The Gospel of John: The Arrest of Jesus

The Passion of Jesus as the Climax of the Gospel

And so, 1 Peter chapter 5, if you may turn there in your Bibles, please, and probably next week we'll continue with 2 Peter. So, 1 Peter chapter 5.

1 Peter chapter 5. So, I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight.

Not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you. Not for shameful gain, but eagerly. Not domineering over those in your examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of sufferings are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever.

Amen.

By Silvanus, a faithful brother as I regard him, I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it. She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son.

Greet one another with the kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ Jesus. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we do thank you that we are found in Christ Jesus, that our union is with Christ Jesus.

We thank you, Lord, for what that means, that every spiritual blessing that we have is found in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are in him, and he is in us. And we pray, Lord, that as we live our lives, that our lives would reflect this, that our actions and our attitudes would reflect this, that we belong to Christ.

And we pray, Lord, that we would experience this truth. We thank you, Lord, for the grace that is in Christ Jesus. We thank you that he set a perfect example for us. We thank you, Lord, that he is returning one day for us.

And Lord, we ask that until that day that we live for your glory and your honor. So help us, Lord, as we traverse the difficulties of this world. Help us remember the sufferings that are happening across the world by other brothers and sisters in Christ.

And we pray, Lord, that we would look to the eternal, not to the temporal. So help us now, Lord, as we continue our study of John. Help us to see the truth that is contained. We pray that as Lars preaches the sermon, that the Spirit would take that truth and implant it deep within our hearts.

Instruct us, Lord, how we must live in light of this truth. Give us wisdom and guidance. Thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name.

Amen.

John 18 and the Hour of Jesus

Well, let's turn to John 18, please. We're hoping to have a—to baptize before long. And so next Saturday morning, a quarter after nine after men's group, those that are—that we've spoken with about baptism, or if you're interested in this matter, we're going to meet in my office for about an hour or so, and we'll go over what the Bible teaches about this matter next Saturday morning at 9 .15.

And if that's your interest or desire, let me know. And perhaps early in September, maybe the mid-September, we'll attempt to baptize. Beginning with John 18, verse 1 and following, we read of our Lord's hour having arrived and to begin to unfold before us.

And he has mentioned this hour, his hour, a number of times thus far in the gospel. It's the passion of our Lord Jesus, of course, the passion account. And this passion account of Jesus is really the climax of the story of this entire gospel.

Actually, the passion of Jesus, which is the account of his arrest, his trials, his crucifixion, burial, and resurrection, is the climax of each of the four gospels. It's really what defines a gospel.

And we have cited before the well-known saying, the gospels are passion stories with extended introductions. And I think that capsulates it quite well, the importance of these passion narratives. And so the passion of Jesus records the manner in which our Savior accomplished salvation.

For us.

Of course, the Lord Jesus had humbled himself, became obedient to the point of death, as one wrote, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God, oh, this is scripture, therefore, God has also highly exalted him, given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, of those in heaven, of those on earth, of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

That really describes the passion. He humbled himself, was obedient to the Father, even to death. And as a result of his obedience, God the Father enthroned him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And so God, of course, has promised in the gospel that whosoever believes on Jesus, the Son of God, is his or her Savior, who turns, repents from sin, submits to Jesus Christ as Lord, that God will grant the forgiveness of sins and the gift of everlasting life freely and fully.

The Lord Jesus himself taught, for this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day, the day of the resurrection.

And so this passion, of course, is the working out of our salvation by our Savior. Now, in our examination of John's record of these events, we'll consider some similarities, but also some distinctions with the accounts of our Lord's passion recorded in the synoptic gospels.

Of course, we have four gospels, the Gospel of John, the synoptic gospels are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They're synoptic because they are very similar in order and in the content in which they relate the story of Jesus.

John's gospel is quite different in many ways. If you have ever examined a book that contains gospel parallels, where there's like four columns across the page, you'll see Matthew, Mark, and Luke very similar in addressing the same episodes and generally of the same order, but John's gospel, oftentimes that fourth column is quite blank for many, many pages on end.

And then it'll show a couple pages where it only has John's gospel in that column, and then the other three are blank. There's a great deal of distinction between John's gospel and the synoptic gospels.

