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Transfiguration Sunday is February 19, 2023.
Readings for Year A can be found here.
Transfiguration Sunday is the last in the season of Epiphany. Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, is February 22.
It is important to note that the First Reading and the Epistle relate to the Gospel.
The First Reading, Exodus 24:12-18, is the story of Moses going up on Mount Sinai, where the glory of God settled. Moses entered the cloud that covered the mountain and stayed there 40 days and 40 nights.
The Epistle, 2 Peter 1:16-21, is Peter’s testimony of witnessing the Transfiguration. Verses 16 and 19 stand out in particular (emphases mine below):
1:16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.
1:19 So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
The Gospel reading is as follows:
Matthew 17:1-9
17:1 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.
17:2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.
17:3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.
17:4 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
17:5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”
17:6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear.
17:7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.”
17:8 And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.
17:9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
Matthew Henry’s commentary cites 2 Peter 1:16 above and states:
We have here the story of Christ’s transfiguration; he had said that the Son of man should shortly come in his kingdom, with which promise all the three evangelists industriously connect this story; as if Christ’s transfiguration were intended for a specimen and an earnest of the kingdom of Christ, and of that light and love of his, which therein appears to his select and sanctified ones. Peter speaks of this as the power and coming of our Lord Jesus (2 Pet 1 16); because it was an emanation of his power, and a previous notice of his coming, which was fitly introduced by such prefaces.
Therefore, many Bible scholars see the Transfiguration as a glimpse of the Second Coming.
Between the end of Matthew 16 and these verses, nothing was recorded of our Lord’s activities or teachings.
Henry says:
St. Luke saith, It was about eight days after, six whole days intervening, and this the eighth day, that day seven-night. Nothing is recorded to be said or done by our Lord Jesus for six days before his transfiguration; thus, before some great appearances, there was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour, Rev 8 1. Then when Christ seems to be doing nothing for his church, expect, ere long, something more than ordinary.
At the end of those six days, Jesus took Peter and the brothers James and John by themselves, leading them up a mountain (verse 1).
John MacArthur picks up from the end of Matthew 16 to provide more context:
Let’s look back at verse 27 of chapter 16 and get our bearings. Jesus says there, “For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He shall render to every man according to his works.”
Now, here is the first overt promise of the second coming recorded in Matthew’s Gospel. And our Lord is here saying to the disciples, “Listen, I’ve been talking to you about self-denial. I’ve been talking to you about bearing your cross. I’ve told you that I must go to Jerusalem to suffer many things and be killed. You’re very much aware of the persecution, the hostility, the rejection that we’ve seen from the people. You know that the message that I’ve given you is a message of suffering and death: my death and your death.”
But it will not always be that way. There will be a time when there is glory. There will be a day when the Son of Man comes in the full blazing glory of the Father with His angels, and then He will in judgment upon every man. There will be a glory time; there will be a time when the Son of Man comes not in humiliation, but in royal majesty.
And this is such an important message for them. It’s so balancing to what they have just heard, because they’ve just been told, in verse 24, that Jesus requires self-denial, cross bearing, and loyal obedience; that suffering will be, for them, a way of life; that they are to anticipate rejection, hostility, and even death. But that will be wonderfully compensated by the coming in glory.
Those who have been reading the past few weeks of exegeses of Matthew’s Gospel will know that he wrote it in order to establish our Lord’s Kingship over all, particularly to a Jewish audience, demonstrating that Jesus is the Messiah.
MacArthur explains that the Second Coming is part of His divine Kingship:
Now, the second coming of Jesus Christ, then, is introduced here, and it becomes, for Matthew, a very important truth. He talks about it in some more detail in chapter 24, chapter 25, and then even in chapter 26. Because Matthew, you know, is presenting Jesus as King. And as the King comes into the world, the first time, as we know, He’s rejected. And so, the end of the story must be when He comes and is royally acclaimed and crowned and enters into His reign and accepts His throne and His scepter, and rules as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And so, He says it will come. It will come.
In fact, in the Old Testament, there are probably 1,500 and about 25 prophecies of the second coming. In the New Testament, 1 out of every 25 verses, or 319 or [3]20 verses talk about the second coming of Jesus Christ in glory and power and majesty to judge and to reign. And so, the Bible is very clear about this.
And thus, when our Lord says this in verse 27, it’s not an obscurity. It isn’t just a New Testament message; it was an Old Testament one as well. And, well, the disciples should have remembered that the Messiah would suffer first and then be glorified. But it seems as though all they can see is the glory; and all they can anticipate is the kingdom, and all the wonder, and all the majesty, and all the splendor of that; and they cannot handle what’s going on in the present tense. They can’t handle the suffering, the death, the pain, the rejection. And so, the Lord makes them this promise.
… And so, the Lord, in His wonderful grace, goes a step beyond the prophecy.
Henry explains why Jesus went on a mountaintop:
Christ chose a mountain, (1.) As a secret place. He went apart; for though a city upon a hill can hardly be hid, two or three persons upon a hill can hardly be found; therefore their private oratories were commonly on mountains. Christ chose a retired place to be transfigured in, because his appearing publicly in his glory was not agreeable to his present state; and thus he would show his humility, and teach us that privacy much befriends our communion with God. Those that would maintain intercourse with Heaven, must frequently withdraw from the converse and business of this world; and they will find themselves never less alone than when alone, for the Father is with them. (2.) Though a sublime place, elevated above things below. Note, Those that would have a transforming fellowship with God, must not only retire, but ascend; lift up their hearts, and seek things above. The call is, Come up hither, Rev 4 1.
Students of the Gospels know that Peter, John and James were the leaders of the Twelve, which is why Jesus chose them as witnesses of His transfiguration.
Henry says:
He took with him Peter and James and John. (1.) He took three, a competent number to testify what they should see; for out of the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. Christ makes his appearances certain enough, but not too common; not to all the people, but to witnesses (Acts 10 41), that they might be blessed, who have not seen, and yet have believed. (2.) He took these three because they were the chief of his disciples, the first three of the worthies of the Son of David; probably they excelled in gifts and graces; they were Christ’s favourites, singled out to be the witnesses of his retirements. They were present when he raised the damsel to life, Mark 5 37. They were afterward to be the witnesses of his agony, and this was to prepare them for that. Note, A sight of Christ’s glory, while we are here in this world, is a good preparative for our sufferings with him, as these are preparatives for the sight of his glory in the other world. Paul, who had abundance of trouble, had abundance of revelations.
MacArthur tells us:
Now, Deuteronomy 19:15 laid down and established a principle that any testimony was confirmed in the mouth of how many? Two or three witnesses. And so, the Lord, going to display His glory, wants it confirmed in the mouth of three witnesses – trustworthy witnesses.
And so, they are taken to be those three witnesses. Secondly, they’re taking because they were the intimates of the Savior. They were the closest to Him. They were around Him the most. And very frequently, perhaps, accompanied Him into intimate times of prayer.
And so, as He takes them into the high mountain, I don’t think they would have been very shocked by that. It perhaps had happened on many occasions. They were frequently alone with Jesus. Certainly Mark 5:37 indicates they were there at the raising of the young girl. They accompanied Him. You remember, in Mark 14 it says, into the Garden of Gethsemane the night that He agonized and sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. They were there with Him in His intimacy also.
And so, we’re not surprised that it’s Peter, James, and John. And I guess, in a way, we can understand why, because it seems proper that those who most intimately knew His sorrow, and those who most intimately knew His suffering, should most intimately see His glory.
And I think, too, they who would suffer. Peter crucified upside down, James beheaded, and John exiled should as well see His glory. And so, it was their intimacy with the Lord that drew them to this occasion.
Some might wonder why the rest of the Twelve did not go along. The answer is in verse 9. It would have been the wrong thing to do for the following reasons:
If all of the disciples had seen this, or if all of the disciples plus the crowd that was gathered there that day in upper Galilee, if all of them had seen it, too, there would have been no way to prevent widespread chaos, because having seen the glory of Jesus Christ on display, you can imagine that those people would have come running down that hillside and been unable to restrain themselves. And they would have propagated what they had seen, and again, Jesus would have been pushed into becoming the political military Messiah that the people wanted Him to be.
And so that they might not do that, He restricts it just to three that He can trust, three that are very intimate with Him, but three that can confirm Him as the Son of God.
MacArthur adds further insight, reminding us that Luke’s account says that the three men slept when they reached the mountaintop:
Now, we don’t know what mountain it was, somewhere in upper Galilee, south of Caesarea Philippi, where they had been for a while in rest and teaching. And now they’re moving toward Jerusalem as Christ moves that way, knowing it’s only months now till He will die.
And as they’re coming down from Caesarea Philippi, on their way to Jerusalem, about to enter into Capernaum, in some mountain in upper Galilee, in a high place that we’ll not know, He takes these three …
Now, when they get up in the mountain, what do you think the disciples were doing? Well, they did what usually did: slept. Matthew doesn’t tell us that, but Luke does in the parallel account. Luke says they were sleeping. And Jesus was – what? – praying … When into the high mountain they went, Jesus would pray, and they would sleep. And we’re not surprised, because we see this again. In fact, we see it later on – don’t we? – when the Lord is in the Garden of Gethsemane, pouring out His heart to the Father in that agonizing prayer.
And at that very time, the disciples also sleep. And Jesus, in fact, rebuked them and said, “Can’t you even watch with Me for an hour?” But if you were to look into Luke’s Gospel, chapter 22, verse 45, you would find that there was a reason they were asleep. The Bible says they were sleeping for sorrow. You know what happens when you get really depressed? You want to sleep. Many people do that. In fact, ultimately, depressed people want to sleep for good, so they take their life. Sleep is a way to escape, isn’t it? Some people take sleeping pills just so they can get away from things. And maybe it was what happened in Luke 22 they were sleeping because it was the only to deal with their sorrow was just to shut it out by falling asleep. Maybe here the same thing. Because here, too, they’re living in the very near announcement of the fact that everybody’s going to die in this deal.
Jesus was transfigured before the three men; His face shone like the sun and His clothes became dazzling white (verse 2).
Henry discusses this divine light:
He was transfigured before them. The substance of his body remained the same, but the accidents and appearances of it were greatly altered; he was not turned into a spirit, but his body, which had appeared in weakness and dishonour, now appeared in power and glory. He was transfigured, metamorphothe—he was metamorphosed. The profane poets amused and abused the world with idle extravagant stories of metamorphoses, especially the metamorphoses of their gods, such as were disparaging and diminishing to them, equally false and ridiculous; to these some think Peter has an eye, when, being about to mention this transfiguration of Christ, he saith, We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made it known unto you, 2 Pet 1 16. Christ was both God and man; but, in the days of his flesh, he took on him the form of a servant—morphen doulou, Phil 2 7. He drew a veil over the glory of his godhead; but now, in his transfiguration, he put by that veil, appeared en morphe theou—in the form of God (Phil 2 6), and gave his disciples a glimpse of his glory, which could not but change his form.
The great truth which we declare, is, that God is light (1 John 1 5), dwells in the light (1 Tim 6 16), covers himself with light, Ps 104 2. And therefore when Christ would appear in the form of God, he appeared in light, the most glorious of all visible beings, the first-born of the creation, and most nearly resembling the eternal Parent. Christ is the Light; while he was in the world, he shined in darkness, and therefore the world knew him not (John 1 5, 10); but, at this time, that Light shined out of the darkness.
Now his transfiguration appeared in two things:
1. His face did shine as the sun. The face is the principal part of the body, by which we are known; therefore such a brightness was put on Christ’s face, that face which afterward he hid not from shame and spitting. It shone as the sun when he goes forth in his strength, so clear, so bright; for he is the Sun of righteousness, the Light of the world. The face of Moses shone but as the moon, with a borrowed reflected light, but Christ’s shone as the sun, with an innate inherent light, which was the more sensibly glorious, because it suddenly broke out, as it were, from behind a black cloud.
2. His raiment was white as the light. All his body was altered, as his face was; so that beams of light, darting from every part through his clothes, made them white and glittering. The shining of the face of Moses was so weak, that it could easily be concealed by a thin veil; but such was the glory of Christ’s body, that his clothes were enlightened by it.
MacArthur says that, from verses 5 to 13, Matthew gives us five more testimonies that Jesus is King:
… the events that follow, from verse 5 to 13, we have five great proofs that this is the king of glory. Five great verifications that this is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the living God. Five great testimonies to the fact that Jesus is the promised King. In spite of what it looks like on the outside, He is the one. And they need this affirmation, and so do we.
Let’s look at the first element of that testimony. I’ll call it the transformation of the Son. The transformation of the Son. Verse 2, “And He was transformed” – metamorphosis; he was totally changed. And that term morphoō has to do with the body and form. His body, his form was totally changed, and that’s all really we can say about it. We don’t know any of the explanation for it; it’s supernatural …
And this, beloved, is the greatest testimony to Jesus Christ, I think, of any passage in the Bible. If you really want to know who Jesus is, here it is. The glory is radiating from the inside out. You can only understand it if you can understand the some kind of supernaturally infinite light bulb. The light coming within spreads out, and Jesus is aglow like a divine light bulb. And His brilliance is as the sun. The glow right through His garments sends its beams of light.
There’s little doubt who this is, folks. Little doubt. For whenever scripturally God manifests His invisible Spirit essence, it is manifest as light, isn’t it? You go back and find the Shekinah, the glow of God’s light in the Old Testament. God manifests Himself in blazing light, pillars of fire, a cloud. In fact, that light appears as fire sometimes and as a brilliant cloud other times, and here as just blazing light like the sun. When God, who is invisible Spirit, chooses to take a form to reveal Himself, apart from the incarnation of Jesus Christ, that form is light – blazing light. This is God.
And Peter gave testimony to that. In 2 Peter 1, he says, “We do not speak to you about the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in power as some fable, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty; we saw it.” And John writes, “We beheld His glory” – John 1:14 – glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth We saw the very essence of God pouring out of that human form, transformed before our very eyes.
And, of course, when the Son of Man comes, Matthew 24:31 and 25:31 says, when the Son of Man comes, He comes in power and great glory, blazing glory. And lest you think this might be some other thing, in Revelation chapter 1, we have a picture of Jesus Christ in marvelous terms. It shows Him moving among His churches, and it says His head and His hair were white like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire; His feet like fine bronze, as if they burned in a furnace; His voice like the sound of many waters. And He had in His right hand seven stars. And out of His mouth went a sharp, two-edged sword. And His face was as the sun shining in its strength. His face was like the brightest sun blazing. It’s the same picture You see right here.
Suddenly, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with Him (verse 3).
Henry explains the importance of those two eminent men from the Old Testament:
These two were Moses and Elias, men very eminent in their day. They had both fasted forty days and forty nights, as Christ did, and wrought other miracles, and were both remarkable at their going out of the world as well as in their living in the world. Elias was carried to heaven in a fiery chariot, and died not. The body of Moses was never found, possibly it was preserved from corruption, and reserved for this appearance. The Jews had great respect for the memory of Moses and Elias, and therefore they came to witness of him, they came to carry tidings concerning him to the upper world. In them the law and the prophets honoured Christ, and bore testimony to him. Moses and Elias appeared to the disciples; they saw them, and heard them talk, and, either by their discourse or by information from Christ, they knew them to be Moses and Elias; glorified saints shall know one another in heaven. They talked with Christ. Note, Christ has communion with the blessed, and will be no stranger to any of the members of that glorified corporation. Christ was now to be sealed in his prophetic office, and therefore these two great prophets were fittest to attend him, as transferring all their honour and interest to him; for in these last days God speaks to us by his Son, Heb 1 1.
MacArthur has more:
Moses was the agent of the coming of the Ten Commandments. He was the instrument through whom God gave the law expressing His will and revealing His character. In fact, as I said, the Old Testament is known as Moses and the Prophets. Moses was the greatest man of all men in the Jewish mind.
Who could stand with Moses? Only one: Elijah. Elijah. He fought against the nation’s idolatry. If Moses gave the law, Elijah guarded the law; the greatest guardian of God’s law. The man was zeal personified. He had courage. He spoke words of bold and profound judgment. He had a heart for God; he walked with God; he had miraculous power.
You read 1 Kings, 2 Kings, and you see the miraculous nature of this man’s miracles and prophesies. He was zeal incarnate. His zeal for God was unequaled. Every prophet should be like Elijah. Elijah stands for all the prophets. He is considered the most zealous and preeminent of them all.
So, Moses gave the law – its great giver. Elijah – its great guardian. And what do they represent? The law and the prophets. And what is the law and the prophets? It’s the Old Testament. And why are they there? They are there as the Old Testament saying, “This is the one of whom we spoke.” It is the affirmation of the law and the prophets. A tremendous scene.
It is Old Testament verification. It is all that Jesus said when He said, “I have come to fulfill the law and the prophets,” coming and gathering around Him, standing in His glory and saying, “Yea, it is He.” It is the affirmation.
MacArthur directs us to Luke 9 to discover the nature of the conversation involving Jesus, Moses and Elijah:
You go to Luke 9, and it says, “Behold” – in verse 30 – “there talked with Him two men who were Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory” – in the Lord’s glory – and they were speaking about His departure which He should accomplish at Jerusalem?” What were they talking about? Talking about Christ’s what? Christ’s death. Was that important? Oh was that important. The word, by the way, there for “decease” – you might have “decease,” you might have “departure” – it’s a Greek word exodos, final outcome it means. They were talking about His final outcome. They were talking about His coup de grâce. They were talking about the big event at the end. And what was the big end? The cross. Departure, exodos, is a soft word for death.
And so, they were speaking of Christ’s death as an exodus, just as the exodus under Moses delivered the people from the bondage of Egypt, so the exodus of Christ’s death would deliver His people from the bondage of sin. A beautiful use of the word.
Is it important that they talk about His death? Sure, because what was the one element about this whole thing the disciples couldn’t understand that didn’t fit their messianic program? His what? His death. They couldn’t handle that.
And so, here is the law and the prophets represented in these two men, and they’re saying, “Hey, Lord, we’re on schedule. We’re talking about your final outcome when you go to Jerusalem to die.” Oh, what an important conversation to hear. And that’s why Peter could stand up at Pentecost and say that the Lord was crucified by the determinant council and foreknowledge of God.
So, what is going on here is a tremendous testimony from the Old Testament saying, “This is indeed the King, and He is indeed on schedule, and death is a part of the plan.” In spite of what some people have tried to do with the life of Jesus Christ, He didn’t die as a well-meaning patriot who got in over His head; He died as the one ordained to die from before the foundation of the world, and His death was as much a part of the plan as His second coming will be. And it’s so important for the disciples to know that.
And so, they see and they hear the Old Testament representatives affirming Christ. Do you see why I say this passage is so important as to the deity of Jesus Christ? Tremendous passage unequaled in all the Gospel records for testimony to Jesus Christ.
Then Peter said to Jesus that it was ‘good’ — ‘excellent’, according to MacArthur — to be there; he offered to build three booths, one for Him, one for Moses and one for Elijah (verse 4):
… the phrase that he uses there, he says, “Lord, it is good,” is “excellent.” It’s really, “It is excellent.” “This is the best thing that had ever happened to me,” he says. “I mean I’ve caught a lot of fish in my day” – “but this is the best thing that ever happened to me. I have never had an experience like this. And this, Lord, you see, now You’re getting close to what we’ve been talking about, Lord. I mean this is – that’s what we want, see?”
Henry expands on Peter’s feelings:
Though upon a high mountain, which we may suppose rough and unpleasant, bleak and cold, yet it is good to be here. He speaks the sense of his fellow-disciples; It is good not only for me, but for us. He did not covet to monopolize this favour, but gladly takes them in. He saith this to Christ. Pious and devout affections love to pour out themselves before the Lord Jesus. The soul that loves Christ, and loves to be with him, loves to go and tell him so; Lord, it is good for us to be here. This intimates a thankful acknowledgment of his kindness in admitting them to this favour. Note, Communion with Christ is the delight of Christians. All the disciples of the Lord Jesus reckon it is good for them to be with him in the holy mount. It is good to be here where Christ is, and whither he brings us along with him by his appointment; it is good to be here, retired and alone with Christ; to be here, where we may behold the beauty of the Lord Jesus, Ps 27 4. It is pleasant to hear Christ compare notes with Moses and the prophets, to see how all the institutions of the law, and all the predictions of the prophets, pointed at Christ, and were fulfilled in him.
Henry has a more empathetic view than MacArthur of Peter’s offer to build three tabernacles. It’s important to remember that the first Pentecost was some way in the future and that the disciples were less than perfect, as we would have been were we in their sandals.
Henry explains Peter’s well-intended zeal and his human folly:
There was in this, as in many other of Peter’s sayings, a mixture of weakness and of goodwill, more zeal than discretion.
(1.) Here was a zeal for this converse with heavenly things, a laudable complacency in the sight they had of Christ’s glory. Note, Those that by faith behold the beauty of the Lord in his house, cannot but desire to dwell there all the days of their life. It is good having a nail in God’s holy place (Ezra 9 8), a constant abode; to be in holy ordinances as a man at home, not as a wayfaring man. Peter thought this mountain was a fine spot of ground to build upon, and he was for making tabernacles there; as Moses in the wilderness made a tabernacle for the Shechinah, or divine glory.
It argued great respect for his Master and the heavenly guests, with some commendable forgetfulness of himself and his fellow-disciples, that he would have tabernacles for Christ, and Moses, and Elias, but none for himself. He would be content to lie in the open air, on the cold ground, in such good company; if his Master have but where to lay his head, no matter whether he himself has or no.
(2.) Yet in this zeal he betrayed a great deal of weakness and ignorance. What need had Moses and Elias of tabernacles? They belonged to that blessed world, where they hunger no more, nor doth the sun light upon them. Christ had lately foretold his sufferings, and bidden his disciples expect the like; Peter forgets this, or, to prevent it, will needs be building tabernacles in the mount of glory, out of the way of trouble. Still he harps upon, Master, spare thyself, though he had been so lately checked for it. Note, There is a proneness in good men to expect the crown without the cross. Peter was for laying hold of this as the prize, though he had not yet fought his fight, nor finished his course, as those other disciples, ch. 20 21. We are out in our aim, if we look for a heaven here upon earth. It is not for strangers and pilgrims (such as we are in our best circumstances in this world), to talk of building, or to expect a continuing city.
Yet it is some excuse for the incongruity of Peter’s proposal, not only that he knew not what he said (Luke 9 33), but also that he submitted the proposal to the wisdom of Christ; If thou wilt, let us make tabernacles. Note, Whatever tabernacles we propose to make to ourselves in this world, we must always remember to ask Christ’s leave.
Now to this which Peter said, there was no reply made; the disappearing of the glory would soon answer it. They that promise themselves great things on earth will soon be undeceived by their own experience.
While Peter was still speaking, suddenly, a bright cloud overshadowed them; from the cloud, a voice said (verse 5), ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’
Let’s go to today’s First Reading from Exodus 24 for a similar scene that took place with Moses and the Israelites. Note verses 15 through 17:
15 Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain.
16 The glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud.
17 Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.
MacArthur calls our attention to clouds in the Bible:
Starting in Exodus chapter 13, verse 21, take your Bible sometime and just begin to look for white clouds. And whenever you see one, guess who will be there? God. God will be there. And you can follow those white clouds all the way to the fourteenth chapter of Revelation.
