12 So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews[d] arrested Jesus and bound him. 13 First they led him to Annas, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. 14 It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it would be expedient that one man should die for the people.
15 Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, 16 but Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door, and brought Peter in. 17 The servant girl at the door said to Peter, “You also are not one of this man’s disciples, are you?” He said, “I am not.” 18 Now the servants[e] and officers had made a charcoal fire, because it was cold, and they were standing and warming themselves. Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself.
19 The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. 20 Jesus answered him, “I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. 21 Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them; they know what I said.” 22 When he had said these things, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, “Is that how you answer the high priest?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong; but if what I said is right, why do you strike me?” 24 Annas then sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.
25 Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. So they said to him, “You also are not one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.” 26 One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Did I not see you in the garden with him?” 27 Peter again denied it, and at once a rooster crowed.
Introduction: Caiaphas’ Prophecy
Last week as we looked at the arrest of Jesus in the beginning of John 18, we talked about how one of John’s goals in his gospel is to show the glory of Christ and the authority of Christ. We saw how Christ was in total control of even His own arrest. Once again, we see that theme continued as we consider the verses before us today. In verse 12-14 Jesus is bound and sent to Annas and Caiaphas the High Priest. Now someone reading this might have been tempted to think, “why would the Son of God submit to this authority of the evil High Priests? Why would He subject Himself to a corrupt trial in the middle of the night with no fair legal hearing? Who’s really in charge here?” Well John prevents us from thinking those sorts of questions by reminding us of the real authority in this situation. John reminds us who this Caiaphas was. Verse 14 tells us it was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it would be expedient that one man should die for the people. If you were here and you remember, this is a reference to John 11. After Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead the Jews begin plotting to kill Jesus. In fact to refresh ourselves and for me to make my point, let us turn back just for a moment and read John 11:45-53.
Here’s the point: John reminds us that these evil men in positions of authority, though they schemed and plotted to do evil, they did so unwittingly under the divine Sovereignty of God. No evil or harm they intended would be done outside the divine decree of God – and not only that but to bring about salvation to God’s people and to overcome their father, the devil.
So when Jesus goes bound before Annas and Caiaphas, John would comfort us by reminding us: though it be the High Priest that year, it is the one who unwittingly prophesied the salvation of the nations through the death of Christ, and thus we are shown that God is the real authority, as Christ submits to the will of His Father.
So we know going into this trial that the fix is in. These guys are corrupt. They are on record as plotting to kill Jesus or have Him put to death. But we also know what the High Priest didn’t know, that God was really the one who had the fix in on them. Jesus was in total control, despite appearances of being bound and helpless, it was His power that constrained Him to remain there and subject Himself to such corruption.
Now as John unfolds the scene of Jesus’ trial he weaves it in between the scene of Peter’s denial of Christ. As is John’s concern, He does so for thematic reasons, to convey certain themes, which we will see. So as we deal with this passage today we will first consider Christ questioned, then we will consider Peter questioned, and then conclude with you, and I, the hearer questioned.
Christ Questioned
First we have Christ questioned. John shows us first Jesus’ questioning before Annas. Now Annas was not only the Father in law of Caiaphas who was the present High Priest, but by historical record was also previously the High Priest before Caiaphas. So he was older, and still carried significant weight and authority among the Jews. This gives us one possibility for why Annas was referred to also as the High Priest, for he was, and certainly could’ve been a title he carried with him even after officially leaving the office, sort of like we do with presidents. It was also, from the Jews perspective, the perfect place to take Jesus first in the middle of the night like the mafia or something before the more official hearing.
The Corrupt Nature of Questioning
This leads us to note the corrupt nature of Jesus’ so-called trial here. Obviously the whole scene of this going down in the middle of the night shows it is being done in a shady way. But also, the nature of what happens here follows no sort of rule of law. The High Priest questions Jesus about His disciples and His teaching. The idea that you bring someone in and question them is not a rule of law trial. What a fair trial looks like is having real charges brought forth accompanied by legitimate and sufficient witness testimony, so that someone can be found guilty of a crime based on the objective witness, not requiring the accused to incriminate themselves or be manipulated into admitting to something they did not do. A right to remain silent is a biblical category. In fact, Jesus basically makes this very point when He says “nothing I’ve taught is secret. Go ask all the witnesses that heard me teach in the synagogues as to what I’ve taught. They will tell you.”
