§43 The Arrest of Jesus (John 18:1–14)
Jesus’ exit with his disciples from the place where they had eaten supper (v. 1) corresponds to the notice in Mark (14:26) that “when they had sung a hymn, they went out” to Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives. Though John’s Gospel does not give the name “Gethsemane” to the place where they stopped, and though only John’s Gospel calls it a “garden” (RSV, GNB; Gr.: kēpos), it is clearly the same place and the same occasion (the NIV translation olive grove is based on the assumption that it is indeed “Gethsemane” [known as the place of an olive press]. Perhaps because of the long prayer in chapter 17, there is no prayer in the garden, no exhortation to the disciples to stay awake and pray, and consequently no failure on their part. Attention is centered entirely on Jesus’ arrest by the Roman soldiers and the temple guards. The synoptic Gethsemane scene is echoed only in Jesus’ rebuke to Peter for trying to defend him with a sword: Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me? (v. 11; cf. Mark 14:36 and parallels).
The “garden” is described as an enclosed area; Jesus and his disciples went into it, according to verse 1, and in verse 4 Jesus went out to speak with those who had come to arrest him. The explanation that it was a favorite meeting place for Jesus and his disciples (v. 2) hints at an aspect of his Jerusalem ministry that the Gospel nowhere explicitly describes. But if Jesus spent time privately with his disciples outside the city (e.g., 3:22; 10:40–11:16; 11:54), why not also at Jerusalem? Was it to this “garden,” for example, that Nicodemus had come long before with his questions? Evidently Jesus’ private instructions and prayers with his disciples were not confined to the one occasion recounted in chapters 13–17 but characterized his ministry all along. Although the Gospel outline divides Jesus’ life into a public ministry comprising chapters 2–12 and a private ministry comprising 13–17, it is likely that in reality Jesus’ ministry had both a public and a private dimension from beginning to end.
The narrator mentions Jesus’ custom of private meetings with the disciples to explain how Judas knew where they might be found. Judas brings to the garden not only officials from the chief priests and Pharisees, as in the other Gospels, but Roman soldiers as well (v. 3), (a detachment, Gr.: speira, normally one tenth of a legion, or six hundred men!). John’s Gospel will emphasize more than the others the role of Pontius Pilate and the Romans in Jesus’ trial and execution, and they are seen here as participants from the outset.
Jesus is in control of the situation at every step. Twice he asks the assembled soldiers and guards whom they are looking for; twice they say, Jesus of Nazareth; and twice, with the declaration I am he, Jesus identifies himself (vv. 4–5, 7–8). On the face of it, the simple words I am he (lit., “I am”; Gr. egō eimi) merely identify him as Jesus of Nazareth, the object of the group’s search. But they also correspond exactly to the formula by which Jesus revealed himself as God according to 8:24 and 28 (“I am the one I claim to be”), and especially 8:58 (“I am”; in each case, Gr.: egō eimi). Only by attributing equal significance to the I am he of the present passage can the reader explain the reaction of the crowd of soldiers and temple guards: They drew back and fell to the ground (v. 6). As he repeats his self-revelation (v. 8), Jesus adds, If you are looking for me, then let these men go. These men are his disciples gathered with him in the garden. Jesus has literally “kept them safe by that name you gave me” (17:12a). The “name” is “I am,” and its power has driven back the tenth part of a Roman legion! Yet Jesus’ intention is not to overwhelm his antagonists but to surrender to them—on the condition that his disciples be spared.
At this point, the narrator makes explicit the link between Jesus’ action and his prayer in the preceding chapter. Jesus’ unique surrender fulfills what he had said immediately after the claim to have kept the disciples safe by the power of the divine name: “I have not lost one of those you gave me” (v. 9; cf. 17:12b, “I protected them … None has been lost”; cf. also 6:39). The only exception is Judas the traitor, “the one doomed to destruction” (17:12b), and in the present scene he has already been placed on the other side, with the adversaries, standing there with them as they were driven back by Jesus’ self-revelation (v. 5). The narrator’s comment in verse 9 makes the physical safety of Jesus’ disciples an illustration of their spiritual well-being. Jesus himself takes full responsibility for their flight at the time of his arrest and incorporates it into the divine purpose. They are indeed “scattered, each to his own home” (16:32), yet Jesus’ prayer has restored them in principle and made them one. As Good Shepherd, he will not allow the approaching wolves to scatter and devour the sheep who belong to him (cf. 10:12–15). The disciples’ moment of disgrace is transformed into Jesus’ moment of triumph.
