Transcript

When Moses was at the burning bush and God told him that He was sending him to Egypt to deliver Israel from her bondage, knowing the Israelites might ask for God’s name to validate this fact, Moses worked up the courage to ask God what name should be given.

And God, though in no way obligated to answer, revealed His name to Moses, “And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you” (Ex. 3:14).

Louie Giglio wrote this of God’s name, “I AM”: “As God’s name, it declares that He is unchanging, constant, unending, always present, always God. God was telling Moses: I AM the center of everything. I AM running the show. I AM the same every day, forever.

“I AM eternal. I AM the owner of everything. I AM the Lord. I AM the Creator and Sustainer of life. I AM the only Savior. I AM all-powerful. I AM more than enough. I AM inexhaustible. I AM immeasurable. I AM God.

“In a moment Moses knew God’s name, and something more. He finally knew his. For if God’s name is I AM, Moses name must be ‘I am not.’ I am not the center of everything. I am not in control. I am not the solution. I am not all-powerful.

“I am not calling the shots. I am not the owner of anything. I am not the Lord. I am not the maker. I am not the savior. I am not holding it all together. I am not God.”

This is true and puts things in their proper perspective. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the great I AM. He is the One who spoke out of that burning bush to Moses. We see the power of the “I Am” in the Garden of Gethsemane.

As the I AM and God Almighty, the Lord Jesus Christ did not have to go with the arresting party in Gethsemane, yet He allowed it. He went to the cross in obedience to the Father’s will and out of His supreme love for us.

John 18:1-2: “When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples. And Judas also, which betrayed him, knew the place: for Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with his disciples.”

In verse 1, when John wrote, “When Jesus had spoken these words,” he is referring to the Lord’s prayer of chapter 17, which was prayed out loud in the upper room out of His love and concern for His disciples.

After praying this prayer, “He went forth with His disciples,” as they then leave the upper room where they had eaten the Passover Supper, or Last Supper, and Christ had given His last instructions to the disciples.

The Lord and the eleven went “over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which He entered, and His disciples.”

The term “brook” signifies that it was an intermittent stream that was often dry, but flowed during seasonal rains and in the springtime.

The brook Kidron flowed through the Kidron Valley, lying east of the city and between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. And on the other side of the valley and brook on the Mount of Olives “was a garden,” the Garden of Gethsemane.

As they entered the garden, Christ left eight of the disciples near the entrance and took Peter, James, and John with Him deeper into it, where the Lord then agonized in prayer in light of the Cross, which was just hours away.

The Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives was a customary place that the Lord went to throughout the years of His ministry when He visited Jerusalem. As verse 2 says: “Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with His disciples” (cf. Luke 21:37).

Judas “knew the place,” the garden, verse 2 says, because Christ had frequently taken the disciples there to retreat from the crowds as a place of rest and seclusion, and a place to sleep at night.

Knowing what Judas knew, Christ could have gone anywhere but the garden because it was the most obvious place where Judas would come to try and find Him.

But the Savior did not cower, hide, or run away. Christ went to the garden like He always did and made it very easy for Judas and the soldiers.

This was the appointed “hour” (Jn. 13:1; 17:1) God had planned that His Son should die on the Cross and, in obedience to the Father’s will, Christ knew it was the time that “The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men” (Matt. 17:22), so He willingly, lovingly, and courageously went to the garden.

In the night, in the garden outside the city, Judas and Israel’s religious rulers found the opportunity they had been seeking.

They could seize Christ while everyone was asleep, with no fear of the crowds’ reaction, and take Him “by subtilty” (Matt. 26:3-5,14-16), which was their hope and plan.

Around 1000 years prior to this night in Gethsemane, in 2 Samuel 15 during the revolt of David’s son, Absalom, we learn that King David had to escape Jerusalem.

When he did, David went out of the city to the east, down the slope, across the brook Kidron, up to the Mount of Olives with his faithful followers. David, at this time, learned that he had been betrayed by a familiar friend by the name of Ahithophel.

