Matthew 26:31-46: “Jesus Tells The Twelve He Will Be Crucified
& Raise Again, And That Peter Will Deny Him, Then Takes Them To
by
Jim Bomkamp
1.
INTRO:
1.1.
In our last study we continued looking at the events
that led directly up to Jesus’ crucifixion
1.1.1.
We looked at Judas’ betrayal of Jesus and what his
motives must have been for the things that he did
1.1.2.
We also looked at the events that led up to the last
Passover Feast that Jesus had with His disciples, and then finally we looked at
the symbology of that last Passover Feast, which we now know of as the ‘Last
Supper’, as well as the symbology of the elements of the bread and the wine
themselves
1.2.
In our study today, we are going to continue to look
at the events leading directly up to Jesus’ crucifixion
1.2.1.
We will look at the disciples as they first claim that
they will never fall away from Jesus and then all do so
1.2.2.
We will also see Peter promise that though all else
fall away from Jesus that he would never fall away
1.2.2.1.We will look
at the folly of boasting in our flesh
1.2.3.
Finally, we will look at that time that Jesus spent
with His disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane before they came and took Him to
crucify Him
2.
VS 26:31-32 -
“31 Then Jesus *said to them, “You will all fall away because of Me this
night, for it is written, ‘I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep of
the flock shall be scattered.’ 32 “But after I have been raised, I will go
before you to
2.1.
Jesus knew that that very night all of His disciples would abandon Him
when the officers came with Judas to arrest Him, and He knew that in doing this
they would each one terribly offend his own conscience. Therefore, Jesus sought to tell them
beforehand that they would do this so that they would then know that Jesus
would also be there to forgive them and lead them back to Himself afterwards.
2.1.1.
This action of Jesus should speak to our own hearts as Christians, for
each of us sometimes fails to be obedient to Jesus, which means that we have
sinned, and yet we also need to know that our sinning does not take the Lord by
surprise for long before we ever came to Him through Christ (really before the
creation) God knew all of the things that each of us would do in this
life. Nothing surprises the Lord
2.1.2.
We Christians need that assurance in our lives that if we do sin that we
can come to God, confess our sins (which involves repenting or turning away
from our sin), and that as often as we do this that God will forgive us.
2.1.2.1.The apostle John wrote a
couple of verses that we Christians can take to heart when we ourselves are in
need of God’s forgiveness because of our sin:
2.1.2.1.1.1 John 2:1-2, “2:1 My
little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin. And if
anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2
and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but
also for those of the whole world.”
2.1.2.1.1.1.The Greek word used for ‘propitiation’ here means ‘full
satisfaction’, or in business transactions ‘full payment’. Jesus is
the full payment for all of the sins that men have and will ever commit.
2.1.2.1.2.1 John 1:9, “9 If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
2.2.
Jesus teaches us here in these verses that the prophesy of Zechariah 13:7
was fulfilled with His disciples all falling away from and abandoning Him on
this night.
2.3.
The horror of the crucifixion was intensified by the fact that Jesus had
to experience all of His suffering by Himself for all of His followers
abandoned Him after His arrest.
2.4.
In order to prepare His disciples for the events that He knew would follow
His resurrection from the dead, Jesus told them that they were to go to
3.
VS 26:33-35 -
“33 But Peter answered and said to Him, ”Even though all may fall away
because of You, I will never fall away.” 34 Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to
you that this very night, before a cock crows, you shall deny Me three times.”
35 Peter *said to Him, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You.”
All the disciples said the same thing too.” - Peter tells Jesus that though all of the
other disciples might ‘fall away’ from Him that he would never fall away
3.1.
Peter always thought that he was sort of a notch above the other
disciples, and thus he dominated their conversations and Jesus’ time, and yet
Peter was sincere in saying what he said to Jesus here. However, what Peter didn’t realize is how
weak our flesh can be to carry out the things that we know in our mind that God
wants us to do.
3.1.1.
Do you sometimes argue with and try to correct the Lord as Peter does
here? It is so foolish when we think we
better than God.
3.1.2.
