Why didn’t Jesus resist arrest?

In John 18:1-12, a small army comes to seize one unarmed man in a garden — and Jesus steps forward to meet them. In this study, Dr. Toby Holt shows that Jesus went to the cross willingly.

Judas leads a large band of soldiers to the garden of Gethsemane. When Jesus says, “I am He,” the whole armed party draws back and falls to the ground — a glimpse of His true power. He could have walked free, but instead He asks only that His disciples be let go. When Peter draws a sword and cuts off a servant’s ear, Jesus heals it and says, “Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?” Dr. Holt explains that Jesus willingly drank the cup of God’s judgment so His people would not have to.

Questions this study answers:

1. Why didn’t Jesus fight back or flee? Because He came to die for His people. He surrendered willingly, even protecting His disciples in the process.

2. What did “I am He” reveal? It echoes God’s own name, and the soldiers fell back at the words. Even at His arrest, Jesus was in control.

3. What is “the cup” Jesus speaks of? It is the cup of God’s judgment against sin. Jesus chose to drink it fully so that those who trust Him never will.

“Put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?” — John 18:11 (NKJV)

Speaker: Dr. Toby Holt is the President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, a Reformed seminary in Colorado Springs. He is known for clear, down-to-earth Bible teaching, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio.

Listen and go deeper: This sermon is part of the John Explained study from New Geneva Theological Seminary. Find more verse-by-verse teaching across the Bible at newgeneva.org. To support this teaching ministry, visit newgeneva.org/give.

In John 18, while Jesus and his disciples met in the Garden of Gethsemane, the flicker of torches appeared from around the bend. Moments later, the sound of soldiers' voices could be heard, soldiers sent to arrest our Lord. In today's study, we'll consider Christ's betrayal and arrest, and how this dark night fit into God's redemptive plan.

[gentle music] Let me ask you a question as we start this morning. When you picture this event, when you picture Jesus in the garden, this serene place. Initially, he'd been praying to the Father. Then when that prayer is concluded, the sound of footsteps, the sound of troops, the flicker of torches in the distance comes toward Jesus and his disciples where they are in the garden. So here's my question for you. How many people do you think came looking for Jesus that day? How many people do you think marched up that hill to go and arrest Jesus? Well, when I was younger, I thought it had to be more than the number of disciples, so I knew it was more than 12. If there was people coming to arrest Jesus, it had to be at least more than those that were there protecting and looking out for him. So it had to be more than the 12, but I pictured it's a band, a hardy little contingent of Jews and Romans, 20 to 50 or something like that. However, the consensus among biblical scholars is that the actual number of those who went to arrest Jesus was somewhere between 200 and 1,000 armed men, and that's because the word that's used, it's the word cohort is how it's translated in the New King James. I think it's band in the ESV. But the word, as it's originally translated, means a large contingent that in those days was several hundred individuals. Not dozens. Not just a few scurvy guys with swords, but rather hundreds of battle-trained men. This is an armed posse, a whole contingent of Romans and Jews alike. Not just the high priest and Malchus', his earless servant, but Malchus and the high priest and all these other Jewish leaders, and then all these Romans. It's this huge wave of men coming up through the Mount of Olives to this garden. We call it a garden because it was probably a secluded place. It might even have been kind of walled off within Gethsemane itself. There was a huge amount of people that came up to look for Jesus. Now, before we return to today's text, I want you to consider that. Throughout scripture, there's a lot of occasions where God's people were outnumbered. Think of times in scripture where God's people seem to be outnumbered by a whole lot of their enemies. Any examples, anything come to mind?

The Red Sea.

