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The Shadow of Calvary Chp 6:
Secret Prayer Answered Openly

Hugh Martin

“Judas, then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns, and torches, and weapons. Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye? They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he. And Judas also, which betrayed him, stood with them. As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward and fell to the ground. Then asked he them again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he. If therefore ye seek me, let these go their way: That the saying might be fulfilled which he spake, Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none.”  John 18:3-9

The arrest and capture of God’s Messiah, as a criminal, is a procedure so replete with scandal and offence as loudly to demand an explanation.

It is not the part which man enacted in this matter that needs to be explained; or if it does, the explanation is very obvious, and was furnished some time before by Jesus himself when contending with his persecutors: “If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:39-44).

But admitting all this, the real difficulty and the deep offence still remain. For all the shame to which Jesus was thus subjected was controlled “by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). And the explanation so urgently required, the scandal or stumbling-block to be taken out of the way, is this: In view of the personal innocence of Jesus, how can it possibly comport with the righteousness of God that he should load his Messiah with the accurately-sustained reproach and the systematic destiny and retribution of guilt? Is it not, at the first blush, a very grievous scandal - soon to be spread all through Jerusalem and thereafter all through the world, till the end of time, whosesoever this gospel shall be preached, that this Jesus, through whom mighty works of God had shown themselves, is under arrest as if he were a thief or a robber? And is not the rock of scandal or offence mightily increased in magnitude and dangerousness when it is understood that such is the will of God concerning him?

For this is no random or riotous mob that overpowers the Son of Man. His position is very different from what it would have been had the members of the synagogue of Nazareth made him prisoner on the occasion of his first discourse among them, “when, being filled with wrath, they rose up and thrust him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong” (Luke 4:29). And it requires another explanation. For here we have the forms of justice gone through, and the rights of authority put forth for his apprehension. The determinate counsel of God operates its own profound will through the deliberate counsels of men in high places. Civil and ecclesiastical powers combine to place Jesus, by every legal form, in the position of a criminal, under the charge of having broken laws civil and sacred alike - human and divine. The great multitude, with staves and swords, with lanterns and torches, were acting as men under commission to so what they did. They had all the authority with which they could possibly have been armed. They were the “chief priest and elders and Pharisees” (John 18:3; Matt 26:47), who had procured the band of men and officers. This “band,” with their officers or captains, were undoubtedly a detachment of Roman soldiers obtained from Pilate. Already, therefore, the rulers took counsel against the Lord’s anointed. Onwards from this ominous commencement of the dreadful game on hand, Jew and Gentile were playing it in consultation; and whatever authority the Synagogue could wield, or the Governor’s hall put forth, were combined to give official force and validity to the warrant that now went forth against the Son of Man.

For it was a thoroughly official warrant which was now out for his arrest, thoroughly competent, however unrighteous. Barabbas himself could not have been more duly apprehended than Jesus now was, and that by the determinate counsel of God. Now, what is the explanation? Why did the righteous God place his holy Messiah in such an attitude and destiny? Why did his determinate counsel arrange that the innocent Jesus should depart this life under all the forms of a criminal’s punishment, preceded by all the steps of a criminal process or prosecution?

The SocinianAmong other errors, the Socinians teach that Christ was merely human and that his death made no atonement for sin, nor did it procure pardon from God. They believe that Christ’s life and death are merely the example of a holy man’s faith and obedience, which we ought to imitate as the way to eternal life. doctrine of Jesus dying as a holy martyr, sealing his doctrine with his blood - will that remove the scandal? Nay; it blasphemes the character of God and shocks the conscience of man. Was the righteous over-ruling God, the judge of all, evoking merely a martyr’s testimony, when he awoke all legal and official powers in Jerusalem to serve the ends of his “determinate counsel,” and put the case against Jesus into legal shape and follow it out from first to last in all due legal form? God forbid.

Or will the Arminian notion of Jesus dying in some sense, and in the same sense, for all men - that is, when rightly sifted and examined, merely in some sense for the good of men, so that now all men can make better terms with God or have another chance of escaping hell - an opportunity, though a relaxed or softened covenant, to save themselves. That also is very far from removing this grievous scandal or explaining this most offensive exhibition.

There must be an explanation that will gloriously vindicate the justice of God in so pursuing and prosecuting legally the man of sorrows. There must be an explanation which will not merely vindicate the character of God, in the sense of showing that this process or prosecution which the divine “determinate counsel” carried on, is no impeachment of the divine justice, but that it involves an illustrious instance and forthgoing of this divine justice. There must be an explanation which will even swallow up the scandal in glory and make the very offence of the cross a fountain and a revelation of high moral excellence and triumph - not only not the eclipse, but the victory of righteousness.

The doctrine which thus at once vindicates the personal innocence of Jesus and the public righteousness of God, and transforms the scandal into glory, and the shame into moral loveliness, is the surety ship and substitution of Jesus in the room of his people, with the imputation to him, thereon, of his people’s transgressions. Accordingly, for this very reason - the Holy Ghost signifying this very truth - both at the commencement and at the close of this criminal process, the imputation of sin to Jesus is announced as the satisfactory and sufficient explanation of the whole.

