Synoptics Section 331 Arrest of Jesus

The Mount of Olives, the Betrayal, and the Arrest of Jesus

Are getting into some of the real challenging material. If you look ahead you've got, you know, Peter's denial, we'll start getting into that, trial before Pilate, and of course the death of Judas, and all the issues that come up with with that.

I wonder if they're going to throw Axe in here somewhere. But it's all coming our direction, so we we gird up our loins to use biblical language and press forward as best we possibly can. We were in the Garden of Gethsemane and we had the situation laid out for us in Matthew and Mark, specifically in regards to the multiple times that Jesus comes and speaks to the disciples, the nature of his prayer, the reality that as the God-man, Jesus clearly knows exactly what is coming, and hence even in the, I again emphasize, even in the gospel of Mark chapter 14, please notice, and we are using the synopsis if anyone wants to grab them, they're up there, but verse 41, and he came the third time and said to them, are you still sleeping and taking your rest?

It is enough. The hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going, see my betrayers at hand. And remember what I mentioned to you, I guess we should have done that during the quiet time, huh?

I mentioned last week and have mentioned a couple of times, and I keep mentioning it because it is, I think, important, one of the primary objections to the historicity of the gospel accounts is the idea that you have this evolution over time where Mark has this primitive view of Jesus, this low view of Jesus, Jesus is out of control, Jesus doesn't know what to do.

Mark and Luke have a little bit more control of Jesus until finally you get to John, and he is in charge of everything, and then Jesus, knowing all that was to befall him, came forward and said to them, whom do you seek?

So you've got the in control Jesus, and the out-of-control Jesus, and the in-between, and this is all part of the evolution of the story over time. But I point out to you that it is Mark that specifically says in the third time, he comes the third time to the disciples, says to them, are you still sleeping and taking your rest?

It is enough, the hour has come, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. So I don't, I don't see how that's overly different from what John says, Jesus knowing what was to befall him. In Mark, Jesus knows that the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

He knows exactly what's, why he has been praying the prayer he's been praying. This also confirms our understanding of why there was such agony on Jesus's part, is he's, it's not, it's not fear of the pain and the death, it is the actual sacrifice that is going to be accomplished, that is in the Lord's view in these situations.

And remember I mentioned last week, this is a major issue, major issue with our Muslim friends. They do not understand how Jesus could be crucified, none of, Allah would never allow any of his prophets to die in such an ignominious fashion, and yet it is incumbent upon us when we have opportunity of speaking to our Muslim friends to emphasize to them the reality of the self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

And in fact I was extremely pleased a week ago Saturday in the debate in California because at one point Sheikh Mustafa Omar in the cross-examination specifically asked me, did Jesus know what was going to be happening in the crucifixion?

I said yes. Well then why did he say what he said, you know, Ila ila ila ma sabachthani? And I just got a big old smile on my face, I'm so glad you asked me that question. I love when Muslims ask that question, it happens a lot and it always gives me two to three minutes of good gospel preaching to be able to get into the debate at that that particular point in time.

So I just mentioned this once again that there is no reason to believe, I mean if you were just to look at the columns on page 298 in the in the synopsis and you were to ask the question as to the the relationship of the Gospels and which one is first and is there evidence of development and all the rest of this stuff, it's Luke that telescopes all this stuff.

There's nothing there in Luke for those that that major portion of the of the dialogue that takes place in regards to the numbers of times that Jesus comes back and forth and the Son of Man is betrayed in the end, that's that's not even there in Luke.

So it just always remember outside of these walls, the vast majority of places that you would go, you're going to be presented with an idea based upon what's called Markan priority as we've discussed many times before.

The idea that Mark is first, Matthew and Luke are dependent upon Mark, John's out doing his own thing in the woods someplace and this is the fundamental assumption that is made not only in the teaching that you would get in most places but certainly within the commentaries that you would pick up at the local Christian bookstore etc etc and yet there's just as we have seen throughout our synoptic study over the last decade, what are we starting in 96?

Yeah, I think it was 96. So I almost have to, well you know I'm teaching in Zurich, Kiev, Potsdam, so I've got enough traveling coming up. I think we might be able to slow down enough to right at the beginning of 2016.

