One Last Twist
In each of the synoptic gospels1, as well as John, there is an interesting episode that takes place immediately following the scene of Jesus’s illegal trial before the Sanhedrin.
Jesus proclaims Himself to be the Son of Man, and describes how He will be sitting at the right hand of Power and come in the clouds of heaven. In response, the chief priest, Caiaphas, tears his robes and says they don’t need to hear anything else because Jesus just incriminated Himself by claiming to be the Messiah.2
While this scene is taking place behind closed doors—at the home of Caiaphas, no less, which was also illegal—the gospel writers tell the story of Peter’s denial of Jesus. (Matthew 26:69-75; Mark 14:66-72; Luke 22:54-62; John 18:15-18, 25-27). In each of these instances, Peter is standing in the courtyard of Caiaphas’s house, accused by various members of the crowd of being a disciple of Jesus. In three distinct occasions, Peter is forced to deny his relationship with Jesus or suffer the consequences of being affiliated with the Son of Man who was currently being grilled by the Sanhedrin.
When Peter cried out
denial number three, the rooster crowed, reminding Peter of Jesus’s words a few
verses back about how this very event would occur (Matthew 26:31-35; Mark 14:30;
Luke 22:34; John 13:38). Of course, Peter argued strenuously with Jesus,
assuring Him no such thing would happen. However, it did, nevertheless. Peter
even called down curses and swore he didn’t know his Lord (Mark 14:71).
But it was the escorting of Jesus out of the house of Caiaphas that finally broke His beloved disciple. Peter, no doubt, witnessed the condition of his Lord as He was surrounded by the Temple guards. Jesus’s face was probably bruised, maybe even bleeding from the blows suffered at the hands of the Temple guards and members of the Sanhedrin.
Peter would have seen a look of sadness on Jesus’s face as well. Jesus was battling sorrow, Matthew tells us in chapter 26:37. And not just a simple sorrow, but great anguish and distress. To the point that His sweat became like drops of blood (Luke 22:44). In medical terms, it is called hematidrosis, a very rare disorder that is medically documented beyond scripture. For example, Leonardo Da Vinci wrote of soldiers sweating blood before going into battle. It is caused by a deep distress and anguish over something coming up, like facing a situation that may cost one his or her life. In these instances, the body floods the system with adrenaline and cortisol. This causes the famous “fight or flight” response. This physiological change is usually not harmful and can be helpful in one’s preservation. However, in rare cases, this rush of adrenaline and cortisol, especially if it is prolonged, can cause capillaries to rupture, and since they are near the sweat glands, the blood mixes with the sweat, giving the appearance of sweating blood, which is quite an apt description.3 And of course, we would expect Luke, a medical doctor himself and the one who documents this, to know what he is talking about.
Jesus knew what was coming. He knew He would be rejected by His own chosen people. He knew His disciples would scatter. Even in His time of anguish, in Gethsemane, Peter, James, and John couldn’t stay awake, and Jesus battled the flesh, Satan, fatigue, anguish, and most importantly, a growing sense of loneliness, which would culminate on the Cross when He would cry out, “My God! My God! Why have You forsaken Me” (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34).
It is at the beginning of the end, when Jesus steps out of Caiaphas’s house and looks at Peter—after the rooster had crowed—that Peter stepped outside the courtyard and wept bitterly (Luke 22:61-62).
God is a God of Multiple Chances
Peter eventually returns to the only thing he knows: fishing (John 21:1-3). He is confused, for sure. I believe he was disillusioned. And he was a defeated individual. He was the one who stood up amongst all the other disciples and proclaimed how he would never deny Jesus. He would never leave Jesus. He was the one who would die for Jesus. Yet, when the time came for him to stand up and be counted, he withered. He even called down curses, which was a way in Hebrew culture of attempting to validate your words. We do this sort of thing today: “Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye!” It is a form of an oath, designed to make our words somehow more believable to the hearer. And ironically, Jesus denounced this behavior in Matthew 5:33-37 and said a person’s words should be enough. So, when you say, “Yes,” or you say, “No,” that should be sufficient because of your character. If your character is not in question, then there is no need to try and convince anyone you are telling the truth.
