P
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Paul
The Man
Paul enjoyed a threefold citizenship. He was born a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, and thus his name Saul. He was a citizen of the Roman city of Tarsus, “no mean city,” and thus his name Paul. But he was primarily a citizen of heaven (Phil. 3:20–21) and devoted his life to helping others become citizens of heaven through faith in Jesus Christ.
Note the sequence of his name in the book of Acts: Saul (8:1); Barnabas and Saul (11:10; 12:25; 13:1–2, 7); Paul and his companions (13:13); Paul and Barnabas (13:42, 46, 50; 14:1).
The heart of Paul’s religion is union with Christ.
James S. Stewart, A Man in Christ, p. 147
Christian experience does not depersonalize men and reduce them to a monotonous uniformity: it heightens every individual power they have.
Stewart, A Man in Christ, p. 167
Paul’s religious position was hammered out, not in the study, but on the mission-field.
Stewart, A Man in Christ, p. 5
Let us not forget that he was a preacher first and a writer second. And both spheres—preaching and writing—were ruled by one great fact—the fact of a living present Lord; and by one all-decisive experience—the experience of union and communion with Him.
Stewart, A Man in Christ, p. 8
What meets us in his epistles is not a man creating a new religion, or even giving a new direction to one already existing: it is simply the Gospel of Jesus in action, the original, authentic Gospel first changing a man’s life, and thereafter molding all his thought.
Stewart, A Man in Christ, p. 19
He was at once a Jew, and a citizen of the wider world…. Jewish lineage, he felt, was not a thing to be apologetic about: on the contrary, it was a unique cause for thanksgiving.
Stewart, A Man in Christ, pp. 32–33
Wandering [Stoic] scholars and orators carried the message far and wide. It was the day of itinerant preachers … and in the streets and marketplaces of Asia Minor and Europe the Stoic evangelist was a familiar figure…. It is no wonder that, in that weary, disillusioned world, men stopped to listen.
Stewart, A Man in Christ, p. 57
His converts were his pride and joy. When he writes to them he is like a father addressing his children. He commends everything that is praiseworthy in them, where others might have found little enough to commend. He scolds them for their shortcomings, and warns them that if they do not mend their ways he will take a big stick with him next time he comes (1 Cor. 4:21). But he encourages them for all he is worth, and makes no secret of his consuming desire that they should grow up to be hundred-per-cent Christians, worthy of the honorable name they bear.
F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free, p. 459
Four themes emphasized in his teaching call for summary mention because they still need to be emphasized. (a) True religion is not a matter of rules and regulations…. (b) In Christ men and women have come of age, as the new humanity brought into being through his death and resurrection-life…. (c) People matter more than things, more than principles, more than causes. The highest of principles and the best of causes exist for the sake of people; to sacrifice people to them is a perversion of the true order. (d) Unfair discrimination on the grounds of race, religion, class or sex is an offense against God and humanity alike.
Bruce, Paul, p. 463
Take away the cross of Christ from Paul, and he is as weak as any other man.
AW-BC, p. 655
The apostle Paul had one of those arresting magnetic personalities that inevitably produces a polarizing effect upon those around them. When confronted with his dynamic, disciplined, decisive character, they were compelled to react.
D. Edmund Hiebert, Personalities Around Paul, p. 13
His Conversion (Acts 9, 22, 26)
Note that the description of the light that Paul saw becomes more vivid: “a light” (9:3); “a great light from heaven” (22:6); “a light from heaven … brighter than the sun” (26:13). See Proverbs 4:18.
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Paul wrote that his conversion was “a pattern” to those who would believe afterwards (1 Tim. 1:16). He saw the light, heard the voice, fell down in fear before God, and trusted the Savior. At the return of Jesus Christ, the people of Israel will have a similar experience of sudden conversion (Zech. 12:10–13:1), and Paul considered himself “born out of due time” (1 Cor. 15:8). God’s longsuffering and mercy proved to Paul that he would so deal with other sinners who, unlike him, were not the “chief of sinners.”
