight at this point is significant, hence my suggestion above that Pilate on one level almost became a believer in Jesus through being exposed to Him close up and by reflecting upon His death. There is indeed something in the death and cross of Christ which brings men to faith. There is surely some truth to the old missionary stories of unresponsive, illiterate tribes becoming strangely responsive when the cross of Christ was explained and portrayed to them.</p>


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<h4>27:25&nbsp;<em>Pilate washed his hands</em>- AV. Do we feel that our conscience is so dysfunctional and our heart so hardened in some places that nothing much can touch us and motivate us like it used to? The cross can touch and transform the hardest and most damaged heart. Apart from many real life examples around of this, consider the Biblical case of Pilate. Jewish and Roman historians paint a very different picture of Pilate than what we see in the Biblical record. Philo describes him as “ruthless, stubborn and of cruel disposition", famed for “frequent executions without trial". Josephus speaks of him as totally despising the Jews, stealing money from the temple treasury and brutally suppressing unruly crowds. Why then does he come over in the Gospels as a man desperately struggling with his conscience, to the extent that the Jewish crowds manipulate him to order the crucifixion of a man whom he genuinely believed to be innocent? Surely because the person of the Lord Jesus and the awfulness of putting the Son of God to death touched a conscience which appeared not to even exist. If the whole drama of the death of Jesus could touch the conscience and personality of even Pilate, it can touch each of us. Just compare the words of Philo and Josephus with how Mark records that Pilate was “amazed" at the self-control of Jesus under trial (<em><a href='B:480 15:5'>Mar 15:5</a></em>); how he almost pleads with his Jewish subjects for justice to be done: “Why, what evil has he done?" (<em><a href='B:480 15:14'>Mar 15:14</a></em>). Compare this with how Philo speaks of Pilate as a man of “inflexible, stubborn and cruel disposition", famous for “abusive behaviour… and endless savage ferocity". <em><a href='B:470 27:25'>Mat 27:25</a></em> describes how Pilate washes his hands, alluding to the Jewish rite based in Deuteronomy, to declare that he is innocent of the blood of a just man. But Josephus records how Pilate totally despised Jewish religious customs and sensibilities, and appeared to love to commit sacrilege against Jewish things. And in Luke’s record, Pilate is recorded as pronouncing Jesus innocent no less than three times. I so admire the way the Lord attempted even as He faced death in the face, to appeal to Pilate's conscience. I'd paraphrase <em><a href='B:480 15:2'>Mar 15:2</a></em> like this: 'Pilate: 'You are King of Israel?'. Jesus: 'You're saying it''. Why did the Lord put it like that? Surely because He knew that Pilate, in his conscience, did actually know that Jesus was King of Israel, and the very words in the original 'You are King of Israel' came out of his lips, as a kind of psychological slip. This small incident not only indicates how the suffering Jesus could touch even Pilate's conscience; but that the Lord was eagerly seeking the response of men, even the toughest and unspiritual, right to His very end. And He is the same today. May our feeble responses give Him pleasure and glory.</h4><p><em>And all the people answered and said: His blood is on us and on our children</em>- The Jews perceived that Pilate was genuinely concerned about his own guilt in the matter, hence their attempt to assure him that it was indeed their choice and responsibility. Again we see how Pilate's conscience was visibly at work. In both his and their attitudes, they wrongly assume that human beings can ascribe and decide guilt. It is impossible for us to do this. The guilt for the Lord's death is apportioned by God and not man. This provides insight into the question of whether the children or descendants of the Jews involved are indeed carrying the guilt for the Lord's blood. It is God who decides individual human guilt; He doesn't punish the children for the sins of their ancestors. Whether or not the ancestors asked for their children to suffer is in this sense irrelevant- it hardly means the descendants will suffer just because of a statement made generations ago. And we should note that the rubric 'We and our children' often refers only to the immediate generation, not to longer distance descendants. Further, there were likely no more than a few hundred people at most who shouted these words; they did not speak them as official representatives of anyone, and they cannot surely refer to the children of any other people e:g. the rest of Israel apart from their own. To explain the Holocaust and anti-Jewishness as a fulfilment of these words seems to me quite mistaken. Such things occurred and do occur because of faults within the minds and cultures of those performing them, and not because of any particular guilt in the individual Jews who suffered. Many racial groups have suffered because of baseless aggression from other groups; but it would be facile to posit that the individuals who suffered were somehow guilty as charged by their obsessive attackers. The simple reason for anti-Jewishness is jealousy and the nexus of thinking and action which accompanies it. The fault for murdering and abusing Jewish people is solely with the abusers, and not because of the emotional cry of some members of the Jewish race many generations ago. This verse is a classic example of where although the record of the Bible is inspired, the words recorded as having been on the lips of men are not always true in their content. Sennacherib's claims outside the walls of Jerusalem would be another example.</p><p>In reality, the people screamed the words they did because they became increasingly obsessed with the conviction that Jesus was guilty. They were so sure that He was&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;innocent blood, that they were able to confidently ask for any possible guilt to be upon them and their children. Their conviction on this point was therefore very great, and yet it was elicited by the repeated reminders from Pilate that Jesus was&nbsp;<em>not&nbsp;</em>guilty; both Herod and Pilate had concluded the same about Him. Everyone knew the trials were a farce and the case had collapsed from lack of evidence. And yet the more conscience was prodded, the blinder these people became to the evidence. Again we have a telling insight into human nature. Blindness descends upon people the more they are led to the light- unless they respond to it. The Lord's crucifixion is the parade example. This is where human psychology and human nature leads when it is confronted by God's Son, unless there is an acceptance of Him.</p><p>Peter addressed this same group just six weeks later, very close to the spot where they shouted this out. And he alludes to their words "our children", by saying that the gift of the Holy Spirit is available to them and to their children (<em><a href='B:510 2:39'>Act 2:39</a></em>). I have suggested in&nbsp;<em>Bible Basics</em>&nbsp;that in its first context, the gift which the Holy Spirit enabled or gave was that of forgiveness of sins and turning away from sin. In this case, Peter was directly addressing those words of the crowd, willing the Lord's bloodguilt upon them and their children. For those words would be ringing like an echo in the memories of everyone in Jerusalem. Not just for those who had been in the crowd, but for all Jewish people, as they wondered whether God would in fact honour the words of those men upon all Israel. And Peter speaks as we should in our preaching directly to those fears of his audience, both spoken and unspoken. The simple fact was that instead of a curse upon them and their children, they and their children could be cleansed in the blood of Christ and find as Peter had the blessed gift of forgiveness.</p>


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<p>27:26&nbsp;<em>Then he released Barabbas to them, but Jesus he scourged</em>- As soon as the sentence was pronounced: You shall be crucified, the victim was stripped naked and fastened to a post about as high as the waist and then flogged. Josephus twice mentions that the body was stripped naked and flogged until the flesh hung down in shreds. 13 stripes were against His breast, 26 on the back. They probably chanted them. He may have had a slab of iron between His teeth to grit against. Men were known to have bitten their tongues in two during the whipping. John Pollock explains that the victim was stretched with hands above his head, whipped by naked slaves with a device of three leather thongs laced with pieces of sharpened bone, whilst a clerk stood with a slab on which to take down confessions (John Pollock,&nbsp;<em>The Master&nbsp;</em>(Victor Books, 1985), p. 160). &nbsp;</p><p>Scourging was usually "accomplished by tying the victim's wrists to an iron ring set about knee level, so that he would be bent over; or, facing or backed to a column, the wrists would be tied overhead. There were probably two scourgers, standing on each side, each with whips five or six feet long ending in two leather thongs tipped with metal. As the scourging whips fell across the victim's back they would wrap around his body at times lacerating his body front and back, so that scourge marks soon covered all of his body except the head, feet, and forearms::. It was uncommon for the Romans to both scourge and crucify a person. Why was it done to Jesus? It has been conjectured by some scholars that Pilate thought by excessive scourging and beating of Jesus the Jewish council would be satisfied. They weren't" (Frank C. Tribbe,&nbsp;<em>Portrait Of Jesus</em>&nbsp;(New York: Stein and Day, 1983)).</p><p>Significantly, very few actual details are given by the Gospel writers of both the scourging and the crucifixion. It could be that they felt it impossible to dwell upon these things; or it could be that they and their readers knew what was involved in these practices, and we are left to dwell upon them in our own imagination. We are intended to reconstruct in our own minds what may have happened… We have a solemn duty towards Him to do this. This is perhaps why the tenses change so dramatically in the records. Take just <em><a href='B:480 15:23-26'>Mar 15:23-26</a></em>: “They offered… they crucify… and part… casting lots… crucified… was written". These arresting changes are surely to encourage us to re-live it all. Mark speaks of “they crucify him", going on to say that “then are there two crucified with him" (<em><a href='B:480 15:38'>Mar 15:38</a></em> RV), whereas Luke records the act in the past tense. Mark’s present tenses are arresting: “plaiting…they clothe him…they smote…" (:17,19 RV). Perhaps Mark is seeking consciously to make us imagine it all as going on before our eyes. <em><a href='B:470 27:38'>Mat 27:38</a></em> RV has a similar dramatic change: “Then are there crucified with him…".</p><p>All men usually screamed out something, anything, in the hope that the lashing would therefore be shortened. The Lord's silence at this time would have been yet one more thing which awed His tormentors. There were runnels, Pollock says, in which the blood drained away. The scourging would already have been done twice for the thieves. The Angel watchers of the skies would have peered down into that blood, as they did in cherubic form into the blood on the mercy seat. The blood of the Son of God was treated by men as something ordinary, thoughtlessly mixed with that of criminals, and was trodden under foot. Perhaps it was to this aspect of the Lord's sufferings and insult that <em><a href='B:650 10:29'>Heb 10:29</a></em> refers to, in describing the crucifixion (and the Lord's&nbsp;<em>re-crucifixion</em>&nbsp;by fallen believers) as counting the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and thereby treading underfoot the Son of God (cp. <em><a href='B:650 6:6'>Heb 6:6</a></em> RV mg “<em>while&nbsp;</em>they crucify the son of God", suggesting that once this ongoing re-crucifixion stops, men can be forgiven). The despising and treading under of that blood in a literal sense only occurred at the scourging. It was observed by some first century writers that the length of time it took a crucifixion victim to die was related to the severity of the scourging. The Lord's relatively quick death may therefore (although not necessarily) reflect the brutality with which He was treated at this time. When Peter speaks of how we are healed by Christ's "stripes" (<em><a href='B:670 2:24'>1Pe 2:24</a></em>), uses an especially intense word to describe the scourging. It could be that he somehow saw or heard about the scourging, and saw it as parallel to Christ suffering for us "on the tree". The Lord's bloody sweat in Gethsemane has been identified as hemohidrosis, an extreme nervous state in which there is haemorrhage into the sweat glands, and therefore the skin becomes fragile and tender. This would have meant that flogging, the carrying of the cross and the constant friction between His back and the rough wood would have been agonizing. Hemohidrosis also produces severe chills. The Lord would have been shivering in the cold darkness of His final hours, with every involuntary movement causing agony to the nerves which the nails purposefully transfixed.</p><p><em>And delivered to be crucified</em>- Having been flogged until the skin was left hanging in bloody shreds (Josephus), His clothes would have stuck to the skin. Taking the clothes off would have ripped some shreds away. The process of dressing and undressing would have done the same. And then the cross was laid on that bare back. The word translated "delivered" or "betrayed" is commonly used in the records. Judas handed over the Lord to the Jews, the Jews handed Him over to Pilate and the Romans, and they handed Him back to the Jews to crucify. All this was only how things seemed on earth, because all was in the Father's hands. The Lord must surely have meditated upon this- that He was giving Himself, and they were merely the process He was using to do that.<br/>The moment of the Lord being delivered over by Pilate is so emphasized. There are few details in the record which are recorded verbatim by all the writers (<em><a href='B:470 27:26'>Mat 27:26</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 15:15'>Mar 15:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:25'>Luk 23:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 19:16'>Joh 19:16</a></em>). The Lord had prophesied this moment of handing over, as if this was something which He dreaded (<em><a href='B:480 9:31'>Mar 9:31</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 10:33'>Mar 10:33</a></em>); that point when He was outside the legal process, and must now face His destruction. The Angels reminded the disciples: "Remember&nbsp;<em>how</em>&nbsp;he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men" (<em><a href='B:490 24:6-7'>Luk 24:6-7</a></em>). The emphasis is on "<em>How</em>", with what passion and emphasIs. <em><a href='B:520 4:25'>Rom 4:25</a></em> makes this moment of handing over equivalent to His actual death: " Who was&nbsp;<em>delivered</em>&nbsp;(s:w:) for our offences, and raised again for our justification". So much stress is put on this moment of being delivered over to crucifixion. The Gospel records stress that Pilate delivered Him up; but in fact God did (<em><a href='B:520 8:32'>Rom 8:32</a></em>); indeed, the Lord delivered Himself up (<em><a href='B:550 2:20'>Gal 2:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:560 5:2'>Eph 5:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:560 5:25'>Eph 5:25</a></em>). Always the same word is used. These passages also stress that He delivered Himself up, and was delivered up,&nbsp;<em>for us</em>. It was&nbsp;<em>our salvation</em>&nbsp;which motivated Him at the moment of being delivered up. Perhaps it was at that moment that He had the greatest temptation to walk through the midst of them and back to Galilee. As the crowd surged forward and cheered, knowing they'd won the battle of wills with Pilate::."take ye him and crucify him" ringing in His mind::. this was it. This was the end. How He must have been tempted to pray again His prayer: "Let this cup pass from me::.". Jerusalem was a small town by modern standards, with no more than 10,000 inhabitants. There must have been faces in that crowd which, through swollen eyes, He recognized; some whose children had benefited from His miracles, whose ears had heard His discourses with wonderment. The emphasis on this moment of delivering up is so great that there must have been an especial sacrifice on the Lord's part. But He "gave himself up" to&nbsp;<em>God</em>&nbsp;not men (<em><a href='B:670 2:23'>1Pe 2:23</a></em>); He knew He was giving Himself as an offering to&nbsp;<em>God</em>&nbsp;as the crowd came forward and the soldiers once again led Him. The almost terrifying thing is that&nbsp;<em>we,</em>&nbsp;for the sake of our identity with Christ, are also "delivered up to death" (<em><a href='B:540 4:11'>2Co 4:11</a></em>). We are asked to share, in principle, the height of devotion that He reached in that moment:&nbsp; Analysing <em><a href='B:540 4:10-11'>2Co 4:10-11</a></em> in more detail, we find a number of parallels:</p><table><tr><td></p><h4>v. 10</td><td>v. 11</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Always</td><td>For we which live are alway</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus</td><td>delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>that the life also of Jesus</td><td>that the life also of Jesus</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>might be manifest in our body</td><td>might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.</td><td></td></tr></table><p>The second parallel is significant. To be delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake is to bear about in an ongoing sense His crucifixion. This means that His being “delivered over" was seen by Paul as a cameo of His whole sufferings on the cross.</h4>


