Luke 22:47-71
22:47-48 | The soldiers did not know which of the men in the garden might be Jesus. So Judas gave Jesus a kiss of recognition, common even today in the Near East. He intended it as a simple signal – “This is the man to arrest” – but its intimate nature made the gesture especially hypocritical and hateful as a sign of warm friendship was used to deliver an innocent man into the hands of His enemies (Prov. 27:6).
22:49-51 | It was not God’s will for Peter to cut off the ear of Malchus (John 18:10-11). Peter acted entirely on his own, not according to the leading of the Spirit.
22:54 | Peter’s problem was that he followed the Lord at a distance. He wanted to find out what would happen to Jesus, but he did not want to be identified with Him and suffer the consequences.
22:55-57 | Peter found fellowship in the wrong place. He said he would die for the Savior, yet he took comfort with Jesus’ enemies and warned himself at their fire. Peter compromised by being among the enemy and doing as the enemy did. This is another caution for believers from Peter’s experience.
22:58-59 | After Peter had twice denied that He knew Jesus, a man associated with Malchus said he was sure he recognized Peter from the garden (John 18:26). In the original Greek, the statement is emphatic: Surely you were with Him.
22:60 | Matthew tells us Peter not only denied the Lord the third time but he began to “curse and swear” that he did not even know Jesus (Matt. 26:74). This does not mean that Peter used profanity but that he swore an oath. God then used an ordinary sound, a rooster crowing, to make His point. Despite appearances, God was still in control of everything.
22:61 | Jesus did not look at Peter with judgment but with love and compassion in His eyes.
22:62 | Almost the same expression for wept bitterly is used of Judas (Matt. 27:3), but Peter’s tears were different. Peter thought of his sin, and found repentance and hope. Judas thought of the consequences of his sin and felt regret and despair.
22:64 | On the basis of Isaiah 11:3, Jewish legend held that the Messiah would not need his eyes to determine truth and falsehood. Seemingly aware of this tradition, the soldiers mocked Jesus as a false messiah.
22:67-70 | If Jesus directly admitted to being a king, they would hand Him over to the Romans as a seditionist. If He directly admitted to being the Messiah, they would charge Him with blasphemy. In the end, He emerged from the sham trials legitimately identified as both the Christ and the Son of God, as promised in Psalm 110. In Hebrew though, a son shares his father’s essential being and estate.