A Downgrade of Humiliation

** This exposition of Luke 22 will serve as lesson material for weeks of April 25th, May 2nd, and May 9th. It includes contextual material from the entire chapter and gives some exegetical and doctrinal suggestions for the three texts considered from that chapter for the weeks mentioned. **

I. Context: In Luke 21, Jesus had instructed his disciples to be ready for both the coming judgment of Jerusalem and the final consummation of the age. He had given specific events they were to look for when Jerusalem would fall and warned them always to be prepared spiritually for the coming of the Son of Man 34, 35. They were to pray for perseverance in the trials surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem (36a), and to maintain spiritual readiness in order to “stand” when Christ returns (36b). In part, the preparation for both of these events involved a prior understanding that calamities come in this life for the two-fold purpose of

• manifesting the approvedness of the faith of the elect and
• giving a foreshadowing of judgment on unbelievers.

II. Setting of the rapidly following humiliation: In this life, therefore, his disciples must learn to seek within the humble the true strength and glory of Christian faith. –widow vs the rich [21:1-4] and Christ in his state of humiliation vs. the grandiose splendor of the temple [21:5,6 “adorned with noble stones and offerings.”] This casting aside of earthly splendor and power in pursuit of his final state of humiliation was the source of the plots to put him to death, (22:2), and perhaps also for the betrayal of Judas. He simply could not embrace the truth that instead of liberty, there would be “wrath against this people” (21:23), that they would fall by the edge of the sword, would be led captive among the nations, and that Jerusalem would be “trampled underfoot by the Gentiles.” Jesus had no vision of an overthrow of the Gentiles but seemed determined to pursue a course of action that would lead to even greater oppression at the hands of the Romans. Judas consented to deliver Jesus over to the chief priests at a time when the crowds would not pose a difficulty with the arrest (22:3-6).

III. Jesus Manifests his Sovereign control of these events 22: 7 – 13: With the events that follow in rapid succession, it would be difficult for the disciples to think that anything other than chaos reigned. The things that happen to Jesus and the fear that gripped the soul of each disciple could make them think that nothing was stable, all was gone awry, Jesus’ plan had failed, and their hopes were come to nothing. So, just prior to this rapid decline of events, Jesus gave proof of his perfect knowledge and control of all these things.

A. He asked Peter and John to set up the Passover (7, 8). In order to do that, he gave instruction about their following a strange series of clues as to where they should set it up. If he had instructed them only about the house, one would think that he already had made the arrangements himself. But that they would enter the city and find a man carrying a water jug whom they should follow to this house, and his instructing them precisely what to say, all showed a degree of knowledge and sovereign prescience that went far beyond mere human prudence.

B. Jesus was giving them, in his deep grace, a key by which they could recall later that Jesus pursued the divine purpose and accomplished it by his obedience unto death, even the death of the cross. This is similar to the details he gave to the two disciples concerning their acquisition of the donkey’s colt on the day of the triumphal entry (19: 28-36). Later when he opened their minds to see that the Scriptures (24:26, 45f) had foretold all this, they would recall that he even controlled the man with the water jug and the owner of the upper room.

IV. The perpetual sign of the Success of Jesus’ Plan: 14-23 – In the instituting of the “Lord’s Supper,” Jesus again gave his disciples a clear evidence that none of the rapidly approaching events were out of his control but were instead fulfillments of his commitments in the eternal covenant.

A. He spoke freely of his coming death (“before I suffer” – 15) and even indicated that it would come, humanly speaking, as a result of the betrayal by one of them, (21). The perfect integration of divine sovereignty with the necessary constituent element of human moral responsibility is seen clearly in Jesus’s words, “For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed.” (22).

B. This conflation of the divine covenantal certainty and the human involvement we find early in the book of Acts.

1. Peter’s sermon at Pentecost set forth the truth with clarity: “Him, being delivered up by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death; Whom God raised up” (Acts 2: 23, 24).
2. In prayer, the church expressed its confidence that human rage and manifestation of destructive power does not interrupt the counsel of God. The same combination of sovereignty from above and responsibility from beneath served as the foundation for their request (Acts 4: 27 28): “For truly your holy Servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever your hand and your purpose determined before to be done.”
3. Jesus’ words to his disciples at this institution of the Lord’s Supper overflow with this certainty of divine accomplishment within the flurry of human schemes.