1.  The Commencement of the Process - “reckoned among the transgressors”

Thus, in the first place, when warning the disciples of the shock which their feelings, and their faith, would sustain that night when these things should come to pass, Jesus furnished them with the true principle that would guide them safely: “For I say unto you that this which is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end” (Luke 22:37). This is the end which the things concerning me must have; namely, that I must be reckoned among the transgressors. This is the issue and the outgoing that my destiny must have. To this end all things are now pointing with me, even that I should be made sin, and bear the sins of many, having their iniquities made to meet upon me, being by imputation a transgressor and dealt with as such - yea, bearing the sins of a multitude whom no man can number, and through federal unity with them and as their legal representative and surety, responsible for all their transgressions and liable to be righteously and relentlessly pursued in their name even unto death. Grasp ye this principle: see me as in the eye of the righteous God standing in this position; and behold how the determinate counsel of God gives palpable revelation of the hidden realities of this marvellous case as it stands at his bar in righteousness by overruling and employing what of official power and authority are existing in the land, so that on the platform of obvious events there may be represented in symbolical or dramatic exhibition the infinitely righteous but invisible quarrel of the divine sword against the soul of the sin-laden substitute of sinners.

2.  The Close of the Process - “numbered with the transgressors”

And then, secondly, the Scriptures formally and expressly announce this principle again, when the process is closed and the sword is quenched in the blood of Jesus. For when the evangelist Mark records the final act of this legal process, namely, the crucifixion itself, “And with him they crucify two thieves, one on the right hand and the other on his left,” struck with the literal event as forming a marvellous and forcible commentary on the prophecy, he adds: “And the Scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors” (Mark 15:27,28).

That Scripture, in all the fulness of its doctrinal meaning, might have been fulfilled although many of the outward circumstances of Christ’s final sufferings had been ordered otherwise. Substantially it received its fulfilment in the fact that Jesus died the cursed death in the room and stead of the guilty. And Jesus might have so died, unto the satisfaction of divine justice, though he had not been arrested as a criminal by the hand of man or subjected to a judicial trial at the tribunals of the Jewish Sanhedrin and the Roman Governor, or crucified in company with malefactors. But then the palpable and blessedly abounding evidence that he so died as a surety for the guilty, himself laden with guilt, the guilt of imputed sin, would have been marvellously diminished. The anger of the invisible God against the invisible soul of the man Christ Jesus could not be beheld by mortal eye. But the world might be constrained to behold it as in a glass. And hence, to set it forth as if in unmistakable and terrible sacramental signs and seals, in and with which to the experience of the soul of Emmanuel the unseen process of his Father’s wrath was being carried on, the Father wielded at his pleasure, in infinite holiness, the official authority of those in high places of the land; put in requisition all forms of competent and legal order in criminal procedure; sacramentally, as it were, prosecuted the surety by awaking and employing against him all the constituted functions of “the powers that be” and which are “ordained of God,” every one in his place “the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath.” Hence the oracle which we hear resounding both at the commencement and the close of this process we ought to accept as justifying and explaining all that takes place between. “He was numbered with the transgressors, for he bare the sins of many” (Is 53:13). And it was to exhibit this hidden, spiritual fact that from the initial process of arrestment to the final execution on the cross God exhibited his own Son, a spectacle to angels and to men, in all the successive stages of a prosecuted criminal’s position; while thus, also, it comes to pass that what were otherwise invincibly scandalous, becomes a brilliant mirror in which to the eye of faith there shines forth with dazzling splendour the unmistakable evidence of that glorious covenant whereby Jesus the Holy One and the Just made sin for us, makes an end of sin, makes reconciliation for iniquity and brings in everlasting righteousness.

It is a strange midnight scene, this at the gate of Gethsemane. The rich flood of silver moonbeam, for it is fool moon at the Passover, fills the quiet vale, and here and there breaks in shivered gleams upon the little brook that murmurs among the olives. A grief-worn figure stands among some others, sleep-worn and fatigued, whom he is addressing in the mingled vein of rebuke and tenderness, when lo, a rush and hurried tread of many footsteps, the sudden gleam of lamps and torches, the clash of weapons; and immediately a great multitude, a band of soldiers, led on byh one who knows the ground and where the object of their search must be, confront the Lord and his disciples. And now the conduct of Jesus - full of immediate majesty and unbroken self-possession - demands our notice. Setting aside the traitor’s kiss and salutation, he presents himself at once as he whom they seek and surrenders in due order to their commission and their warrant.

It is to part of this transaction that we confine our attention at present. It is detailed by John alone, being entirely supplementary to the information of the other Evangelists; and we can hardly help feeling that John recorded it with peculiar pleasure and as a very study in illustration of his master’s glorious character and conduct.

For this procedure on the part of Jesus is, as we have said, full of majesty, and it is full of spiritual import. In fact the key to it is to be found by tracing in it the answer to the prayer in the garden: and viewing it in this light, the accordance is more complete than might at first be supposed, while the interest of the passage is greatly enhanced.