Henry has more references to clouds:
(1.) There was a cloud. We find often in the Old Testament, that a cloud was the visible token of God’s presence; he came down upon mount Sinai in a cloud (Exod 19 9), and so to Moses, Exod 34 5; Num 11 25. He took possession of the tabernacle in a cloud, and afterwards of the temple; where Christ was in his glory, the temple was, and there God showed himself present. We know not the balancing of the clouds, but we know that much of the intercourse and communication between heaven and earth is maintained by them. By the clouds vapours ascend, and rains descend; therefore God is said to make the clouds his chariots; so he did here when he descended upon this mount.
(2.) It was a bright cloud. Under the law it was commonly a thick and dark cloud that God made the token of his presence; he came down upon mount Sinai in a thick cloud (Exod 19 16), and said he would dwell in thick darkness; see 1 Kings 8 12. But we are now come, not to the mount that was covered with thick blackness and darkness (Heb 12 18), but to the mount that is crowned with a bright cloud. Both the Old-Testament and the New-Testament dispensation had tokens of God’s presence; but that was a dispensation of darkness, and terror, and bondage, this of light, love, and liberty.
(3.) It overshadowed them. This cloud was intended to break the force of that great light which otherwise would have overcome the disciples, and have been intolerable; it was like the veil which Moses put upon his face when it shone. God, in manifesting himself to his people, considers their frame. This cloud was to their eyes as parables to their understandings, to convey spiritual things by things sensible, as they were able to bear them.
(4.) There came a voice out of the cloud, and it was the voice of God, who now, as of old, spake in the cloudy pillar, Ps 99 7. Here was no thunder, or lightning, or voice of a trumpet, as there was when the law was given by Moses, but only a voice, a still small voice, and that not ushered in with a strong wind, or an earthquake, or fire, as when God spake to Elias, 1 Kings 19 11, 12. Moses then and Elias were witnesses, that in these last days God hath spoken to us by his Son, in another way than he spoke formerly to them. This voice came from the excellent glory (2 Pet 1 17), the glory which excelleth, in comparison of which the former had no glory; though the excellent glory was clouded, yet thence came a voice, for faith comes by hearing.
MacArthur reminds us of God’s nature, something essential to know:
God is a spirit, and as a spirit is invisible. The Bible says, “A spirit hath not flesh and bones.” That is God is an invisible spirit; God has no form; God is everywhere. He cannot be confined to a form in the fullness of His being.
Henry points out that God spoke similarly when John the Baptist baptised Jesus:
The great gospel mystery revealed; This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. This was the very same that was spoken from heaven at his baptism (ch. 3 17); and it was the best news that ever came from heaven to earth since man sinned. It is to the same purport with that great doctrine (2 Cor 5 19), That God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself …
This repetition of the same voice that came from heaven at his baptism was no vain repetition; but, like the doubling of Pharaoh’s dream, was to show the thing was established. What God hath thus spoken once, yea twice, no doubt he will stand to, and he expects we should take notice of it. It was spoken at his baptism, because then he was entering upon his temptation, and his public ministry; and now it was repeated, because he was entering upon his sufferings, which are to be dated from hence; for now, and not before, he began to foretel them, and immediately after his transfiguration it is said (Luke 9 51), that the time was come that he should be received up; this therefore was then repeated, to arm him against the terror, and his disciples against the offence, of the cross. When sufferings begin to abound, consolations are given in more abundantly, 2 Cor 1 5.
God was calling Peter, James and John — and us — to pay attention to and obey His Son’s teaching:
God is well pleased with none in Christ but those that hear him. It is not enough to give him the hearing (what will that avail us?) but we must hear him and believe him, as the great Prophet and Teacher; hear him, and be ruled by him, as the great Prince and Lawgiver; hear him, and heed him. Whoever would know the mind of God, must hearken to Jesus Christ; for by him God has in these last days spoken to us. This voice from heaven has made all the sayings of Christ as authentic as if they had been thus spoken out of a cloud. God does here, as it were, turn us over to Christ for all the revelations of his mind …
MacArthur sees this verse as Matthew’s third testimony that Jesus is the King of Kings, the second being that Moses and Elijah were present and the first being that Jesus was transformed into His glorious nature:
There’s a third line of evidence in this passage; let’s look at it. We see the testimony of the Scriptures or the saints of the Old Testament, the transformation of the Son. I want you to notice a third and most powerful testimony of all. We could call it the terror of the Sovereign or the terror of the Father in verse 5. And here is the epitome of testimony. “While Peter yet spoke” – it’s hard to shut Peter up; we know that. So, he just keeps talking – “And behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them” – we saw last week that’s associated with the presence of God – “and behold, a voice out of the cloud, which said, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.’”
Now, if you really want to have believable testimony to the deity of Jesus Christ, how about God? Will that do? Three times – Matthew 3:17, John 12:28 and 29, and Matthew 17, verse 5 – three times in the holy record of the Gospels, God speaks out of heaven and says, “This is My Son,” or, “This is the one.” Now, that is testimony beyond argumentation. And when God gives His testimony, men should listen. And this is a very traumatizing thing; they’re already scared.
When the three men heard God speak, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear (verse 6), as those persons in the Bible did who encountered God and/or Jesus, depending on the circumstances.
MacArthur explains:
Why are people so afraid in the presence of God? What scares them so much? Well, you see, God is infinitely holy, and men are hopelessly sinful. And you just, all of a sudden, feel naked, don’t you? You feel exposed. Adam and Eve sinned. What’s the first thing they said – the Bible says about it? “And they saw that they were” – what? – “naked.” And they made aprons to cover themselves, and they ran off to try to hide, and God comes through the garden and says, “Adam, where are you?”
Finally He finds them, and Adam says, “Well, Lord, we, ah, uh, er, we were afraid, because we were naked.” In other words, they were ashamed to be seen, because they knew they were not only being seen on the outside, but they were being seen right through to the sin. And sinners in the presence of an infinitely holy God always feel like they need to hide. That’s just how it is. And the disciples, if they had been moles, would have crawled into the ground. But since they were just men, they just fell flat on it, their faces down in it.
Jesus, in His compassion, love and mercy, touched the men saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid’ (verse 7).
Henry says:
Observe, After they had an express command from heaven to hear Christ, the first word they had from him was, Be not afraid, hear that. Note, Christ’s errand into the world was to give comfort to good people, that, being delivered out of the hands of their enemies, they might serve God without fear, Luke 1 74, 75.
And when the three men looked up, there was Jesus alone with them (verse 8).
Henry reminds us:
Note, Christ will tarry with us when Moses and Elias are gone. The prophets do not live for ever (Zec 1 5), and we see the period of our ministers’ conversation; but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, Heb 13 7, 8.
As they came down the mountain, Jesus ordered them not to say anything to anyone of their ‘vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead’ (verse 9).
I feel sorry for Peter being unable to tell his brother Andrew about what he experienced. He and Andrew were, with James and John, the first of John the Baptist’s followers to go to Christ, on their leader’s command.
MacArthur explains that Jesus did not want this to be revealed lest the people make Him out to be a supernatural yet temporal Messiah:
They wanted a political Deliverer. They wanted somebody to knock off the Romans. And their misguided intentions and expectations only confused the scene. And if down the mountain these three guys came, with this incredible message, “Boy, you’ll never believe what we saw,” all it’s going to make the people think is, “Boy, this is really the guy, and let’s really push hard to get Him to throw the Romans out.” They’d already tried to push Him into rebellion several times.
So, He says, “Don’t say anything about it, until” – verse 9 – “the Son of Man is raised again from the dead.” Why? “Because if you wait till after the resurrection, they’ll know that I didn’t come to conquer the Roman; I came to conquer death.” See? And they’ll know that that is a spiritual reality, not an earthly one, not a political one, not a material one, not a military one, not an economic one. Jesus is not involved in politics; He is involved in conquering death and sin and hell. And if you wait till after the resurrection, they’ll see that. So, they aren’t to say anything.
MacArthur gives us the fourth testimony that Jesus is the King of Kings:
So, we see the transformation of the Son and the testimony of the saints of Scripture. And we see the terror of the sovereign — the Father. Can I give you fourth? I believe another great element of this picture is the tapestry of the scene. This fascinates me. And I could take a lot longer to sort of develop it, but let me just fire it out, and you watch how this works. Jesus says, back in 16:28, “I’m going to show you the Son of Man coming in His royal majesty.”
Now, how does it – how does this fulfill that? It gives us, in miniature, a picture of the second coming. Marvelous. Watch. First of all, Christ is the center of this picture. And Christ will be the center of the second coming. Right? It is the coming of Christ. And when Christ comes, Matthew 24 says, and Matthew 25 says, and Matthew 26 says, “He will come in glory and power.” And here we see Him in glory. Right? And in power. So, that’s a good picture.
Secondly, when He comes, Zechariah 14:4 says, “He will come, and His feet will touch” – what? – “the Mount of Olives.” Look at verse 1. When Jesus took them to the preview, he took the up into an high mountain. Interesting that even the preview happens on a mountain, just as the reality will.
And when Jesus comes in glory – listen – He will come to His people, won’t He? He’ll come to His people, to gather them together. And so, when He goes into the mountain, verse 1 says, He takes Peter, James, and John, and they are there with Him when He’s glorified. And they are representative of the people to whom Christ returns.
And then there’s another dimension. When Christ returns, He returns not only to His saints – but what? – with His saints. Those saints that have already been gathered to Him, they’ll come with Him, represented by Moses and Elijah. “They were with Him in glory,” says Luke.
Now we come to the fifth indicator of our Lord’s kingship, which takes us into the verses that follow today’s reading:
That brings us to the fifth indication that Jesus was the Messiah, Son of God. I call it the “tie with the forerunner,” the connection with the forerunner.
Verse 10, “His disciples asked Him, saying” – they had just seen Elijah, so Elijah was on their mind. And they knew Elijah was to be the forerunner of the Messiah, because that’s what … Malachi the prophet said.
In Malachi chapter 4, verses 5 and 6 – those are the last two verses in the Old Testament. They say, “Elijah shall come and restore all things, and turn the hearts of the children to the fathers, and the fathers to the children, and make the things ready for the Lord. It’s a prophecy that Elijah would come as the forerunner to Messiah. And so, they know that.
And now that they’ve seen Elijah on the mountain, it sort of triggers that in their minds. And as we’re coming down the mountain, they probably talked about a lot of things. One of the things that the text brings up is, “The disciples asked Him, saying, ‘Why then say the scribes that Elijah must first come? I mean if you’re the Messiah, why do the scribes say that Elijah has to come first? We haven’t seen any Elijah.’”
See, this is the one thing they couldn’t quite understand. And I’m convinced that very often the Jews must have questioned them on that. “How can this Jesus that you follow be the Messiah when there has yet been no Elijah?” Right? Because Malachi 4:5 and 6 said that the Elijah would come first. And if there’s not been an Elijah, how can He be the Messiah?
Now, there were some people who really wanted Him to be in that messianic context. And so, in chapter 16, when Jesus said to the disciples, “Who do men say that I am,” they answered, “Some say that you are Elijah.” Right? Some thought He could be Elijah getting things ready for the Messiah, but He couldn’t be the Messiah because there hadn’t been an Elijah.
So, they said, “Well, why do the scribes say Elijah has to come first?”
Well, they say it because it was in Malachi chapter 4, verses 5 and 6. But they really embellished it. I mean really embellished it. They said that Elijah would come, and he would gather together the people. He would restore everything, get ready for the Messiah. They believe that Elijah would be a flaming, fiery, great and terrible reformer who would reform the people, bringing holiness out of unholiness, bringing order out of chaos. He would destroy all evil, they taught. He would set everything right so that all the perfection would be set in motion. When the Messiah arrived, He would just sort of fall into it. They saw Elijah as the real preparer, the real restorer, and then the Messiah just sort of came to control it.
“But they say – they keep saying that Elijah ought to come. Why did they say that? I mean if You’re the Messiah, are they right? And where’s Elijah?”
So, verse 11, “Jesus answers, and He said to them, ‘Elijah truly shall first come and restore all things.’” Now listen, Elijah will come. That’s right; he’ll come. And he’ll restore all things. And that means before the setting up of the kingdom. Right? Before the establishing of the kingdom, Elijah will come.
Now, what does that verse 11 tell us about the future? What’s going to happen in the future before the kingdom is established on the earth, before the glory? Who’s going to come? Elijah. That’s what it’s saying, “Elijah will come.” That says it right there, “He’ll come, and he’ll restore things.”
But then He says a strange thing in verse 12, “But I say unto you, Elijah is come already.” What?
They say, “Should Elijah come?”
He says, “Oh, yeah. Elijah will come.” And then He says, “And Elijah has come.” He has? “They knew him not” – verse 12. He came; they didn’t know who he was. “And they did unto him whatever they wanted.” Really? Who was this?
Verse 13, “Then the disciples understood that He spoke to them of” – whom? – “John the Baptist.”
Listen to me, John the Baptist, you say, “Is he Elijah?” He is Elijah in the way the prophet spoke. When the prophet said, “Elijah must come,” he didn’t mean the real, actual Elijah. He was speaking of one who would come in the same manner as Elijah, with the same style as Elijah, in the same mode of operation as Elijah, one like Elijah. An Elijah-like man will come.
And, of course, the problem with the Jews was, they were looking for the literal Elijah. And they said to John – you remember in John 1, they said to John the Baptist – the chief priests did – “Are you Elijah?”
And he said, “I’m not Elijah.”
And people have fits at this point. They say, “Wait a minute. In Matthew 17:12, Jesus says, ‘Elijah is come, and it’s John the Baptist.’ When John the Baptist was asked, ‘Are you Elijah,’ he said, ‘No, I’m not Elijah.’”
That’s right. He is not Elijah, but he was one who came in the spirit and power of Elijah. But because they rejected him, he couldn’t be the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophesy; he couldn’t be the Elijah before the kingdom. So, there yet will be another who will come in the spirit and power of Elijah who will be that Elijah fulfilling that prophesy before the coming glorious kingdom …
The prophet said this, “Elijah will come.” What he meant was one in the spirit and power of Elijah. An Elijah-like prophet. If they had received John the Baptist, if they had believed his message, if they had received the Messiah, if the Messiah had set up His kingdom, John the Baptist would have fulfilled that prophecy. He would have been that Elijah-like prophet to restore all things for the kingdom. But when they did to him whatever they desired – and what did they do to him? They cut off his head. They refused him. They didn’t allow him to restore.
Then they did – look at verse 12 at the end – “Likewise shall also the Son of Man suffer at their hands.” They wiped out the Elijah-like preparer of the Messiah. They killed the Messiah. And so, consequently, they rejected the restoration, and they rejected the kingdom. So, Elijah couldn’t then be that – or rather John the Baptist couldn’t then be that Elijah to fulfill that.
MacArthur thinks there will be another Elijah-like prophet in future:
So, we believe that in the future, before Jesus comes again, another great prophet will come in the spirit and power of Elijah to set things right. And he will restore all things. And they won’t do to him what they did to John the Baptist. And they won’t miss who he is. And following him will come the King in His royal majesty and glory.
Henry is non-committal:
Marvel not that Elias should be abused and killed by those who pretended, with a great deal of reverence, to expect him, when the Messiah himself will be in like manner treated. Note, The sufferings of Christ took off the strangeness of all other sufferings (John 15 18); when they had imbrued their hands in the blood of John Baptist, they were ready to do the like to Christ. Note, As men deal with Christ’s servants, so they would deal with him himself; and they that are drunk with the blood of the martyrs still cry, Give, give, Acts 12 1-3.
The disciples’ satisfaction in Christ’s reply to their objection (v. 13); They understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist. He did not name John, but gives them such a description of him as would put them in mind of what he had said to them formerly concerning him; This is Elias. This is a profitable way of teaching; it engages the learners’ own thoughts, and makes them, if not their own teachers, yet their own remembrancers; and thus knowledge becomes easy to him that understands. When we diligently use the means of knowledge, how strangely are mists scattered and mistakes rectified!
May all reading this have a blessed Sunday.
The Second Sunday after Epiphany is January 15, 2023.
Readings for Year A can be found here.
The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):
John 1:29-42
1:29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
1:30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’
1:31 I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.”
1:32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.
1:33 I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’
1:34 And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”
1:35 The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples,
1:36 and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!”
1:37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.
1:38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?”
1:39 He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon.
1:40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.
1:41 He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed).
1:42 He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
The events in today’s reading took place after the Baptism of the Lord, the reading from Matthew 3:13-17 that we had last week.
John the Baptist referred to this in verses 32 and 33, stating that the Holy Spirit (in the form of a dove) rested upon Jesus after He was baptised, after which came a voice from Heaven (Matthew 3:16-17):
3:16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.
3:17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
After His baptism Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days, during which time He was tempted by the devil. Then He returned twice to see John.
Matthew Henry’s commentary says:
As soon as ever Christ was baptized he was immediately hurried into the wilderness, to be tempted; and there he was forty days. During his absence John had continued to bear testimony to him, and to tell the people of him; but now at last he sees Jesus coming to him, returning from the wilderness of temptation. As soon as that conflict was over Christ immediately returned to John, who was preaching and baptizing … Now here are two testimonies borne by John to Christ, but those two agree in one.
Henry explains that Jesus was tempted for our sakes:
Now Christ was tempted for example and encouragement to us; and this teaches us, 1. That the hardships of a tempted state should engage us to keep close to ordinances; to go into the sanctuary of God, Ps 73 17. Our combats with Satan should oblige us to keep close to the communion of saints: two are better than one. 2. That the honours of a victorious state must not set us above ordinances. Christ had triumphed over Satan, and been attended by angels, and yet, after all, he returns to the place where John was preaching and baptizing. As long as we are on this side heaven, whatever extraordinary visits of divine grace we may have here at any time, we must still keep close to the ordinary means of grace and comfort, and walk with God in them.
In the preceding passage — John 1:19-28 — John the Baptist told the Jewish leaders that he is not the Messiah. These are the final verses from that section:
24 Now the Pharisees who had been sent 25 questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
26 “I baptize with[e] water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”
28 This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
That Bethany, incidentally, is not the town where Mary, Martha and Lazarus lived but another place, a desolate one, by the same name.
John MacArthur says:
Not the Bethany on the eastside of Jerusalem there, but another Bethany. We don’t know where exactly it was; out beyond the Jordan River into the wilderness.
By the end of John 1, John the Baptist proclaimed Jesus as Messiah three times, as MacArthur explains:
On day one he says, “He is here.” On day two he says, “Look at Him.” And on day three he says, “Follow Him.” And that would be the message that any preacher would give regarding Christ. He is here, look at Him, see the revelation of who He is and follow Him. And that’s the nature of John’s ministry. So that gives you the overview—three days, three messages.
And interestingly enough, the three messages are given to three groups. On day one it is a hostile delegation from the Sanhedrin, the Jewish leading religious council. On day two it is the mass of people that are there. And on day three it is some of John’s own disciples. So three days, three messages to three different groups.
The day after the Sanhedrin questioned John the Baptist, he proclaimed of Jesus, who was approaching him, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world’ (verse 29).
MacArthur tells us that a public proclamation of the Messiah as ‘the Lamb of God’ would have shocked some in the crowd. Surely, their Messiah would not be a sacrificial Lamb but a powerful king:
That’s not what they expected to hear. Why would the Messiah be a Lamb? Why would…at best, a lamb is impotent, weak, helpless, stupid, dependent, even dirty.
What do you mean the Messiah’s a Lamb? This is shocking, shocking. They would have expected him to say, “Behold your King. Behold the triumphant One. Behold the majestic One. Behold the exalted One. Behold the Ruler. Behold the Anointed One.” But he says, “Behold the lamb of God.” At best, as I said, a lamb is impotent and weak. At worst, a lamb is dead. And lambs were sacrificed all the time. All through the centuries Israel knew about a sacrificial lamb—going all the way back to Abraham and Isaac and God providing a sacrifice for Abraham so he didn’t have to kill his own son. And then back to the Exodus and the Passover Lamb and every Passover after that, and every morning and every evening, there was a morning sacrifice, an evening sacrifice, and lambs were slain as sin offerings over and over and over and over, day after day after day, century after century after century. And they also knew, Isaiah 53, that He was led as a lamb to slaughter. The One who was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, and the One upon whom the chastening for our peace fell. They knew all of that. They knew about sacrifice. But they didn’t know how it fit because they never saw themselves as a people needing a sacrifice.
In other words, they assumed that the combination of their righteousness and their obedience in offering an animal was enough. But those animals couldn’t take away sin; they could only point to the one sacrifice that would take away sin, that had not yet come until Christ. And because they didn’t recognize their sinfulness, they didn’t recognize they were under judgment, under wrath, needed a sacrifice, and that their Messiah was to be that sacrifice that Isaiah 53 was talking about—their Messiah—they had no concept they needed or that the Messiah would be a lamb. And so Johns says, “Behold the Lamb of God”—the lamb that God has chosen to be the sacrifice.
Every family chose its lamb. Every father chose a lamb. This is the lamb that God has chosen. He’s come to deal with sin at last, to be wounded for our transgressions. He became sin for us who knew no sin. He offered Himself as a sacrifice on the cross. He bore our sins in His own body. God made Him who knew no sin, sin for us. All those New Testament explanations. The Jews wanted a prophet. The Jews wanted a king. They got a lamb. They wanted a leader; they wanted a monarch. They got a substitute. They wanted an exalted messiah. They received rather a humiliated sacrifice. They wanted one who could kill all their enemies, and they got One whom their enemies killed. But then again, they could never have a king until they had a lamb. And that’s the two comings. There could never be a coming in glory to reign until there’s a coming in humiliation to die.
“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” What that means is that for the whole world there is only one who can take away sin. For the whole world, there’s only one who can take away sin, and that’s this One who will die as the sacrificial lamb God accepts.
John the Baptist says that Jesus is the man of whom he said ranks ahead of him because He was there before him (verse 30).
Henry points out the word used for ‘man’ in that verse:
John calls Christ a man; after me comes a man—aner, a strong man: like the man, the branch, or the man of God’s right hand.
MacArthur says:
… John then adds what he said back in verses 15 and 27, “This is He on behalf of whom I said, after me comes a man who’s higher rank than I, for He existed before me.” And again he says, “Get your attention off me. He came after me in terms of beginning His ministry, but He existed before me. He was born after I was born, and yet He existed before me. Get your eyes on this eternal One. Get your eyes on this exalted One who is of higher rank than I am, the One you don’t know.”
John the Baptist said that he did not know Jesus personally but that he baptised with water so that Jesus might be revealed to Israel (verse 31).
Last week, I quoted MacArthur surmising that the two cousins — John the Baptist and Jesus — might have met once or twice when they were toddlers and perhaps played together during those encounters. Here, John the Gospel writer records John the Baptist as saying he never met Jesus.
In this sermon, MacArthur says that John the Baptist might have known Jesus but would not have recognised Him as the Messiah in their childhood:
You say, “Well weren’t Elizabeth and Mary related?” They were. Elizabeth and Mary were related. “Didn’t Elizabeth and Mary talk?” Sure. Mary knew that she had conceived Jesus as the Son of God without a father, humanly speaking. Elizabeth knew of the miracle of her birth. They were together when both of them were pregnant. They knew; didn’t they talk about that through the years? Wouldn’t have those women told their sons that they were who they were? And wouldn’t John know that Jesus was the Son of God?
