Arrest of Jesus Continued

We are moving into, one of the reasons

I said everyone's going to need their synopsis is we are moving into the tough sections now where we're dealing with that last bit of material, literally only pages left in the study that we've been doing for about 10 years in the

Synoptic Gospels. And hence, we're encountering the really challenging material, a material that I think, you know, it's funny, when we started this study,

I would have had a slightly different view of just how much each one of us needs to know how to answer the objections that are raised to the

Crucifixion and Resurrection narratives than I do now. I say slightly different because I would say that now, it's even more important for everyone to be able to give a response because of the advance in the decay of our society and attack upon the

Christian faith and the fact that the internet allows these kinds of arguments to be so widely disseminated that almost anyone that you talk to anymore, if they want to try to sidetrack or derail a discussion, will start throwing out these objections.

And especially because, you know, because of Bart Ehrman and the people who follow him and read his materials and the people who popularize his materials, especially this section, if you've ever listened to Ehrman's presentations, he will run through a whole series of items in the

Crucifixion and Resurrection narratives and will have the same comment on each.

He'll say, well, how many angels were at the tomb? Well, it depends on which manuscript you're reading.

And what time in the morning was it? Well, it depends on which manuscript you're reading. And he'll just go through item after item after item.

How many times did the rooster crow? And so on and so on and so forth. And unfortunately for most of us, we haven't spent a lot of time looking at these things.

And so it's a little bit difficult to be confident with a response. Well, we don't have, there's no way a parallel like this to avoid dealing with subjects over the next number of weeks and to work hard because there's no way around the fact that we're going to be dealing with some challenging things over the next couple of weeks.

We are in section, basically section 331, page 300 in the

Arrest of Jesus. You'll recall that last week we looked at John 18 specifically in regards to the differences between John's rendering of the arrest, especially in regards to Jesus' use of the phrase,

I am, in reference to himself, the falling back of the soldiers slash guards.

There is obviously some discussion of exactly the identity of this large crowd that comes with the servants of the chief priest and so on and so forth.

Well, we only know the name of one, Malchus. That's about the only one that we know. But we looked at some of the differences there.

We did not, however, look at Jesus' words, 12 legions of angels, but how then should the scriptures be fulfilled?

It must be so. At that hour, Jesus said to the crowd, so there you're talking about an entire group that's come out, have you come out against a robber with swords and clubs to capture me?

Day after day I sat in the temple teaching and you did not seize me. But all this has taken place, the scriptures, the prophets might be fulfilled.

Then all his disciples forsook him and fled. Now, Matthew gives a fairly full account there.

Luke gives most of the address to the crowds.

Matthew does not note the healing, but Luke does, just very, very quickly.

Instead of the whole discussion of taking the sword, a pair of swords, Jesus said, no more of this, and he touched his ear and healed him.

Then Jesus said to the chief priests in the offices of the temple and the elders. So there you have a little more of identification of who the crowd is.

Have you come out against a robber, et cetera, et cetera. So, once again, as we saw last week, you have different vantage points as to each of the

Gospels as to what is being recorded. Interestingly enough,

John identifies Simon Peter as the one who does the striking.

You'll notice in Luke 22, it looks like we're about to stop.

Lord, shall we strike with the sword? And one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear, but Jesus said, no more of this, and he touched his ear and healed him.

Only John gives the specific information that this is

Peter that does this. Now, that may have something, interestingly enough, to do with the discussion of the betrayal, the denials, more likely, the denials of Peter that come a little bit later on, one of the challenges that we are looking at.

But specifically, you have Simon Peter who draws his sword and cuts off the right ear.

Both Matthew and Mark don't bother to give us the specifics of which ear it was, but Luke and John do give that specific piece of information.

Each one gives us a portion of what is said. And Jesus is saying, no more of this, and add that to put your sword back into its place and create a longer story.

And while that might be possible to do, it's still not Matthew's version, or Mark's version, or Luke's version, or John's version when you do that.

Does anybody remember the ancient work that I mentioned last week where someone did exactly that?

I know it stuck with Casey. Casey mentioned on Facebook. The Diatessaron of, who wrote it?

Tatian. That's exactly right. Very good. The Diatessaron was the work that was produced early on in the church where basically

Tatian takes the four gospels and puts them all together. Not to where it's four times larger than any one gospel.

He leaves out a lot of portions, like the genealogies are gone and stuff like that, but puts together a synthesized version of the gospel.