Obviously we know that Jesus was an innocent man. They don’t have anything on Him. We know of course that they want to charge Him with blasphemy. But Jesus is God. So they use this strategy of questioning Jesus and just trying to get Him to talk so that they might trap Him in something or manipulate Him to say something that they could twist to use on Him. This is not a just trial or method of interrogation. It is a very serpentine way of doing things. Now I don’t need to spend time telling you that this sort of thing happens all the time in our legal system today. It is very corrupt. So Jesus is subjected not to a just rule of law but to the sons of the devil who hate Him and have been seeking a way to kill him – and this is the whole plot. This is the point. Jesus is not a mere victim of an unjust criminal system, this is the old old story of the dragon’s seed versus the woman’s seed. And for all the scheming of the serpent, he is out-schemed by the God-man. This is religious, spiritual, this is historic redemption being brought about for the nations. Jesus isn’t just subjecting Himself to an unjust trial, He is going to be offered as a sacrifice for sins.
Christ puts them on Trial
What I love about John’s gospel is how he continues to show that even in this trial Jesus is the one in charge. Jesus is the one with the real authority. Jesus tells the High Priest to go ask all those who heard Jesus openly teaching, which by the way, would have included probably everyone there. Then in response Jesus is struck by one of the officers and is told “Is that how you answer the High Priest?” Then Jesus turns around and says, “If what I said was wrong, then demonstrate the wrong, otherwise, why did you strike me?” Both to the High Priest and this officer who question Jesus, Jesus turns the tables around on them and questions them. And of course both times Jesus demonstrated that they were in fact the ones who were wrong.
The Jews thought they were the ones putting Jesus on trial, sitting in judgment over Him, when in reality, they were the ones on trial and Jesus was sitting in judgment over them. It is by account of divine record in Scripture that they were the ones who were continuing to fill up the measure of their sins. They were the ones who falsely accused and mistreated and eventually put to death their own Messiah, the Son of God. As they sat in judgment, questioning and mistreating Christ, they were actually testifying as witnesses to their own judgment. Jesus outsmarts the serpent. Let every man learn his place today, that it is not to be sitting over Christ in judgment, but bowing humbly at His feet. The foolishness and danger of such arrogance is shown here.
We also can’t help but note the great irony of what this officer says to Christ about how He ought to answer the High Priest. How foolish and self-indicting His words really were! For it was he who was mistreating the Great High Priest, Jesus Christ.
We will consider more of Christ’s questioning, but we will do so as we now move to consider Peter questioned.
Peter Questioned
So here’s Peter, following behind Jesus. Just in the fact that Peter follows Christ to this trial, shows us again his zeal for the Lord, yet it also sets up his fall all the more. Peter is first outside the courtyard unable to get in but we are told that there is another disciple there who had an in who was able to get Peter inside. There is of course speculation as to who this unnamed other disciple was. Some say it could’ve been Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, or someone like that. I am intrigued at the possibility that it could’ve been John himself, as John has a habit of referring to himself without naming himself. But we don’t know.
As we consider Peter’s questioning here, I want to do so starting out by considering some lessons that we can learn from Peter’s denial of Christ, and apply them to ourselves in our own lives.
Lessons from Peter’s Denial
The first thing I want you to notice here is all the relationships or associations that John mentions here. We saw how Annas was the Father-in-law of Caiaphas. In verse 15 and 16 this other disciple is known by the High Priest and he gets in while Peter stands outside the door. Peter is let in, and he is questioned by the servant girl about his associations, “aren’t you also one of his disciples?” When Jesus is being questioned He is asked about His disciples, which Jesus does not answer by the way. Then in verse 26 one of the servants of the High Priest who was a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, questions Peter about his associations with Christ. So there are all these relationships and associations mentioned here, while Peter is on the outside, then he is let in and it’s cold and he wants to stand by the fire and get warm and there is other servants and officers around the fire who have his associations with one another and they know that Peter isn’t one of them. They question Peter about his association with Christ and Peter is utterly ashamed and fearful. He just wants to blend in and be an unnoticed part of their group. But he couldn’t be.
So many Christians find themselves in similar situations today at various times. They love Jesus, it is obvious they are not of the world like everyone else, but at times they enter into situations when they just don’t want to be associated with Christians. For whatever reason, they don’t want to have to give an answer and they want to blend in and just be an unnoticed part of the group warming themselves by the fire. But one thing we learn from Peter is that it is always better to just embrace the distinctives of being a Christian and embrace being totally unembarrassed about the necessary answers we must give. The regret and shame that Peter had from denying Christ was awful for him to bear. It’s always better to just embrace it. You look at this other unnamed disciple, we don’t know anything else about him, but it seems he was fine. Even in denying his association with Christ, Peter was never able to blend or fit in with these other crowds.