Later in this chapter, Matt. 26:41, Jesus tells His sleeping disciples whom He has
been pleading with to sit with Him and to pray, “…the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”, and, this verse reveals to
us that though there are many things that we may know that God wants us to do,
the knowing of that doesn’t mean that we will have the power or resolution of
will to carry those things out in the power of our own flesh. However, the Holy Spirit will give us victory
and the power to overcome in any situation that we find ourselves in.
3.1.3.
The seventh chapter of Romans is a very interesting chapter and one which
has been very difficult for many to grasp.
In the chapter Paul writes about his own life using the ‘present tense’,
and in Rom. 7:14-24 we see that he speaks in very open and blunt terms about his own ability
in his flesh to keep God’s Law and commandments, “14 For we know that the Law is
spiritual; but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. 15 For that which I am
doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do,
but I am doing the very thing I hate. 16 But if I do the very thing I do not
wish to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that it is good. 17 So now, no
longer am I the one doing it, but sin which indwells me. 18 For I know that
nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in
me, but the doing of the good is not. 19 For the good that I wish, I do not do;
but I practice the very evil that I do not wish. 20 But if I am doing the very
thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in
me. 21 I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes
to do good. 22 For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, 23
but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law
of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?”
3.1.4.
This would probably be the last time that Peter would ‘boast in his
flesh’, for his three denials of Jesus were a severe moral failure on his part
and outright rebellion against the Lord.
3.1.5.
This may have been the last time that he would attempt to set the Lord
straight also as was his habit often to do.
3.2.
In telling Peter of the fact that he would deny Him three times before
the cock crowed, Jesus in His love and mercy was also preparing Peter to be
able to survive that lowest point perhaps of his whole life, which he would hit
that very night.
3.2.1.
Peter would have to repent of his sin of denying and abandoning the Lord,
and allow the Lord to forgive and restore him for God was calling him to be the
leader of the disciples after Jesus was raised from the dead.
4.
VS 26:36-37 -
“36 Then Jesus *came with them to a place called
4.1.
The disciples had walked out from their Passover feast and gone up to the
Mount of Olives, and now they walk over to one of the places where Jesus had
often gone to find respite in times when He would be weary and in need of time
of communion and prayer with God.
4.1.1.
Judas knew that after the Passover feast that Jesus would walk over with
His disciples to this garden as was His habit, and therefore Judas was now
gathering the soldiers and chief priests together to follow him to where he
could point out Jesus to them.
4.2.
Jesus asks Peter, James, and John, that select innermost group of the
twelve disciples, to accompany Him to a place in the garden where they could be
with Him and pray with Him about the struggles that He knew His soul would go
through as He was preparing to go through the suffering, humiliation before
men, and the alienation from the Father which would occur as a result of Him
being ‘made to be sin’ on our behalf and pay the price for the debt of sin
which each of us owe to God.
4.3.
Jesus told these three disciples to sit there with Him as He went over to
pray, yet instead of staying by Jesus’ side and praying with Him during this
time of His tremendous ordeal and struggle, we see that the disciples end up
falling asleep.
4.4.
We will never know the true horrors of the cross for Jesus because we
have and will never go through anything like it, however we should try to
understand what this might have been like for Jesus to experience, for
everything that He went through on this night and the next day He did because
of His unmatched holy love that He has for you and me.
4.4.1.
As horrible as the beatings, humiliation, taunting, and physical pain and
agony of being nailed to and hung on a cross must have been, I believe that
what was even more horrible for Jesus was that He who had never known sin in
His own life must now be made to be sin on our behalf, and in doing so the
Father would have to turn His face from Jesus and for a time no longer
fellowship with Him.
4.4.2.
We cannot in any way minimize the depth of the grief and distress that
Jesus was going through mentally and physically at this time, for as we will
see in a few verses this effected Jesus so much that even the capillaries under
his skin were bursting and drops of blood were soaking through His skin and
falling on the ground.
5.
VS 26:39 - “38 Then
He *said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain
here and keep watch with Me. .39 And He
went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father,
if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as Thou
wilt.”” - Jesus prayed and asked the
Father if it might be possible that man might be able to be redeemed without
His having to go to the cross
5.1.
Jesus tells Peter, James, and John that He is grieved to the extent that
He has even at this point almost expired.