This is why I believe the guilt Peter felt was insurmountable. He didn’t feel worthy any longer to be counted among the disciples. His true character had been displayed. And he was ashamed of it. So, he
But there is hope.
He is confronted by the risen Jesus and asked three times to feed and take care of Jesus’s sheep (John 21:15-19). Much is made about the word choice of Jesus in His three questions and three responses: “Simon, son of John, do you love (agape) Me more than these?” “Feed my lambs” (v. 15), “Simon, son of John, do you love (agape) Me?” “Take care of my sheep” (v. 16), and “Simon, son of John, do you love (philos) Me?” “Feed my sheep” (v. 17). However, there is another ironic, and can I say more important, twist which takes place in this exchange.
Three times, the nation Israel denied God as their King. We’ve already examined those in 1 Samuel 8, in Matthew 2:16-18, and in Matthew 26:65-66. Their sin was eventually unpardonable, as we have already discussed.
Peter also denied Jesus three times. However, his sin was not “the unpardonable sin.” He didn’t attribute the work of Jesus to Satan, thus rejecting God and His Word permanently, like the religious leaders in Matthew 26 did. Peter didn’t walk away from Caiaphas’s house, drawing a conclusion that Jesus was no longer needed or helpful, deciding to find his own path to salvation. Peter committed sin, to be sure. He may have even committed blasphemy, depending on the curses he called down and to whom they were directed. He also did something else Jesus warned His disciples not to do: deny Him before men (Matthew 10:33). However, Jesus said all blasphemies would be forgiven, except the unpardonable one.
In this picture of Peter, we see what could have happened for the nation Israel personified in the person of Peter. Their sins, from Old Testament times right up until that moment in Matthew 26, were of the pardonable type. They too had denied God. They wanted to save their own skin, so to speak, by being like everybody else around them. They didn’t want to be associated with God, just like Peter didn’t want to be linked to Jesus, leading up to the rooster’s call. The nation Israel and Peter both wished to be anything but qadosh (different, sacred, holy) as God was qadosh in those moments in time.
The difference was in their responses.
The nation Israel did not wish to follow God. They never truly repented of their ways. They did not wish to “drop their nets,” so to speak. Instead, they wanted more nets, and ones that were just like the other nations around them. With each rejection, their hearts grew harder and harder until God was no longer King, nor would He ever be King again, even if it meant killing Him in the process in order to put an end, finally, to the nagging nudge of God, His Holy Spirit, and His Messiah.
Peter, on the other hand, who is known as “the apostle with the foot-shaped mouth,” dropped his nets and followed Jesus. Yes, he sinned. On more than one occasion. He was arrogant. He was bullheaded. He was volatile. He was unpredictable. And he thought he was way more committed to Jesus than he actually was, which I believe explains why he wept bitterly in the end and returned to the world of fishing. He felt like a failure. His money wasn’t where his mouth was.
Ever been there?
In John 21, Jesus calls Peter by his Jewish name at this stage. Shimon, in the Hebrew (Simon is the Greek transliteration). He was no longer “Petros: The Rock” (Matthew 16:18). Jesus takes Peter back to his roots. His original name means “hearer.” Shimon needed to hear, again, the words of his Lord. He needed to get back to the beginning. Back to the times when dropping his nets and following Jesus seemed so right.
Peter responds to Jesus’s first two inquiries by telling Him something interesting. When Jesus uses the word agape, Peter responds by using the Greek word for brotherly love instead, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love (philos) you” (John 21:15-16). After Jesus’s third inquiry, where He uses the word philos, Peter doesn’t respond immediately. The text says Peter was “grieved because He said to him a third time, ‘Do you love (philos) Me” (John 21:17; LSB)? In His third inquiry, Jesus was questioning if Peter loved (philos) Him with the lesser kind of love.
In our vernacular, we could understand it better if Jesus had asked Peter the first two times if he loved Him, and Peter said in response, “Yes, Lord, You know that I like You.” “Like” is a far cry from “love.” And philos is a far cry from agape. But when Jesus asked Peter the third time if Peter "liked” Him (using the word Peter kept using), that’s when Peter was grieved. Jesus was now questioning this lesser kind of devotion, and the broken disciple felt horrible.
