Luke 22

CHAPTER XXII

The Fifth Part

The Consummation, Chapters 22 to 24

Luke 22:1

1 Now there was drawing near the Festival of the Unleavened Bread, called Passover. And the high priests and the scribes were seeking how to make away with him, for they were fearing the people.

The festival was called τὰἄζυμα, “The Unleavened” (things), or as here, “The Festival of the Unleavened” (neuter plural, “bread” is added in the English only to round out the thought) because of the removal of all leaven from the homes for the seven days from the 14th to the 21st of Nisan, the 14th that year being a Thursday. Luke adds the other Jewish name “Passover,” πάσχα, Hebrew pesach, which is derived from Jehovah’s passing over Israel to shield it from the death angel. The tenses are descriptive imperfects and picture the time and the situation. Whether Luke is reckoning the nearness of the festival from Tuesday evening when Jesus spoke the great discourse recorded in 21:8–36 or has in mind an earlier time cannot be determined. He can scarcely have thought of Wednesday.

Luke 22:2

2 The common designation for the Sanhedrin names “the high priests and the scribes” (see 9:22). The supposition that the elders were not involved is untenable (Matt. 26:3 names the elders). The question they considered was not whether to make away with Jesus—they had long ago decided to do that—but how to make away with him; the article before the indirect question only makes plain that this question is the object of the verb. To make away with someone, ἀναιρέω, means to murder him. In the present case judicial murder was planned and not assassination. The explanation with γάρ tells us why this “how” perplexed the Sanhedrin and made ways and means a problem.

Because the pilgrim crowds constantly surrounded Jesus it was anything but safe to try to arrest him in public. Matt. 26:4, 5 tells us to what decision the Sanhedrin came, namely to use subtlety but to wait until the festival was over and the pilgrims had dispersed.

Luke 22:3

3 Now Satan entered into Judas, called Iscariot, being of the number of the Twelve. And having gone, he spoke with the high priests and commanders how to betray him to them. And they rejoiced and made a bargain to give him money. And he agreed and began to seek a good opportunity to betray him to them away from a crowd.

“Satan” would be a proper noun even without the article. This word designates the head of the infernal Kingdom and not merely some demon as Zahn supposes. Luke’s statement tallies with John 13:2. We see that this is not a case of common demoniacal possession. Satan himself makes Judas his tool by filling his mind with traitorous thoughts and moving his will to act on them. This is mental possession, giving Satan control of mind, heart, and will. “Satan entered into Judas” by no compulsion but as a welcome master who is received by a willing slave. This entrance was made gradually or by stages. Luke speaks of it in a summary way, but John 13:2, 27 reveal its stages. The devilish-ness of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas has always been recognized.

The introduction of the traitor is el aways tragic: “being of the number of the Twelve,” one of this sacred number, one who was raised so high by Christ, one who was destined for one of the apostolic thrones in heaven—and now one who not only lost all this grace and glory but reversed it to the absolute opposite: a tool of Satan, sold for thirty pieces of silver to the whole world’s execration as one traitor beyond whom none in the whole world can go. See 6:16 on “Iscariot.”

Luke 22:4

4 No one can say just when Judas offered himself for the damnable deed. It may have been as early as Saturday night after the Supper at Bethany, see the interpretation of Matt. 26:14. Whenever the time was, Judas conferred with no less personages than the high priests themselves, Caiaphas and some of his relatives in the Sanhedrin. These, it seems, had the executive control. Luke adds the στρατηγοί, the commanders of the Levitical Temple police. The probability is that Judas found that he could obtain an audience with the high priests only by first going to some officer of this police force who was on duty in the Temple.

This officer took the traitor to the chief strategos, and such Temple officers were thus present when the deal was made. The proposition was in some way “to betray Jesus to them,” τό before the indirect question as in v. 2. Judas proposed to do the betraying (aorist subjunctive), the manner of the act was as yet left undetermined.

Luke 22:5

5 It is Luke who tells us that these deadly foes of Jesus “rejoiced.” Whereas they feared that the whole nation was being carried away by Jesus (John 11:48; 12:19), one of his own intimate followers is willing to sell him for a price (Matt. 26:15). It was almost too good to believe, a turn no one would have dared to predict. Luke passes over the dealing about the price. The bargain was, in fact, struck promptly. The aorist συνέθεντο means that the silver was paid then and there. Matt. 26:15 says that the money was weighed out to Judas (see the comment on the passage); Matthew also records the amount, 30 shekels or 60 denarii, about $10 (Zech. 11:12, 13).

Judas would do nothing until he had the money paid down. He intended to run no risks in regard to getting his money later on. The priests were shrewd enough to bind the man by paying him at once; he might otherwise fail them. They ran no risk whatsoever, for they had the power to arrest this man at any time. Judas returned to Jesus with the blood money in his bag.

Luke 22:6

6 Luke writes that “he agreed.” He was fully satisfied and closed the bargain. All that was left was to find the favorable moment to consummate the betrayal. The infinitive is complementary to the noun (R. 1076), and τοῦ may or may not be added. “Away from a crowd” was, no doubt, a stipulation of the bargain which was absolutely necessary to the success of the plot.

Luke 22:7

7 Now there came the day of the Unleavened Bread, in which it was necessary that the passover be slaughtered.

This was the first day of the festival, compare v. 1 on “the unleavened” (things). This was Thursday, the 14th of Nisan, which was counted in with the other seven days and thus made eight. “The passover” signifies the lamb, it was named so from the festival (v. 1). The imperfect ἔδει refers to a past obligation that continues into the present, here one that is met, R. 887. The verb θύω, here the passive, is used to designate the slaughtering of this lamb in the Temple court of the priests on this Thursday afternoon.

Luke 22:8

8 And he commissioned Peter and John, saying, Having gone, make ready for us the passover in order that we may eat.

The point of this narrative in all the synoptists is the way in which Jesus directed the two disciples. All the disciples were, of course, concerned about celebrating the Passover. Mark 14:12 brings out that fact; yet this Passover was intended for Jesus in a special way, note “for thee” in Matt. 26:17. The question as to where their celebration was to be held was raised by the disciples, who, however, have no place to suggest. Jesus gives the necessary directions. He and the Twelve are, apparently, in Bethany, and it is early on Thursday morning.

Matthew does not need to tell his readers, as Mark does, that Jesus commissioned only two, for every reader of Jewish descent knew that only two men were allowed to bring the lamb into the Temple court. Luke alone tells us who they were. They receive the general order to get “the passover” ready so that all might eat it. In v. 1 this word denotes the festival, in v. 7 the lamb, and now the lamb and all else that was needed for this sacred feast.

Luke 22:9

9 But they said to him, Where dost thou want that we prepare? And he said to them: Lo, you having entered into the city, there will meet you a man carrying a jar of water. Follow him into the house into which he goes, and you will say to the master of the house, The Teacher says to thee, Where is the guestroom, where I may eat the passover in company with my disciples? And he will show you a large upper room that has been tiled. There make ready. Now having gone, they found just as he had said to them; and they made ready the passover.

The chief point in the entire transaction is “where” Jesus intends to celebrate this his final Passover. The subjunctive is deliberative in an indirect question and is left unchanged from the direct.

Luke 22:10

10 All the synoptists indicate that Jesus withheld the direct answer to this question. He told Peter and John that they would meet a man whom they could readily identify by the fact that he was carrying a jar of water, most likely on his head. This was a woman’s task and was exceptional in the case of a man. The apostles were not to accost this man but were simply to follow him into whatever house he entered.

Luke 22:11

11 To “the house lord of that house” (pleonastic genitive) Jesus directs them to say that the Teacher is asking him through them where the κατάλυμα or guestroom is where he may eat the passover with his disciples. All they will need to say is “the Teacher.” The houseowner will know that this is Jesus; will know the two disciples and who the rest in the party are, in fact, will understand also what Jesus further directs his messengers to say about his time (season) being at hand (Matt. 26:18). This man is one of the friends of Jesus who is so ready to do him a service that all that Jesus needs to do is to send him word.

Luke 22:12

12 Jesus adds that this houseowner will show them a large, fine upper room, one that has a tiled floor and is unusual in this respect. The perfect participle has its present connotation. Mark 14:15 has a second participle, “in a state of readiness,” which is added without a connective. This participle refers to the equipment of the room, tables, couches, etc. Our versions insert “and” in Mark, which is due to their misunderstanding of the first participle, the one that Luke, too, has, which does not mean “furnished” with rugs on the floor or with furniture as some think. The verb means “to spread” (note “to spread under” in 19:36) and here refers to the beauty of the floor which was covered with tile (so Luther, gepflastert, and Zahn, B.-P. 1237).

The remarkable fact is that the room was still available. For we should remember that the host of pilgrims was so great that every available room that seated from ten to twenty persons would be taken for this Thursday when all must eat the passover, and room would be at a premium.

It goes without saying that we here have a duplicate of the incident recorded in 19:29, etc., the same use of the supernatural knowledge of Jesus in things that are necessary for his mission, and the same purpose to inspire faith and confidence in the disciples. But more must certainly be said. Judas was watching for a favorable opportunity to betray Jesus, and what better opportunity could he find than this Passover meal when Jesus would be alone with his disciples in the evening, and all the pilgrims who were eating their passover would be scattered in little groups? To prevent any move on the part of Judas, Jesus withholds all information that the latter might attempt to use, withholds it from all the disciples. Even Peter and John would not know until they reached the house, and they would be busy with the preparations that had been delegated to them and would not return to Jesus. When the time came, he would take the ten to the house, and not until then would Judas know the place—too late for him to do anything.

Jesus thus made certain that he would celebrate this last and so important passover in perfect peace and security. And thus, too, he indicated to Judas that his plans for betrayal were blocked for the time being.

Some think that Jesus had talked over matters with this unnamed man in Jerusalem; the word that Jesus sends him shuts out that idea rather decisively. And also the surmise that Jesus quietly told Peter and John the man’s name, and that the Twelve easily guessed who the man was without being told. Some think that the name was withheld only in the records in order to shield the man from Jewish molestation as late as the time when the Gospels were written. But Jesus must then have proceeded as he did for a reason that lay far beyond the moment; and this would be no reason at all, for the Twelve learned the man’s name that very night, and many others must soon likewise have known it.

We cannot agree that Jesus and the Twelve had been in this man’s house often, and that Jesus thus knew all about that large, tiled upper room. If that were true, Judas would have at once guessed the place, and all the precautions of Jesus would have been in vain. No; the tiling is mentioned as being something exceptional and entirely new to the Twelve. They saw that room for the first time that night. Zahn states that this was the house of Mark’s father, who was still living; the house was later known as that of Mark’s mother Mary and was used by the disciples during those years. The man with the jar on his head is supposed to be the youth Mark himself. Quite a combination is thus built up, but it does not rest on the facts that are stated in the narrative.

Luke 22:13

13 Peter and John found exactly what Jesus had foretold and made everything ready for the celebration.

Luke 22:14

14 And when the hour came, he reclined at table and the apostles with him.

This occurred at evening (Matthew and Mark) on Thursday; but with the appearance of the first star in the sky the Jewish Friday began. Luke at once puts us into the beautiful, secluded upper room and shows us the thirteen persons who were reclining at table for the Passover meal.

Luke 22:15

15 And he said to them: With desire did I desire to eat this passover with you before I suffer. For I say to you that I will in no wise eat it till it shall be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

Luke reports only a few things that transpired in the upper room. Moreover, as he has so often disregarded the sequence of time in his preceding chapters and has neglected to mention either the time or the place, so he continues to do in his account of the Passover meal. We rely on the other evangelists for our sequences. The first thing that happened is what John 13:1–17 records; but v. 2, “supper being ended” (A. V.), should be corrected. At the beginning of the actual Passover meal Jesus told his disciples how strongly he had desired to eat this his final passover with them. “With desire did I desire” is regarded as a Hebraism (infinitive absolute) although the Greek, too, uses the cognate noun or participle for intensifying the verb (R. 531): “with great desire.” The idea is untenable, however, that Jesus had not been certain that he would be able to eat this passover with the Twelve, that he had feared that his arrest, if not also his death, would be effected before this passover could be eaten. The statement that he greatly desired to eat it hints at no doubt whatever; the aorist shuts out that view.

The last phrase, “before I suffer,” explains this strong desire. The thought is the same as it was in 12:50b; John 12:24, 27. The nearer the hour of suffering and death came for Jesus, the more he longed for it to come in order that the great work might be done and redemption be actually wrought. The two aorist infinitives are effective, not “to be eating” and “to be suffering” (present tenses), but “to accomplish the eating” and “the suffering.”

Luke 22:16

16 In most instances γάρ does not state a reason but adds only some explanatory statement that aids in understanding what has just been said. So the solemn “I say to you” explains that the next passover that Jesus will eat with his disciples will be the heavenly one. It will occur when this earthly Passover “shall be fulfilled in the kingdom of God,” when all that it prefigured about the Lamb of God that was slain for our sins and about our participation, through faith, in this sacrifice for our sins will reach its ultimate fulfillment in the kingdom of glory in heaven. So the passover that Jesus is now eating with his disciples is the last; the next will be celebrated in glory. Although we reject οὐκέτι before the two negative particles on textual grounds: “any more” (A. V.), “henceforth” (R.