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<p>27:27&nbsp;<em>Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium-&nbsp;</em>Being Roman soldiers, these were likely Gentiles from many different nations within the Roman empire. The Lord was abused not only by Jews but by a wide range of Gentiles- the very ones for whom He was dying. When we do things in love for those who are in the throes of hatred against us (and many are in domestic situations where this has to be done by the believer in Christ)- then we are fellowshipping His sufferings at this time in this way.</p><p><em>And the whole battalion gathered around him</em>- Similar to the way the record repeatedly stresses that&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;the chief priests, the&nbsp;<em>whole</em>&nbsp;Sanhedrin, condemned the Lord to death. The point is that group mentality is far more powerful than we think, and leads even good men like Nicodemus and Joseph, and perhaps the Centurion who came to confess that "Truly this was the Son of God", to do things which are far beyond the evil intention within any one individual mind. Again, we see in the crucifixion of Jesus where human nature leads in its ultimate end. It comes to full term in nothing less than the crucifixion of God's Son. One of the ways in which our nature operates is in tandem with others. Many have noted that the sum total of human evil in this world is likely more than the sum of all the individual 'evil' of every human being combined. The 'extra' factor in the equation is provided by the way in which humans in group mode can end up thinking and acting far more extremely than all the individual 'evil' within each of them as individuals. This is why the New Testament parable of 'satan' uses the term not only for individuals and for abstract human sin, but for sinful organizations and group entities. I have commented upon this several times throughout my&nbsp;<em>The Real Devil</em>.</p><p><em>"</em>Gathered around Him" continues the theme of the Lord's passion causing men to gather and unite, either for Him or against Him. We note how John adds that Herod and Pilate were reconciled together- over the issue of Jesus. And this is what response to the fact of His suffering and death continues to do today. If we as believers are&nbsp;<em>not&nbsp;</em>united around Him, we are allowing our own traditions to become an obstacle to the process of unity which the Lord's death is intended to achieve. Our refusal to unite, e:g. by forbidding brethren from communion and remembrance of Him, is to work against the intention of the cross.</p>


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<p>27:28&nbsp;<em>And they stripped him and put on him a scarlet robe</em>- Stripped naked? To be undressed is used by Paul as a metaphor for human death (<em><a href='B:540 5:4'>2Co 5:4</a></em> s:w:), and to be clothed upon is used by Paul to mean a change of nature. The Lord may have seen in this mockery a strange foretaste of the death and change of nature which awaited Him. Through all His sufferings, the hand of providence was giving Him encouragement. And that happens in our lives too. The Lord would've thought of His own story of the wounded man who was stripped (<em><a href='B:490 10:30'>Luk 10:30</a></em> s:w:). He was both the Samaritan Saviour and the wounded man, in that He identified so fully with us in our moral tragedy. The same LXX word is found in "They stripped Joseph out of his coat" (<em><a href='B:10 37:23'>Gen 37:23</a></em>); was Joseph naked in the pit?&nbsp;</p>


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<p>27:29&nbsp;<em>And they plaited a crown of thorns and put it upon his head and a reed in his right hand, and they knelt down before him</em>- The thorns were growing between the cobbles of the courtyard? Or were they using thorns on their courtyard fire? The thorns on the head would have reminded Him that He was being temporarily overcome by the result of the curse in Eden. As with several aspects of His mocking, His tormentors unknowingly gave Him spiritual stimulus by what they did. His mind was certainly in Eden, for He spoke of the Kingdom as "paradise", with evident allusion to Eden (<em><a href='B:490 23:43'>Luk 23:43</a></em>). Note that the Lord was beaten up at least three times: by the Jewish guards, by Herod's men and by the Roman soldiers. In a literal sense He was bruised for our iniquities, and chastised for us to obtain the peace of sin forgiven (<em><a href='B:290 53:5'>Isa 53:5</a></em>). And the Father surely foresaw all this back in <em><a href='B:10 3:15'>Gen 3:15</a></em>, where the promised seed was to be&nbsp;<em>bruised</em>. He willed (<em>not</em>&nbsp;"pleased", as AV) this bruising, and this putting to grief (<em><a href='B:290 53:10'>Isa 53:10</a></em>). The parallel here between the bruising, beating and putting to grief may suggest that the beatings up ('bruisings') really grieved the Lord. And note that the final sacrifice of which Isaiah 53 speaks was not&nbsp;<em>only</em>&nbsp;achieved by the hours spent hanging on the cross. This earlier beating and abusing was just as much a part of His final passion, as, in essence, His whole life was a living out of the principles of the cross. It has been suggested that the crown of thorns was not only a mockery, but a significant part of the physical torture of crucifixion. If the net of nerves and veins under the skin of the scalp are pierced, profuse bleeding and stunning head ache would occur. His hair would therefore have been bloody. It would have been a wreath, a&nbsp;<em>stephanos</em>&nbsp;similar to that worn by Tiberius. The mock homage to the crowned Saviour-Lord was surely in the Lord’s mind at His ascension, when all the Angels of God bowed before Him in true worship (<em><a href='B:650 1:6'>Heb 1:6</a></em>):&nbsp;<br/><em>A reed</em>- This is the same word translated "pen". The hint was that the Lord was taking note. All was written and would be judged when the books are opened.</p><p><em>And mocked him</em>- The Lord had foreseen that the Gentiles would "mock" Him (20:19 s:w:). Matthew gives more attention to the repeated mocking of the Lord than the other Gospels (27:29,31,41).</p><p><em>Saying: Hail, King of the Jews- "</em>Hail" is literally, 'Be happy'.<br/>J:D. Crossan mentions a Jewish tradition, quoting Mishnah passages to support it, that the bruised scapegoat had scarlet wool tied to it, and that the Jews spat on the scapegoat in order to place their sins upon it (J:D. Crossan,&nbsp;<em>Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography&nbsp;</em>(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994)). It could be that the Roman soldiers were doing all this in mockery of this tradition. It would have given the Lord something more to fill His holy mind with. He knew that He was actually doing what they were mockingly suggesting- carrying Israel’s sins. God worked even through the spitting and mocking of men to work out the finest details of our redemption. The spitting is in the context of their mocking His Kingship. “Hail, King of the Jews” was in parody of ‘Ave, Caesar’. It was customary to give a kiss of homage to royalty. Their parody of this was to spit at Him, in the face, according to the type of <em><a href='B:220 30:10'>Job 30:10</a></em>. Earlier, at the trial, the Jews had spat in His face (<em><a href='B:470 26:67'>Mat 26:67</a></em>). Now He tasted Roman spittle. And this was the face from which the glory of God had shone (<em><a href='B:480 9:15'>Mar 9:15</a></em>?). One of the themes of the crucifixion records is that the same abuse and suffering was repeated to the Lord. Hence the frequent usage of the continuous tense. During the trial by Pilate, the Lord underwent mock worship and spitting (<em><a href='B:500 19:3'>Joh 19:3</a></em>). Then later it was mock worship, spitting, hitting on the head (<em><a href='B:470 27:29-30'>Mat 27:29-30</a></em>). And then hitting on the head, spitting, mock worship (<em><a href='B:480 15:19-20'>Mar 15:19-20</a></em>). It seems they alternated bruising / spitting on Christ with bruising / kneeling before Him in mock homage. The reed was used as a mock diadem, although instead of touching His shoulder with it they hit Him on the head with it. They put it in His hand as a sceptre and then snatched it back to hit Him on the head with it. Wave after wave of the same treatment. Notice how many times the word “again" features in the Greek text (<em>palin</em>). This is the essence of our temptations. And it was a big theme in the Lord's final human experience. Likewise a comparison of the records shows that "Come down::." was clearly said more than once, the continuous tenses notwithstanding (<em><a href='B:470 27:40'>Mat 27:40</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:480 15:30'>Mar 15:30</a></em>). However, it is worth cataloguing the use of continuous tenses in this part of the record: The crowd&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>crying out (as demons did), "Crucify him" (<em><a href='B:470 27:23'>Mat 27:23</a></em>); the soldiers&nbsp;<em>kept on</em>&nbsp;clothing Him (<em><a href='B:470 27:28'>Mat 27:28</a></em>),&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>coming to Him and kept on saying::. (<em><a href='B:500 19:3'>Joh 19:3</a></em> Gk:), Pilate&nbsp;<em>kept on seeking</em>&nbsp;(imperfect) to deliver the Lord (<em><a href='B:500 19:12'>Joh 19:12</a></em>), thereby agitating the tension in the Lord's mind. They&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>kneeling (27:29),&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>spitting (v:30),&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>passing in front of Him on the cross and&nbsp;<em>kept on</em>&nbsp;shaking their heads (v. 39),&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>saying ":::save thyself",&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>mocking and asking Him to come down from the cross (vv. 40,41), the soldiers&nbsp;<em>kept on</em>&nbsp;coming to Him and offering Him their vinegar in mock homage (<em><a href='B:490 23:36'>Luk 23:36</a></em>), they&nbsp;<em>kept on</em>&nbsp;offering Him the pain killer. They&nbsp;<em>kept on and on and on</em>. This is an undoubted theme.</p><p>The events of the crucifixion were so packed with fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy and shadows that the Lord’s discernment of them must have given Him a wonderful boost of strength, in knowing who He was and where He was destined. For example, when they put a broken reed in his hand as a mock sceptre, His mind would have flown to the Messianic <em><a href='B:290 42:3'>Isa 42:3</a></em>: “A bruised reed shall he not break::. he&nbsp;<em>shall</em>&nbsp;bring forth judgment”, as they mocked Him for His apparent inability to do.</p>


