Joh 18:18 | KingComments | STEP | While the faithful Witness is carried away and mistreated because of His faithfulness to the Father, our attention is also frequently drawn to the disciple Peter. We see alternately the faithful Lord and the unfaithful Peter. Both scenes are intertwined. The Son’s perfection shines brighter and brighter, while Peter’s unfaithfulness leads him further and further in the wrong direction. Peter at first fled, but is returned to be with his Lord. For doing so, he goes a way that he cannot go. He follows the Lord on a road that the Lord has to go alone. In his love for Him, he wants to stay with Him, but does so in his own strength. He also uses the familiarity of “another disciple” – possibly John – with the high priest to enter his court. So, the other disciple has also returned from his fleeing to be with the Lord Jesus. No value judgment is made here about what the other disciple does, neither in an approving nor a disapproving sense, but about Peter’s behavior and words it is made. What may be permissible for the other disciple, is in any case not true for Peter. The other disciple has no problem in this history; no questions are asked of him. It says so tellingly that the other disciple “entered with Jesus into the court of the high priest”. He too would like to be where his Lord is. Yet it seems that he too has not entered as a disciple of the Lord, but because the doorkeeper knows him. And on the basis of his intercession, Peter too is allowed to enter. The slave-girl knows the other disciple, but not Peter. That she has not been unfamiliar with the discipleship of the other disciple is evident from her question to Peter whether he is not “also” one of the disciples of “this Man.” Peter immediately denies this with the powerful statement “I am not”. What a huge contrast this denial is to what the Lord has truthfully said. The Lord has truthfully said “I am”; Peter speaks falsehood when he says “I am not. The enemies of Christ are cold and so they have made a fire. There they stand warming themselves. Peter is also cold and joins them. He must have been doubly cold: cold because of the temperature outside, but also cold because of the temperature inside him. His first denial has not yet awakened him. He remains in the environment where the enmity against the Lord is tangible, which will inevitably lead to his next fall.

‏ John 18:18

First Denial by Peter

While the faithful Witness is carried away and mistreated because of His faithfulness to the Father, our attention is also frequently drawn to the disciple Peter. We see alternately the faithful Lord and the unfaithful Peter. Both scenes are intertwined. The Son’s perfection shines brighter and brighter, while Peter’s unfaithfulness leads him further and further in the wrong direction.

Peter at first fled, but is returned to be with his Lord. For doing so, he goes a way that he cannot go. He follows the Lord on a road that the Lord has to go alone. In his love for Him, he wants to stay with Him, but does so in his own strength. He also uses the familiarity of “another disciple” – possibly John – with the high priest to enter his court. So, the other disciple has also returned from his fleeing to be with the Lord Jesus.

No value judgment is made here about what the other disciple does, neither in an approving nor a disapproving sense, but about Peter’s behavior and words it is made. What may be permissible for the other disciple, is in any case not true for Peter. The other disciple has no problem in this history; no questions are asked of him.

It says so tellingly that the other disciple “entered with Jesus into the court of the high priest”. He too would like to be where his Lord is. Yet it seems that he too has not entered as a disciple of the Lord, but because the doorkeeper knows him. And on the basis of his intercession, Peter too is allowed to enter. The slave-girl knows the other disciple, but not Peter.

That she has not been unfamiliar with the discipleship of the other disciple is evident from her question to Peter whether he is not “also” one of the disciples of “this Man.” Peter immediately denies this with the powerful statement “I am not”. What a huge contrast this denial is to what the Lord has truthfully said. The Lord has truthfully said “I am”; Peter speaks falsehood when he says “I am not.

The enemies of Christ are cold and so they have made a fire. There they stand warming themselves. Peter is also cold and joins them. He must have been doubly cold: cold because of the temperature outside, but also cold because of the temperature inside him. His first denial has not yet awakened him. He remains in the environment where the enmity against the Lord is tangible, which will inevitably lead to his next fall.