_PETER'S DENIAL AND REPENTANCE._
"So the band and the chief captain, and the officers of the Jews,
seized Jesus and bound Him, and led Him to Annas first; for he was
father-in-law to Caiaphas, which was high priest that year. Now
Caiaphas was he which gave counsel to the Jews, that it was
expedient that one man should die for the people. And Simon Peter
followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. Now that disciple was
known unto the high priest, and entered in with Jesus into the court
of the high priest; but Peter was standing at the door without. So
the other disciple, which was known unto the high priest, went out
and spake unto her that kept the door, and brought in Peter. The
maid therefore that kept the door saith unto Peter, Art thou also
one of this man's disciples? He saith, I am not. Now the servants
and the officers were standing there, having made a fire of coals;
for it was cold; and they were warming themselves: and Peter also
was with them, standing and warming himself.... Now Simon Peter was
standing and warming himself. They said therefore unto him, Art thou
also one of His disciples? He denied, and said, I am not. One of the
servants of the high priest, being a kinsman of him whose ear Peter
cut off, saith, Did not I see thee in the garden with Him? Peter
therefore denied again: and straightway the cock crew."--JOHN xviii.
12-18, 25-27.
The examination of Jesus immediately followed His arrest. He was first
led to Annas, who at once sent Him to Caiaphas, the high priest, that he
might carry out his policy of making one man a scapegoat for the
nation.[22] To John the most memorable incident of this midnight hour
was Peter's denial of his Master. It happened on this wise. The high
priest's palace was built, like other large Oriental houses, round a
quadrangular court, into which entrance was gained by a passage running
from the street through the front part of the house. This passage or
archway is called in the Gospels the "porch," and was closed at the end
next the street by a heavy folding gate with a wicket for single
persons. This wicket was kept on this occasion by a maid. The interior
court upon which this passage opened was paved or flagged and open to
the sky, and as the night was cold the attendants had made a fire here.
The rooms round the court, in one of which the examination of Jesus was
proceeding, were open in front--separated, that is to say, from the
court only by one or two pillars or arches and a railing, so that our
Lord could see and even hear Peter.
When Jesus was led in bound to this palace, there entered with the crowd
of soldiers and servants one at least of His disciples. He was in some
way acquainted with the high priest, and presuming on this
acquaintanceship followed to learn the fate of Jesus. He had seen Peter
following at a distance, and after a little he goes to the gate-keeper
and induces her to open to his friend. The maid seeing the familiar
terms on which these two men were, and knowing that one of them was a
disciple of Jesus, very naturally greets Peter with the exclamation,
"Art not thou also one of this man's disciples?" Peter, confused by
being suddenly confronted with so many hostile faces, and remembering
the blow he had struck in the garden, and that he was now in the place
of all others where it was likely to be avenged, suddenly in a moment of
infatuation, and doubtless to the dismay of his fellow-disciple, denies
all knowledge of Jesus. Having once committed himself, the two other
denials followed as matter of course.
Yet the third denial is more guilty than the first. Many persons are
conscious that they have sometimes acted under what seems an
infatuation. They do not plead this in excuse for the wrong they have
done. They are quite aware that what has come out of them must have
been in them, and that their acts, unaccountable as they seem, have
definite roots in their character. Peter's first denial was the result
of surprise and infatuation. But an hour seems to have elapsed between
the first and the third. He had time to think, time to remember his
Lord's warning, time to leave the place if he could do no better. But
one of those reckless moods which overtake good-hearted children seems
to have overtaken Peter, for at the end of the hour he is talking right
round the whole circle at the fire, not in monosyllables and guarded
voice, but in his own outspoken way, the most talkative of them all,
until suddenly one whose ear was finer than the rest detected the
Galilean accent, and says, "You need not deny you are one of this man's
disciples, for your speech betrays you." Another, a kinsman of him whose
ear Peter had cut off, strikes in and declares that he had seen him in
the garden. Peter, driven to extremities, hides his Galilean accent
under the strong oaths of the city, and with a volley of profane
language asseverates that he has no knowledge of Jesus. At this moment
the first examination of Jesus closes and He is led across the court:
the first chill of dawn is felt in the air, a cock crows, and as Jesus
passes He looks upon Peter; the look and the cock-crow together bring
Peter to himself, and he hurries out and weeps bitterly.