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<p>27:30<em>&nbsp;And they spat upon him and took the reed and struck him on the head-&nbsp;</em>The question is to why Gentile soldiers would unleash such hatred upon Jesus, when the crucifixion of a Jew was just another job for them to do. We somehow do not imagine them doing this to the thieves or other crucifixion victims. I conclude that there was something in the Lord which forced men to either respond to Him, or go the other way in assuming that unless He was as He claimed, then He must be the worst of all and worthy of all hatred. We see the same effect upon men today, even if social norms mean that we express the passions both for and against Him in less dramatic and more restrained terms.</p>


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<p>27:31&nbsp;<em>And when they had mocked him, they took the robe from him and dressed him in his own garments</em>- The record that they put the Lord's own clothes on Him and then led Him to crucifixion conflicts with contemporary records of the victim being led out naked, or certainly without his own outer clothes. Christ was revealed, or 'revealed himself' (Gk:) on the cross, when He took away our sins (<em><a href='B:690 3:5'>1Jn 3:5</a></em>). This may be John referring to how he had witnessed Christ crucified naked. Yet we know that the Lord wore His outer robe right up to the impaling. It may be that the whipping and abuse He had suffered was far beyond what the soldiers had the right to minister. There were special directives concerning the need for the victim to die by crucifixion, not at the hands of the soldiers. It may be that they wanted to cover up the illegal marks on the body by making the Lord go to the cross fully dressed. In which case, again we see how He suffered the very&nbsp;<em>worst</em>&nbsp;of man's machinations. The Lord having His own clothes put back on Him meant that He would have been dressed in blood sprinkled garments for the walk to Golgotha. Again His holy mind would have been on the Messianic prophecies of Isaiah 63 about a Messiah with blood sprinkled garments lifted up in glorious victory. Or perhaps He saw the connection to <em><a href='B:30 8:30'>Lev 8:30</a></em>, where the priests had to have blood sprinkled garments in order to begin their priestly work. This would have sent His mind to us, for whom He was interceding. Likewise when He perceived that His garment would not be rent, He would have joyfully perceived that He was indeed as the High Priest whose garment was not to be rent (<em><a href='B:20 39:23'>Exo 39:23</a></em>).</p><p><em>And led him away to crucify him</em>- The Greek word translated "led away" is used about 10 times in the Gospels for the leading away of Jesus to death. It occurs in another context, in <em><a href='B:470 7:13-14'>Mat 7:13-14</a></em>, where the Lord spoke of how wide and common is the way that 'leads away to' destruction compared to the way which 'leads away to' eternal life. He was being led away to destruction; He was sharing the path of all condemned sinners. This is a great theme of the crucifixion accounts- that the Lord identified totally with the position of condemned sinners. The logic is that by living the life of the flesh, we are led away to destruction; and yet by being led away to destruction with the Lord, in sharing His death, we are in fact being led away to life.</p><p>Tradition has it that the victim had to hold their hands out to receive the stake, which they then had to carry. The Lord's prophecy of Peter's crucifixion thus describes it as Peter stretching out his hands and being led to his death (<em><a href='B:500 21:18'>Joh 21:18</a></em>). Yet the Lord emphasized in His teaching that we must&nbsp;<em>take up</em>&nbsp;the cross, as He did (<em><a href='B:480 8:34'>Mar 8:34</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 10:21'>Mar 10:21</a></em>). This might just suggest that in line with the Lord's willing death, giving up of His life rather than it being taken from Him, He bent down and picked up the stake before the soldiers had the chance to offer it to Him. I imagine doing this in a deft manner. The deftness of the way He broke that bread apart and held the cup comes out in <em><a href='B:470 26:26'>Mat 26:26</a></em>. He knew what that breaking of bread was going to mean. His willingness would have been such a contrast to the unwilling hesitation of the thieves and other victims. The soldiers must have been blind indeed to still mock Him, despite all these indications that He was more than mere man. That piece of wood that was laid upon Him by the Father, however the Lord physically took it up, represented our sins, which were laid upon Him (<em><a href='B:290 53:6'>Isa 53:6</a></em>); your laziness to do your Bible readings early this morning, my snap at the woman in the bus, his hatred of his mother in law::. that piece of wood was the symbol of our sins, every one of them. This is what we brought upon Him. It was our laziness, our enmity, our foolishness,&nbsp;<em>our weak will</em>::. that necessitated the death of Jesus in this terrible way. He went through with it all "to make an end of sins" (<em><a href='B:340 9:26'>Dan 9:26</a></em>). Will we do our little bit in responding? The marks of His sufferings will be in Him eternally, and thereby we will be eternally reminded of the things we now only dimly appreciate (<em><a href='B:730 5:6'>Rev 5:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:450 13:6'>Zec 13:6</a></em>):&nbsp;<br/>The walk from the courthouse to Golgotha was probably about 800m (half a mile). One of the soldiers would have carried the sign displaying the Lord's Name and crime. The thieves were probably counting the paces (maybe the crowd was chanting them?). You know how it is when doing a heavy task, 'Just three more boxes to lug upstairs::. just two more::. last one'. But the Lord was above this. Of that I'm sure. Doing any physically strenuous task that takes you to the end of your strength, there is that concentration on nothing else but the job in hand. Hauling a heavy box or load, especially in situations of compulsion or urgency, it becomes irrelevant if you bump into someone or crush a child's toy beneath your heavy feet. But the Lord rose above. He turned and spoke to the women. Luke as a doctor knew that suffering makes one self-centred. It is perhaps because of this that he especially seems to concentrate on the wonder of the way in which the Lord looked out of His own agony to be so concerned with that of others. A:D. Norris has commented (<em>The Gospel Of Mark</em>): "It is he who reports the Lord's prayer for Simon Peter (<em><a href='B:490 22:31'>Luk 22:31</a></em>); who recounts the Lord's sympathetic warning to the women of Jerusalem (<em><a href='B:490 23:27-31'>Luk 23:27-31</a></em>); and who speaks of the Lord's forgiveness for His crucifiers, and remission for the penitent thief (<em><a href='B:490 23:34'>Luk 23:34</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:43'>Luk 23:43</a></em>)”.</p>