What's that? The Red Sea. All right. So you have the Israelites. God tells Pharaoh to, "Let my people go." Pharaoh does for a moment, and then he chases them. He chases them out and God's people are trapped. They're trapped with the Red Sea on one side, and all these frothing Egyptians and Pharaoh and all the chariots and all their weaponry coming against them from the other. That's one example of a huge contingent coming against a smaller one. If you think of Gideon. Remember the story of the 300? Gideon's 300. Anyone have any idea how many Midianite soldiers were coming against Gideon and his 300? It's over 130,000 that came against Gideon and his number. You think of Elijah. One of my favorite passages, if you're in this church long enough, you'll hear me tell it time and time again. The time when Elijah goes up Mount Carmel to do battle, to have a battle royale against the false prophets of Baal and Asherah. Then after Elijah's season is done, you have Elisha. You have Elisha, one day he wakes up, his servant comes in and says, "Oh, master, we have a problem." What's the problem? "The problem is we're surrounded. The Syrians have come against us. There is a great army that has walled us in that's all around the city. We're doomed." We could go on example after example. God has routinely allowed and permitted his servants, his people, people like you and I, to face challenges and obstacles that look far greater than we have the ability to contend with. And that's for a reason. So that we'll stop trusting in our own strength, and we'll bend the knee and come to him in prayer and look to him for help. But throughout scripture, we see a myriad of occasions where God has allowed and appointed and ordained and decreed huge swaths of enemies to hem in his own individuals, and he is delighted in delivering his people from their enemies, time and time again. So here we have a picture of that, only different. Here in this New Testament narrative, we're going to see that it's going to be Jesus' special ones, his disciples, and Jesus himself, and they are going to be trapped, so to speak, caught, surrounded, outnumbered by a great multitude there in the Garden of Gethsemane. However, there's a key distinction between this event and all the other events that preceded it. Throughout the Old Testament, including the New Testament, God loves to deliver his people from the Syrians, from the Philistines, from all the enemies that might surround them, from sin, from judgment. God loves to deliver you and I from all of that. But in order to deliver you from sin and death and the wrath of God, he had to deliver his own Son to it. You see the distinction. Throughout the Bible, God delivers people from their enemies, from that would otherwise kill them, from that would otherwise crush them, from that which would otherwise destroy them. He loves to deliver his people from these things. But the greatest calamity that any man could ever face is the wrath of God himself. In order to deliver you from that, he had to deliver Jesus to that. That's what happens in Matthew 18. All right, let's look at verses one through four, and then we'll work our way through this text. Verse one. "Now when Jesus had spoken these words..." This is the great prayer, the high priestly prayer that we covered in the past couple weeks. "When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples." They left the upper room finally, and went across the Brook Kidron, which was probably what's called a wadi. It's probably a dry creek bed. But he crosses the Brook Kidron, "Where there was a garden," that he was very familiar with, "which he and his disciples then entered." Verse two, "And Judas, who betrayed him, also knew of this place, for Jesus had often met there with his disciples. Then Judas, having received a detachment of troops..." Again, other translations will use cohort or band or what have you. But, "Having received a detachment of troops..." These are Roman troops. "And officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns," with torches, "and with weapons."Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that would come upon him, went forward and said to them, "Who are you seeking?" And they answered him, said, "Jesus of Nazareth." Throughout the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, what we see is that one of Christ's favorite places anywhere to go was the Mount of Olives. He liked to teach his disciples there. He liked to go up there and pray and be with his Father in the solitude. So, this is one of his favorite places to go, and there was a man named Judas who knew it. Now, back in chapter 13, Judas had still been with Jesus that very night, the night that he was betrayed. On the night that he was betrayed, Judas, the betrayer, was with him at the Last Supper. Jesus is doing the most wonderful things, breaking bread, pouring the cup, talking about how he's going to give himself up for his loved ones. He's washing feet. He's just saying all these wonderful, kind things, and there's Judas over there scheming and plotting. And what does Judas do? Well, we see in chapter 13 that he goes out. He goes out, and Jesus knew why he went out, and Jesus knew what he was going to go do. In fact, Jesus not only knew it, but he says to Judas, he says, "What you go and do, do quickly." Jesus knew exactly what was about to go down, and it would appear that Judas listened to Jesus maybe this one time. He listened to Jesus, and he did it quickly. He makes a beeline. He goes straight to the authorities and he says, "Guys, I know exactly where he's going to be, but we got to hurry." Now, the Pharisees and the priests and all these guys, they were just foaming at the mouth at the prospect of dealing with Jesus once and for all. So they immediately, they arm up. The Roman detachment is called into play. Everyone grabs their torch, their lantern, their pitchfork, their knives, whatever they could. You'd think they were going after Jack the Ripper. You'd think they were going after Barabbas, some sort of villain in this context. No, they're going after Jesus, the Jewish carpenter. Whatever the case is, they take all the men that they've got, they take all the weapons and torches and lanterns that they've got, and they head up the hill until, we see in verse four, they encounter the very one that they have sought out, hand-delivered by Judas, who the other Gospels say will betray Jesus with a kiss. Judas was quite a rat. Let's look at the next verse. We'll look at verses four through nine together. Verse four: "Jesus, therefore, knowing all the things that would come upon him," again, he knew what was going to go down, "he went forward," he didn't stand back and hide behind the other disciples, but he went forward, and he "said to them, 'Who are you seeking?' And they answered him, 'Jesus of Nazareth.' And Jesus said to them, 'Ego eimi.' I am he. And then Judas, who betrayed him, also stood with him. Now, when he said to them, 'I am he,' they drew back, and they fell to the ground." Interesting. They fell to the ground. Why is this? So they fell to the ground. Verse seven: "Then he asked them again, 'Whom are you seeking?' And they said, 'Jesus of Nazareth.' And Jesus answered and said, 'I've told you that I am.' Ego eimi. I am he. Therefore, if you seek me, let these other go. Let these other go their way, that the saying might be fulfilled of which he spoke, 'Of those whom you gave me, I have lost none.'"

