John 18:7Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“If you seek Me,” He said, “let these go their way.” His enemies stand before Him and do what He commands. They allow those to go whom He did not wish to lose. Were they not to die afterward? Why would He have lost them if they had died then? Only because at that time they had not yet believed in Him as all believe who do not perish.

The soldiers wish to seize the disciples also, but Jesus stops them. He says that they have come against Him with weapons in vain. The disciples flee. A young man left his garment in the hands of the soldiers when they tried to seize him.

This last point, as the Evangelist notes, was necessary so that what Christ had said in the high-priestly prayer might be fulfilled, Jn 17:12. And indeed, for the disciples it was already a stumbling block that their Teacher fell into the hands of sinners. If their own arrest by the soldiers had been added to this, their faith would not have withstood the temptation.

What followed is related by all the Evangelists, with greater or lesser detail. The soldiers approach to take Jesus. The disciples intend to defend Him with weapons. One of them, Peter, as John reports, cuts off the ear of a servant of the high priest, Malchus in John.

But the Lord rebukes Peter’s unreasonable zeal. Luke says that He healed the ear by touching it after it had been cut off. Matthew and Mark add Christ’s speech to those who had come to take Him. In it He makes clear that neither their numbers, nor the swords and clubs with which they came to seize Him, could have accomplished this, if He had not voluntarily delivered Himself to them.

Mark alone tells of a young man who wished to follow Jesus, but fled when the soldiers tried to seize him. This young man, clothed only in a night covering, had plainly been disturbed from sleep and raised from bed by the noise of the crowd passing near his house toward the garden of Gethsemane.

Whether this was Mark himself or someone else, in any case we must suppose that he belonged, if not to those who believed in the Lord, then to those strongly moved toward faith in Him. Therefore it mattered greatly to him to know how this whole Gethsemane event would end.

This happened all the more because the betrayer himself twice proved unable to give the agreed sign. He grew numb in his whole vile being. Only on the third attempt did Satan arm him with infernal courage. Judas then impressed the traitorous kiss with his vile lips. Then the armed crowd surrounded Jesus Christ and began to bind His hands.

We shall see that the first question Jesus’ judges will put to Him concerns His disciples and His teaching (Jn 18:19). The unknown young man who followed Jesus Christ, when the soldiers were already leading Him away, barely escaped those who seized him by casting off his garment (Mk 14:51-52).

All this undoubtedly assures us that those sent with Judas had received an order from the Sanhedrin to seize not only Jesus, but also His disciples.

The Lord, protecting His sincere ones, speaks to the crowd not a word of entreaty, but a word of mighty command: “Leave them.” And the servants unwillingly fulfill His word. He gives Himself into the hands of His enemies, but He cares for the safety of His disciples.

At that time they were not yet able to bear sufferings for His name, which they later bore so willingly. If the question of a weak woman could stir such fear in Peter that he denied his Teacher, where might the sworn malice of Jesus’ enemies have led the weak disciples?

They might have laid many sins upon their souls and driven themselves far from the Lord Jesus and His kingdom. The heavenly Teacher did not allow them to come to this.

If the divine word had not roused the crowd from their stupor of terror by the second question, and if it had not reminded them why they had come and permitted them to act. Then all these Roman soldiers with their chiliarch, and the temple servants with Judas, would have remained in the stupor and madness into which the first divine word addressed to them had cast them.

The Lord voluntarily gives Himself into human hands, "that the Scriptures might be fulfilled." He permits the crowd with Judas to approach Him as an ordinary man.

Yet by this same authoritative word He shields the disciples around Him from all violence: "Let these go their way." It seems that at this moment all the disciples were around the Lord.

Probably those who were sleeping in the cave awoke from the noise of the crowd coming from Kidron to the garden of Gethsemane, and ran to the place where the Lord was.

Peter, James, and John the Lord Himself raised from sleep, saying (Mt 26:45-46 and parallels): "Rise; he who betrays Me is at hand." Perhaps in Mt 26:45 "rise" refers to all the disciples.

In Mk 14:42 these words seem to refer more closely only to the three disciples. In Lk 22:45, they refer to all the disciples.

It is beyond doubt that at the moment when Judas appeared with the guard, all the faithful disciples of the Lord were with Him, and He freed them all by His word. He alone, the Lamb of God, wished to suffer at that time.

For it was a great and terrible moment, when the Lord in the flesh was lifting upon His shoulders the sins of the world. Only in the future, after the God-man had offered the sacrifice for the world, could particular human sacrifices be accepted.

This would be when these men had been cleansed by the Blood of the Lamb and sanctified by the Spirit of God. Only then could they be counted worthy to offer their bodies as a sacrifice to God, for the glorification of the name of the greatest Sacrifice, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Cf. Jn 13:36. The Lord says to Peter: "You cannot follow Me now, but afterward you shall follow Me." Cf. Jn 21:19.

The words of verse 9 are the Evangelist's words, recalling the words spoken by the Lord in His prayer (Jn 17:12): "Those whom You gave Me I have kept." In His prayer, as Chrysostom notes, the Lord speaks chiefly of eternal salvation and eternal perdition, namely of the son of perdition.

Yet the Evangelist, independently of the broader meaning of the Lord's word, also sees in them a particular application at that moment, when the Lord is taken by His enemies.

We shall also allow ourselves to call attention to this. The Lord saves His disciples not only from temporal sufferings and death.

By shielding them from arrest, He saves them from a temptation against which they probably would not have stood, thereby endangering even their very souls. The example of Peter's denial clearly testifies that, without the help of the Spirit of God, they could not yet be "witnesses of the Lord," according to His word in Jn 15:26-27.