A second very obvious lesson to learn from Peter’s denial is that of humility. Peter often boasted of his zeal for Christ, that he would never deny Him, that he would die for Him, and yet here he is ashamed to answer a servant girl. Peter had just displayed his bold passion for Christ in the garden, willing to fight and die for Christ as he wielded his sword upon the ear of Malchus, but he was not able to simply affirm his association with Christ once in the courtyard. How the Word of God is proved true again and again that pride comes before a fall. To be prideful and arrogant in our own ability even to do good and prevail over temptation is to grossly overestimate ourselves, underestimate temptation, and to presume upon the grace of God. We ought rather to humbly know ourselves to be weak in the flesh totally dependent upon the grace of God and unable to do anything apart from Christ.
Hear what A. W. Pink says, “But poor Peter had boasted, ‘Although all shall be offended yet will not I… I will not deny thee in any wise.’ (Mark 14:29, 31); and so God left him to stand alone, to show him and us that except omnipotent grace upholds us we are certain to fall.” Confidence in our own strength to stand firm and overcome sin and temptation is foolishness, but dependence on the strength of Christ to keep us and cause us to be unmoved in that day of trial is wisdom. Apart from Christ upholding us we will fall. But He is able to keep us from stumbling.
Be on watch for how Satan Tempts
A third lesson we ought to learn from Peter’s denial is to be on guard for how temptation attacks us. We ought to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. That includes knowing how crafty and deceitful the serpent is, so we can out-maneuver him with Christ’s help.
First, notice how sin creeps on us. The first time Peter was questioned was by the servant girl at the door. Now it is likely that the crowd was not gathered there as the crowd was around the fire. So there was not many people directly near Peter during this first questioning. So on the one hand it should have been the easiest to not deny Christ in this first instance, but on the other hand, since no one else was around, it was also the easiest to commit this sin. “It’s just the servant girl, no one is here to testify to it, it is just a small sin. No one will know.” Oh how deceitful sin is. Because once you commit that sin, the stakes now raise. The sin and temptation becomes more serious with greater consequences, but now you have already sinned in this way, so it becomes easier for you to commit this sin, you already have before and there were no major consequences. Oh how dangerous and deceitful sin is!
But secondly, notice how temptation often comes to us when our flesh is weak. It was late at night and it was cold. Peter’s body was in a weakened state because he was cold and desired to get warmth from around the fire, but it was there that he was seen and recognized and faced with this trial. It’s not to say Peter was wrong for warming himself by the fire, but it shows that one of the enemies tactics is to tempt us when we are weakened by physical conditions. How much easier is it for us to fall into sin when we are tired, or when we are hot or cold, or when we are hungry, or something else of that nature. It would be wise for us to look at patterns of sin and temptation in our own lives and consider if there are any factors like that in play when we sin so that we might recognize the devil’s tactics so that we can prepare ourselves for the battle and be self-conscious about when we are vulnerable that we might be all the more diligent to fight sin and temptation.
Thirdly, and similarly, we ought to recognize that temptation comes to us often when we do not expect it, or from unexpected sources.
I am sure Peter was not expecting a servant girl at the door of the courtyard to question him about his associations with Christ. And because he was not expecting it he was vulnerable to the attack. Peter had just cut a guy’s ear off in the presence of Roman soldiers and armed men. A servant girl questioning him about Christ was the last thing on his mind and was thus unprepared for it. Ready to fight he was; ready to answer a servant girl he was not.
One commentator says this, “Peter probably thought he might be brought bound with his master before the high priest, and had he done so he should probably have stood faithful. But the Devil who was sifting him had a much finer sieve than that to run him through. He brought him to no formal trial, where he could gird himself for a special effort. The whole trial was over before he knew he was being tried. So do most of our real trials come; in a business transaction that turns up with others in the day’s work, in the few minutes’ talk or the evening’s interaction with friends, it is discovered whether we are so truly Christ’s friends that we cannot forget Him or disguise the fact that we are His. In these battles which we must all encounter, we receive no formal challenge that gives us time to choose our ground and our weapons; but a sudden blow is dealt us, from which we can be saved only by habitually wearing a coat of mail sufficient to turn it, and which we can carry into all companies.”
We ought always be vigilant to Satan’s attacks and not be surprised when temptation comes from unexpected sources.
So Peter denies Christ a third time, the rooster crows in the middle of the night, just as Jesus said it would. Even this is comforting to Christ’s disciples knowing that even when the most bold and zealous among them denied Christ it was not something that took Jesus by surprise. He knew it would happen. He said it would. It was all part of the plan.
