While He was still speaking, behold, a crowd came, and the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was preceding them; and he approached Jesus to kiss Him. But Jesus said to him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” When those who were around Him saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, shall we strike with the sword?” And one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear. But Jesus answered and said, “Stop! No more of this.” And He touched his ear and healed him. Luke 22:47-51.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
In the gospel according to Matthew we have now arrived at the night Jesus was betrayed and even though chaos and darkness took place that night many miracles happened as well. Where sin abounded grace superabounded. It was the hour of darkness but that deep darkness came at the hour before the dawn of a new age. The age of grace, the age of the church.
Jesus had prayed for the hour to pass Him by but it came upon Him. What was that hour that all the disciples slept through that always faced Him during His life? It was the hour when He took all the sins ever committed or that would ever be committed, past, present and future, into His own body as His own. That caused Him such anguish, for He is pure and hates sin, that He sweat blood. He knew that My eyes are too pure to gaze on sin and I would turn My face away from Him and He would go to the lowest depths of hell for your sins, for the wages of sin is death. He let go of all light and beauty in that hour of darkness. “Then Jesus said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders who had come against Him, “Have you come out with swords and clubs as you would against a robber? While I was with you daily in the temple, you did not lay hands on Me; but this hour and the power of darkness are yours.” Luke 22:52-53. Into My hands He entrusted His spirit. And He was not disappointed. When your sins were fully atoned for I raised Him up out of the depths of hell by My victory shout, “You are My Son and this day I have begotten you!” And the miracle, the greatest display of My power that the world had ever seen to that point came about in the resurrection of My Son as the firstborn of many brothers. But we are not to that miracle yet.
We are on the miracle of the transfer of all sins to My Son. I was in Christ reconciling the world to Myself, not counting your sins against them but instead imputing them all to My Son. The divine exchange. Your sin for His righteousness. Your sickness and pain for His health. Your sentence of eternal death turned into an acquittal of eternal life.
In the Garden of Gethsemane that fateful night that made sinners and saints, damned and saved, depending on your own choice, in that deep darkness, as He asked the disciples Peter, James, and John to watch with Him in His anguish, the horror of all sins that had ever been committed or would be committed rushed upon Jesus and He received them. “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” Isaiah 53:6. I made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin on your behalf, so that you might become righteousness with My own righteousness in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21.
But you must understand though He received your sins as your substitute, He did not commit them. He was the fulfillment of the scapegoat and the Passover lamb. The pure unblemished one who became the punished one when His purity flowed into you as your sins flowed into Him. This is a miracle you do not see with your physical eyes, but it was the greatest miracle taking place that night. It was the true reality. To those present who knew Jesus, as He was condemned as a sinner, counted among the wicked, and put to death, it looked like the most unjust judgment that could happen to Him who was so holy and walked in such integrity and goodness, such compassion and wisdom, but what they could not see in the Spirit was it was the must wonderful thing that ever happened to sin stained man. His life was not taken from Him, He laid it down for you.
He took away the wall of division between us and reconciled you to Me as holy, blameless and beyond reproach. He died in the flesh so you, free from the shackles of sin, could live in the spirit. He stripped off the flesh and put you in the spirit. “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.” Colossians 2:9-15. The mind set on the flesh is death but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.
I struck the Shepherd and the sheep were scattered, each going his own way, while Jesus was left to tread the winepress of My wrath alone.
But even then, in the middle of such horror and anguish at the onslaught of sin upon His flesh, Jesus was there as the good Shepherd laying down His life for His sheep. And He was watching over them. For a miracle of healing happened in the Garden that night that was not received by faith but given to defend a follower from persecution of the law. For I am the LORD your defender. I defend you from condemnation and sin in Jesus in the spiritual sense, but I also deliver you from earthly condemnation. Your vindication and righteousness are from Me.
I am here to save you from all evil from within and from without. Those who put their trust and hope in Me will never be ashamed. Look to Me and be radiant that your faces may not blush with shame. I am your redeemer. Never forget that. No one can bring a charge against My elect for in Jesus I have declared you not guilty. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus who live according to the spirit and not according to the flesh. It is time to put your mind above where I have raised you and seated you with Christ and not on the filth of the darkness form which I rescued you by the blood of My Son.
All four gospel accounts tell you of Peter’s valiant attempt to rescue Jesus from unjust arrest. He did not understand what Jesus had told him a number of times, even to the point of rebuking him as lining up in his thoughts with Satan, that Jesus would be arrested, condemned, scourged, and crucified but that He would be raised up on the third day. But just as he had denied any such thing would happen to Jesus, and that if it came to that, he would never desert Him but die with Him, Peter, after Judas arrived in the Garden accompanied by a large crowd with swords and clubs, who came from the chief priests and elders of the people, was ready for action.