As Good Shepherd, too, Jesus makes sure that “no one takes it [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father” (10:18). The Father’s command is the cup the Father has given me, and Jesus will not allow Simon Peter to defend him with the sword (v. 11). The arrest proceeds to its inevitable conclusion: The soldiers and temple guards, regaining their composure, take Jesus into custody. He is brought first to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas the high priest. Though Annas is mentioned in connection with Jesus’ passion only in this Gospel, he is not the center of interest. The narrator calls the readers’ attention instead to the high priest himself, with a reminder of his earlier advice to the Jews that it would be good if one man died for the people (v. 14; cf. 11:49–52). That Jesus has put his fate in the hands of this man means that the cup (of suffering) is now unavoidable and that the time for it is rapidly drawing near.
18:1 / When he had finished praying: lit., “After Jesus had said these things” (Gr.: tauta eipōn). The word praying is supplied only because the prayer of chapter 17 immediately precedes. But at earlier stages in the compilation of the material, 18:1 may have followed 13:35 or 14:31. The same expression occurs in 13:21, at the end of Jesus’ brief discourse on servanthood in 13:12–20.
Crossed the Kidron Valley: Valley is literally “winter torrent,” i.e., a wadi flowing with water in the rainy season but dry the rest of the year. John is the only Gospel that mentions Jesus’ route out of the city in this way. The terminology, which agrees with that of the LXX, accurately describes the Kidron and probably helped to fix what later became the traditional locations of Gethsemane near the foot of the Mount of Olives.
18:3 / Torches, lanterns: The detail serves as a reminder that it was still night, as in 13:30. Judas’ departure had taken place only a few hours earlier. In Luke, Jesus tells those who have come to arrest him, “This is your hour—when darkness reigns” (Luke 22:53).
18:4 / Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen. The statement resembles in form the notices at the beginning of the footwashing narrative: “Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father” (13:1); “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God” (13:3). The same knowledge presupposed in the washing of the disciples’ feet and in the farewell discourses continues to govern Jesus’ words and actions throughout the Passion narrative (cf. also 19:28). Nothing that happens will take him by surprise.
18:9 / So that the words he had said would be fulfilled: The fulfillment formula used here (Gr.: hina plerōthē) corresponds exactly to a formula used elsewhere for citing the fulfillment of OT Scripture (e.g., 13:18; 15:25, and frequently in Matthew’s Gospel). Jesus’ spoken words are already being accorded an authority comparable to that of “what is written.”
18:10 / Simon Peter … Malchus. The incident of the cutting off of the high priest’s servant’s ear is told in all the Gospels, but only in John are the participants named. Mark 14:47 attributes the act to “one of those standing near.” Matt. 26:52 is the same, but with an added warning to the disciples that “all who draw the sword will die by the sword” and that what is to happen must happen in order to fulfill Scripture (26:52–54; here v. 11 serves a similar function). In Luke 22:50–51, Jesus says, “No more of this!” and immediately heals the victim’s ear!
The naming of Annas in the immediate context (v. 13) suggests that John’s Gospel may be drawing on a source that freely identifies particular individuals. The identification of Simon Peter accomplishes two things: It avoids the implication that all of Jesus’ disciples were armed (cf. Luke, who in 22:38 limits the number of swords to two), and it anticipates the account of Peter’s failure in vv. 15–18, 25–27). The same one who was ready to defend Jesus with a sword was later unwilling even to acknowledge that he was Jesus’ disciple.
18:13 / Annas: Annas and Caiaphas are mentioned together as “high priests” at the beginning of John the Baptist’s ministry in Luke 3:2, and Annas is specifically called “the high priest” in Acts 4:6, yet John’s Gospel clearly identifies Caiaphas as high priest that year both in this verse and in 11:49, 51. Annas is the high priest’s father-in-law (a fact revealed only in this Gospel) and a man of considerable authority but not (at this time) the high priest.