We must bear in mind that the ultimate agony of Christ’s prayer consisted of a burning and unquenchable desire that the will of God might be done. “O my Father, thy will be done.” And this will of God embraced immediately and directly these two objects: first, that Jesus should offer himself a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour to God; and, secondly, that herein he should be an effectual and accepted ransom securing the redemption of those whom the Father hath given to him. The first part of this will of God, namely, the offering of the body of Christ once for all, is asserted in the well-known passage: “Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me; in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sins thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, lo! I come to do thy will, O God” (Heb 10:5-7). And the second part of God’s will, namely, our separation and consecration to God, and thereby also our salvation, as the fruit of Christ’s death and sacrifice, is set forth in close connection with this in a subsequent verse, when the apostle says, “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ once for all” (Heb 10:10). Hence when the apostle describes his prayer of anguish in Gethsemane in these terms, “In the days of his flesh, he offered up supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death,” and when he assures us that his prayer was heard and answered “in that he feared” (Heb 5:7); he proceeds to show that it was precisely in these two points that the answer to his prayer consisted; first, that he might receive all needed grace to be “obedient unto death,” positively offering himself a sacrifice; for this was that will of God which he came to do: and secondly, that all his sheep, his children, the travail of his soul, might be secured unto eternal salvation. For unquestionably in these respects would the apostle have us to understand that he was “heard in that he feared”; namely, first, inasmuch as “though he were a Son he learned obedience by the things which he suffered” (verse 8), being made perfect in his function as a high priest, not by mere passive suffering, which is the destiny of the victim, but by active obedience, which is the duty of the priest, and especially of such a priest as Jesus, to whom it appertained, through the eternal Spirit, to offer himself without spot unto God. And then, secondly, the will of God being thus performed by Jesus, the sanctification or salvation of his people is also given to him, for being thus “made perfect he became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him” (verse 9).

Such are the two objects of God’s will, the two corresponding elements of Christ’s prayer, and the two-fold and complete answer. They embrace indeed, and briefly represent, the grand will and purpose of God in the everlasting covenant, consisting, as they really do, of the mutual pledge between the Father and the Son; first, on the part of the Son to the Father, that he should be obedient unto death, the ransom and the righteousness of the Church; and secondly, on the Father’s part to the Son, that he should indeed see of the travail of his soul, and that the Church in all her members should be ransomed and made the righteousness of God in him for ever.

Now, it is precisely these two elements of God’s will, of Christ’s prayer, and its answer, which reappear in this scene of the arrest and surrender of the Surety. For in the intercourse which he conducts with his pursuers before they lead him away captive there is, you will observe, a double series of inquiry and response; and the special character and aim of each is opened up by the key which we have suggested. Thus:

I.  THE FIRST SERIES OF INQUIRIES AND RESPONSE

“Jesus therefore knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth and said unto them, Whom seek ye? They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he. And Judas also which betrayed him stood with them. And as soon as he said unto them, I am he, they went backward and fell to the ground.” (verses 4-6).

Now it is obvious that the whole point of this first series of questions and replies turns on the fact that Jesus means, positively and distinctly, by his own will unmistakably expressed, and his own deed unconstrained performed, to surrender himself into their hands. It is not enough to say that “he is led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.” That is truth, most blessed truth; and regarding Christ as the victim, the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, it was very necessary that there should be realised in him the conditions requisite in the ancient and symbolic offerings, that he should go not unwillingly to the altar, even as also that he should be without spot or blemish. Hence there is very special attention directed to the fact that he was “led as a lamb to the slaughter.” But this is not the whole truth concerning him; for he is not only the Lamb, but the High Priest also whose duty it is to present the Lamb, to present himself as atonement and a sacrifice, to go forward not merely in uncomplaining submission, but in the active discharge of duty, learning not only to suffer meekly, but “learning obedience” in his sufferings; himself, in unutterable majesty, even in the midst of all his shame, conducting the glorious service at the unseen altar of God, and positively there offering up himself by his own intensely active will and deed. He is now come more immediately to that portion of the destiny assigned him where Eternal Justice prosecutes him as responsible for the guilty. The cup put into his hand in the garden was, doubtless, the final assignment to him of the position of a Surety and the consequent imputation of sin. Immediately thereafter his destiny and position became obviously those of a criminal. However unrighteously assigned to him by the malice of men, his position in all its steps, from his apprehension to his execution, had sacramental significance and truth in it terribly, as assigned to him by God; and from the very first stage of it in which the warrant went out for his arrest, it behoved him to feel that the time was specially come for him to adopt the oracle of the fortieth Psalm concerning him - Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, a body hast thou prepared me: Lo, I come to do thy will, O my God; Father, thy will be done; and now when the commissioned agents of lawful authority, moved by thy holy and determinate counsel, are here to lead me to the death of shame, they are to me, as by a holy sacrament of thy holy wrath, the agents of thy will, pursuing against me the quarrel of thy sword, O righteous Father: and therefore to them - yea, rather to Thee in them - I yield. “Whom seek ye?” “Jesus of Nazareth.” Then “I that speak unto you am he.”

Now this was the first part of Gethsemane’s prayer answered, in so far as the arrest or apprehension of the Surety was concerned. He agonised for grace and strength to be obedient unto the will of God. And now, by express will and act of his own, he offers himself to be apprehended.

This is the point or substance of the passage, and the separate circumstances all find their due significance, and are seen to be introduced with much precision, when the aim and scope of the whole is thus viewed.