V.), it expresses what is meant: Jesus will eat this passover but no other until he eats the heavenly one. We have the usual strong double negative with the futuristic aorist subjunctive φάγω.

Luke 22:17

17 And having received a cup, after having given thanks, he said: Take this and divide it unto yourselves, for I say to you that I will in no wise drink from now on from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.

We dismiss all the difficulty that has been raised regarding these verses, even to making radical alterations of the text when they were viewed as being part of the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Matt. 26:29 should have barred out these ideas. The similarity of the “until” clause found in v. 19 to the one that is used in v. 16 should have done the same. Luke is combining statements that contain the same general thought, that this is the last Passover on earth for Jesus until he partakes of the fulfillment of it in heaven (v. 15, 16), and that this is the last wine that he will drink until he drinks it new in heaven (v. 17, 18). The fact that Jesus did not utter both statements successively makes no difference to Luke. From Matt. 26:29 and Mark 14:25 we see that the second was uttered at the end of the meal, after the institution of the Lord’s Supper.

Compare our comments on Matt. 26:21 for an account of the ten formal stages of the Passover meal. In the tenth stage the second part of the hallel was sung, the fourth cup was passed, sometimes a fifth, which was followed by the conclusion of the hallel. It was this fourth or fifth cup to which Luke refers. Someone handed it to Jesus, and he received it and pronounced a benediction over it. It is not necessary to assume that a servant was present, and we need no assurance that it was not Mark or Mark’s father (see v. 12). Jesus and the Twelve were entirely alone.

One of the disciples replenished the cup each time this became necessary. The same was true with regard to the lamb, the bread, and the chassoreth, which were placed on the table by the disciples themselves as they were needed. If a servant or the head of the house had been present he would have attended to the washing of the feet after Jesus and the ten had walked from Bethany. The owner of the house, a son of his, the servants would themselves be eating their passover in groups that were large enough to consume a lamb.

The blessing spoken by Jesus must have been the one that was customarily used in connection with the last cup. The question is asked as to whether Jesus himself partook of this final cup (some think that it was the very first) before he told the disciples to divide it among themselves. This needed not to be mentioned, for the person who acted as the housefather at the Passover always drank first. Jesus certainly partook of the entire Passover in the way that was customary among the Jews at this time, which included drinking of the ceremonial cups each time they were passed. The claim that Jesus drank no wine at all at this Passover because it was not required in the original Mosaic ritual is untenable. How could he do this and not only tell his disciples to drink, as he surely does here, but even use some of this Passover wine in the Lord’s Supper?

Luke 22:18

18 Again, as in v. 16, we have the solemn assurance that he will in no wise drink again of wine until the kingdom of glory at the end of the world has come (ἔλθῃ, aorist, punctiliar). He will die this very day (Friday). If this was sad, the “until” clause points to the glorious drinking at the consummation of the kingdom. Πίω is the futuristic aorist subjunctive like φάγω in v. 16. The argument, that is starting already in connection with v. 16, as to whether this glorious eating and drinking will be a sublimated actual Passover, whether it will be identical with the feasting that is mentioned in v. 30; 13:29, with the marriage supper of the Lamb, Rev. 19:9, is useless because all the heavenly joys are described in figurative language in the Scriptures.

The efforts that are put forth to read wine out of this account are unavailing. Because οἶνος, the word for “wine,” does not occur, the presence of wine is at least gravely questioned, which means practically denied. Luke’s “the fruit of the vine,” pheri hagiphen, the lovely liturgical term for the wine that was used in the Passover ritual, which Matthew makes even more specific by writing “this fruit of the vine,” the one that was regularly used in the Passover and was used at this Passover by Jesus, is misunderstood by these commentators, for they assert that grape juice fits this phrase better than does wine—although such a thing as grape juice was an impossibility in April in the Holy Land of Christ’s time. It could be had only when grapes were freshly pressed out, before the juice started to ferment in an hour or two.

Vastly more important is the thought that Jesus will not only die today, but that by his dying all the Jewish Passovers have served their purpose and are really at an end. For which reason Jesus also this night instituted the Sacrament of the New Testament which is to be used until the time when the kingdom of God comes. The two references to the kingdom that occur in these verses have been used to argue for chiliasm, and “the fruit of the vine” also affords an opportunity to insert the chiliastic dream of Papias concerning the miraculous vine that grows endlessly and produces enormous clusters of grapes.

Luke 22:19

19 And having taken bread, having given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying: This is my body, that in the act of being given for you. This keep doing for my own remembrance. And the cup likewise after dining, saying, This cup the new covenant in my blood, that in the act of being poured out for you.

A glance at the textual authority for the words found in v. 19: “that in the act,” etc., and in v. 20: “that in the act,” etc., makes one wonder why the R. V. added its marginal note. But one is surprised at Zahn who uses this textual omission as a peg on which to hang arguments about Theophilus’ still not being in the church, the esoteric nature of the Sacrament, and the pagan slanders regarding this Sacrament, as if such arguments were sufficient to remove from Luke’s text, not only these two participial modifiers, but also the remainder of v. 19 and the whole of v. 20, and to claim that Luke never pretended to give an account of the Sacrament. Were it not because of the name of the man who revises the text thus, the matter would be unworthy of notice.

From Matthew and from Mark we note that the Supper was instituted at the close of that part of the Passover when all were freely eating the Passover food. No one was to be stinted. So at the time when the housefather would have gone on to the next ceremonial act, the eating of the last morsel of the lamb, and thereby stopped all further eating, Jesus proceeded to do something that was entirely new. The new act is also an eating and a drinking, but only of the bread and the wine, and only by the disciples; it also has its thanksgivings, but these and the added words refer directly to Christ’s sacrificial body and blood and their saving effect. The disciples understood from the first word onward.

Jesus first “took bread,” the participle indicating that this is only a preliminary act. Note that this participle is an aorist, and that all the participles (save, of course, the two λέγων) and the main verbs that refer to the acts of Jesus are aorists, all being historical and stating so many facts. The entire account is so simple and so lucid in its wording that even a grammar the size of Robertson’s has hardly anything to note. In its margin the R. V. translates ἄρτος “loaf.” But no loaves in our sense of the word could be baked of unleavened dough. This artos was a thin sheet of unleavened bread, pieces of which were broken off for the purpose of eating. The author saw these thin sheets of bread baked on a hot plate in Syria; the woman stacked them up and gave us one that was still hot, which we broke and divided among our party in the ancient way—how else could we have eaten it properly?

The second act is still preliminary, hence an aorist participle is again used, εὐχαριστήσας, “having given thanks.” Matthew and Mark have εὐλογήσας, “having blessed,” but they use the other word regarding the wine, which shows that the two words denote the same thing. None of the four accounts of the Supper has preserved the words of thanksgiving that Jesus spoke over the bread and the wine. We shall not go astray when we say that these words referred to the bread (and the wine) that was in Jesus’ hands and to the heavenly gift that the respective element was to convey. This blessing thus enlightened the disciples and prepared them for the proper reception of the bread and of what it conveyed (of the wine likewise), for they were to receive both intelligently and were not to wonder what Jesus was trying to convey to them. All we can say about these words is that, after they were once spoken by Jesus, they remain efficacious for all time wherever the Sacrament is celebrated. Because of their very nature they could not be efficaciously repeated, and that seems to be the reason the power that guided the holy writers had them omit these words from their records.

The acts of breaking and giving go together in the sense of distributing. No symbolism attaches to the breaking, for “a bone of him shall not be broken,” John 19:36. The bread was broken merely for the purpose of being eaten. “Bread is an inanimate thing: how can breaking it be like the putting of a human being to death? Breaking bread is the very symbol of quietness and peace, who would dream of it as an appropriate symbol of the most cruel and ignominious death? Bread is the representative food, and, used in metaphor, is the symbol of spiritual and supernatural food. The breaking of bread is the means of giving it as food, and as a symbol, the symbol of giving and taking a higher food.

No one would dream of the breaking of bread as the symbol of killing a human body; and if so extraordinary a symbolic use of it were made, it would require the most explicit statement on the part of the person so using it, that such was his intent; and when he had made it, the world would be amazed at so lame a figure.” Krauth, Conservative Reformation, 723. In regard to the wine we have no counterpart to the breaking of the bread, which shows that the breaking was only incidental for the purpose of distribution.

No man is able to say just how Jesus “gave to them.” Nor is the point vital, just so that each received. When we now adopt a mode of distributing we cannot say that any mode will do, for various modes that are used at present indicate wrong views of the very nature of the Sacrament and in regard to those who are entitled to receive it. Our mode must harmonize with the essentials of the Sacrament in every way and also with the spirit of its original institution. Luke leaves out “Take, eat,” as being included in the act of giving the bread.

And Jesus now states what he is really giving them: Τοῦτόἐστιτὸσῶμάμου, “This is my body.” Matthew and Mark report no more, for these few words, indeed, contain the essential fact. But Luke has the addition with a separate article like an apposition and a climax (R. 776): “that in the act of being given for you,” the present participle which is a description of what body Jesus had in mind, namely his own actual body that was about to be sacrificed on the cross. Paul adds to body “which is for you,” i. e., in sacrifice. We should note that τοῦτο is neuter and hence cannot grammatically or in thought refer to ἄρτος, which is masculine. The English “this” and “bread” hide this distinction in gender, yet no real student will ignore it. “This” means “this bread which I have now consecrated by blessing and thanksgiving”; or more tersely: “this that I now give to you”; hoc quod vos sumere jubeo. “It is no longer mere bread of the oven but bread of flesh, or bread of body, that is, bread which is sacramentally one with Christ’s body.” Luther.

Much has been written about ἐστί, which is merely the copula that connects the subject and the predicate. Jesus spoke in Aramaic and used no copula in that language, for he needed none; but this does not remove or alter in the least the inspired ἐστί in the Greek records. It is impossible to have it mean “represents” as the efforts of Zwingli have conclusively shown.

“My body” means exactly what these words say: “in truth and reality my body.” Luke’s and Paul’s modifiers say this a second time. The ὑπὲρὑμῶνδιδόμενον cannot refer to anything but the true body, for no symbol of the body, no bread, nothing that was figurative in any sense was this day being given for our redemption upon the cross. The participle is exact, the act of giving had begun, Jesus was already betrayed.

In a large number of instances the preposition ὑπέρ, “in behalf of,” “for” or “for the benefit of,” conveys the idea of substitution, “instead of.” See Robertson, The Minister and his Greek New Testament, the entire chapter on the use of ὑπέρ in the papyri. Mark uses this preposition regarding the blood. It is only the rationalizing question as to how the Lord could give his disciples his true and real body by means of bread when that body stood right before their eyes that has caused the trouble in regard to these exceedingly simple words. Some answer this “how” by assuming a transubstantiation of the bread into the body so that Jesus does not give bread at all but only his body. Others answer this “how” by declaring it impossible for Jesus to give his body, he gives only bread, this as a symbol of his body.

We refuse to answer the question as to the how because the Lord has completely withheld the answer. We could probably not understand the answer because the giving of Christ’s body in the Sacrament is a divine act of omnipotence and grace that goes beyond all mortal comprehension. The Lord declares the fact: “This is my body,” and we take him at his word. He knows the mystery of this giving; we do not. Any rationalizing objection that this involves a gross, carnal, Capernaitic eating of the raw flesh is unconvincing; the first disciples, who had the body of Christ’s humiliation before their very eyes when Christ’s bodily hand gave them the gift of his sacrificial body, never dreamed of such an eating. “My body” does not mean “a piece of my body.”

Luke and Paul preserved the words which ordered the disciples to repeat this sacrament: “this be doing for my own remembrance.” It would be unfair to play Matthew and Mark against Luke and Paul on this point; or to call what Luke and Paul have added beyond Matthew and Mark later liturgical additions by the church. This view breaks down when it comes to the blood. It would leave only the commands “this be doing,” etc., which are not liturgical. The four records are four historical testimonies, and any point in any record that is not found in the rest is only so much valuable addition. In the case of Matthew and Mark the permanency lies in the very nature of the sacrament, for not the Twelve alone but all disciples of all time were to be partakers of Christ’s body and blood for the assurance of their salvation. They were right in this because Jesus ordered the repetition and by it established the institution of the sacrament.

“This” be doing refers to what they saw and heard from Jesus. In so sacred a rite the church has kept close to what the inspired records present. As by his thanksgiving and his blessing Jesus separated the bread and the wine that are used in the sacrament from all other bread and wine, so we, too, do by the act of consecrating the elements that are to be used. We cannot repeat the thanksgiving that was pronounced by Jesus, which is withheld from us because, after it was once pronounced by him, it is efficacious for all time. So we use the words of the sacred records themselves since they, more and better than any other words we could invent, convey our intent regarding the bread and the wine we intend to set aside for the holy use. To the words of the institution the church adds the Lord’s Prayer as also coming from Jesus’ own lips and as aiding in consecrating and setting aside for the sacramental use the specific bread and wine to be used.