So maybe we'll be able to go the full decade. I think, yeah you have to check that. We may be over a decade? Oh okay, well we'll see. I'd just like to be able to say yeah my Bible study class they're champions.

They survived a 10-year study of the synoptic Gospels. You know, talk about patience. Anyway, so I emphasize that just so you can see that and see where the problems arise. So now we go to the rest of Judah section 331.

The Synoptic and Johannine Accounts of Judas and the Arrest

This is Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22 and John 18 and here John sort of kicks in with his portion of the story. It is interesting to see the differences especially in regards to Judas. Again, the briefest version is provided by Luke.

While he was still speaking there came a crowd and the man called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He drew near to Jesus and kissed him but Jesus said to him, Judas would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?

Compare this with Mark and immediately while he was still speaking Judas came while the twelve with him a crowd with swords and clubs and the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now the betrayer had given them a sign saying the one I shall kiss is the man.

Seize him and lead him away under guard and when he came he went up to him at once and said master and he kissed him and they laid hands on him and seized him. Nothing mentioned about the words of Jesus to Judas.

And then Matthew while he was still speaking Judas came on the twelve with him a great crowd with swords and the chief priests and elders of the people. Now the betrayer had given them a sign saying the one I shall kiss is the man.

Seize him and he came with Jesus at once and said hail master and he kissed him. Jesus said to him friend why are you here and they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. So you have Matthew and Luke giving some content to Jesus's response to Judas.

Mark does not do so. In John you have a very different emphasis that is provided and some very interesting information that is not given in the synoptics at all at this point. Now John chapter 18 verse 2.

Now Judas who betrayed him also knew the place so Jesus often met there with his disciples. So Judas procuring a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees went there with lanterns and torches and weapons.

Then Jesus knowing all it was to befall him came forward and said to them whom do you seek. They answered him Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said to them I am he. Judas who betrayed him was standing with them.

When he said to them I am he they drew back and fell to the ground. Again he asked him whom do you seek and they said Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered I told you that I am he so if you seek me let these men go.

This is to fulfill the word which he had spoken of those whom I whom thou gavest me I lost not one. And John and and and Luke and all of them joined together in regards to Peter's impetuous action in the drawing of the sword the the wild swing at the slave the high priest who is interestingly enough named only in John the slaves name was Malchus that is not indicated in the other Gospels.

This raises some questions for us to ponder. Again the common thinking of our day the what I would call the surface level thinking based upon the idea that whatever the answer to these questions is it can't be what Christians have always thought and we must admit that there have been there have been efforts in the past that were somewhat simplistic in seeking to harmonize the Gospels.

For example early in the history of the church there was a man by the name of Tatian and Tatian produced a document called the Diocese and it was a harmony of the Gospels but it wasn't like this where you have saw the four.

It was a single document and he just left out portions of certain Gospels to create a single gospel that was based upon John. I mean you can tell that he had all four canonical Gospels and only the four canonical Gospels.

You know he starts off with in the beginning was the word so on and so forth leaves out the genealogies but from you know from from very early on people wanted to have a a single unified story. The problem was that what you have in the Diatessaron is not Mark's understanding.

It's not Matthew's. It's not Luke's. It's not John's. And so we need to recognize and we have recognized all the way through our study of the Sinaitic Gospels that we need to look at each one as a gospel and interpret it in its own light in light of what the authors attempted to communicate.

All of that's true but that doesn't change the reality that there isn't any question that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are all saying that what they are writing down is an accurate accounting. Not an exhaustive accounting.

Not an unbiased accounting. They all want you to believe that Eugeus is the Messiah, the Son of God. They're not they're not claiming to have just graduated from some Ivy League journalism school where at least in years past you were supposed to be unbiased in what you're writing.

I guess at some point in time that part got dumped in the journalistic schools but they're not making that kind of claim. But you still have the overriding question, well, can we determine what took place on the basis of these accounts?