Issues that we're going to encounter is that the standard that we use of deciding what the gospels are is going to influence how we end up understanding, especially when we get to issues like, well, for example, the death of Judas.

In just a couple pages. The death of Judas is only narrated for us in one gospel,

Matthew chapter 27, verses 3 through 10, but it is narrated elsewhere where? The Book of Acts.

And it is one of the standard arguments, some of the standard arguments that are thrown out there all the time.

Peter's denials, how many times and where? How did Judas die?

What was written on the cross? What is the exact order of Jesus' appearances before whom?

Pilate, Herod, Sanhedrin, et cetera. What's the exact order? So on and so forth.

And then, of course, issues relating to the resurrection. What time of day is it?

How many angels are there? What's the order of people who come to the tomb? What's the order of Jesus' appearances?

Big question about where Jesus meets the disciples, Jerusalem, Galilee. Paul mentions

Jesus meeting with 500 witnesses at one time. Is that not recorded in the

Gospels? Is that recorded in the Gospels? If so, where? All sorts of questions like these.

And in all of these, one of the issues is going to be, what is the purpose and intention of this particular author in narrating this particular item?

And if we do not adopt the guilty -until -proven -innocent standard, if we adopt the innocent -until -proven -guilty standard, and recognize that we're only being given a certain amount of information,

I mean, you could literally read everything about the arrest, the betrayal, arrest, trial, crucifixion, resurrection of Jesus.

I think all of us could have, if we had started it at 9 .45, we all would have been done before.

Sunday school is over, and some of us a lot faster than others. There's just not that much material there.

And so, to ask for exhaustive detail is to ignore what the authors themselves are clearly doing, and that is they are attempting to communicate to us the primary elements without getting bogged down in the kind of detail that would make these documents impossible to reproduce, to carry around, to use to proclaim the gospel.

And so, they are brief summaries, and because they are brief summaries coming from different perspectives, there are sometimes when we simply go, there's no way to answer certain questions that would require more information than we've actually been given.

So, as a result, sometimes Christians down through the years have created some interesting attempts at harmonization, assuming that we have sufficient information to answer all the questions rather than recognize that some of the questions just simply can't be answered.

And so, we will make note of some of them as we are going along. Now, just briefly,

I don't want to skip over the heart of the material, primarily so as to note the questions that have to be answered, but it is interesting that Jesus, in Matthew, makes this statement,

Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and He will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? This is addressed to Peter.

And, once again, it is an echo of something we heard before.

So, you're in the garden, Peter has just about started a fight, and Jesus says to Peter, Do you think that I cannot appeal to my

Father, and He will at once give me more than twelve legions of angels? So, what's the point there? The point is, Peter, you and your sword are not necessary here.

If this was not the Father's will for me, then the Father is in a plenty good position to take care of issues.

This rabble, this crowd of people with swords and clubs, these aren't even

Roman soldiers. These aren't even trained soldiers. As can be clearly seen by the fact that Malchus couldn't get out of the way fast enough of a

Galilean fisherman with a sword who had probably never swung at anybody before. And so,

Peter, if the Father wanted to deliver me from this situation, believe me, remember, one angel took out 180 ,000

Assyrians, a legion of angels would wipe out the entire planet. So, you're missing the point,

Peter. And it's an echo of something we've heard before. What do you think I'm referring to? Normally, he just talks all hour.

We don't have to worry about it. Yeah, but what about Peter?

Peter wasn't in the wilderness. Where else does

Peter get slapped around a bit by Jesus? No, Jesus didn't slap him around for that.

Luke did. Luke said he didn't know what he was saying. That was obviously an inter -apostolic joke.

Peter's talking again. He'll be done soon enough. There you go.

Matthew chapter 16. What does Jesus start doing? I must go to Jerusalem and I must be betrayed in the hands of men and be crucified and rise again the third day.

And what does Peter say? May it never be, Lord. And what does Jesus say? Get behind me, Satan, for you're minding the things of men, not the things of God.

And so, here you have the same kind of language being used.

And that's why I mentioned I don't know, it was about it wasn't quite a year ago maybe as little as six months ago

I mentioned to you briefly during one of the lessons, I think maybe it was somebody else

I mentioned it to, but there was a rather well -known New Testament scholar that came out sometime over the past couple years with his theory that Matthew identified

Peter as an apostate who was never redeemed. So Peter's at fault. And he bases that solely upon taking

Matthew, separating him from Mark and Luke and saying they just have completely different conclusions, different perspectives and Matthew identifies

Peter and there's this theme. And as long as you cut the New Testament up and you don't mind making the

New Testament writers completely at odds with one another you can come up with all sorts of interesting theories if you want to get published.