The remarkable feature of this sin of Peter's is that at first sight it
seems so alien to his character. It was a lie; and he was unusually
straightforward. It was a heartless and cruel lie, and he was a man full
of emotion and affection. It was a cowardly lie, even more cowardly than
common lies, and yet he was exceptionally bold. Peter himself was quite
positive that this at least was a sin he would never commit. "Though
all men should deny Thee, yet will not I." Neither was this a baseless
boast. He was not a mere braggart, whose words found no correspondence
in his deeds. Far from it; he was a hardy, somewhat over-venturesome
man, accustomed to the risks of a fisherman's life, not afraid to fling
himself into a stormy sea, or to face the overwhelming armed force that
came to apprehend his Master, ready to fight for him single-handed, and
quickly recovering from the panic which scattered his fellow-disciples.
If any of his companions had been asked at what point of Peter's
character the vulnerable spot would be found, not one of them would have
said, "He will fall through cowardice." Besides, Peter had a few hours
before been so emphatically warned against denying Christ that he might
have been expected to stand firm this night at least.
Perhaps it was this very warning which betrayed Peter. When he struck
the blow in the garden, he thought he had falsified his Lord's
prediction. And when he found himself the only one who had courage to
follow to the palace, his besetting self-confidence returned and led him
into circumstances for which he was too weak. He was equal to the test
of his courage which he was expecting, but when another kind of test was
applied in circumstances and from a quarter he had not anticipated his
courage failed him utterly.
Peter probably thought he might be brought bound with his Master before
the high priest, and had he been so he would probably have stood
faithful. But the devil who was sifting him had a much finer sieve than
that to run him through. He brought him to no formal trial, where he
could gird himself for a special effort, but to an unobserved, casual
questioning by a slave-girl. The whole trial was over before he knew he
was being tried. So do our most real trials come; in a business
transaction that turns up with others in the day's work, in the few
minutes' talk or the evening's intercourse with friends, it is
discovered whether we are so truly Christ's friends that we cannot
forget Him or disguise that we are His. A word or two with a person he
never saw before and would never see again brought the great trial of
Peter's life; and as unexpectedly shall we be tried. In these battles we
must all encounter, we receive no formal challenge that gives us time to
choose our ground and our weapons; but a sudden blow is dealt us, from
which we can be saved only by habitually wearing a shirt of mail
sufficient to turn it, and which we can carry into all companies.
Had Peter distrusted himself and seriously accepted his Lord's warning,
he would have gone with the rest; but ever thinking of himself as able
to do more than other men, faithful where others were faithless,
convinced where others hesitated, daring where others shrank, he once
again thrust himself forward, and so fell. For this self-confidence,
which might to a careless observer seem to underprop Peter's courage,
was to the eye of the Lord undermining it. And if Peter's true bravery
and promptitude were to serve the Church in days when fearless
steadfastness would be above all other qualities needed, his courage
must be sifted and the chaff of self-confidence thoroughly separated
from it. In place of a courage which was sadly tainted with vanity and
impulsiveness Peter must acquire a courage based upon recognition of his
own weakness and his Lord's strength. And it was this event which
wrought this change in Peter's character.
Frequently we learn by a very painful experience that our best qualities
are tainted, and that actual disaster has entered our life from the very
quarter we least suspected. We may be conscious that the deepest mark
has been made on our life by a sin apparently as alien to our character
as cowardice and lying were to the too venturesome and outspoken
character of Peter. Possibly we once prided ourselves on our honesty,
and felt happy in our upright character, plain-dealing, and direct
speech; but to our dismay we have been betrayed into double-dealing,
equivocation, evasive or even fraudulent conduct. Or the time was when
we were proud of our friendships; it was frequently in our mind that,
however unsatisfactory in other respects our character might be, we were
at any rate faithful and helpful friends. Alas! events have proved that
even in this particular we have failed, and have, through absorption in
our own interests, acted inconsiderately and even cruelly to our friend,
not even recognising at the time how his interests were suffering. Or we
are by nature of a cool temperament, and judged ourselves safe at least
from the faults of impulse and passion; yet the mastering combination of
circumstances came, and we spoke the word, or wrote the letter, or did
the deed which broke our life past mending.
Now, it was Peter's salvation, and it will be ours, when overtaken in
this unsuspected sin, to go out and weep bitterly. He did not
frivolously count it an accident that could never occur again; he did
not sullenly curse the circumstances that had betrayed and shamed him.
He recognised that there was that in him which could render useless his
best natural qualities, and that the sinfulness which could make his
strongest natural defences brittle as an egg-shell must be serious
indeed. He had no choice but to be humbled before the eye of the Lord.