I am convinced Peter thought Jesus didn’t believe him, for why would He keep asking the same question while lowering the bar in the process? However, I am also convinced something else was at work. Peter denied Jesus three distinct times. In those denials, he sinned three distinct times. He committed blasphemy three distinct times. So, he needed to repent three distinct times.
So, Jesus asks Him the question a third time in verse 17, to which Peter replies, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love (philos) you” (LSB). In Peter’s response, he said the “magic words,” if you will. When Peter said, “Lord, you know all things,” he was acknowledging Jesus as God. Only God knows all things. Jesus taught His disciples that (Matthew 24:36). Therefore, in his acknowledgement of Jesus as the Son of God, he did what the religious leaders of Israel could not do and would not do.
Hence, we have a stark contrast here for us to see: Israel’s rejection was of God as King, culminating in the rejection of the only Savior who will ever exist (John 14:6). It was a sin that could not be forgiven, and as a result, it brought to an end the covenantal relationship between God and Israel, wherein Israel would be the conduit through which God would work to bring about salvation to the nations.
The murder of Jesus established a New Covenant with a “New Chosen People of God,” a “holy nation,” as Peter calls it (1 Peter 2:9), the new spiritual “Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16).4 This is why Paul says there is no difference between Jews and Greeks anymore (Galatians 3:28; Colossians 3:11). Circumcision of the flesh no longer counted as anything (Galatians 6:13-16). God’s prophecies in Ezekiel had come to pass (11:19; 36:26). It would take a circumcision of the heart to find everlasting life now. The hearts of stone (hard-heartedness, cold, lifeless) would be transformed into hearts of flesh (soft, warm, living), and He would put His Spirit in those who had the hearts of flesh (Acts 2; cf. John 16:5-15).
These hearts of flesh must all abide by the New Covenant now, which doesn’t nullify the Old Testament, as Jesus said in Matthew 5:17-20. He came to fulfill it the Law, and He did so. He actually brought about the salvation spoken of so often in the Old Testament.
This new arrangement doesn’t nullify the people of Israel who are alive today either. They too can be saved, one by one, if they accept and acknowledge God’s Messiah as the One and Only Lord who “knows all things,” obeying God’s instructions and teachings, just as it was intended from the beginning. In other words, they must become like Shimon (Peter). God’s Chosen People no longer reside in a nation with borders. They are an ekklesia now. A Church. A Gathering without borders.
Peter was given another chance, just like Israel was, but if he had rejected Jesus again and again to save his own skin, becoming more and more belligerent and hard of heart as he did, then he, too, would have been lost for good because the king of his life would have been a man. Himself. And he would have fallen under the curse of Jeremiah 17:5 (LSB):
Thus says Yahweh,
“Cursed is the man who trusts in
mankind
And makes flesh his strength,
And whose heart turns away from Yahweh.”
Therefore, we have a clear establishment of how God thinks about living apart from Him, rejecting Him, disobeying His Word, and living like the world. There are only two ways to live your life: In full abundant living by following Jesus wholeheartedly, or living after the world and rejecting Him.
There’s no middle ground because the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
Thought for the Week:
Do you believe Jesus is the Messiah? Do you believe He was God in the flesh? Do you believe He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and nobody can enter through the gates of Heaven unless they acknowledge Jesus and allow Him to be Lord of their life?
You say, “Yes, I believe all of that.”
If so, when confronted with a situation, like Peter was, wherein your relationship with Jesus will cost you dearly—possibly your life, how much do you actually believe? Peter believed, according to his own words, before Acts 2. But as we saw above, he failed, denying his allegiance to Jesus. Yet, after Acts 2, Peter was as bold as bold could be, and it eventually cost him is life, according to tradition, with him being crucified upside down because he claimed he was not worthy to be crucified like his Lord.
As one author puts it, the depth of our belief in Christ is always measured by what we do.5 Not that it is all about doing things, but our belief is defined by whether or not we do what we say we believe. It’s not easy, especially when you are a soldier and you live in the enemy’s territory (Ephesians 6:10-18). But in every case, we either live up to our beliefs or down to them, as the case may be, because nothing else is possible. This is the nature of belief.
So, what do you believe? And how deep does that belief run through your spiritual veins?