• The coming of the Kingdom of God, in its full manifestation was yet future (18) and would not be made visible until some time after Jesus accomplished his purpose of dying. The eternal covenant by which his death was determined is called in this passage the “new covenant in my blood.”
• His part in this covenant (cf Hebrews 13:20) was, as a necessary means, to take our nature. This is emphasized by the reality of his body and blood and that true death could be imposed upon his person.
• Next, as fully participating in our nature, sin excepted, he took our place under the curse, indicated by his words that it is done for us (“given for you”). It culminates in the shedding of blood, and it is instituted at Passover, a time when only those covered by the blood of the Passover Lamb were rescued from the vengeance of the death angel.
• Also, Jesus looked forward to a time when the church would need a perpetual reminder that his work was completed during the time of his humiliation, done once for all, and we take the meal to “remember,” not to complete, to perpetuate, or even, at that moment, to participate in the atoning blood-shedding of Christ. The Supper preaches the completed gospel to us; Christ has suffered once for all, the just for the unjust, by bearing our sins in his own body on the tree; In Him we have redemption, through his blood, the forgiveness of sins (1 Peter 2:24; 3:18; Ephesians 1:7).
• Some say that a simple presentation of the Supper as a Memorial using bread and wine as symbols of Christ’s incarnational and redemptive identification with the people that he came to save (Hebrews 2:10-18] is a minimizing of the importance of this ordinance. I respond with two observations: One, to attribute anything salvific to the taking of the Supper minimizes the uniqueness and completed-ness of Christ’s on-the-cross suffering and the office of the Holy Spirit in applying its benefits by working faith upon the hearing of the word in those that become believers. Two, an act of remembrance, by such vivid and sensory symbols, an event that was filled with divine wrath, divine righteousness, divine mercy, and overflowing grace is in no sense a mean or low thing. A proper “remembering’ is never merely perfunctory but is a profound mental and spiritual exercise that binds the believer more closely to an unalterable trust in Christ and Him crucified.

V. As the events become more concentrated and poignant for Christ, the issues seem more opaque to the disciples and their understanding more obtuse. (24-38)

A. An argument over greatness 24-30 – In verse twenty-three the disciples had been discussing which of them might actually betray Jesus. Suddenly they are arguing about which of them is the greatest.

1. Jesus has to remind them that the world system of this age is far different from the truth that establishes the everlasting kingdom of God (25)
2. In this age, however, kingdom citizenship is manifest in humility and servanthood (26). They must be prepared to share in his sufferings and rejection, for when they preach the gospel, they too will come to see that greatness of service is met with a reception of humiliating rejection. That is the only way in which the Son of Man could redeem sinners. He had to be willing to follow a course that would increasingly put him at odds with the powers and values of this rebellious world order and to be brought finally to death. He was among us “as one who serves” (27).
3. Nothing ever will or can transcend the service to which he committed himself. His service brings to us eternal life.
4. Eventually, those that forsake this present age for the trials of Christ will find that positions in heaven are ordered according to God’s own determination so that the apostolic ministry is highlighted. It is foundational to the spread of the gospel and the perpetuity of gospel truth through the centuries. That will be a part of the order that is one of the delights of heaven. (cf Ephesians 2:20; 3:5; Titus 1:3; 2 Timothy 1:11-14). “For though he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you” (2 Corinthians 13:4).

B. Peter’s failure to grasp his own weakness – (31-34) It is significant that following the promise of authority in the Kingdom, Jesus points out that in the immediate pressures of the coming events, Peter will deny him. But Jesus gives two elements of assurance to Peter of his recovery, and at the same time pursues the pervasive theme of his own control of all these tumultuous events.

1. He has already told him that he will sit on a throne participating in the judging of the “twelve tribes of Israel,” and now Jesus tells him that though Satan has asked that he might sift Peter like wheat, Jesus has prayed that for him that his faith would not fail. To show that the answer to his prayer was sure, he commanded Peter, “When you are turned again, strengthen your brothers” (32).
2. Though Peter should already be aware that he has been targeted by Satan (Matthew 16) and that some of his most insistent words of loyalty and right perception have proven false, he nevertheless assures the Lord of his readiness to go to prison and death. Now Jesus tells him the precise nature of the way he will be sifted by Satan (34). “I say to you, Peter, the rooster will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know me.” Again, the contrast between human misperception and Jesus’ divine understanding should be striking.