And so every gospel is different from the others in the details they narrate, in some cases the order in which they are recorded. I just listed a summary of the major events of the passion gleaned, conflated from all four gospels, and we're not going to, of course, recite the passages, but as you look over that, you'll notice that some of the events are recorded only by John, some are recorded by all four gospels, some only by a couple of the gospels, synoptic gospels, and so no one gospel has the entire account.

When you consider a composite, these are all of the various details or episodes that are recorded for us. Page two of your notes, if you happen to be following. In John's gospel, before us, there are six major sections to this passion narrative, and so these pericope, or episodes, include the following.

The arrest of Jesus, verses one through, actually one through eleven, most of the paragraph designations have verses one through eleven. I included twelve because twelve really appears to be a concluding sentence to the episode, and yet the beginning of the next, it's kind of difficult.

And so the arrest of Jesus, the Jewish trial and its witnesses, thirdly the Roman trial before Pilate, fourth the episode in which you have the verdict, crucify him, and then the actual crucifixion of Jesus, and then the death and burial of Jesus, and of course we did not include the resurrection accounts in this list.

Today we'll begin to address the arrest of Jesus, which took place in the Garden of Gethsemane, and so here is John 18, verses one through twelve, and this is from the New King James Version. When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples over the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered.

And Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples. And then Judas, having received a detachment of troops and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.

Jesus therefore, knowing all things that would come upon him, went forward and said to them, Whom are you seeking? They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said to them, I am he. And Judas, who betrayed him, also stood with them.

Now when he said to them, I am he, they drew back and fell to the ground. Then he asked them again, Whom are you seeking? They said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he, therefore if you seek me, let these go their way, that the saying might be fulfilled, which he spoke of those whom you gave me, I have lost none.

I didn't mention this in our later notes, but I want you to notice that verse 9, here we have an expression of fulfillment of Jesus's words. And the way it's set out, it's just like Jesus was fulfilling Old Testament scripture, but here you have Jesus fulfilling his own word.

And so his own word is really set forth as authoritative as scripture, which it is, of.

Course.

But it's kind of an interesting way in which that's set forth. I should have mentioned that in my notes. Verse 10, then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear, and the servant's name was Malchus.

So Jesus said to Peter, put your sword into the sheath, shall I not drink the cup which my father has given me? Then the detachment of troops and the captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him.

The Gospels as Theological Documents, Not Merely Chronology

Now before we begin to consider these verses, I'd like us to be aware of a few matters respecting the literary and historical nature of our four Gospels. Of course, the Gospels record the historic events of the person in ministry of Jesus Christ, who he is, that he came into the world to save sinners from their fallen state into his everlasting kingdom.

But having said that they are historical in nature, we need to define more carefully what we mean and what we do not mean by the idea of being historical documents. During the period of the Enlightenment, sometimes called the Age of Reason, 17th and 18th centuries, a new way of thinking became the predominant worldview in the Western Hemisphere.

Along with the radical questioning of authority, people came to believe that the human condition could improve and civilization would advance through rational thought, rationalism. We can come up with the answer.

The scientific method was developed and it became the standard by which all matters were assessed and evaluated, what you can see, what you can measure, what you conclude. This way of thinking affected the manner in which people viewed and wrote history as well.

Unfortunately, I would argue, in all of history, reading history, the nature and goal of history writing was regarded as an effort, or at least it should be, an effort to describe and record precisely events of the past as rational people would have observed them taking place.

And so with this Age of Enlightenment, the miraculous was rejected as unscientific. We don't see people walking on water, so Jesus must not have walked on water. Those were the kinds of conclusions they would draw.

Predictive prophecy was regarded as an impossibility. That affected the dating of documents of the Bible. Historical documents were assessed and evaluated whether they related chronologically to actual events as they transpired.

And so history, if I can use an analogy, was viewed like a photograph of a scene, an exact representation, and they thought all of history should be this way, where we would say, no, that history as recorded in the Bible is not intended for that purpose, but rather it's more of an impressionistic image, as it were, to tell us something, to inform us about things in the light of historic events.

I'll explain a little further. And so biblical scholars, so-called, applied this view of history to the books of the Bible, most commonly to the four Gospels. And so coming to the Gospels with their assumptions and assertions about history, they evaluated the Gospels and then declared them to be poor history, unreliable documents.