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<p>27:32&nbsp;<em>And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name-&nbsp;</em>Cyrene was where there was a strongly orthodox Jewish community (cp. <em><a href='B:510 6:9'>Act 6:9</a></em>). Simon was probably dark skinned, a countryman, a simple man, who had perhaps come up to Jerusalem in his zeal to keep Passover. What a comfort it was to the Lord to see a black man carrying His cross; for He had earlier said that&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;His true followers would carry the cross behind Him (<em><a href='B:470 10:38'>Mat 10:38</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 16:24'>Mat 16:24</a></em>). The Hebrew writer seemed to see Simon as typical of us all when writing of how we must go out of the city with the Lord, "bearing his reproach" (<em><a href='B:650 13:12-13'>Heb 13:12-13</a></em>, probably using 'reproach' as a parallel to 'the cross'). He would have seen in Simon a prototype of all His future, suffering, humiliated followers; "impressed" by the predestined calling, almost against our will, to carry His cross (<em><a href='B:470 27:32'>Mat 27:32</a></em> RV mg:). And was it accident that this prototype was almost certainly a black man, when perhaps ultimately it may appear that a large proportion of the faithful body of the Lord Jesus will have been black people? If indeed Simon was a black Jew (cp. modern Falashas) who had come up to keep the Passover, it would have been annoying beyond words for him to be made unclean by the blood of the Lord, which was inevitably on the stake after His first attempt at bearing it after His flogging. Not to mention the shame for a zealous Jew in having to carry the cross of this Jesus of Nazareth. Yet it would seem that he was later converted, and he in turn converted his wife and son (<em><a href='B:480 15:21'>Mar 15:21</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:520 16:13'>Rom 16:13</a></em>). Mark rarely records proper nouns, but he makes a special effort to mention that Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus. It would therefore seem that these men were well known in the early church. Simon may be the "Simeon called Niger" ('the black one') of <em><a href='B:510 13:1'>Act 13:1</a></em>. He is listed there next to Lucius, who was also from Cyrene. The thief and the centurion were likewise converted, and the faith of Joseph, Nicodemus and probably others was brought out into the open by the cross. Like Samson, the Lord won victories even in His death. The spiritual turn-around in Simon is a type of what is experienced by all whom the Lord compels to carry His cross. He was passing by, going somewhere else, full of his own plans, going about to establish his own righteousness::. and then, out of the blue, he was called to what he much later realized was the greatest honour a man could be called to: to accompany the Son of God and carry His cross, right to the end. We are left to imagine him plonking it down, as if to say to Jesus 'Now you've got to do the rest', and then slipping off into the crowd.</p><p>Another reading of Simon is possible. Simon is a Greek name, and the names of his sons are Greco-Roman. The way he is described as “coming out of the field" (<em><a href='B:490 23:26'>Luk 23:26</a></em>) could imply that he was working, doing what was improper on a feast day, because he was a Gentile. It could be that he simply lived and worked near Jerusalem, he wasn’t a religious guy, and like Saul out looking for lost cattle, he was going some place else…until the Lord as it were arrested him with the message of the cross.</p><h4><em>Whom they forced to carry the cross</em>-"The crossbar was carried::. weighing 34 to 57 kg:, was placed across the nape of the victim's neck and balanced along both shoulders. Usually the outstretched arms then were tied to the crossbar" (W:D. Edwards,&nbsp;<em>On The Physical Death Of Jesus Christ</em>, JAMA March 21 1986, Vol. 255 No. 11). This means that the Lord would have had His shoulders bowed forward as He walked to Golgotha, with both His hands lifted up against His chest. He evidently foresaw this in some detail when He described His mission to man as a shepherd carrying His lost sheep on both shoulders. Let's forever forget the picture of a happy, quiet lamb snugly bobbling along on the shepherd's shoulders. We are surely meant to fill in the details in the parables. The sheep, his underside covered in faeces and mud, would have been terrified; in confusion he would have struggled with the saviour shepherd. To be carried on His shoulders would have been a strange experience; he would have struggled and been awkward, as the shepherd stumbled along, gripping both paws against His chest with His uplifted hands. This was exactly the Lord's physical image as He stumbled to the place of crucifixion. He evidently saw the cross as a symbol of us, His struggling and awkward lost sheep. And every step of the way along the Via Dolorosa, Yahweh's enemies reproached every stumbling footstep of His anointed (<em><a href='B:230 89:51'>Psa 89:51</a></em>). It was all this that made Him a true King and our unquestioned leader- for on His shoulders is to rest the authority of the Kingdom (<em><a href='B:290 9:5'>Isa 9:5</a></em>), because He bore His cross upon the same shoulders.</h4><p>John says that the Lord went out bearing His cross. Luke says that Simon was asked to carry the hinder part of the cross behind Him. Matthew and Mark say Simon carried the cross. <em><a href='B:480 15:22'>Mar 15:22</a></em> (Gk:) says that the soldiers carried Jesus to Golgotha. J:B. Phillips renders it: "They got him to a place Golgotha”. It would seem that the Lord collapsed, perhaps fainting. If He was crucified on an olive tree (excavations of crucified men suggest this is what was used), it would not have been simply because of the weight of the stake. Take a picture of Him lying there, with the face that was marred more than the children of men pressed into the hot dust of that Jerusalem street. And some human fool probably said something like 'Come on, get up' (doubtless with embellishments). If indeed He did faint, there would have been that sense of 'coming round', the "Where am I?", the memory and consciousness flooding back. "Have I died and been resurrected?" No, as some nameless soldier kicked Him and told Him to get up.</p><p>John's statement that "He went out, bearing the cross for Himself" as He walked to Golgotha is a real emphasis, seeing that it was&nbsp;<em>as</em>&nbsp;He came out that it was necessary for them to make Simon carry the cross. John takes a snapshot of that moment, and directs our concentration to the Lord at that moment, determined to carry it to the end, even though in fact He didn't. It is this picture of following the Lord carrying&nbsp;<em>His</em>&nbsp;cross which the Lord had earlier asked us to make the model of our lives. We are left to assume that the two criminals followed Him in the procession. They were types of us, the humble and the proud, the selfless and the selfish, the two categories among those who have been asked to carry the cross and follow the Lord in His 'last walk'.</p><p>The word John uses for 'bearing' is translated (and used in the sense of) 'take up' in <em><a href='B:470 10:31'>Mat 10:31</a></em>. It was as if John saw as significant the Lord's willingness to take up the cross Himself, without waiting for it to be forced upon Him as it probably was on the other two. And there is a clear lesson for us, who fain would carry something of that cross. And yet the similarity of meaning within this word for 'taking up' and 'bearing / carrying' is further instructive. The Lord picked it up and was willing to carry it, but didn't make it to the end of the 'last walk', through understandable human weakness. Amidst the evident challenge of the cross, there is interwoven comfort indeed (as there is in the Lord's eager and positive acceptance of the thief, Joseph and Nicodemus, and the wondrous slowness of the Father's punishment of those ever-so-evil men who did the Lord to death).</p><p>The Lord had foreseen most aspects of His death: the handing over, the picking up of the cross, the carrying it, the being lifted up. In <em><a href='B:490 15:5'>Luk 15:5</a></em> the Lord spoke about how He as the good shepherd would carry the lost sheep on His shoulders,&nbsp;<em>rejoicing</em>. It is tempting to connect this with the way Christ spoke of His&nbsp;<em>joy</em>&nbsp;(<em><a href='B:500 17:13'>Joh 17:13</a></em>) just hours before He was arrested. I am not suggesting there was&nbsp;<em>any</em>&nbsp;joy at all for the Lord in His carrying of the cross- not in the way we understand joy. But perhaps to Him, in His vocabulary, " my joy" meant something else; as for Him, 'eating' meant not eating food but doing the Father's will (<em><a href='B:500 4:34'>Joh 4:34</a></em>). Whatever "rejoicing”, " my joy" meant for the Lord, He had that sense as He carried the cross on His shoulder.</p>


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<p>27:33&nbsp;<em>And when they came to a place called-&nbsp;</em>He didn't carry His cross all the way to Golgotha; He went out of the guard room with His face set towards Golgotha, as it had been so visibly set on Jerusalem a few weeks before. Note the emphasis on "unto", "to", "the place". They arrived. They stopped there. This was it. They arrived at the destination. "Outside the city walls was permanently located the heavy upright wooden stipes, on which the patibulum which Christ carried would be secured" (Edwards&nbsp;<em>op cit</em>). The Lord would doubtless have meditated upon it. The cross was waiting. All He had to do was carry the cross bar. His invitation to men to carry the cross to the place where the other part of that instrument of death was already prepared must be seen in this light. The way for our self-crucifixion is prepared. We carry but the cross bar.</p><p><em>Golgotha, that is to say, the place of a skull</em>- Possibly meaning 'The skull of Goliath'. In this case, we have opened up a detailed typological meaning to David's victory over Goliath. He was there as the Lord Jesus fighting sin, and then burying the head of Goliath, the 'man of sin', near Jerusalem.</p><p>Luke adds that He turned and spoke to the women on the walk to Golgotha; He looked out of His own agony to the needs of others. This is another theme of the cross. He was even thoughtful for weak Pilate (<em><a href='B:500 19:11'>Joh 19:11</a></em>); for the thief, for the forgiveness of those mocking soldiers, for His mother, for John, for those women lining the Via Dolorosa::. And those women, He said, would be destroyed in the condemnation of Jerusalem in AD70. <em><a href='B:570 2:2-4'>Phi 2:2-4</a></em> makes the point that the essence of the cross is in the way the Lord's mind was so full of concern for&nbsp;<em>others</em>&nbsp;throughout the whole wretched process. The Lord's Bible-filled mind would have been aware of <em><a href='B:300 9:20-22'>Jer 9:20-22</a></em>, which prophesied special woe to women in the holocaust of AD70. Those women were condemned. Yet the Lord turned, in His desperate agony, to speak to them. I admit, as I must through every stage of the cross, that I wouldn't have done this. I wouldn't have bothered with them. But He made such effort to at least try to get them to change their minds. They were weeping for Him, but He knew they would not obey His command to leave Jerusalem when it would be surrounded by armies. Neither would their children. On a human level, they must have been so annoying. Young women (if they were alive in AD70 40 years later), probably passively in love with Him, moved to tears at His passion but with no regard for His words and the real implications of His cross. Yet still He tried for them, running the risk of cat calls of 'You can't carry your own cross but you can talk to the girls':&nbsp;<br/>"If they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?" is packed with allusion to O:T. Scriptures (<em><a href='B:330 17:24'>Eze 17:24</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 11:16'>Jer 11:16</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 11:19'>Jer 11:19</a></em>; Psalms 1; <em><a href='B:300 17:5-8'>Jer 17:5-8</a></em>). His preceding words to the women were likewise; his quotation from <em><a href='B:350 10:8'>Hos 10:8</a></em> is set in a context so appropriate to the situation He was in. If they did these things to Him, the green and healthy shoot, what would be done to the dry dead wood of Israel…? His concern was always with the sufferings others would experience rather than being lost in His own introspection. Without getting too deeply involved in the actual exposition, a simple lesson emerges: He was not so overpowered by the terrible physicality of His human situation that He ceased to be spiritually aware. His mind was full of the word, not just out of place quotations flooding His subconscious, but real awareness of the spirit of the Father's word and its' intensely personal relevance to Himself. In this He sets a matchless example.</p><p>If the crossbeam was tied to the nape of the Lord’s neck, it would have been impossible for Him to turn round and talk, as it is specifically stated that He did. I would reconstruct that the Lord collapsed, and Simon was forced to carry the cross, whilst the Lord followed on, scarcely conscious. Before collapsing again, with the result that He was carried to the cross, He used His last and final energy at the time to speak to those women. He used His last bit of mental and physical strength to preach- to women whom He knew were not going to really respond. For He said they should weep for themselves, He knew they would not listen to His warning to flee Jerusalem in AD70. But such was His hopefulness for people, that He still made the effort to communicate rather than get lost within Himself and His own thoughts as I would have tended to.</p>