To omit the consecration would leave the bread and the wine and its eating and drinking an ordinary act. The mere intention of the pastor and the people cannot suffice, for if the intention is truly present it would express itself in the consecration, the more so since the sacrament is a public act. Nothing can be left in doubt in so sacred an act that is intended for the church as a whole, and nothing of a doubtful nature can be allowed.

First the consecration, then the distribution so that all may eat and drink. Matthew and Mark have the word “all.” But this includes only all who are entitled to the sacrament, which means those who believe and confess (by word and by act) that they are true disciples of Jesus and truly believe all that Jesus says and gives in the sacrament, the worthy, 1 Cor. 11:28, 29. In the phrase “for my own remembrance” the strong possessive pronoun is used in an objective sense (R. 685). The purpose (εἰς) of the remembering is to recall Jesus, but not only in a general way: he is to be recalled by all that this sacrament includes for every communicant.

Luke 22:20

20 Matthew and Mark report the consecration of the cup exactly as they do the consecration of the bread. Luke, like Paul, summarizes with “likewise.” He also uses the article: “the cup.” Whether a different cup was used for each of the four or five drinkings during the Passover, or whether only one cup was refilled as it was needed, is uncertain and of no moment. The point is that Jesus instituted the sacrament with a common cup that was used for all the disciples. Any change in what Jesus did, which has back of it the idea that he would not do the same thing today for sanitary or for esthetic reasons, casts a reflection on Jesus which is too grave to be allowed when he is giving us his sacrificial blood to drink. “Cup” may mean the empty vessel, the filled vessel, or only the contents of the vessel; in each case the context decides which sense is to be preferred. The contents are here referred to, and τοῦτο refers to the consecrated contents alone.

Much has been made of the phrase μετὰτὸδειπνῆσαι, “after the dining.” The sacrament has even been divided into two distinct acts. The body was given first, then there followed further Passover eating, finally, at the end, the blood was given. The phrase intends simply to state that this sacramental cup has nothing to do with the cup and the drinking of the Passover ceremonial. This was an entirely different cup, one that was passed after the Passover dining had been concluded. A similar statement did not need to be made regarding the bread, for this was never passed around during the Passover in a ceremonial way.

The cup contained wine that was mixed with water. No comment was needed on this subject until the advocates of prohibition sought to eliminate wine from the sacrament and from its original institution. Matthew’s specific expression “this fruit of the vine,” the one that was regularly used in the Jewish Passover, shuts out anything but actual wine and blocks all attempts to introduce grape juice, raisin tea, or diluted grape syrup. The matter is of utmost importance and is beyond our powers to alter. To alter a testament is to invalidate the document. Hence the use of any other liquid than actual wine renders the sacrament invalid so that it ceases to be the sacrament; and any declaration that it is the sacrament nonetheless is unconvincing.

Moreover, wine means grape wine and not wine that is made from berries or anything else; it must be “this fruit of the vine.” On all these questions, in so grave a matter as that of Christ’s body and blood and the most intimate communion of the whole adult membership of the church with Christ, anything and everything that would cause even a doubt as to the genuineness of the sacrament must be kept out. Christ’s testament stands as he made it; when men alter it today, neither they nor anybody else is able to assure us that it is still the original testament.

The sense is the same when Matthew and Mark write: “This is my blood, that of the new covenant, etc., and Luke: “This cup (contents) is the new covenant in my blood,” etc. What has been said regarding the body applies equally to the blood. But they are given separately, first one, then the other, for the blood flows out and separates from the body in the sacrifice, the blood is shed. Note the article in the two predicates: “the blood of mine,” and “the new covenant,” which makes these predicates identical and interchangeable with the subjects, R. 768, a point that is not to be overlooked.

Monographs have been written on the term διαθήκη in connection with the Hebrew berith. We note that the translators of our versions waver, the A. V. has “testament” in our passage, the R. V. “covenant” with “testament” in the margin. Compare the full treatment in C.-K. 1062. We offer the sum of the matter.

The Old Testament dealt with the promises God had given to his chosen people. God placed himself in “covenant” relation to Israel. The heart of this revelation, like the promises and the gifts of God to Israel, is wholly one-sided. It is always God’s covenant, not Israel’s; and it is never a mutual agreement. This covenant, indeed, obligates Israel, and Israel assumes these obligations, but the covenant itself emanates entirely from God. The LXX translates berith, “covenant,” with διαθήκη, “testament,” since this term has the strongest one-sided connotation.

A will or testament emanates only from the testator. Christ brought the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises. The result of this was that God’s people now have the inheritance and are God’s heirs, joint-heirs of Christ, Rom. 8:17. It is thus that in the New Testament berith becomes διαθήκη, “will and testament” by which God bequeathes to us the blessings Christ has brought.

Both the old berith or covenant and the testament of Christ’s fulfillment were connected with blood. The former could be sealed with the blood of animal sacrifice: “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words,” Exod. 24:4–8. This blood typified and promised the blood of Christ by which we inherit, through Christ’s death, all that his blood has purchased and won for us. The old covenant could be written in animal blood because it consisted of promise; the new testament could be written only in the blood of the Son of God because it conveys the complete fulfillment of the promise, the actual purchase of our redemption.

The word “blood” is a reference not merely to “death” since a specific death, namely a sacrificial death, is here involved. No other type of death could establish the testament. Hence we have the crowning modification: “that in the act of being poured out for you.” The present participle has the same sense as the one used in v. 19. Jesus means that this pouring out of his sacrificial blood has now begun. And he has, indeed, truly entered upon his sacrifice. So body and blood appear separately in the sacrament, yet they appear together, side by side.

There is no sacrificial body without sacrificial blood and vice versa. The Scriptures never speak of the glorified body or the glorified blood. The miracle of the sacrament is not that Christ makes us partakers of his glorified body and blood but of the body given and of the blood shed for us on the cross. The sacrament draws on Calvary and not on heaven. We have it as it was instituted the night in which Jesus was betrayed and not on Easter Day.

Luke 22:21

21 Nevertheless, lo, the hand of him betraying me with me on the table! Because the Son of man goes according to what has been determined. Nevertheless, woe to that man through whom he is being betrayed! And they began to search with themselves which then of them was he about to perpetrate this thing.

Matt. 26:21–25; Mark 14:18–21; John 13:18–30 make it certain that Jesus exposed the traitor before he instituted the Holy Supper, and John states that Judas left at once. Luke speaks of the traitor after the Supper and uses statements that are taken from the account of his exposure as this is found in the other evangelists. But that is all he does, he does not narrate the exposure. Another point to be observed is that Luke cannot mean that v. 21 was spoken immediately after the institution of the Supper. The opinion cannot, therefore, be held that Judas, too, received the Supper; nor the other opinion that Luke intends to correct Matthew and Mark as to the time of the exposure of Judas, or that Luke did not know when the exposure took place. We have seen that Luke disregards the connection of time in a number of narratives and arranges his material according to the contents of the sections involved.

We have seen this in v. 15, 16 where he refers to the opening of the Passover which is at once followed by v. 17, 18, its close, and there is nothing to indicate the great interval between the events. We now have the same thing with regard to these excerpts from the exposure of Judas. We shall see the same thing in v. 24, etc., which also precedes the Supper.

Some would begin a paragraph with v. 21 because they think that the exposure of the traitor brought on the strife on the part of the rest about who of them was the greatest. Such a connection is, however, not at all obvious. Luke adds the words about the traitor to those of the Supper because they show how Jesus will be brought to his sacrificial death. Jesus’ body will be given, his blood shed in death. When Jesus said this, as his exposure of the traitor had already shown, he knew that it would be accomplished through the foul deed of Judas.

Πλήν always contrasts (R. 1187); it does so here. Since Luke has told us only about the bargain made by Judas (v. 3–6) and has now written the words of Jesus about his body and his blood being given and shed he conveys to us the full knowledge with which Jesus spoke as he did. When he reclined for the Passover Jesus knew that the traitor’s hand was on the table with him. The words are an exclamation (we supply no “is”). The present participle describes Judas as being now engaged in the betrayal, which was true ever since the deal he made in v. 3–6.

Jesus characterizes Judas as a second Ahitophel, the man who turned traitor to David and ended by hanging himself. He is the full prototype of Judas; and it ought to be noted that this is all we have in the Old Testament regarding Judas—we lack even a single prophecy. 2 Sam. 16:15–17, 23; Ps. 41:9 (John 13:18); Ps. 55:12–14. This was the Passover of Jesus, the Twelve were here at his invitation, not he at theirs. Jesus shows how despicable, how utterly base the action of Judas was in which he was now engaged. The word that was spoken before the whole company had to strike the conscience of Judas with fearful force. He who could resist impacts such as this one was beyond hope.

Luke 22:22

22 Μέν and the following πλήν contrast, but the former is not “truly” (A. V.) and can hardly be rendered into English. Why is it that the awful thing, that as Ahitophel sat at David’s table while he was betraying the hand that fed him, should now happen to David’s antitype Jesus? “Because the Son of man goes according to what has been determined.” Acts 2:23. This thing did not happen merely by chance; nor was Jesus the prey of Judas who was helpless in the hands of the traitor. He who is man and yet more than man (see 5:24) goes (to his death) according to God’s own determination. The idea is not that God determined the betrayal by Judas—that was the traitor’s own act; God determined that his Son should not deliver himself from that betrayal (Matt. 26:54) because God desired our salvation through the sacrifice of his Son.

“Nevertheless,” although Jesus was to die thus, “woe to that man through whom he is being betrayed!” Luke does not add that it were better if he had never been born, Matt. 26:24. Judas is fully responsible for what he is doing. He is willingly letting Satan rule his heart (v. 3). Not only this, by all his efforts to reach the heart of Judas Jesus is trying to save him from his terrible deed. His resistance to these efforts raises his guilt to the highest degree. Jesus could have been delivered into the hands of the Sanhedrin without the intervention of Judas. Why must he, one of the sacred Twelve, make himself the devil’s tool? Διά expresses the medium or tool, not the agent, who was Satan. The “woe” is full of pain and deepest grief but points to Judas’ guilt.

Luke 22:23

23 All that Luke adds is the disturbance that occurred among the eleven who could not believe their ears, each being afraid of himself and so searching which one of them “then” (since Jesus spoke so plainly and positively) was about to commit this thing; πράσσειν is used in an evil sense, “to perpetrate,” and the optative is due to the indirect discourse.

Luke 22:24

24 Moreover, there occurred also a strife among them as to which of them was accounted to be greater.

Luke alone has preserved this incident. The same question had arisen before, in 9:46, etc., compare Matt. 18:1–5; Mark 9:34–37. There is some dispute as to where to place this incident in the history of the evening, and as to what caused this question regarding rank to be raised. Knowing that Luke so often disregards the sequence of time, we shall not follow those who think that because Luke places this incident after the account of the Lord’s Supper it must have occurred after the Supper.

The difficulty is to find anything that resembles a reasonable place for such a strife at the end of the stay in the upper room. But we do find a place for it at the beginning. It occurred when Jesus arrived in the upper room. Someone had to volunteer to wash the feet of the company before the Passover meal began. Custom required that service for all who entered a house, especially to dine, and certainly to dine as this company now proposed to dine; compare 7:44. There was, however, no servant for the task and no house lord to perform it in place of the servant.

These persons were themselves engaged in celebrating the Passover elsewhere in other groups. Who, then, of the disciples was ready to volunteer? Water, a basin, and towels were there in readiness, having been provided by the owner of the house (John 13:4, 5). No one volunteered. It was then that the dispute arose. Each disciple thought himself too good, too great, to stoop beneath all the rest.

Jesus stepped in and washed their feet and also his own and shamed them all, John 13:4.

This is better than to assume that the strife arose because of the placing of the disciples at table, because John and not Peter reclined next to Jesus, because John had been invited to this place by Jesus and was thus honored above the rest, and because all of them, like the Pharisees, sought the foremost places. They had dined together so often before this time that we may well assume that they had their fixed order of places and adhered to it now, that, as always, John was next to Jesus. Then, too, after they had reclined, the Passover itself began and left no room for this strife. They started it before they reclined, before their feet were washed. The article before the indirect question is like that found in v. 4 and 23 (R. 739). The idea in δοκεῖ is that of general estimate, not “which one appears to be greater,” but “which one ranks as being greater,” i. e., greater than the rest. The Greek uses the comparative whereas we should prefer the superlative.

Luke 22:25

25 But he said to them: The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those exercising authority over them are called benefactors. But you not so! On the contrary, the greater among you let him be as the younger; and the one leading as the one ministering. For who is greater, the one reclining or the one ministering? Is it not the one reclining? But I myself in your midst am as the one ministering!

Jesus practically repeats what he had said on this point a few days previously (Matt. 20:25–28). He simply had to repeat it when he saw how slow the disciples were to learn. Yet the repetition is now re-enforced in a peculiar and a most effective way. The kings of the pagan nations find their greatness in lording it over their people, acting as supreme lords with all the people being beneath them. And when they exercise their authority over them as kings they also assume great titles such as εὐεργέτης or σωτήρ in proof of their boasted greatness. “They are called” does not mean that their people voluntarily and out of gratitude add such titles to the names of their kings, but that these kings are called thus because they want to appear to be and to be regarded as being so great.