And we all know that, well, for example, yesterday, no, no, was it Friday? When was the, yeah, it was Friday. Friday evening was the big shindig over at the mosque, right? I mean, I went up to Flagstaff so I, I was, I, I saw a little bit of coverage Saturday morning, early Saturday morning, of people standing in the streets screaming at each other.

That was, it was, certainly accomplished a great deal, I'm sure. But I would imagine that the written accounts, even the broadcast accounts, of the nature of the confrontations, the nature of whatever dialogue took place, you can call it dialogue, would vary in many ways.

Vary upon what the interest of the person was. I'm certain that the folks from Al-Jazeera wrote up a slightly different story than the folks from the American Patriot Movement. And yet, they're all looking at the same, the same event.

And there can be distortion, there can be purposeful ignoring of counter-evidence, there can be all sorts of things involved in the accounts that are given. In the same way, the, the story that you're gonna get on the news is, has to be crammed into, what, two minutes?

And yet, the story that will be put into the newspapers can be given ten pages. Not ten pages of the newspaper, but ten, if you were to print it out in a book, it'd be like ten pages long. It's a long story.

Depends on the kind of newspaper, I guess. And then, what ends up in a, in a full book on a movement, for example, much more full amount of documentation, interviewing, et cetera, et cetera. So, when we look at each one of the gospel accounts, for example, clearly, at this point, Luke has the least interest in a full accounting of everything that takes place.

He's telescoping. His focus is not upon this particular aspect of the story. Matthew and Mark are given a lot of information. John pops in, for some reason here, and gives us a lot of information. Now, there's something else to keep in mind.

These gospels were not written on the same day, in the same place. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not sitting in a room going, well, how's it going, Mark? Well, I'm about done. And Matthew goes, yeah, we're writing a whole lot more than you, and that's not, that's not how it took place.

They were written at different times, and there does seem, there seems to be a consensus opinion, which doesn't make it right, but it seems to be a consensus opinion, that John is the last of the gospels to be written.

And there's some reason for that. One of the things we've speculated upon in the past is the fact that if you were writing one of the gospels, and the people you're writing about are still alive, is that going to impact whether you utilize civic names, or whether you tell certain stories?

Maybe you don't know if someone is still alive, and you're concerned that you might expose them to persecution. The persecution begins fairly early in the Christian experience. Certainly, Jewish persecution is there from the start.

Roman persecution starts off in the fifth decade, in the 40s. So, you may seriously wonder, you know, should I mention someone's name? Should I tell someone's story? Because, you know, I don't know where this book's going to go, and, you know, you can't pick up the phone and give somebody a ring.

You can't drop somebody an email and say, do you mind if I tell you a story in the book that I'm writing? That really isn't even a possibility. And so, for example, John tells us the name of the high priest.

Now, it just may be that, you know, John follows Jesus into the trial itself. He's right there for most of this stuff, and maybe, you know, when the guy is healed, he heard some conversations, and he was just the only person that happened to hear the name of Malchus.

Maybe he talked to Malchus. I don't know. Nobody knows. Or it could be that Matthew, Mark, and Luke knew the name as well, but chose not to reveal it because, I don't know about you, but if I was Malchus, and I just barely missed that, you know, it's pretty obvious what happened.

And so, John, you know, ducking under that wild swing from Peter, and takes the ear off, and if the guy that they take away to crucify healed my ear, maybe I became a Christian later on, you know? Maybe I went, wow, I know it was off.

I saw it. Now it's there. Maybe he pursued John, and maybe John introduced him to who Jesus was, and maybe by the time John writes his gospel, Malchus has died. Or maybe Malchus gives him, maybe Malchus asks him, tell my story.

I don't know, but there are reasons why, you know, if we just allow the writers to be writers, and to be in history, and to have their own purposes, there are reasons why we have some of the differences that we do.

Now, one of the main questions would be to look at John chapter 18 and go, alright, and here again, I apologize to all of you. I realize that most of you are never going to have to talk to as many Muslims as I do, and things like that.

But, you know, I always remember. I hope some of you remember. Remember when Brother Callahan, David Callahan, went off to college, and he came back. I'll never forget one day during class, I was talking about some of this stuff, and saying, well, you know, there are people who say this, and this is how we respond.