1.  Jesus Actively Presented Himself

Thus, in the first place, the Evangelist introduces the circumstances of Christ’s perfect knowledge of what should happen to him. "Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth and said unto them, Whom seek ye?" (verse 4). It is not merely that Jesus, though he foresaw the consequences, was willing to surrender himself, so that we may be sure that in love to his people he knowingly placed himself in the very way of the sufferings which on their account awaited him. All that is true: and it greatly commends the love of Jesus. But it is something more immediately to the point which the Evangelist has in view. Jesus "knew all things that should come upon him"; and that they might not come upon him as a mere passive sufferer or victim, he went forth to meet them and actively present himself. He did not do so before; for that would have been ultroneously provoking, eliciting against himself and unduly hastening the destiny that was awaiting him: that therefore he did not doThat is, Jesus did not present himself to the authorities, before the authorities came seeking for him.. The things that should "come upon him" he was not in any sense to bring upon himself. He did not go forth to seek, or court, or call forth danger. But now that the danger and the destiny were "coming upon him" he "went forth" now! Earlier, he would have been eliciting and producing evil against himself, the author of his own sorrows. Later, he would have been caught by them as their victim, the mere passive sufferer - not the positively active - the "obedient unto death." Here, then, was the precise moment for Jesus to offer himself; neither the author, nor the passive victim, of "the things that should come upon him," but meeting them in the moment when by active duty he could so suffer as to vanquish them. Hence Jesus, in the very moment and manner requisite, "knowing the things that should come upon him, went forth and said unto them, Whom seek ye?"

2.  Whom seek ye?

Hence also, in the second place, the significance of the fact that Jesus extorted from them an acknowledgement that it was him they sought. “He went forth and said unto them, Whom seek ye? And they answered him, Jesus of Nazareth.” For he will not be captured incognito. It shall be thoroughly understood on all sides who it is that is sought, and who it is that is taken. He will answer only to his own name and surrender with all things explained and understood. It shall be done with all quietness, but it shall be done with no room for mistake. It is Jesus that is surrendering. It is no nameless wanderer - no unknown adventurer. It is he of whose mighty works and gracious doctrines Jerusalem has heard abundantly, and these very captors themselves have heard. This whole work is at their peril; and it touches their responsibility that they should be constrained to confess that it is Jesus whom they seek, and constrained to know that it is Jesus who puts himself at their disposal. Yes! It is at the name of Jesus that he surrenders; it is in that capacity that he offers himself a sacrifice - as one who “saves his people from their sins.”

3.  Judas stood with them

Then a third circumstance noted by the Evangelist is the fact that Judas stood by, a spectator to this intercourse of inquiry and reply which now went forward. Then “Jesus saith unto them, I am he. And Judas also, which betrayed him, stood with them” (verse 5). He stood with them. He saw the whole transaction. He heard all the conversation. And he was confounded and amazed. This is what he had never expected. This positive obedience on Christ’s part, in absolutely and freely surrendering himself, he had not looked for. It renders all his own treachery and planning in a sense ridiculous. It sets aside, as null and useless, all his scheme to indicate his master by a kiss, and all his excited conjuring to the soldiers to “hold him fast” - “to take him and lead him away safely” (Matt 26:48; Mark 14:44).It pours contempt upon the whole part the traitor took in this scene. It renders his procedure utterly superfluous, utterly abortive. His kiss, his clever secret sign or token previously arranged and agreed upon, is altogether unnecessary, for Jesus announces and acknowledges himself. His admonition to “hold him fast” is as unnecessary for Jesus surrenders himself. His fraud and force - his concerted fraud and his advised force are rendered all useless together. It is a shocking and a galling attitude in which the traitor is placed by this positive obedience of Jesus. For thus Jesus “makes a show of him openly” as immersed in a “superfluity of naughtiness” - unnecessarily wicked, wicked overmuch!

Yes; do thou the will of thy God, O believer, as Jesus did, and thy faithfulness shall reveal an eternal confusion and abortion in all that the enemies of thy soul can undertake against thee.

4.  They went backward and fell to the ground

And now, in the forth place, the last circumstance mentioned by John in this part of the scene finds its interesting explanation also. “As soon then as he said unto them, I am he, they went backward and fell to the ground” (verse 6). For while concerning that positive obedience to the will of God which is the key to this transaction, the Apostle says, “Though he were a Son yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” we must also remember that though he learned obedience by the things which he suffered, yet still he was the Son, the Eternal Son, the effulgence of the Father’s glory; the true and very God, “by the blast of whom men perish, and by the breath of his nostrils they are consumed” (Job 4:9). And it was not without its significance that his obedience, as the Son of Man, God’s faithful servant, should carry with it on the minds of men some terrifying stamp and witness of his glory as the Son of God. Thus his voice seems in this instance to have conveyed some impression of majesty and terror: and his enemies fell before him as if driven by a flash of fire to the ground. “For the voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thundered.” “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory - the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.”

Was the voice of Jesus, when he thus spoke gently, surrendering himself a prisoner, so terrible that a great multitude with swords and weapons rushed back as if blinded by the lightning? And when he sits, the Eternal upon his throne, that same arrested prisoner the judge of all the earth, what power will his words of retribution carry!