That long-suffering was seen first in sparing his life when he was rushing headlong in sin, breathing out threatening, foaming at the mouth with denunciations of the Nazarene and his people. If the Lord had but lifted his finger, Saul would have been crushed like a moth, but almighty wrath forbore, and the rebel lived on.
CHS, 59:392
The first time we see Saul of Tarsus he is silently consenting to Stephen’s death…. But, beginning with his silent consent to the death of Stephen, Saul soon went on to plan and to perpetuate the most dreadful deeds on his own account.
AW-BC, p. 640
The apostle’s language in the text, “for a pattern,” may mean that he was what printers call a first proof, an early impression from the engraving, a specimen of those to follow.
CHS, 59:385
[Acts 9:11] Poor Saul had been led to cry for mercy, and the moment he began to pray God began to hear. Do you not notice, in reading the chapter, what attention God paid to Saul? He knew the street where he lived: “Go to the street that is called Straight.” He knew the house where he resided: “Enquire at the house of Judas.” He knew his name; it was Saul. He knew the place where he came from: “Enquire for Saul of Tarsus.” And he knew that he had prayed: “Behold, he prayeth.”
CHS, 1:118
In every case the individual is saved, not for himself alone, but with a view to the good of others…. Paul’s conversion had an immediate relation to the conversion of many others.
CHS, 59:386–87
Paul in Arabia (Gal. 1:17)
But, somehow, Sinai seems to have drawn Paul to the awful solitudes with an irresistible attraction and strength. It may have been an old desire of his formed at Gamaliel’s feet, some day to see the Mount of God with his own eyes. He may have said to himself that he must hide himself for once in that cleft-rock before he sat down to his life-work in Moses’ seat. “I must see Rome,” he said towards the end of his life. “I must see Sinai,” he also said, at the beginning of his life.… [J]udge him not by his outward appearance. For he carries Augustine, and Luther, and Calvin and Knox, in his fruitful loins. In that lonely stranger you are now looking at, and in his seed, shall all the families of the earth be blessed…. Never did any other lord receive his own again with such usury as when Paul went into Arabia with Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms in his knapsack, and returned to Damascus with the Romans and the Ephesians and the Colossians in his mouth and in his heart.
AW-BC, p. 646
But the Apostle’s chief reason for telling us about Arabia at all is this, to prove to us, and to impress upon us, that it was not cities and colleges and books that made him what by that time he was made. It was God Himself who made Paul the Apostle he was made. “I conferred not with flesh and blood,” he protests.
AW-BC, p. 649
His Thorn in the Flesh (2 Corinthians 12)
There was a colossal pride in Paul, and at the same time a prostrate humility, such that they had never seen anything like it in any other man; a submissiveness and a self-surrender to all men.
AW-BC, p. 660
Paul’s Master had taken the proper precautions at the beginning of Paul’s apostleship that he should be all through it, and down to the end of it, the humblest man in all the world. By that terrible thorn in his flesh; by a conscience full of the most remorseful memories; as well as by incessant trials and persecutions and sufferings of all conceivable kinds, Paul was made and was kept the humblest of all humble men.
AW-BC, p. 662
We are plainly taught how mistaken we are when we set the eminent saints of the olden times upon a platform by themselves, as though they were a class of super-human beings…. They fought the common fight, and won by strength available to all believers; let us esteem them as our brethren, and with them pursue the sacred conflict in the name of the common leader. [L]et us run as they ran, that we may win as they won, and may glorify God in our day and generation, as they did in theirs.
CHS, 18:674
He reckoned his great trial to be a gift. It is well put. He does not say, “There was inflicted upon me a thorn in the flesh” but “There was given to me.” This is holy reckoning.
CHS, 18:678
From all this I gather, that the worst trial a man may have may be the best possession he has in this world; that the messenger of Satan may be as good to him as his guardian angel; that it may be as well for him to be buffeted of Satan as ever it was to be caressed by the Lord himself; that it may be essential to our soul’s salvation that we should do business not only in deep waters, but on waters that cast up mire and dirt. The worst form of trial may, nevertheless, be our best present portion.