And he put his hand up and said, you know, you often talk about that kind of stuff, and apologize, you know, taking the time to let us know what other people think, and this is why we don't accept that, and this is how we respond, and sometimes you apologize, and you know, until I went to college, and until I got exposed to that stuff, I didn't realize how important it is to know, but don't apologize for it, and I've never forgotten that.

And so, I mention these things to you along those lines, in the hopes, my fear, I guess, always is that someone who would sit in this class for all these years we have, at the end would go, well, you know, so yeah, we went through a lot of scripture passages, but it sure didn't really prepare me to explain it to anybody else, or I'm going to tell you, I went out and tried to explain it to somebody, and man, they just had all these objections I never even thought of.

Hopefully, that won't be what anyone ever says. I don't cover everything, but I try, I try, because I want you to feel ready and prepared to speak about these things, even outside of our nice, comfy circles.

So, obviously, one of the objections that is raised is, look, if what John narrated took place, why did Matthew, Mark, and Luke not mention it? And so, the argument is real easy. Well, let me explain why people will take this perspective, and you'll see.

The Deity of Christ in John 18 and the Meaning of “I Am”

John chapter 18, in this particular passage, is extremely important in regards to the deity of Christ, and hopefully, you know why. There is a phrase that John emphasizes in his gospel, and we've talked about it before, but again, let me emphasize it so everyone's clear on this.

Jesus uses a phrase, ego ai me, I am. He uses it in John 8, 24, where he says, unless you believe that ego ai me, you will die in your sins. Now, the Jews, standing in front of him, certainly didn't deny he was a man.

They would have accepted him as a prophet. Pretty tough to deny that maybe someone's even the Messiah when they raise people from the dead, but that wasn't enough. Because, at the end of the chapter, John 8, 58, Jesus says to the Jews,.

And, remember what the reaction of the Jews was, they picked up stones to stone him. Jesus' response wasn't, oh, you misunderstood me. He had made sure that they understood exactly what he was saying.

That he was claiming that phrase, ego ai me, as a name for himself. The same thing happens in John 13, 19, where, in regards to Judas' betrayal of him, Jesus said, I'm telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it happens, so that when it comes to pass, you may know that ego ai me, I am.

And here, in John chapter 18, notice that John almost belabors the point. Whom do you seek? They answered, Jesus of Nazareth said to them, ego ai me. Who betrayed him was staying with them. When he said to them, ego ai me, they drew back and fell to the ground.

He repeats it twice to make sure that you understand that at the pronunciation of those words, they fell back upon the ground. Just in passing, I was listening to a debate with a Unitarian this weekend when I was up in Flagstaff.

And the Unitarian, I tell you, some of these Unitarians, they spend their entire lives doing nothing but trying to come up with some way around the New Testament's testimony of the deity of Christ. I mean, that's all they do.

And man, some of these people. When this text was brought up in regards to this very text we just read, this guy had found a rabbinic reference somewhere in Second Temple Judaism where a rabbi fell at the feet of a famous teacher.

And he then paralleled that with this as his means of saying, see, it doesn't necessarily mean he's God because this famous rabbi fell. Now, these guys were not falling at Jesus' feet. They fell backwards at the phrase, I am.

They're not falling in worship. They're being knocked over. There's no parallel between the two. And yet, there are people, literally, that will rant all of literature to try to find something to say to get around the clarity of the revelation of Scripture.

It is truly astounding at times. But the point is, in each of these passages, you have Jesus using this phrase. And it is inappropriate for us to jump directly from John's usage all the way back to Exodus 3.

That's not appropriate. What's in Exodus 3? Well, when Moses is at the burning bush, who shall I say sent me? And God said, I am that I am. But that is the phrase, ego imi haon. I am the one being, the present tense participle, the I am the one in existence.

And the ego imi is not the emphasis there. Instead, for example, in John 13, what Jesus is doing there is he's quoting from the Greek Septuagint of Isaiah 43 .10. Ironically, where Jehovah's Witnesses get their name.