Peter and Christ Contrasted
Once again I would have you consider why the gospel writer weaves the questioning of Jesus in between the questioning of Peter. One reason is obvious, the text of Scripture is drawing our attention to notice the contrast between Peter and Christ as they are both questioned here, and in so doing we are comforted with the gospel.
Jesus is asked about His disciples and Peter is asked about his teacher. If Jesus would have told the high priest all about His disciples it would’ve been selling them out and putting them in great danger. Jesus does not give up His disciples. Peter gives up Christ and throws Jesus under the bus, but Jesus does no such thing to Peter or His other disciples. Peter speaks rashly and emotionally, Jesus speaks with perfect restraint and wisdom. Jesus came not to save His own skin, but to save His people from their sin. Jesus here is saving His people from one who would love to destroy them and ruin their faith. Christ would be beaten and crucified before that. This shows us that our salvation rests not in ourselves, but in Christ who acquires it for us. Peter was not saved because he perfectly confessed or denied Christ, but because Christ kept Him. Peter was not saved because he perfectly resisted sin and temptation, but because Christ died for his sin and forgave his sin. In Peter we see our sin and failures and insufficiencies in ourselves. In Christ we see our perfect redeemer who stood perfectly in trial and did not fall. We are also taught against traditions like Roman Catholicism that would have us look to men for prayer; rather, we are not to look to fallible men like Peter for any part of our salvation, but only to Christ who is the only perfect redeemer.
As Christ was being questioned and slapped, Peter is outside denying Christ. Do you think Jesus doesn’t know what is going on in the courtyard with Peter? Of course He does. He said it would happen. In fact Luke’s account tells us that Christ turned and looked at Peter after the third denial. I can’t help but think of how Jesus was loving Peter, even here in this moment. Even though Peter denied Christ three times, Jesus did not stop loving Peter. He continued to go to the cross to suffer and die for Peter. If you are in Christ, this is how He loves you. Even when you sin, Christ is still loving you. And that ought to cause us to weep over our sin, as Peter did in the other accounts.
We again continue to see the gospel in that Christ was substituted in our place. Jesus and Peter had swapped places as to where they should’ve been. Peter was the sinner out denying Christ, yet he was the one who went free. And he went free because Jesus, the sinless one, was bound as a sacrificial lamb headed to the slaughter to be sacrificed for sin. It is what had to happen for our redemption. Jesus had to be bound and taken away to trial, and though He is without sin, yet He took our sin upon Himself, and was tried and crucified for another’s sin.
The Loneliness of Christ’s Sufferings
Jesus had the help of no one in suffering for our sins. One of the other things that Peter’s denial shows us is the loneliness of Christ’s sufferings. Jesus was on trial and suffered and died alone, so that we might be taught to trust in Christ alone for our salvation. Even bold and zealous Peter fell at the most critical moment, so that we might have nowhere else to look to be saved, and that we might see all others as insufficient and incapable saviors. No one else could bear the weight of the sins of the world and the wrath of God toward that sin in His suffering and death than Christ. For the first time, Christ, who had disciples and crowds of people always seeking to be near to Him, is now alone. There is none with Him now. It is now His hour, it is His time to be the one man who died for the nation, and indeed all the elect of God. No one else suffered for you, no one else suffered for your sin. Only Christ. Alone in His suffering and death, alone the source of our salvation and hope.
The Hearers Questioned
As we conclude, we have seen Peter questioned and we have seen Christ questioned. And now I would question the hearer. To each of you who hear my voice today, I ask you, do you know this man? Do you know this Christ? Are you one of His disciples, or are you not? Are you like Peter, who though he fell, he wept bitterly and was later restored by Christ? Or are you like Judas who seemed to be a Christian for a while, but never loved Christ and only loved the flesh, and so apostatized and hung himself? I can’t look into your heart and know the answer to that question. Do you know this man? This Christ? Whether you do or don’t right now, you can know Him. He is the one man, the God-man who died to save His people. If you look unto Him and see Him suffering alone and dying alone for sin, and for your sin, it is there in Him alone you are to put your trust. I am not asking you to look in your and weigh your deeds and see if you are a good person. I already know you’re not. I am telling you to look to the one who suffered alone for sin, to be your savior from sin alone. He was the only one sufficient to suffer for sin, and He is the only sufficient to save from sin.
To the hearer who has been a Christian for some time, I ask, is this where you are continuing to look, to Christ alone? Or has your gaze drifted and you can see others in the frame? Have you slipped and fell as Peter? Have you been leaning on your own strength and have felt your weight slip out from under you? Look to The One who is still loving you. Learn to use wisdom and prepare for the devil’s schemes that you might stand in the day of trouble, being upheld only by Christ.
May God be praised.
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