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<p>27:34&nbsp;<em>They gave him wine to drink mingled with gall. And when he had tasted it, he would not drink it-&nbsp;</em>To give strong drink to those ready to perish was a well-known custom at crucifixion. The fact victims survived two or three days was only because they were given drink. The Lord didn't simply refuse the pain killer. He took it, tasted it, and then refused it. Why did He first taste it? Surely He knew the custom, and He knew what it was. Various alternatives arise in the mind, each a source of devotional inspiration:</p><p>- Was it that His eyesight was damaged by the punches and He didn't see what it was until He tasted it? "When Jesus therefore saw his mother::." may suggest that He didn't initially recognize her. The Messianic Scriptures mention the affliction of eyesight in Messiah's final suffering. Early crucifixion art shows the Lord with His right eye damaged (as does the Turin shroud). The mucous membrane (the thin slippery tissues which lubricate the human body) would have dried so that “they rip layers of tissues from the eyes every time the pupil is moved or blinked" (C:M. Ward):&nbsp;<br/>- Maybe He realized as He had the cup on His lips that they were giving this to Him in the spirit of <em><a href='B:300 23:15'>Jer 23:15</a></em>: to show that He was a false prophet. In this case, for the sake of His respect for the implications of Holy Scripture, He endured a far higher degree of pain.<br/>- Another explanation is that He wanted to speak out loud, saying (several times?) "Father, forgive them", and to perhaps recite Psalms 22. He was so parched from thirst (He had lost body fluid in Gethsemane) that He knew He couldn't speak out loud without some liquid. The dehydration would have made His tongue thicken so that speech was eventually almost impossible. But He only drank enough to moisten His throat, not to deaden any pain. This shows the majestic self-mastery within the Lord; He knew just when to stop, even though it must have been so tempting to keep on drinking.<br/>- Taking the pain killer would not have been a sin, neither would it have theologically damaged the atonement. Perhaps the Lord took it, as doubtless the others did, and then had the self-control to think better of it and give it back. Such was His devotion to the absolute height of identity with us. It makes His action all the more poignant if He first tasted and then refused, rather than just refusing outright.</p><p>He was&nbsp;<em>repeatedly</em>&nbsp;offered the pain killer, the tense implies. Men offering Him myrrh in (mock) homage would have sent His mind back to the story dear Mary had told Him about the wise men bringing myrrh. And inevitably her tortured mind would have gone back there too. But I have another suggestion. When we read that “someone" offered him a sponge with wine mixed with myrrh (<em><a href='B:480 15:36'>Mar 15:36</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:48'>Mat 27:48</a></em>), we recall the use of myrrh in preparing bodies for burial (<em><a href='B:480 14:3'>Mar 14:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:56'>Luk 23:56</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:3'>Joh 12:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 19:39'>Joh 19:39</a></em>). Pliny (<em>Natural History</em>&nbsp;14:15:92,107) records: “The finest wine in early days was that spiced with the scent of myrrh… I also find that aromatic wine is constantly made from almost the same ingredient as perfumes, from myrrh". This alerts me to the real possibility that the unnamed bystander who did this was Mary Magdalene. Earlier she had anointed the Lord’s body with myrrh “to the burial". And now she has prepared the most expensive form of wine as some sort of pain killer. Perhaps the Lord was so touched by this that He accepted it, but didn’t drink it. His doing this is otherwise very hard to understand. Her love was on one hand inappropriate, and yet the Lord still accepted it, even though He couldn’t use it. He could have felt angry with her for tempting Him to the easier way. But He didn’t. And in so doing He showed her that the essence of the cross is that there is no easy way. The principles of all this are to be reflected in our cross carrying.</p><p>Another alternative presents itself from the Hebrew text of <em><a href='B:230 69:21'>Psa 69:21</a></em>: “They gave me also gall". The Hebrew can stand the translation ‘poison’ (see RSV). Given the extended, agitated torture of crucifixion, there was a custom for close friends to get close enough to the cross to lift up a poisonous substance which the crucified would lick, and thereby die quickly. It is just possible that a friend (or even his mother?) or a sympathetic soldier did this. Again, in this case it would seem that the Lord chose the highest level; our salvation would surely have been theologically achievable if He had taken it. But He chose to attain for us not only salvation, but “such&nbsp;<em>great&nbsp;</em>salvation" (<em><a href='B:650 2:3'>Heb 2:3</a></em>) by always taking the highest level. He became obedient not only to death, but “even the death of the cross".</p><p>One feels that Christ would have been justified in accepting the pain killer that was offered Him in His final agony; but He refused it, it seems to me, in order to achieve the&nbsp;<em>greatest&nbsp;</em>salvation for us. He never once used what I have called the principle of Jephthah's vow. In the same spirit, some faithful men of old refused legitimate deliverance from torture so that they might obtain "a better resurrection" (<em><a href='B:650 11:35'>Heb 11:35</a></em>). The record of the cross is full of examples of where the Lord in physical terms rejected legitimate comforts in His final hours. Yet throughout His life, He was ever ready to concede to the weakness of those who would genuinely follow Him. The way He spoke about demons without giving His hearers a lecture about the folly of such belief is proof of this. He could have insisted, as we do, on the rejection of such superstitions. But this was not His way. I am not suggesting that&nbsp;<em>we</em>&nbsp;have the right to make such concessions in our preaching and baptizing. But He did:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>27:35&nbsp;<em>And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots</em>- "And it was the third hour and (not 'when') they crucified Him" (<em><a href='B:480 15:25'>Mar 15:25</a></em>) suggests they were waiting for the hour to come. It was in their brief to do it at the third hour. It may be that they got there a little early, and there was an agonizing wait for the third hour. Mark 15 has so many usages of the word “and”; circle them in your Bible (especially AV). This is to emphasize the relentlessness of it all, the repetition of everything, the way it droned remorselessly on. This is a feature of the cross, which we must carry. The crucifixion of Christ was at 9 a:m. He would have willingly laid Himself down on the stake, whereas most victims had to be thrown down on the ground by the soldiers. He gave His life, it wasn't taken from Him. Likewise He&nbsp;<em>gave</em>&nbsp;His back to the smiters when they flogged Him; He gave His face to them when they spoke about pulling out His beard (<em><a href='B:290 50:6'>Isa 50:6</a></em>). Men usually clenched their fists to stop the nails being driven in, and apparently fingers were often broken by the soldiers to ease their task. Not a bone of the Lord was broken. We can imagine Him willingly opening His palms to the nails; as we, so far away from it all, should have something of a willing acceptance of what being in Him demands of us. It may be that He undressed Himself when they finally reached the place of crucifixion. In similar vein, early paintings of the flogging show the Lord standing there&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;tied to the flogging post, as victims usually were. As He lay there horizontal, His eyes would have been heavenwards, for the last time in His mortality. Perhaps He went through the business of thinking ‘this is the last time I'll do this:::or that:::’. How often He had lifted up His eyes to Heaven and prayed (<em><a href='B:500 11:41'>Joh 11:41</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 17:1'>Joh 17:1</a></em>). And now, this was the last time, except for the final raising of the head at His death. “While four soldiers held the prisoner, a Centurion placed the sharp five inch spike in the dead centre of the palm…four to five strokes would hammer the spike deep into the rough plank and a fifth turned it up so that the hand would not slip free" (C:M. Ward,&nbsp;<em>Treasury Of Praise</em>). If it is indeed so that a Centurion usually did the nailing, it is a wondrous testimony that it was the Centurion who could say later that “truly this was the Son of God". The very man who actually nailed the Son of God was not struck dead on the spot, as a human ‘deity’ would have done. God’s patient grace was extended, with the result that this man too came to faith:&nbsp;<br/>The Hebrew language so often reflects the character of God. And His artless self-expression is no clearer seen in the way He inspired the records of the death of His Son. The record of the death of God's Son is something altogether beyond the use of devices as primitive as adjectives. The way in which the actual act of impaling is recorded as just a subordinate clause is perhaps the clearest illustration of this. The way Mary thinks the risen Lord is a gardener is another such. Or the weeping of the women, and Joseph, and Nicodemus (presumably this happened) when the body was taken from the cross, as the nails were taken out: this isn't recorded. Likewise, only Matthew records the suicide of Judas; the Father chose not to emphasize in the records that the man who did the worst a man has ever done or could ever do- to betray the peerless Son of God- actually went and took his own life (and even made a mess of doing that). If it were my son, I would have wanted to emphasize this. But the Almighty doesn't. In similar vein, it is almost incredible that there was no immediate judgment on the men who did the Son of God to death. The judgments of AD70 only came on the next generation. Those middle aged men who stood and derided the Saviour in His time of finest trial: they died, as far as we know, in their beds. And the Roman / Italian empire went on for a long time afterwards, even if God did in fact impute guilt to them for what their soldiers did.</p><h4>Another hallmark of God's Hand in the record is that what to us are the most obvious OT prophecies are not quoted; e:g. <em><a href='B:290 53:7'>Isa 53:7</a></em>: "He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth". A human author would have made great capital from such detailed fulfilments. But not so the Almighty. Hebrew, along with all the Semitic languages, has no superlatives. God doesn’t need them. And the record of the cross is a classic example. The record of the resurrection reflects a similar culture. The actual resurrection isn’t ever described in marked contrast to how it is in the uninspired ‘gospels’. Instead we read of the impact of His resurrection upon His disciples. The spiritual culture of Almighty God is also shown by the way in which although&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;the Council (<em><a href='B:480 14:64'>Mar 14:64</a></em>), including Joseph, condemned Christ to death by crucifixion, God overlooks Joseph's lack of boldness in not contesting this, and speaks of him in such glowing spiritual terms. His 'not consenting unto' Christ's death was deep within him. I would be inclined to say: 'The&nbsp;<em>least</em>&nbsp;you could have done was to have abstained from the vote'. But the record is far more positive than that.</h4><p>For want of a better way of putting it, the spiritual culture of God comes through so sublimely in these records. He began His written revelation with the comment, as an almost throw-away clause, that "He made the stars also" (<em><a href='B:10 1:16'>Gen 1:16</a></em>). The vastness of that creation, far more wondrous and extensive than just this planet, is treated&nbsp;<em>en passant</em>. The actual resurrection of the Lord Jesus is likewise not recorded; we only learn of it from the recorded witness of those who went to the tomb, and who later met the Lord. The uninspired&nbsp;<em>Gospel of Peter&nbsp;</em>39-42 does record the actual arising of the Lord’s dead body; but immediately it becomes evident that this isn’t inspired, simply because of the lack of spiritual culture which we are accustomed to in the inspired writings. Likewise it has been observed that God uses "an economy of miracle" when He has acted openly. The record of the disciples' baptism, whether and how the Lord met His mother after the resurrection (for surely He did), Saul changing his name to Paul, Aaron's repentance after the golden calf- all these things are left unrecorded. The Gospel writers do not praise the majestic temple and city of Jerusalem in any way, unlike the uninspired contemporary writers. And that same spiritual culture comes out especially in the account of the crucifixion. It makes a good exercise to read through one of the records, especially John 19, and make a list of the adjectives used. There are virtually none. Read a page of any human novelist or historian: the pages are cluttered with them. Hebrew is deficient in adjectives, and because of this it often uses 'Son of:::' plus an abstract noun, instead of an adjective. Thus we read of a "son of peace" (<em><a href='B:490 10:5-6'>Luk 10:5-6</a></em>), or "a man of tongue" (<em><a href='B:230 140:11'>Psa 140:11</a></em> RVmg; AV "an evil speaker"):&nbsp;<br/><em>Divided His garments</em>- There seems to have been something unusual about the Lord’s outer garment. The same Greek word&nbsp;<em>chiton</em>&nbsp;used in <em><a href='B:500 19:23-24'>Joh 19:23-24</a></em> is that used in the LXX of <em><a href='B:10 37:3'>Gen 37:3</a></em> to describe Joseph’s coat of many pieces. Josephus (<em>Antiquities</em>&nbsp;3:7:4,161) uses the word for the tunic of the High Priest, which was likewise not to be rent (<em><a href='B:30 21:10'>Lev 21:10</a></em>). The Lord in His time of dying is thus set up as High Priest, gaining forgiveness for His people, to ‘come out’ of the grave as on the day of Atonement, pronouncing the forgiveness gained, and bidding His people spread that good news world-wide. The robe was not to be torn,&nbsp;<em>schizein</em>. There was to be no schism in it. Ahijah tore his garment into twelve pieces to symbolize the division of Israel (<em><a href='B:110 11:30-31'>1Ki 11:30-31</a></em>). The Lord’s coat being unrent may therefore be another reflection of how His death brought about unity amongst His people (<em><a href='B:500 11:52'>Joh 11:52</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 17:21-22'>Joh 17:21-22</a></em>). Before Him, there, we simply cannot be divided amongst ourselves. Likewise the net through which the Lord gathers His people was unbroken (<em><a href='B:500 21:11'>Joh 21:11</a></em>). Note how all these references are in John- as if he perceived this theme of unity through the cross.</p><p>It is likely that the Lord was crucified naked, thereby sharing the shame of Adam's nakedness. The&nbsp;<em>shame</em>&nbsp;of the cross is stressed (<em><a href='B:650 11:26'>Heb 11:26</a></em>; <em><a href='B:650 12:2'>Heb 12:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 31:17'>Psa 31:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 69:6-7'>Psa 69:6-7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 69:12'>Psa 69:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 69:19-20'>Psa 69:19-20</a></em>). And we are to share those sufferings. There&nbsp;<em>must</em>, therefore, be an open standing up for what we believe in the eyes of a hostile world. Preaching, in this sense, is for all of us. And if we dodge this, we put the Son of God to a naked shame; we re-crucify Him naked, we shame Him again (<em><a href='B:650 6:6'>Heb 6:6</a></em>). He was crucified naked, and the sun went in for three hours. He must have been cold, very cold (<em><a href='B:500 18:18'>Joh 18:18</a></em>). Artemidorus Daldianus (<em>Oneirokritika&nbsp;</em>2:53) confirms that the Romans usually crucified victims naked. Melito of Sardis, writing in the 2nd century, writes of “his body naked and not even deemed worthy of a clothing that it might not be seen. Therefore the heavenly lights turned away and the day darkened in order that he might be hidden who was denuded upon the cross" (<em>On the Pasch</em>&nbsp;97). The earliest portrayals of the crucified Jesus, on carved gems, feature Him naked. There is reason to think that the Jews put the Lord to the maximum possible shame and pain; therefore they may well have crucified Him naked. T. Mommsen&nbsp;<em>The Digest Of Justinian&nbsp;</em>48:20:6 reports that “the garments that the condemned person is wearing may not be demanded by the torturers"- the fact that they gambled for His clothes shows that the Lord was yet again treated illegally (quite a feature of the records) and to the maximum level of abuse. We not only get this impression from the Biblical record, but from a passage in the Wisdom of Solomon (2:12-20) which would have been well known to them, and which has a surprising number of similarities to the Lord’s life amongst the Jews (Susan Garrett lists several Greek words and phrases found in the Gospel of Mark which are identical to those in this section of the Wisdom of Solomon. It would seem that Mark was aware of this passage in the Wisdom of Solomon, and sought to show how throughout the Lord's ministry, and especially in His death, the Jews were seeking to apply it to Him in the way they treated Him. See Susan Garrett,&nbsp;<em>The Temptations Of Jesus In Mark's Gospel</em>&nbsp;(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) p. 68):</p><p>“Let us lie in wait for the virtuous man, since he annoys us and opposes our way of life, reproaches us for our breaches of the law an accuses us of playing false::. he claims to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a son of the Lord. Before us he stands, a reproof to our way of thinking, the very sight of him weighs our spirits down; His way of life is not like other men’s::. in His opinion we are counterfeit:::and boasts of having God as His father. let us see if what he says is true, let us observe what kind of end he himself will have. If the virtuous man is God’s son, God will take his part and rescue him from the clutches of his enemies<em>. Let us test him with cruelty and with torture, and thus explore this gentleness of His and put His endurance to the proof. Let us condemn him to a shameful death</em>&nbsp;since he will be looked after- we have his word for it".</p><p>The idea of the Lord being subjected to the maximum pain and mocking must, sadly, be applied to Seneca’s description of how some victims of crucifixion were nailed through their genitals (<em>Dialogi</em>&nbsp;6:20:3). In this sense the paradox of Isaiah 53 would have come true- through losing His ability to bring forth children, the Lord brought forth a huge multitude of spiritual children world-wide. It’s an honour to be one of them:&nbsp;<br/><em>By casting lots</em>- Did they throw the die on top of His outer garment? Note the focus of the soldiers upon the dividing up of the clothes, whilst the Son of God played out the ultimate spiritual drama for human salvation just a metre or so away from them. And our pettiness is worked out all too often in sight of the same cross. As those miserable men argued over the clothes at the foot of the cross, so when Israel stood before the glory of Yahweh at Sinai, they still suffered “disputes" amongst themselves (<em><a href='B:20 24:12'>Exo 24:12</a></em> NIV cp. <em><a href='B:650 12:29'>Heb 12:29</a></em>). So pressing and important do human pettinesses appear, despite the awesomeness of that bigger picture to which we stand related.</p><p>The sheer and utter reality of the crucifixion needs to be meditated upon just as much as the actual reality of the fact that Jesus actually existed. A Psalm foretold that Jesus at His death would be the song of the drunkards. Many Nazi exterminators took to drink. And it would seem almost inevitable that the soldiers who crucified Jesus went out drinking afterwards. Ernest Hemingway wrote a chilling fictional story of how those men went into a tavern late on that Friday evening. After drunkenly debating whether “Today is Friday", they decide that it really is Friday, and then tell how they nailed Him and lifted Him up. ''When the weight starts to pull on 'em, that's when it gets em::. Ain't I seen em ? I seen plenty of 'em . I tell you, he was pretty good today". And that last phrase runs like a refrain through their drunken evening. Whether or not this is an accurate reconstruction isn't my point- we have a serious duty to seek to imagine what it might have been like. Both Nazi and Soviet executioners admit how vital it was to never look the man you were murdering in the face. It was why they put on a roughness which covered their real personalities. And the Lord’s executioners would have done the same. To look into His face, especially His eyes, dark with love and grief for His people, would have driven those men to either suicide or conversion. I imagine them stealing a look at His face, the face of this man who didn’t struggle with them but willingly laid Himself down on the wood. The cross struck an educated Greek as barbaric folly, a Roman citizen as sheer disgrace, and a Jew as God's curse. Yet Jesus turned the sign of disgrace into a sign of victory. Through it, He announced a radical revaluation of all values. He made it a symbol for a brave life, without fear even in the face of fatal risks; through struggle, suffering, death, in firm trust and hope in the goal of true freedom, life, humanity, eternal life. The offence, the sheer scandal, was turned into an amazing experience of salvation, the way of the cross into a possible way of life. The risen Christ was and is just as much a living reality. Suetonius records that Claudius expelled Jewish Christians from Rome because they were agitated by one Chrestus; i:e. Jesus the Christ. Yet the historian speaks as if He was actually alive and actively present in person. In essence, He was. All the volumes of confused theology, the senseless theories about the Trinity. would all have been avoided if only men had had the faith to believe that the man Jesus who really died and rose, both never sinned and was also indeed the Son of God. And that His achievement of perfection in human flesh was real. Yes it takes faith- and all the wrong theology was only an excuse for a lack of such faith.</p><table><tr><td></p><h4></td><td></td></tr></table><p>Several crucifixion victims have been unearthed. One was nailed with nails 18c:m. long (7 inches). A piece of acacia word seems to have been inserted between the nail head and the flesh:&nbsp;<em>Did the Lord cry out in initial pain and shock?</em>&nbsp;Probably, as far as I can reconstruct it; for He would have had all the physical reflex reactions of any man. But yet I also sense that He didn't flinch as other men did. He came to offer His life, willingly; not grudgingly, resistantly give it up. He went through the panic of approaching the pain threshold. The nailing of the hands and feet just where the nerves were would have sent bolts of pain through the Lord's arms every time He moved or spoke. The pain would have been such that even with the eyelids closed, a penetrating red glare would have throbbed in the Lord’s vision. Hence the value and intensity of those words He did speak. The pulling up on the nails in the hands as the cross was lifted up would have been excruciating. The hands were nailed through the 'Destot gap', between the first and second row of wrist bones, touching an extra sensitive nerve which controls the movement of the thumb and signals receipt of pain. They would not have been nailed through the palms or the body would not have been supportable. It has been reconstructed that in order to breathe, the crucified would have had to pull up on his hands, lift the head for a breath, and then let the head subside. The sheer physical agony of it all cannot be minimized. Zenon Ziolkowski (<em>Spor O Calun</em>) discusses contemporary descriptions of the faces of the crucified, including Jehohanan the Zealot, whose crucifixion Josephus mentions. Their faces were renowned for being terribly distorted by pain. The Lord's face was marred more than that of any other, so much so that those who saw Him looked away (<em><a href='B:290 52:14'>Isa 52:14</a></em>). That prophecy may suggest that for the Lord, the crucifixion process hurt even more. We suggest later that He purposefully refused to take relief from pushing down on the 'seat', and thus died more painfully and quicker. Several of the unearthed victims were crucified on olive trees. So it was perhaps an olive tree which the Lord had to carry. He would have thought of this as He prayed among the olive trees of Gethsemane (perhaps they took it from that garden?). I would not have gone through with this. I would have chosen a lesser death and the achieving of a lesser salvation. I would have had more pity on myself. But the Lord of all did it&nbsp;<em>for me</em>, He became obedient&nbsp;<em>even</em>&nbsp;to death on a cross (<em><a href='B:570 2:8'>Phi 2:8</a></em>), as if He could have been obedient to a lesser death, but He chose this ultimately high level. I can only marvel at the Father's gentleness with us, that despite the ineffable trauma of death, the way He takes us is so much more gentle than how He allowed His only begotten to go.</h4><p>Presumably there were many soldiers around. The temple guard which was seconded to the Jews (<em><a href='B:470 27:65'>Mat 27:65</a></em>) was doubtless there in full force, lest there be any attempt to save Jesus by the crowd or the disciples. And yet <em><a href='B:500 19:23'>Joh 19:23</a></em> suggests there were only four soldiers, each of whom received a part of His clothing. This must mean that there were four actually involved in the crucifixion: one for each hand and foot. He had signs of nails (plural) in His hands. We are left to meditate as to whether He was nailed hand over hand as tradition has it (which would have meant two very long nails were used); or both hands separately.</p><p>Despite much prior meditation, there perhaps dawned on the Lord some 'physical' realizations as to the nature of His crucified position: the utter impossibility of making the slightest change of position, especially when tormented by flies, the fact that the hands and feet had been pierced in the most sensitive areas; the fact that the arms were arranged in such a way so that the weight of the body hung only on the muscles, not on the bones and tendons. The smell of blood would have brought forth yelping dogs, circling birds of prey, flying insects…an incessant barrage of annoyances, things to distract the Lord’s mind. As we too also face. He would have realized that the whole process was designed to produce tension in every part of the body. All His body, every part of it, in every aspect, had to suffer (and He would have realized the significance of this, and seen&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;of us as suffering with Him). The muscles were all hopelessly overworked, cramps due to the malcirculation of blood would have created an overwhelming desire to move. All victims would have writhed and wriggled within the few millimetres leeway which they had, to avoid a splinter pushing into the back lacerated from flogging::. But my sense is that the Lord somehow didn't do this. He didn't push down on the footrests for relief (see 54), He didn't take the pain killer, He didn't ask for a drink until the end, when presumably the others accepted. Every muscle in the body would have become locked after two hours or so. Every part of His body suffered, symbolic of how through His sufferings He was able to identify with every member of His spiritual body- for "we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones" (<em><a href='B:560 5:30'>Eph 5:30</a></em>). He had perhaps foreseen something of all this when He likened the killing of His body to the taking down of a tent / tabernacle- every bone and sinew, like every pole and canvass, had to be uprooted, 'taken down' (<em><a href='B:500 2:19'>Joh 2:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 2:21'>Joh 2:21</a></em>).</p><p>The moment of lifting the stake up vertical, probably amidst a renewed surge of abuse or cheering from the crowd, had been long foreseen and imagined by the Lord. "If, if I be&nbsp;<em>lifted up</em>::." (<em><a href='B:500 12:32'>Joh 12:32</a></em>). He foresaw the physical (and spiritual) details of the crucifixion process in such detail. Recall how He foresaw that moment of handing over to death. And yet still He asked for the cup to pass, still He panicked and felt forsaken. If the theory of the cross was so hard to actually live out in practice for the Lord, then how hard it must be for us. The Lord's descriptions of Himself as being 'lifted up' use a phrase which carried in Hebrew the idea of exaltation and glory. As He was lifted up physically, the ground swaying before His eyes, His mind fixed upon the Father and the forgiveness which He was making possible through His sacrifice, covered in blood and spittle, struggling for breath::. He was 'lifted up' in glory and exaltation, to those who have open eyes to see and hearts to imagine and brains to comprehend.</p><p>Imagine yourself being crucified. Go through the stages in the process. The Lord invited us to do this when He asked us to figuratively crucify ourselves daily. Consider all the language of the sacrifices which pointed forward to the final, supreme act of the Lord: poured out, pierced, parted in pieces, beaten out; the rock smitten::. and this is the process which we are going through, although the Father deals with us infinitely more gently than with His only Son.</p><p>It is one of the greatest internal proofs of inspiration that this climactic act is recorded by each of the Gospel writers as a participial or subordinate clause. The concentration is on the splitting up of the clothes, which happened, of course, after the impaling. It is as if the record at this point is from the perspective of the soldiers. Get the job done, and&nbsp;<em>then</em>, on with the important bit- the dividing of the clothes No human author would ever have written like this. It's rather like the way Mary thinks that the risen Lord is a gardener. There is something artless and utterly Divine about it all. The record is full of what I would call spiritual culture. It has the hallmark of the Divine. This may be why some of the 'obvious' fulfilments of prophecy aren't mentioned, e:g. <em><a href='B:290 53:7'>Isa 53:7</a></em> concerning the Lamb dumb before her shearers. Likewise there is no record of the faithful women weeping, or moaning as the body was taken down.</p>