Well, the answer is, “Yeah, he would know that because his mother would have told him, and Mary may have told him. And it certainly was known in the family” …
So here John is just admitting that I didn’t recognize Him in the full sense; oida is the Greek verb. I didn’t recognize Him in the full, deep sense. But so that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water … Up to that point he’s saying, “I knew Him, but there was no way for me to be certain that this is the Messiah, which by the way, is a footnote, is a clear declaration that Jesus’ humanity was real humanity. There was nothing about seeing the man Jesus that would tell you He was a heavenly person. I didn’t recognize Him. “But He who sent me to baptize in water,” that’s God, “said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’”
Henry says that the two not knowing each other would have worked perfectly for John the Baptist’s prophecy. It was proof that there was no collusion between the two:
He protests against any confederacy or combination with this Jesus: And I knew him not. Though there was some relation between them (Elisabeth was cousin to the virgin Mary), yet there was no acquaintance at all between them; John had no personal knowledge of Jesus till he saw him come to his baptism … There was no correspondence, no interview between them, that the matter might appear to be wholly carried on by the direction and disposal of Heaven, and not by any design or concert of the persons themselves. And as he hereby disowns all collusion, so also all partiality and sinister regard in it; he could not be supposed to favour him as a friend, for there was no friendship or familiarity between them.
As I explained above, John the Baptist testified that the Holy Spirit rested upon Jesus after His baptism (verse 32), signifying that He would baptise in the Holy Spirit Himself (verse 33) and that Jesus is the Son of God (verse 34).
MacArthur sums up those verses as follows:
So on day two we could say this: John says to the crowd, “Look at Him, the Lamb of God who is the Son of God.” That’s John’s ministry. The Lamb of God who is the Son of God. He knows it. He’s heard the voice from heaven of the Father. He’s seen the Spirit coming down and again, as I said, later on he had some doubts, but they were affirmed with the testimony coming back from his disciples when they asked. “Now I know John’s testimony, this is the Son of God.” So you have the finest, the most believable, credible, trustworthy voice in Israel affirming that this is the Lamb of God who is the Son of God.
John tells us that, the next day — the third time Jesus appeared — John the Baptist was standing with two of his disciples (verse 35) and exclaimed that Jesus is the Lamb of God (verse 36). Upon hearing that, the two disciples followed Jesus (verse 37).
This was a private exchange between John the Baptist and his two disciples.
Henry says that John the Baptist was willing — and wanted — to let two of his own followers go to follow Jesus. John the Baptist was also consistent in his message, as God’s ministers for Christ should be:
1. He took every opportunity that offered itself to lead people to Christ: John stood looking upon Jesus as he walked. It should seem, John was now retired from the multitude, and was in close conversation with two of his disciples. Note, Ministers should not only in their public preaching, but in their private converse, witness to Christ, and serve his interests. He saw Jesus walking at some distance, yet did not go to him himself, because he would shun every thing that might give the least colour to suspect a combination. He was looking upon Jesus—emblepsas; he looked stedfastly, and fixed his eyes upon him. Those that would lead others to Christ must be diligent and frequent in the contemplation of him themselves. John had seen Christ before, but now looked upon him, 1 John 1 1. 2. He repeated the same testimony which he had given to Christ the day before, though he could have delivered some other great truth concerning him; but thus he would show that he was uniform and constant in his testimony, and consistent with himself. His doctrine was the same in private that it was in public, as Paul’s was, Acts 20 20, 21. It is good to have that repeated which we have heard, Phil 3 1. The doctrine of Christ’s sacrifice for the taking away of the sin of the world ought especially to be insisted upon by all good ministers: Christ, the Lamb of God, Christ and him crucified. 3. He intended this especially for his two disciples that stood with him; he was willing to turn them over to Christ, for to this end he bore witness to Christ in their hearing that they might leave all to follow him, even that they might leave him. He did not reckon that he lost those disciples who went over from him to Christ, any more than the schoolmaster reckons that scholar lost whom he sends to the university. John gathered disciples, not for himself, but for Christ to prepare them for the Lord, Luke 1 17. So far was he from being jealous of Christ’s growing interest, that there was nothing he was more desirous of. Humble generous souls will give others their due praise without fear of diminishing themselves by it. What we have of reputation, as well as of other things, will not be the less for our giving every body his own.
So, who were the two disciples from verse 37 who followed Jesus?
Henry says Andrew, based on verses 40 and 41, and says the unidentified disciple could have been John the Gospel writer or Thomas:
Andrew and another with him were the two that John Baptist had directed to Christ, v. 37. Who the other was we are not told; some think that it was Thomas, comparing ch. 21 2; others that it was John himself, the penman of this gospel, whose manner it is industriously to conceal his name, ch. 13 23, and 20 3.
MacArthur is certain that John is the unidentified follower, because he never referred to himself by name. Later on in his Gospel, he wrote of himself as the disciple ‘whom Jesus loved’:
According to verse 40, one of them is Andrew; one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus was Andrew. Who’s the other one? Well, the writer of the gospel of John is always reluctant to name one of them. Who is it? Himself.
Jesus sensed they were following Him, so He turned and asked them what they were seeking; they responded, addressing him as Rabbi — teacher — and asking Him where He was staying (verse 38).
Henry says they asked that because they did not wish to impose on our Lord’s time, although they did intend to follow Him. He also explains the root of ‘rabbi’:
Their modest enquiry concerning the place of his abode: Rabbi, where dwellest thou? (1.) In calling him Rabbi, they intimated that their design in coming to him was to be taught by him; rabbi signifies a master, a teaching master; the Jews called their doctors, or learned men, rabbies. The word comes from rab, multus or magnus, a rabbi, a great man, and one that, as we say, has much in him. Never was there such a rabbi as our Lord Jesus, such a great one, in whom were hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. These came to Christ to be his scholars, so must all those that apply themselves to him. John had told them that he was the Lamb of God; now this Lamb is worthy to take the book and open the seals as a rabbi, Rev 5 9. And, unless we give up ourselves to be ruled and taught by him, he will not take away our sins. (2.) In asking where he dwelt, they intimate a desire to be better acquainted with him. Christ was a stranger in this country, so that they meant where was his inn where he lodged; for there they would attend him at some seasonable time, when he should appoint, to receive instruction from him; they would not press rudely upon him, when it was not proper. Civility and good manners well become those who follow Christ. And, besides, they hoped to have more from him than they could have in a short conference now by the way. They resolved to make a business, not a by-business of conversing with Christ. Those that have had some communion with Christ cannot but desire, [1.] A further communion with him; they follow on to know more of him. [2.] A fixed communion with him; where they may sit down at his feet, and abide by his instructions. It is not enough to take a turn with Christ now and then, but we must lodge with him.
MacArthur picks up on our Lord’s response to the two men:
“How do You know me?” Which is to say, “I don’t know You.” And in that little, small area of Galilee, thirty years Jesus has lived there and they don’t even know who He is, which speaks to the fact that He had done nothing to draw attention to Himself. And He begins now to gather His followers, and John the Baptist fades out of the picture now and makes one small appearance in chapter 3. But now the story turns to Christ and He takes center stage.
He invited the two men, saying ‘Come and see’; they followed and stayed with him that day, by which time it was four o’clock in the afternoon (verse 39).
MacArthur says that they probably stayed the night with Jesus:
So they came and saw where He was staying. We don’t know where that was, out in the desert somewhere, no doubt a humble place where Jesus was staying with some persons who had provided for Him a room or a bed. We know nothing more than that. “And they stayed with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.” By Jewish reckoning, which begins at 6:00 a.m., that would be four o’clock in the afternoon when they finally go to where Jesus is. So they’re going to stay with Him, stay the day, stay the night. I can imagine if I started a conversation with the Son of God, sleep would be the last thing on my agenda. This must have gone through the night.
One of the two men who immediately followed was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother (verse 40).
MacArthur says that by the time John wrote his Gospel, Peter was well known, more so than his brother:
Verse 40 simply notes that the two of them who had heard John the Baptist speak and followed him, one of them was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. Andrew will become known as “Simon Peter’s brother” because Simon Peter is casting a big shadow. And by the time John writes his gospel, which would have been in the nineties, at the end of the first century, Peter would have been well-known and there wasn’t a lot about Andrew. So Andrew would have had to spend his whole life being Simon Peter’s brother. That would be the way he would be introduced.
And yet:
… if priority matters, Andrew is the first disciple called. He’s the first disciple called and you have the account of it here. Well, Andrew is called over that night to conviction that Jesus is indeed the Messiah. So he finds, first of all, his own brother Simon, which meant that he must have been around, which meant that he may have been a follower of John the Baptist as well, because, remember, they’re not in Galilee where they live, they’re down in the south, across the Jordan River, east of Jerusalem.
Andrew first found his brother Simon and told him that he and John had found the Messiah, the Anointed (verse 40).
MacArthur explains the importance of the verse:
He finds Simon and he says to him, “We have found the Messiah.” Now that [Messiah] matters a lot to John, which translated into the Greek is “Christ.” “Messiah” is a Hebrew word; “Christ” is a Greek word. It means “the Anointed One.” … But this is…John’s point here; here is a first-person, eyewitness account by objective evidence that Jesus is the Messiah. Here is a reliable first-person testimony. “We have found the Messiah.” No equivocation, no hesitation, no doubt, absolute certainty–“We have found the Messiah.” The objective test of scrutiny, examining Jesus, asking Him questions, talking with Him the rest of the day through the night, and this is a joyful proclamation, joy beyond joy–“We have found the Messiah.” And he brought him to Jesus, Simon Peter. He brought him to Jesus.
That’s how the kingdom advances, isn’t it? One bringing another. And so here comes Andrew dragging Peter to Jesus.
Andrew brought Simon to Jesus who identified him as Simon son of John — or Jona — and stated that he would be called Cephas (pron. ‘KEFF-us’), meaning stone and Peter, the Greek word for stone being petros (verse 41).
We see elsewhere in the New Testament — e.g. Acts and Paul’s letters — where Peter is simply called Cephas with no reference to Simon or Peter.
Henry gives us this analysis of the three names and the honour Jesus did Simon by calling him Cephas:
Observe,
(1.) Christ called him by his name: When Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon, the son of Jona. It should seem that Peter was utterly a stranger to Christ, and if so, [1.] It was a proof of Christ’s omniscience that upon the first sight, without any enquiry, he could tell the name both of him and of his father. The Lord knows them that are his, and their whole case. However, [2.] It was an instance of his condescending grace and favour, that he did thus freely and affably call him by his name, though he was of mean extraction, and vir mullius nominis—a man of no name. It was an instance of God’s favour to Moses that he knew him by name, Exod 33 17. Some observe the signification of these names: Simon—obedient, Jona—a dove. An obedient dove-like spirit qualifies us to be the disciples of Christ.
(2.) He gave him a new name: Cephas. [1.] His giving him a name intimates Christ’s favour to him. A new name denotes some great dignity, Rev 2 17; Isa 62 2. By this Christ not only wiped off the reproach of his mean and obscure parentage, but adopted him into his family as one of his own. [2.] The name which he gave him bespeaks his fidelity to Christ: Thou shalt be called Cephas (that is Hebrew for a stone), which is by interpretation Peter; so it should be rendered, as Acts 9 36. Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas; the former Hebrew, the latter Greek, for a young roe. Peter’s natural temper was stiff, and hardy, and resolute, which I take to be the principal reason why Christ called him Cephas—a stone. When Christ afterwards prayed for him, that his faith might not fail, that so he might be firm to Christ himself, and at the same time bade him strengthen his brethren, and lay out himself for the support of others, then he made him what he here called him, Cephas—a stone. Those that come to Christ must come with a fixed resolution to be firm and constant to him, like a stone, solid and stedfast; and it is by his grace that they are so. His saying, Be thou steady, makes them so.
Henry reminds us that our Lord also gave other Apostles names, honours all but without singular significance:
Now this does no more prove that Peter was the singular or only rock upon which the church is built than the calling of James and John Boanerges proves them the only sons of thunder, or the calling of Joses Barnabas proves him the only son of consolation.
However, MacArthur disagrees and thinks that Jesus singled out Peter for a special place in the Church from that moment:
Jesus looked at Peter and said, “You are Simon son of John,” or Jonah, or Jonas–a lot of ways to transliterate that–“you’re Simon, son of John.” That must have caused Peter a little bit of shock. There’s no indication that He was told that, but then He knows everything. He knows who he is. More than that, He knows who he will become. He says, “you shall be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).” “Cephas” is the Aramaic word, which was the common language they spoke. “Peter” is the Greek form of the word stone, or rock. And our Lord is predicting what Peter will become. It’s going to be a tough journey getting him there, but he will become a rock. He will become a rock. Matthew 16, Jesus looks at him and says, “You are Peter,” you are the stone. But on an even greater rock, the rock of your confession, I’ll build My church. Peter’s confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God–“on that rock bed [that petra] I will build My kingdom.” But you’re a petros, you’re a stone. In fact, you’re one of the foundation stones Ephesians 2:20 talks about, of the church. The Lord says, “I not only know you, but prophetically I know what you’re going to become. You’re going to be a rock. You’re going to be solid. And he was from the day that the Spirit of God came upon him, and he stood up on the dais, if you will, on the Day of Pentecost and preached Jesus Christ and preached again. And preached through the first twelve chapters of the book of Acts in the foundation years of the church. He was the rock who proclaimed the truth on which the church was built. So Jesus must have startled Peter by knowing who he was and being able to prophesy what he would become.
In closing, sometimes unbelievers say that if Jesus really is the Son of God, the religious establishment would have fully accepted Him. However, unbelievers do not understand the point of our Lord’s ministry.
Continuing on in John 1, MacArthur points out that Jesus opposed the false religious system of the Jewish hierarchy and chose men who understood His message. They were humble nobodies. This was part of God’s plan:
True Israelites, true Jews, believing Jews knew they were sinners. John’s ministry was a ministry of repentance. His baptism was a baptism of repentance. Now remember, he is confronting a nation of self-righteous people who don’t think they need to repent and don’t think they need a Savior. That would be the dominant view. That was the view of the religious establishment. They were not looking for a lamb, or a sacrifice, or a savior, they were looking for a king. They felt they had already achieved status and acceptance with God by their religiosity and their morality. But John’s message was, you are no better than Gentiles. You are outside a relationship with God, you need to repent and you need to be baptized as an outward expression of the desire for an inward cleansing, like a Gentile who is becoming associated with Jewish religion. In other words, you’re outsiders, you need to repent or the wrath of God is going to fall on you. John preached wrath and he preached repentance, and then he pointed to Christ and said, “This is the Lamb and the sacrifice for your sins.” True Jews understood that. They knew they were sinners. They knew they needed to repent and they knew they needed a sacrifice for their sin. And perhaps these men, this small group of fishermen, even understood the full impact of Isaiah 53. There was coming one who would be wounded for their transgressions, crushed for their iniquities. They would have understood the sacrificial system pointing toward a full and final sacrifice. And when John said, “Behold the Lamb of God,” that may not have registered with the populace, but it registered with those who had a true understanding of the Old Testament and a true admission of their own spiritual and sinful condition.
So here in this section, verses 38 to 51, we meet a little group of Jews who were believers in the Old Testament and had a true interpretation of the Old Testament that had truly changed their lives, represented by the words of our Lord, “Behold”–that’s a shocking realization–“a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit”–a real believer. So here is a little group of believers … –Andrew, Peter, Philip, Nathanael–and John is also originally with Andrew in this. You can add James. You can throw in Thomas. And you have seven Galilean fishermen, seven Galilean fishermen who give testimony ultimately, although Thomas took him a long time till he finally said, “My Lord and my God.” They start out to be the core of the…of the disciples of Jesus, who then become the apostles of Christ, the first great preachers and missionaries of the gospel that start what is still being finished and will be until Jesus comes. It’s an amazing reality how the Lord chooses these insignificant people and He doesn’t have to scour the whole country, He doesn’t have to try to find the best guy in every city or every county. He can take four, five guys who know each other, that live in the same area, make their living the same way–catching fish–and He can turn them into world changers. He can take anybody and do that, and that’s what you see here.
You know, the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 1 said, “Consider your calling, not many noble, not many mighty,” remember that? The Lord has called the base and the lowly and the nothings and the nobodies and the insignificant. And that’s how the gospel gets launched. The seed that’s planted is John the Baptist; he’s like the first testifier to Jesus. And then the next group is this group that’s completely alien to the religious establishment. There’s not a rabbi; there’s not a priest; there’s not a Sadducee; there’s not a Pharisee; there’s not a scribe–no one who is a part of the religious establishment which was apostate. No one is selected, but rather humble, rural fishermen become the first followers of Jesus–the first missionaries, the first preachers, the first witnesses–and they give an amazing testimony. In verse 41, one of them says we found the Messiah. In verse 45, another one says, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote.” And in verse 49, another one says, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.” And the reason for the story here is to declare those statements. We have found the Messiah who is the fulfillment of the Old Testament, who is the Son of God and is the King of Israel. This is not their calling to be apostles; that doesn’t happen until a year and a half later. Half way through the ministry of Jesus, these men are identified as part of the twelve apostles. But at the start here, they’re just common, insignificant, uninfluential Galilean fishermen who know each other, who along with James and John all live in the same place and make their living the same way. They may well have worshiped God together in the same synagogue. Amazing. But what they launch will go, and is still going, to the ends of the earth, the ends of the earth.
The truth of the gospel spreads in every generation since the first through humble people, through the unknown, the uninfluential, the powerless, the weak and the meek. That’s how it’s always spread–person to person to person; the kingdom advances one soul at a time, one soul at a time. Sure there are preachers who preach to groups, but the primary way the kingdom moves is from one person to another, to another, to another, and that’s how it all started.
Now the challenge for them was immense, really immense. They were nobodies, absolutely nobodies, as given testimony to the fact that they were declaring Jesus to be the Messiah who Himself appeared to be a nobody, the son of Joseph from Nazareth. And everybody in Judea looked down on Galilee and the people in Galilee looked down on Nazareth. Talk about humble beginnings.
Prestige isn’t everything, and certainly isn’t when it comes to the Gospel.
Everything about Christ’s time on Earth spoke of humility: the Nativity, His exile into Egypt with Mary and Joseph, His humble upbringing, His lack of a home as an adult, His eschewing of any ostentation, all of which led to His humiliating death on the Cross as He assumed our sins in order to reconcile us to God the Father.
Jesus experienced everything that mankind continues to experience throughout history — and more. No one understands us more deeply than He. For that, we should be eternally grateful for our adoption as His own. May we converse with Him more often this year through prayer.
Today’s post was supposed to be a comprehensive retrospective of what people around the world experienced this week in seeing Queen Elizabeth II being laid to rest.
However, I have information and reflections for more than one post.
Today’s will look at the religious aspects and history of Westminster and some Royal funeral traditions.
Westminster’s religious history
One thing I learned is that the area that is called Westminster, which we connect with the Abbey and the Palace (where the Houses of Parliament meet) was originally a monastery with a church on the site.
‘West’ refers to the location being to the west of where most people were settled long before the Norman Conquest in 1066.
The word ‘minster’ is the Anglicised version of the Latin ‘monasterii’, ‘monasterium’ and ‘monasteriensis’, dating back to 669.
My curiosity was piqued when I read the inscription of the four tall candlesticks immediately flanking the Queen’s catafalque. Unfortunately, I do not have the full wording, but ‘Westmonasterii’ and ‘Petri’ are on them, gold lettering on a red border, just underneath where the large, thick beeswax candles sit.
Then came the story of how the monastery became linked to St Peter, the fisherman who became a bold Apostle preaching Christ after the first Pentecost.
In 2017, Cambridge University Press published a paper by Bernhard W Scholz, Sulcard of Westminster: Prologus de construccione Westmonasterii.
An extract reads, in part (emphases mine):
Sulcard, a monk of Westminster in the eleventh century, is the author of the first history of his monastery, the unprinted Prologus de construccione Westmonasterii. In this brief tract he describes the foundation of Westminster in the days, as he claims, of King Æthelberht of Kent, and the patronage and endowment extended by various benefactors, notably Archbishop Dunstan of Canterbury and King Edward the Confessor. Sulcard also records the marvellous dedication of Westminster by St. Peter, patron of the church, and two other miracles worked in Westminster by the prince of the apostles.
Of the original church, replaced by the structure we know today, the Wikipedia entry for Westminster Abbey states:
According to a tradition first reported by Sulcard in about 1080, a church was founded at the site (then known as Thorn Ey (Thorn Island)) in the seventh century at the time of Mellitus, a Bishop of London. Construction of the present church began in 1245 on the orders of King Henry III.[5]
Here is where St Peter comes in. A tradition dedicated to him continues today:
A late tradition claims that Aldrich, a young fisherman on the River Thames, had a vision of Saint Peter near the site. This seems to have been quoted as the origin of the salmon that Thames fishermen offered to the abbey in later years, a custom still observed annually by the Fishmongers’ Company …
Sulcard‘s entry reads:
The sole work which Sulcard is known to have produced is the so-called Prologus de Construccione Westmonasterii (“Prologue concerning the Building of Westminster”), dedicated to Abbot Vitalis of Bernay (c. 1076—?1085) and hence datable to about 1080.[2] It relates the history of the abbey, beginning in the time of Mellitus, bishop of London (604—17), with the foundation of its first church on what was then Thorney Island by a wealthy Londoner and his wife. It concludes with the dedication of a new church erected by King Edward the Confessor (r. 1042–1066) for the monastery. In the dedication to Vitalis, Sulcard writes that he intended his work to serve as a ‘commemorative book’ (codex memorialis) for his house. He was primarily interested in promoting the cult of St. Peter, the abbey’s patron saint, who is said to have miraculously appeared in the early 7th century to dedicate the church in person. Two copies of the history are extant, the earliest being a chartulary from Winchester (c. 1300), BL, Cotton MS Faustina A.iii, fols. 11r—16v. The other copy is in BL, Cotton MS Titus A.viii, fols. 2r–5v. The title is not contemporary, but derives from the heading in the former chartulary, to which it serves as a prologue.[3]
Apart from relating local traditions about St. Peter’s miraculous involvement, the narrative of Sulcard’s prologus is relatively free of embellishments.[1]
It does not appear that the monks had an easy time of it on Thorney Island:
Thorney Island was the eyot (or small island) on the Thames, upstream of medieval London, where Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster (commonly known today as the Houses of Parliament) were built. It was formed by rivulets of the River Tyburn, which entered the Thames nearby. In Roman times, and presumably before, Thorney Island may have been part of a natural ford where Watling Street crossed the Thames,[1] of particular importance before the construction of London Bridge.
The name may be derived from the Anglo-Saxon Þorn-īeg, meaning “Thorn Island”. [2]
Thorney is described in a purported 8th century charter of King Offa of Mercia, which is kept in the Abbey muniments, as a “terrible place”. In the Spring of 893, Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great, forced invading Vikings to take refuge on Thorney Island.[3] Despite hardships and more Viking raids over the following centuries, the monks tamed the island until by the time of Edward the Confessor it was “A delightful place, surrounded by fertile land and green fields”. The abbey’s College Garden survives, a thousand years later, and may be the oldest garden in England.[4]
Since the Middle Ages, the level of the land has risen, the rivulets have been built over, and the Thames has been embanked, so that there is now no visible Thorney Island. The name is kept only by Thorney Street, at the back of the MI5 Security Service building; but a local heritage organisation established by June Stubbs in 1976 took the name The Thorney Island Society.
In 1831 the boundaries of the former island were described as the Chelsea Waterworks, the Grosvenor Canal, and the ornamental water in St James’s Park.[5]
Thorney Island is one of the places reputed to be the site of King Canute’s demonstration that he could not command the tides, because he built a palace at Westminster.
In 2000, the politician John Roper was created a Life peer and revived the name of Thorney in Parliament by taking the title Baron Roper of Thorney Island in the City of Westminster.[6]
Royal traditions at Westminster Hall
The Daily Mail has an excellent article on Westminster Hall’s history from 1087 to the present, beginning with William the Conqueror’s son, William II, or William Rufus.