The Kingdom of Heaven awaits your answer.
NEXT
TIME:
We have spent the last twenty-nine weeks looking at The King and His Kingdom: Viewing This Life Through the Eyes of the Almighty. We have seen how God’s Chosen People rejected Him and opened the door for all people and nations.
We will be taking a few
weeks off as Kevin prepares for the next section of this Bible study series. In
a few weeks, we will resume our study by looking at how God intended things to
be from the very beginning and get a firm grasp of how sin disrupted those
plans. Then, we will be able to understand Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount so much
more. For when you understand these two “hubs” in Genesis and Matthew,
everything else in scripture comes alive.
Endnotes
1. In case you are unfamiliar with the term “synoptic gospels,” it refers to Matthew, Mark and Luke. The word “optic” means “to see,” and the prefix “syn-” means “the same.” These gospel accounts “see the same.” They record the story and ministry of Jesus similarly to one another, documenting many of the same stories, but also sometimes mentioning one that the others do not. This does not detract from them at all. Instead, it adds richness, for when pieced together, we get a wonderful chronology of the life and ministry of Jesus, told from different perspectives, as Matthew was primarily addressing a Jewish audience, Mark focused on a Roman audience, and Luke steers toward a Greek one.
The gospel of John, however, is entirely different in how it is arranged, and often has sections the other three do not. John’s audience was different from the others, and focused more on the theological aspect of Jesus’s ministry as opposed to a specific people group. This was obviously his intent in writing it, which accounts for why it is arranged the way it is. But, when you put all four together, you get “a beautiful tapestry,” if you will, of the life of Jesus, His ministry, His death, His resurrection, His commissioning of the disciples, and His ascension.
2. This was illegal, by the way (Deuteronomy 16:18-20; 17: 2-7; 19:15-21; Leviticus 19:15). The accused in a trial was not allowed to incriminate himself unless witnesses and evidence proved what he said was true. At that point, a confession would be considered an admission of guilt, much like it would be in our court system here in America.
The Sanhedrin at that moment—when Caiaphas tore his robes and said they don’t need any further proceedings—was actually denying that what Jesus said about Himself was true, hence the accusation of blasphemy being committed. The issue was they had no evidence to back that up. Therefore, the high priest and the other religious leaders were not only playing judge, they were playing the role of the prosecution and the jury as well. This was prohibited by Jewish Law in the Old Testament to prevent exactly what was happening.
Even the false witnesses they brought in—who could not agree with themselves, by the way (Mark 14:59)—never mentioned anything about Jesus claiming to be the Messiah, so their testimony was not valid in this case. They just talked about Him tearing down the Temple and thinking He could rebuild a building in a mere three days that took years to construct. Of course, we know Jesus was talking about His body, not the physical Temple in Jerusalem. It would be in His body, and subsequently ours as well, where God dwells (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19-20). Therefore, on all counts, the Sanhedrin had it all wrong, and Jesus was telling the truth.
However, when you are hell-bent on reaching a preferred verdict for the purpose of protecting your careers, advancing your causes, or covering up atrocities, the truth doesn’t matter. Only the outcome. This is not how God operates. This is the mind of Satan and all who follow him. So, when you see people stomping on truth in the name of whatever—even justice—to get to a decision that benefits their cause and purpose, know Satan is at work. You’ll see his fingerprints all over the supposed evidence.
3. Higuera, Valencia. “Hematidrosis: Is Sweating Blood Real?” healthline.com. Reviewed by Elaine K. Luo, M.D. 2017 March 14. Web. 2022 July 29. <https://www.healthline.com/health/hematidrosis>
4. Jackson, Wayne. "A Brief Study of the Word "Kingdom"." ChristianCourier.com. No Date. Web. 7 August 2020. <https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/1348-brief-study-of-the-word-kingdom-a>
5. Willard, Dallas. The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our
Hidden Life in God. (Harper/SanFrancisco; New York, NY.), pp. 307-308.
Pictures courtesy of Pixabay and Unsplash and the following photographers/artists:
Rooster - Unsplash by Dusan Veverkolog
Boat - Pixabay by Quang Nguyen vinh
Group of People - Pixabay by Joseph Redfield Nino