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<p>27:36&nbsp;<em>And they sat there-&nbsp;</em>"And they sat down" after symbolically killing Joseph. "Sitting down&nbsp;<em>they</em>&nbsp;watched&nbsp;<em>him</em>&nbsp;there". Mark particularly has an abnormal number of pronouns throughout the record. The emphasis is on " he::. him::. his”; also " they" occurs more than average. The contrast is being established between the crucified Christ and the world. If we are to identify with His cross, it is axiomatic that there must be a thorough separation from this world (<em><a href='B:550 1:4'>Gal 1:4</a></em>).</p><p><em>And watched him</em>- In the sense of guarding Him, rather than simply staring at Him. Matthew and Mark discuss the placing of the placard out of sequence, in order to emphasize how they did the Son of God to death, and then got on with splitting up His few clothes. The petty materialism of man was played out just a metre or two from the suffering Saviour, while He saw saying (repeatedly, the Greek could imply), "Father, forgive them"; with all the pain of speech which the crucified position involved. There were four soldiers, and they each took a part of His clothing: His head covering, belt, inner coat, His sandals. Those Galilean sandals, that had walked so many miles. He went about doing good, and healing::. They kneeled on His chest and nailed Him, slung the mallets back into their packs, and straight away got on with arguing about who was going to keep those worn out shoes. One wonders whether the soldier wore them or sold them. Or kept them. And we must look at our petty materialism in the light of the cross, reflecting on the power of mammon: to eclipse the vision of the cross, to silence men from speaking of the wonder of the resurrection (<em><a href='B:470 28:14'>Mat 28:14</a></em>)- to entice a man to betray the Lord of all grace (<em><a href='B:470 26:15'>Mat 26:15</a></em> implies Judas' motivation was financial, first and foremost). Long hours, demanding hours, striving for well-paid careers::. all so we can have a nice car, a house, not a flat, in a nice area, so we can wear nice fitting clothes, so we can eat food which tickles the taste buds, rather than food which gives the basic proteins and vitamins etc. We do all this. Almost all of us. At the foot of the cross. Ignoring what it really means. And even worse: we excuse ourselves rather than admit our guilt. The records of the writing of the inscriptions may also be out of place in order to create the picture of all the people sitting watching the Lord Jesus, with that title over Him. The other two were there, but the people all watched Jesus. He was lifted up, and He drew all men (all men's eyes, in the primary sense) unto Him (<em><a href='B:500 12:32'>Joh 12:32</a></em>). And the cross has that same magnetism today.</p>