And they brought out the various differences between the accounts of the four Gospels, professing them to be inaccurate and unreliable historical documents. And the result is that skepticism of the Bible and deism as a religion permeated the Western world.

And the fact is, historically, some of the most anti-Christian writers of the age were biblical scholars, so-called. And this manner of understanding the Gospels has continued into the world today. Most people today were still affected by that view of history.

And when we come to the Bible and we read it, particularly non-Christians, they will tend to impose that, we would argue, an unjust standard for reading and interpreting the Bible. And so they justify by rejecting it, saying these things are not historically reliable, when they completely misunderstand the nature of the documents themselves.

And so later in response and reaction to the claims of these biblical skeptics and opposers, biblical scholars who believed in the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, as we do, responded to these higher critic claims.

For example, they examined and evaluated the Gospels as literature. And they showed that the liberal scholars had imposed and applied an incorrect and unjust standard of history upon the Scriptures. What was concluded was that the documents we call Gospels are a unique genre of literature.

In other words, the Gospel, the four Gospels we have in our New Testament, God moved these writers to invent that style of writing for the purpose of relating to us the life of Jesus. It wasn't like Josephus, who was attempting to record actual history.

The Gospel writers, inspired by the Holy Spirit, interpreted these events and conveyed these events through the Gospels in order to reveal truth to us. And so the Gospels are a unique genre, style of literature, form of literature.

And although they reflect actual historical events, certainly they do. These documents were not to be regarded or interpreted as historical documents, as the rationalists understood history. Rather, God intended the Gospels to be theological interpretations of historical events.

That's extremely important to understand. The Gospels are not concerned necessarily with matters of chronology. Now, there are a couple of the Gospels that are more concerned with chronology, but sometimes the episodes are grouped in the Gospels according to subject matter.

And so if you come to them and you read them and assume it's got to be chronological and Matthew doesn't agree with Mark, say, in chronology, it would be an unjust criticism to argue they're not historical and they're errant.

No, you're not reading them rightly. And so the Gospels are not concerned necessarily with matters of chronology, nor were they necessarily intended to relate events as they were observed. But rather, God intended the record of these events to be interpreted history by inspired men who were superintended by the Holy Spirit.

The Gospels are theological documents designed to convey spiritual truth through historic persons and events. And each of the Gospels, therefore, may vary in the manner that they relate the historical events in order to convey spiritual truths to their readers.

And most of the people of the world, they don't understand this. I know of a young man, well, he's probably now in his 30s, who grew up in church, was homeschooled all his life, he went to college, a secular university, went to a class, the Bible of Literature, and they presented the Bible as we have just described to this aberrant view of history.

He concluded the Bible is not historical. He abandoned the faith, and today, he is in the world. And he doesn't understand that the philosophy of the world deceived him. And as a result, he fell into unbelief.

Very common. Happens all the time. Christians go out of churches, they're raised in churches, they go off to university, and they're exposed to this kind of nonsense, and they're not taught or instructed well in the churches to deal with this.

And, you know, the churches seem to be so much involved in entertaining and keeping these kids excited, you know, to keep them through their teenage years, and then they get thrown into this kind of so-called intellectual setting, and they're not capable of dealing with it.

They're overwhelmed. It's satanic. You know, and I trust that, you know, that talking about things like this will give us a, you know, preventive to that. Maybe a measure of protection. Also a manner in which we dealt with this.

I spoke with the mother of this son a handful of years ago and wrote a little document explaining exactly this, and she really appreciated it. Now she knows how to, she then knew how to respond to her son when he threw up these accusations.

So the Gospels are theological documents. This is God's purpose in having recorded them and transmitted them to us. The nature of the Gospels as literature may be better understood by us through the passion narrative of the Gospel of John.

Primary text by which we can show this. When it, John's Gospel, John's passion, is set by side with the accounts in the Synoptic Gospels, it's apparent that there are significant differences in what it conveys to the reader.

There is a general unanimity between the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but John's account provides us with another perspective with different details that are not contradictory to those in the Synoptics, but rather they're supplementary to them.

And so one once described the character of John's account, the whole of the peculiarities of the substance of John's Gospel are to be explained on the two grounds that he was writing a supplement to, not a substitute for, or a correction of, the Gospels already in existence.

And that his special business was to narrate such facts and words as set forth the glory of Christ as he only begotten of the Father. That is John's emphasis. That's not necessarily the emphasis of the Synoptics.