You know, the Gospel of John is not one of the Synoptic Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the first three Gospels, give kind of this chronological overview of the life and times of Jesus. You want to know what he did and where he did it and where he went and what he did next and the chronology and so forth, Matthew, Mark, and Luke give a synopsis of the life and times and ministry of Jesus Christ. John's a little bit different. John's Gospel deals oftentimes more with the greater narrative of how and why he did the things he did, not so much the strict order in which he did them. With that said, when you read the Book of John, something stands out as part of that narrative, the meta-narrative. There's something that stands out, and what it is is this. John records a series of statements that Jesus made that begin with the terms ego eimi. I am. The I am statements. Can you think of any? Jesus says, "I am" what? I am, give me one. What's that? The way. "I'm the way, the truth, and the life." Elsewhere, he says, "I am the good shepherd. I am the vine. I am the light of the world. I am the bread of life." I am, I am, I am, I am. We see all these I am statements throughout the book. You could say they make up the fabric or the outline even, to a degree, of John's Gospel. The I am statements. With that said, look what happens here. You have the capstone I am. Here at the very moment when he's betrayed, they come to him. They come looking for him. "Who are you looking for?" "Jesus of Nazareth." What does Jesus say? Ego eimi. I am. Now, you know what we've done in English translations? We've added he. We've added the pronoun. You read the Greek, ego eimi. I am, I am, I am. Where does that remind us of? It's not just the things he said previously in the Book of John. If you go back to the Book of Exodus, you see that when Moses is sent to go to Pharaoh, sent to go and tell Pharaoh to let my people go, Moses says, "Who should I say has sent me?" What does God the Father tell Moses to go and tell Pharaoh? "Tell him I am. I am has sent me to you." I am. When the Pharisees wanted to stone Jesus, they wanted to stone him for a lot of reasons, but the main time when they would pick up a stone was when he would make a statement like that, I am. When he would say that "I am the God of your fathers. I am not just a prophet of the God of your fathers. I am he." That's what he says here in Matthew 18. In front of all the witnesses, in front of his own disciples, in front of the Jews, in front of the high priests, in front of the Romans, the Gentiles. They want to know who he is. He says, "I am." And what happened next? They all fell down. They all fell down. Don't underestimate that this is the capstone of the other I am statements that preceded it. They all fell down when they heard the declaration, the divine declaration of authority that Jesus made. It's as if for that brief moment, in the darkness of the garden itself, light shines in, breaks through. The transcendent radiance and majesty of Jesus Christ himself breaks through for a moment. And even if they didn't understand why it happened, we know what happened. They fell downFalling down before the radiance and majesty of God is something that happens a lot of times in scripture if you go looking for it. It happens in the Old Testament, Isaiah. Isaiah, chapter six, comes into the presence of God. Isaiah's a mighty man in his own right. He's a great prophet in his own right, probably the pinnacle guy on planet Earth at that time, and yet Isaiah comes in the presence of God. What does Isaiah do? He falls down, says, "Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King." He falls down. There's other times. Even Peter in the New Testament. I think it's in Luke 5 or Luke chapter 6, Peter falls down at a declaration that Jesus makes. It happens a lot if you go looking for it, and it happens right here in the garden, but sometimes we miss it. When we're reading through to find out what happens, we miss the fact they fell down. Romans, not just his disciples, the Romans fell down. In some way, the divine authority, as it's proclaimed from the lips of God himself in the garden, caused even secular man, even the Romans, to bend the knee there for a moment. And for what it's worth, that's a picture of what's coming. What does the book of Philippians say? That the name of Jesus Christ, every knee shall bow. At the