There was no need of words to explain and enforce his guilt: the eye can
express what the tongue cannot utter. The finer, tenderer, deeper
feelings are left to the eye to express. The clear cock-crow strikes
home to his conscience, telling him that the very sin he had an hour or
two ago judged impossible is now actually committed. That brief space
his Lord had named as sufficient to test his fidelity is gone, and the
sound that strikes the hour rings with condemnation. Nature goes on in
her accustomed, inexorable, unsympathetic round; but he is a fallen man,
convicted in his own conscience of empty vanity, of cowardice, of
heartlessness. He who in his own eyes was so much better than the rest
had fallen lower than all. In the look of Christ Peter sees the
reproachful loving tenderness of a wounded spirit, and understands the
dimensions of his sin. That he, the most intimate disciple, should have
added to the bitterness of that hour, should not only have failed to
help his Lord, but should actually at the crisis of His fate have added
the bitterest drop to His cup, was humbling indeed. There was that in
Christ's look that made him feel the enormity of his guilt; there was
that also that softened him and saved him from sullen despair.
And it is obvious that if we are to rise clear above the sin that has
betrayed us we can do so only by as lowly a penitence. We are all alike
in this: that we have fallen; we cannot any more with justice think
highly of ourselves; we have sinned and are disgraced in our own eyes.
In this, I say, we are all alike; that which makes the difference among
us is, how we deal with ourselves and our circumstances in connection
with our sin. It has been very well said by a keen observer of human
nature that "men and women are often more fairly judged by the way in
which they bear the burden of their own deeds, the fashion in which they
carry themselves in their entanglements, than by the prime act which
laid the burden on their lives and made the entanglement fast knotted.
The deeper part of us shows in the manner of accepting consequences."
The reason of this is that, like Peter, we are often _betrayed_ by a
weakness; the part of our nature which is least able to face difficulty
is assaulted by a combination of circumstances which may never again
occur in our life. There was guilt, great guilt it may be, concerned in
our fall, but it was not deliberate, wilful wickedness. But in our
dealing with our sin and its consequences our whole nature is concerned
and searched; the real bent and strength of our will is tried. We are
therefore in a crisis, _the_ crisis, of our life. Can we accept the
situation? Can we humbly, frankly own that, since that evil has appeared
in our life, it must have been, however unconsciously, in ourselves
first? Can we with the genuine manliness and wisdom of a broken heart
say to ourselves and to God, Yes, it is true I am the wretched, pitiful,
bad-hearted creature that was capable of doing, and did that thing? I
did not think that was my character; I did not think it was in me to
sink so very low; but now I see what I am. Do we thus, like Peter, go
out and weep bitterly?
Every one who has passed through a time such as this single night was to
Peter knows the strain that is laid upon the soul, and how very hard it
is to yield utterly. So much rises up in self-defence; so much strength
is lost by the mere perplexity and confusion of the thing; so much is
lost in the despondency that follows these sad revelations of our
deep-seated evil. What is the use, we think, of striving, if even in
the point in which I thought myself most secure I have fallen? What is
the meaning of so perplexed and deceiving a warfare? Why was I exposed
to so fatal an influence? So Peter, had he taken the wrong direction,
might have resented the whole course of the temptation, and might have
said, Why did Christ not warn me by His look before I sinned, instead of
breaking me by it after? Why had I no inkling of the enormity of the sin
before as I have after the sin? My reputation now is gone among the
disciples; I may as well go back to my old obscure life and forget all
about these perplexing scenes and strange spiritualities. But Peter,
though he was cowed by a maid, was man enough and Christian enough to
reject such falsities and subterfuges. It is true we did not see the
enormity, never do see the enormity, of the sin until it is committed;
but is it possible it can be otherwise? Is not this the way in which a
blunt conscience is educated? Nothing seems so bad until it finds place
in our own life and haunts us. Neither need we despond or sour because
we are disgraced in our own eyes, or even in the eyes of others; for we
are hereby summoned to build for ourselves a new and different
reputation with God and our own consciences--a reputation founded on a
basis of reality and not of seeming.
It may be worth while to note the characteristics and danger of that
special form of weakness which Peter here exhibited. We commonly call it
moral cowardice. It is originally a weakness rather than a positive sin,
and yet it is probably as prolific of sin and even of great crime as any
of the more definite and vigorous passions of our nature, such as hate,
lust, avarice. It is that weakness which prompts a man to avoid
difficulties, to escape everything rough and disagreeable, to yield to
circumstances, and which above all makes him incapable of facing the
reproach, contempt, or opposition of his fellow-men. It is often found
in combination with much amiability of character. It is commonly found
in persons who have some natural leanings to virtue, and who, if
circumstances would only favour them, would prefer to lead, and would
lead, at least an inoffensive and respectable, if not a very useful,
noble, or heroic life. Finely strung natures that are very sensitive to
all impressions from without, natures which thrill and vibrate in
response to a touching tale or in sympathy with fine scenery or soft
music, natures which are housed in bodies of delicate nervous
temperament, are commonly keenly sensitive to the praise or blame of
their fellows, and are therefore liable to moral cowardice, though by no
means necessarily a prey to it.