In fact, I recall that there was an early church father in the second century, I believe, who actually declared that John wrote his Gospel with the intention not to cover what was already addressed in the Synoptics, but rather to speak of and embellish those things that he felt needed to be conveyed to prove that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God.

And so it was intentionally not to be identical to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And, of course, we believe that God superintended this whole business to fill out our understanding of who Jesus Christ is. And so we have the Gospel of John as well.

And so an illustration of this can be seen when we compare the Passion accounts. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus is shown to have come to the Garden of Gethsemane where he is called to fulfill his calling to fulfill and suffer and die in order to redeem his people.

He is shown to be in need of great strength and assistance. He's praying in the Garden, remember? Father, may this cup pass from me, but not my will, but your will be done. And then God sent the angels to strengthen him, to enable him to pray more.

There was great struggle, difficulty that he endured and overcame and went to his cross triumphantly. That's what's conveyed in the Synoptics. The Father gave him strength and assistance. Jesus is set forth as being betrayed, of course, in the Synoptics and then unjustly tried, abused, sentenced by the sinful Jewish leadership.

And yet in his resurrection in the Synoptics, God, his Father, vindicated him. The world said, no, crucify him. God the Father said, no, I'm exalting him. The Father vindicated him as deserving of all authority and glory.

And so he's set forth in the Synoptics as a faithful suffering servant like Isaiah 52, 53, who died in the place of and on behalf of his people to save them from their sins. Now, what about John's Gospel?

What's the main thrust of John's Gospel? What is the major thrust of the Passion account of the fourth Gospel? Well, John has set forth Jesus as a conqueror who has come forth to his hour in order to drink the cup of suffering from the Father for the salvation of his people from the world.

Jesus Christ is shown as the one who is in command of all that transpires here in John's Gospel. And we'll show that. Even over those who maltreated him with contempt and injustice, Jesus is Lord, he's calling the shots.

He's in control. He's not a helpless, passive person in prison and bound. We'll see that he's actually, even over those that are coming to arrest him, he is the one who is in charge. Also in John's Gospel, there's a greater attention and emphasis given to the Roman authorities and soldiers in John's account rather than the primary role of the Jews in the Synoptic accounts.

There's a universalism in John's Gospel. The world, not just Jews, but the Gentiles of the world are also taken in view. And so what John does is he includes details about the Roman soldiers involved that the Synoptic Gospels don't include.

Liberal scholars would say that's a contradiction. No, we would say it's supplementary and they're complementary. Designed to reveal things to us, truth to us. It's very rich theologically. We shouldn't just view them as historic documents, but they reveal God's truth to us.

And so as one wrote, the Romans play a more central role in John than in the Synoptics. They appear even in the arrest scene, the Romans. And so in this way, Jesus is set forth as the one who is dying for sinners of the world.

Even as he is the Lord of all flesh, of all the world, in all that is recorded of Jesus, he's set forth as the one in whom the glory of God is manifested. He is the Son of God. Again, as one wrote, Leon Morse.

Good older commentary on John. As in the other Gospels, it is the events surrounding the crucifixion and the resurrection that form the climax of the whole book. John had his own way of handling these events.

A way which stresses the divine overruling. This account of the arrest stresses Jesus' complete mastery of the situation. And there are touches like, it is finished, of the dying Savior. Which indicate plainly that the outcome was completely in God's control.

Here supremely we see the purpose of God worked out. And here supremely is the glory of Jesus displayed. But again, there are distinctions in the Passion account before us and those of the Synoptic Gospels.

Consider these differences, and I put that in quotation marks. These are not contradictions, but they are differences between John and the other three Gospels. Not only is there no record in John of Jesus' agony in the Gethsemane.

That's predominant in the Synoptics, isn't it? No mention of it by John. Jesus goes forth to his arrest, chapter 18. Controls the flow of events. He interrogates his captors. Displays enough of his glory that they fall backward to the ground.

You don't have that recorded in the Synoptics. There are several passages in John that have no parallel whatsoever in the Synoptics. Bringing Jesus to Annas, the high priest. That's in John only. His answer to the high priest and to the official who slapped him.

Conversations between Jesus and Pilate. And between Pilate and the Jews. The statement that Jesus carried his own cross is emphasized in John. An excursus on the significance of the inscription on the cross is found in John.

