Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                 Chapter Eighteen

                                                                                                                                               Verses 1-9

After Jesus had preached to and prayed for His disciples and His future Church, He went over the brook Cedron, or Kidron, into the garden of Gethsemane where He often spent the night when He was in Jerusalem. His agony and His prayers while in that garden that night are recorded in the synoptic gospels. Jesus began to suffer spiritual and physical agony for the sins and evil of the entire human race. It is quite significant that the fall of man began in a garden, and the salvation of mankind also began in a garden.

Judas Iscariot came with a band of soldiers from the chief priests and Pharisees to arrest Jesus. The Romans allowed the Jews to have a small army for the protection of the rulers. These were the soldiers who came to arrest Jesus.

When the mob came, Jesus asked them "Whom seek ye?" Jesus knew fully well that they sought Him, but His question went much deeper than that. In effect, Jesus asked them if they sought to know their God, or did they seek to lay their rebellious hands on their God in their attempt to murder Him so that they could continue with their self-righteous religion and their sins in independence from God's authority. To this day, all atheistic and materialistic philosophies attempt to free humans from God's authority. The theory of evolution happens to be nothing but a self-righteous religion with a blind faith in a non-conscious process that can create very complex systems. No one has ever experienced this process, and yet, all their theories are based on the idea that humans can know nothing except by experience.

The mob answered that they sought Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered "I am he." Jesus did not actually say "he" although He implied it. The King James Bible writers added "he" because they thought that that word would make Jesus' identification of Himself clearer. But Jesus made it quite clear who He was when He said "I am" because that was the eternal name of God that He gave to Moses. Exodus 3:13-14. Jesus actually asked them if they were seeking for God Himself.

Jesus let them know exactly who He was when He used a little of His power to knock them all to the ground when He said "I am." But being full of hatred and rebellion, they simply ignored Jesus' clear message. They had ignored all of Jesus' messages to them that He was God. In a sense, Jesus was being playful with them because He did not want to hurt them, and He already knew that His demonstration of God's power would not convince them that He was God.

Jesus asked them again "Whom seek ye?" Jesus asked them again because He wanted them to decide whether they sought to know God or whether they sought only to arrest God. God gives every human the right to make a decision about Him even though He knows what decision they will make. This fact harmonizes free will with predestination because God knows exactly how to cause all living humans whom He creates in His image to return to faith in Him as their Savior of their own free will. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14; John 11:25-26. The mob answered again that they sought Jesus of Nazareth which meant that they sought a mere human and not God.