We must never think that somehow God spared Jesus real pain and agony of
soul or that somehow Jesus was sort of out of body when the events leading up
to and upon the cross were transpiring, rather He endured the full wrath of God
upon the cross for all of the sins of the whole world, for this is the price
that would need to be paid in order for mankind to be forgiven and brought back
into fellowship with God.
5.1.1.
In Col. 2:13-15, Paul wrote about the fact that each of us owed a debt of sin to God,
but that our debt of sin was nailed to the cross upon which Jesus died, “13 And
when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,
14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us
and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed
it to the cross. 15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a
public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.”
5.1.2.
In 2 Cor. 5:21, Paul wrote about how Christ was made to be sin on our behalf in order
for us to be made righteous in Him, “21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our
behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
5.1.2.1.The Bible
Knowledge Commentary makes the following comments concerning these words by Paul in 2 Cor.
5:21, “Few statements surpass verse 9 as a pithy summary of the gospel
(cf. 5:21). From the splendor of heaven Christ came to the squalor of earth.
The Incarnation was an incomprehensible renunciation of spiritual and material
glory. The One who was rich, who had everything, became poor, making Himself
nothing (Phil. 2:7). He assumed mankind’s debt of sin and paid for it with His
life (Phil. 2:8).”
5.1.2.2.Matthew
Henry
writes about the debt of sin which each of us owed to God and which Jesus took
upon Himself upon the cross, “The debt
of sin is so great, that we are not able to pay it; He had not to pay.
Sinners are insolvent debtors; the scripture, which concludes all under sin,
is a statute of bankruptcy against us all. Silver and gold would not pay our
debt, Ps. 49:6, 7. Sacrifice and offering would not do it; our good works are
but God’s work in us, and cannot make satisfaction; we are without strength,
and cannot help ourselves. (5.) If God should
deal with us in strict justice; we should be condemned as insolvent debtors,
and God might exact the debt by glorifying himself in our utter ruin. Justice
demands satisfaction.”
5.2.
Before He ever called His disciples, Jesus knew that His mission upon the
earth included dying upon the cross for the sins of the world, and yet He was
willing to do what He had been sent to do.
The scriptures provide many instances of Jesus revealing that He knew
from the beginning what He had been sent to do for mankind. However, now in the garden facing the
greatest horror that anyone has ever faced, we see Jesus asking the Father if
there might be another way in order for mankind to be forgiven, one that didn’t
include the cross. However, in the same
breath Jesus acknowledged that no matter what would come of it that He would do
the Father’s will as He had always done the Father’s will throughout His entire
life on the earth.
6.
VS 26:40-41 -
“40 And He *came to the disciples and *found them sleeping, and *said to
Peter, “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? 41 “Keep
watching and praying, that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is
willing, but the flesh is weak.”” -
Jesus came back to Peter, James, and John and found them sleeping
6.1.
Jesus was going through the struggles of this night by Himself as His
disciples had become heavy and fallen asleep because of their depression and
anticipation of their Lord and Master being arrested and killed. Theirs’ was a sleep of depression that came
upon them because of the dread of the events that they had been told of and now
sensed were to occur.
6.2.
These verses again reveal the pathetic nature of our flesh, for it was
only for ‘one hour’ which Jesus had needed them to sit with Him during this
hour of utter agony, however their flesh was so weak they could not stay awake
for just one hour at their master’s bidding.
6.3.
Jesus didn’t ask His disciples to pray for Him here in the garden, though
they might and should have, however here Jesus asked them to pray for themselves
that they may be able to endure the trial that they were about to go through.
6.3.1.
I have discovered in my life that it is so important for me to pray that
I be not be led into temptations when I have seem them looming on the
horizon. Praying before we get into a
temptation gives us the Lord’s protection as we go through the temptation.
6.3.2.
It is important for us Christians to learn to always be ‘watching and
praying’ for the Lord’s working in us and those around us whom God has placed
in our lives. In Ephesians
6:18 as
part of the spiritual armor that the believer is to make use of in times of
spiritual warfare, Paul writes that we are always to be alert and persevering
in prayer, “18 With all prayer and petition pray at all times
in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and
petition for all the saints.”
6.3.3.