This was a type of what would happen later, when the Son of David, the King of Israel, Jesus Christ, went out of Jerusalem to the east, crossed the Kidron brook, went up on the Mount of Olives with His faithful followers, and was betrayed by a familiar friend. But unlike David, Christ was not running or trying to escape.

Interestingly, Ahithophel, who betrayed David, hanged himself (II Sam. 17:23), and, of course, the Lord’s betrayer, Judas, also hanged himself (Matt. 27:5).

Judas’ betrayal was in a type, and it was plainly prophesied. Psalm 41:9 says, “Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against Me.” Zechariah 11:13 even details the “thirty pieces of silver” that the Lord was betrayed for by Judas, hundreds of years prior.

And hours earlier, when all the disciples, including Judas, were in the upper room, Christ prophesied and told them all that “one of you shall betray Me.” When the disciples were troubled by this statement, John asked Him, “who is it?”

And “Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.”

To reveal who would betray Him, the Lord took sop, which was a piece of bread, and He dipped that piece of bread in sauce, and He then handed it to Judas Iscariot.

When he ate that sop, Satan entered Judas, and he immediately left the upper room.

John 18:3-6: “Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons.

“Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye? They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he. And Judas also, which betrayed him, stood with them. As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward, and fell to the ground.”

The chief priests and Pharisees, through their pull and sway, arranged for a combination of a “band” of Roman soldiers, and “officers” of the temple guard to be given to Judas so that he might lead them to Christ to have Him arrested.

The temple officers were men who guarded the temple entrances, patrolled the temple, made arrests, and carried out punishments that were ordered by the religious leaders.

The word “band” in verse 3 refers to a Roman military cohort. The size of a Roman cohort ranged anywhere between 200 to 600 men.

There was this large number of Roman soldiers and an unknown number of temple officers on top of that. And it says they all came “with lanterns and torches and weapons.”

Matthew 26:47 defines the weapons and says, “Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves,” or clubs.

A large group of professional, trained Roman soldiers along with temple guards all came to the garden, and they came armed to the teeth, ready for action, anticipating resistance.

There’s a paradox here as well, that they came “with lanterns and torches” to take the Light of the world, and they came with “weapons” to arrest the Prince of Peace.

After the Lord prayed fervently for hours in Gethsemane, Judas, with the Roman cohort and temple officers, entered the garden.

It’s made very clear by John in verse 5, that Judas “stood with them,” with the enemy, with the unbelievers, and not with Christ and the believing disciples. His true identity as an unbelieving, treacherous betrayer was now known.

And Judas, out front of this large force of soldiers, felt more secure in their might than in Christ’s, which showed that he never believed that Christ was God.

But Judas also knew that Christ had power; he had seen it with his own eyes, so he knew there needed to be a substantial force with him there to arrest Christ.

The religious leaders in their unbelief, didn’t fear Christ or His power; they feared the crowds’ reaction, and thus, they arranged for this large group of soldiers to arrest Him in case things went wrong and to ward off any kind of attack to keep Him from being taken.

In verse 4, we read, “Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth.” As God, being all-knowing, Christ knew exactly what was happening and what was going to happen.

He knew Judas was coming to betray Him with a large group of men who were coming to arrest Him. He knew about the physical and spiritual suffering, pain, and anguish that awaited Him at the Cross, yet He “went forth.”

The Lord didn’t wait for His enemies to get to Him or to find Him in the garden. He had seen them coming all the way. And so, He voluntarily went forward and met them when they were still on their way in.

John does not include Judas’ betrayal by the customary greeting of that culture, a kiss. But Matthew 26:48-49 reads, “Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast. And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him.”

Judas had arranged with the soldiers that the One he would kiss would be the One they should seize and arrest.

Thus, Judas came forward, walked deliberately toward Christ, and greeted Him with a kiss on the cheek. His greeting was to mark Christ, not to show affection and honor Him.

Judas greeted Christ as a friend, feigning innocence in a weak attempt to conceal the reality of what he actually was: a vile and wicked traitor.

And Christ looked him in the eye and pulled him apart with His words: “Friend, wherefore art thou come?” and “Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?”