Luke 22:26

26 That is the pagan way. Jesus puts a quietus on it as far as his disciples are concerned: “But you not so!” We insert no verb; why weaken the prohibition? Their principle of greatness is the absolute reverse: “on the contrary,” ἀλλά after a negative. “The greater let him be as the younger,” who, because of his youth, feels that he must stand back. Jesus means that any disciple who is truly spiritually great will always show his greatness, not by putting himself above others in lordly fashion, but by putting himself below others like an undistinguished young man. This is certainly not to be done in a hypocritical fashion but in all sincerity and humility.

Jesus repeats this in other words and makes the matter clearer: “the one leading (let him be) as the one ministering.” The one who is really chief in the sense that the others gladly follow him and regard him as their leader is in all his leading to act as one who is rendering free, voluntary, glad service and ministration to others. He is to lead as a diakonos, one who offers and performs a voluntary task; he will then be chief indeed. Jesus used the same word in Matt. 20:26, but in v. 27 he advanced even to doulos or slave. Alas, men have often followed the pagan way of greatness in the church! They thus lost the very thing they sought. For the reverse of these statements of Jesus is also true.

Luke 22:27

27 Jesus takes an illustration from the very situation that obtained at the Passover when every disciple feared that he might lower himself if he acted as a servant for the others in washing their feet and cleansing their sandals. This is frequently the force of γάρ, “for example.” Certainly, the person who is reclining at table is regarded as being greater than the one who waits upon him, attends to his feet, waits at table, etc. That is the worldly estimate regarding the two. But see: “I myself among you am he that is serving,” I, whom you rightly call your divine Lord and Master, I have washed your feet as your humblest servant, John 13:14, 15. In this there lay the very greatness of Jesus. Nor was this such a great humiliation for Jesus, who would in a few hours stoop beneath the shame of the cross and the most ignominious death, Phil. 2:8.

If it is objected that all this that is recorded in Luke could not be understood because he did not narrate the foot washing, it should be remembered that Luke often indicates that he has a knowledge of things which he himself does not record. Moreover, after noting 12:37 any observant reader would fully understand these comparisons of Jesus.

Luke 22:28

28 But you are they that have remained through with me in my temptations. And I on my part am assigning to you, even as my Father did assign to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and may sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Here greatness in humiliation and self-abasement; there greatness in exaltation and glory. Jesus acknowledges the faithfulness of his disciples. We already know the exception he made (v. 21–25; John 13:10, 11). They have continued on through (διά in the verb) with Jesus in all his temptations, i. e., the tests that were brought upon him by opposition and hatred of all kinds. “You,” emphatic, in contrast with others who turned away, John 6:66–69.

Luke 22:29

29 The emphatic ἐγώ, “I on my part,” places Jesus over against the emphatic “you” occurring in v. 28: You held out, and I now appoint. The verb is used with reference to testamentary appointment, but not so here where it is used with the disciples as well as with Jesus as the object; “appoint” is enough. Jesus is entering his passion but here, on its very threshold, performs an act of divine majesty which is exactly like the one the Father had performed for him when he appointed Jesus the everlasting King (1:32, 33). “A kingdom” is to be construed with both of the preceding verbs. The word always means “royal rule” and then secondarily also the domain in which it is exercised. The stress is sometimes on the former as is the case here; but in v. 30 “in my kingdom” includes also the domain.

Luke 22:30

30 What this appointment includes, namely the highest exaltation, is added by the subfinal, appositional ἵνα clause. The disciples shall dine at Jesus’ royal table (v. 16 and 18); note all the passages which describe heaven as a magnificent feast. As kings who have been appointed such by him they shall dine together with the King. We need not hesitate a moment about making the future καθίσεσθε (some texts have the subjunctive) depend on ἵνα as continuing this appositional clause. We need not begin a separate sentence. Dining as kings with the King, the apostles shall then also rule with him as kings as has already been promised in Matt. 19:28.

Jesus does not say on “twelve” thrones because of Judas—significant omission; but he does say “the twelve tribes of Israel” because the place of Judas is to be filled by another—significant retention. But have ten tribes not been lost and been absorbed among the Gentiles after having been carried away by the Assyrians? The only Jews we now know are the descendants of Judah and of Benjamin. All is plain when we do not restrict the apostolic judging to the Jews. They shall judge the present Jews and the lost ten tribes who were absorbed among the Gentiles by judging all the Gentiles. And this supreme royal judging shall be accomplished by their inspired Word.

The apostles are now in heavenly blessedness (Matt. 8:11) with Abraham, etc.; and the Word of Christ himself will judge all men at the last day, John 12:48b. All judging will be ended after the judgment at the last day.

Luke 22:31

31 The Western class of manuscripts, which the A. V. follows, make a break here and insert: “Now the Lord said.” We should no longer question the fact that Jesus warned Peter twice, once in the upper room as John 13:36–38 fully establishes, and again on the way out to Gethsemane as Matt. 26:30–36 and Mark 14:26–32 also fully establish. Luke records a part of the warning that was given in the upper room. By comparing Luke with John we see that Peter’s assurance and Jesus’ word about the cock belong together, but that John does not indicate how his words fit in with those of Luke; he expects us to know what Luke has written.

Simon, Simon, lo, Satan did ask to have you to sift as the wheat, but I myself begged concerning thee lest thy faith eclipse. And thou, once having turned, make thy brethren firm.

The doubling of the address expresses deep solicitude; it is like the doubling in “Martha, Martha,” “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” and in David’s heartbroken cry: “O Absalom, my son, my son!” The emotion differs in each case but is deep in all of them. Whereas “Simon” was the name that was commonly used to designate him, in the present instance it is the proper term, not “Peter, Peter!” which would apply to the rocklike nature of the apostle, which was so lacking in him this night. Jesus addresses only Simon although what he says applies to ὑμᾶς, “you,” to all the eleven. We see why Jesus does this. In the first place, the others are present and hear that they are all involved; in the second place, περὶσοῦ, “concerning thee,” follows and shows that Simon was involved in a special way—we know that this was due to his denial of Jesus, regarding which Jesus also warns him in v. 34 before them all.

“Satan did ask to have you,” etc., draws back the curtain and in a startling way reveals who was back of the ordeal through which the eleven would pass this night. The verb means ausbitten but in the sinister sense of ausgeliefert verlangen and intends to allude to Job 1, Satan’s request to try out Job. Satan is not free to assail us at will and with what power he pleases. Satan may try us out only by God’s permission and to the extent of that permission—a mighty comfort for us all. God is faithful in all our temptations and ever makes a way of escape, 1 Cor. 10:13. The exposure which Jesus makes of Satan’s intent is to aid Simon and the eleven as all the warnings of Jesus do. Although they will be struck down by Satan’s assault, their escape and recovery are already planned, and Jesus is taking the first steps in that plan.

The infinitive with τοῦ states the object of Satan’s asking: “to sift (you) as the wheat.” Satan did not, of course, use this figure; his request was made with the thought that the disciples would not be wheat but only strawy stuff that would remain in the sieve to be burned. This figure belongs to Jesus who uses it to illustrate what the coming ordeal is to be for the disciples. Wheat must be sifted, wheat cannot escape sifting. It must be cleaned because of its value.

Yet this simple simile of Jesus should not be made an allegory with a number of points of comparison. There is really only one tertium comparationis or point of comparison, namely the violent and continuous shaking of the sieve to cause all the sound, solid wheat to fall through on the pile of wheat below while all the shaking leaves the strawy and chaffy stuff in the sieve. So the disciples were with God’s own permission to be put through the severest trials to see whether they, indeed, had faith or not. When Jesus returned to this subject on the way out to Gethsemane, he used another figure, that of smiting the shepherd and scattering the sheep, which pictures the same painful experience, Matt. 26:31.

Luke 22:32

32 It was Simon, impetuous and headstrong Simon, who would get into the greatest danger by his own fault. That is why Jesus addresses him and lets the others only hear. And that is why Jesus begged in supplication for him personally lest his faith totally eclipse (active aorist subjunctive), utterly fail and go out. If the question is asked as to why Jesus did not pray equally for the rest, we see in John 17 that he did pray for them, but the story of Peter’s denial shows that he was far worse than the others. Why did Peter need the warning given in v. 34, he and not the rest? For the same reason that he needed the personal and individual intercession which the rest did not need equally with him.

The aorist “I did beg” implies that Jesus’ supplication was not in vain. It was God’s will that Simon, too, be sifted like the rest, but it was not his will that Simon should disobey Jesus’ warning. It was this sin of Simon’s which caused the great Advocate to intercede for him.

But we should not get the idea that Jesus’ prayer was heard by God in an absolute or arbitrary way. God and Jesus used the means that proved effective in Simon’s case. The warning about the cock’s crowing after the threefold denial was such a means. A point is usually brought out by reference to Judas. Would he not have repented as Simon did if Jesus had interceded for him in the same way? The answer is that Jesus applied even stronger means, mightier warnings to the traitor, applied them all in vain.

And while he was applying these means he certainly also prayed for Judas, and yet Judas went to perdition. The prayers and intercessions of Jesus are not absolute. Man’s wicked will is able to damn him nonetheless. The grace, the means, even the greatest, and the intercessions can all be nullified in their effect. Christ’s omniscience knows the outcome in advance.

It is this foreknowledge which already now tells Peter that his faith will not perish utterly. This telling is a part of the means for saving him. So also is Jesus’ order to him, that, after he has once turned, he should make his brethren firm, namely when they, too, passed through the sifting attacks of Satan. Why did Jesus not give such a command to the other disciples? The answer is not that of the Romanists: because Peter was to be the first pope; and not that of many others: because he was the foremost of the apostles and their leader. The answer is almost the opposite.

Because he fell so deeply, fell as none of the rest fell, therefore, when he recovered, he was the one who could help the others by means of his own sad experience, could make the wavering faith of the others firm again so that it would not give way as his own faith had given way almost completely. His brethren are the other ten. The fact that Simon would aid his brethren in the wider sense in a similar way throughout his ministry is only a deduction. Jesus deals only with the ordeal of the apostles. We see that he is thus preparing the means for their recovery, in the case of each one the means which he needs and that will be most effective, special means for Simon’s special case and his recovery as an effective means to help them all to recover. Even his present command to Peter, which is based on his foreknowledge, is to help them all.

The participle ἐπιστρέψας is intransitive and speaks of Simon’s having turned back from his fall in repentance. This is not conversion in the absolute sense as though every spark of Simon’s faith had gone out, but in the relative sense as when a disciple turns back from a course that has almost destroyed his faith. “Once” on having turned, Jesus says, because he is not specifying when the turn will take place. We cannot agree that this participle is transitive: “once having turned thy brethren, make them firm.” So little does the adverb “once” support this sense that it actually forbids it since “once” intends to leave unsaid just when Simon will turn and recover, and that this turning of his alone will enable him to do anything for his fellow apostles. We catch a glimpse of Simon’s aid to them in 24:34 where the others are jubilant in reporting that Jesus had appeared to Simon.

Luke 22:33

33 But he said to him, Lord, together with thee I am ready to go into prison and into death! But he said, I tell thee, Peter, a cock will not crow today till thrice thou didst deny to know me!

It is thus that Simon answers the warning of his Lord. How can Satan harm Simon when he is so strong, so valiant? Why, if it should come to such a test, even prison and even death have no terrors for him. He does not say: “By thy help,” or “By God’s help.” Simon’s reaction to Jesus’ warning and intercession for him is that Jesus can count on him and need never worry about a man who is as brave as he is. Poor, proud Simon!

Luke 22:34

34 Over against Peter’s contradicting words Jesus places his authoritative “I tell thee!” Jesus overrides Peter’s self-confidence and trust in his own powers. Straws are they in the hurricane that is about to descend. Why did Jesus now change from “Simon” to “Peter”? It is too weak an answer to say, “In order to remind him that he was not acting and speaking like Peter, the Rock.” He was trying to do that very thing, and Jesus practically says to him: “So thou art already Peter—thou, who this very night, before the cock crows, wilt have already denied me no less than three times!” Peter will give his own words the lie. He will be so frightened at prison and death that he will openly deny once, twice, three times, in fact, that he even knows Jesus. The verb means “to say no” and thus “to deny,” and the aorist expresses the fact.

This crowing of a cock is not some casual crowing of an individual cock. Two crowings were distinguished, one that occurred near midnight, the other just before dawn. They helped to divide the night into the midnight or silent period, the period before dawn, and the period after dawn. Pliny calls the fourth watch secundum gallicinium. Mark 14:30, in the second warning to Peter, refers to both crowings: “before the cock crows twice,” i.e., before the day dawns. Luke and John refer only to the crowing before dawn. The phrase is not a mere expression of time but refers to other actual crowings of the cocks that night.