In Col. 4:2 Paul wrote about how that we are to be devoted to prayer and always
keeping alert in our prayer life, “2 Devote
yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving.”
6.3.4.
Someone once said that the reason why praying seems to be the hardest
thing that we as Christians are able to persevere in doing is because the devil
also knows that it is the most important thing that we do. God has chosen to work in people’s lives in
this life through the prayers of His people, thus it is so important that we be
devoted and faithful to pray for His work in ours and everyone else’s lives
around us.
6.3.5.
I have to confess that often as a believer that I have let my prayer life
slack off and in fact quite honestly at times I’ve even lost sight of the fact
that I and everyone around me, and that I know, are in a spiritual battle
against wicked forces trying to avert the very things that God is trying to do
in and through our lives. We Christians
must realize that we are in a life and death battle for people’s very souls,
the outcome of which has incredible eternal consequences.
6.4.
In our lives as Christians, the ‘spirit is willing, but the flesh is
weak’:
6.4.1.
In John 15:5, Jesus taught His disciples, ‘apart from you can do nothing’.
6.4.2.
In Phil. 4:13, Paul wrote about how that through in his flesh he did not have the
strength to endure and persevere triumphantly through temptations and trials,
Christ strengthened him so that he could do all that God wanted him to do
during those temptations, “13 I can do all things through Him who strengthens
me.”
7.
VS 26:42 - “42 He
went away again a second time and prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cannot
pass away unless I drink it, Thy will be done.”” - Jesus prayed a second time for the Father to
not require Him to go to the cross in order to redeem mankind
7.1.
For the second time, we see Jesus resolved to do the Father’s will, yet
praying that if there is another way for mankind to be redeemed and their debt
of sin cancelled without his having to go to the cross, He prayed that the
Father would allow that to be unveiled.
8.
VS 26:43-44 -
“43 And again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. 44
And He left them again, and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same
thing once more.” - Jesus prayed yet
a third time for the Father to not require Him to go to the cross
8.1.
Matthew records here that the Lord prayed the same exact prayer three
times, and each time He was resolved that whatever was the Lord’s will that He
was willing to do it.
8.2.
We see here that when Jesus returned after this third time of praying
this same prayer that He again found Peter, James, and John sleeping instead of
staying up with Him and praying for themselves as He had just told them to do.
8.3.
Here Matthew records that ‘their eyes were heavy’, for they were in that
deeply fatigued mode where sleep is all you desire and the only thing that can
provide what you need.
8.4.
In those times when we are struggling in our own hearts to submit
ourselves to God’s will for us, we must remember Jesus and the struggle that He
went through for us in order that we might be saved. We see this proclaimed by the author of
Hebrews in Heb. 12:1-4, “12:1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of
witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin
which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is
set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith,
who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has
sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 For consider Him who has
endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow
weary and lose heart. 4 You have not yet
resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.”
8.4.1.
Jesus is the author and the ‘perfecter of faith’ for He faithfully endured
the cross and all of the temptations that were associated with it, and thus as
we look to Him for strength and help during our struggles He can give us that
help that we need.
8.4.2.
Further, because of His love for you and me He resisted sin to the point
of His shedding of His blood on the cross.
9.
VS 26:45 - “45 Then
He *came to the disciples, and *said to them, “Are you still sleeping and
taking your rest? Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being
betrayed into the hands of sinners.” -
For now the third time Jesus came back to Peter, James and John and
found them sleeping
9.1.
Jesus is now going to rally His disciples up out of their slumber so that
they can each escape into the night unharmed and the men and soldiers who are
approaching will only take Him.
9.2.
We see here in this verse God’s plan for Jesus. It was that He would be ‘betrayed into the
hands of sinners’.
9.3.
Jesus said that this time, His time, the purpose for which He came to the
earth was to be fulfilled, was here for, ‘the hour is at hand’.
10.
VS 26:46 - “46 “Arise,
let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!”” – Jesus woke
up His disciples and told them to get going for His betrayer was ‘at hand’
10.1.
We can see Jesus’ mercy here in this verse in waking up the disciples so
that they could flee, for had they been caught asleep they might have been
slain or imprisoned by the Roman soldiers coming to arrest Jesus.