Christ then addressed the soldiers and said, “Whom seek ye?” And they answered Him that they were sent to find “Jesus of Nazareth.” They gave the name of the Man they were looking for and where He was from.

But Christ was and is so much more than just a Man of Nazareth; He was God from heaven. And when they answered by giving His name as a Man, Christ responded by giving them His name as God.

And He said unto them “I am he.” When Christ responded, “I am he,” you will notice that the word “he” is in italics in the Bible text. This means that the word “he” is not in the original Greek text and was supplied by the translators.

When the soldiers and guards said that they were looking for Jesus of Nazareth, Christ’s actual response was, “I am.”

And as soon as Christ said, “I am,” the whole Roman cohort of 200-600 soldiers, all the temple guard (v. 3), all “went backward, and fell to the ground.” And Judas who “stood with them” was now on the ground “with them,” flat on his back.

Standing up in the garden were Christ and the eleven disciples, laying on the ground was this whole “great multitude” (Matt. 26:47).

Christ was one, single, unarmed Person, and they were a large group of trained soldiers and guards, manned for battle, equipped with swords and clubs.

However, the force and truth of the revelation of Himself as the “I AM” was so overpowering that it jolted and sent them all backward to the ground.

They fell and collapsed on the spot because of the power of His Word and the power of His name. As God, there flowed from Christ such power and commanding authority, that these enemies could not stand in His presence when He said His name and revealed Who He was in truth.

By this act, Christ demonstrated that He was laying His life down and that nobody was taking it from Him. As the Lord said in John 10:17-18: “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself…”

Christ could not be touched or taken except by His permission. He was in control, and He allowed the arrest and permitted the crucifixion. The soldiers and guards could have left their weapons at home; Christ was not going to resist. He was going to the Cross.

John 18:7-11: “Then asked he them again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he: if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way: That the saying might be fulfilled, which he spake, Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none.

“Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus. Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?”

Two guys walked into a local ice cream shop, smiling and laughing. They walked up to the server and loudly announced that they were ordering free ice cream for everyone in the shop. “What’s the occasion?” asked the server.

One man replied, “We just finished this huge jigsaw puzzle.” The other said, “Yeah, we’re geniuses!” “What makes you say that?” the server asked. One of the men said, “Well, the box said 4-6 years, but it only took us two!”

Like these two men, this group of soldiers weren’t geniuses either.

Christ again asked the group of men, “Whom seek ye?” and having just picked themselves up off the ground, they again answered “Jesus of Nazareth.”

They say, “Jesus of Nazareth” like nothing ever happened. They just got knocked down and they got up with the same unbelief they were in before they fell.

Christ’s response was “I have told you that I am.” His response was that He was Jesus of Nazareth, but that He was God as well.

But Christ repeated the question to force them to say it again, that they were seeking only Him, Jesus of Nazareth, and not His disciples.

He was making them acknowledge that they had no authority to take His disciples, and that their orders were to take Him only.

Thus, the Lord told them “If therefore ye seek Me, let these go their way.” In love, His concern was not for Himself but for His disciples. He was protecting them, making sure of their safety before He allowed His captors to lead Him away.

The Good Shepherd was giving His life for the sheep. And He gave Himself up that His people might be free.

Christ protects His own. You have a beautiful image here. Christ had moved out in front of His disciples when He went forward to meet the arresting party.

So, the visual was the enemy on one side, the disciples on the other, and Christ in the middle. And in this, we see a display of His protective love for His own.

And it also pictures His intercession, as Hebrews 7:25 states, “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”

John then recalled the words of Christ’s prayer from the previous chapter in verse 12, saying that this was fulfilling Christ’s words to the Father, “Of them which thou gavest Me have I lost none.”

By delivering His own from arrest and protecting His own from danger, it illustrated the spiritual truth of how Christ doesn’t lose any of His own.

As the Lord said earlier in John 10:28: “I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of My hand.”

As we compare the other gospel accounts of this scene, the next thing that takes place is that the soldiers came and “laid hands on Jesus, and took Him” (Matt. 26:50).

This immediately raised Peter’s ire, and he attempted to take things into his own hands.