The forging of the link between his mother and the beloved disciple. And the cry from the cross recorded in John 19 .30. Again, there is genuine insight in the observation that John portrays Jesus in control of his destiny as he makes his way to the cross.

And so the whole Passion account conveys this setting. And as we read it, we may not be able to see these distinctions in the importance. But when you see them in contrast, or set side by side by the Synoptics, then they begin to show themselves forth.

And so as we look over the account of our Lord's arrest, we may consider the following divisions. Now we're looking at John 18, 1 -11 or 12. We see first, the betrayal in the garden, verses 1 -3. Secondly, Jesus stepped forward to face his captors, verses 4 -9.

And thirdly, Jesus speaks of the cup of his father, verses 10 -11. And then we throw in this last verse too. Where it seems to be a conclusion of the episode where Jesus is arrested and bound. Let's begin to work through these.

The Betrayal in the Garden

First, the betrayal of Jesus in the garden. We read in the opening of this Passion narrative, which sets forth the arrest of Jesus. Here we read of the place in which the arrest takes place, the people involved, and the manner in which they came to Jesus.

And so this is the introduction to the episode, verses 1 -11 or 12. The people came with lanterns, torches, and weapons. As we read, once again, these three verses. When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples over the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered.

And Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples. And then Judas, having received a detachment of troops and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.

The account is rather brief and concise. John chose not to embellish this account of our Lord's betrayal and arrest, as one Reformed commentator rightly assessed. The narrative in John is extremely concise.

The focus is on a few high points in a story with which his readers were undoubtedly familiar. They had the other three Gospels. There's no attempt to give a comprehensive account of the course of events.

That wasn't the intention. The moments highlighted are those in which Jesus most clearly manifests his glory. The light falls successively on Judas, the band of soldiers, the disciples, and Peter. Notice the first clause, verse 1, when Jesus had spoken these words.

Well, that refers to everything in John 17, his high priestly prayer. John did not record our Lord's prayer while in Gethsemane. We have that in the Synoptic Gospels. He prayed, Father, may this cup pass from me.

There's no prayer in the garden in John's account. It might surmise, I kind of thought about this, I wonder if the high priestly prayer in John 17 was prayed by Jesus in the garden and, you know, Peter heard that and recorded that.

But no, because verse 1 says it was really after Jesus spoke these words of John 17, then they went out to go to the garden. He didn't pray those words in John 17 while in the garden, but rather afterwards.

He went out with his disciples. That's where Jesus is the principal actor in his episode. John didn't say, John didn't write, and they went out. Jesus went out, his disciples went with him. That's a little, you know, narrative subtlety, but you can see this is one way in which the Holy Spirit moved John to present Jesus out there in front.

Jesus went out, his disciples went with him. And so he gave emphasis to Jesus. They traveled east through the gate in the eastern wall of Jerusalem, descended into the Kidron Valley. The New King James Version refers to the brook Kidron.

This is the only place here in John, 18 verse 1, the only place Kidron is named in the New Testament. Although it's referenced in 10 verses in the Old Testament. David flees Jerusalem, remember? He goes over, down through the Valley of Kidron.

The Greek word translated brook is commonly used to describe a wadi, which was just, of course, a seasonal stream. Dry most of the year, but could become torrential with a significant rainfall. And so Kidron was a chimeras, literally, winter flowing stream.

As a noun denoting a torrent that flowed during the rainy season of winter. There may have been a flow at this time. It was, of course, in early spring, Passover, but probably not as great a flow as earlier.

On the other side of the brook, there was a garden. Neither John nor Luke named the garden as Gethsemane. Matthew does. Mark does. John doesn't, nor Luke. Gethsemane means oil press, in which olives would be processed.

And so no doubt this garden was situated on the Mount of Olives, which is mentioned in several places in both the Old and New Testaments. And Jesus and his disciples entered this garden. Now, some have suggested that John sets forth Jesus as the faithful second Adam, who goes into the garden and achieves what the first Adam failed to do in the garden.

Interesting. I'd never seen that before. Never read that before. Never heard that before. Maybe I should have, but I didn't. And so one wrote, So, succeeding where Adam failed, Jesus Christ entered into a garden, surrendered himself to the betrayal of the world, not by force, but by a self-surrendered will, in order to drink the cup of suffering from the Father for the salvation of the world.