CHS, 18:681
Without the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, thorns are productive of evil rather than good. In many people, their thorn in the flesh does not appear to have fulfilled any admirable design at all; it has created another vice, instead of removing a temptation.
CHS, 18:683
If the thorn be a blessing, what must the blessing itself be? If the smarts of earth heal us, what will the joys of heaven do for us? Let us be glad! Ours is a happy portion!
CHS, 18:684
[2 Corinthians 12:9] The Greek word translated “rest” (KJV) means “to overshadow, to tabernacle” (John 1:14; Rev. 7:15). Paul was suffering, yet he saw himself as the Old Testament Jews saw the tabernacle: indwelt and overshadowed by the glory of God. Like that of the tabernacle, his outward appearance was common and weak, but within he was a holy of holies that radiated the glory of God. See 2 Corinthians 4:7–5:8.
Paul had experienced a remarkable blessing when he was caught up into the third heaven, but God had to balance that glory with suffering. However, the suffering plus the grace of God helped to produce in Paul a new glory—victory over the temptation to pride. Great blessings can present great temptations, and we must be on our guard.
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[W]e should never know how sufficient grace was if it were not for these troubles.
CHS, 52:79
Paul in Prison
2 Tim. 4:13—He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching for at least thirty years, and yet he wants books! He has seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a man to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books! The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, “Give thyself unto reading.”
CHS, 9:668
[2 Timothy] Now, how shall we find the old man? What sort of temper will he be in? We find him full of confidence in the religion which has cost him so much (1:12)…. You will notice that this grand old man is having communion with Jesus Christ in his sufferings (2:10)…. Not only is he confident for the past, and in sweet communion for the present, but he is resigned for the future (4:6).… [W]e find him not only resigned but triumphant (4:7)…. Once more; he not only triumphs in the present, but he is in expectation of a crown (4:8)…. [E]verything which the apostle thought of was connected with Christ.
CHS, 9:669–72
Peter
The Man
He was genuinely human. That is good. Whenever a minister becomes more minister than man, three strikes have been called on him. Peter was always himself. He never struck a pose. He never pretended. He never tried to hide his ignorance. Peter had gifts of leadership. He had that something that we call personality. A third quality we like about Peter is his wholeheartedness. He was sometimes on the wrong side of the fence, sometimes on the right side. But he never straddled it.
Clovis Chappell, Sermons on Simon Peter, pp. 10–11
Peter was a man of too great self-confidence…. He was also an exceedingly impulsive man. He reasoned with his feelings rather than with his mind…. Living within the realm of his emotions, Peter was unpredictable and unreliable…. He [Jesus] gave Simon a glimpse of his possibilities. Our Lord, seeing Simon for what he was, saw also what he might become…. To each he is saying, “You are; you shall be.”
Chappell, Sermons on Simon Peter, pp. 10–15
I have known many a poor sinner pluck up hope as he has observed the sins and struggles of those who were saved by grace, and I have known many of the heirs of heaven find consolation as they have observed how imperfect beings have prevailed with God in prayer, and have been delivered in their time of distress. I am very glad that the apostles were not perfect men; they would then have understood all that Jesus said at once, and we should have lost our Lord’s instructive explanations; they would also have lived above all trouble of mind, and then the Master would not have said to them these golden words, “Let not your heart be troubled.”
CHS, 29:517
“Thou art Simon the son of Jona; thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone” (John 1:42)…. Jona means a dove, and Cephas and Peter mean a rock. So what Jesus is saying to Peter is: “Up until now you have been like a fluttering, timorous dove; but if you take me as Master, and if you give your life to me, I will make you a rock.”
Barclay, The Master’s Men, p. 16
Mark’s gospel is nothing other than the preaching material of Peter. It must always stand to the honor of Peter that he kept nothing back. He tells of his own mistakes, of the rebukes he sometimes received from his Master, of his own terrible disloyalty. Peter concealed nothing, for he wished to show the lengths to which the forgiving love and the re-creating grace of Christ had gone for him.