The word is also spoken with a special purpose. It does more than merely to foretell how soon Peter will fall, it already prepares the help to raise Peter from his fall. Peter will actually hear the crowing when it begins; that will bring Jesus’ word to his mind; and this together with a look from Jesus’ eyes (v. 61) will cause the tears of repentance to flow. The effort to discredit the evangelists by advancing the contention that no chickens were kept in a city like Jerusalem, and that no cocks crowed within range of Peter’s ears, has long ago been met by ample evidence to the contrary.

Luke 22:35

35 And he said to them, When I sent you without purse and wallet and sandals, you certainly did not lack anything, did you? And they said, Nothing. And he said to them: But now he having a purse, let him take it up, likewise a wallet. And he not having a short sword let him sell his robe and buy one. For I say to you that this that has been written must be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned together with lawless ones. For also this concerning me has an end. But they said, Lord, lo, two short swords here! And he said to them, It is enough!

Luke alone has this section. It connects most naturally with what precedes. Jesus puts a question, and the interrogative particle μή confidently expects the negative answer which the apostles also give. No; they never lacked a thing when Jesus sent them out on a missionary tour through all Galilee. At that time he told them to go entirely empty-handed, to take not even a purse, for they were to carry no money whatever, not even a wallet, for they were to carry no eatables and no clothing that require a wallet, and not even a pair of extra sandals to replace those they would soon wear out by constant travelling. Always and always they found friends who provided them with what they needed on hearing their message and the name of Jesus.

They learned the great lesson of absolute trust in their Sender. He did provide for them through the name and the fame with which he had filled all Galilee. Never once had he failed them. See 9:3 on πήρα. It was not a beggar’s bag, for Jesus and his apostles never went as beggars (contra Deissmann).

Luke 22:36

36 But now, when Jesus sends out his apostles into all the world after his resurrection, the situation will be completely changed. Jesus, their Sender, will, indeed, still take care of them, but not in the former way. They will have use for a purse (money) and a wallet (to carry food, clothes, etc.). Friends will, indeed, provide for them, but they will not at once and in every place find friends, and so they will need money, etc., as they go along. Let them take a purse and a travelling bag.

They will need even protection and at times so badly that a sword will be worth more to them than their outer robe, the latter being a great necessity, especially as a covering at night when they were camping cut in the open. So Jesus tells the apostles to buy a Roman short sword, if necessary, even at the price of their outer robe. It is better to freeze at night than to be killed. After “he not having” we supply μάχαιραν as the object; not, as some do, “purse and wallet” from the preceding sentence. The latter would lead to the idea that the apostles were to demand food and lodging at the point of the sword when it was otherwise not forthcoming.

This matter of having a sword even at the price of a cloak becomes plain when we look at the map and at 2 Cor. 11:26, 27. Paul, for instance, travelled extensively, the other apostles did likewise. We find Peter in Rome, and tradition reports to what far countries some of the others went. On foot, over mountain roads and passes, through uninhabited, desert regions their way would take them. Paul experienced hunger, thirst, fasting, nakedness (not enough cover), freezing. And worse than this: robbers, brigands, some of his own countrymen (Jews), some heathen. Yes, a sword would be needed for protection.

This injunction means that the apostles are to use ordinary prudence in their labors. The language is not figurative. Purse, wallet, sword are not to be allegorized into something spiritual as the ancient fathers thought they must be. The injunctions are concrete and simply use specific examples to indicate a complete course of conduct. Jesus will, indeed, be with his apostles, but he will be with them amid many hardships and dangers, amid the care and the prudence which he himself bids them exercise.

Luke 22:37

37 The sentence introduced by γάρ is not a statement of proof; γάρ offers an explanation as it does in hundreds of cases. With authority Jesus explains his previous directions about using ordinary prudence in their apostolic travels (for purse, etc., refer to travel). Due to God’s redemptive plan, this written prophecy must of necessity be accomplished in Jesus: “and he was reckoned together with lawless ones,” Isa. 53:12. Καί is not due merely to the exactness of the quotation but implies that in addition to other inflictions this, too, will be added, that in his death he will be reckoned as belonging in the same class with lawbreakers, will be crucified between two criminals as if he were also a criminal. Who reckons Jesus thus is not stated, need not be, since Jesus has told plainly enough into whose hands he would be delivered. The addition of τό merely makes a substantive of the quotation.

This explanation of Jesus’ is far stronger than the idea that the apostles cannot expect to fare better than their Lord did. Because he was crucified between criminals Jesus will be execrable to all Jews and an object of utter scorn to the Gentiles when they are told that such a person is their Savior. When the apostles come as the messengers of One who hung between criminals they will be greeted and treated accordingly. So it will be well to take a purse, etc.

“For also this concerning me has an end” adds a further explanation. The reckoning of Jesus among lawbreakers is one of the last things of those which concern him in his earthly life; but a little while and “what concerns him” will be at an end. This means that nothing further will happen in his life to alter the impression that is left by his being reckoned among transgressors. After he has once been reckoned so by the world, the world will find nothing in him that would lead it to reckon him as belonging in another class of men.

It is strange to note how commentators labor with these few words by having τὸπερὶἐμοῦ mean “the being about me”; or “that written about me” (forgetting that this includes everything until the final judgment); or “with me there is an end” (when the opposite was the case); or “my relation to you apostles,” or “my official career.”

Luke 22:38

38 The apostles answer by pointing to the two swords they had with them. So this word about the sword was what impressed them chiefly. It was indeed pitiful. They failed to grasp even the fact that Jesus spoke about their future needs and travels and thought only of the present. But this literalism on the part of the apostles should not cause us to go to the opposite extreme and to say that Jesus did not mean “sword” at all. He, indeed, meant sword and not something allegorical.

But there now comes the puzzle regarding these two swords in the upper room. How came they there? We are told that they were not swords at all but butcher knives, and they are specified—one for cutting the lamb’s throat, the other for carving the roasted lamb at table. And one asks involuntarily why one good knife was not enough for both operations. But “sword” in v. 36 and “swords” in this verse are the same word and cannot be given two meanings as has been proposed. The view that the apostles carried swords as they followed Jesus, or even that on this night of the Passover celebration any two of them had come armed with swords, is untenable.

The fact of Peter’s having a sword in v. 49 cannot be explained in this way. We may accept the view that many Jewish men carried swords, in particular the Galileans; but this is of little help. We can think of only one explanation: “Lo, two swords here!” means that they hung right there in the upper room and belonged to the owner of the house. Peter took one of them on leaving. We need not assume that another apostle took the second—Peter was the bold and brave man. Nor need we think that Peter did not ask for permission to take the sword.

When the company left the house, those who were gathered there with the owner of the house and his family for their Passover must have seen Jesus and his disciples and have spoken to them.

The reply of Jesus: “It is enough!” intends simply to end the matter, for it was rather hopeless for Jesus to say any more after he was pointed to the two swords that were hanging on the wall. Why assume that he spoke in irony when sad resignation is enough? Nor does Jesus mean that these two swords will suffice for tonight; nor ambiguously that they will do, or that this ends the matter. The view that by taking only two swords they could not be charged with armed resistance is untenable; Peter’s one sword would have brought on calamity if it had not been for the prompt repudiation and interference on the part of Jesus. And the view that two swords were enough to prevent rowdies from attacking Jesus on the way out from the city is also unconvincing. The whole city was busy and quiet, which enabled Jesus and his little company to come into the city and now to leave it without even attracting special attention.

Luke 22:39

39 And having gone out, he went according to his custom to the Mount of Olives; moreover, his disciples followed him.

Luke uses only general terms when he mentions the locality to which Jesus went on leaving the house that had the upper room; but he adds the important phrase “according to his custom,” which John 18:2 expands by explaining that Judas knew the place and came there to seek Jesus. We may take it that Jesus returned to Bethany only on the night of Palm Sunday (Matt. 21:17), on the following nights he remained in Gethsemane and perhaps slept in the open in this retired and sheltered place. It goes without saying that Jesus used this grove with the friendly permission of its owner just as he had the use of the upper room in the city for the Passover and the ass for his triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. Jesus knew that Judas would seek him here, therefore he again went to this place. By that choice he was already delivering himself into the hands of his enemies. How easily he could have frustrated the traitor’s plans by going to some entirely strange place this night!

Luke 22:40

40 And having come to the place, he said to them, Be praying not to enter into temptation!

“To the place” refers to the one where Jesus usually stayed, which Matthew and Mark call Gethsemane. And all that Luke reports is this injunction to all the disciples to continue praying, to ask God not to let them enter into temptation. This word is used here in its full sense as it is in the Lord’s Prayer. The disciples must go through the ordeal of this night, and their prayer was to be, not that they might escape that, but that it might not become a temptation to them to fall from their faith in Jesus as Peter so nearly did. Ordeals become temptations when we listen to the devilish suggestion that God has abandoned us, and that it is useless to cling to Jesus as our Lord.

Luke 22:41

41 And he tore himself away from them about a stone’s throw and, having knelt down, continued praying, saying, Father, if thou art willing, take this cup away from me; nevertheless, let not my will but thine go on being done.

Luke gives only a summary account in these verses. The verb is passive but middle in sense: “he tore himself away from them,” B.-P. 154. We see what it cost him to leave the disciples because of the great battle that his soul was now fighting. But he must fight it alone, they could not help him. Luke speaks only of the disciples and says nothing about the three whom Jesus kept near him. His withdrawal for a distance that one can throw a stone (accusative of extent) refers to the disciples whom he had left near the entrance whereas the μικρόν used by Matthew and by Mark refers to the few paces he had withdrawn from Peter, James, and John.

This is sometimes overlooked. Yet it explains how these three saw and heard all that the synoptists report about the agony of Jesus. Heb. 5:7 adds the detail that Jesus prayed, not merely aloud, but with “strong crying (κραυγῆςἰσχυρᾶς) and tears.” Luke states that Jesus knelt while praying, the others that he fell on his face. Both are true, he knelt and then sank prostrate; he may also have raised his body now and again. Luke has the imperfect “he continued praying” without distinguishing the three separate acts of prayer.

Luke 22:42

42 On Golgotha “my God, my God,” was wrung from Jesus’ lips, here he still says, “Father.” It is the Voice of the Son in his intimate relation to this Father. Yet the pain and the distress of this cry “Father” are those of the Son in his humiliation. From the first word onward the Son’s praying was the most perfect submission to his Father’s will. Even a mere hint that he could not or in some way would not submit is absent. It is the Son in his humanity who prays thus; his Passion was suffered by way of his human nature. The word “cup,” which is used figuratively, does not refer merely to its contents but to its bitter, burning, deadly contents. The verb means “bear it by me” so that I will not need to drink it.

“If thou wilt” includes “if it is possible” as is recorded by Matthew and thus means: “if it is possible for thee to will” that I be spared drinking this cup. It would, however, be unwarranted to think of abstract possibility in this connection, of the possibility of leaving the world unredeemed. No; that possibility is shut out; only the other is voiced, that of accomplishing redemption without Jesus’ enduring the full penalty for the world’s sin. And even this thought is wrung from the human lips of Jesus only now when the last decisive step is to be taken that brings the horror of all the world’s guilt and curse upon him.

The agony of Gethsemane will always remain full of mystery for us because of the mystery of the union of Christ’s two natures. For one thing, we have no conception of what sin, curse, wrath, death meant for the holy human nature of Jesus. Since he was sinless he should not die; and yet, because he was sinless and holy he willed to die for our sin. The death of Jesus was far different from that of the courageous martyrs. They died after Jesus’ death had removed their sin and guilt; the sting of their death was removed through Christ’s death. But Jesus died, being made sin for us, being made a curse for us, the sting of death penetrated him with all its damnable power.

The world’s sin had, indeed, been assumed by Jesus during his whole life, but here in Gethsemane the supreme moment of that assumption had come. With the coming of Judas and his band Jesus actually stepped into the death that was to atone for the world’s sin. All that is horrible, unspeakable, hellish, and damnable in our guilt rose up to meet him, and his whole nature shrank from the contact.

Πλήν is adversative: “nevertheless,” whatever the Father determines, this stands fast for Jesus: “let not my will but thine be going on to be done,” the imperative being durative to express a course of action and not merely one single act. Let it all come, not as Jesus may will, but as the Father wills. That is absolute submission, for the words mean that Jesus puts away any will of his own and makes the Father’s will his own instead. That was the supreme act of Jesus’ will. Never for an instant would Jesus will anything but the Father’s will.

Luke 22:43

43 Luke alone reports the incidents of the angel and the bloody sweat. The textual question involved may be dismissed very briefly. Verses 43, 44 were cancelled from the text, not for textual, but for dogmatical reasons, as being derogatory to the deity of Christ, and because they were used by the Arians when they denied his deity. Present objections rest on the claim that these verses contain only legendary elaborations and not historical facts.

Moreover, there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him. And being in agony, he went on praying more intensely. Moreover, his sweat became as clots of blood going down on the ground.