But that's what this guy has done. It's funny, this guy years and years ago Norman Geisler had done everything he could to get him kicked out of the

Evangelical Theological Society because this guy doesn't believe in inerrancy. And as much as Norm has proven himself somewhat of an irascible fellow on this issue he was obviously prophetic because he was exactly right.

But it is amazing to listen to stories that can be weaved together as long as you do not have that pesky little thing called consistency.

As long as you don't have to worry about actually allowing scripture to speak with one voice, as long as you can cut up into pieces man you can come up with anything that you want.

And then notice in both Matthew 26 -54 and in 56 something we've seen over and over again in looking at Matthew especially is his fulfillment theology his fulfillment theme.

But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled? It must be so in verse 56 that all this has taken place and the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.

Let the scriptures be fulfilled is Mark's version of that. It's interesting notice the end of Jesus' words in Luke verse 53 when

I was with you day after day in the temple you did not lay hands on me but this is your hour and the power of darkness.

Interesting assertion that is made there.

And again John does not include any of this other than by saying

Jesus said to Peter put your sword into its sheath shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me.

Now again remember last week I mentioned that one of the constant refrains of liberal theology today is that Mark presents

Jesus as the weakest and then Matthew and Luke try to improve on that and then of course

John's out in the ozone layer with Jesus up on Mount Olympus throwing lightning bolts and stuff like that.

That's how they try to present it. The irony is but Mark does include this and probably because of the connection with Peter or something.

Evidently folks in the early church didn't need a whole lot of explanation as to who this was but there you have it mentioned there in Mark chapter 14.

Alright then we move from there to the question of the Sanhedrin.

Now you've probably all heard before this was not a legal proceeding in the sense of it violated all sorts of Jewish tradition and law.

And in fact Jewish apologists have said this could never have happened because it was so out of the proper norms for how this should take place.

It was done in the middle of the night and they actually had fairly decent laws amongst the

Jews as to how things like this were to be handled which you would expect that they would given the basis in God's law and the idea of having two or three witnesses and the agreement of the witnesses and so on and so forth.

But that's not what's going on and so Jewish apologists say, well see Jewish people didn't have anything to do with this.

Well the reality is that you have a corrupt leadership at this time.

Spiritually corrupt obviously all you have to do is listen to Matthew chapter 23 to get the clue on that.

The dialogues in John etc. etc. But also politically corrupt.

So for example John 18 says, first they led him to Annas for he was the father -in -law of Caiaphas who was high priest that year.

Now some people who are ignorant of the historical realities will go, see, see, see,

John had no idea what he was talking about. I've run into atheists that have done this and some

Muslims as well. According to the Old Testament according to the law you have only one high priest until he dies.

And in fact it was well known and it's rather interesting actually that in intertestamental

Jewish writings the death of the high priest actually came from a not a fully propitiatory idea like we would have in the cross but there was a concept in Second Temple Judaism, in the

Judaism of Jesus' day where the death of the high priest released the high priest represented the people and so his death was almost considered to be paid for of national sins.

Of course you can find all sorts of stuff in Second Temple Judaism so the point is that there was an echo of that thought and so some people look at that and go, see, ah,

John, he has no idea what he's talking about he's got more than one high priest. But we know from even secular sources that the

Romans had chosen to exercise their authority despite the fact that this probably had something to do with the development of the zealots for example and some of the feelings of rebellion and they basically exercised control over the high priesthood so as to have some level of control over the

Jewish people and this was of course considered by really leaving patriotic

Jews to be an act of surrender, betrayal, on the part of both

Annas and Caiaphas to allow for the Romans to do this. But the

Romans have a have the best weapons of the day and they're in control and so that was the situation as it existed and John's account simply reflects the reality of what was going on at the time.

And so first it led to Annas, then to Caiaphas the

Synoptic Gospels don't bother with Annas, they go directly to Caiaphas possibly.

The reason for this would be in their minds, Caiaphas, Annas, it's all just the high priesthood.

It is the leadership of the Jewish people whether you stand before one or the other doesn't make any difference.

Maybe John is giving more detail than the others at this point. One other thing to mention again,

I'm sorry to keep giving you these things but someday one of you is going to remember one of these things and it's going to help you in a witnessing situation and it's going to make it all worthwhile.

