WHY did Jesus refuse to take up arms and fight?
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.
©BY PASTOR JUDAH OLATUNDE
Comments
Post a Comment