Barclay, The Master’s Men, p. 17
For some queer reason, we seem to love people more when they are not too perfect. In the presence of a faultless saint, the average one of us feels ill at ease…. This may be the reason Christians have always felt a special affection for Simon Peter…. Peter contained or has been associated with more contradictions than almost any other Bible character. He appeared to be a combination of courage and cowardice, reverence and disrespect, selfless devotion and dangerous self-love…. Anyway, we are glad Peter lived, and we are glad Christ found him. He is so much like so many of us, at least in his weaknesses. It only remains for us to learn the secret of his strength.
A. W. Tozer, We Travel an Appointed Way, pp. 103–6
He was a man of intellectual capacity, as is seen quite simply in the fact that the records speak of him as asking more questions than any of the disciples…. That he was a man full of human emotion needs no argument…. Moreover, he was a man of tremendous willpower…. Thus all the elements of great personality were found in Simon, and yet he was a weak man. He lacked an element welding the elemental things into consistency and strength…. Every jewel is a combination of elements welded into strength.
GCM, The Great Physician, pp. 34–35
Without Jesus, Peter might have been a good fisherman, perhaps even a very good one. But he would never have gotten anywhere, would never have learned what a coward he really was, what a confused, then confessing, courageous person he was, even a good preacher (Acts 2) when he needed to be. Peter stands out as a true individual, or better, a true character, not because he had become “free” or “his own person,” but because he had become attached to the Messiah and messianic community, which enabled him to lay hold of his life, to make so much more of his life than if he had been left to his own devices.
Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens, p. 65
When Simon Peter first steps upon the scene he is a rash, impulsive, and impetuous man. One recognizes the slumbering greatness of him; but one feels the boundless possibilities of evil. But Jesus handles him and plays upon him as a master musician might play on his loved instrument, till the chords are wakened into such glorious music that the centuries are ringing with it still.
GHM, Sunrise: Addresses from a City Pulpit, p. 88
He left his boats and his nets and his fish, and he gained the friendship of Christ, which was worth more than all the world.
Moody, Words, Work, and Workers, p. 242
Watchman Nee reminds us that the New Testament records three occasions on which Peter was interrupted: on the Mount of Transfiguration by God the Father (Matt. 17:4–5); in Capernaum by God the Son (Matt. 17:25); and in the home of Cornelius by God the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:44). See chapter 2 of his book What Shall This Man Do?
G. Campbell Morgan points out that three times Jesus took Peter, James, and John alone with him: to the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1); into the home of Jairus (Luke 8:51); and into the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:32–33). In each experience, he taught them something about death: he was glorified in death, he was victorious over death, and he was submissive to the Father’s will in death. See pages 246–50 of his book The Crises of the Christ. Note the parallel between these three events and Philippians 3:10.
In the Gospels and Acts, at least twelve miracles are recorded that relate directly to Peter. For an exposition of these miracles, see my book Your Next Miracle.
His Confession of Faith
[Matthew 16:17, 23] “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jonah…. Get thee behind me, Satan….” The first saying marks the moment when He first heard from human lips the confession He had long craved to hear. The second saying discloses Jesus facing again the besetting temptation of His life…. He saw Satan transfigured into an angel of light…. We find with a shock of surprise that the man who is exalted to heaven in one saying is cast down to hell in another…. A man may awake in the morning with a psalm, and before the sun has set make his bed in hell. [There is a need] for a vigilant watchfulness over the life. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”
William M. Clow, The Secret of the Lord, pp. 83–95
“The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” The figure employed suggests not defensive strength, but aggressive strength. A simple consideration of the figure of speech shows that it cannot mean defense, because no attacking city carries its gates with it. The Church is rather seen at war, and the declaration is made that the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it…. The figure is really that of escape from Hades. The Church is seen opening up a way of escape from a beleaguered city. Here the Lord, surveying the whole field of the conflict, refers to the last enemy which is to be destroyed, which is death, and declares that that must yield to the onward march of His soldiers. The great enemies of the human race are sin, sorrow, and death, and in that order. [The] Lord saw His Church as an aggressive force conquering sin, overcoming sorrow, and therefore triumphant over death.