name of Jesus Christ, at the name of the great I Am, at the name of Jesus Christ, every knee shall bow, of those in heaven, those on the earth, those under the earth, that every tongue should confess, from the Jews to the Gentiles, that every tongue should confess in due time that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, Philippians chapter two. We see a picture of that, a microcosm of that, a microcosm of what will later happen in the macro, and you see it, the most unlikely audience in one of the darkest of times and places at the moment of his betrayal. In any case, verses four through nine demonstrate Jesus was not trapped in the conventional sense. He knew what was coming. He knew Judas' betrayal. He knew where Judas would seek him. He knew the motivation of every man that was gathered around him that day. Question is, why'd he do it if he knew what was about to happen? Why did he do it if he knew what was about to occur, if he knew that the cross was in his future? Why go to the garden? Why go like a lamb led to the slaughter? Why do this? Well, he did it because that's what he came to do. Peter would regularly ask him, "Why are you doing this? What's going on? You can't be this. Can't do that. You can't go. You can't die." And Jesus would so patiently go to Peter, "Oh, Peter. Peter, Peter, Peter. Don't you understand? This is the way that it has to be." Earlier on, John chapter 12, Jesus said, "I came to this hour for a reason. My soul's troubled. What should I say, 'Father, save me from this? Save me from this hour?' It's for this purpose that I came to this hour." Jesus came to the garden, and he went to the cross because your soul, your future, your life was in the balance, including those of his disciples. All right. Let's look here at verses 10 through 12. Before I read verses 10 through 12, actually, let me just mention something of verse nine. I don't want to skip it. In verse nine, Jesus says, "So I'm he. I am." But he also said, "Hey, take me. But let these go. Let my disciples go, that I might be fulfilled that he has lost none of those which have been given to him." Jesus says, "Take me, not them." For what it's worth, that's also the microcosm of what happens in the macro. The entire gospel ministry, his entire purpose for being on earth was that. Take me, not them. Intercession right up until the end. All right, verses 10 through 12. "Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant." If I had asked you to guess which disciple is it going to be that's going to reach for a sword and slice off the ear of one of the Romans, who would it be? I think we would've all said, "Yeah, Peter. That's Peter." Well, sure enough, "Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear." Apparently bad aim. I guarantee you he wasn't aiming for the ear. So he cuts off the right ear. And then the servant's name, interestingly here, is in verse 10, the servant's name was Malchus. One more side note. You know the amount of people who are actually named in scripture? Not many. Not many people are named in scripture. Why was the one-eared servant named here? Why Malchus? Well, what some commentators believe, and I think is legitimate based on the way that these narratives were oftentimes constructed, is that the gospel authors, like John, was able to attest to that which he saw, but they also oftentimes used eyewitnesses to help piece things and put things together. And it's very possible that he didn't know the name Malchus at the time that Malchus' ear was cut off, but it's possible he learned it later because Malchus might've been an eyewitness about what went down that very day. Whatever the case is, he's named here, which is interesting. Verse 11. So Jesus said to Peter, "Put your sword into the sheath." Put your sword away, Peter. "Shall I not drink the cup which my Father has given me?" For the umpteenth time, Jesus stops the presses and says, "Peter! Peter, I keep telling you this has to happen. Do you remember at the meal? We sat down, I broke the bread, give the cup, explain the death. We'll do these things until I return. Peter, the cup, the cup, the cup. I have to drink it. Put your sword away. Shall I not drink the cup which my Father's given me? Shall I not do what I came here to do, Peter?" Then verse 12. "Then the detachment of troops and the captains and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus, and they bound him."