The examples of its ill-effects are daily before our eyes. A man cannot
bear the coolness of a friend or the contempt of a leader of opinion,
and so he stifles his own independent judgment and goes with the
majority. A minister of the Church finds his faith steadily diverging
from that of the creed he has subscribed, but he cannot proclaim this
change because he cannot make up his mind to be the subject of public
astonishment and remark, of severe scrutiny on the one side and still
more distasteful because ignorant and canting sympathy on the other. A
man in business finds that his expenditure exceeds his income, but he is
unable to face the shame of frankly lowering his position and curtailing
his expenses, and so he is led into dishonest appearances; and from
dishonest appearances to fraudulent methods of keeping them up the
step, as we all know, is short. Or in trade a man knows that there are
shameful, contemptible, and silly practices, and yet he has not moral
courage to break through them. A parent cannot bear to risk the loss of
his child's good-will even for an hour, and so omits the chastisement he
deserves. The schoolboy, fearing his parents' look of disappointment,
says he stands higher in his class than he does; or fearing to be
thought soft and unmanly by his schoolfellows, sees cruelty or a cheat
or some wickedness perpetrated without a word of honest anger or manly
condemnation. All this is moral cowardice, the vice which brings us down
to the low level which bold sinners set for us, or which at any rate
sweeps the weak soul down to a thousand perils, and absolutely forbids
the good there is in us from finding expression.
But of all the forms into which moral cowardice develops this of denying
the Lord Jesus is the most iniquitous and disgraceful. One of the
fashions of the day which is most rapidly extending and which many of us
have opportunity to resist is the fashion of infidelity. Much of the
strongest and best-trained intellect of the country ranges itself
against Christianity--that is, against Christ. No doubt the men who have
led this movement have adopted their opinions on conviction. They deny
the authority of Scripture, the divinity of Christ, even the existence
of a personal God, because by long years of painful thought they have
been forced to such conclusions. Even the best of them cannot be
acquitted of a contemptuous and bitter way of speaking of Christians,
which would seem to indicate that they are not quite at ease in their
belief. Still, we cannot but think that so far as any men can be quite
unbiassed in their opinions, they are so; and we have no right to judge
other men for their honestly formed opinions. The moral cowards of whom
we speak are not these men, but their followers, persons who with no
patience or capacity to understand their reasonings adopt their
conclusions because they seem advanced and are peculiar. There are many
persons of slender reading and no depth of earnestness who, without
spending any serious effort on the formation of their religious belief,
presume to disseminate unbelief and treat the Christian creed as an
obsolete thing merely because part of the intellect of the day leans in
that direction. Weakness and cowardice are the real spring of such
persons' apparent advance and new position regarding religion. They are
ashamed to be reckoned among those who are thought to be behind the age.
Ask them for a reason of their unbelief, and they are either unable to
give you any, or else they repeat a time-worn objection which has been
answered so often that men have wearied of the interminable task and let
it pass unnoticed.
Such persons we aid and abet when we do either of two things: when we
either cleave to what is old as unreasoningly as they take up with what
is new, refusing to look for fresh light and better ways and acting as
if we were already perfect; or when we yield to the current and adopt a
hesitating way of speaking about matters of faith, when we _cultivate_ a
sceptical spirit and seem to connive at if we do not applaud the cold,
irreligious sneer of ungodly men. Above all, we aid the cause of
infidelity when in our own life we are ashamed to live godly, to act on
higher principles than the current prudential maxims, when we hold our
allegiance to Christ in abeyance to our fear of our associates, when we
find no way of showing that Christ is our Lord and that we delight in
opportunities of confessing Him. The confessing of Christ is a duty
explicitly imposed on all those who expect that He will acknowledge them
as His. It is a duty to which we might suppose every manly and generous
instinct in us would eagerly respond, and yet we are often more ashamed
of our connection with the loftiest and holiest of beings than of our
own pitiful and sin-infected selves, and as little practically
stimulated and actuated by a true gratitude to Him as if His death were
the commonest boon and as if we were expecting and needing no help from
Him in the time that is yet to come.[23]