The questions are raised as to whether the angel appeared only to Jesus, whether his appearance was visible to him, and, if it was, whether the disciples saw the angel or only concluded that an angel had visited Jesus when he finally returned to them calmly and courageously. “There appeared to him” is one of the regular expressions that is used to indicate the visible appearance of angels, glorified beings, and of heavenly visions (1:11; Acts 7:35). To be sure, this angel’s appearance was granted for the sake of Jesus, whom he was to strengthen; but since the three disciples were chosen as special witnesses of the agony they undoubtedly were to witness also its supreme part and thus saw the angel come to Jesus.

Some of the ancients objected to the idea that the Son of God should need an angel to give him strength. They overlooked the fact that this strength was intended for the human nature of Jesus during this ordeal; also, that the strength came from the Father, and that the angel was only the Father’s medium. It was the Father’s answer to Jesus’ prayers, a visible, tangible, miraculous answer that came directly from heaven at the moment when it was most needed. Do not ask why the Son’s own deity did not strengthen his poor human nature; be satisfied that the Father gave the strength. Why argue about the persons when the facts as to what they did are plainly before us?

There is a tendency to make this strengthening spiritual and not physical. But this is unwarranted. Bengel is right, it was non per cohortationem sed per corroborationem, not stimulating the spirit of Jesus by exhortation but strengthening his exhausted body by means of new vitality. The body of Jesus was about to give way and expire in death under the terrific strain; the prayers reveal the mighty power of Jesus’ spirit. This angel, we may say, performed the same service as did those mentioned in Matt. 4:11. The angel’s coming for this purpose was the Father’s answer that he, indeed, willed that Jesus drink the cup, that he accepted the submission of Jesus’ own will in this regard, and that his strengthening would fully enable also Jesus’ body and human nature to do their hard part. This is the basis of Heb. 2:9, Jesus’ being made lower than the angels, namely by his agonizing human nature; but only in this respect, for the angel gave Jesus strength, not from angelic sources, but from the Father.

Luke 22:44

44 The aorist participle γενομένος is punctiliar: Jesus reached the point where he was “in agony.” But “agony” should not be extended to mean “death agony” (dass er mit dem Tode rang, Luther), for Hobart shows that even the medics used ἀγωνία only with reference to severe mental distress. The fact that the entire struggle carried the body of Jesus close to dissolution is apparent from the start. We here have the reverse. The new strength that was imparted by the angel brought the agony of the struggle to its highest pitch. The mind and the body that were sinking lower and lower beneath the strain rallied powerfully to face the full horror of the curse and the wrath that were impending. That is why Jesus went on to pray more intensively in this supreme moment (the adjective does not mean “more” or mehrfach).

The intensity of the struggle produced such physical reaction that the sweat of Jesus became bloody. Severe mental distress and strain drive out sweat from the body, a fact that is constantly observed. The fact that this may reach the point where the tiny blood vessels of the skin are ruptured and permit blood to mingle with the sweat is attested medically. Aristotle speaks of bloody sweat as does Theophrastus, and in 1805 Gruner compiled medical data on the subject (R., W. P., and Nebe, Leidensgeschichte).

“As clots,” θρόμβοι, means that the blood mingled with the sweat and thickened the globules so that they fell to the ground in little clots and did not merely stain the skin. “How did the witnesses see this?” it is asked. It is enough to say that they saw it when Jesus returned to them. Why did Mark not record this when he had Peter as his authority, who was one of the three? That is a question one might ask about a hundred things regarding each of the Gospel writers. We cannot state with definiteness just why each writer included this and not that.

Luke 22:45

45 And having risen from the prayer, on having come to the disciples (these minor actions are expressed by means of Greek participles), he found them fallen asleep from sorrow; and he said to them: Why are you slumbering? Having arisen, keep praying lest you enter into temptation!

The agony is ended. Jesus is no longer agitated by the prospect of taking the step into the depth of the sin and the curse that were awaiting him; he now proceeds to take that step. He takes it with absolute firmness, with a courage that is utterly beyond us, with the sureness of victory and triumph. So he comes to the disciples and finds them asleep. Luke speaks only of their final sleeping and condenses his account. It has been claimed that this sleeping was a psychological impossibility under the circumstances of that night. But it is well known that great and continued heaviness of soul brings on an inner dullness of mind and thus the physical reaction of sleep; the soul yields to its burden and no longer rallies against it as Jesus so strongly urged when he bade the disciples to watch and pray.

Luke 22:46

46 “Why are you slumbering?” is full of reproof. Luke indicates this much and records no more. The same is true with regard to the bidding that the disciples keep praying lest they enter into temptation as is explained in v. 40. In his own great ordeal Jesus is solicitous about these dull disciples lest the coming test become a fatal temptation for them. While he is bearing his own burden he helps them also to bear theirs. He received no support whatever from them; they needed all his support, and he did not stint in giving it to them.

Luke 22:47

47 He still speaking, lo, a multitude! And he, called Judas, one of the Twelve, was going before them.

The report about the arrest is also severely abbreviated. Jesus said more than the few words that are here recorded, and it was while he was saying these last things to them that a great host of men suddenly appeared. Luke exclaims: “Lo, a multitude!” The grove was most likely walled in with stone, stone being ready to hand almost anywhere. This army was noted through the entrance which was a little distance away. Luke says nothing about its composition save the intimation “with short swords and clubs” in v. 52. The former were the weapons of the Roman legionaries, the latter the weapons of the Levitical Temple police.

John adds the torches and the lanterns and gives further details about the detachment that was sent with Judas. The Levitical police were under their στρατηγός or “general.” It was made up of the Roman cohort, not the entire 600 that were stationed at Antonia but about 200 under their chiliarch or chief commander.

The Sanhedrin had sent this entire force. Their own men had failed them on a previous occasion (John 7:45, etc.), and so they now took no chances. Because of the danger (Jerusalem being full of pilgrims) the Sanhedrists seem to have had no trouble in persuading the chiliarch to accompany the short expedition and to take a force of legionaries that would be sufficiently able to cope with any eventualities that might arise on bringing Jesus to the city as a prisoner. Yet we nowhere have the least intimation that Pilate’s cooperation was sought. The intimations point the other way, see the author on John 18:1, etc.

All four evangelists make Judas the guide of this multitude, and the synoptists call him “one of the Twelve” in this connection. The fact that this statement intends to match v. 3 is obvious. Nor are we able to find a canon in literature which forbids a writer to express his horror more than once. If “out of the number of the Twelve” is tragic in v. 3 it is even more so in v. 47, for the traitor is now actually carrying out his act.

And he drew near to Jesus to kiss him. But Jesus said to him, Judas, with a kiss dost thou betray the Son of man?

Luke’s account is exceedingly brief and states only the main facts. About 200 Roman soldiers and certainly no less a number of Temple police and besides that a nondescript rabble that ran along to see the excitement block the entrance to Gethsemane. Jesus steps out to meet this throng, his disciples are ranged behind him. He is perfect master of the situation, and all that occurs does so only with his consent. Things certainly seem to be playing into the traitor’s hands. Here is Jesus, and he cannot escape.

Luke omits the prearrangement of the sign of the kiss and states only that Judas promptly carried out the scheme: “He drew near to kiss him.” There is no evidence for the statement that Luke does not say that Judas did kiss Jesus. He writes two aorists, and these imply that he both got near and did kiss Jesus.

Nor was this just one kiss. Matthew and Mark use the compound verb which means to shower with kisses, abkuessen. Judas prolonged the act as if to tell the captors: “See, this is the man you want!” Judas at the same time acts the black hypocrite as if his heart is breaking because of what is now to happen to Jesus. He still thinks that he is deceiving Jesus. Some add that he wanted to close the mouth of Jesus as long as possible, to disarm him, lest he even now use his strange power to frustrate his arrest.

Luke 22:48

48 Jesus does not hurl the traitor from him nor use his omnipotent power to blast him then and there. He submits to his traitorous kissing—it is his Father’s and his own will to accept all the indignities, shame, suffering, agonies which men will heap upon him even unto death. But Jesus is not silent. Not himself does he shield, not in his own interest does he speak; but for the last time he strikes a terrific blow at the traitor’s conscience. The synoptists agree that he spoke just one, brief, penetrating word. The conscience of Judas was seared—no repentance followed.

“With a kiss dost thou betray the Son of man?” Judas is asked to realize what he is doing in order to be terrified at his own act. The emphasis is on the first and the last Greek word: “with a kiss—dost thou betray?” The kiss, the great and universal sign of friendship and love, is used here for the basest and most damnable act, the betrayal of no less a one than “the Son of man,” he who is man and yet more than man (see 5:24). Judas performs his vicious act in the most vicious and atrocious way. John 18:4–9 brings out the truth that the kissing and the betrayal of Judas amounted to just nothing, for Jesus points himself out to his captors, prevents any molestation of the eleven, and delivers himself up. It was thus and not upon Judas’ kiss that the chiliarch and possibly also the Jewish commander ordered men to step forward to take Jesus a prisoner.

Luke 22:49

49 But those around him, on seeing what will be, said, Lord, shall we smite with a sword? And a certain one of them did smite the slave of the high priest and took off his ear, the right. But answering, Jesus said, Permit this far! And having touched the ear, he healed him.

What makes the eleven so brave that, when they see “what will be” (the substantivized future participle), they are ready to fight a whole mob with their one little sword? This certainly calls for some explanation, for even such a rash man as Peter would not expect to conquer several hundred armed men with one sword. John 18:4–9 makes the situation plain. The whole multitude had gone down, had tumbled over each other, at one question that was directed to them by Jesus who stood masterfully before them. Add the excitement of the moment and the secret conviction of the disciples that their Lord could not fall into the hands of his enemies, and we see that the disciples expected to sweep everything before them. The direct question with εἰ is usually considered Hebraistic and also elliptical, R. 1024; but εἰ may be a mere interrogative particle and nothing more, B.-D. 400 treats it under interrogative particles.

Luke 22:50

50 Before Jesus is able to answer a blow is already struck by Peter. It is rather remarkable that all the synoptists do not mention Peter’s name in this affair. It is suggested that even as late as the time when they wrote they desired to shield him because the Sanhedrin was still in power; the fact is that we really do not know the reason. Peter slashed at the first man before him, the slave of the high priest, and intended to split his head open; but the man evidently dodged, and the sword sheared off his right ear, being stopped by the heavy armor on the servant’s shoulder.

The article “the slave” puts this man in a class by himself. He is not one of the Temple police; he belongs to the high priest himself. He thus appears to be a trusted and important member of the high priest’s own household who had been sent with this expedition as the high priest’s personal representative. That explains why he is out in front under Peter’s sword. And that, too, is why John, who was so well acquainted with the high priest’s family, states his name (Malchus) and even refers to his relative.

Luke 22:51

51 “Answering” does not refer to the question that is asked in v. 49; this Greek participle is frequently used in a wider sense with reference to any response to a situation or an action. So Jesus here responds to the crucial situation that had been so suddenly created by Peter. The other three evangelists record Jesus’ rebuke to Peter, Luke omits that and tells how Jesus stepped in, saying, “Permit this far!” and healed the man’s ear.

The translation and the sense of this brief word are in dispute. Some hold that because of the participle “answering” it is addressed to the disciples, but it is certainly no answer to their question. Then, too, the words are separated: “Let be, no farther!” and tell the disciples to go no farther. As καί indicates, the word evidently accompanies the healing act. Jesus’ captors were about to lay hands on him, and after Peter’s striking the blow a rush of the captors might be made upon the disciples. Jesus steps forward, says to the captors, “Let be up to this!” namely, “Permit this much!” that is, that he be allowed to touch and to heal the ear, and at once suits the action to the word.

This is a remarkable miracle, the last that Jesus wrought, and it is performed in the interest of one of his captors. It has been called his only surgical healing. “Having touched the ear” leads some to think that the ear was not severed, that only a slight cut had been made that caused bleeding so that Jesus only stopped the bleeding. But it is hard to believe that the blow had done no more serious damage. The better view is that the ear was slashed off and hung by a shred of skin so that a mere touch of Jesus restored it perfectly.

What impression did this miracle make? We hear of none. But up to his dying day Malchus bore in that healed ear the mark of Christ’s omnipotence and grace. This is one of the plain miracles which ought to settle the contention that faith is necessary in the person to be healed—or did Malchus have faith? With his prompt act Jesus stopped any bad consequences of Peter’s act for the disciples whom he was shielding.

Luke 22:52

52 Moreover, Jesus said to the high priests and commanders of the Temple and elders who had come against him: As against a robber did you come out with short swords and clubs? Day by day being with you in the Temple, you did not stretch out your hands against me. But this is your hour and the authority of the darkness!

All the synoptists record the protest of Jesus against his arrest and against the manner in which it was made. Mark writes that he spoke to his “captors,” Matthew to them “in that hour,” then and not later. Luke alone states just who the persons addressed were, “the high priests, Temple captains (we see that there were several, which shows how numerous the Temple police present were), and elders who had come out against him.”