And here's another who wrote that this was quite a popular teaching in the early churches for 2nd, 3rd century AD. The author, though familiar with the prayer in Gethsemane, he knew about the prayer in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, omits both it and the falling asleep of the disciples.

He states simply that the place was the garden. The garden is important to him, for he carefully records that not only the arrest took place there, but also the resurrection. He was resurrected in the garden, too.

And it was in the place where he was crucified. The comments of the fathers, this would have been the early churches, 2nd, 3rd century writers, the comments of the fathers may have elucidated the symbolism correctly.

The passion and the resurrection which affected the salvation of the world are contrasted with the fall in the Garden of Eden. That's interesting.

However,.

Although this was a popular teaching in the early centuries of the Christian era, some today espouse it, its contrast between the Garden of Eden and the Garden of Gethsemane, it may be somewhat of a stretch.

A few of the better commentators of John don't mention this idea at all. And I have to admit, I would have never concluded it if I hadn't read it in a commentary. So I don't know how overt it is. George Beasley Murray, he was a Baptist scholar.

He died in 2000. He wrote a good technical commentary on John. He dismissed this as a spurious idea. Early expositors could not resist linking the garden wherein man fell into sin with the garden of the Savior's struggle to obey his Father, which was also the scene of his arrest in that garden where he burst the bands of death at Easter.

The connection, however, is scarcely to be viewed as intended by the evangelist. He just thought that was reading in a bunch of symbolism. And again, I'd hesitate to take the position one way or another.

Again, it's noteworthy that John does not record of Jesus in the garden. In distinction from the accounts in the synoptics, John does not mention several matters of importance that are found in the other Gospels.

Unlike the synoptics, John mentions neither the mound of olives nor the name of the garden. And the synoptics do not mention the kid-drawn brook in their description of the place. Of course, they're referring to the same place, but from the start, John's presentation is independent of the synoptics.

This independence is even more evident from the narrative of Jesus' arrest. John does not mention Jesus' agony in Gethsemane before the arrest. Only the word cup in verse 11 is clearly reminiscent of the synoptic prayer of Gethsemane.

And this undoubtedly linked with the perspective from which the evangelist wants the reader to understand the narrative that Jesus' authority and power with which he, in obedience to the Father, now surrenders himself into the hands of humans.

In all that we've said thus far, I'm tempted to show that this passion of John's Gospel I think we're going to find to be very enriching and informative as well. You're probably like I am, most familiar with the synoptic accounts.

And so, I'm looking forward to examining John's account a little more carefully. We read of Judas' familiarity with the garden in verse 2. And Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place where Jesus often met there with his disciples.

Jesus probably spent the night there on more than one occasion. We read earlier in John's Gospel, they each went to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. No doubt this garden and his disciples with him.

Perhaps Judas had first led this official mob on this night to the upper room, but it was vacant. I can imagine Judas saying, oh I know where he probably is, he's out there in the garden. And then he took the mob out there.

We then read of those Judas brought with him in order to apprehend Jesus. We read in verse 3, then Judas having received a detachment of troops and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees came there with lanterns, torches and weapons.

It's interesting that nothing much is said of Judas by John in this account. Yes, Judas is brought forward in the account, but clearly Judas is set forth as a rather insignificant, albeit treacherous fellow.

Now, notice the subject and verb of this sentence in verse 3. Then Judas came there with lanterns. In other words, there's a singular subject, Judas.

A singular.

Verb matches that, Judas came. Everything in between is really a subordinate clause. The focus is on Judas. Judas came and he came with bringing all these people with him. Judas is being set forth. And so John did not write something like this, a detachment of troops and officers along with Judas came.

Judas is a single subject of a single verb. Then Judas came there. But he was not alone, of course. Troops and officers are in a subordinate clause. Judas had received this detachment, presumably from the Jewish authority, to apprehend the Lord Jesus.

But then nothing much more is said about Judas by John. He's referenced in verse 5. Judas, who betrayed him, also stood with them. Once Judas brought this mob to Jesus, the mob had assumed control and took action.

Judas fades away and is simply standing there with the mob. John recorded nothing of the kiss whereby Judas betrayed Jesus. John wrote nothing of the later remorse of Judas in his attempt to return to the blood money, 30 pieces of silver.