The Queen’s lying in rest was another historic milestone. By September 15, just four days before her funeral, someone described it as a:
piece of history that will never be repeated.
Before the public viewing started, Westminster Abbey’s clergy and the Archbishop of Canterbury conducted a 20-minute service, accompanied by the Abbey choir.
Although the Hall is unconsecrated ground, it nonetheless felt as if it were a church.
The hundreds of thousands of people who filed past over four days, until 6:30 a.m. on the morning of Monday, September 19, 2022, also respected it as such. The continuing silence was overwhelming in its beauty.
Although there are traditions relating to monarchs long ago, the Westminster Hall visitation is a relatively new one, as The Telegraph‘s Tim Stanley tells us:
The modern lying-in-state was invented in 1910, for the funeral of Edward VII. No tickets were issued; rich and poor queued in torrential rain. As the doors opened at Westminster Hall, a work girl was heard to cry, “They’re givin’ ’im back to us!”
When the ceremony was repeated for George V in 1936, cynics sneered at its elitist “pomp”. The writer G K Chesterton advised them to open a history book. In aiming to modernise royalty by bringing George’s body closer to the people, he said, the court turned the clock back to the Middle Ages, to when kingship was more personal and tangible. The coffin of a medieval sovereign was generally topped with a waxwork effigy, so that even the lowliest subject could see what he looked like.
The body of a monarch was, in a sense, sacred, transformed by coronation into an instrument of God. But, like Doubting Thomas, we need to see to believe. Hence even as monarchy became more absolutist over time, better convinced of its divine rights, the principal actors still felt the need to put on a show.
France’s monarchy was even more open than ours. The public could watch Louis XIV and his family at Versailles:
Louis XIV, the Sun King of France, rose every morning, washed, shaved and dressed in front of an audience of around 100 people. Anyone could come to see him at Versailles; all you needed to get in w[ere] a hat and a sword, and the concierge did a nice sideline in selling both. Tourists could watch the royal family going to chapel, eating, even playing cards – you could say Versailles was the Center Parcs of its day, though reviews were scathing about the pickpocketing and the smell. The palace did not benefit from modern plumbing. People relieved themselves in the corridors. There’s a story that Marie Antoinette once stepped out for a walk and a woman in the window above emptied a chamberpot over her head.
Returning to Westminster Hall last week, Stanley says:
Let’s call it what it is: a pilgrimage. The body has been returned to the people; the people have come to see it, drawn by belief, by spectacle or raw instinct. When I entered Westminster Hall, I saw at once that it was a shrine, marked by candles and shrouded in silence. Phones were banned.
Alone at the coffin, some bowed, some curtsied, some crossed themselves. These ritual gestures, observed Chesterton back in 1936, are “not only more serious but more spontaneous” than the “ghastly mummery of saying a few words” … The poverty of the 21st-century imagination betrays the dead and the living. Tradition honours with awe, and it provides those left behind with the language and actions to articulate the inexpressible.
The person who willingly submits to the ritual of the lying-in-state, argued Chesterton, “may not be an exceptional person but at least he understands what is meant by an exceptional occasion.” By contrast, the bright spark who stands above it all forfeits the wisdom of the crowd, and by rejecting history, discards a part of themselves, too – so that they are ignorant even of their own identity. Worse, they are without hope. If you believe, as we are encouraged to believe today, that death is it, the funeral is a “goodbye” that can’t even be heard by the deceased. But if you believe, as the late Queen did, that there is a life after this one, then the rite is a demonstration of faith that things will continue.
To inhabit a tradition means not only to participate in it but to pass it on. Its survival is a tribute to the perseverance of life itself. We will be told that all we’ve seen is old hat; we’ll be told that even if it was grand, Queen Elizabeth was its last shout. Well, they’ve said that a million times before, and yet here we are lining the streets, or crowding around the television, bearing witness to an ancient institution that has the audacity to claim its origin from King Solomon.
Bemusement? It renders clarity. Despair? It offers hope.
I will return to faith in a moment.
Also writing for The Telegraph, Christopher Howse described the ‘sacred mysteries’ surrounding royal ceremonies:
The lying-in-state of Queen Elizabeth, her coffin covered by the royal standard upon which rested the Imperial State Crown, made an argument hard to reduce to words. It argued for a constitutional monarchy and the ancient conventions surrounding it. Millions of people this week have quietly taken part in recognising that reality.
In religion, an old saw says: lex orandi lex credendi – the law of prayer is the law of belief. In other words, prayers and liturgy express implicit meanings behind them. Perform the rites and you learn what you believe.
Something similar operates in state ceremonial. I know that traditions are reinvented, and that the lying-in-state in Westminster Hall is little over a century old. But it incorporates remarkably old elements. In the Imperial State Crown, for example, is the sapphire of St Edward, said to have been part of the coronation ring of King Edward the Confessor, who came to the throne in 1042.
It is not too soon now … to consider the coronation of King Charles. There is antiquity here too, the inheritance of which should not be thrown away. The motet Zadok the Priest, for example, has been sung at every coronation since 973, for King Edgar. The words are based on the First Book of Kings (1:38): “Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king. And all the people rejoiced and said: God save the King! Long live the King! God save the King!”
… Some of my fears have been assuaged by the words of King Charles. He had once spoken of being the defender of faiths, rather than the faith of the Church of England implied by the abbreviations found on our coinage: FID DEF – fidei defensor. In his first address on coming to the throne, King Charles called the Church of England “the church in which my own faith is so deeply rooted”.
The Coronation takes place within the service of Holy Communion (even if films from 1953 omit images of Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh receiving the Sacrament, as they did).
And, no matter what, we are better off with an established church in England than without one, precisely for these reasons:
Sometimes I find the Church of England annoying. Who doesn’t? But I’d rather have it as the Established Church than not … as the godly anointing of the head of state and supreme governor of the Church of England, the Coronation must retain the Christian elements that define it.
The only noise we heard was during the changing of the guard, which took place every 20 minutes. Unless one does it as a job, i.e. in front of one of the palaces, it is difficult to stand completely still in one place for much longer.
Lucy Denyer wrote an article for The Telegraph describing what an honour it was for her to see her husband as part of that guard:
My husband is – imperceptibly, infinitesimally – swaying. Backwards and forwards he goes, gently, so, so gently. Blink and you’d miss it; to all intents and purposes he is standing stock still, eyes front, unsmiling, upright. You’d only catch the tiny movement if you were looking very intently.
… The rocking – forwards and backwards from the heel to the ball of the foot – keeps the blood flowing; stops him passing out. Watch really carefully and they’re all at it.
The Queen herself also did that when standing for long periods of time. It does work.
She, too, commented on the silence:
Inside, under the bright lights hanging from the mediaeval beams, it is silent, bar the tapping of feet, the discreet click of an official photographer’s lens and once, the wail of a baby.
Suddenly comes the bang of sword on stone, the signal for the guard to change. It is precisely 12:20am and the four on the corners swing their swords in a graceful arc in perfect time, before making their careful way down the steps of the dais on which the late Queen’s catafalque stands …
My husband tells me afterwards that all he could think of, at this point, was not to trip, fall – and become a global meme.
She discussed the power of ritual and solemnity of a vigil:
A vigil can at once be grand or simple, awe-inspiring or strangely intimate – or all of those things – and Queen Elizabeth II’s is no exception. Ignore the velvet ropes and the electric lights – and the anoraks, trainers and clutched plastic bags – and this could be a moment from another time; it is timeless.
Soothing, too; the endless river of people filing by the coffin. Most slow, some bow, others curtsey, some blow kisses. Many linger after they have passed by, reluctant to leave this sanctuary that it has taken them so long to reach. Exhaustion is etched on faces; there is the odd dazed-looking child stumbling along between its parents.
Among this stream of awkward humanity, the officers on guard stand in marked contrast – statues, doing their duty. They have been practicing all week: their entrances and exits, their synchronised sword drills run through at home in spare half hours with umbrellas. Standing orders have been dusted off, breastplates refitted, helmets adjusted, boots polished. I have seen the pomp and ceremony hundreds of times, yet never carried out so silently; there is no shouting of orders in here.
The sword bangs once more; it is time to leave. On top of the coffin, the Black Prince’s Ruby suddenly flashes red. I pause, bow my head, say a prayer of thanks – for Her Majesty’s life, but also, in her death, to have been able to see this, to watch my husband carry out this enormous honour.
Returning to Windsor — and to God
After the Queen’s committal at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, Tim Stanley wrote a moving tribute for The Telegraph:
The Committal was a homecoming. To Windsor and to God.
This is one of England’s holiest spots, burial site of kings, church of the Order of the Garter, it once hosted a splinter of Christ’s cross. Its slender pillars are like the trunks of ash trees.
Beneath its canopy of silver lattice, the coffin was borne to the quire and rested at the catafalque, to a setting of Psalm 121: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills.”
Then the choir sang the Russian contakion of the departed, also performed at the Duke’s funeral, a nod to the family’s Orthodox heritage. Absent a eulogy, it was the music that expressed Her Majesty’s character and convictions, including a motet arranged by Sir William Henry Harris who, it is believed, taught the young Princess Elizabeth how to play the piano. As a child, she could often be found in the organ loft listening to him play for the services down below, especially at Christmas.
The words by John Donne crystallised the message of the readings: “Bring us, O Lord God… into the house and gate of Heaven”, where there shall be no darkness “but one equal light”, no noise “but one equal music” and one “equal eternity”.
Put another way, Elizabeth II lived as a queen but, in death, she is a soul equal to any other, returned to God. In an age of atheism, when Christians are persecuted across the world, it’s remarkable that perhaps history’s largest ever TV audience was given over to a statement of unafraid Christian belief – and over the course of the Committal, one cleric after another expressed the vision of their church with utter clarity.
There is the reality of mortality, as described by the Dean of Windsor in Psalm 103: “The days of man are but grass… As soon as the wind goeth over it, it is gone.”
There is the certainty of life after death, as stated in the prayers: “We rejoice at thy gracious promise to all thy servants, living and departed, that we shall rise again at the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” And there is the vision of triumph at the end of times, as the Dean quoted from Revelation: “There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying.”
This passage was read at the funerals of the Queen’s grandparents and father, casting us back over an unbroken line of succession.
There was no qualification in any of these words, no Thought for the Day “some might say, others will feel differently”, but instead pure hope rooted in unshakable faith. The Queen has died, but her story does not end. That’s true for the monarchy, as well …
Finally, the coffin lowered into the ground as the Dean continued: “Go forth upon thy journey from this world, O Christian soul.” The Garter King of Arms proclaimed the late Queen’s titles; a bagpiper played a lament from the North Quire Aisle, slowly walking into the distance, till the figure and his tune became a ghost in the ash forest. You might say that physically we were in England, but spiritually we were in Balmoral.
And the congregation awoke from its reverie into a new era …
Later, of course, the family would say a very private farewell to Queen Elizabeth, and she would be laid next to her beloved husband – concluding a set of rites that, like Russian dolls, grew smaller and more precious in form.
For the public, the emotional journey to this moment was intense. Over 10 days, the lying in state allowed us to participate in the Queen’s farewell and, let’s be honest, make it a little bit about us. How British were the queues, we said, how democratic the whole thing.
But at the Abbey and the Chapel, we saw what this was really all about: namely the late Queen, her precious traditions and the principles they exist to pass on. Ultimately, the Committal articulated love – for country, for family, for horses and dogs, all the things that make a life worth living.
The Church of England is preoccupied by church growth programmes.
They do not need that at all.
What they need is a continuous replay of the Queen’s four days in Westminster Hall, her funeral at Westminster Abbey and her committal service at St George’s Chapel.
My message to Anglican clerics is: build it and they will come.
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It is not too late to send the Royal Family a message of condolence:
My better half and I were in London yesterday. Friends told us that floral tributes were still being laid in the relevant parks and at Windsor Castle.
It is good to see that mourners are still remembering our late monarch, especially as the Royal Family now have a chance to grieve in private for the next few days.
May God bless them on that difficult journey.
Long live the King.
Reflections on the Queen continue next week.
The Third Sunday of Easter is May 1, 2022.
The readings for Year C can be found here.
The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):
John 21:1-19
21:1 After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way.
21:2 Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples.
21:3 Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
21:4 Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.
21:5 Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.”
21:6 He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.
21:7 That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea.
21:8 But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.
21:9 When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread.
21:10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.”
21:11 So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn.
21:12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord.
21:13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.
21:14 This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
21:15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”
21:16 A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.”
21:17 He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.
21:18 Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”
21:19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
John MacArthur says that this visit from Jesus took place around the time He gave the Apostles the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20):
The Great Commission
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
MacArthur says that the Apostles did not go immediately to the mountain and, according to him, went fishing instead:
The problem is when this narrative opens they aren’t at the mountain, they’re at the lake. So immediately were confronted with their disobedience. They are not in the place He told them to be. They shouldn’t have been where they were.
In any event, John’s account of this fishing expedition and our Lord’s preparation of breakfast for the Twelve shows, in MacArthur’s words that He will be there to provide for them — and for us:
He’s going to be there to provide. He’s going to be there to meet their needs. Even the simplest needs of their hunger, He’s going to care for them; that’s not going to change. Even though it’s after the resurrection, even though He’s in a glorified form, He will have the same compassion and care, and make the same provisions for them that they’ve known Him to make.
This is John’s third recorded account of our Lord appearing to the Apostles (verse 14).
Jesus showed Himself — manifested Himself, in some translations — to the Apostles again at the Sea of Tiberias, which is the Sea of Galilee, later renamed for the Roman emperor (verse 1).
MacArthur tells us what happened after they saw Jesus for the second time in the room where Thomas saw His wounds (last week’s reading):
Sometime between the eighth day when Jesus appeared to the apostles, and the fortieth day when He ascended into heaven, this third appearance occurred – third as it’s designated in verse 14.
We know from Acts 1:3 that He was with them for forty days. It doesn’t mean that He was with them all forty of those days, because there are only three times that He appeared to them up to this incident, and this incident happened in Galilee. They had to go from Judea to Galilee, which could be a journey that might take them some time. Before, they had seen Him in Judea in the upper room; now they’re in Galilee. They’ve been waiting awhile for Him; finally He makes an appearance. So to say that He taught them the things concerning the kingdom throughout a period of forty days is not to say that it was all forty days. Sometime between the eighth and fortieth day Jesus manifested Himself.
He uses that term twice in verse 1: manifested, manifested. You have to understand this: as a supernatural, sudden, startling appearance of Christ as if out of nowhere. In the same way, He appeared to those on the road to Emmaus, the same way He appeared to Mary Magdalene and the others, the same way He appeared to the apostles in the upper room, coming into the room and appearing instantaneously with the door shut and locked. He is now in His glorified resurrection form. He manifests Himself.
And I remind you that even though He could be seen because He was alive physically, He was not known, because His body was different. His glorified body was different. Mary Magdalene thought He was somebody else; she thought He was the gardener. The disciples on the road to Emmaus had no idea who He was, and not a glimpse, but rather a long drawn out conversation with Him in the daylight, and then in the house and around the table, and they still didn’t know who He was.
And here, again, He appears, and they don’t know who He is, because they couldn’t know who He was in the glorified form, because the glorified form is so different. He has to therefore disclose Himself. He has to identify Himself, and He does that on this occasion. His body is so different. It is a body for eternity, not a body for time. It is a body for heaven, not a body for earth.
So this time He manifests Himself in Galilee by the Sea of Tiberias. Can I just comment on that? That is a lake 12 miles long, about 7 miles wide, 650 feet below sea level in the northern part of the land of Israel in Galilee, surrounded pretty much by mountains on the west, north, and east. It is familiar in the Old Testament. It’s called Kinneret or Chinnereth or sometimes Gennesaret Lake. It is also the Sea of Galilee as we know it, because it is in the region of Galilee. The Romans renamed it to honor Tiberius Caesar and they called it the Sea of Tiberias as its Roman name.
Jesus had told the disciples to go to Galilee back in Matthew 28 after He had appeared to them from His resurrection. He said, “You need to leave for Galilee,” – Matthew 28:10 – “and there you will see Me. You go to Galilee, you’ll see me there.”
Verse 16: “The eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated.” So they not only were told to go to Galilee, they were told to go to Galilee to a mountain, the very mountain Jesus designated. We don’t know what it was, but perhaps it was what we know as the mountain where there was the Sermon on the Mount, and can’t be certain about that. But that’s one very near that slopes up from the sea to the north. The problem is when this narrative opens they aren’t at the mountain, they’re at the lake. So immediately were confronted with their disobedience. They are not in the place He told them to be. They shouldn’t have been where they were.
A familiar list of names shows up in verse 2, ones we have run across before: Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin (Didymus, in some translations, which means ‘twin’), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples.
MacArthur says:
… this is the group – the six of them minus Thomas – this is the group that Jesus first called as His disciples back in chapter 1. This is the group that discovered they have found the Messiah, so we know them very well ... Interestingly enough, this doubting Thomas and this denying Peter are the first two named. They’re given prominence in the list, and that’s an illustration of grace: Simon Peter the denier and Thomas the doubter. Didymus mean he was a twin, he had a twin.
MacArthur thinks they had all gone to the mountain as Jesus instructed, then decided to leave when Peter announced he was going fishing and they agreed to accompany him, although they caught nothing that night (verse 3):
Well, they’re up in the mountain for awhile; we don’t know how long, we don’t have time indicators here. “Simon Peter said to them, ‘I’m going fishing.’” And in the form of the original language that’s a final statement: “I’m going back to my old career. I’m going fishing.”
I read it differently, but I am not a Bible scholar. Fishermen went about their business at night, when waters were cooler. They also could not preach and teach at night, when people would have been asleep.
Incidentally, Matthew Henry says there was no rebellion among the Apostles and that they did the right thing by going fishing, calling it ‘an instance of their humility’:
Their agreement to go a fishing. They knew not well what to do with themselves. For my part, says Peter, I will go a fishing; We will go with thee then, say they, for we will keep together. Though commonly two of a trade cannot agree, yet they could. Some think they did amiss in returning to their boats and nets, which they had left; but then Christ would not have countenanced them in it with a visit. It was rather commendable in them; for they did it, (1.) To redeem time, and not be idle. They were not yet appointed to preach the resurrection of Christ. Their commission was in the drawing, but not perfected. The hour for entering upon action was to come. It is probable that their Master had directed them to say nothing of his resurrection till after his ascension, nay, not till after the pouring out of the Spirit, and then they were to begin at Jerusalem. Now, in the mean time, rather than do nothing, they would go a fishing; not for recreation, but for business. It is an instance of their humility. Though they were advanced to be sent of Christ, as he was of the Father, yet they did not take state upon them, but remembered the rock out of which they were hewn. It is an instance likewise of their industry, and bespeaks them good husbands of their time. While they were waiting, they would not be idling. Those who would give an account of their time with joy should contrive to fill up the vacancies of it, to gather up the fragments of it. (2.) That they might help to maintain themselves and not be burdensome to any. While their Master was with them those who ministered to him were kind to them; but now that the bridegroom was taken from them they must fast in those days, and therefore their own hands, as Paul’s, must minister to their necessities and for this reason Christ asked them, Have you any meat? This teaches us with quietness to work and eat our own bread.
Henry is generous about this gathering of apostolic fishermen and commends their model to us:
Observe here, 1. It is good for the disciples of Christ to be much together; not only in solemn religious assemblies, but in common conversation, and about common business. Good Christians should by this means both testify and increase their affection to, and delight in, each other, and edify one another both by discourse and example. 2. Christ chose to manifest himself to them when they were together; not only to countenance Christian society, but that they might be joint witnesses of the same matter of fact, and so might corroborate one another’s testimony. Here were seven together to attest this, on which some observe that the Roman law required seven witnesses to a testament. 3. Thomas was one of them, and is named next to Peter, as if he now kept closer to the meetings of the apostles than ever. It is well if losses by our neglects make us more careful afterwards not to let opportunities slip.
As for the Apostles catching nothing, which some may interpret as divine payback, Henry says that these things happen, often out of divine providence — and for good reason:
Even good men may come short of desired success in their honest undertakings. We may be in the way of our duty, and yet not prosper. Providence so ordered it that all that night they should catch nothing, that the miraculous draught of fishes in the morning might be the more wonderful and the more acceptable. In those disappointments which to us are very grievous God has often designs that are very gracious. Man has indeed a dominion over the fish of the sea, but they are not always at his beck; God only knows the paths of the sea, and commands that which passeth through them.
Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach, but the disciples did not recognise Him (verse 4). Again, that refers to His glorified body, which they could not identify.
Henry says this tells us that Jesus is nearby when we need Him most:
Christ’s time of making himself known to his people is when they are most at a loss. When they think they have lost themselves, he will let them know that they have not lost him … It is a comfort to us, when our passage is rough and stormy, that our Master is at shore, and we are hastening to him.
As to why Jesus did not walk on water towards the boat, scholars through the ages say that His work in that respect had now been accomplished with the Resurrection. However, the Apostles’ toil in ministry — and persecution — had only just begun:
Some of the ancients put this significancy upon it, that Christ, having finished his work, was got through a stormy sea, a sea of blood, to a safe and quiet shore, where he stood in triumph; but the disciples, having their work before them, were yet at sea, in toil and peril.
Jesus knew they had no fish but asked them nonetheless, addressing them as ‘children’, or, in British English, ‘lads’; they responded in the negative (verse 5).
Henry discusses His affectionate address and question at length, as well as the Apostles’ terse reply:
He called to them, Children, paidia–“Lads, have you any meat? Have you caught any fish?” Here, (1.) The compellation is very familiar; he speaks unto them as unto his sons, with the care and tenderness of a father: Children. Though he had now entered upon his exalted state, he spoke to his disciples with as much kindness and affection as ever. They were not children in age, but they were his children, the children which God had given him. (2.) The question is very kind: Have you any meat? He asks as a tender father concerning his children whether they be provided with that which is fit for them, that if they be not, he may take care for their supply. Note, The Lord is for the body, 1 Corinthians 6:13. Christ takes cognizance of the temporal wants of his people, and has promised them not only grace sufficient, but food convenient. Verily they shall be fed, Psalms 27:3. Christ looks into the cottages of the poor, and asks, Children, have you any meat? thereby inviting them to open their case before him, and by the prayer of faith to make their requests known to him: and then let them be careful for nothing; for Christ takes care of them, takes care for them. Christ has herein set us an example of compassionate concern for our brethren. There are many poor householders disabled for labour, or disappointed in it, that are reduced to straits, whom the rich should enquire after thus, Have you any meat? For the most necessitous are commonly the least clamorous. To this question the disciples gave a short answer, and, some think, with an air of discontent and peevishness. They said, No; not giving him any such friendly and respectful title as he had given them. So short do the best come in their returns of love to the Lord Jesus. Christ put the question to them, not because he did not know their wants, but because he would know them from them. Those that would have supplies from Christ must own themselves empty and needy.
Jesus told them to cast their net to the right side of the boat and they would find fish; there were so many that they were not able to haul in their catch (verse 6).