Peter often oscillated between what you might call great courage and great fear. You see both of them this very night. Now, what's the courage? Well, we just read it. They're surrounded. They're outnumbered. They're outnumbered by battle-hardened Roman soldiers. Men with not simply with swords, but with armor. It takes some courage to stand there and see that these people have come to take away your leader, your rabbi. It takes some courage to take a sword out against hundreds, knowing that the prospect is your life will be forfeit for that action. It takes courage to do that. Of course, what'll happen just hours thereafter? Well, Peter will deny that he even knew Jesus. Isn't that interesting? Have you ever felt that imbalance in your own walk, in your own life, in your own ministry? There's times when you feel so courageous for Jesus. You know that phrase we use in evangelicalism, on fire for Jesus? There's times you feel on fire for Jesus, and there's other times when the moment is ripe to share the gospel with someone at work or a family member, what happens and zip, just go silent. We're anxious, we're fearful, we're scared. Well, Peter experienced that, tooNow, why cut off the ear? Well, again, Peter probably thought he was serving Christ by doing so. He probably thought that's what Christ would've wanted, and that's probably why he did it. In that brief moment, while he contemplated for a second, he probably thought this was a good and righteous and virtuous thing to do. And yet it wasn't. Sometimes that which seems so righteous to us is not what God wants of us at all. You see, here's the thing. The reason Jesus was in the garden to begin with was to save people like Malchus. The reason Jesus came to the garden, the reason Jesus came to planet Earth to begin with, was to save his enemies. Newsflash, we were all once his enemies. That's what mankind is. Until such time as God enters in and changes our hearts, we are all his enemies. And on high, where he sits in his throne, if Jesus just wanted to deal with his enemies, he could've cast boulder after boulder after boulder down upon us. He could've eviscerated the entire globe with a blast of his nostrils if that was his objective. But it wasn't. His objective was not to eviscerate you with a blast of his nostrils, but rather to buy you back by doing exactly what he was doing here in the garden and later on the cross. His purpose in even being in the garden, even setting foot there for a moment, was to give himself up. On behalf of his disciples, yes, but undoubtedly, on behalf of at least some of the men that were even at that moment aiming their swords at him. It's very likely there were others on that hillside that day who came to a saving faith in Jesus Christ at some point after the fact, perhaps even Malchus. Whatever the case is, Jesus came not necessarily to bring the boulders, to bring the fire, to bring the brimstone, to bring the sword, but rather to bring grace and healing. And that healing, if you look in the Book of Luke, what does Jesus do? The moment Peter takes his sword out and cuts off this ear, on the one hand, he tells Peter, "Knock it off, Peter. Let's go over this cup thing again, Peter." But what does he do to Malchus? He heals him. He goes over and he heals and restores the ear of this one who was there with ill intentions toward Jesus himself. Now, again, we don't know if Malchus is converted. There's other faith traditions, I think Catholicism and others assume that he was later converted. We don't really know. But I know this much. If he ever was converted, it was far more likely that he was converted with some recollection of what Jesus did and not what Peter did. Some recollection, not so much of how Peter really ministered to me, "Oh, Peter, I love that Peter." It was probably more so that Jesus, that Jesus, that Jesus. As a side note, as we look to wrap up here this morning, at least this part of the text until next week, zeal for Jesus is a good thing. Dear heavens, have zeal for Jesus. Have zeal for the kingdom. Have zeal for the Bible. Have zeal for church. Have zeal. You and I should be zealous for the one who gave himself up willingly to buy us back from sin and death. We should be zealous for his name. However, do not confuse zeal with brandishing a sword, a keyboard, even a microphone in an ungracious and unloving way. All right. Finally, before we close this morning, notice again, Jesus asked Peter the question, "Should I not drink the cup which my Father has given me?" As we said before, that very evening, Jesus had taken the cup and said, "This is my blood, which is given for you." Jesus knew what was going to happen. We've established