But with regard to this incident in its bearing on Christ’s procedure as manifesting the answer of his prayers; observe in conclusion, that it puts the copestone on the evidence that Jesus was in reality and in good faith surrendering himself by an act of positive and meritorious activity. It was not because he could not do anything better in the circumstances; not because he was already in their power and he would make a virtue of a necessity, claiming credit for an act of self-surrender which the overwhelming force of the adversary counselled as the most advisable step that now remained. No. He had but gently to announce himself to these men as the object of their search, and immediately, like the keepers of his grave, when the dazzling glory of the angelic beings falls upon their eyeballs, they tremble and become as dead men. And thus the whole fulness of will and merit in his positive obedience in yielding himself to them or, rather, to God, announcing his hidden will through them, is gloriously vindicated as the doctrine which this passage is designed to teach and which every circumstance which the Spirit of God thought right to record is fitted to confirm. Thus, as far as this portion of Gethsemane’s prayer in reference to the will of God is concerned, we see it fully and gloriously answered; and in this noble instance we may see, in the case of our great High Priest himself, his own blessed word fulfilled, “Thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

But there was a second element in the will of God and in the prayer of Jesus, having reference to the fruit of his obedience unto death - the deliverance, namely, and salvation of the Church. Accordingly it is on it that the second series of question and reply is fitted to throw an interesting light.

II.  THE SECOND SERIES OF INQUIRIES AND RESPONSE

“Then asked he them again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he. If therefore ye seek me, let these go their way: that the saying might be fulfilled which he spake, Of them which thou gavest me, I have lost none” (verses 7-9).

The special feature of this resumption of the strange work of interrogation lies manifestly in the fulfilment here described of the word which Jesus had formerly spoken. This is the point and scope of this second half of the conference. The first turned upon the absolute perfection of Christ’s positive obedience in surrendering himself. The language of it is: “Lo, I come to do thy will.” The language of the second part is: “By the which will we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Christ once for all.” For Jesus has no intention whatever to surrender in any other character or capacity than as the surety of his people, the shepherd of the sheep, the good shepherd giving his life for the sheep; by death redeeming the transgressions of the guilty; by death ransoming many sons unto life and glory who were all “as dead men.” As to himself, personally considered, his captors have no right to seize him, even as they have no power but what he gives them; for behold, they are “gone backward and fallen to the ground.” And if he yield himself at all, it is to his Father and not to them - to his Father, as announcing his will in and through them. And he does so as the representative and substitute of his flock, called to be so by his Father’s will, called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedeck. But his Father’s will also is that none of his little ones should perish; that they should be emancipated from the curse of the law, by the surrender of their surety in their stead. Jesus knew this portion also of his Father’s will, and his heart was set upon it. It was indeed the joy that was set before him - the purchase of his pain - the pledge and promise made to his obedience unto death. Hence Jesus is resolved to guard and defend this element of his Father’s will as much as he is prepared to acknowledge and fulfil the former.

But a distinction must here be premised. We may regard these pursuers of our Lord in two lights; either, first, personally and in their responsibility as consciously fulfilling their own wicked passions; or, secondly, as unconsciously fulfilling the holy purpose of God - not witting that they are the agents of the Most High accomplishing the determinate counsel of his will and prosecuting the righteous cause of his justice.

1.  Personal Responsibility

Viewing them in the former light, we see in their conduct a terrible violation of divine restraint. For though baffled at first and thrown back - overthrown marvellously by a word - it is clear they never seek to quit the ground or lay aside their purpose. Had they done so, certain it is that Jesus would never have challenged or provoked them to resume it. It was not with this view, or for this reason, that he resumed his interrogations. He saw them still resolved, so soon as they recovered, to continue and prosecute their design; and undoubtedly he gave them a renewed opportunity of apprehending him, only because they desired and sought it. Now, mark in this the grievous hardness of their hearts: for, to prosecute a guilty purpose after the grace of God interposes obstacles and restraints, whether on the conscience secretly, or by obvious providences, argues that hardening of the heart, and that following of an evil course greedily and with resolution, which points in the direction of judicial blindness and abandonment, and which approaches fast towards the sin which is unto death. Beware how you deal with such restraints; for the manner in which you deal with them discloses very much of your moral and spiritual state, and deeply and solemnly and very dangerously affects it.

You design some evil course or end. You covert the wages of unrighteousness, or you resolve on such a deed of wrath as worketh not the righteousness of God. You are tempted to go and curse Israel1  And the children of Israel set forward, and pitched in the plains of Moab on this side Jordan by Jericho.
2  And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the ammorites.
5  He sent messengers therefore unto Balaam the son of Beor to Pethor, which is by th river of the land of the children of his people, to call him, saying, Behold, there is a people come out from Egypt: behold, they cover the face of the earth, and they abide over against me:
6  Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me: peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the land: for I wot that he whom thou cursest is cursed.
Numbers 22:1,2,5,6, or to go and avenge yourself on Nabal10  And Nabal answered David’s servants, and said, who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants now a days that break away every man from his master.
11  Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be?
12  So David’s young men turned their way, and went again, and came and told him all those sayings.
13  And David said unto his men, Gird ye on every man his sword; and David also girded on his sword: and there went up after David about four hundred men; and two hundred abode by the stuff.
1 Samuel 25:10-13. But on your way the Lord’s restraint interposes. Abigail waylays you23  And when Abigail saw David, she hasted, and lighted off the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground.
24  And fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my Lord, upon me let this iniquity be: and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the words of thine handmaid.
25  Let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial, even Nabal: for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him: but I thine handmaid saw not the young men of my lord, whom thou didst send.
1 Samuel 25:23-25, or rather God in his mercy waylays you, seeking to turn you from your purpose. And this dispensation of restraining influence distinctly says: Oh, do not this wickedness which I hate, and it shall be no grief unto thee nor offence of heart another day. You listen. You see the Lord’s hand. You hear the Lord’s voice. You stop short. You are reproved. You are snatched from evil. You breathe freely and thank God32  And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me:
33  And blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand.
1 Samuel 25:32,33. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me, and blessed be thy advice which hath kept me this day from evil.” Yes! bless God who hath thus interposed to warn; and bless God again who hath given thee grace to take the warning and to turn from thine evil purpose. Follow up such gracious dealing. For surely the Lord would seem in all this to have towards thy soul a purpose of life and of love; and thy soul, if thou art faithful, shall be bound up in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God. For such restraints upon his part, when met by humble submission and docility on thine, would seem to prove that there is the grace of God in thine heart and the fear of God before thine eyes; and if thus thy gracious state be revealed, its graciousness shall hereby also be confirmed and be strengthened too.