MacArthur says that this would have reminded the Apostles of the time three years earlier when He first called them to follow Him:
They were to drop their nets, stop fishing for fish and start fishing for men. Luke 5, listen: “Crowds pressing Jesus, He’s on the edge of the lake. He saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake. The fishermen had gotten out of them, washing their nets. So He got into one of the boats, the boat was Simon’s boat. Got into Peter’s boat and asked him to put out a little way from the land. He had to push off from the shore because the crowd was pressing Him, and He needed a little distance and the water’s a pretty good conductor of voice. So when he had finished speaking from Peter’s boat He said to Simon, ‘Put out in the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’
“Simon answered Him and said, ‘Master, I need to inform you about fishing. We worked hard all night and caught nothing; this doesn’t make sense. I know you’re not a fisherman, but I’m telling You we’ve been there, done that; this is not a good time to fish. But’ – he says – ‘I will do as you say and let down the nets. I’m going to go prove my point that I know more about fishing that You do.’
“When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break; so they signaled to their partners in the other boat” – probably belonged to some of the other disciples – “for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, ‘Go away from me Lord, for I’m a sinful man!’” He knew who he was dealing with: Lord God, and he saw his own wretched sinfulness. He was so sinful in the attitude that he had conveyed to the Lord.
“Amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken, and they were James and John and Peter. And then Jesus says to them” – in verse 10 – ‘Don’t be afraid. From now on you will be catching men.’ When they brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.” Now they’re going to go catch men …
Well, they got so many fish that it was shocking; and, of course, this had happened three years earlier, so they knew who He was immediately. So now you know that this is the same Christ, risen from the dead, performing a miracle very much like at the beginning of His relationship with them.
MacArthur says this is the only post-Resurrection creative miracle that Jesus performed, although He did enter the Apostles’ room in Judea twice after rising from the dead by passing through a wall:
… this is the one post-resurrection miracle, apart from walking through walls, which is simply the supernatural body of Christ and its capability.
Henry says this miracle is an illustration of our Lord’s generosity in the age of the New Covenant, although we must be diligent:
As a mystery, and very significant of that work to which Christ was now with an enlarged commission sending them forth. The prophets had been fishing for souls, and caught nothing, or very little; but the apostles, who let down the net at Christ’s word, had wonderful success. Many were the children of the desolate, Galatians 4:27. They themselves, in pursuance of their former mission, when they were first made fishers of men, had had small success in comparison with what they should now have. When, soon after this, three thousand were converted in one day, then the net was cast on the right side of the ship. It is an encouragement to Christ’s ministers to continue their diligence in their work. One happy draught, at length, may be sufficient to repay many years of toil at the gospel net.
The huge haul of fish caused John, the author of this Gospel — ‘that disciple whom Jesus loved’ — to exclaim to Peter that this was the Lord; Peter, having stripped down to bare essentials, put on some clothes and jumped into the sea (verse 7).
Looking at John’s character and recalling that he was the only Apostle to be at the Crucifixion, Henry says:
John had adhered more closely to his Master in his sufferings than any of them: and therefore he has a clearer eye and a more discerning judgment than any of them, in recompence for his constancy. When John was himself aware that it was the Lord, he communicated his knowledge to those with him; for this dispensation of the Spirit is given to every one to profit withal. Those that know Christ themselves should endeavor to bring others acquainted with him; we need not engross him, there is enough in him for us all.
Peter was in a conflicted state of mind at this time. How could he forget that he denied Jesus three times in the early hours of Good Friday? He loved our Lord, yet he had denied Him. He was weak, as we all are, often at the most crucial times. He felt badly and probably wanted His personal forgiveness in words.
Henry says:
… John tells Peter particularly his thoughts, that it was the Lord, knowing he would be glad to see him above any of them. Though Peter had denied his Master, yet, having repented, and being taken into the communion of the disciples again, they were as free and familiar with him as ever.
2. That Peter was the most zealous and warm-hearted disciple; for as soon as he heard it was the Lord (for which he took John’s word) the ship could not hold him, nor could he stay till the bringing of it to shore, but into the sea he throws himself presently, that he might come first to Christ. (1.) He showed his respect to Christ by girding his fisher’s coat about him that he might appear before his Master in the best clothes he had, and to rudely rush into his presence, stripped as he was to his waistcoat and drawers, because the work he was about was toilsome, and he was resolved to take pains in it. Perhaps the fisher’s coat was made of leather, or oil-cloth, and would keep out wet; and he girt it to him that he might make the best of his way through the water to Christ, as he used to do after his nets, when he was intent upon his fishing. (2.) He showed the strength of his affection to Christ, and his earnest desire to be with him, by casting himself into the sea; and either wading or swimming to shore, to come to him. When he walked upon the water to Christ (Matthew 14:28), it was said, He came down out of the ship deliberately; but here it is said, He cast himself into the sea with precipitation; sink or swim, he would show his good-will and aim to be with Jesus. “If Christ suffer me,” thinks he, “to drown, and come short of him, it is but what I deserve for denying him.” Peter had had much forgiven, and made it appear he loved much by his willingness to run hazards, and undergo hardships, to come to him. Those that have been with Jesus will be willing to swim through a stormy sea, a sea of blood, to come to him …
The other Apostles stayed in the boat, dragging the net full of fish; they were only about 100 yards from the shore (verse 8).
Henry says that we all have our own personalities and characteristics; God makes use of all of these in the Church:
Now here we may observe, (1.) How variously God dispenses his gifts. Some excel, as Peter and John; are very eminent in gifts and graces, and are thereby distinguished from their brethren; others are but ordinary disciples, that mind their duty, and are faithful to him, but do nothing to make themselves remarkable; and yet both the one and the other, the eminent and the obscure, shall sit down together with Christ in glory; nay, and perhaps the last shall be first. Of those that do excel, some, like John, are eminently contemplative, have great gifts of knowledge, and serve the church with them; others, like Peter, are eminently active and courageous, are strong, and do exploits, and are thus very serviceable to their generation. Some are useful as the church’s eyes, others as the church’s hands, and all for the good of the body. (2.) What a great deal of difference there may be between some good people and others in the way of their honouring Christ, and yet both accepted of him. Some serve Christ more in acts of devotion, and extraordinary expressions of a religious zeal; and they do well, to the Lord they do it. Peter ought not to be censured for casting himself into the sea, but commended for his zeal and the strength of his affection; and so must those be who, in love to Christ, quit the world, with Mary, to sit at his feet. But others serve Christ more in the affairs of the world. They continue in that ship, drag the net, and bring the fish to shore, as the other disciples here; and such ought not to be censured as worldly, for they, in their place, are as truly serving Christ as the other, even in serving tables. If all the disciples had done as Peter did, what had become of their fish and their nets? And yet if Peter had done as they did we had wanted this instance of holy zeal. Christ was well pleased with both, and so must we be. (3.) That there are several ways of bringing Christ’s disciples to shore to him from off the sea of this world. Some are brought to him by a violent death, as the martyrs, who threw themselves into the sea, in their zeal for Christ; others are brought to him by a natural death, dragging the net, which is less terrible; but both meet at length on the safe and quiet shore with Christ.
When the Apostles reached the shore, they found that Jesus had made breakfast for them — bread and fish — with the aid of a charcoal fire (verse 9). How wonderful! It was the best tasting breakfast in history, because He made it.
The resurrected Jesus was still serving His disciples. How many other religions can say that their original leader did the same? Not one.
Of this creative miracle, Henry says:
When they came to land, wet and cold, weary and hungry, they found a good fire there to warm them and dry them, and fish and bread, competent provision for a good meal. (1.) We need not be curious in enquiring whence this fire, and fish, and bread, came, any more than whence the meat came which the ravens brought to Elijah. He that could multiply the loaves and fishes that were could make new ones if he pleased, or turn stones into bread, or send his angels to fetch it, where he knew it was to be had. It is uncertain whether this provision was made ready in the open air, or in some fisher’s cabin or hut upon the shore; but here was nothing stately or delicate. We should be content with mean things, for Christ was. (2.) We may be comforted in this instance of Christ’s care of his disciples; he has wherewith to supply all our wants, and knows what things we have need of. He kindly provided for those fishermen, when they came weary from their work; for verily those shall be fed who trust in the Lord and do good. It is encouraging to Christ’s ministers, whom he hath made fishers of men, that they may depend upon him who employs them to provide for them; and if they should miss of encouragement in this world, should be reduced as Paul was to hunger, and thirst, and fastings often, let them content themselves with what they have here; they have better things in reserve, and shall eat and drink with Christ at his table in his kingdom, Luke 22:30. Awhile ago, the disciples had entertained Christ with a broiled fish (Luke 24:42), and now, as a friend, he returned their kindness, and entertained them with one; nay, in the draught of fishes, he repaid them more than a hundred fold.
Jesus instructed the men to bring some of the fish they had just caught (verse 10).
Henry says this is because He wanted them to enjoy the fruits of their labour:
The command Christ gave them to bring their draught of fish to shore: “Bring of the fish hither, which you have now caught, and let us have some of them;” not as if he needed it; and could not make up a dinner for them without it; but, [1.] He would have them eat the labour of their hands, Psalms 128:2. What is got by God’s blessing on our own industry and honest labour, if withal God give us power to eat of it, and enjoy good in our labour, hath a peculiar sweetness in it. It is said of the slothful man that he roasteth not that which he took in hunting; he cannot find in his heart to dress what he has been at the pains to take, Proverbs 12:27. But Christ would hereby teach us to use what we have. [2.] He would have them taste the gifts of his miraculous bounty, that they might be witnesses both of his power and of his goodness. The benefits Christ bestows upon us are not to be buried and laid up, but to be used and laid out. [3.] He would give a specimen of the spiritual entertainment he has for all believers, which, in this respect, is most free and familiar–that he sups with them, and they with him; their graces are pleasing to him, and his comforts are so to them; what he works in them he accepts from them. [4.] Ministers, who are fishers of men, must bring all they catch to their Master, for on him their success depends.
Peter boarded the boat and hauled the net ashore, full of 153 fish, the weight of which did not tear the net (verse 11), unlike the first time three years before.
These fish are now called St Peter’s fish (John Dory). The dark, round mark each has is said to be St Peter’s thumbprint.
Peter must have been a large and strong man to bring the net in himself.
MacArthur says:
This is where he gets the term “the big fisherman.” Years ago there was even a book and a movie when I was a little kid called The Big Fisherman, and I used to ask, “Why does everybody think Peter is big?” This is it right here, because six guys have been dragging this thing in, the other disciples in verse 8.
But in verse 11 it says, “Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land, full of large fish, large fish.” A large fish in the Sea of Galilee, I’ve eaten those fish; some of you have been there. They’re now called St. Peter’s fish; they weren’t then, but they are now, obvious reason. They can get as big as two pounds plus.
The number is fascinating to me. This is something Scripture does very frequently to let you know the reality of it. This isn’t mystical, this is actually 153 fish, times two pounds, you’re looking at three hundred pounds of fish in wet nets and paraphernalia; and this is where Peter gets the name “big fisherman,” because he pulls it ashore by himself. He’s a formidable guy. So he drags in 153 fish, and even though there were so many, too many for the nets to hold, the net was not torn – which is another part of the miracle.
Jesus invited the Apostles to breakfast; none of them asked who He was because they knew it was He (verse 12).
Jesus then took the bread and gave it to them before doing the same with the fish (verse 13). Note that He continued to serve them throughout. He did not ask them to help themselves.
MacArthur makes an important point:
… the risen Christ is not some detached ethereal being. The risen Christ can sit down and have breakfast with His disciples; and more importantly, He’s not all of a sudden disinterested in them, because He’s back in His heavenly mode and they don’t matter anymore. He makes sure they have breakfast and He serves it to them.
John makes it clear that this was the third time Jesus had appeared to them after the Resurrection (verse 14).
After breakfast, our Lord turned His attention to Peter, knowing what remorse was in the Apostle’s heart (verse 15); He addressed him by his birth name, Simon son of John, or Simon bar-Jona(s), as a way of humbling him, which Peter certainly would have understood.
‘Bar’ means ‘son’. ‘Bat’ means ‘daughter’. Hence, Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah. In Arabic, the equivalents are ‘bin’ and ‘bint’.
Henry explains Peter’s state of mind and Christ’s tenderness towards him, waiting until after breakfast to talk to him:
It was after they had dined: they had all eaten, and were filled, and, it is probable, were entertained with such edifying discourse as our Lord Jesus used to make his table-talk. Christ foresaw that what he had to say to Peter would give him some uneasiness, and therefore would not say it till they had dined, because he would not spoil his dinner. Peter was conscious to himself that he had incurred his Master’s displeasure, and could expect no other than to be upbraided with his treachery and ingratitude. “Was this thy kindness to thy friend? Did not I tell thee what a coward thou wouldest prove?” Nay, he might justly expect to be struck out of the roll of the disciples, and to be expelled the sacred college. Twice, if not thrice, he had seen his Master since his resurrection, and he said not a word to him of it. We may suppose Peter full of doubts upon what terms he stood with his Master; sometimes hoping the best, because he had received favour from him in common with the rest; yet not without some fears, lest the chiding would come at last that would pay for all. But now, at length, his Master put him out of his pain, said what he had to say to him, and confirmed him in his place as an apostle. He did not tell him of his fault hastily, but deferred it for some time; did not tell him of it unseasonably, to disturb the company at dinner, but when they had dined together, in token of reconciliation, then discoursed he with him about it, not as with a criminal, but as with a friend. Peter had reproached himself for it, and therefore Christ did not reproach him for it, nor tell him of it directly, but only by a tacit intimation; and, being satisfied in his sincerity, the offence was not only forgiven, but forgotten; and Christ let him know that he was as dear to him as ever. Herein he has given us an encouraging instance of his tenderness towards penitents, and has taught us, in like manner, to restore such as are fallen with a spirit of meekness.
Jesus asks Peter if he loves Him more than ‘these’ (verse 15).
MacArthur says that Jesus is not speaking of the other ten Apostles gathered but of boats and fishing:
He says, “Do you love Me more than these?” These what, these men? No, because they had all done the same thing. They were all guilty of a loveless disobedience. He means nets, boats, fish. “Do you love Me more than these things that go with your former life? Are you prepared to give this up, to abandon all your successes, your chosen career? Are you willing to give it all up? Do you love Me enough to do that?”
Then, there is the word that Jesus used for ‘love’:
… the word He uses is agapaó. That’s that high love – the noblest, purest, best; the love of the will. We talk about agape love; that’s a noun form of it. It is love in its fullest sense, love in its deepest sense, love in its greatest sense, love, I guess you could say, in its purest form – divine love.
“Do you really love Me, Peter, at the highest level?” That is the critical question. And that is the key to commitment …
“Do you love Me enough to live for Me? Do you love Me enough to walk away from this? Are you constrained by loving Me? Do you have a love for Me” – in the words of Paul in Ephesians 6:24 – “that is incorruptible love? Do you really love Me in the fullest sense?”
Peter answered in the affirmative (verse 15) but used a milder word for love, because he did not want our Lord to call him out for hypocrisy:
So Peter replies, “He said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.’” But he changed the word. Jesus used the word agapaó, Peter used the word phileó, he dropped down a notch. Phileó is a kind of brotherly love, kind of warm affection, a friendship love.
Look, Peter couldn’t say, “Yes, You know that I love You at the highest level of love.” That just wouldn’t fly. I mean he had denied Him, and now He had disobeyed Him, and he had enough sense not to be an absolute hypocrite and say, “Of course, I love You at the highest level.” So he says, “Lord, I have great affection for You.” He dared not claim agapaó, but he did claim phileó. But even with that, he has to lean on omniscience: “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.”
Our Lord asked Peter if he loves Him a second time, as if this were to make up for Peter’s second denial of Him. Peter again said, ‘Yes, Lord. You know that I love you’, to which Jesus replied, inviting him to tend His sheep (verse 16).
Notice that Jesus refers to ‘My sheep’.
MacArthur makes these observations:
This is amazing. He said to him, “Tend” – or – “feed” – boskó is the verb – “pasture My lambs, pasture My lambs.” Amazing. With a less than perfect love, with a less than ideal love, with a less than noble love, with a less than elevated love, the Lord accepts him and says, “Pasture My lambs. Feed My lambs.”
And I just want to call to your attention that personal pronoun is very important, because whoever we shepherd doesn’t belong to us. This is a calling that Peter reminds all of us about in 1 Peter 5 when he writes and he says, “We are all under-shepherds and Christ is the Chief Shepherd.”
If you’re in ministry, if you’re caring for any other believers in any way, you are shepherding His sheep, not yours. No congregation belongs to a pastor or an elder. No Sunday School class belongs to a teacher. No believers in a family belong, in a spiritual sense, to parents. They’re His. It’s a stewardship that in some ways is really frightening. That’s why in Matthew the Lord tells us to be careful how we treat each other, because not only do they belong to Christ, but Christ is in them. So many people don’t understand pastoral ministry as caring for His sheep.
Jesus asked Peter the same question a third time, which hurt Peter, because he knew our Lord was referring to Peter’s three denials of Him; Peter replied the same way, although acknowledging His omniscience in his answer, and Jesus told him to feed His sheep (verse 17).
Peter is the Apostles’ leader and our Lord has restored him to the fold in order to carry out that mission.
MacArthur says:
Back in chapter 10 He talked about how He loved the sheep, how He gave His life for the sheep, how the sheep knew Him and He knew them. And now He’s handing them over to Peter. “I’m entrusting you with them, and I need to know that you love Me more than you love this, so that you’re going to be faithful to give your life for them.”
Henry makes these observations:
Three times Christ committed the care of his flock to Peter: Feed my lambs; feed my sheep; feed my sheep. [1.] Those whom Christ committed to Peter’s care were his lambs and his sheep. The church of Christ is his flock, which he hath purchased with his own blood (Acts 20:28), and he is the chief shepherd of it. In this flock some are lambs, young and tender and weak, others are sheep, grown to some strength and maturity. The Shepherd here takes care of both, and of the lambs first, for upon all occasions he showed a particular tenderness for them. He gathers the lambs in his arms, and carries them in his bosom. Isaiah 40:11. [2.] The charge he gives him concerning them is to feed them. The word used in John 21:15; John 21:17, is boske, which strictly signifies to give them food; but the word used in John 21:16; John 21:16 is poimaine, which signifies more largely to do all the offices of a shepherd to them: “Feed the lambs with that which is proper for them, and the sheep likewise with food convenient. The lost sheep of the house of Israel, seek and feed them, and the other sheep also which are not of this fold.“ Note, It is the duty of all Christ’s ministers to feed his lambs and sheep. Feed them, that is, teach them; for the doctrine of the gospel is spiritual food. Feed them, that is, “Lead them to the green pastures, presiding in their religious assemblies, and ministering all the ordinances to them. Feed them by personal application to their respective state and case; not only lay meat before them, but feed those with it that are wilful and will not, or weak and cannot feed themselves.” When Christ ascended on high, he gave pastors, left his flock with those that loved him, and would take care of them for his sake … the particular application to Peter here was designed, First, To restore him to his apostleship, now that he repented of his abjuration of it, and to renew his commission, both for his own satisfaction, and for the satisfaction of his brethren … Secondly, It was designed to quicken him to a diligent discharge of his office as an apostle. Peter was a man of a bold and zealous spirit, always forward to speak and act, and, lest he should be tempted to take upon him the directing of the shepherds, he is charged to feed the sheep, as he himself charges all the presbyters to do, and not to lord it over God’s heritage, 1 Peter 5:2; 1 Peter 5:3. If he will be doing, let him do this, and pretend no further. Thirdly, What Christ said to him he said to all his disciples; he charged them all, not only to be fishers of men (though that was said to Peter, Luke 5:10), by the conversion of sinners, but feeders of the flock, by the edification of saints.
Jesus ended by telling Peter how he would die, beginning with ‘Very truly’, meaning that it would be a certainty. He told the Apostle that when he was younger, he was in charge of his own life, but, as an older man, he would stretch out his hands — meaning crucifixion, which happened in Rome some years later — and someone else would fasten his belt, taking him to a place he did not wish to go (verse 18).
John confirms that verse 18 meant a martyr’s death, one that would glorify God; after that, Jesus told Peter, ‘Follow Me’ (verse 19).
Some might wonder why Jesus told him that.
MacArthur says it was to let Peter know that he would continue to glorify Christ — and, by extension God, throughout his ministry:
… it’s important to tell him that. He needed to know what? He needed to know that the next time he got in a life and death situation he would not deny his Lord. He needed to know that. He needed to know that when they took him and captured him, and tied him up, and stretched out his hands, and nailed him to a cross, he would glorify God.
I think he lived the rest of his life with a newfound confidence that overcame his self-doubt, because he had been such a failure at the trial of Christ. I think this put power into his life. I think this put hope into his heart. I think this added confidence to him and boldness. I think he may have otherwise feared that, “If I ever get into that situation again, what am I going to do?” and that would have sucked all of his confidence out. This is a great gift to this man: “You’re going to be arrested, crucified. You’re going to die, but in it, you’re going to glorify God.” Good news.
This is the ultimate sacrifice, and that’s how believers live. This is the extreme requirement for a committed life. Peter had said, Luke 22, “I’m ready to go with you to prison and death.” Didn’t work out that way first time; it would work out that way the last time. In the end, he will die for his Lord. This is a beautiful life-changing promise. Peter has to be ecstatic, thrilled. His heart has to be soaring. His hopes are flying. His boldness is being elevated as he heads toward a triumphant encounter with those who will kill him for his faithfulness to Christ. That’s what dedication is.
The third thing: a life that is truly dedicated to the Lord is compelled by love for Christ, characterized by sacrifice for Christ, and content with following Christ. The end of verse 19: “When Jesus had spoken the words about Peter’s death, He said this to him, ‘Follow Me! Follow Me!’” So important: “Follow Me!” Simple enough.
I have read and heard this passage many times before, but the expositions from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur really gave it new meaning.
I hope that you benefited similarly, especially those of us, like myself, who have more Petrine than Pauline in our personalities.
The readings for Holy Saturday can be found here.
My exegesis, thanks to Matthew Henry and John MacArthur, for one of the two Gospel readings — John 19:38-42 — is here.
The Epistle is as follows (emphases mine):
1 Peter 4:1-8
4:1 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention (for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin),
4:2 so as to live for the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God.
4:3 You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.
4:4 They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme.
4:5 But they will have to give an accounting to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead.
4:6 For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does.
4:7 The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers.
4:8 Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
All credit to the Lectionary compilers, this is an excellent Epistle for Holy Saturday.
Peter begins this chapter with the Crucifixion. He tells his Jewish converts how they must live knowing that Christ died for their sins, therefore, they must arm themselves to end their sinfulness (verse 1).
John MacArthur describes the unimaginable pain of sin as Christ experienced it on the Cross:
Christ has suffered in the flesh. You tell me what did it do to Christ, in one word? Killed him. Killed him. Cost him his life. Can you enjoy it when you know what it did to Christ? When you realize that he was made sin. When you realize that he bore in his body our sins on the cross. When you realize the body says he was made a curse for us, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, in Galatians. When you realize that he was the spotless, pure and holy second member of the Trinity who never had come into any contact with sin and who then was made sin and bore the sins of the world on his body and they took his life, they killed him. They separated him from God so that he cried, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? When you realize that it put him on a cross and nails were hammered through is limbs and thorns crushed into his brown and spit dripped off his body and a spear was rammed into his side, when you realize all of that and all of that was caused by sin, it ought to help you to hate sin, right?