The presence of high priests and elders has been questioned as being very improbable. This view forgets that everything that occurred in Gethsemane was “improbable.” The Temple captains, of course, went with the men whom they commanded. But is it asking too much to think that some of the Sanhedrists, who had ordered this expedition, could not restrain themselves sufficiently to remain in the city but followed the armed force to see whether the move would be successful? They had now caught up with it and were in front in order to see everything. Jesus says nothing to the Romans, he speaks only to these Sanhedrists and to their captains. His words are uttered after his hands have been bound with a rope and he stands there apparently helpless, just before the commands are given to face about for a return to the city. The words are calm, measured, without trace of excitement; but they are keen, cutting to the quick for these leaders who now gloat over their capture.

Jesus asks them to consider just what they have done. As against a robber, from whom the most violent resistance had to be expected, they went out with a great expedition, all were armed “with short swords and clubs” as if expecting a regular battle—all this to arrest one lone, unarmed man! The whole thing is actually ridiculous.

Luke 22:53

53 Why, “day by day” (distributive κατά) he was with them in the Temple, in their very midst, where they had the fullest authority and the easiest opportunity, and they never stretched out their hands against him or made one move to place him under arrest. If there were any cause for arresting him, why had they raised no hand day after day? Jesus had not hidden from them—he had no cause to hide. He had none now, nor had he hidden; on the contrary, when they said that they wanted him, he had told them who he was. And now all at once, in the middle of the night, this army of legionaries and Levite police for an arrest, and for such an arrest! To protest to these men is, of course, useless; and yet no proper protest is useless although men disregard it, for it registers the truth, and truth stands forever.

Nor are these Sanhedrists and these captains to think for one moment that they have really effected this capture of Jesus with their superior cunning in hiring a traitor and with their crush of arms. Not a bit of it. They could and would have captured nothing. Other forces are operating here. “This is your hour,” and the emphasis is on the pronoun, the one that God (according to the Scriptures of the prophets, Matthew) appointed for you to execute your devilish deed; “and the authority or power of the darkness” which operates in and through you. Note how the two possessives are linked together: “your”—“of the darkness.” They are the tools and the agents of this darkness.

Let us also note the article: “the darkness,” and the fact that this article always appears with this noun and denotes not only this specific darkness but almost personifies it as possessing a power and an authority. Jesus speaks of it at various times as though it were a monster of evil, of hell itself. God is letting “the darkness” exercise its power this night. That and that alone is why this mob is scoring such a huge victory against a single humble man! Let these Sanhedrists think with what power they are tied up as tools. The interpretation that “hour” and “the darkness” refer only to the night as though Jesus were saying: “You had to choose a dark hour of the night, you did not dare to select a daylight hour!” is so trivial that one wonders how anyone could seriously propose it.

Luke 22:54

54 Now, having seized him, they led him away and led him into the house of the high priest.

Luke combines the seizure and the leading, but from Matthew and from Mark we see that the seizure took place before v. 51–53 were spoken. “To the house of the high priest” means to that of Caiaphas (Matthew) and indicates that Luke knew all about the night trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin as this is narrated by Matthew and by Mark although he himself makes no record of this trial. None of the synoptists refers to the preliminary examination that was conducted by Annas in order to fill in the time. In v. 61 Jesus is led from the trial before the Sanhedrin to some place of safekeeping until the morning session of the Sanhedrin confirms the death sentence that had been passed at the night session.

But Peter was following from afar.

Luke tells the entire story of Peter’s fall in one paragraph. His account is extremely brief and says nothing about the other ten disciples, nor even that Peter managed to get into the courtyard with the Temple police. We gather the latter only from Peter’s being there. The chiliarch and the legionaries departed after delivering the prisoner. Pilate had no hand in the matter, or they would have delivered the prisoner to him. A detachment of the Temple police was retained in the courtyard to await any further orders. John informs us that he was the one who helped Peter to enter this courtyard.

Luke 22:55

55 Now, they having lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and having sat down together, Peter was sitting in their midst.

The night was cold (John), hence there was a fire in the open court, which fire was made of charcoal and made no smoke. The men sat around it warming themselves. Peter tried to act as though he were one of them and sat down in their midst. He had no business there, Jesus had told him not to follow. He made the excuse to himself that he wanted to see the end (Matthew). We always invent good reasons for doing what we ought not to do.

Luke 22:56

56 But a maid, having seen him sitting before the light and having gazed intently on him, said, This fellow also was with him! But he denied it, saying, I do not know him, woman!

Peter imagined that he could carry it off, and that no one would pay any attention to him. But he had not reckoned with this maid. From John we learn that she was the very maid who had let Peter in upon John’s request to her. She and another functioned as doorkeepers at the passageway that led from the street into the open inner court. It was a common thing to employ women in this capacity. She left her post at the entry when she saw him sitting facing (πρός) the fire, fixed her eyes intently upon him for a little in order not only to make sure but also to draw the attention of the men, and then made her startling assertion. This must have occurred some time after she had let Peter in, long enough after to get the fire going and the men settled around it.

What made this woman go after Peter as she did? Was she afraid that she had let the wrong man in, and did she take this means of making herself safe? If so, then what about John whom she knew much better? The καί in the assertion shows that this maid had arrived at the conclusion that Peter must be a disciple of Jesus from the way in which John intervened to persuade her to let Peter in. Yet she makes no issue of John. Was she merely teasing Peter with perverse feminine delight, trying to make him uncomfortable when she saw him hiding his identity?

Her words do not sound like banter. She most likely wanted to make herself important. She wanted these men to know that she knew something that they did not know. They were talking about Jesus and what had just taken place and yet did not know that right in their own midst there sat one of Jesus’ own disciples. All, no doubt, cocked their ears when she made her assertion.

Luke 22:57

57 The suddenness of the exposure, its publicity before the crowd about the fire, the feeling that he was in mortal danger at once upset Peter and filled him with panic. He saw no way out except to lie out. The devil loves to pounce upon the foolhardy and to sweep boasters off their feet. The evangelists agree in making the denial a complete disowning of Jesus.

It took only a menial maid to fell the chief of the Twelve. Gone were all his high and heroic protestations to Jesus, gone all the spurious courage from his heart and from the hand that had snatched out the sword in Gethsemane. Here stands the arrant coward who is unable to confess his heavenly Lord and cringes in lying denial. Some think that Peter was scared without real cause, that he misjudged the situation and could have confessed without real danger to himself. But whether there was a cause or not, fright operates in either case. Peter was surely in danger. We may take it that he would have been arrested forthwith, taken before Annas, and held at least for a time; and if his slashing off Malchus’ ear should have become known, serious punishment might have been the result.

Luke 22:58

58 And after a little another man, on seeing him, said, Thou, too, art one of them! But Peter said, Man, I am not.

Peter waited only long enough to have attention safely withdrawn from him and then quietly made for the πυλών, the long entryway that led out from the courtyard to the street through the front side of the building. He wants to get out, to leave the place. But this precipitates the second and severer denial. Matthew says that “another” (feminine, hence “maid”) saw him. Mark says “the maid, having seen him, began again to say,” etc., which must be the one who exposed Peter in the first place. Luke writes ἕτερος, masculine, “another man.” This looks like a contradiction but is in perfect agreement when we note the situation.

Peter had been exposed, and the matter was being talked about. On a night like this more than one maid would be on duty at the entry. Peter runs into two maids and a man, all three of whom are certain that he is a disciple of Jesus, “one of them.” Others are standing in the entrance since there was a crowd. So Peter is again recognized, and by three persons, and his case seems more desperate than before.

Mark states that the cock now crowed. This was the first crowing even as Mark notes that there would be two (14:30). Peter never heard it in his excitement. And this time he added an oath to his denial in order to secure credence when he thought that his word was not enough. He acted even as though he did not know Jesus’ name. And yet these very lips of his had uttered Matt. 16:16 and John 6:68, 69!

Luke 22:59

59 And about one hour having intervened, another man began to affirm positively, saying, Of a truth this fellow, too, was with him, for also he is a Galilean. But Peter said, Man, I know not what thou art saying! And immediately, he yet speaking, there crowed a cock.

Peter promptly gave up trying to get out through the entryway. Twice he had been positively challenged, and we can imagine the uneasiness and the fear with which he now tried to efface himself in the crowded courtyard. Luke knows that this continued for a full hour. But just when this delay begins to give Peter a feeling of security, the most decisive effort is made to identify him as a disciple of Jesus. Matthew and Mark say only that some of the men standing by, who had evidently been discussing Peter, came over and confronted him. Luke makes one of them the spokesman, and John supplies the detail that this was a relative of the Malchus whose ear Peter had cut off. Here was danger, indeed.

With great positiveness: “of a truth,” i. e., in spite of thy previous denials, Peter is charged with having been “with him,” namely in Gethsemane where this relative of Malchus’ was almost sure he had seen Peter. So Peter had not succeeded in allaying suspicion about himself, he had only directed it into new and more effective channels. “Also” adds the undeniable fact that Peter was a Galilean to this man’s other assurance. This is corroborative evidence (γάρ), for all of the disciples of Jesus hailed from Galilee with the sole exception of Judas, and all Galileans were recognized as such by their peculiar Aramaic brogue. John adds the detail that Peter’s challenger asked directly whether he had not seen Peter in Gethsemane. This time the net seemed to be closing completely around Peter.

Luke 22:60

60 Luke is kind when he records only Peter’s denial which states that he does not know what his challenger is talking about. It was much worse than that: he cursed himself and called on God with oaths as he stated that he did not know. We see that Peter is ready to resort to anything in order to save his hide. He has lost even his ordinary manhood and is now a groveling coward, too pitiful to look upon. Even now Peter was not arrested on suspicion and held for judicial investigation. But right then and there, while he was still shouting his protestations, “there crowed a cock”—the subject and the verb are reversed, each is thus made emphatic—who started his crowing just before the dawn begins to lighten the sky (see v. 34).

Luke 22:61

61 Nobody paid any attention to this crowing—save one man. And, on turning, the Lord looked at Peter. And Peter was reminded of the utterance of the Lord, how he said to him, Before a cock crows today, thou wilt deny me thrice. And having gone outside, he sobbed bitterly.

It is debated as to how Jesus could be close enough to look upon Peter at this moment. The best answer is that the Temple police were just then leading him from the hall of trial through the open courtyard to some place of detention until he should be wanted again. With his face contused, black and blue from the blows he had received, with spittle still defiling his countenance, Jesus looked upon poor Peter. No wonder that look went home. Luke alone reports this great fact. In the midst of his own awful passion Jesus’ Savior heart thinks of Peter and with a look at the man on whose lips the fearful denials are still trembling reaches into that man’s soul in order to save him.

It is best to keep the passive: Peter “was reminded” instead of understanding it in the middle sense: “remembered.” For it was this look of Jesus that awoke the memory of Peter. The cock’s crowing and the Lord’s passage through the court and his look at Peter were so timed by divine providence as to effect the saving result in Peter’s soul. Jesus had spoken that word about the cock (v. 34) because he foresaw Peter’s situation at this moment and intended that Peter should recall that word to his great benefit. So the tension of his fear was released at last, the warning of his Lord’s love came back in his soul, the way to genuine repentance was opened.

Luke 22:62

62 It seems that Peter had no difficulty in getting out of the courtyard. Some jump to the conclusion that he would have had no difficulty at any time. But the maids kept the door locked, and Peter did not risk it to demand an exit. It was the transfer of Jesus that changed the situation. The crowd of the Temple police, that had been kept waiting in the courtyard until this time, were now ordered out, and Peter could thus leave without difficulty.

Matthew and Luke state his repentance with two words: ἔκλαυσεπικρῶς, the verb denotes loud, audible weeping: “he sobbed bitterly.” The adverb refers, not to the physical sobbing, but to the bitterness of the contrition that is back of it. Contrition includes the realization that we have sinned and the consequent genuine sorrow for our sin.

The story of Peter has two important sides: first, Jesus prophesies, and the fulfillment, which is frantically denied, follows to the letter; second, the foremost of the apostles falls most terribly and is yet restored when he repents. For all time this calls sinners to the pardon that Jesus brought for them.

Luke 22:63

63 And the men having Jesus in charge went on to mock him by beating. And having blindfolded him, they went on inquiring of him, Prophesy! Who is he that struck thee? And many other things, blaspheming, they went on to say against him.

It is plain that Luke reports the same mockery that is recorded in Matt. 26:67, 68 and in Mark 14:65; and no confusion of the two sessions of the Sanhedrin, one of which was held at night and the other after daylight, which turns both into one in Luke’s record can hope to find credence and lead us to place the mockery that is recorded in Luke anywhere but where, according to Matthew and Mark, it occurred, at the end of the night session, after the Sanhedrin had condemned Jesus to death. We also see how Luke wrote: he tells about the denial of Peter, adds the mockery of the Sanhedrin, then the final official condemnation, all forming a climax. It is thus that he omits the story of the night trial and takes from it only the mockery with which it ended.