Where again, in the context of prophecy, Yahweh is saying to his people, I'm going to tell you before this happens, so when it happens, you may know that in the Hebrew it's anahu. Translated by the Greek Septuagint is ego.

So we establish the connection between John's usage and Isaiah. It's also used in some of the minor prophets, where over and over again, the phrase, I am he, anahu, is used as a divine name. And the Jews understood that, which is why when he said what he said in John 8, they pick up stones to stone him.

And why it's so significant that Jesus, who certainly knew the Old Testament scriptures, actually quotes from Isaiah to himself in a way that would only be applicable to Yahweh God in the Old Testament context.

And so, what you have here, you have the deity of Christ in John chapter 18. So, with a theme that John has come up with on his own. And it's not present in the Synoptic Gospels. And the theory, basically, is you have development here, from a lower Christology to a higher Christology.

That's the theme of liberalism, and that's the theme of liberal teaching today. And therefore, John, down the road, makes up this event to give us another cool illustration of Jesus using the phrase, I am.

Now, you can see absolutely vested interest in the part of less conservative, shall we say, reading of the New Testament, to have the Gospels written as late as possible. You want to push John as far back as possible, as far as a late date, because, well, he couldn't possibly get away with this while almost any of the eyewitnesses are still alive.

I mean, he's writing to a community that would be filled with people that would know the apostles themselves, and they would know the oral traditions, and some of whom were involved with the actual life of Jesus.

And so, if John really is trying to make stuff up, then he'd have to be really late to try to get away from as many of the eyewitnesses as possible, who could call his bluff, in essence. And also, you'd have to have this weird development where you have a Messiah who's crucified by the Romans, but who's now, for some reason, there's this movement to deify him into something he wasn't.

And people say, well, it's because of the ancient gods, or the Roman gods, and the Greek gods, and Dionysus, and all that stuff. Except when you actually look at any of those alleged deities, you discover very, very quickly there's no parallel whatsoever to Jesus at all.

The Christian faith is monotheistic. The resurrection is a true resurrection. So, this doesn't make any sense. Where does any of this come from? But the point being, you push John as far back as he can so he'd have as much time for this process of development.

You can't really explain where it's coming from, or what the motivation is, and stuff like that. But you throw it out there, and that's what people say. Now, I point out that, once again, what we're going to see in, for example, when you have Luke, would you betray the son of man with a kiss?

And what we're going to see in Mark chapter 14, in just literally a number of verses in Jesus' trial, will be one of the most startling, strong affirmations from Jesus' own lips of his own deity. I mean, he's going to draw directly out of Daniel 7, and the son of man, and apply it to himself.

And the high priests are going to tear their robes and say, you've heard the blasphemy, why do we need any more witnesses? So the idea that when you've got in Mark, who's allegedly the first, this strong emphasis that simply cannot be denied, there's just a vacuum of reasoning as to why you have to put John way out here and say, oh, see, John's trying to come up with the deity of Christ, and so he puts this in here just for the fun of it, when it's already in Mark, in just a few verses.

It makes no sense. So, I guess the question then becomes, well, if it took place, happen, because you have the sword stuff, starting in verse 10 of chapter 18, and you have it starting in verse 51 of Matthew chapter 26.

So both of them have the sword here. What comes first? Judas? Seems to me that Judas is leading them, and so he does the identification. Authority, even over the forces that are arresting him. And there's no discussion of that in Matthew, Mark, or Luke.

You've got Peter's, sorry, Judas pointing out to them, Judas said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders who had come out against him, have you come out as against a robber, swords and clubs, I was with you day after day.

So there is a rebuke of them doing this illegally in the dark, at night, which they're not supposed to do. It was against their own rules and their own code. This particular self-revelation that results in this supernatural action of people falling back upon the ground is not mentioned by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but it is mentioned by John.

It seems to be inserted between the initial encounter and the identification of who Jesus is by Judas with the sword swinging. Who knows, maybe Peter was encouraged by that, I don't know, there's no way of knowing.

But why only John? Well, John has a lot of things that he reveals and that only he reveals. And if John is a disciple who is leaning upon Jesus' breast, there is a special relationship there in that sense.