But it is a constant drum beat and it's because of one man

I've played audio of this fellow for you in years past.

The most listened to Muslim in the world who died almost ten years ago now.

A man by the name of Achmed Didat in his most famous talk that is still heard by more by literally hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world.

And if they haven't heard it, their imams have and repeat it. I would estimate,

I would be surprised if there are less than 800 million people on this planet that have not heard this argument.

800 million, maybe a billion. That's how popular it is. Didat gave a talk called

Crucifixion or Crucifiction X -I -O -N or F -I -C -T -I -O -N

So he talked about the crucifixion the fiction of the death of Jesus.

Because as you know, Surah 4 -7 of the Quran says that there was no crucifixion of Jesus. He did not die.

And one of the arguments fundamental to Didat's position is that all the disciples fled.

He could stand in front of an audience without a Bible without notes and quote and according to Mark chapter 14 verse 50 and they all forsook him and fled.

So all the rest of the story is second hand information.

None of the disciples ever saw Jesus die because they all fled. Now, that works really well when you can count on the fact that 99 % of your audience has never read the

Bible and is never going to check you out on what you say. Because yeah, it says then all the disciples forsook him and fled.

Matthew and Mark say that. But that's not all they say. Because very quickly you have both in Matthew and Mark and Peter followed him at a distance.

John who is the information was a disciple in Jerusalem.

Possibly his mother who had the upper room in which

Pentecost takes place. And this is why he has so much information.

He was a very young man at that time. And so on and so forth. But there are at least two other than the women who are identified as disciples who we believe in John and Peter.

And if you're going to quote from Matthew and Mark and then ignore what they say like half a sentence later, you're not really dealing with the text fairly.

That's exactly what D -Dot did. And if you accept D -Dot as a great scholar and a great defender of your religion, you're a little bit unable to accept any criticism by overestimating 800 million.

And believe that all the rest in the account of crucifixion is pure, fair or meaningful on the basis of 40

Arabic words in 600 years after the event. That seems extremely small in perspective and in response to the knowledge given by God and Muslims for a long time.

And you can be frustrated if you want to. You can say oh those silly Muslims, how can they but the fact of the matter is that's all they've ever heard.

And many times the Christians they encounter don't know the text well enough to lead them through it to explain well actually, you know, just a couple words later, it says this.

I mean, they will literally know that in Matthew chapter 10, Jesus said to the disciples,

I send you only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Most Muslims will know

Jesus said that. Most Christians don't know that Jesus said that or where he said that. But most Muslims will because they understand that to mean that Jesus is only the

Messiah for the Jews. That he is pretty much irrelevant to anyone else. That same gospel of Matthew contains

Matthew 28, which we do know a lot better, going to all the world. All authority has been given to me.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Especially when it's an out of context knowledge. And that is unfortunately what we will encounter many, many times.

Now there are, you'll notice if you look in the section here, if you look at the next page and then you keep looking over 333, all of this is the same material.

Pages of the same material just in different order. Why? Well part of it is what is going on with Jesus before the

Sanhedrin. And then part of it is the issue of Peter's denial.

And obviously most of the questions regarding the order of events is going to be answered by how we relate each of the

Gospels to the others. And so you have a large amount of small print that is the small print of course is where the editor is suggesting that we could put this here, we could put this over here, and if we think that it was the

Gospel writer's intention to give us an exhaustive account, this would be troubling to us but clearly it is not their intention in so doing.

And so again we don't want to skip over what is actually said before the Sanhedrin, looking at Peter, but we are told immediately in Synoptics followed at a distance

John is the only one that Simon Peter followed

Jesus and so did that the reason that John feels free to give this information while the

Synoptics does not is that again as I suggested last week, is it possible that all these people, the maid,

Peter, are dead by this point in time and hence to recount their roles in this vital incident is no longer an issue for them whereas it might have been at that particular point in time.

I mean Peter is brought in and yet that maid who kept the door said to Peter, are you not also one of these men?

The big issue is, well how many times did this happen? Well we don't know. We know that Jesus had prophesied

Peter's denial and he said that the cock would not crow until you've denied me three times.

Well obviously the idea of the cock crowing or how many times the cock crows, for us we get hung up on the detail of some farm animal making noises and that's not what the phrase indicated in that time.