But dost thou despise, and burst, and break through the restraining of the Lord? Then fear lest this demonstrate gracelessness and confirm unchangeably and finally thy graceless state. What! You will curse Israel for the wages of unrighteousness! You will go with the men! But in the way the Lord interposes. He sends the angel with the drawn sword. He opens the dumb beast’s mouth to speak with man’s voice. He interferes at least sufficiently to show that you are rushing violently against his will and righteousness. But still you go with the men: you go as soon as the angel’s sword is withdrawn. You rise from your sick-bed and return once more to love the world as before, and serve mammon with the best of your heart, as really your master and your god. The voice of trembling that spake on that sick-bed and cried, “Let me die the death of the righteousWho can count the dust of Jacob, and the number of the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!
Numbers 23:10 and let my latter end be like his,” is silent now; and the restraining angel being thus gone, you resume your journey and your course of sin. Then, know that your latter end shall not be peace, but calamity and desolation at which the Lord shall mock! Or if it be not so, the Lord being marvellously merciful unto you, your salvation shall be accomplished only by marvellously mercy on his part, and through the depths of terrible repentance on thy part - as it was doubtless in the case of some of these very men who forgot the voice which felled them to the ground and resumed their evil work notwithstanding; but who were brought to repentance, if they were among the penitent, only under that sore charge and conviction: “Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know” - even as when his gentle voice, like a thunderbolt, threw you to the ground - “him have ye taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: and when they heard these things they were pricked to the heart, and said, Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:22,23,37).

Ah! it had been better for them that they had accepted the restraint which the Lord placed upon them: better far that they had returned, as a previous band of agents had, without their prisoner44  And some of them would have taken him; but no man laid hands on him.
45  Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, Why have ye not brought him?
46  The officers answered, Never man spake like this man.
John 7:44-46. And had the chief priests and Pharisees asked them, Why have ye not brought him? - remembering his word which, as a whirlwind, drove back an armed band of men, they might have said, surely with even more force than their predecessors said, “Never man spake like this man!”

Still in his gospel Jesus speaks, and speaks as never man spake, even in the foolishness of preaching, as it touches and tells upon the trembling consciences of men. There is something far more than a man’s voice - a proof of Christ speaking to us through our fellow men. Alas! it is still too largely true that the restraint of Christ’s voice still goes for nothing: and men, overthrown by it for the moment, rise and resume their sins!

2.  Unconscious Agents of the Most High

But, secondly, losing sight of the individual responsibility and wicked wills of these men, and regarding them as the unwitting instruments by which the will and purpose of eternal justice is indicated, the lesson which their terrified resile and strange return to their purpose reads, is a different one. It is to this effect, that even Divine Justice - thus secretly pursuing Jesus, and giving obvious and sacramental representation of her secret pursuit of his soul even unto death, by wielding against him all the authority of the land - even Divine Justice could not consent to accept of Christ’s surrender; yea would have shrunk back as affrighted from the proposal; except on the condition and proviso that he was surrendering on his part, and accepted on hers, as the ransom and the price for a multitude who should thus “go free.” Jesus, as an independent king, demands these terms from his pursuers. He demands, as one able to enforce what he demands; as one who has his very captors in his power, having altogether changed places with them; and able to appal and paralyse them by his gentle speech. “If ye seek me, let these go their way.” It is the King of Israel commanding deliverances for Jacob. He demands this as the condition on which he surrenders. But far more may we say that Divine Justice demands this also, as the only condition on which she will consent to accept his surrender. Till this is clearly brought out, her unconscious agents fall back in amazement and terror at the very offer of himself which Jesus makes. It is not till the safety of the sheep is on all hands guaranteed and secured that the Justice of God will allow her agents to place their rude hand upon the shepherd. The determinate counsel of God drives them back in dismay till it be understood by all concerned that the arrest of Jesus shall purchase the freedom of his children. It is, you say, Jesus whom you seek - Jesus who saves his people from their sins. If ye seek me, let these go their way: “And hereby was fulfilled the word that he spake, Of those whom thou hast given me I have lost none.”

But is not this straining the event too far and dragging out of it an inference which it is not fitted to yield? How can the plain fact of Jesus demanding the liberty of the eleven be taken as a proof of the profound truth that the salvation of those for whom he died is secure; a fulfilment of his own saying, “Of those whom thou hast given me I have lost none”?