During the course of their conversation in the upper room, before they came to Gethsemane, the disciples said in Luke 22:38, “Lord, look, here are two swords.”

So we know the disciples had at least 2 swords. And Peter had one of the two.

Both in Luke 22:38 and here in John 18:10, the Greek word translated as “sword” is the same word and it refers to a dagger-type, two-edged sword.

When Peter saw the soldiers lay their hands on Christ, He drew his sword. One man with a short sword against a few hundred trained soldiers with swords and clubs. But that’s Peter for you: brash, impulsive, passionate, brave.

And Peter shows that he was better at fishing than wielding a sword. Out of his love for the Lord, as he tried to defend Him and keep Him from being taken away, Peter attacked, and he wasn’t aiming for ears.

Pulling out his sword, he raised that dagger, aiming vertically at his head, and he brought it down with force and whacked off his “right ear.”

Either this man dodged to his left when he reacted, or Peter had bad aim. There are close shaves, but this one was too close!

All the Gospels record this event of Peter drawing his sword and attacking the high priest’s servant. But only John tells us that it was Peter who did this, and only John gives us the name of the man whose ear Peter cut off.

The man’s name was Malchus, and he was the high priest’s servant, an emissary of the high priest, Caiaphas. Malchus probably was one of the ones who had laid their hands on Christ to take Him.

The Lord stopped Peter and told him to put the sword back in its sheath.

In Matthew 26:53-54, the Lord told Peter, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?”

Peter was one man against hundreds trying to prevent the Lord from being taken.

Christ told Peter that if He had wanted to prevent His arrest by this group of soldiers, He could have asked the Father for and He would have sent more than twelve legions of angels. A legion in the Roman army was about six thousand men.

The Lord said He could have called for 72,000 angels and received them in an instant and been delivered from these few hundred soldiers. Christ had all of heaven’s resources and power at His disposal. But He refused to use it.

The reason was that the Scriptures cannot be broken, the Scriptures predicting His betrayal, suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection had to be fulfilled. And His Father’s will was for Him to go to the Cross to pay for the sin of the world.

The Lord asked Peter here in John, “The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” The cup represented the suffering, the separation from the Father, and the wrath of God against sin that Christ would face on the cross.

Christ had come to do the Father’s will, and the Father had given Him a cup. Christ told Peter that He would drink of this cup, and drink it to the bottom in obedience to the Father’s plan. It wasn’t right for Peter to try and stop this.

Peter had a sword in his hand here, but Christ had a cup in His hand, and He told Peter that He needed to drink that cup, and so He was going with these men.

Matthew, Mark, and John don’t record the Lord’s healing of the ear. But Luke, the physician, does. It probably fascinated Dr. Luke that the Lord did this.

After Peter had cut off Malchus’ ear, Luke 22:51 says, Christ “touched his ear, and healed him.” This was no problem for Christ, the Creator, the great “I AM.”

And healing Malchus’s ear was an act of mercy by the Lord. Malchus was an enemy standing with the men who came to arrest Christ. He had fallen when the Lord said “I AM.” He had gotten back up. He went over to seize and arrest the Lord.

But by healing Malchus, we see Christ’s love and mercy toward His enemies. We see Christ’s love and mercy toward His enemies at the Cross, too.

As Romans 5:10 states, “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”

What this portion shows us is that if Christ had the power to throw back a few hundred soldiers at once with His word, if He could call 72,000 angels from heaven, and heal a severed ear, He could have saved Himself from arrest, trial, and crucifixion.

But out of love for us, because we can’t save ourselves from our sins, because we can’t be our own savior, Christ allowed Himself to be arrested and led to the Cross to pay for all our sins so that we might be saved and have eternal life.

It reminds us that as both Man and God Almighty, Christ, our Substitute, was able and had the power to pay our sin debt in full.

So when we read verse 12, “Then the band and the captain and officers of the Jews took Jesus, and bound Him” we know He willingly submitted to this, and He permitted them to take Him, and we know He voluntarily laid down His life for us, to die for our sins and to rise again, out of the greatest love of all.