GCM, Peter and the Church, pp. 20–21
Walking on the Water (Matt. 14:22–33)
In Luke 5:1–11, Peter learned he could trust Jesus to do miracles in the daytime on calm water, and in Mark 4:35–41 that he could trust Jesus in the nighttime in stormy weather, even when the Lord was asleep. But the Matthew 14 experience taught Peter that he could trust Jesus when the Master was not in the boat and when Peter was not in the boat! Our Lord used several “sea miracles” to teach Peter some valuable lessons.
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This is the story of one of the most wonderful pre-Pentecostal experiences of Peter. While it reveals an element of failure, that is not its only quality, neither is it its chief one. That element of failure, however, has so impressed us that we are in danger of failing to observe that it was failure on a singularly high level, failure in an hour of exalted and Christ-honoring experience. While we must not ignore the failure, we ought to consider it in the light of the whole story, for it is a story full of bright and tender light…. Briefly: an exalted experience, a sudden defeat, a fulfilled purpose.
GCM, 7:34–35
It is the story of a man who, suddenly lifted to a wonderful height, saw the possibility of the impossible in fellowship with Christ; asked for permission, waited for orders, and, having received them, obeyed and actually walked on the waters just as his Lord had been walking on the waters.
GCM, 7:39
[Matthew 14:30] There are two sights in human life which fill the heart with profound sorrow. The first is that of the person who has sunk…. But to the seeing eye and the perceiving heart there is another spectacle which is not less tragical—and that is of the man who is beginning to sink. … Our perils do not always reach us through our worst. Our perils sometimes reach us through our best; through what is charming in us, and delightful, and self-forgetful, and enthusiastic…. Peter began to sink in very familiar waters. … Also to be noted is this fact, that Peter began to sink on a permitted path. … Equally notable is this, too, that Peter began to sink when he began to fear. … [W]hen Peter began to sink, his Saviour was not far away.
Summarized from GHM, The Wind on the Heath, pp. 41–51
The wise man in the storm prays God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear. It is the storm within which endangers him, not the storm without.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
[M]y first observation upon it is that it was a very brief prayer. There were only three words in it: “Lord, save me.” I believe that the excellence of prayer often consists in its brevity…. I would urge you to cultivate the habit of praying briefly all the day.
CHS, 56:99–100
It was a short prayer and right to the point: “Lord, save me.” It didn’t begin with a long preamble, as a great many prayers do. If it had taken him as long to come to what he wanted to say as it does some people in our prayer meetings, he would have been forty feet under water before he would have reached it.
Moody, Words, Work, and Workers, p. 243
The apostles were in a storm, not because, like Jonah, they disobeyed the Lord but because they obeyed him. It was more dangerous for the apostles to remain with the crowd that wanted to make Jesus king (John 6:15ff) than to launch out on the sea.
His Denial of Christ
The great lesson of Peter’s denial is that wherever there is arrested development of Christian life there must follow deterioration of Christian character. Life must make progress to higher levels or sink lower until it pass away.
GCM, 1:193
[The stages leading to Peter’s denial of Christ.] First, refusal to follow his Lord into the mystery of pain and refusal to believe that his Lord knew best. Next, boastfulness. “Although all shall be offended, yet will not I.” What follows? Failure in the devotional life, inability to watch, and the cessation of prayer. Then zeal without knowledge, hastiness, the drawing of a sword, not under the command of his Master.
GCM, 1:194
That Peter followed “afar off” was not his sin; it was that he followed at all. “Let these go their way,” said Jesus, a signal for the apostles to get out of the garden. “I will smite the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.” By following, Peter walked into temptation and shameful failure. Note that the sequence parallels Psalm 1:1. Peter rejected Christ’s counsel (“Let these go their way”) and walked in the counsel of the ungodly (Luke 22:54; John 18:15). Then he stood “in the way of sinners” (John 18:16–18), and finally sat down “in the seat of the scornful” (Luke 22:55). On a night when Jesus was sweating as it were “great drops of blood,” Peter was warming himself at the enemy’s fire.