I say that because there are some scholars today that believe that there is a disciple, the apostle John, and then there is the elder. And some will differentiate between the two. Different John and that he was associated with the house, had the upper room, etc., etc.

Whatever the case is, why would John include this, or why would Matthew, Mark, and Luke not include this particular? If any of this would happen, Matthew, Mark, and Luke would have to record it, I say why?

Why would, you can read the entire account of everything that happened here, literally in a matter of moments. And yet it extended over many hours. There is all sorts of stuff that none of the writers recorded.

So it is, I think, an invalid argument to say, well, if it happened, then everybody had to record it. It also, John is focusing upon this phraseology, this terminology that Jesus uses. And if it was from Jesus' point, and he has been the one who has been following this and seeing from his vantage point the importance of Jesus' self-revelation in this phraseology, then he's going to certainly emphasize it in seeing what took place.

How many, when it says, um, they drew back and fell to the ground, all the other accounts say it was a very large crowd. Did every single person fall back upon the ground, or was it the people in the forefront of the crowd who could hear what Jesus said?

I mean, if you were at the back of the pack, you may not have even heard what Jesus said. Did you still fall back upon the ground? We don't know. We're not told. Um, so, is it possible that John, from his vantage point, not only saw what happened, but knew why it happened?

And since he had already given us John 8, 24, and John 8, 58, and John 13, 19, especially John 13, 19, which is talking about the betrayal of Judas, wants to emphasize the fulfillment of this. Did he have access to information that the synoptic writers did not because of his closeness to Jesus?

Or was there something about this that because of the passage of time, John now feels it is appropriate to reveal, whereas the synoptic writers did not feel in the earlier decades that it was appropriate for them to mention this supernatural event in regards to the arresting individuals?

Is it possible that there could have been a reason for that? We show ourselves, I think, rather arrogant in our day to think that we can say, well, no, there couldn't be any possible reason at all. Guilty until proven innocent.

And yet, that's exactly how people act when they come to situations like this and say, well, why is it the default position that John is making things up? That really is the question I have to ask. Why is that the default position?

There are so many instances in history where we have had times where quote unquote scholarship determined that one particular historical writer was being inaccurate or embellishing or something like that.

Or upon further discoveries, further research has vindicated that individual and demonstrated that they just simply had access to information that other people did not have access to. So many times, the Old Testament has been faulted for its alleged inaccuracies about this people or that people.

And well, those people weren't around that time. And then 100 years later, archaeological digs, well, golly bob, look at that, they were. The ancient writers have been right all along. And we had been wrong for 150 years based upon very little information.

So however we put the order of events together, we have to allow for the possibility of either John having access to information that Matthew, Mark, and Luke did not because of his special relationship to Jesus, vantage point that he would have had at that particular point in time, or that they all had reference to this information, but that the synoptic Gospels chose not to include it for whatever reasons that we may not have access to.

We don't know where they were writing from. We don't know what the situation between their community and the Jews were at that time. Maybe John writing to a primarily Gentile audience decades down the road doesn't have to even consider those things any longer and hence feels free to include these things.

But none of it provides us with any basis for just simply dismissing John and dismissing the events that take place, especially in something as important as the arrest of Jesus. OK? Any questions about that real quick?

Yes, sir? Debate? Well, you know that as Peter says, men spoke from God and they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. The result is exactly what God wanted. But it's obvious that throughout the New Testament, throughout the Bible, you have Paul saying, bring the cloaks and the parchment.

That's Paul speaking from himself, from his context, from his situation. And a lot of people would say, well, how is it a scripture? Well, it demonstrates that Paul could get cold feet. And that's perfectly appropriate for us to understand that automatic writing view of it's not a matter of total or none.

It's the nature of it. Because what is theanoustos, what is God breathed, is the result. It's exactly what God wanted us to have. And so we can ask questions about what Matthew, Mark, or Luke knew. But what the result of their writing is, is what God has given to us, which is the scriptures that we possess, which is God breathed.

And so you still have to work with the reality that these men were writing in a historical situation. They were influential.