John 18:7 Commentary and Bible Study

One or two hundred troops, the chief priests, the Pharisees, they fell to the ground. ‘I am he’ were all the words he said. The chief priests and the Pharisees also fell to the ground. Some of them had been there at the raising of Lazarus. ‘Lazarus, come forth.’ They had heard that majestic, powerful voice and the dead came forth. When they heard that voice again, ‘I am he’, they just fell backward. They saw the form of the man who had attracted thousands upon thousands around him and had done amazing things. Just a little shaft of power released by Christ and all his arresting party fell. They scrambled to their feet and he presented himself again.They were so confused, they were so shocked, their mission of arrest had come to an end. As they totter to their feet he says to them, Look let’s go on where we were, let’s go back to where we were before I did that. Who have you come to arrest? He almost guides them back into their task, and he asks them again, ‘Whom seek ye?’ and the statement of arrest is repeated. ‘They said, Jesus of Nazareth.’ And Jesus answers, in verse 8: ‘I have told you that I am he’. Now this is the point: ‘If therefore ye seek me, let these go their way.’ It’s as though he makes them state their mission twice. Who have you come for? For Jesus of Nazareth? Well, then, if you have come for him, then let these go, and he makes it plain to them, they have no orders, they have no commission, not at this stage, to take his disciples. And they obeyed him and then he allowed himself to be taken. Why does the record tell us this? Because it imprints deeply upon us that he went voluntarily for us. At any moment he could have stopped the process. He had all the power but he went voluntarily for us.