Judas, in order to point out Jesus to the menacing crowd accompanying him in the darkness of that night had arranged a sign with them beforehand, “Whomever I kiss, He is the one; seize Him.”
So when he arrived in the Garden, knowing Jesus went there to pray, Judas immediately went to Jesus and said, “Hail, Rabbi!” and kissed Him. And Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you have come for.” Jesus then turned to the crowd with Judas and knowing all the things that were coming upon Him, said to them, “Whom do you seek?” They answered Him, “Jesus the Nazarene.” He said to them, “I am He.” And Judas also, who was betraying Him, was standing with them. So when He said to them, “I am He,” they drew back and fell to the ground. Therefore He again asked them, “Whom do you seek?” And they said, “Jesus the Nazarene.” Jesus answered, “I told you that I am He; so if you seek Me, let these go their way,” to fulfill the word which He spoke, “Of those whom You have given Me I lost not one.” Simon Peter then, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear; and the slave’s name was Malchus. John 18:4-11. So Jesus said to Peter, “Put the sword into the sheath; the cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it? Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels? How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?” And then He touched Malchus’ severed ear and healed him. Then Jesus said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders who had come against Him, “Have you come out with swords and clubs as you would against a robber? While I was with you daily in the temple, you did not lay hands on Me; but this hour and the power of darkness are yours.” Luke 22:51-53. Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him. Matthew 26:39-50.
Consider the healing of the severed ear of Malchus, a man who was coming to arrest Jesus and make Him suffer though Jesus had done no wrong. He was a servant of the High Priest who despised Jesus and had the one desire to kill Him and get Him out of the way. And yet My Son healed him without asking him if he had faith for it. It was the spiritual gift of healings acting despite the faith of the receiver. Why? It was to protect Peter from the shame of prosecution for the crime of cutting off the ear of the servant of the High Priest, for the law for such crime was an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, an ear for an ear, and a life for a life. It was all to do with My goodness to Peter and it overflowed to Malchus. My Son protected Peter form the consequences from his action done out of zeal for Jesus but against My Will. His heart was right but his action wrong, so Jesus stepped in to vindicate and defend Peter by taking away any evidence of the cut off ear. Thus, Peter kept his ears and his freedom.
And yet Jesus knew Peter would shortly deny Him three times. He had told Peter that at the Passover supper just that evening. And Peter had denied he would ever do such a thing. But Jesus knew Satan was shifting His followers, and still does, like wheat, but that he would come out with the chaff gone and the finest wheat remaining. So He prayed for Peter that his faith would never fail and that when he returned he would strengthen his brethren, whom Satan would also go after to try to stop their destiny.
Jesus already saw Peter beyond the denials as an overcomer and champion of the preaching of the Kingdom. He saw him stepping up to save three thousand people on the day of Pentecost. He saw him leading the early community of believers. He saw him walking through the marketplace and all who came in contact with his shadow being healed. He saw a man fearlessly going wherever the Spirit directed to preach and baptize, even the household of the Roman centurion, Cornelius, though Jews were not supposed to make themselves unclean in the homes of unbelievers. He saw him taking authority over Satan in His Name and raising up a cripple at the gate of the temple and denying to back down from healing in and preaching of the Name of Jesus.
In Peter I saw a man after My own heart whom I renamed from Simeon to Peter, the rock. Just as I renamed Abram to “father of many nations” and so be became, I renamed Simeon, “Rock” and so he became to the early community of believers.
And what do I see in you? An overcomer, a mighty hero, a royal priest, and My own special treasure. I see you holy and blameless, beyond reproach, all glorious within and without by the finished work of Christ for you. You are a new creation in Him with a new name that only I know and will reveal to you as your journey continues. All because of that hour in the Garden of Gethsemane when I transferred all your sins to Him for which He bore the punishment the next day on Calvary as He became a curse for you and redeemed you from the curse of the law and gave you the blessing of Abraham and the promise of the Spirit by faith. I call you each by name.
I love you. And there were other miracles that night as well that you see only in the Spirit. I am speaking of the gift of My Son’s body and blood, given and poured out for you, that sealed our everlasting Covenant of love. And this miracle continues every time you do this in remembrance of Him and all He did for you. Communion. Do it often, every day. You are My royal priesthood.