John 18:4-9

The meeting of Jesus with the band. “ Jesus therefore, knowing all that which was to come upon him, went forth and says to them:Whom are you seeking for? 5. They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus says to them, I am he. Now Judas, who betrayed him, was also standing among them. 6. When therefore Jesus said to them, I am he, they went backward and fell to the ground. 7. Jesus asked them a second time, Whom are you seeking for? They said, Jesus of Nazareth. 8. Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he; if therefore you are seeking me, let these go their way; 9, that the word might be fulfilled which he had spoken: I have lost none of those whom thou hast given me. ”

In coming forward spontaneously and as the first to meet the band, Jesus has a purpose which the sequel will explain. He desires, by giving Himself up, to provide for the safety of His disciples. The word He went forth might mean: from the remote part of the garden or from the midst of His disciples; but it is more natural to understand: from the garden itself. He comes forward boldly even before the gate, while His disciples remain grouped behind Him in the garden; thus are the words of John 18:26 easily explained.

The kiss of Judas, in the Synoptics, which is said to be incompatible with John's account, is naturally placed at the moment when Jesus, coming forth from the garden, meets the band, and thus immediately before the question: Whom are you seeking? John alone does not mention this incident, and yet he is accused of personal animosity against Judas! Jesus, after having experienced this last perfidy from His disciple, turns towards the band, addressing to them the question relative to their commission: He desires to have this distinctly stated, in order to shelter those who are not the object of it that is, His disciples. The insertion of the remark relating to Judas, at the end of John 18:5, has been explained in different ways. Luthardt rightly says: “These words are placed between the declaration I am he and the effect produced by it, because they are designed to explain this effect.” The impression of fear produced on the witnesses by the words I am he, which were pronounced with majesty and seemed to fall as a threatening from heaven this impression could have been felt by no one of those present so vividly as by the faithless disciple, who had so often heard this same word as the affirmation of the unique dignity of Jesus; and it was no doubt from him that the emotion was communicated to those who surrounded and followed him.

The same moral ascendency to which the traders and money-changers in the temple had yielded, and which had many times arrested the multitude at the moment of stoning Him (comp. also Luke 4:30), causes the band suddenly to fall back, and this unexpected movement on the part of those who were foremost occasions the falling down of a certain number of those who are following them. There is no direct act of God's omnipotence here overthrowing these persons, but it would be quite as much an error to see herein only an accidental effect. This result was desired on the part of Him who produced it. By thus making them feel His power, Jesus meant to show them that it would be dangerous for them to go beyond their commission, and thereby to secure the retreat of His disciples. We see how mistaken Weiss is in seeing in such a miracle only a miracle of display.

Then, in a milder tone, which leads the officers to approach Him again, Jesus interrogates them a second time; and after He has again caused them distinctly to declare that it is He, and He alone, whom they have the commission to arrest, He surrenders Himself while stipulating for the liberty of all His disciples. Then it was that the beautiful image was fulfilled which Jesus had used, John 10:12: The shepherd sees the wolf coming, and he does not flee, because he cares for the sheep. The question was not only of the preservation, but even of the salvation of the disciples.

John felt this indeed, and this is what gives the explanation of the remark in John 18:9. The example of Peter, the most courageous one among them, shows that an arrest would have been, at that moment, for some of the apostles the signal for a deep fall, perhaps for an irreparable denial. And Jesus, who had said to the Father: “ I have watched over those whom thou hast given me, and none of them is lost ” (John 17:12), must fulfil to the end this serious task. All this causes Reuss to smile compassionately. He sees in the application which the author here makes of these words only a proof of his disposition to “indulge in double sense;” he even asks whether Jesus, in rendering an account to God of the care which He had had of His disciples, “would have hinted that He took care not to let them spend the following night in the guard-house.” For our own part, this quotation seems to us instructive. No one can suppose that John was ignorant of the spiritual sense of the words of Jesus in John 17:12: “I have kept those whom thou hast given me, and no one of them is lost;” and yet he applies it here to a material fact, which undoubtedly pertained, though only indirectly, to the salvation of the disciples. Here is an example fitted to make us see the broad way in which we should treat the Scriptural quotations in general.