Let it be borne in mind that this whole scene is dramatic, symbolic, sacramental, in the sense in which we have already explained. The substantial fact of Christ, the surety, guilty by imputation in his people’s sins, being therefore summoned and arrested by Divine Justice to appear before the tribunal of his Father and the incensed face of an angry God, is an invisible fact. But at the time when it was in reality accomplished - invisibly accomplished, as of course its nature implied - it was also symbolically represented, while its reality and terrors were also as it were sacramentally sealed, by the accompanying formalities of a criminal prosecution, visibly conducted by human agents accomplishing the counsel of God. And thus in symbol, as well as in secret and in infinitely more terrible reality, “He was numbered with the transgressors.”

Over against this invisible arraignment of Jesus at God’s tribunal must be placed the emancipation of the Church and the letters patent of her liberty, which as the fruit of Christ’s surrender passed under the great seals of heaven at the very same time - a glorious transaction in the court of the Most High God; glorifying the arrest of Christ as infinitely holy, wise and righteous - itself also an invisible transaction. But then it might be, it ought to be, symbolically and sacramentally set forth also on earth, by some visible sign and seal, or drama, simultaneously with the substitute’s arrest, transacted on the same spot and at the same time, secured by the surety himself as the fruit and condition of his surrender. Hence, just as his capture by the hands of men obviously shadowed forth and surely sealed his arrest under the hand of the King invisible, so this escape of the eleven equally represents as in a mirror - and, be it observed, seals with all sensible proof and conviction - the eternal salvation which Christ’s offering and sacrifice secured for his people. So that we see, in this very humble fact of the eleven being exempted from apprehension or arrest with Jesus by the Roman soldiers, a sacramental or symbolic and confirming evidence - a dramatic representation, and thereby and therewith also a real fulfilment of the saying, “Of those whom thou hast given me I have lost none.”

Oh! Jesus did not die - why should he die? - how indeed could he die? - ignorant of the fruits which his death should bear. That man indeed saw little of the truth and glory of the everlasting covenant who said that “the work and death of Jesus would have been very glorious though no individual of the human race had ever come and reposed living faith in the surety.” How dishonouring to the work of Jesus! How dishonouring to the righteousness of God! To what straits are men reduced when at all hazards they will have it that the death of Jesus was accomplished alike for the saved and the lost! For if he died for the lost, and yet his death did not secure them from being lost, it must be something else than his death that secured the saved unto salvation. So that if Jesus died for all alike, it is not his death that secures the salvation of any; it only secures, it seems, the possibility of salvation for all! That is the whole fruit of it, and it is this which has tempted to the terrible and blasphemous assertion that “his death would have been a glorious work though none had been saved by it at all.” That is to say, though he had never earned the name of Jesus, who saves his people from their sins! We have not so learned the covenant or gospel or our salvation. And very clearly our blessed Lord did not so understand the case in which he himself has so glorious an interest. “If ye seek me, let these go their way, that the saying might be fulfilled, Of those whom thou hast given me I have lost none.”

Now this was his Father’s will: these were his Father’s gift. Concerning this gift and this will of his Father, his soul in Gethsemane had agonized in prayer. And now his prayer is answered. His Father’s will on this most vital point is done. “All whom the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father’s will that sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing.” “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight; be it unto me according to thy word. O my Father, thy will be done.” And even so it is done indeed. “If ye seek me, let these go their way. And the saying is fulfilled which he spake, Of those whom thou hast given me I have lost none.”

It appears then, on a review of this whole transaction, that in so far as this first and initial process admitted of it, the whole is conducted as in the precise answer to the prayer of Gethsemane; and the answer in regard is given openly. First; the surety prays for grace to do the will of God - to be obedient unto death. And he shows that in answer to his prayer the Lord has taught him, and that he has “learned obedience.” He is not arrested in the imperfect and incomplete capacity of a passive victim; he surrenders in the duty and the action of an High Priest made perfect. And it is openly transacted. A great multitude look on and behold the majesty in which he acts. Secondly; the surety prays that by this will of God his sheep may be sanctified and set apart in safety and unto holiness by the offering of his body once for all. And it is done unto him, and done also openly. They go free in the presence of their foes; there doth not an hair of their head fall to the ground; none of them is lost. And a great multitude looks on and sees their salvation. Thus all that Jesus prayed for is granted, and granted openly before the world. And now, “Thou also, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Matt 6:6).

Pause then, O my soul, and contemplate and improve this great sight of the Substitute and Saviour of sinners arrested and surrendering to the hands of justice. It is sin that makes him liable to this arrest; and it is the wages of sin, it is death, that pursues him relentlessly unto the end. And how, O sinful soul, shalt thou escape? If these things be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? If this judgement and arrest begin on the Son of God, how shalt thou be allowed to go at large? Thy sins are many: they are legion. Each one of them has power to awaken a relentless prosecutor, who will never slumber till he hail thee to the bar and judgment seat of God. All may be smooth and quiet with thee now; but be sure thy sin will find thee outBut if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out.
Numbers 32:23. And then, whither wilt thou flee? Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend into heaven thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me. For there is not a word upon my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me4  For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
5  Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
7  Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
8  If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
9  If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
10  Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
11  If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.
Psalm 139:4,5,7-11.

And now, O my trembling soul, thou hast no escape from this warrant that is gone out from the Judge of all against thee. Though thou dig into hell thence will his hand take thee; though thou climb up to heaven thence will he take thee down; though thou hide thyself on the top of Carmel, he will search and take thee out thence; and though thou be hid from his sight in the bottom of the sea, thence would he command the serpent to arrest and bring thee forth into his sight. Yea, in vain, even in the awful end, wouldst thou call upon the mountains and the rocks to fall upon thee and hide thee from the face of the Lamb.