Matthew Henry says much the same and counsels us to address the state of our minds if we are to arm ourselves against sin:
The antecedent or supposition is that Christ had suffered for us in the flesh, or in his human nature. The consequent or inference is, “Arm and fortify yourselves likewise with the same mind, courage, and resolution.” The word flesh in the former part of the verse signifies Christ’s human nature, but in the latter part it signifies man’s corrupt nature. So the sense is, “As Christ suffered in his human nature, do you, according to your baptismal vow and profession, make your corrupt nature suffer, by putting to death the body of sin by self-denial and mortification; for, if you do not thus suffer, you will be conformable to Christ in his death and resurrection, and will cease from sin.“ Learn, 1. Some of the strongest and best arguments against all sorts of sin are taken from the sufferings of Christ. All sympathy and tenderness for Christ as a sufferer are lost of you do not put away sin. He dies to destroy it; and, though he could cheerfully submit to the worst sufferings, yet he could never submit to the least sin. 2. The beginning of all true mortification lies in the mind, not in penances and hardships upon the body. The mind of man is carnal, full of enmity; the understanding is darkened, being alienated from the life of God, Ephesians 4:18. Man is not a sincere creature, but partial, blind, and wicked, till he be renewed and sanctifies by the regenerating grace of God.
Peter says that shunning sin means living our lives not by human desires but by the will of God (verse 2).
Henry says there is a negative and a positive message in that verse:
The apostle explains what he means by being dead to sin, and ceasing from sin, both negatively and positively. Negatively, a Christian ought no longer to live the rest of his time in the flesh, to the sinful lusts and corrupt desires of carnal wicked men; but, positively, he ought to conform himself to the revealed will of the holy God. Learn, 1. The lusts of men are the springs of all their wickedness, James 1:13; James 1:14. Let occasional temptations be what they will, they could not prevail, were it not for men’s own corruptions. 2. All good Christians make the will of God, not their own lusts or desires, the rule of their lives and actions. 3. True conversion makes a marvellous change in the heart and life of every one who partakes of it. It brings a man off from all his old, fashionable, and delightful lusts, and from the common ways and vices of the world, to the will of God. It alters the mind, judgment, affections, way, and conversation of every one who has experienced it.
Peter tells his audience that they have already engaged in enough sin: ‘licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry’ (verse 3).
Our commentators have differing opinions on who Peter’s audience is.
Henry says they were Jews living amongst Gentiles:
those were Jews to whom the apostle wrote, yet the living among the Gentiles they had learned their way.
MacArthur says they were Gentiles:
He knew these people were converted out of a pagan background. They were influenced still by the presence of that paganism. These people had come to Christ because they had enough of that stuff.
MacArthur says that Peter was reminding these converts of their former state of brokenness in sin:
What’s he saying? He’s saying, look, haven’t you had enough of that stuff? Haven’t you had enough of that stuff that pursued Christ, bringing Him nothing but sorrow till it killed Him? Yes it was in the purpose of God but nonetheless it was sin that effected it. Haven’t you had enough of that stuff that rebels against God who seeks only your best? And haven’t you had enough of that stuff that used to be the typical fare of your daily life? I mean, surely it’s true, isn’t it, that when a person is converted, when they’re saved, if they’re not saying anything else they’re at least saying this, I have had enough of this. Aren’t they saying that? I can’t carry the load of my sin anymore. I want forgiveness, I want deliverance, I want transformation. Surely when you came to Christ weren’t you saying, “I can’t bear this anymore”?
When I was in Catholic primary school, the nuns cautioned us against sin. They said if you start with one habitual sin, another will enter in, then another and they will all pile up.
Henry says much the same:
One sin, allowed, draws on another. Here are six named, and they have a connection and dependence one upon another. (1.) Lasciviousness or wantonness, expressed in looks, gesture, or behaviour, Romans 13:13. (2.) Lusts, acts of lewdness, such as whoredom and adultery. (3.) Excess of wine, though short of drunkenness, an immoderate use of it, to the prejudice of health or business, is here condemned. (4.) Revellings, or luxurious feastings, too frequent, too full, or too expensive. (5.) Banquetings, by which is meant gluttony or excess in eating. (6.) Abominable idolatry; the idol-worship of the Gentiles was attended with lewdness, drunkenness, gluttony, and all sorts of brutality and cruelty; and these Jews living long among them were, some of them at least, debauched and corrupted by such practices.
MacArthur explains Peter’s language, including in the original Greek:
… just to remind us what that life was like he said, “You used to pursue that, having pursued a course of sensuality,” aselgeia. It describes unrestrained vice, unbridled sin. It’s an old word that’s often used to translate it, debauchery, excessive indulgence in sensual pleasure. You had that and you had the lusts, the evil desires, the feelings, the kind of mindless passions. And you had the carousals as well as the drunkenness and the drinking parties. Those all go together kind of, drunkenness speaks for itself, carousals has the idea of a wild drunken party, a sort of a public…a public…it pictures a kind of a group of people sort of going down the street in a public display of drunkenness. You’ve been in on the drinking parties. You’ve engaged in the abominable idolatries. “Abominable” means they are at variance with the law of God; they are lawless. You… You were in the whole package, right? Sexual wickedness, alcoholic excess, ungodly, worshiping the wrong things, the wrong gods, you had the whole package. You did it all, isn’t that enough? What is there you want back? Haven’t you had your fill? Remember that, will you, that you filled up on that, you overdosed on it and you wanted deliverance once. Now do you want it back? …
Furthermore, they malign you. They don’t even like you, why do you want to act like people that don’t even like you? The word “malign” is blasphēmeō, blaspheme you. It means to defame, attack you, slander you. Here is the cesspool crowd slandering the Christian. They’re an ugly bunch. They are an ugly bunch, sexually perverted, drunk, worshiping all their false gods, rushing madly into the cesspool of sin. You’ve been saved out of that. You wanted out of that. You don’t have a thing to do with that anymore. They don’t even like you anymore. Why in the world do you want to do what they’re doing?
Peter reminds his converts that their former friends were surprised at the turnaround in their lives, their refusal to continue to engage in sin; their surprise turned into blasphemy, or assailing their good character (verse 4).
Henry has an excellent analysis about how conversion affects old relationships:
They no longer run on in the same courses, or with the same companions, as they used to do. Hereupon observe the conduct of their wicked acquaintance towards them. 1. They think it strange, they are surprised and wonder at it, as at something new and unusual, that their old friends should be so much altered, and not run with as much violence as they used to do to the same excess of riot, to the same sottish excesses and luxury which before they had greedily and madly followed. 2. They speak evil of them. Their surprise carries them to blasphemy. They speak evil of their persons, of their way, their religion, and their God. Learn, (1.) Those that are once really converted will not return to their former course of life, though ever so much tempted by the frowns or flatteries of others to do so. Neither persuasion nor reproach will prevail with them to be or to do as they were wont to do. (2.) The temper and behaviour of true Christians seem very strange to ungodly men. That they should despise that which every one else is fond of, that they should believe many things which to others seem incredible, that they should delight in what is irksome and tedious, be zealous where they have no visible interest to serve, and depend so much upon hope, is what the ungodly cannot comprehend. (3.) The best actions of religious people cannot escape the censures and slanders of those who are irreligious. Those actions which cost a good man the most pains, hazard, and self-denial, shall be most censured by the uncharitable and ill-natured world; they will speak evil of good people, though they themselves reap the fruits of their charity, piety, and goodness.
Peter reminds his converts that those former friends assailing them now will have to give an account of themselves to Him who judges the living and the dead (verse 5).
MacArthur says:
… they’re going to give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. They’re going to pay a price for this. I mean this is damnable lifestyle. You don’t want anything to do that. They have to give an account. They are amassing a debt to God they will be required to pay forever in hell. And whether they live or die in this world, whether they’re around till the Judge comes, or whether they die before He gets here, they’re going to show up at the judgment. They’re going to be condemned.
Peter says that the reason that the Gospel was preached even to the dead, who were judged according to the flesh, is so that they might live according to the Spirit, according to God’s will (verse 6).
Henry says that this is a difficult verse to interpret and gives us two explanations:
Some understand this difficult place thus: For this cause was the gospel preached to all the faithful of old, who are now dead in Christ, that thereby they might be taught and encouraged to bear the unrighteous judgments and persecutions which the rage of men put upon them in the flesh, but might live in the Spirit unto God. Others take the expression, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, in a spiritual sense, thus: The gospel was preached to them, to judge them, condemn them, and reprove them, for the corruption of their natures, and the viciousness of their lives, while they lived after the manner of the heathen or the mere natural man; and that, having thus mortified their sins, they might live according to God, a new and spiritual life. Take it thus; and thence learn, 1. The mortifying of our sins and living to God are the expected effects of the gospel preached to us. 2. God will certainly reckon with all those who have had the gospel preached to them, but without these good effects produced by it. God is ready to judge all those who have received the gospel in vain. 3. It is no matter how we are judged according to men in the flesh, if we do but live according to God in the Spirit.
MacArthur says that the dead in that verse refers to converts amongst Peter’s audience who have since died, possibly through martyrdom:
This is a simple and profound verse. “For the gospel has been preached” means the saving message of Jesus Christ. “Even to those who are dead” simply means those who are now dead. He has in mind some believers who heard the gospel and are now dead. Some of them perhaps had been martyred. Maybe some in the association of those to whom this letter was sent had died for their faith in Christ. And so the whole overarching idea here is that the believer, under persecution, under unjust treatment, under punishment, and even death, even death, should be willing to suffer knowing there is triumph. Because though he may die in the flesh as a man, he will live in the spirit according to the will of God.
What Peter is saying, is that God has promised you that through death you’ll overcome sin. So he reminds his readers that the gospel was preached to those now dead for this purpose. That though they are judged in the flesh as men, literally put to death for their faith in Christ, they will live in the spirit according to God. And so he takes us back to where we started. All death can do is bring you into everlasting life into the presence of God. You see, it’s a parallel to all that we have been learning at the end of chapter 3 verse 18. Christ died, but he didn’t stay dead. He was made alive in the spirit. His body was dead, His spirit was alive. Same point here. They may kill your body, but your spirit will be alive. And you will enter into the promise of eternal life. So shunning sin in the face of great threats, in the face of persecution, and even death—it’s possible, noble, righteous; it is commanded. And one way to assist in that overcoming is to remember and to remember what sin did to Christ, what it does to Christians, what it does to God, what it does to the lost. And then remember what God has promised you in the future.
No matter what they do to us, we can be victorious. I guess Jesus said much the same thing when He said, “Fear not those who destroy the body. But fear the one who destroys both soul and body in hell.”
Peter says that the end is near, therefore, the converts are to discipline themselves spiritually for the sake of their prayers (verse 7).
Our commentators interpret this verse differently with regard to the first half of the verse, ‘The end of all things is near’.
Because Henry thought that Peter was addressing Jewish converts, he thinks that the Apostle was referring to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Peter wrote this in AD 66. The temple was destroyed four years later.
Henry says:
The miserable destruction of the Jewish church and nation foretold by our Saviour is now very near; consequently, the time of their persecution and your sufferings is but very short. Your own life and that of your enemies will soon come to their utmost period. Nay, the world itself will not continue very long. The conflagration will put an end to it; and all things must be swallowed up in an endless eternity. The inference from this comprises a series of exhortations.
1. To sobriety and watchfulness: “Be you therefore sober, 1 Peter 4:7; 1 Peter 4:7. Let the frame and temper of your minds be grave, stayed, and solid; and observe strict temperance and sobriety in the use of all worldly enjoyments. Do not suffer yourselves to be caught with your former sins and temptations, 1 Peter 4:3; 1 Peter 4:3. And watch unto prayer. Take care that you be continually in a calm sober disposition, fit for prayer; and that you be frequent in prayers, lest this end come upon you unawares,” Luke 21:34; Matthew 26:40; Matthew 26:41 …
Henry says that the exhortations in the next two verses — 8 and 9 (not included in our reading) — follow on from the warning in verse 7 about the end being near:
2. To charity: And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves,1 Peter 4:8; 1 Peter 4:8. Here is a noble rule in Christianity. Christians ought to love one another, which implies an affection to their persons, a desire of their welfare, and a hearty endeavour to promote it. This mutual affection must not be cold, but fervent, that is, sincere, strong, and lasting …
3. To hospitality, 1 Peter 4:9; 1 Peter 4:9. The hospitality here required is a free and kind entertainment of strangers and travellers. The proper objects of Christian hospitality are one another. The nearness of their relation, and the necessity of their condition in those times of persecution and distress, obliged Christians to be hospitable one to another …
MacArthur understands verse 7 as a reference to Christ’s Second Coming, not the destruction of the temple:
Verse 7. “The end of all things is at hand.” Stop right there. That’s the incentive: the end of all things is at hand. I want you to get a grip, if nothing else, on this statement. The term “end” is the Greek word telos, a very familiar word to any Bible student. And when it is translated “end,” it could convey the wrong idea. It could convey the idea of cessation. It could convey the idea of termination. It does not mean either of those things. It is never used of a temporal end in all of the New Testament. It is never used of some kind of chronological end as if it simply means something stops. It always has the idea of a consummation.
To put it another way, it has the idea of a goal achieved, or a result attained, or a purpose consummated. It has the idea of fulfillment realized, of ultimate destiny. It’s not just the end of something; it is the culmination, the conclusion, the success, the goal, the realization, the fulfillment, the consummation. So, he says, the consummation of all things is at hand.
Now, beloved, that has to refer to the return of Christ. If he had said the consummation of your trouble is at hand, we could say well maybe he was referring to something temporal. Or if he said the consummation of your persecution is at hand, we could have assumed that maybe a different kind of government might come into play in their lives and treat them more kindly. But he doesn’t say that. He doesn’t say the consummation of your difficulty, your trouble, your situation. He says the consummation of all things. And the consummation of all things points directly to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. It must refer to that. It can’t refer to anything less than that, for that and that alone is when all things are consummated. And it takes us back to 1 Peter 1:5 again where he says we are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. And then, verse 7 he says that we will be found in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ …
It could be read this way, “The end of all things is about to arrive,” or to come near. It is a perfect tense, and has the idea of a process consummated with a resulting nearness. And I believe it refers to immanency. That is, the coming of Christ is imminent; the next event can happen at any time. It is near. Peter is reminding them then that they are to live in anticipation of the nearness of the return of Jesus Christ. We could say that they are to live with, here’s the word, expectancy. Do you realize that every generation since then has therefore lived in that same expectancy? All of us live today, or should live, in the expectancy of the coming of Jesus Christ. Not to do that is not to be a faithful church …
To show you how secretive this whole matter is, I remind you of Matthew 24:36 where Jesus said, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the Son but the Father alone.” God knows, and Jesus in His self-imposed incarnational limitations did not even know. Peter is saying to his readers, “You must live in constant expectancy as if Jesus was to come at any moment.”
With regard to the second half of verse 7 concerning prayer, MacArthur says that Peter wants his converts to have disciplined minds in order to make the most of their relationship with God through prayer:
He says, “Be of sound judgment,” and then adds, “and sober spirit.” And this is a synonym or very close to a synonym. It means basically to keep a clear head, to take serious things seriously, to be vigilant, to be alert. In Matthew 24:42, it’s translated “Be on the alert.” Matthew 26:40 and 41, “Be watching.” You might combine these two terms by putting it this way: good, clear, godly, biblical thinking leads to spiritual alertness, spiritual watchfulness. It leads to the ability to view things in the eternal perspective, in the divine perspective, and to establish right responses.
This is indispensable, and it is indispensable to one very, very essential element of Christian living that is noted in verse 7. Please come to the climax of the thought. Sound judgment and sober spirit are for the purpose of prayer. Why? Because holiness flows out of direct communion with a holy God. And when that communion is hindered by a cluttered mind, an imbalanced mind, that which is most significant in Christian experience is lost. A confused mind, a self-centered mind, a mind knocked out of balance by worldly lusts and pursuits, a mind victimized by emotion or passion out of control, a mind that is ignorant of God’s truth, a mind that is indifferent to God’s purposes is a mind that cannot know the fullness of holy communion in prayer with God. After all, you bring your mind to that communion, don’t you? And so, your relationship to God, in a very real sense which is expressed in this matter of prayer, is determined by the attitudes that you bring, which attitudes are the result of your thinking. And if you are to pray effectively, and if you are to commune with God deeply and spiritually, then you must think biblically and spiritually as well …
So, says Peter, the Christian life summed up is as simple as this: think God’s thoughts. What does that mean? That means every day in the Word of God, every day meditating, thinking, absorbing, drawing out, learning to think God’s thoughts. As I often say, it should come to pass that you are so deeply filled with Scripture, that your involuntary responses are godly because you’re so controlled. And then, comes the sweetness of communion, then comes effective prayer, then comes power. That’s the vertical link in Christian living.
Peter exhorts his converts to maintain a constant love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins (verse 8).
MacArthur points out that Peter is citing Proverbs 10:12:
He borrowed it from Proverbs 10:12. “Hatred stirs up strife but love covers all sins.” Present tense here, I think, indicates that which is constantly true. It is axiomatic. It is a self-evident truth. Love is always by very nature hiding a multitude of sins. It forgives, and forgives, and forgives, and forgives, and the great, great model of that is God. Why did God show mercy to us? Why did God forgive our sins? Ephesians 2:4 and 5 says, “For His great love where with He loved us.” It’s true of God, it’s true of us.
Henry says this exhortation refers to the Christian community:
Learn, (1.) Christians ought not only to be charitable, but hospitable, one to another. (2.) Whatever a Christian does by way of charity or of hospitality, he ought to do it cheerfully, and without grudging. Freely you have received, freely give.
MacArthur concludes on Christian love with this:
Beloved, this is the heart of the church. To be honest with you, if we take care of this, we’ve fulfilled the whole law. Is that not true? The whole law. You can see again the genius of the Spirit of God, how in an economy of words He says so much. You want to take care of the whole dimension of living before God? Get a biblical mind, a spiritual mind, be deep in communion with Christ and you’ll have a powerful life. You want to know how to function in the complexity of the church? Just be so full of overflowing love that you cover sin. This does not preclude, by the way, the discipline of an unrepentant member. That is dealt with in other texts. But even in the church, we are much more eager, I think, to point out sin than we are to cover it. Hatred will stir up strife. Selfishness will stir up strife. Self-centeredness will stir up strife. Love will hide sin. Love will conceal it. Love will pass it by in silence. And what a transformation that would bring to the church. It is that which is at the very base of all our spiritual relationships. It is a complex world, isn’t it? But there are not complex solutions, simple ones. Not simply performed, simply stated, performed only in the power of the Spirit.
What a powerful meditation as we make our preparations for the greatest feast in the Church year, Easter, Christ’s resurrection from the dead which brings us to eternal life.
May everyone reading this have a blessed day ahead.
The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.
Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.
My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.
Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
Paul Opposes Peter
11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.[a] 13 And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
——————————————————————————–
Last week’s post discussed the affirmation from those leading the church in Jerusalem — Peter (Cephas), James (our Lord’s brother) and John — of Paul’s apostleship.
As was the case with Paul’s other church plants, as soon as he left, false teachers — often Judaizers — infiltrated the congregations spreading a false gospel.
The same happened in the churches of the region of Galatia: Lystra, Iconium, Derbe and Antioch.
Therefore, Paul must condemn them in no uncertain terms. This he does by discussing the Jerusalem Council and, in today’s verses, the damaging effect the Judaizers had upon Peter in Antioch.
Paul is determined to reinforce the doctrine of justification by faith through grace rather than a false works-based salvation through circumcision.
John MacArthur says (emphases mine):
This is a polemical book. It is a fight. It is a defense of the true gospel against those who were purveyors of the false gospel.
Paul states bluntly that when Cephas came to Antioch, the church in Syria, he (Paul) opposed him to his face because he stood condemned (verse 11).
That’s a very strong statement and to those, like me, who admire Peter’s bold character even though he is flawed, it seems that Paul was being unnecessarily harsh.
Yet, as we find out — and Pauline apologists already know this — Peter had to be confronted in the most direct terms.
MacArthur explains why Paul calls Peter by the name of Cephas:
Peter is the Greek word; Cephas is the Aramaic …
As to Paul’s stance towards Peter, Matthew Henry says that it was also for the benefit of the congregation in Antioch:
Notwithstanding Peter’s character, yet, when he observes him thus behaving himself to the great prejudice both of the truth of the gospel and the peace of the church, he is not afraid to reprove him for it. Paul adhered resolutely to his principles, when others faltered in theirs; he was as good a Jew as any of them (for he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews), but he would magnify his office as the apostle of the Gentiles, and therefore would not see them discouraged and trampled upon.
What was Peter’s role in Antioch?
Henry says that Peter was unlikely to have been the head of the church there, because, if he were, Paul would have treated him differently, which is not to say that he would have excused the Apostle’s sin:
Antioch was one of the chief churches of the Gentile Christians, as Jerusalem was of those Christians who turned from Judaism to the faith of Christ. There is no colour of reason for the supposition that Peter was bishop of Antioch. If he had, surely Paul would not have withstood him in his own church, as we here find he did; but, on the contrary, it is here spoken of as an occasional visit which he made thither. In their other meeting, there had been good harmony and agreement. Peter and the other apostles had both acknowledged Paul’s commission and approved his doctrine, and they parted very good friends. But in this Paul finds himself obliged to oppose Peter, for he was to be blamed, a plain evidence that he was not inferior to him …
MacArthur says that Peter had been in Antioch for some time and was well known by the congregation. I would add that his strong personality contributed to the fact that he was viewed favourably there:
Peter had come to Antioch, Antioch of Syria where the first church was and where Paul and Barnabas were pastors, along with a group of other men mentioned in the twelfth chapter of Acts. Peter had come there, and he’d stayed a long time. Peter obviously must have been the center of attention. “Tell us about Jesus.” Can you imagine that? “Tell us about Him. Tell us, What was it like when you walked on water? Tell us all the things that we’ve heard.” Remember the gospels haven’t been written yet, and an eyewitness with Christ would have meant everything to these Gentile believers up in Antioch in a flourishing gospel church. Peter would have been some kind of icon, some kind of hero to them …
Peter had done something that Paul saw as an attack on the gospel: the gospel of grace alone, faith alone, apart from works. And so he condemned him. This is an apostolic clash of massive proportions.
Paul says that before the Judaizers — ‘certain men came from James’ — Peter was happy eating with the Gentiles; however, after the Judaizers arrived, Peter drew back from the Gentiles because he feared the men from the ‘circumcision party’ (verse 12).
MacArthur explains that the men who ‘came from James’ were unlikely to have had his consent or commission to go to Antioch; it was a false claim:
I don’t think James sent these men. I think they said they were from James, and they had some connection to the Jerusalem church. At this time, that’s the mother church, that’s the church. So somehow they were associated with it. And prior to the arrival of these men who came from the Jerusalem church and said they had a connection with James, Peter used to eat with the Gentiles.
Peter’s withdrawal from associating with the Gentiles set a bad example for any Jewish converts, because all believers are one in Christ.
Henry says:
… when there came some Jewish Christians from Jerusalem, he grew more shy of the Gentiles, only to humour those of the circumcision and for fear of giving them offence, which doubtless was to the great grief and discouragement of the Gentile churches. Then he withdrew, and separated himself. His fault herein had a bad influence upon others, for the other Jews also dissembled with him; though before they might be better disposed, yet now, from his example, they took on them to scruple eating with the Gentiles, and pretended they could not in conscience do it, because they were not circumcised.
MacArthur says that, historically, Jews considered Gentiles to be unclean. He also tells us why it was so egregious for Peter to fall backwards into his old pattern of Jewish traditions:
Just as a normal rule of life, Jews didn’t eat with Gentiles. Forget Christianity, forget the gospel, forget the church; Jews didn’t do that. A Gentile was unclean; a Gentile home was unclean; a Gentile utensil was unclean. They couldn’t go near Gentiles. They couldn’t eat off the dish a Gentile offered them. And these were rabbinic standards that were iron-fisted laws. It was believed that all Gentile food was contaminated by being unclean, to say nothing of that which was not kosher, not according to the standards of the Mosaic dietary laws. So what you had was the Jews holding to their own dietary laws and a kind of developing racism toward Gentiles. We saw the racism even in the day of Jonah, where he didn’t want to see Gentiles repent. Jews resented, hated Gentiles; and they kept separate.