C. The disciples’ dullness about the coming confrontation with the world – 35-38

1. When Jesus was at the height of his popularity, the disciples went out and were received into the towns on their mission and lived by the good will of the people. Jesus now warns that such popularity will be exchanged for the depths of unpopularity and the scriptural picture of the culmination of his earthly ministry must certainly take place: “He was numbered with the transgressors.” He is now seen as a felon, worthy of death and soon will be led to a painful, miserable, and humiliating execution. His followers can no longer rely on the good will of people based on the popularity of Jesus, but must be ready to be self-sufficient: “Let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a knapsack.”
2. Jesus’ reference to selling a cloak and buying a sword, was not meant to convey that they must take up arms literally to fight their way to safety, but that they must have sufficient gumption, courage, and spiritual preparation to defend the truth when it is attacked. Jesus words, “It is enough” meant something like this, “Let’s just drop the subject for now. You cannot receive it and you will have occasion later to learn what I mean.”
3. When Boniface VIII built the famous “Two Swords Theory” about the temporal and civil authority of the Pope, he was even further from a right understanding of this exchange of words than the disciples were, and just as dull in his grasp of Jesus’ intent.
4. From a human standpoint, this must have been a temptation to discouragement for Jesus, for he now entered into his most crucial hours—the very reason that he came—and his disciples, his own chosen vessels to bear the gospel message, do not have the foggiest notion of what is about to take place and the reason for it. They grasped Jesus’ meaning later, however, painfully illustrated in the immediate conflicts in the Garden of Gethsemane and more felicitously maintained in the instruction that Peter gives in 1 Peter 3:13-17 including “In your heart regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect . . .”

VI. Darkness and Dullness – 39-46

A. Knowing that these next few moments would present the culmination of all temptations in his life before it could be said, “He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,” (Philippians 2: 8). Jesus stares immediately at the coming wrath soon to fall on him and even in these moments beginning to surround him. The writer of Hebrews would say, “In the day of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:7, 8) He knew that the temptations of the time were great and thus warned the disciples that accompanied him there to “Pray that they would not enter into temptation” (40)

B. As for him, he dug deep into the issue of the covenant of redemption as it terminated on the will of the Father: “If you are willing, remove this cup” (42). The pressure of contemplating what he must endure led to his setting forth the possibility that the coming cup would not be put to his lips. In Matthew, other words also are recorded, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me” Matthew 26: 39). On the second prayer, Matthew records these words, “O my Father, if this cup cannot pass away from me unless I drink it, your will be done” (42). Jesus had come to do the will of his Father, a will that was in no sense distinct from his own as set in eternity. The prayer does not show an unwillingness on the part of the God/man, the Messiah, to follow through with saving his people from their sins, but plumbs the depths of the covenant as well as the very substance of redemption. In his prayers, we learn that redemption was not possible apart from his drinking this cup; this was not merely a way that redemption could come, but was theway. Also Jesus did not wrench a redemptive concession from an unwilling Father, but we find that at the bottom of the entire redemptive scheme is that immutable loving will of the Father. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son” (1 John 4: 10).

C. That cup was the fullness of divine wrath for sinners, a multitude that no one can number, from every tribe and people and tongue from Adam to the coming in of the last of the elect. This was not a mere symbolic manifestation of displeasure with no relation to the true nature of the deserved punishment, but would be the infliction by the Father to whom Jesus prayed of the full number of stripes deserved by all of those elect ones for whom he died. Not one of them would be left out, and not one of their sins would remain unpunished.

D. So horrific was the contemplation of it that his blood pressure cause ruptures in the system of capillaries and an oozing of blood though his pores mixed with sweat (Luke 22: 44).. While Jesus reeled under the indescribable pressure of contemplation, his weary disciples, still oblivious to the pungency of the greatest drama of the ages being played out in their immediate presence, slept. But Jesus, who for “the joy set before him” of redemption for his people and the honor of his Father fully vindicated, “Endured the cross” and did not count its shame as having any significance in light of the goal he would accomplish [Hebrews 12:1, 2].

VII. Last Chance for a Military Messiah

A. Verse 47-53 – Jesus closed this section with the words, “This is your hour and the power of darkness” (53).

1. Jesus had finished praying and was issuing a warning to his disciples when the temple guard came to arrest him – “While he was still speaking.” In the crowd, leading it in fact, was Judas. The feigned love of the greeting with a kiss has become proverbial of the height of hypocrisy and sinister betrayal. Jesus does not allow the duplicity to pass unnoticed: “Are you betraying me with a kiss?” (48) Nor do any of our actions, words, thoughts, and motives escape the eye of Jesus.
2. The arrest was not the moment for the rising up of the Messianic kingdom. The disciples thought that the time had come and asked, “Lord, shall we strike with the sword?” Peter thought that now was the time for his bold action, for fulfilling his promise to die with Christ. He surged to the front with his clueless boldness, asking a question without waiting for an answer, and performed the aggressive action that Jesus would have forbidden (51).
3. Judas’s kiss and Peter’s swashbuckling swordsmanship (50) both showed the polarity of misunderstanding that surrounded the scandal of the cross (1 Corinthians 1:23). This moment was the power of darkness, with his arrest by enemies, betrayal by a long-time follower, and utter confusion by the one whose recent pledges of loyalty unto death promised clarity but revealed false convictions.
4. Within two months, his preaching would be the founding of the new covenant community for which Jesus went now to shed his blood. His courage then would be matched by his knowledge of Jesus’s purpose in coming and would be empowered, not by the arm of flesh, but by the sword of the Spirit.