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The Church of God today is cursed by zeal without knowledge. This is the age of fussy feverishness, and there are multitudes of people who are attempting to overtake their lack of spiritual life by service…. It is well for us to remember that the last act of Divine surgery which the hand of Jesus ever performed was made necessary by the blundering zeal of a distant disciple.
GCM, 1:198–99
George Morrison called Peter’s attack on Malchus “impulsive loyalty.”
GHM, Wind on the Heath, p. 261
Peter’s fall … is four times recorded, at considerable length; but it is not once excused…. It was a very sad fall because it was the fall of one of the most favored of Christ’s disciples. … Peter’s fall was especially sad because he had been faithfully warned concerning it. … Further, the guilt of Peter’s sin is enhanced by the fact that it came so soon after his protestation of fidelity to his Master.
CHS, 48:133
His Restoration
Peter was helped by the ministry of memory (Luke 22:61)…. Yet let us bear in mind that while such use of memory is good, it is only a second best. Had Peter used his memory as the Lord had purposed, it would have served as a preventive rather than as only a cure…. Peter was helped toward recovery by a look. “And the Lord turned and looked at Peter” (Luke 22:61). What do you suppose Peter read in the face of Jesus? He read no anger, no contempt, no bitter resentment. He read no self-pity, no despair. But he did read heartache, grief and sorrow beyond words. He read also a deathless yearning. He read an incredible love that simply refused to let him go…. “He went out and wept bitterly.” This, I take it, marks the final step in Peter’s recovery.
Chappell, Sermons on Simon Peter, pp. 44–47
But there was one thing … which we must never forget; that is, the prayer of Christ for Peter. He said to him, “I have prayed for thee,” and the effect of that prayer was made apparent in the apostle’s restoration.
CHS, 48:139
Even when Peter went out and wept bitterly, there was a song singing itself over and over in the depths of his stricken soul. “When thou art converted … strengthen thy brethren.” What did it mean? It meant that his Master had foreseen the fall with all its baseness and its treachery—“thou shalt deny Me thrice.” But it meant also that his Master, knowing the very, very worst, had yet confidently anticipated the dawning of a day in which the coward should be the bravest of the brave and in which the weakling should be the fortifier of all the apostolic band. It was by means of a sublime expectation that Peter was led from the depths of shame to a life of service and a martyr’s crown.
F. W. Boreham, Shadows on the Wall, p. 22
He has gone astray, and he has been brought back; what better can he do than to strengthen his brethren? He will thus help to undo the evil which he has wrought…. Besides, how can you better express your gratitude to God … ?
CHS, 34:413–14
He can strengthen them by telling them of the bitterness of denying his Master. Again, Peter was the man to tell another of the weakness of the flesh. … And could not Peter speak about the love of Jesus to poor wanderers? … And could not Peter fully describe the joy of restoration?
CHS, 34:416–17
His Vision (Acts 10)
Peter had been given the keys of the kingdom of heaven, not the keys of heaven, where the gates are never shut. By sharing the Gospel, he opened the door of faith to the Jews at Pentecost (Acts 2) and then to the Samaritans (Acts 8:1–25). By this vision, God was preparing him to take the message to the Gentiles.
[Acts 10:14] “Not so, Lord.” This is a very curious expression…. If Peter had said, “Not so,” there would have been a clear consistency in his language and tone. But “Not so, Lord,” is an off jumble of self-will and reverence, of pride and humility, of contradiction and devotion. Surely, when you say “Not so,” it ought not to be said to the Lord; and if you say “Lord,” you ought not to put side by side with such an ascription the expression, “Not so.”
CHS, 31:85
But Peter is Peter still, and so does the renewed man betray the infirmities which were with him before his renewal.
CHS, 31:89
Delivered from Prison (Acts 12)
Three powers are revealed in this event: the power of a corrupt leader, the power of a praying church, and the power of a godly servant. Satan attacked Peter because Peter’s ministry was attacking Satan’s strongholds. Satan knew Peter and Paul (Acts 19:15) and opposed them. In Acts 12, Satan came as a lion to devour; in Acts 19, he came as a serpent to deceive.
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The angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer that fetched the angel.