Peter was raised in that environment. He comes to Antioch; he’s in a Gentile church. And what does he do? He does what a Jew would never do. He used to eat with the Gentiles. What is that saying? That he knows that the lesson he learned in Acts 10, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.” There’s nothing unclean anymore, nothing unclean anymore – the dietary laws are over. In Christ, the middle wall is broken down. Jew and Gentile are one, and Christ is neither Jew nor Greek. That’s all over with. That’s all over. He knows that.
He also knows that they are brothers and sisters in Christ. And when he eats with them, it’s not just a meal; it’s the love feast; it’s the Lord’s Table. He’s just living life with the Gentiles. He’s with them all the time. They’re being served the same food. He’s finding out what it is to eat all the stuff that Jews could never eat. He’s been liberated.
He is turning his back on the [???] halakhoth, the list of elder traditions that prescribed certain kinds of food. And the fact that you couldn’t eat certain kinds of meat. You couldn’t eat meat that was butchered by a Gentile, or that was, a part of it was offered to idols, or violated the laws of Moses, or had been in the hands of Gentiles, or served on Gentile plates, and all of that. And all of a sudden that’s not even an issue. Peter’s having a great time. He’s discovering all kinds of foods that he’d never eaten before, eating with Gentiles, his brothers and sisters in Christ, until certain men show up. And he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof. He pulled back.
They would have criticized him mercilessly for eating with those Gentiles. And they would have said this: “Not only are you not to eat with Gentiles, they’re not believers, because they haven’t been circumcised, and they don’t adhere to Mosaic rules. So you’re eating not only with Gentiles who are unclean, but you’re eating with nonbelievers.” And they obviously intimidated Peter.
“He began to withdraw and hold himself aloof” – and there’s no questioning the motive – “he was fearing the party of the circumcision.” That’s the Judaizers. “The party of the circumcision” they became known as. He was afraid of them. Good men, great men – for the sake of pride and self-protection, self-preservation, popularity – compromise. They compromise.
Paul says that the rest of the Jews in the church in Antioch copied Peter’s example, ‘hypocritically’; even worse, Barnabas, who had been present at the time the Jerusalem Council took place, went along with them (verse 13).
Henry warns us against spiritual weakness, when we are tempted to please men instead of God:
And (would you think it?) Barnabas himself, one of the apostles of the Gentiles, and one who had been instrumental in planting and watering the churches of the Gentiles, was carried away with their dissimulation. Here note, (1.) The weakness and inconstancy of the best of men, when left to themselves, and how apt they are to falter in their duty to God, out of an undue regard to the pleasing of men. And, (2.) The great force of bad examples, especially the examples of great men and good men, such as are in reputation for wisdom and honour.
MacArthur uses Peter as a common example of the path to sanctification:
Peter just can’t get out of his own shadow, can he? I mean it’s just a history of this guy doing this. He’s an illustration of how sanctification works. It’s not a straight line upward. It’s a few steps forward and a few steps back, and a few steps forward and a few steps back. And it’s where we all live, isn’t it?
How true!
Paul, by interrogating Peter on this sin, encapsulates the confusion and division that could damage the church in Antioch. In front of the congregation, Paul asks Peter how a Jew who can live like a Gentile can force a Gentile to live like a Jew (verse 14).
MacArthur says:
Peter became a hypocrite. He acted like he agreed with the Judaizers – devastating. And so did the rest of the Jews that were there, and so did Barnabas. And now what you have is a fracture in the whole church.
And what is this more than that? This is not about disunity; this is an assault on the gospel of faith, because now Peter is acting as if the Judaizers are right. “For that,” Paul says, “I opposed him to his face, because he was to be condemned.”
MacArthur has more on the composition of the congregation:
That’s a Gentile city and a Gentile church, of course. Some Jewish believers were there, but it was predominantly a Gentile church.
What Peter did was dangerous:
Without saying anything, he took sides with those who taught salvation by faith and works, without saying anything. He fractured the church. Overnight the church was in chaos because of his defection back to Judaism, as if the Judaizers were right, these enemies of the gospel whose message was cursed.
MacArthur explains why Paul had to condemn Peter publicly. Peter had turned his back on the Gentiles in public, therefore, a rebuke in front of the congregation was necessary:
Verse 14, let me read this to you. “When I was that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas” – and this is what he said to him when he opposed him to the face as it’s mentioned in verse 11; this is what he said – “I said to Cephas in the presence of all,” – in front of the entire church – ‘If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles – that’s what you’ve been doing, you’ve been living like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?’” Paul is profoundly exercised.
Verse 14 says, “I saw that they were not straightforward, ortho podeó, from which we get orthopedic. Ortho meaning straight, podeó is the verb from which the word “foot” comes. They weren’t walking straight. They were not walking straight about the truth of the gospel …
Peter had believed that he could eat and fellowship with Gentiles; he had done it. He knew that since Acts 10 and his experience with Cornelius. He had no longer lived according to Jewish prescription. He had left that behind in the tenth chapter of Acts. Now he goes back to that in a hypocritical way and leads others to the same hypocrisy. He didn’t deal honestly with the truth of the gospel, he altered people’s perception of truth by his behavior. What an indictment.
Paul is furious about this, and so he opposes him to his face, but he does it – middle of verse 14 – in the presence of all. Consistent with what Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 5: “An elder who sins, rebuke before all, that others may fear.” He confronts Peter in a public way.
Augustine said, “It is not advantageous to correct in secret an error which occurred publicly.” He’s right. You have to show public condemnation of a public sin; so he does that. It’s a lot better than pulling Peter aside and trying to fix him in private. He needed to be confronted in public, because that’s where his disaffection had occurred and led people into confusion.
They knew the gospel. This is a church. They’re saved by faith alone, they knew that. The Gentiles knew that; the Jewish believers knew that. That’s why Paul is so shocked. Back in chapter 1 he says, “I’m amazed that you’re so quickly deserting Him who called you for a different gospel. Why are you leaning that way?”
Peter is not overtly saying, “I don’t believe the true gospel.” He’s just acting like what the Judaizers are teaching is true. This is a very dangerous compromise. Anytime those who preach the true gospel affirm or embrace anyone who teaches a false gospel, confusion reigns. “Come out from among them and be separate. Light has no fellowship with darkness; Christ with Belial.”
“Peter, you can’t do this. Everyone in Antioch knows you’re in the habit of living like a Gentile since the tenth chapter of Acts; and you’ve done it here. And they all know that you preach the gospel of grace, and you affirm the gospel of grace and faith alone. And now you’re playing right into the hands of the Judaizers, and you’re acting as if they’re right by lining up with them.” This threatens the integrity of the gospel. This is always about the gospel. This is a serious breach. So, with that, we come to verse 15.
The rest of the chapter is in the Lectionary, but it is worth reading because it is about justification — or righteousness — by faith through grace:
Justified by Faith
15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified[b] by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
17 But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness[c] were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
Paul has much more to say on this doctrine, and he rebukes the Galatians for falling away from it.
Next time — Galatians 3:1-6
The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany is February 6, 2022.
Readings for Year C can be found here.
The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):
Luke 5:1-11
5:1 Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God,
5:2 he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.
5:3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.
5:4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
5:5 Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”
5:6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.
5:7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.
5:8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
5:9 For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken;
5:10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who are partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”
5:11 When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
Last week’s reading concluded the story in Luke 4 of Jesus at His hometown synagogue in Nazareth, where the congregation wanted to throw Him off a cliff.
He then went to Capernaum.
John MacArthur summarises the rest of Luke 4:
… in chapter 4 He had preached in the synagogue in Capernaum and He had cast a demon out of a man there. That was His first miracle, the first one recorded by Luke. And then, you remember, He went, after the synagogue service home to the house of Simon where his mother-in-law was ill and He healed his mother-in-law of a very great infection that had produced a high fever. And then at the end of the Sabbath day the people in the city were bringing everybody who was sick with every imaginable disease and He was healing them all and He was casting demons out of many. That all occurred on one day in the synagogue in Capernaum and in the home of Peter.
Sometime later — ‘Once’ — Jesus was standing near the Lake of Gennesaret; the people were pressing in on Him to hear the word of God, His preaching (verse 1).
MacArthur says:
We have an indefinite then passing of time. We don’t exactly know what the chronology is, but it came about at some point in time after that. Jesus is still in Galilee. He’s still preaching. He’s still calling disciples. He’s still performing these healings and casting out demons. And on one occasion when surrounded by a multitude, He is near the lake of Gennesaret teaching the Word of God.
MacArthur describes the lake, which is part of the Sea of Galilee:
… in the very heart of the Galilee, as it’s called, which is the northern part of the land of Palestine all the way up to the Lebanese border, bordered on the east by Jordan, on the west by the Mediterranean, that north part of Israel, the major location there is the Sea of Galilee, or the lake of Gennesaret, as it’s called here, sometimes the Sea of Tiberias, the Old Testament name was Chinneroth. But that lake, 13 miles long and about 7 miles wide, dominates the Galilee. To the east is the sort of low ridges and then the flat lands of the wilderness that goes to the east. To the north are the great high mountains of Lebanon from which the water flows that flows in and creates the lake. To the west are the fertile marvelously, magnificent fertile fields of grain and crops and right on to the…to the sea. On that…Mediterranean Sea… On that are the major cities. Tiberias would be a major city in the time of Christ on the western shore, and the north would be the city of Capernaum. And so Jesus spent a lot of His time around the lake. And it was a good place to speak to people because you could be at the shore and the slope would be a place that would create sort of a natural amphitheater and the people could hear …
And it says in verse 1 He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. Gennesaret may be a word that refers to garden and could well be a reference to the…to the fertile land on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee which is very defining. As you get on to the Sea of Galilee you see these beautiful fields stretching all the way around from the north sweeping around to the west. And there are even some on the east. And so it perhaps is a word that reflected the garden environment that surrounded the water of that lake. It is not technically a sea. Luke is right in the technical side in calling it a lake. It is a freshwater lake fed by the snowmelt out of the Lebanese mountains, the high mountains that ultimately runs the south … Out of the south of the Sea of Galilee comes the Jordan river which runs all the way down and empties into the very famous Dead Sea.
Jesus saw two boats by the shoreline; the fishermen had got out of them and were washing their nets (verse 2).
Matthew Henry explains:
At first, Christ saw Peter and Andrew fishing at some distance (so Matthew tells us …); but he waited till they came to land, and till the fishermen, that is, the servants, were gone out of them …
Jesus needed more space between Himself and the crowd, so He got into Simon’s — Peter’s — boat and asked him to pull away from the shore a bit, at which point He sat down to preach (verse 3).
MacArthur says that Jesus deliberately chose Simon Peter’s boat to get his full commitment to discipleship:
The Lord didn’t do anything just by accident. Everything was intentional, divinely intentional, sovereignly purposeful. It was time to bring Peter to full commitment and to bring those who followed his leadership, in this case James and John, to their full commitment as well.
Let me give you a little bit of background. Jesus first met Peter back in the first chapter of John. John records the first time they met. Jesus met Peter and that was the first meeting and at that time Jesus called them to follow Him. This was sort of a first step in their following Jesus. It was later on, recorded in Mark 1:16 to 20, and Matthew 4 about verse 18 to 22, that there was a second calling. The first time they just sort of follow Jesus. Later on, as recorded in Mark 1 and Matthew 4, Jesus made a more direct call and I guess they could say, we could say they became part-time followers, only in that case it was Peter and James and John, who were the sons of a man named Zebedee. And they were all partners in the fishing business. So they had already had a couple of encounters with Jesus. Peter, that first calling, that second calling with James and John.
Now Jesus is getting to know Peter because Peter is following Him. That’s why in chapter 4 after the synagogue service, when it was dinner time, Jesus went to Simon’s house. He knows him now and Simon has become at least a far…a part-time follower, a little bit of fishing and a little bit of following Jesus. It hasn’t been too difficult to follow Jesus and fish because Jesus has stayed in Galilee and so Peter could connect at certain points between his necessary employment as a fisherman. And so Jesus knows Peter but it is time to take Peter to another level. By the way, Jesus did this throughout His whole life, even after the resurrection, trying to get Peter to the level He wanted him at. He was very reluctant and a difficult guy to deal with. But he was also the recognized leader of the apostles. It was important to have Peter where he needed to be because he was the one who had seemingly the greatest influence on the rest. And so Peter is seemingly the key person for the Lord. You have four lists of apostles in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and Acts, and in all four, Peter’s name is first. He is clearly recognized as the spokesman and the leader. And so Jesus is going to work on Peter a little bit and James and John, as we see, will follow along. But Peter is the target, so He wants to get in Peter’s boat, and that’s exactly what He does. He’s here called Simon. He will be called Simon by Luke until we get to chapter 6, verse 14 when he is fully identified as Peter. By this time the Lord had already changed his name but it didn’t get changed in the text of Luke until the 6th chapter, although He does refer to him here in verse 8 as Simon Peter, which sort of helps us make that transition.
When Jesus finished speaking, He asked Simon to go out into the deep water and cast his nets for a catch (verse 4).
Simon replied that they had fished all night long — when the catch would have been optimum — and caught nothing but agreed to do what Jesus asked (verse 5).
Henry has a practical application of the request from Jesus and Simon’s obedience. God wills things in His own time, therefore, patience is a virtue:
… [3.] Even those who are most diligent in their business often meet with disappointments; they who toiled all night yet caught nothing; for the race is not always to the swift. God will have us to be diligent, purely in duty to his command and dependence upon his goodness, rather than with an assurance of worldly success. We must do our duty, and then leave the event to God. [4.] When we are tired with our worldly business, and crossed in our worldly affairs, we are welcome to come to Christ, and spread our case before him, who will take cognizance of it.
Having obeyed Jesus, His men caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break (verse 6).
They signalled to their partners in the other boat that they needed help; the fish filled both boats to the extent that they began to sink (verse 7).
At that point, it became clear that Jesus holds command over everything. Peter, James, John — and the crowd — were witnesses to that miraculous catch.
Henry says:
Now by this vast draught of fishes, (1.) Christ intended to show his dominion in the seas as well as on the dry land, over its wealth as over its waves. Thus he would show that he was that Son of man under whose feet all things were put, and particularly the fish of the sea and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea,Psalms 8:8. (2.) He intended hereby to confirm the doctrine he had just now preached out of Peter’s ship. We may suppose that the people on shore, who heard the sermon, having a notion that the preacher was a prophet sent of God, carefully attended his motions afterward, and staid halting about there, to see what he would do next; and this miracle immediately following would be a confirmation to their faith, of his being at least a teacher come from God.
MacArthur tells us:
The point is that in omniscience God knows everything there is to know, everything that exists He knows. He doesn’t learn it. He doesn’t conclude it by adding. He doesn’t know sparrows hop because He watches them. Everything that exists He knows, whether it’s material or immaterial. So believe me, Jesus as God will know where the fish are. And this is omniscience. And this is what flows out of this. God’s understanding is unsearchable. Isaiah 40:28 says, “Known to God from eternity are all His works.” Paul said in Acts 15 and Hebrews 4:13, “There’s no creature hidden from His sight.” God knows where every fish in every lake and every ocean is at all times because God omnisciently knows everything that exists in the material and immaterial world and the condition and state of everything, not only now but in the past and the future. He knows everything. Nothing in the universe is beyond His full comprehension.
That also includes the world’s languages, the law of physics and everything else we consider to be knowledge.
Peter realised that Jesus is divine and told Him to go away because he was a sinful man (verse 8). He became acutely aware of his sins and failings. This happened with others in the Bible who saw God. It was terrifying. The contrast between fallen man and the living God is too great for the former to bear. It strikes a profound fear into a person’s heart and mind. This is why it is important to repent now instead of waiting until it is too late. The day will come when every one of us — believer or not — will see Him face to face.
MacArthur gives us more examples of this terror when confronting holiness:
That’s why Abraham in Genesis 18:27 says, “I am speaking to the Lord? Who am but dust and ashes.” This can’t be happening. Dust and ashes were a symbol of penitence. That’s what Job said. He said, Job 42, “I now see You with my eye and I repent in dust and ashes.” Then there’s Isaiah who sees the Lord and says, “Curse me, damn me, woe is me, I’m disintegrating, I’m a man with a dirty mouth,” and all he can see about himself is his wretchedness. And then there’s Manoah. I love the story of Manoah in the 13th chapter of Judges. Manoah has an encounter with the angel of the Lord, a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ, the second member of the Trinity comes and appears to Manoah, and he goes home and he says to his wife, “I’ve seen the Lord, we’ll die. We will die.” And then there’s Ezekiel who has a vision of God in Ezekiel chapter 1 and falls over in a coma. And then there’s John in Revelation 1 who has a vision of the glorified Christ and it says he fell over like a dead person he was so traumatized.
One of the most interesting statements of all in regard to this is found in the 20th chapter of Exodus. God is giving the law and in verse 19 they said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen, but let not God speak to us lest we die.” Moses, please we don’t mind talking to you, don’t bring God down here. We’re dead. You see, that’s the sense of sin, the overwhelming sense of sin. That’s the publican in Luke 18 beating his chest. He won’t even look up. He won’t lift his eyes. He’s afraid somehow that God might see who he is and he’s crying, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” It’s the disciples in Matthew 17 on the Mount of Transfiguration who see the glory of Christ and fall over in a…in a coma, literally frightened into unconsciousness. This is what God seeks in Isaiah 66:1 and 5, a person with a broken and a contrite heart. This is someone who sees their sin and you can’t really see your sin until you see God. And that’s why the emphasis of ministry always has to be to exalt God, to lift up God, to manifest His glory, His holiness because it’s when we see Him for who He is that we see us for who we are.
So here was Peter, broken, penitent, overwhelmed by his sin, frightened, terrified. He’s in the presence of holiness. This is an affirmation on Peter’s part that he is meeting the divine One. “Depart from me for I am sinful, oh Lord.” And he’s affirming in saying that the Lord is sinless. “You don’t deserve to be in my presence, I don’t deserve to be in Your presence. We don’t have anything in common. Holiness is separation and, Lord, it’s unfitting for You to be near me,” that’s what he’s saying.
And why did he feel this way? Well verse 9 says, “Because of the amazement that had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken.” There was just no human explanation. This is God. And it was the same with, verse 10 says, with James and John. They had exactly the same reaction, the sons of Zebedee. They were partners, koinōnoi, partners in the business with Simon. And they were all literally shaken to the core.
Now in the terror of this moment Peter wants to send the Lord away, but the Lord wants to pull Peter closer. What from Peter’s viewpoint is so frightening that he wants to run is so encouraging to the Lord that He wants to embrace Peter. At the very point at which the sinner feels the most alienation is the point at which the Savior is seeking reconciliation. And here was Peter and his two buddies, James and John, wanting to run when Jesus wanted to embrace them, wanting alienation when Jesus sought reconciliation. This is the glorious moment of their repentance.
And that brings us to the final attribute of God that is demonstrated here, divine mercy. Peter was overwhelmed with his sin. We certainly can assume that James and John were and perhaps others. They were broken and contrite, just what the Lord was seeking. You remember it was Isaiah who thought he was so unworthy that he was going to be destroyed, and it turned out that the Lord called him into ministry. It was Job who thought that he was…he was the worst of sinners and needed to repent in dust and ashes that God blessed beyond imagination. It was John, who because of his sinful life, in the presence of the vision of the glorified Christ in Revelation 1 fell over out of sheer terror in a dead faint. And the Lord awakened him, told him to get up and take his pen and serve Him by writing the Revelation.
Just at the point where you think you’re on the brink of damnation because of your sin, you’re at the brink of reconciliation because of mercy. And I love this in verse 10. Jesus said to Simon, “Do not fear,” or perhaps better, “Stop being terrified,” phobeō from which we get phobia. Stop being terrified. You don’t need to be terrified. And that’s the kind of fear he was feeling. It was terror of being in the presence of holy God and being on the brink of divine judgment. Stop being terrified.
Now let me just say as a footnote. There is a healthy fear of God. There is a positive fear of God. We could go a lot of places in the Bible to demonstrate it, but let me simplify it, if I can. There is a statement in the 4th verse of Deuteronomy 13 that defines this proper fear. Just listen to this. Deuteronomy 13:4 says, “You shall follow the Lord your God and fear Him and you shall keep His commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him, listen to this, and cling to Him.” There is the fear that seeks to run and there is the fear that seeks to cling …
There is the terror of the sinner who fears the judgment of God. There is the healthy reverence and wonder and awe and love and adoration of the child who wants to cling to a father who is the Father of mercies, as Paul calls God in 1 Corinthians. And so we want the fear that clings, the fear that says I can’t make it on my own. The fear that says You are my Redeemer, my Savior, my Lord, my Master. You are the object of my love, my affection, my worship, my praise, my adoration, my devotion. I want to keep Your commandments. I want to listen to Your voice. I want to serve You. I want to follow You. That’s the… That’s the fear that clings. And for the sinner there is that fear that terrifies and wants to run. That’s why I say there are people who come even here and when God is displayed and God is manifest and the glory of God is shown in the face of Jesus Christ, it’s a very intimidating thing. Those who love their sin want to run. Those who are, in a sense, unmasked by it but want to continue the game of hiding, flee. But for us who desire mercy, we cling, don’t we? The same God can create terror in the unrepentant sinner and calm in the penitent sinner.
Peter and all who were with him were amazed — one of Luke’s favourite words, also used in last week’s reading (Luke 4:22) — at the miraculous catch of fish at midday, when fish were least likely to be near the surface because of the sun’s heat (verse 9).
MacArthur says:
Everybody sees Peter and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken. The term here for amazement is just that. I mean, it’s a term that simply means shock. They were absolutely shocked by what they saw. It’s a term that’s used a couple of times back in chapter 4. They were amazed at His teaching. They never heard anybody teach the way He taught. And in verse 36 they were amazed at His confrontation of the demon. And now they’re amazed at His power expressed over nature, just amazing expression of His power.
Luke reinforces the amazement by mentioning that of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were Simon’s fishing partners; then Jesus told Simon not to be afraid, because he would be catching people (verse 10), meaning making converts by preaching the Good News, something that happened early on in the Book of Acts after the first Pentecost. Once filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter made thousands of converts in Jerusalem and the surrounding area.
Henry says:
When by Peter’s preaching three thousand souls were, in one day, added to the church, then the type of this great draught of fishes was abundantly answered.
When they brought their boats to shore, the three men left everything to follow Jesus (verse 11).
I wanted to find out what happened to the fish, but neither of our commentators has any supposition. Perhaps the people were able to take one or two home.
MacArthur concludes:
This…this may have been the…who knows how much money this was worth, what this could have done in catapulting their career to another level. What more boats they could have bought. What perhaps more equipment they could have bought, men they could have hired to increase the business. But here they are at the very pinnacle, here they are having made the catch of all catches in the history of fishing and it says they brought their boats to land, got out of the boats, left everything, followed Him.
That was history. That was history. All the activities of their life to that point, past. Initially they had followed Him part-time and this was the full-time. This was the life they would live all the way to their death. From this moment on they were permanently engaged in catching people in God’s salvation net, the highest calling in life, the great commission. The word followed is used in Luke as a technical term for discipleship. You see it about five times in chapter 9, a couple of times in chapter 18. They became disciples.
