Bible Study for Today

Why did Jesus refuse to take up arms and fight?

When the multitude comes to arrest Jesus in Matthew 26, one of His disciples strikes out with a sword. John identifies the swordsman as Peter (John 18:10). Clearly, Peter was not aiming for the ear, but for the head. Jesus‘ response was immediate. “Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (v. 52). Peter’s action was vigilantism. No matter how unjust the arrest of Jesus, Peter had no right to take the law into his own hands in order to stop it. Jesus’ reply was a restatement of the Genesis 9:6 principle: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed,” an affirmation that capital punishment is an appropriate penalty for murder.

Jesus said that if it were a matter of force, His Father would send “more than twelve legions” (v. 53). A Roman legion was composed of 6,000 soldiers, so this would represent more than 72,000 angels. In 2 Kings 19:35, a single angel killed more than 185,000 men in a single night, so this many angels would make a formidable army.

But it wasn’t about force; it was that the “Scriptures…be fulfilled” (v. 54) God Himself had foreordained the very minutest details of how Jesus would die (Acts 2:23; 4:27, 28). Dying was Christ’s consummate act of submission to the Father’s will. Jesus Himself was in absolute control (John 10:17, 18). Yet it was not Jesus alone, but everyone around Him—His enemies included—who fulfilled precisely the details of the Old Testament prophecies. These events display His divine sovereignty.

Reading for Today:

Exodus 37:1–38:31Psalm 22:9-15Proverbs 8:12-21Matthew 26:51-75

Notes:

Matthew 26:57 Caiaphas the high priest. From John 18:13, we learn that Christ was taken first to Annas (former high priest and father-in-law to Caiaphas). He then was sent bound to Caiaphas’s house (John 18:24). The conspiracy was well planned, so that “the scribes and the elders” (the Sanhedrin) were already “assembled” at Caiaphas’s house and ready to try Jesus. The time was sometime between midnight and the first rooster’s crowing (v. 74). Such a hearing was illegal on several counts: criminal trials were not to be held at night; and trials in capital cases could only be held at the temple and only in public.

Matthew 26:59 the council. The great Sanhedrin was the Supreme Court of Israel, consisting of 71 members, presided over by the high priest. They met daily in the temple to hold court, except on the Sabbath and other holy days. Technically, they did not have the power to administer capital punishment (John 18:31), but in the case of Stephen, for example, this was no deterrent to his stoning (see Acts 6:12–14; 7:58–60). Roman governors evidently sometimes ignored such incidents as a matter of political expediency. In Jesus’ case, the men who were trying Him were the same ones who had conspired against Him (see John 11:47–50).

Matthew 26:75 And Peter remembered. Luke 22:61 records that Jesus made eye contact with Peter at this very moment, which must have magnified Peter’s already unbearable sense of shame. “He went out”—evidently departing from Caiaphas’s house—”and wept bitterly.” The true Peter is seen not in his denial but in his repentance. This account reminds us of not only our own weakness, but also the richness of divine grace.