John 18:5

John 18:5. They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. The answer may perhaps reveal the light in which Judas had represented Jesus to the Roman authorities, ‘of Nazareth,' a Galilean, prone to revolt; or it may be that the Evangelist beholds in it one of those unconscious prophecies of the enemies of Jesus of which we have so many examples in this Gospel. In chap. John 1:45, ‘Jesus of Nazareth' is one of the three great aspects in which we are led to expect that we shall behold the Redeemer.

Jesus saith unto them, I am he. Before the effect produced by the reply is related, a parenthetical clause is introduced.

And Judas also, which betrayed him, was standing with them. What is the object of this clause? Not to explain what afterwards happened, as if Judas had been the first to fall, and so to produce a confusion which made his companions also fall; not merely to awaken indirectly a deeper feeling of abhorrence for the traitor who thus dared to present himself before his victim, and that, too, as we learn from the other Evangelists, with a kiss; least of all in order to connect this Gospel with the earlier ones, its author feeling that as he had not told the story of the kiss of Judas it would be well for him at least to indicate the place where it had been given. The explanation is to be found in chap. John 13:27. We have before us Judas possessed by Satan. The powers of evil are concentrated in him; and to bring him thus prominently forward as sharing the fate of others illustrates in the most striking; manner the victory of Jesus even in this hour of apparent defeat. Not man only but Satan shall fall prostrate before the Divine Son; and, if the latter is taken by His enemies, it is not because of their power but because He freely surrenders Himself into their hands (chap. John 10:18).