that. He knew it was going to happen, but he was not necessarily excited for what was going to happen. And it's okay to make that distinction. The other gospel records record that when he came into the garden, he sweated like drops of blood, and he was praying to the Father. So what was going to happen on the cross? What was going to go down? Well, we talked about this in other intervals. What was going to go down is this. On Calvary, Jesus was nailed to the cross. It would happen shortly after the events that we see here in John chapter 18. He'd be nailed to the cross, but while he was on the cross, it wasn't the nails, it wasn't the Roman spear, it wasn't all those things that he feared and he dreaded and he concerned about in the garden when he was praying. That stuff was not his concern. His concern was this, the cup filled with the wrath and fury of God against sins was to be poured down on him completely, and he would have to drink every last drop. A number of years ago, my daughter had cancer for a season when she was very small. We lived up in northeast Wyoming, and we had an opportunity to go down regularly and stay at the Ronald McDonald House outside of Aurora, Colorado, near Denver, because that's where the best oncologists were in our area. So we went down, we stayed at the Ronald McDonald House, which was a wonderful blessing to us. God ministered to us through that entire process. But one of the interesting things that happened was that while we were at the Ronald McDonald House, they gave us some tickets to local attractions. One of the attractions that we got to go to was the aquarium there in Denver. You're in a fairly landlocked area, so getting to see all the sea creatures was just wonderful if you lived in this area. So the aquarium in Denver was awesome. It was really cool. If you've never been and you get a chance, it's worth seeing. Very cool. But there was something I didn't expect to exist at an aquarium there in Denver. We were walking around the aquarium, and you look at all the sea life, but then you come into a specific room. And there is a concern in Colorado that's not a concern so much here. It's a concern of what we call flash floods. You know in Colorado and other places that have high topography, what happens when it rains up in the mountains is that oftentimes that rain, when it comes down, especially if it's rained heavily in the mountains, it comes down in a torrent. It comes down through what are previously perhaps dry creek beds, wadis, like the Brook Kidron, and it just explodes, washes away everything that it touches. Well, there was an exhibit at the aquarium there where the whole group would cross this bridge, and they had you stand there for a moment. And off to the side, there was this picturesque topography of rocks and boulders and fake trees, but there was also this hole. And out of this hole, you could hear noises, like rumblings coming through it, and occasionally there'd be a fake flash of lightning and the like. And they'd have you stand here, and the rumblings get louder and louder. But nothing's happening. You're just standing there on the bridge, kind of looking at this, the rumblings there. And then all of a sudden, out of this hole in the fake rocks shoots this huge torrent of water. It comes flying out of this hole in the fake rock, and where's it aimed? Well, it's aimed at you standing there on this narrow bridge. With that said, I did not get wet that day. Why? I didn't get wet because there was something between me and my group and my family and the water. It was about the thickest plexiglass that I've ever seen. Three or four inches thick, right across the edge of the bridge there. And the water, when it comes out, they've aimed it so it comes right at you. It hits that plexiglass [claps] like that. You could feel the reverberation of it hitting this plexiglass. And yet we all stayed dry. Why? Because the plexiglass took it all. The plexiglass stood between us and that which would otherwise have wiped us away. Ever since that moment, that's always been a picture in my mind's eye of who and what Jesus is. Jesus stands between you and I and the torrent of God's wrath that would otherwise sweep us away. If God's wrath is like a cup poured out on humanity, I guarantee you, you need something between it and you if you hope to stand on that day. Jesus is a great intercessor. "Take me, not them." That's the story of John chapter 18, and all the chapters we're going to encounter in the next number of weeks. Let's pray.

[gentle instrumental music] To search through an archive of Dr. Holt's previous sermons, please visit us at fpcgulfport.org, or you can look us up at sermonaudio.com.