John 18:9Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

By the name of perdition He does not mean this death, but that eternal one. The Evangelist, however, also received these words in the sense of present death.

Someone may perhaps wonder how they did not take the Apostles together with Him and kill them, especially when Peter provoked them by what he did to the servant. Who restrained them? No one else but the same power that cast them to the ground.

For this reason the Evangelist, wishing to show that this happened not by their will, but by the power and will of Him who was taken by them, added: “that the word which He had spoken might be fulfilled: Of those whom You gave Me, I have lost none.”

“That the word might be fulfilled which He had spoken: Of those whom You gave Me, I have lost none” (Jn 17:12). The Lord speaks of spiritual perdition, to which none of His disciples was subjected. The Evangelist also understood this of bodily destruction.

It is wondrous that the soldiers did not take the Apostles together with Him and kill them, even when Peter provoked them. Clearly this was accomplished by the power of Him who was taken by them, and by the saying He had spoken earlier, that none of them had perished (Jn 17:12).

The Evangelist also teaches us that the disciples remained unharmed by the power of the Lord’s word when he says, “that the word which He had spoken might be fulfilled: I have lost none of them.” Because of their weakness, He places them outside temptations.

Yet the wise Evangelist turns this particular event, which then happened only with the disciples who were with Him, into a clear proof of the universal mercy that would be everywhere toward those who come to Him through faith. For He commanded, it says, that the disciples be left, “that the saying which He had spoken might be fulfilled: Of those whom You gave Me, I have lost none.”

Indeed, can there be any doubt that He will show mercy also to those who will afterward live and believe? If there was no neglect of a few, could there be neglect of the many? Having shown such mercy to those who were very few, could He disregard those who exceed every number? For those who have believed are many.

Will anyone dare to say that God did not foreknow to whom He would give faith? Or that He did not foreknow those whom He would give to His Son, and of whom the Son would lose none? Certainly, if He foreknew all this, then just as surely He foreknew His mercies, which He bestows upon us. This is the predestination of the saints, and nothing else.

Were the disciples not also going to die later? If they had died now, how would He have lost them, except because they still did not believe in Him as those believe who do not perish? See Jn 3:16.

"That the word might be fulfilled" is said by the Evangelist on his own behalf. Turning to God the Father, Jesus Christ had said before this: "Those whom You gave Me I have kept, and none of them is lost except the son of perdition" (Jn 17:12).

Therefore "I have lost none of them" means the same as "none of them is lost." Jesus Christ says: None of them has perished through My fault, or, I have lost none of them through My fault.

At this time the betrayer comes with the temple guard, taken from the chief priests, and with a detachment of the Roman cohort. He treacherously kisses the Teacher. But either his sign was not seen, or He was not known to the guard. Jesus Himself comes out and declares who He is.

The divine majesty and heavenly calm with which He gave Himself up recalled the miracles He had worked. It made such an impression on the Jewish guard, which had formerly refused to seize Him and did not know whom it was to take, that they fell to the ground.

Jesus is seized. Peter wishes to defend Him. He takes up the knife brought from the supper and has already struck one man. But Jesus forbids him. Not twelve apostles, but twelve legions of angels could have defended Him.

Here John alone reports that when the soldiers approached Jesus, after the kiss of Judas, which was to serve as their sign whom to take, He asked them, “Whom do you seek?” They said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am He.” At this word the crowd drew back and fell to the ground.

Having shown His divine omnipotence over the soldiers, He showed them that if He were taken by them, it would not be by their power or authority over Him. It would be by His voluntary surrender of Himself to death. The Lord again addresses the crowd with the same question. He permits them to take Him, and asks only that the disciples be left in peace.

Citing these words of Jesus, the Evangelist John explains on his own behalf that on this very night Jesus, praying for His disciples that the Heavenly Father would keep them, said: "Of those whom You gave Me I have lost none" (Jn 17:12).

These words had to be fulfilled, and indeed were fulfilled. The guard left the Apostles and came up to Jesus.

At that very moment lights shone through the thicket of trees. A whole crowd of temple servants and servants of the chief priests appeared. Armed with swords and clubs, they crept quietly toward the garden where Christ was to be, as the betrayer leading this mob had told them.

Such precautions were entirely needless, for Christ was now ready to give Himself up to them. Yet this very spirit of boundless self-sacrifice so terribly convicted the conscience of the impious that, at Christ’s simple declaration that He was the One whom they sought, the whole armed crowd scattered in terror and fell.

“That the word might be fulfilled,” and so forth: the word spoken by the Lord in His high-priestly prayer concerning the disciples (Jn 17:12).

“I have lost none”: if the disciples had been taken with the Lord, they would have been in great danger of falling away from Him and perishing, at least some one of them. If the firmest of them, Peter, denied Him three times that night, could something still heavier not have happened to one of them less firm?

This is why John especially points out this feature, that the Lord demanded that His disciples not be taken. He indicates this as the fulfillment of the word He had recently spoken, cf. Chrysostom and Theophylact.

The Lord, having defended His disciples from the enemies, not only saved their lives, but also preserved their unsteady souls from terrible temptations. For this reason the Evangelist remembered the word of his Lord, which He had spoken in prayer to the Father after the Paschal supper (Jn 17:12).

Praise and glory to You, wondrous in majesty and love, our Savior! Only where You are, and where Your holy will is, there alone are light, majesty, understanding, and holiness.

But when sin, and not Your will, disposes of us, confusion of thoughts appears in our deeds, dullness of mind, disorder of feelings, now fear, now audacity, now cowardice, now reckless pride, and contradiction at every step. Such are the works of sin.

Pride imagines much about itself. It displays its deeds before itself and others as intelligent and great. Yet it simply does not recognize the disorders of sin, and by this it proves still more pitiable. Amen.

Seeing the terror that had seized those who had come to take Him, the Lord again asks, as the following verses show: "Whom do you seek?"

Only when the Lord had calmed and encouraged the crowd, which had been cast into terror by these words, did Judas cease to fear for his contemptible life. Then, confident in human terms that he would go unpunished, he approaches the Lord and betrays Him with a kiss to his companions in crime.

"Again therefore Jesus asked them, Whom do you seek? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I told you that I am He. Therefore, if you seek Me, let these go their way, that the word might be fulfilled which He spoke: Of those whom You have given Me, I have lost none."