Thomas Watson
[Acts 12:16] It is perilous to judge a person by one action. Life is too complex and intricate for that…. There was an hour, for instance, when Peter drew his sword and cut off the ear of the priest’s servant. There was another hour … when, panic-stricken, he denied his Lord. But if I wished to know the real Peter I should not turn to either of these hours; I should rather choose an action such as this—Peter continued knocking. Shall I tell you what it reveals in the apostle? … In the first place, this common act shows Peter’s courage. … The truest courage in this life of ours is seldom momentary or spectacular. It moves in the shadow of the dreary street; dwells in the dull seclusion of the home; continues doing things, with quiet heart, when the natural impulse would be to turn and flee…. [T]his common action reveals to us Peter’s understanding. … Half an hour earlier Peter had seen an angel, and he had been dazed and thought it was a [vision]; and now they think that Peter is a ghost, and Peter instantly grasps the situation…. Then, in the third place, this common action reveals to us Peter’s consecration. … Peter had had an experience that morning which had lifted him up into the courts of heaven…. A little while before … Peter had come to a great iron gate. And at a single touch of the angelic finger that gate had opened to let Peter through. And now he was at no massive iron gate, but at the humble door of a very humble dwelling—and he continued knocking.
GHM, Wind on the Heath, pp. 90–96
Pontius Pilate
Pilate is mentioned fifty-five times in the Greek text of the New Testament: fifty-one times in the Gospels, three times in Acts (3:13; 4:27; 13:28), and once in the epistles (1 Tim. 6:13 NIV). Yet he is mentioned each Lord’s Day in thousands of churches when God’s people recite the Apostles’ Creed—“Suffered under Pontius Pilate.”
It was Pontius Pilate who crucified our Lord. But for Pontius Pilate our Lord would not have been crucified. In spite of Pontius Pilate our Lord might have been stoned to death before the palace of the high priest that passover morning. Or, lest there should be an uproar among the people, He might have been fallen upon and murdered when He was on His knees in the Garden of Gethsemane that passover night.
AW-BC, p. 513
Note Pilate’s fear and indecision as recorded in John 18–19. He spoke to Jesus and then went out to the people (18:29), went back in (18:33), and then went out again (18:38). He went back into his judgment hall and allowed the soldiers to abuse Jesus, and then he went out with Jesus (19:1–7). He returned to the judgment hall with Jesus (19:9) and heard the people shouting against him (19:12). He went out for the fourth time (19:13) and finally capitulated to the crowd. He kept having second thoughts, and second thoughts usually lead people to make the wrong decision.
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How are we to reach Pilate? How are we to give him warning? He has rejected the voice of Jesus and the sight of Jesus—could not Peter be fetched to expostulate with him? Alas, he has denied his Master. Could not John be brought in? Even he has forsaken the Lord. Where shall a messenger be found? It shall be found in a dream. God can get at men’s hearts, however hardened they may be. Never give them up, never despair of arousing them. If my ministry, your ministry, and the ministry of the blessed Book should all seem to be nothing, God can reach the conscience by a dream.
CHS, 28:127
Of all persons in Jerusalem at the time of the trial of Jesus, whether Jew or Gentile, friend or foe, disciple or stranger, this woman, the wife of Pilate, is the only one who dares to say a word on behalf of the lonely prisoner.
CEM, The Way of a Man with a Maid, p. 136
With all his heart would Pilate have fallen in with his wife’s warning, had it been possible for him to do so. He did not need her urgent message. He knew far better than she did that the prisoner at his bar was a just man, and something more than a just man, but that only tied up Pilate’s hands all the tighter. “Have thou nothing to do with that just man!” Yes; but how is Pilate to get rid of that just man? … You all know what he did next. He put up Jesus to the vote of the people against Barabbas, trusting that the gratitude and the pity and the sense of fairplay among the common people would carry the day.
AW-BC, pp. 516–18
[“What is truth?” John 18:38] The lesson which we are to draw from this verse must depend upon the view we take of the spirit in which the words were spoken. Some of the best commentators conceive them to have been words of mockery; and such is the great Lord Bacon’s view. “‘What is truth?’ said jesting Pilate, and would not wait for a reply.”
