John 18:10 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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John 18:10

Comments

The old writers tell us Peter aimed to kill. I am not so sure about that, but they say he aimed to kill and the high priest’s servant flinched or ducked or moved, and so it resulted in the severance of an ear. But why did he do it? It seems to be an act of madness. There is what is described as a band of soldiers, and there must have been one or two hundred, and Peter is one of only eleven disciples with the Lord with only two swords between them. Besides, Christ had already yielded to them, voluntarily stepped forward and announced he was the Lord. Perhaps they were already binding him; perhaps Malchus, was one of those who was ordered to apply the ropes to Christ. An act of violence could only lead to him being forcibly taken.Well, it was not so mad, even if he was utterly mistaken. He was convinced that Christ would set up an earthly kingdom. He was clinging on to his conviction. My master cannot be taken. He had seen all the Jewish officials and the probably also the soldiers fall to the ground as soon as Christ announced who he was. My Lord has total power, they cannot take him. He knew how they had tried a number of times to take him before, and he had just walked through the midst. So in that moment he did not fear the Roman band. Now he has cut off an ear. What a disastrous thing! Humanly speaking, he could ruin everything. Here is Christ, ready to go to Calvary, to take the punishment of sin for all who would be saved throughout time. He was going to go with no resistance, voluntarily to the cross of Calvary, but Peter gives everybody the impression they are after all a bunch of revolutionaries. But Christ came to suffer and to die and to earn heaven and salvation for all his own. This is a doomed world, and Christ’s purpose is to gather out his elect for all eternity. Peter is soon to be an apostle, but at this point there are things he does not understand, there are things that he has got his own ideas about, and he has not really got the courage that he thinks he has. Peter needs a miracle of grace worked upon him. He loves Christ and he thinks he would die for him, but there is a lot more work to be done before he can be the bold apostle of the Day of Pentecost. Yet in a short time after the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ, you are going to see him preaching that first sermon on the Day of Pentecost, full of clarity and understanding. His ignorance has been turned into clear light. So this demonstration of his continuing blindness to what Christ was really doing, right up until the last moment of Calvary is put on display here to show us the miracle of grace that was necessary to turn a good man, but a man subject to failing, into an apostle of the Lord.

Application

We come to him, we repent of our sin, we believe in Calvary, we receive the new birth, our hearts are changed, we have come to the Lord, but so much progressively needs to be done in our hearts. We have given by a miracle of grace illumination, understanding of the Gospel and the way of salvation. Great changes have already taken place in us, but there is more to be done.

Questions

In looking at this passage, we are confronted by something which at first seems strange. Why does the apostle John intertwine the trials of Christ with the failings and the poor reactions to circumstances of Simon Peter? Here is the Saviour of the world, allowing himself in apparent weakness to be arrested and bound and taken and subjected to a series of grossly unjust hearings prior to his crucifixion on Calvary’s cross, and yet intertwined with this are the failings of a man – an apostle to be, but a man. Here are great events mixed with great failing. One of the reasons is possibly so that we can see something of the deep disappointment that was given to Christ even by his disciples during his trials and leading up to his execution on Calvary. He knew that Peter was denying him, Peter who had been so bold – ‘Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee.’ As God, of course the Lord could endure the disappointment presented by Peter, but in his perfect and sensitive human nature, he would have known and felt the pain of Peter’s denials.

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Introduction

John 18:10 Commentary and Bible Study