Henry had an interesting insight as to why Jesus wanted to display His omnipotence with the large haul of fish. One of the reasons was to repay Peter for lending him his boat as a preaching platform:
He intended hereby to repay Peter for the loan of his boat; for Christ’s gospel now, as his ark formerly in the house of Obed-edom, will be sure to make amends, rich amends, for its kind entertainment. None shall shut a door or kindle a fire in God’s house for nought,Malachi 1:10. Christ’s recompences for services done to his name are abundant, they are superabundant.
Next week we begin the Sundays before Lent, starting with Septuagesima, meaning 70 days before Easter.
The readings for Easter Day, along with a number of my previous posts about the Resurrection, can be found here.
I have chosen John’s Gospel, rather than Luke’s, because in 2021, most of the Lenten and Holy Week readings have come from his book.
John refers to himself in verses 2, 4, 5 and 8. Emphases in bold are mine:
John 20:1-18
20:1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.
20:2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”
20:3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb.
20:4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.
20:5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.
20:6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there,
20:7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.
20:8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;
20:9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.
20:10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.
20:11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb;
20:12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.
20:13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”
20:14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.
20:15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”
20:16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).
20:17 Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
20:18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
This is one of the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection: the first Christian sabbath, as Matthew Henry’s commentary states.
John MacArthur tells us:
You need to understand that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is not just a feature of Christianity, it is the main event; it is the main event.
Resurrection is the point of redemption. The whole purpose of God in creating and redeeming His people is to raise them to eternal glory so that they can worship Him forever. That is the point of His redemption – resurrection to eternal glory in not only glorified spirits, but glorified bodies. Our resurrection is secured by the power of God, the power of Christ demonstrated in His resurrection. Because He lives, we will live.
The resurrection is not only a demonstration of power, it is also a validation of His offering, because God was satisfied with the sacrifice Christ offered for the sins of His people. God raised Him from the dead, validating His work on the cross. He said, “It is finished!” God said, “I am satisfied,” raised Him, and He ascended to eternal glory, sat down at the right hand of God to intercede for His people and bring them all into eternal glory spiritually and in resurrected form.
The resurrection then is the greatest event in history – in redemptive history, or in history period. It is the most significant expression of the power of God on behalf of believers. It is the cornerstone of gospel promise. We are saved to be raised from the dead, and into heaven we go forever in that resurrected form. The purpose of salvation, again, is a resurrected people.
Because Christ conquered death, because He conquered sin, we will be raised to dwell with Him forever. How important is this? Romans 10:9-10, “If you confess Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
The Passover Sabbath had ended, and Mary Magdalene went to our Lord’s tomb in the darkness just before dawn the next morning (Sunday), only to find that the stone had been removed from the tomb (verse 1).
Matthew Henry says:
This was the first Christian sabbath, and she begins it accordingly with enquiries after Christ.
MacArthur ties together other Gospel accounts to put a timeline in place:
… it was John who said “it was still dark” when Mary Magdalene came to the tomb. What that tells us, and what we know to be true from the other writers, is that she was the first one there; she was the first one there. Dawn happens fairly rapidly; but when she came, being the first one, it was still on the dark side of dawn.
Now she didn’t start out alone. According to Matthew 27 another Mary, Mary the mother of James and Joses, was with her; so she wasn’t alone. But she got there first. She’s in a hurry to get there, and she gets there before the other Mary. Matthew tells us in Matthew 28:1 both Marys headed for the tomb. But now we know Mary Magdalene got there first.
Now there were even other women who were coming along as well. There were women at the foot of the cross. The same women who were at the foot of the cross were there on Friday when Joseph and Nicodemus were burying the body of Jesus. It says in Luke 23:55, “The women who had come with the Lord out of Galilee saw the tomb and where the body was laid.”
Shocked by the sight of an empty tomb, she ran to tell Peter and John that someone had taken the body of Jesus (verse 2).
The two Apostles set out to see for themselves (verse 3). As John was younger than Peter, he outran him and reached the tomb first (verse 4).
John saw the burial linens from outside the tomb (verse 5), but Peter entered the tomb for a closer look (verse 6). He also saw the linen wrapping that had been placed on our Lord’s head, which was rolled up and set to one side (verse 7).
Henry says it is very unlikely that, as according to doubters, someone had stolen the body of Jesus, since His burial linens were still in the tomb:
Robbers of tombs have been known to take away the clothes and leave the body but none [prior to the practices of modern resurrectionists] ever took away the body and left the clothes, especially when it was fine linen and new, Mark 15:46. Any one would rather choose to carry a dead body in its clothes than naked. Or, if those that were supposed to have stolen it would have left the grave-clothes behind, yet it cannot be supposed they should find leisure to fold up the linen.
MacArthur adds:
Now none of these people know what’s happened on Saturday. They don’t know that the Sanhedrin got a Roman guard to guard the tomb, and then put a Roman seal on the stone so that no one would come to fake a resurrection. They put a seal, a Roman seal, which meant that it would become a crime, a violent crime, if you broke the Roman seal; and they put a significant amount of Roman soldiers there. They don’t know that.
They also don’t know that in the deep, dark night of Sunday, God sent a very localized earthquake. But before He sent the earthquake, He put all those soldiers under some kind of divine anesthesia, and they all went to sleep. And then came an earthquake, and with the earthquake the stone was rolled away. Matthew 28, verses 1-4 describes it.
The soldiers didn’t know what happened. The soldiers fled the tomb. Why not? They checked it. He’s gone. They can’t figure out why they went to sleep, because they were professional soldiers, and that was a violation of duty that had severe repercussions. They don’t know where the earthquake came from. They don’t know how the stone was rolled away. They don’t know why the body isn’t there, but it’s not. So there’s no reason to stay, so they leave.
We know they’re gone, because Mary Magdalene never refers to them when she gets there. The other women never refer to them when they get there. Peter and John never refer to them when they get there. They’re gone, startled awake in the deep Sunday darkness, shaken by the earthquake out of their divinely-induced comas.
As Peter had the temerity to enter the tomb, John followed his example. Being in the tomb, ‘he believed’ (verse 8).
John admitted that none of them understood the import of Scripture and Jesus’s own teachings: that He must rise from the dead (verse 9).
Therefore, that is further proof none of the disciples expected the Resurrection. MacArthur says:
The point that I want you to notice is that they had no expectation that Jesus would rise: the women didn’t, the leaders of the apostles didn’t.
The disciples returned home (verse 10), yet Mary Magdalene stayed and wept before bending over to look into the tomb (verse 11).
She saw two angels in white, sitting where our Lord’s body had been at rest — one at the head and one at the foot (verse 12).
They asked why she was weeping. She replied that she was concerned for Jesus: ‘they’ had taken Him away and she didn’t know where (verse 13).
It could be she was blessed by the angelic presence because she, unlike the others, stayed behind to keep a vigil over the tomb.
Henry’s commentary agrees:
This favour was shown to those who were early and constant in their enquiries after Christ, and was the reward of those that came first and staid last, but denied to those that made a transient visit.
MacArthur tells us part of the reason why Mary Magdalene was so attached to Jesus:
This woman rescued from seven demons had been in the sweet fellowship of the blessed Son of God, Son of love.
She received a further reward when she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, although she did not recognise Him (verse 14).
Jesus asked why she was weeping and for whom she was looking. She thought He was the gardener and pleaded with Him to tell her where her Saviour was so that she could take His body away (verse 15).
MacArthur says that the resurrected Jesus looked different to the Jesus that they knew during His ministry:
… by the way, every time Jesus appeared after His resurrection He had to identify Himself, because He was in a different form; He had a glorious resurrection body. And while there would have been familiar elements to that body, this was not the body that went to the cross, this was an eternal resurrection body that would never die and never be decayed. That is why on the road to Emmaus, as recorded in Luke 24, when Jesus joined those disciples on that resurrection day and walked along with them, it says, verse 16 of Luke 24, “Their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him.”
Jesus called out her name and a relieved Mary, recognising His voice, replied in Hebrew, calling Him ‘teacher’ (verse 16).
Then, she touched Him in a manner of worship, a detail which John omits but which Matthew includes. MacArthur tells us:
… we know she falls at His feet, because that’s what all the women did. Matthew 28 says that when the women met Jesus they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. They just put their arms around His feet, prone in front of Him, clinging to Him, worshiping Him.
And that’s what Mary does. The shock of being more sorrowful than you’d ever been in your entire life to a moment of the most exhilarating explosive joy ever comprehended, the transition is to profound, and the one thought she has in her mind is, “I don’t want to lose Him again.” And so she takes hold of His feet kind of like the Shulamite woman in Song of Solomon who said, “I found him whom my soul loves. I held him and would not let him go.” So she holds on, not going to let Him go again. This is pure love.
Jesus corrected her and said she must not do that because He had to ascend to the Father — therefore, He could not stay with her and the disciples. He then sends her on a beautiful mission (verse 17). He tells her to give the disciples — ‘my brothers’ — the news of their encounter:
and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’“
MacArthur notes our Lord’s use of the word ‘brothers’:
That’s the first time believers have been called brothers in the gospel of John. This is new. “We are called” – as the disciples were – “friends, slaves, but never brothers. This is a first. How did we become brothers who were once friends and once slaves? How did we become brothers?” The cross made us brothers. The cross made it possible for us to become the children of God, brothers and sisters.
Hebrews 2:9 says that “Jesus suffered death, suffered death, so that He could bring His own to glory because He’s not ashamed to call them brothers.” This stretches any kind of thought in Judaism. To say that you are a son of God individually is to claim to have the divine nature, and it’s blasphemous. To say you are the brother or sister of deity would be equally blasphemous, but it’s the truth. By His work on the cross we have been placed in Christ, in His death, in His burial, in His resurrection. We are in Him everlastingly. We are now His brothers, and He is not ashamed to call us brother.
We can be sure she must have set off like lightning to tell them her story, which she did (verse 18). Unfortunately, the disciples dampened her joy, as MacArthur reminds us:
Luke 24: “The women came telling these things to the apostles.” Eventually the other women showed up. “They’re talking to the apostles,” – Luke 24:10 – “but these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them.”
They did not believe in a resurrection. They didn’t even believe when somebody they knew well said, “I have seen the Lord.” But their turn’s coming later that night.
The lesson to be learned from this reading is that spiritual endurance and love of Christ is rewarded. We might not see angels or the Lord Himself in this life, but we will have assurance in our faith that Jesus and God the Father have a very special love for every believer who stays the course, who puts the Triune God above all things.
May all my readers enjoy a very happy and blessed Easter.
In 2021, the Second Sunday in Lent is February 28.
The readings for Year B in the three-year Lectionary are below:
Readings for the Second Sunday in Lent — Year B
There are two choices for the Gospel reading. I have chosen the first, where Jesus tells His disciples that He must die (emphases mine below):
Mark 8:31-38
8:31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
8:32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
8:33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
8:34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
8:35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
8:36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?
8:37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?
8:38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
Commentary for today’s exegesis comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
Sometimes, the older versions of the above verses are so well known that it is good to refer to them. Here is the King James Version:
31 And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. 33 But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. 34 And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 35 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it. 36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? 37 Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
Just before Jesus spoke those words, He asked His disciples two questions:
27 And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” 29 And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” 30 And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.
Why those verses could not have been added to today’s reading in order to provide context is perplexing. As I have often said, that is why the Lectionary can be irritating. No wonder people don’t read the Bible more often.
On one level, the disciples know that Jesus is the Messiah. On the other hand, people are confused because they expect a temporal Messiah, one with the appearance of a king.
John MacArthur explains:
… through the years, they struggle with that. They don’t struggle because there’s no evidence of divine power. They just struggle because He doesn’t conform to their preconceived patterns. It’s like he that is convinced against his will is unconvinced still. It’s just a really hard hurdle to get over. They struggle with doubts because, as the people concluded, He can’t be the Messiah, so He has to be somebody short of the Messiah – John the Baptist, the forerunner to the Messiah; Elijah, who will come back before the Messiah; Jeremiah, who will come back before the Messiah. But nobody’s saying He’s the Messiah. He doesn’t fit the preconceived theological package. He’s maybe, obviously, a prophet of God; we’ll grant Him that, but He just hasn’t done what the Messiah will do. Where’s the conquest? Where’s national independence? National freedom? Power? Blessing? Where’s the overthrow of Rome? And He’s so meek, and lowly, and humble, and submissive, and pays taxes to Rome, and He’s hated by the leaders of Israel.
In fact, it was so bewildering, compared to their messianic view, that even John the Baptist got confused. John the Baptist, the one who was His forerunner, the one who was related to Him, the one whose mothers were related, who talked about all these issues. John the Baptist must have heard from His own family all the story about how the angel came and announced to His mom and dad that He would be born, and that He would be the forerunner of the Messiah. And they must have told Him about how Mary came and bore the child who was the Messiah, and Jesus was His relative, and he knew who He was, and it was all angelic, divine revelation. And he heard perhaps again and again the incredible stories of the annunciation and the birth of the Messiah. And yet, he gets confused. Why? Well, he’s in prison. This doesn’t look like the right plan here.
Jesus tells the disciples about what ‘must’ happen to Him: rejection, suffering, death and resurrection (verse 31).
Peter was profoundly affected by that announcement and took Jesus to one side to ‘rebuke’ Him (verse 32). One wonders whether ‘rebuke’ in this verse is the same as it usually is, one of reprimand and condemnation. Peter loved Jesus and wanted to protect Him.
MacArthur says:
Matthew says it this way, “God forbid, Lord; this shall never happen to You.” He’s not asking questions; He’s making statements. And idiomatically, an interesting phrase in Matthew, “May God grant You better than that.” Whoa. “This isn’t going to happen, and we’re not going to allow this.”
Matthew Henry says:
He took him—proslabomenos auton. He took hold of him, as it were to stop and hinder him, took him in his arms, and embraced him (so some understand it) he fell on his neck, as impatient to hear that his dear Master should suffer such hard things or he took him aside privately, and began to rebuke him. This was not the language of the least authority, but of the greatest affection, of that jealousy for the welfare of those we love, which is strong as death. Our Lord Jesus allowed his disciples to be free with him, but Peter here took too great a liberty.
That explanation reminds me of an illustration I used to see in my youth of Peter embracing Jesus, his head on His shoulder, weeping. It might have been in our family Bible. However, it was a powerful depiction of this particular moment.
Jesus immediately rebukes Peter — in the traditional sense of the word — correcting him with harsh words in front of the other disciples (verse 33).
MacArthur tells us:
First of all, Matthew said He said, “You’re a stumbling block” – you’re in the way; you’re a hindrance. Then the real blow, “Get out of My sight, Satan.” That’s literally what it says. “Get out of My sight, Satan.” It’s a bad idea for followers to play God. When you put yourself in the place of God, you end up putting yourself in the place of Satan. He says to him, “You’re not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.” That’s an indictment of Peter. Peter didn’t want a cross. These guys were looking for glory. Do we remember that James and John had come with their mother to ask if they could sit on the right and the left hand in the kingdom? I mean it was all about elevation, glory, power, prosperity. Jesus says, “You are an offense to Me,” according to Matthew. “You’re a skandalon.” Skandalon means you’re a trap. “You’re a baited trap; you’re a Satan trap; you’re a Satan stumbling block. If you’re trying to dissuade Me from the cross, you’re on Satan’s side. Get out of My sight.”
Far from speaking about glory, Jesus then says that His followers will have to suffer in His name by denying themselves and taking up their own cross (verse 34).
Henry explains the verse this way:
Those that will be Christ’s patients must attend on him, converse with him, receive instruction and reproof from him, as those did that followed him, and must resolve they will never forsake him.
Jesus continues by indicating the way to salvation: caring more about eternal life than temporal life (verse 35).
MacArthur lists other difficult verses on the same theme:
Jesus said the very same thing in Matthew repeatedly, Matthew 10, Matthew 16, and alluded to it elsewhere. He said it in Luke – Luke chapter 9, verses 23 to 27 is a direct repeat of what we read in Mark. And then at the end of Luke 9, verses 57 to 62, Jesus basically says, “If you say you want to follow Me, but you have any other agenda that is more important immediately than Me, then you can’t be My disciple.”
Remember a man said, “Oh, I want to follow you, but I need to go home and get my inheritance. Oh, I want to follow you, but I’ve got to go bury my father. I want to follow you, but I’ve got to go negotiate some things of my family so I make sure I have some money while I’m following You.”
Jesus said, “Don’t do that. Don’t start to follow and turn back or you’re not worthy.” He’s always talking about the price of following Him. In the twelfth chapter of Luke – and Luke is particularly strong in emphasizing these teaching passages of our Lord with regard to invitations. He says in verse 51 of 12, “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on Earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; from now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three.” Two become a believer and the other three don’t; three become believers, and the other two don’t. “They’ll be divided, father against son, son against father, mother against daughter, daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” Again it is this emphasis that you pay a price relationally when you come to Christ …
And He said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.” This is not easy. Why? You have to say no to self. You have to say no to family. You have to say no to the things of the world, no to the love of sin. People want the kingdom. It’s attractive. They want forgiveness, they want eternal life, but the price is everything. That’s why later in chapter 14, another time, he said, “If anyone comes to Me and doesn’t hate His own father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he can’t be my disciple.” He doesn’t mean hatred in the sense that you despise the people that you love. He simply means that you treat them as if they aren’t nearly as significant as coming to Christ. So, you’re willing to say, “I’ll go to Christ; I’ll follow Christ, even if it costs me my family.”
“And it might even cost you your life,” He said. And in the twelfth chapter of John, He said the same thing in verse 25, “You better be willing to hate your own life.” So, coming to Jesus was not easy. Coming to Jesus was not something that you could simply do because you wanted the pluses that Jesus offered. It demanded much more than that. Jesus’ invitation was not easy. It was even severe because He threatened those who rejected it. It was hard because the cost was so high. So high.
Jesus then asks two questions.
What good is it having everything possible in this world only to lose one’s soul in the next and be condemned to eternal death (verse 36)? What price has a man’s soul (verse 37)?
MacArthur explains:
Remember the man about whom Jesus spoke, the man who kept building bigger barns and bigger barns and bigger barns because he had more stuff and more stuff? And he said, “Okay, soul, take your ease. Eat, drink, and” – what? – “be merry.” And boom comes the divine voice, “Tonight you die.” And then what? What are you going to profit if you gain the whole world? That’s hyperbole. Nobody could gain the whole world. Nobody. But even if you could gain the whole thing, actually, who would want it? But even if you could gain the whole thing, what would it matter if you lost your eternal soul? It is the common belief of man that he is the happiest when he has the most stuff – the most that the world has to offer. And what a delusion that is if he forfeits his soul.
“Because” – verse 37 – “what are you going to give in exchange for your soul?” How are you going to buy back your soul? You think you can – if you owned the whole world, could you pay that price for your soul? If you had the whole world – all the money in the world, all the resources in the world, all the power in the world – with it could you buy your soul? What are you going to give in exchange for your soul? What is of equivalent value to your soul?
You want to look at this the other way? Your soul is worth more than everything in this world because this world will burn up. You will live forever. You say, “I don’t – I even rent my house; I don’t own any of it. I lease my car; I don’t own anything.” You, my dear friend, are more valuable than everything material in this world. There is no price for your soul except the provision of Jesus Christ on the cross. He paid an infinite price because of an infinite value attached to you. That’s the gift of salvation.
Jesus ends His discourse by saying that those who are ashamed of Him in this life will not inherit eternal life in the world to come, because our Lord will be ashamed of them (verse 38).
MacArthur puts it equally plainly:
This is a severe invitation because judgment is attached to it. This is a hard invitation because it requires total abandonment, self-denial, cross bearing, loyal obedience, giving up your life to save it. And if you choose not to do it because you want to hang onto your own life, and you’re ashamed of Christ and ashamed to identify with His words, His teaching, and you want to fully embrace your place in the middle of this adulterous and sinful generation – if that’s where you want to be, the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when He comes at His coming in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. And you take your place with the perishing world, with the doomed rejecters to whom the gospel is a shameful thing, to whom Christ is a shameful person; you will face divine judgment. When Christ comes, He comes to judge the world. That’s what it says.
This is a powerful verse …
It certainly is a powerful verse, giving us much to contemplate in the week ahead.
May everyone reading this have a blessed Sunday.
Below are the readings for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, May 24, 2020.
These are for Year A in the three-year Lectionary used in public worship.
This particular Sunday is also known traditionally as Exaudi Sunday, so called because of the traditional Introit, taken from Psalm 17:1. The two first words in Latin are ‘Exaudi Domine’ — ‘Hear, Lord’. It is said to be the saddest Sunday of the church year, because the disciples were at a loose end after Jesus ascended to Heaven. They missed Him and were unsure as to what the arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost would mean.
You can read more about it in this post:
Exaudi Sunday: between the Ascension and Pentecost
Emphases below are mine.
First reading
On Ascension Day, we had the reading from Luke’s Gospel about our Lord’s return to His Father. Here we have Luke’s other version — as he was the author of Acts — from Acts 1. Note that, even at this stage, the Apostles still expected a temporal return of Israel to glory.
Acts 1:6-14
1:6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”
1:7 He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.
1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
1:9 When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
1:10 While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.
1:11 They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
1:12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away.
1:13 When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James.
1:14 All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.
Psalm
It is probable that David wrote this Psalm after he was no longer besieged by enemies. It is a Psalm of praise and thanks to God for His goodness and mercy.
Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35
68:1 Let God rise up, let his enemies be scattered; let those who hate him flee before him.
68:2 As smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melts before the fire, let the wicked perish before God.
68:3 But let the righteous be joyful; let them exult before God; let them be jubilant with joy.
68:4 Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides upon the clouds–his name is the LORD– be exultant before him.
68:5 Father of orphans and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.
68:6 God gives the desolate a home to live in; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious live in a parched land.
68:7 O God, when you went out before your people, when you marched through the wilderness, Selah
68:8 the earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain at the presence of God, the God of Sinai, at the presence of God, the God of Israel.
68:9 Rain in abundance, O God, you showered abroad; you restored your heritage when it languished;
68:10 your flock found a dwelling in it; in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy.
68:32 Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth; sing praises to the Lord, Selah
68:33 O rider in the heavens, the ancient heavens; listen, he sends out his voice, his mighty voice.
68:34 Ascribe power to God, whose majesty is over Israel; and whose power is in the skies.
68:35 Awesome is God in his sanctuary, the God of Israel; he gives power and strength to his people. Blessed be God!
Epistle
Readings from 1 Peter conclude. Peter exhorted his converts to be Christlike in everything, despite their persecution. He also encouraged them to avoid temptation at all costs.
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
4:12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.
4:13 But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.
4:14 If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you.
5:6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.
5:7 Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.
5:8 Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.
5:9 Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.
5:10 And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.
5:11 To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.
Gospel
Jesus said these words, The High Priestly Prayer, at the Last Supper. John’s Gospel is the only one that carries the full complement of Jesus’s final messages to the Apostles, from John 14 – John 17: four stunning chapters. Note verse 9 below, in particular: not all will be saved, only those whom God has given to Jesus.
John 17:1-11
17:1 After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you,
17:2 since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
17:3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
17:4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.
17:5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.
17:6 “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
17:7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you;
17:8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.
17:9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.
17:10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.
17:11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.
May God increase our faith through His grace daily. Jesus Christ will reign for ever and ever.
For those fortunate enough to be able to return to church this Sunday, please pray for the rest of us that our leaders will see fit to open our church doors, too. Thank you.
Churchmouse Campanologist 