Men and brethren, what shall we do? Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison25  Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
26  Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.
Matthew 5:25,26.

But thou art guilty. Thy conscience tells thee so; and tells thee thou oughtest to be arrested and hailed to the bar of God. Yea verily. But is there not a shield? Is there not a plea? Might it not be well to arrest thyself and surrender? Oh! that I could but get the counsel of the Wonderful, the Counsellor, you say. Oh! that I might live in the redemption and freedom purchased by the arrested, the self-surrendered Substitute. Oh! that I were verily among the number whom Jesus shields with that omnipotent demand, “Let these go their way.” And wherefore mayest thou not? There was not one vile and wretched slave of sin among these Roman soldiers, had he only arrested himself instead of arrested the Lord, and thrown away the weapons of his rebellion, and self-surrendered and self-disarmed passed over to the little band of disciples, but - on the spot where he had shown his guilty will to kill the Prince of Life, but shown his will also to turn to him and live - would have shared at once in the shield which Jesus cast around his own, in the exemption and salvation which with a great price he was procuring for them, and with a prevailing voice pronouncing over them.

And what remains then, O my sinful and troubled soul, but that with all weapons of self-defence and all pleas of self-justification for ever thrown away, thou too, like those pursuers, but in a very different spirit, must “seek Jesus of Nazareth”; and, when thou hast found him, thou too, like them, must “hold him fast,” but after a very different fashion, even with the bands of faith and love. Art thou begun to seek him? And has he never asked thee, “Whom seekest thou?” He still conducts such conferences of interrogation. To those that seek him in this other spirit, he is still known to say, in another manner than he doth unto the world, in another voice than he spake to his pursuers, “I am he.”

Ah! when in his word, in his sanctuary, by his pleading Spirit, he draws near, do not put the Lord away. “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that speaketh unto thee, thou wouldst ask of him and he would give thee all the safety and salvation thou canst need. Say not, “When Messiah is come” he will put all my guilty fears to flight and give me liberty to “go my way” when he hath enlarged my heart. For “I say unto thee that Messiah is come already,” and you see how “they have done unto him whatsoever they listed!” And he is come again, he is always coming again in the power of his Spirit, to divide the spoil with the strong and gather up the fruits of what they listed to do unto him. Hark! his voice! “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” O seeking soul! “Messias is come already.” Hear him, Oh! hear him saying, “I that speak unto thee am he.” Fall not back affrighted. Fall down rather at his feet, self-surrendered to thy Lord. Surrender thyself into the hands of justice in the virtue of thy Lord’s own surrender. Arrested, with thine own full consent, by the word of God, by the ambassadors of peace, by the Spirit of truth and holiness - self-arrested before a God of grace, and self-surrendered in the faith and fellowship of Christ’s vicarious surrender to a God of justice - the same God, his God and your God - a just God and a Saviour; in union with Christ, and in the communion of his law-magnifying obedience unto death and finished work of priestly presentation of himself a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour unto God; thou yieldest thyself now to God, in Christ and with Christ; and thy life is held sacred and secure indeed. Thou yieldest thyself, not as a dead man, but as one alive from the dead. Thou dost arrest thyself, and art not arrested but released. Thou dost judge thyself, and thou art not judged but acquitted. Thou dost humble thyself, and the Lord exalts thee in due time. For thou art arrested with Christ; nevertheless, yea thereby, thou art acquitted. Thou surrenderest with Christ; nevertheless, yea thereby, thou art gloriously emancipated and made free indeed. No more dost thou flee to hide thee from thy God. Rather thou dost flee unto him to cover thee. He himself is thy hiding-place now, and under his wings shalt thou trust; for he will keep thee from trouble and compass thee about with songs of deliverance. The warrant to arrest thee, to bind thee hand and foot, and cast thee into outer darkness, has been gloriously answered - the warrant that went forth against thy Lord is its answer. Any handwriting demanding thee also is seen to be void, obliterated, nailed to the gate of Gethsemane: and over thee and all thy fellows in the fellowship of faith in Jesus there is heard the prevailing voice, securing that no weapon formed and no prosecution raised against thee shall prosper, the password and watchword of the Lord’s blood-bought and embannered host, in the power of which they pass and re-pass, “going out and in and finding pasture” ever safe, ever free - the voice of their Lord, which the gates of hell must ever hear with trembling: “Ye sought me, but let these go their way.”

Yes! Go thy way: thy substituted Lord hath saved thee, and thou hast faith in him, hast thou not, as well thou mayest? Go thy way in peace; hunted no more in terror, as by any broken bond of law divine, for thy substituted Lord hath magnified the lawThe LORD is well pleased for his righteousness’ sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable.
Isaiah 42:21 and made it honourable; nor as by any lawful warrant of guilty conscience, for the blood of thy substituted Lord cleanseth the conscience from dead worksHow much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Hebrews 9:14 to serve the living God. Go, as the free child of the Highest, an heir of his house and of his heavenly land for ever. Go; and the shield of thy Saviour’s defence be ever round thee! Go thy way, and walk in it undefiled. Go, and sin no more. Go on thy way rejoicing.

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