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<p>27:37&nbsp;<em>And over his head they put the written accusation against him, which read-</em>&nbsp;This is out of sequence; the inscription was placed at the actual impalement (according to the other Gospels). Luke seems to imply that the mocking was because of this placard; it must have been a very unusual crime to die for, contrasting sharply with the usual reasons for death which were displayed on crosses.</p><p><em>This is Jesus, the King of the Jews-&nbsp;</em>Not only was the Lord’s death ongoing during His life. It was normal to write over the crucified ‘This&nbsp;<em>was::.</em>’. But over the Lord it was written: ‘This&nbsp;<em>is</em>&nbsp;Jesus’, as if for all time, this was His memorial to all generations.</p><p>Did Pilate write it in his own handwriting? Did they use the same ladder to place the inscription which Joseph later used to retrieve the body? Why do the records suggest that the inscription was placed after the stake had been erected? Was there initial resistance from the Jews? Was He impaled with the placard around His neck, and then the ladder was put up, and a soldier lifted it off and nailed it above His head? "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" written in Hebrew would have used words whose first letters created the sacred Name: YHWH. Perhaps this was why there was such opposition to it. "King of the Jews" would have been understood as a Messianic title. Either Pilate was sarcastic, or really believed it, or just wanted to provoke the Jews. In any case, somehow the Yahweh Name was linked with the Messiah: King of the Jews. The Name was declared in the Lord’s death, as He had foretold (<em><a href='B:500 17:26'>Joh 17:26</a></em>). Forgiveness of sins is through baptism into the Name (<em><a href='B:510 2:38'>Act 2:38</a></em>), as even in OT times forgiveness was for the sake of the Name (<em><a href='B:230 79:9'>Psa 79:9</a></em>). And yet through the cross and blood of Christ is forgiveness made possible. His blood and death therefore was the supreme declaration of God’s Name; through His cross the grace and forgiveness, love, salvation and judgment implicit in the Name was all enabled and revealed in practice. <em><a href='B:230 22:22'>Psa 22:22</a></em> prophesied that “I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation&nbsp;<em>ekklesia</em>, LXX". It was to us His brethren that the Name was declared; in the eyes of an unbelieving world, this was just another crucified man, a failure, a wannabe who never made it. But to us, it is the declaration of the Name. It was and is done in the midst of the ecclesia, as if the whole church from that day to this beholds it all at first hand. And our response is to in turn “Declare His righteousness" (<em><a href='B:230 22:31'>Psa 22:31</a></em>), in response to seeing the Name declared, we declare to Him…in lives of love for the brethren. For the Name was declared, that the love that was between the Father and Son might be in us.</p><p><em><a href='B:230 40:9-10'>Psa 40:9-10</a></em> speaks of how the Lord Jesus would proclaim righteousness to the&nbsp;<em>ekklesia</em>&nbsp;and declare God’s faithfulness and salvation, i:e. the things of His Name. Yet this passage is quoted in <em><a href='B:650 10:5-7'>Heb 10:5-7</a></em> about the cross. It was there above all that “thy law is within my heart" and He “preached righteousness". This is why Paul can talk of “the preaching which is the cross". He as He was there is the ultimate witness. And this was why the Yahweh Name was written up over Him.</p>&nbsp;<br/><p>Note that <em><a href='B:490 22:36'>Luk 22:36</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 22:38'>Luk 22:38</a></em> record that the inscription on the cross was “also" written- connecting with how the soldiers “also" mocked Him. The inscription was intended as another mockery; but it was a vital part in declaring God’s glory. The incident is typical of how those things which seem the most negative and unspiritual are used by the Father to His and our glory in the end.</p>


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<p>27:38<em>&nbsp;Two robbers were crucified with him-&nbsp;</em><em><a href='B:470 27:38'>Mat 27:38</a></em> RV has a dramatic change of tense: “Then are there crucified with him…". Mark’s present tenses are also arresting: “plaiting…&nbsp; they clothe him… they smote…" (:17,19 RV). Perhaps Mark is seeking consciously to make us imagine it all as going on before our eyes. Take just <em><a href='B:480 15:23-26'>Mar 15:23-26</a></em>: “They offered…&nbsp; they crucify…&nbsp; and part… casting lots… crucified… was written". These arresting changes are surely to encourage us to re-live it all. Mark speaks of “they crucify him", going on to say that “then are there two crucified with him" (<em><a href='B:480 15:38'>Mar 15:38</a></em> RV), whereas Luke records the act in the past tense. Significantly, very few actual details are given by the Gospel writers of both the scourging and the crucifixion. It could be that they felt it impossible to dwell upon these things; or it could be that they and their readers knew what was involved in these practices, and we are left to dwell upon them in our own imagination. We are intended to reconstruct in our own minds what may have happened… We have a solemn duty towards Him to do this. This is perhaps why the tenses change so dramatically in the records.</p><p><em>One on his right hand and one on his left</em>- The crucified Christ is portrayed as King of criminals, King of the basest sort, enthroned between them, taking the place of their leader Barabbas, who ought to have been where the Lord was. Both Barabbas and the thieves are described with the same Greek word, translated "robber" (<em><a href='B:500 18:40'>Joh 18:40</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 15:27'>Mar 15:27</a></em>). The Lord uses the same word when He points out that His persecutors were treating him as a "robber" (<em><a href='B:470 26:55'>Mat 26:55</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 14:48'>Mar 14:48</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 22:52'>Luk 22:52</a></em>); He seems to be aware that what the experience He is going through is setting up Barabbas as a kind of inverse type of Himself, the true 'Son of the Father' (= 'Barabbas'). Those low, desperate men, the dregs of society, were types of us. Barabbas especially becomes a symbol of us all. According to Jewish tradition at the time (<em>Pesach</em>&nbsp;8:6) “They may slaughter the Passover lamb…for one whom they the authorities have promised to release from prison". The Passover amnesty freed a man justly condemned to death- on account of the death of the lamb. We can imagine the relief and joy and almost unbelief of Barabbas, as he watched or reflected upon the crucifixion of Jesus- that he who rightfully should have been there on the cross, was delivered from such a death because of the cross of Christ. The image of condemned prisoners being released due to the death of Messiah is an undoubted Old Testament figure for our redemption from slavery. Some of the legal terms used in the NT for our redemption imply that Christ redeemed us from slavery through His death. And yet one could redeem a slave by oneself becoming a slave (<em><a href='B:530 6:20'>1Co 6:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 7:23'>1Co 7:23</a></em>; <em><a href='B:550 3:13'>Gal 3:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:550 4:5'>Gal 4:5</a></em>). This is why the crucified Jesus is typified by the suffering servant / slave of Isaiah’s prophesies. And Paul seems to have risen up to something similar when he speaks of giving his body to be branded, i:e. becoming a slave (<em><a href='B:530 13:3'>1Co 13:3</a></em> Gk:).</p>