5. As ever, saturating his humiliation with mercy, Jesus restored the severed ear (51), and surrendered himself to the laughable and useless show of human power and authority surrounding him. Brutal honesty and convicting words blended with the moment of healing mercy in the question asked by the only honest man among the entire group, “Have you come out with swords and clubs as you would against a robber?” (52). In the same breath he pointed out their cowardice and the consummate evil of their actions done under the cover of darkness.

B. Verses 54-62) -Peter’s Denial a fulfillment of Prophecy Again, the events show that Jesus is in perfect harmony with divine sovereignty. What he has told Peter comes to pass precisely.

1. The three confrontations did not jog Peter’s memory of what Jesus had said; so intimidated he was that he even brought down curses on his own head in his aggressive distancing of himself from the man on trial (Matthew 26: 72, 74). “I do not know him.” “I am not [one of them].” “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” He denied knowing Jesus. He denied knowing the other disciples. He denied knowing anything of the three years’ ministry. Earthly fears bound up the most important three years with the most important person that had ever walked the earth into a burden that Peter wanted off his shoulders.
2. Only when the rooster crowed and Jesus turned and looked, did Peter get it. He remembered “the word of the Lord,” and the word of the Lord cannot fail even in predicting a massive failure on the part of his people. While this is a tragic moment, that same word said, “when once you are turned again.” Surely, we can see that if anyone is brought to faith in Christ it must be an action of pure mercy and effectual grace operating on the basis of divine decree.
3. Peter’s repentance began immediately when he went out and wept bitterly. When the crowd asked at Pentecost, “What shall we do?” Peter’s first word was “repent.”

C. Verse 63-71 – The Jewish religious leaders set Jesus up for the death penalty –

1. While Jesus was held in custody in the High Priest’s house awaiting the assembling of the Sanhedrin, the men in charge of him mocked him, beat him, blindfolded him, called on him to prophesy (63-65). All that Jesus had said had come to pass. It is a frightening irony that while the soldiers are striking him and mocking him and asking him to prophesy, they are in the very act of fulfilling his prophecies (Luke 9:21, 44; 18: 31-34; cf Matthew 20: 18, 19).
2. When the council gathered, they evoked from Jesus a claim to be the Messiah, the Son of Man, the one that would be seated as the equal of God (69). Jesus combined Daniel 7: 13 with Psalm 110:1 showing his conviction that he would finally rule as the Messiah King.
3. They understood his statement to be a reference to his status as of equal power and glory as God and so asked directly, “Are you the Son of God then?” (70). During his ministry, Jesus often had deflected answering their questions to fall into their traps (Matthew 21: 23-27), but now he answers immediately and with no attempt at delay: “Yes, I am.”
4. Rather than investigate his claim in an earnest effort to determine from Scripture if it could be true, they pre-empted the process of evidence by immediate condemnation. His claim was worthy of death, since it could not be substantiated in their opinion, and they must proceed without hesitation to place him in the hands of the governmental power with authority to carry out an execution.

VIII. How should we then think? Among others that each teacher will see, at least these following three observations emerge from this narrative.

A. One, Jesus pursued the Father’s will in perfect obedience though he knew that it led him, not to the smile and celebratory embrace of his Father, but to the unsoftened wrath and displeasure of his Father as he put himself in the stead of sinners taking their guilt thus making himself the sole accursed one thus receiving the blows of punitive justice consequent to human sin. None encouraged him, they could not know how to do such a thing and would bristle against the truth that such sorrow was even necessary.

B. Two, as then, even now a sinner does not grasp the central necessity of substitution in dealing with sin apart from the special illumination of the divine Spirit. We are just as blind to the point of how our immense guilt deserves God’s wrath and cannot be forgiven without a suitable ransom, a genuine substitute, through whom God can justly forgive and justify sinners.

C. Three, the decree for wrath on the Son is a decree for mercy on sinners. Just as surely as Jesus must go to the cross, so will the Father, Son, and Spirit pour out mercies on those who are bought, ransomed by this payment. This story of cowardice, cruelty, and deceit on the part of the world is a story of eternal love within the triune God: “But when the kindness and the love of God our savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our savior, that having been justified by his grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3: 4-7).