It was before the cock crows, before the next day

Peter you're going to deny me three times. That was the essence of what

Jesus had said. It wasn't how many times the cock crows or anything like that. That is simply the reality of how you, that was everyone's experience of the morning and of course it wouldn't just be one time.

I mean it's certainly when you think about it that everybody in Jerusalem would have heard and if they heard a second time, did you hear that?

It happened again. No, it probably happened a bunch of times.

I remember I remember it was 2005 was the one time

I went to Italy and one of the places I stayed the

I stayed with a family and man I was just exhausted.

I remember sleeping as long as I could because I was just running on empty and the neighbors had a rooster and I can guarantee you it did not crow once or twice.

If I had been armed we would have been having chicken that evening. I'm going to tell you something. Wow. It really enjoyed the announcement of the morning shall we say and made sure that my sleep and slumber came to a complete and total end.

That would not have been an unusual thing in any way shape or form.

Luke gives us a rather full accounting of Peter's encounters in Luke 22 and after and notice however he doesn't give us specific time frames.

We don't know how long Peter is sitting warming himself before the woman says the thing says and then it says a little later someone else saw him and said and then about an hour still another hour someone insisted this man was with him for his

Galilean etc etc and then finally after that uh last statement man

I did not know what you were saying and immediately while he was still speaking the cock crowed and the Lord turned and looked at Peter and Peter remembered the word of the

Lord how he had said to him before the cock crowed say you will deny me three times he went out and wept bitterly.

And so there you have Luke's version but Mark you will find in section 333 and Matthew likewise at the addition that he began on the third one he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear

I do not know this man of whom you speak. You have in Matthew immediately cock crowed but you have in Mark immediately cock crowed the second time.

Now what's the second time? We're not given any information as to why it specifically says second time other than in the verse 72 and Peter remembered how

Jesus said to him before the cock crowed twice you will deny me three times. The first isn't recorded even by Mark and the point is that even saying twice is simply the full announcement of the morning light.

The idea that there was one beforehand and Peter didn't get it or something like that.

Even Mark does not say to us well there was one before and now there's a second one or something like that.

In each instance I doubt that Luke or Matthew were going well he only did it once.

It wasn't I've actually listened to I forget who it was but there was a who was that?

It was within the past year, year and a half I listened to a debate where literally the entire debate broke down into a repeated back and forth about whether God can control farm animals.

Literally that's all based on oh wow somebody's missing the point completely that the man who had said

I would die with you before the sun rises that's a term we'd use because we don't live in well maybe some of you where you still have horse privileges but I live in a neighborhood where if I hear if I hear this

I'm worried okay one of the neighbors is doing something in their backyard they probably shouldn't be and I'm going to be sniffing around a little bit as to who's starting to use their backyard for something that they're not supposed to be using their yard for.

Yes sir? Which is noted here.

Did you notice that? Because when it mentions they took him to Caiaphas it's specific

John specifically yeah it was Caiaphas who had given counsel to Jews that it was expedient that one man should die for the people.

So that's John 18 14. So John makes why do you use

Balaam's donkey? Why do you even use Balaam in that situation who clearly was in love with money and things like that you know the

Lord's used the Lord used all sorts of false prophets to bring condemnation upon Israel.

The point was that here's a man who was in the office of high priest and even though he opposed

Jesus he still had to end up giving testimony to what Jesus was actually accomplishing. That's John's point is that John had, is that Caiaphas that God God can bring prophecy out of anybody.

They don't have to be that's one of the interesting things. My Muslim friends utterly reject that.

Anyone who prophesies must be an almost sinless individual because the character of the prophet determines the value of the prophecy.

That's never a biblical perspective. Never. Never. Okay, well

I told you you're going to need a deep seat in the saddle. We're going to, we will press on and I'm looking forward to it.

It's great stuff but it's important stuff too. So we will press on Lord willing.

It's going to be really tough. I'm going to Flagstaff Utah, Colorado June and July.

The rest of June and July are going to be tough but I'm pretty certain I'm pretty certain I'm here next week.

I'll double check. I think I'm here next week. We'll find out.

If not, a much brighter tide than mine shall be dazzling you.

So Heavenly Father we do thank you for your word.

We thank you for the opportunity of reading and possessing it. We ask that as we do so that you will change us.

That you will make us more like Christ. That we will appreciate the freedom we still have to do this Lord. And that we will be better students of your word so we can be better servants of yours.

Be with us now as we go into worship. Lift up our hearts and minds in praise to you. May the name of Jesus be honored in all things.