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<p>27:39&nbsp;<em>And they that passed by</em>- The idea of crucifixion was that it was public. The invitation to carry the Lord's cross is an invitation to likewise be public and open in our identification with Him. But these people repeated the false accusation raised in the Sanhedrin trial, that the Lord had planned to destroy the temple (:40). One wonders, therefore, whether these people were indeed passers by. To have access to that information means they may have been close to the Jewish leadership. Perhaps they simply made out that they were 'passers by', and the Biblical record is at times written from the standpoint of how things appear to men, even if that is not the actual case consider the language of demons. Or it could be that these people continually passed back and forth in front of the Lord in order to try to provoke Him repeatedly with their blasphemy.</p><p>“Those that passed by" were not only comprised of casual passers-by who thought "Hey, there's a crucifixion, let's go and have a look". Golgotha was a little way out of the city. The size of the crowd must have been considerable; "crowds came to the spectacle" (<em><a href='B:490 23:48'>Luk 23:48</a></em> Gk:). It seems more reasonable that the reference is to those who passed by, back and forth (the Greek could imply), 'passing along' (<em><a href='B:480 15:29'>Mar 15:29</a></em>) in front of the cross, taunting the Lord, as if they were making a wave offering in front of the presence of God in the crucified Christ. The connection between <em><a href='B:230 22:7'>Psa 22:7</a></em> and <em><a href='B:470 27:39'>Mat 27:39</a></em> would suggest that these 'passers-by' were there with the express intent of taunting Him. Because His eyes were inevitably downward, it would have been difficult for the Lord not to look at them. Their words were exactly those of the Sanhedrin (<em><a href='B:470 26:61'>Mat 26:61</a></em>), so presumably they came from there- the work colleagues of Joseph and Nicodemus.</p><h4><em>Derided him, wagging their heads</em>-&nbsp;The reproach broke the Lord's heart (<em><a href='B:230 69:20'>Psa 69:20</a></em>). It could even be that He suffered a heart rupture, a literal broken heart, some hours prior to His death- hence when His side was pierced, blood flowed out- and corpses don’t usually bleed. It has been commented that severe emotional trauma is enough to cause such a rupture. He wasn't hard and impervious to it all. He knew who He was, and where He was going. To be treated as He was, was such an insult to the God of all grace. And He keenly sensed this. <em><a href='B:650 12:2-3'>Heb 12:2-3</a></em> parallels the Lord's enduring of the cross with His enduring "such contradiction of sinners against Himself". These mockings were therefore part of "the cross". The "cross" process began before His impalement; in the same way as some verses which evidently concern the crucifixion are applied to the Lord's earlier life. His was&nbsp;<em>a life</em>&nbsp;of cross carrying. And we are asked to live the same life, not just the occasional 'cross' of crisis, but a life embodying the cross principles. As "the cross" means more than the impalement which epitomized it, likewise "the blood of Christ" means far more than the red liquid. These concepts found their physical epitome in the crucifixion process, but there is so much more to these things than the physical. The blood of the covenant, the Son of God and the Spirit of grace are bracketed together in <em><a href='B:650 10:29'>Heb 10:29</a></em>. The Lord&nbsp;<em>was&nbsp;</em>His blood. The pouring out of blood from His side, the trickles down His cheeks from the crown of thorns, quickly drying in the hot dust beneath::. this was&nbsp;<em>Him</em>. We take the wine in memory of&nbsp;<em>Him</em>; not just His blood. And He&nbsp;<em>is</em>&nbsp;the Spirit of God's grace. By Himself He purged our sins (<em><a href='B:650 1:3'>Heb 1:3</a></em>); and yet this purging was through His blood (<em><a href='B:650 9:14'>Heb 9:14</a></em>). He was His blood; His cross was the essence of all He was.</h4>&nbsp;


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<p>27:40&nbsp;<em>And saying: You that would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days</em>- This would have reminded Him that He was doing this to Himself, they weren't doing it to Him. He knew that the temple would be ripped apart stone by stone. And so He knew the temple of His body must be, for in that body He bore our sins on the tree. He had foretold that the tabernacle of His body would be 'taken down' as that in the wilderness was, taken apart piece by piece. In that lengthy procedure He had seen foretold the excruciating nature of His death, as every aspect of humanity was taken apart. ":::and buildest it in three days" would have taken His mind forward to that certain future. So their taunt would have aided His efforts to remain spiritual. Likewise their allusions to Psalms 22 ("He trusted in God::.") served to steer the Lord's mind there, and to take comfort from the rest of the Psalm and the context of their mocking quotations. Yet even in the mocking, the Lord’s Bible mind would have found some sort of encouragement. For the Lord was so clearly bearing the judgment of Israel’s sins: “All who pass along the way clap their hands at you: they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem" (<em><a href='B:310 2:15'>Lam 2:15</a></em>). And note too <em><a href='B:300 48:27'>Jer 48:27</a></em> (LXX 31:27): “Is Israel a laughing stock? Was she caught between thieves that you wag your head?". This is exactly the Lord’s position, between thieves, and mocked- but by Israel. These prophecies imply it was the Gentiles who would mock Israel; thus by treating the Lord as they did, they declared themselves to be no longer God’s people but Gentiles. The darkness that came down would have recalled <em><a href='B:300 33:19-21'>Jer 33:19-21</a></em> - when day and night no longer follow their normal sequence, God is breaking His covenant. Israel’s condemnation would be that “even at midday you will grope like a blind man in the dark" (<em><a href='B:50 28:29'>Deu 28:29</a></em>). And yet the Lord would have known that He was suffering for Israel, treated as an apostate Israel, and thus He was the more inspired to pray for their ultimate forgiveness and salvation, seeing He had borne their condemnation. The Lord suffered “for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due" (<em><a href='B:290 53:8'>Isa 53:8</a></em> RVmg:). There are therefore elements of the crucifixion sufferings of Jesus in every suffering of natural Israel.</p><p><em>Save yourself</em>- All the emphasis on save&nbsp;<em>yourself</em>&nbsp;was a temptation for Him to forget&nbsp;<em>us</em>. He would have reflected that He was saving Himself and us by staying where He was; coming down from the cross wouldn't lead to salvation. What the flesh understands by salvation and what the spirit understands by it are vastly different.</p><p><em>If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross</em>- A repeat of the wilderness temptation to come down from the temple pinnacle. This temptation was at the hands of the Jews, and there is every reason to think that the wilderness temptations likewise were somehow involved with the Jewish satan. The Lord had likened His death on the cross, His giving of His flesh for the life of the world, to the coming down of manna from Heaven (<em><a href='B:500 6:50-51'>Joh 6:50-51</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:58'>Joh 6:58</a></em>). 'Coming down' was the classic language of theophany and God manifestation; the Lord's ascension was on the very basis that He had indeed 'come down' (<em><a href='B:560 4:10'>Eph 4:10</a></em>). And He was indeed 'coming down', not a mere meter or so from the stake to the ground, but from Heaven to earth- for their salvation. Time and again the situations associated with the Lord's suffering were full of reference to His earlier teachings and beliefs. He was thus confirmed by the hand of providence in the path He had taken, realizing that this was not at all 'bad luck' or a suffering to simply be endured, but rather every detail of it was under God's hand controlled to confirm Him in His path to glory.</p><p>“Come down from the cross” was a repeat of the second temptation: Come down from the temple tower; throw yourself to death in Gehenna below, and perhaps the Angels will even then save you. This had been a temptation to commit suicide, to give up life without giving it for His friends, and hope that somehow the Angels would save Him personally. Victory in one temptation leads to victory again and again. All the wilderness temptations recurred during the crucifixion. Notice how the three temptations of Jesus in the desert are repeated in the three mockeries of Him on the cross recorded in Matthew and Luke. The comment that the devil departed from Him “for a season" may imply ‘he’ returned at the cross. And clearly enough, the temptations at the end were internal, even if voiced by an external person.</p>


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<p>27:41&nbsp;<em>In like manner also the chief priests with the Scribes and elders mocked him, saying-&nbsp;</em>Matthew and Mark record the same incident. The priests said among themselves (Mk:); Matthew implies they said it to Him. They spoke in mock whispers, huddled in their group, but loud enough for Him to hear. Many of "the elders" believed in Him (<em><a href='B:500 12:42'>Joh 12:42</a></em>), but were led to this awful behaviour by the need to keep up appearances and the fear of exclusion from the synagogue.</p>


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<p>27:42&nbsp;<em>He saved others</em>- A tacit recognition that His healing miracles and the resurrection of Lazarus were undeniable. “He saved others" would have been a reference to Lazarus. His was a well-known case among the Jews (was Lazarus there? It would have been strange if He had not been). The Lord's mind would have choked at the memory of dear Lazarus, Martha, Mary, the now shattered family whom He had loved and still loved.</p><p><em>He cannot save himself. If he is the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in him-&nbsp;</em>RV "He is the King of Israel::." - His claims to Kingship, and the claim of His placard, was a repeated jibe. It must have seemed so incongruous that this wretchedly suffering man actually thought Himself to be a King. "If::. let him come down" may have been followed by a pause: is He going to do anything? In their hearts they must have known that He had had the ability to pull off this kind of thing. Those silent pauses must have been an agony for the Lord. There were probably many in that crowd half sympathetic to His wretched cause, who, on the surface, really might have believed if He had come down. But He had learned the lesson in the Galilee days, that impressive miracles didn't really instil faith (Pentecostals etc. still fail to realize this).</p><p>The mocking Jews fall strangely silent in the crucifixion accounts. The Lord had plainly foretold that when they had lifted up the Son of man, then they would know “that I am he", and would recognize His Divine Sonship (<em><a href='B:500 8:27'>Joh 8:27</a></em>). There was something about the vision of Christ crucified which convicted them of their folly and of the Divinity of God’s Son. And that power burns on today.</p>