In all deference to such authority, we cannot believe that this sentence was spoken in jest. In Pilate’s whole conduct there is no trace of such a tone. It betrays throughout much of uncertainty, nothing of lightness. He was cruelly tormented with the perplexity of efforts to save his prisoner. He risked his own reputation. He pronounced Him, almost with vehemence, to be innocent. He even felt awe, and was afraid of Him…. Out of that mood, when he heard the enthusiast before him speak of a Kingdom of the Truth, there broke a sad, bitter, sarcastic sigh, “What is Truth?”
F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 1:292–93
To such a character Jesus would not explain His Truth. He gave no reply: He held His peace. God’s Truth is too sacred to be expounded to superficial worldliness in its transient fit of earnestness.
F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 1:297
Now—the appointed ways to teach this Truth. They are three: Independence—Humbleness—Action. [Independence means] a determination to trust in God rather than in man to teach, in God and God’s light in the soul. Second, Humbleness. There is no infallibility in man…. We may err: that one thought is enough to keep a man humble…. Lastly, Action. This was Christ’s rule—“If any man will do His will….” God says, Act—make the life true, and then you will be able to believe. Live in earnest, and you will know the answer to “What is Truth?”
F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 1:301–3
Pilate treats the whole matter cavalierly; he is a proud and haughty Roman; he hates the people whom he governs, and though he has a conscience, and at the first he shows a tenderness towards his prisoner, yet his chief end and aim was to keep his office and amass money, and therefore innocent blood must be spilt.
CHS, 28:95
“Jesus gave him no answer.” And a large portion of the inquisitive questioning to which we have to submit is not worth answering; nor is it worthwhile for you and me to go up and down the world fishing for questions, or inviting the objections and cavillings of skeptics, because we think ourselves so exceedingly clever that we are easily able to answer them…. Our Saviour invited no questions from Pilate; he did not even condescend to answer all that Pilate had to say to him; and the best thing for a Christian to do, in many of his times of trial, is to say, with David, “I was dumb with silence. I held my peace, even from good; and my sorrow was stirred.”
CHS, 49:169–70
Our Lord, in effect, tells us that truth is the pre-eminent characteristic of his kingdom, and that his royal power over men’s hearts is through the truth…. He dealt not with fiction, but with facts; not with trifles, but with infinite realities…. Our Lord’s testimony was pre-eminently practical and matter-of-fact, full of verities and certainties…. What concern have dying men with the thousand trivial questions which are flitting around us?
CHS, 18:702–3
Christ never came to set up his kingdom by force of arms…. Christ said to Peter, “Put up thy sword into its sheath.” No compulsion ought to be used with any man to lead him to receive any opinion, much less to induce him to espouse the truth. Falsehood requires the rack of the Inquisition, but truth needs not such unworthy aid; her own beauty, and the Spirit of God, are her strength…. Believe me, no kingdom is worthy of the Lord Jesus but that which has its foundations laid in indisputable verities; Jesus would scorn to reign by the help of a lie.
CHS, 18:704–5
The battle is over, and Pilate had lost. Satan had won. Pilate called for a basin of water and, washing his hands in it before the multitude, said, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.” … What a drama that was—Pilate struggling for his soul; his reason, his judgment, his fears, his superstition all urging him to do the right; yet over all these obstacles and warning he marched on to his great crime and henceforth will be known forever as that “Pontius Pilate under whom Jesus suffered.”
CEM, Great Interviews of Jesus, pp. 145–46
“What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” That is your question and mine as well as that of Pilate. It is intensely personal for us. We cannot shirk it. We cannot remain neutral. We can no more remain neutral toward Christ than we can remain neutral toward the multiplication table. We can no more remain neutral toward him than we can remain neutral to the law of gravitation or to the law of sowing and reaping. Every man of us has Christ on our hands. We must decide for him or we must decide against him. God pity us when we try to pass that responsibility to anyone else!
Clovis Chappell, Faces About the Cross, p. 120