We should not think only of the guards that held Jesus as being the men that mocked him. A few guards of the Temple police stand beside Jesus at his night trial by the Sanhedrin, and after vain efforts Caiaphas succeeds in having this legal body vote the death penalty for Jesus on account of blasphemy. The moment this is attained a beastly, brutal, almost incredible outrage follows. “The men having Jesus in charge” are the Sanhedrists themselves, the few Temple police are only their minions. These Sanhedrists rise from their judicial seats and stage the mockery. These supreme judges of the nation, in whom all the dignity and the grandness of the nation should be vested, show their real nature as being rowdies of the lowest type. The proud Sadducees, the aristocrats of the Sanhedrin and the nation, reveal what they actually are: common, coarse rabble.

After they have shouted their illegal verdict, which definitely repudiates any reverence for God and his laws, they lose even the commonest human decency. As they surround the lone, bound prisoner these judges show what is in their hearts and in the judgment which they have pronounced.

Luke restrains himself when he writes only: “they went on to mock him by beating,” the participle denoting blows that bruise and break the skin. Mark and Luke speak of blows with the first, and both add the vilest of insults, spitting into Jesus’ face. In their cowardly brutality they cannot act viciously enough against this bound and defenseless victim and hurt him as much as possible just as savages might do.

Luke 22:64

64 Mark and Luke report the special mockery of Jesus’ prophetic powers. Someone conceived the idea of throwing something over Jesus’ head to blindfold him while slap after slap rained upon his face, blows of the fist, too, according to Mark, and then with ribald laughter his tormentors shouted to Jesus to “prophesy” and to tell them which one had struck him.

Luke 22:65

65 This is offered only as a sample, for “other things” and “many” of them these Sanhedrists said against Jesus as they blasphemously reviled him. The imperfects are descriptive and picture how this mockery went on and on. Having become tired of their mockery at last, the Sanhedrists order the police guard to take Jesus out. Mark reports that the guards received him with fisticuffs and followed the noble pattern given them by their illustrious superiors. The condition of Jesus at the end of this ordeal is easier to imagine than to describe. There were literally fulfilled Isa. 50:6 and Jesus’ own prophecy spoken in 18:32 and Mark 10:34.

Luke 22:66

66 And when it became day, there was gathered together the eldership of the people, both high priests and scribes; and they brought him back into their Sanhedrin, saying, If thou art the Christ, tell us!

This is the early morning session of the Sanhedrin, of which Matt. 27:1 and Mark 15:1 make report; but our versions do not understand the situation when they translate that the Sanhedrin took counsel and held a consultation on how to put Jesus to death; what was done was to pass the final resolution which confirmed the death sentence that had been passed at the night session. In capital cases the Jewish law required a second session of the Sanhedrin, and that after an interval of at least a day; moreover, the law prohibited night sessions. The Sanhedrin, once having Jesus in its power, was determined to rush him to death because it feared the uprising of the pilgrim hosts that were then in the city. So the illegality of the night trial was simply disregarded. But the formality of holding a second session was found feasible even though it was illegal since a day had not passed and since the finding of the illegal night session was to be confirmed. Yet the holding of a second session lent at least a show of legality.

Mark makes it plain that this early morning session was one of the full court, and Luke does the same. In the LXX and in Acts 22:5 “the eldership of the people” designates the entire Sanhedrin, and the apposition “both high priests and scribes” adds another regular designation for this legal body. Luke does the same as Mark did, he makes doubly plain that this decisive session was one of the entire Sanhedrin as a Sanhedrin and not one of only some executive part of the body. At this session the death sentence could have been held up, altered, or set aside entirely; but in full assembly the Sanhedrin confirmed that sentence and proceeded to have it executed forthwith. So “they brought him back into their Sanhedrin” to face his judges once more. The case is to be reviewed and the evidence examined once more.

And we note that Luke now writes even “Sanhedrin,” a third name for the high court. It was composed of seventy or seventy-one judges, but all of them did not need to be present; the absence of a few was immaterial at any session.

Luke 22:67

67 The question is put to Jesus as to whether he is “the Christ.” This is part of the question that was put to him by Caiaphas at the night session (Matt. 26:63). He had given an affirmative reply to the question, and upon that affirmation his death had been decreed. But the matter is entirely changed when the question is now divided and Jesus is asked only whether he is “the Christ” or Messiah. To affirm or to negate this question is not by any means to repeat or to retract the answer that Jesus gave at the night session. The question is asked in order that the Sanhedrin may now once more hear the answer and may thus know whether or not to confirm its former verdict. But by asking this question, which is only a part of the original one, the Sanhedrists make it impossible for Jesus to repeat his yea.

But he said to them: If I shall tell you, in no wise will you believe. Moreover, if I shall inquire, in no wise will you answer. But from now on the Son of man will be sitting at the right of the power of God.

In order to understand this reply we should remember that in the thought of the Sanhedrin “the Christ” or Messiah had a nationalistic, highly political, purely earthly meaning. Jesus could never affirm that he was “the Christ” when his hearers were thinking of such a Christ. On the other hand, he could not say no, that he was not “the Christ,” for this would be understood as though he were in no sense the Christ whereas he was the Christ in the true sense of the word. The question itself had, first of all, to be cleared up. Hence Jesus answered: “If I shall tell you,” namely in what sense I am the Christ, “in no wise will you believe” what I say about myself. For the thought that was farthest from these Sanhedrists was to believe that Jesus was the Christ that he actually was.

Luke 22:68

68 Jesus adds: “Moreover, if I shall inquire, in no wise will you answer.” This goes closely together with what precedes. Jesus means inquire as he inquired in 20:41–44 when he also received no answer. This is not an inquiry about reasons for his arrest, reasons why they did not think he was the Christ, and the like. No. To tell them whether he was the Messiah he would have to explain that he was the Messiah in the Scriptural sense; and if he took them into the Scriptures and from these showed them the Messiah he was and asked them if this were not so, they simply would not answer just as they had refused to answer before this time. Jesus thus briefly and clearly gave the only reply he could give to this question about his being “the Christ,”

Luke 22:69

69 Jesus might have stopped with this. But he will not leave this court without clear testimony as to who he really is, and in what exalted sense he is the Messiah. A plain yea or nay would have misled; hence Jesus repeats, with slight abbreviation, the declaration he had given at the night trial, Matt. 26:64: “But from now on,” etc. The idea that he is referring to his Parousia is obviated by the phrase “from now on,” which refers to a definite time. This phrase refers to Jesus’ death, to effect which the Sanhedrin is now assembled. That death will place Jesus at the right of the power of God—that is the Christ he really is. He so testifies once more:

He calls himself “the Son of man” (see 5:24) because his glorious enthronement refers to his human nature, this as joined to the divine. And this is also his self-chosen Messianic title, which he used regularly instead of “Messiah” or “Christ” in order to avoid the Jewish political conceptions and entanglements. “The right of the power” names the power instead of the omnipotent God himself; yet the genitive is not possessive: “the right that belongs to the power,” but appositional, “the right that is the power.” To sit at this right is to exercise this power; and this invariably refers to the human nature of Jesus. This is the nature that is about to be glorified at the resurrection, about to ascend visibly to heaven, about to join in the divine reign. That nature appeared before the Sanhedrin in deepest humiliation, and these men could not conceive that all his lowliness would in a little while give way to divine glory. Without indicating it Jesus is once more using Ps. 110 as he did at the night trial, the very psalm with which he had silenced the Pharisees on Tuesday as recorded in 20:41–44. The humble Jesus had given some displays of divine power in his ministry; but these would be as nothing compared with the everlasting operation of his power by his human nature in glory.

Jesus repeats enough of his former testimony to recall also the rest that he had said; he lets that suffice. The Greek uses the idiomatic plural for “the right,” without the article; and ἐκ, “from” God’s right, the direction that is opposite from that of our “at.”

Luke 22:70

70 And they all said, Thou, then, art thou the Son of God? And he said to them, You yourselves are saying that I am. But they said, Why have we yet need of witness? for we ourselves heard from his own mouth.

Luke uses the plural throughout this account and says nothing about Caiaphas’ doing the questioning. To conclude from this fact that Caiaphas was not present is unwarranted, for he was the head of the opposition against Jesus and led the procession that took Jesus to Pilate. To conclude that Caiaphas let the meeting proceed as it would without direction is also unwarranted. He was president, and he presided. He may have asked the question about the Christ. The point to be noted is that this is only a corroboration session, the sole purpose of which was to verify and on verifying to confirm the verdict that had already been rendered.

It was thus that any of the judges or a group of them together might ask this or that question to satisfy themselves. Not until all were satisfied would the votes be recorded by the scribes, and that would make the verdict final.

So now not merely Caiaphas, one or the other, or a few, but literally all shouted the question: “Thou, then, art thou the Son of God?” That was the other half of the original question (Matt. 26:63) for the affirmation of which they had condemned Jesus to death. That was one reason why it was again asked, in fact, had to be asked. More than this, Jesus had just made a statement that plainly involved his deity. Did he claim deity for himself? This, too, compelled the asking of the question. Finally, they saw what Jesus had pointed out, namely the inadequacy of their first question as to his claim to be the Christ. It is thus that everything became focused on this second question. There were excitement and eager tenseness, which Luke lets us feel by saying that the question came from all.

One worded it thus, another in another way, but it passed through the whole court, and all demanded to know whether Jesus claimed deity for himself. Οὖν bases the question on what Jesus had just said about his elevation to God’s right hand. “Thou” is decidedly emphatic and lets us feel how incredible it seemed to this court that Jesus could possibly be God’s Son, and how outrageous that he could possibly make such a claim. “The Son of God” is understood in the full sense of deity. Modernism has this term mean something less by stating that God was immanent in the man Jesus who was an actual, bodily son of Joseph; or that “the Son of God” meant only “Messiah.”

“The Son,” the Sanhedrists say, not “a son” among many. They do not for a moment affirm that God has no such Son, that God is not three persons but only one person. The Jews are now Unitarians, but in Jesus’ time the Jews were not Unitarians. The issue between them and Jesus is never the claim that no Son and no Spirit exist, that Jesus believes fables when he speaks of the Father, the Son, the Spirit. The issue is always as it is so decisively worded here at this supreme moment: “Thou, art thou this Son?” That this man Jesus, this bruised, beaten, captive, helpless man who is now in their power, that he should be this Son, very God in human form, is to these Jews a thing that is at once incredible and blasphemous in the highest degree. It was because of this claim of Jesus regarding himself that they had passed the death sentence upon him at the night session. Now everything trembles in the balance as the question is once more reached at this morning session for purposes of legal verification.

Jesus forthwith, without if, and, or but, affirms that all-decisive question exactly as he had done under oath at the night session. He does it in the common idiom of the day, the one he had used before: “You yourselves are saying that I am,” which means: “I am the Son of God exactly as you are saying it in your question.” This idiom could use either the present tense as it does here: “you are saying,” or the aorist as it does in Matt. 26:64: “thou didst say,” i. e., just now; for the Greek uses the aorist to designate things that have just happened (R. 842, etc.) whereas we prefer the perfect: “thou hast (just) said.” If any proof that this answer is an unqualified affirmation is needed for those who do not know the Greek, they have it here in the court which heard that answer of Jesus and heard it as his decided affirmation and, therefore, at once confirmed its verdict of death.

What Matthew and Mark bring out so plainly in recording the main facts of the night trial, what John brings out in the trial before Pilate (John 19:7), that Luke, too, brings out by recording the main facts of the morning session of the Sanhedrin: Jesus was condemned to death by the Jews, not because of this or that lying charge that was preferred against him, not on false testimony but because of his being what he in very truth was: “the Son of God.” It is Jesus himself who here places us at the parting of the ways: we either join these Jews in their verdict that he lied and perjured himself when he declared to them that he was the Son of God; or we join Jesus, “who is the faithful Witness” (Rev. 1:5), “the faithful and true Witness” (Rev. 3:14), and worship him as “the Son of God” in the verity of that name.

Luke 22:71

71 The result of this affirmation was that the Sanhedrin declared that it could dispense with anything like further testimony. What was the use of following the regular procedure and calling in witnesses to establish the original verdict? They themselves had just heard (the aorist to express what has just happened) more than enough “from his own mouth.”

“Witness”—why, they had none, had had none at the night session. They knew it, yet they speak of witness as if they had a twinge of conscience on this point. It was easy to dispense with witness when they knew not whom to get to testify to this affirmation. Time was crowding them; they must get to Pilate before the city woke up to what they were doing with Jesus. So they close the case in short order. Nobody dared to call a halt in any way.

The fact that Jesus might be “the Son of God,” that his miracles, his teaching, his personality, the Scriptures themselves, God’s own voice from heaven on three occasions, even the Baptist (John 1:34) had attested the fact of Jesus’ Sonship counted as nothing with this court. This witness—they had no need of it. It is still barred out by all who agree with the Sanhedrin.

Luke does not report the formality that the death penalty was confirmed; he did not need to report this, for he at once relates that the Sanhedrin proceeded to have that penalty executed.

R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.

B.-P. Griechisch-Deutsches Woerterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments, etc., von D. Walter Bauer, zweite, etc., Auflage zu Erwin Preuschens Vollstaendigem Griechisch-Deutschem Handwoerterbuch, etc.

C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von D. Dr. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.

B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neugearbeitete Auflage besorgt von Albert Debrunner.