tdh86
Puritan Board Freshman
So...I've got a question for you all.
When we're told that the disciples saw the Lord Jesus get arrested and 'they all abandoned Him and fled', what was the reason behind it? Was it just simply that they were scared of being arrested too and potentially facing the same fate? I guess there has to be some element of that but was that the main reason?
Or given that, in Luke's Gospel, six days prior to the transfiguration, Peter had to be rebuked by the Lord for denying that He was going to suffer and die, was the thought of a suffering Messiah still too much for their minds to grasp?
The Lord tells them they were all going to caused to stumble because of Him and Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthians that 'we preach Christ crucified; a stumbling-block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks'. Would it not be fair to say that the thought that Messiah was not, at that point, riding in on a charger for war but had come to suffer and die was still alien to the Jewish mind? The Lord even tells them that the Holy Spirit would later remind them of the things that He had said when He was with them and says that He was telling them things before they happened so when they had happened they could believe. The implication being that, at that stage, they hadn't fully grasped what the Saviour was about.
So when the Lord tells the disciples that Satan had demanded to have them so that he could sift them, it was a testing of their faith that was in view rather than a test of their courage or loyalty. Because the Lord tells Peter that He had prayed for him so that his faith did not fail. And when they saw what they must have thought was the Lord being put on the back foot when He was arrested, they surely started to doubt whether He could really be the Messiah at all? And, if that was in doubt in their minds, who would risk their lives for a cause that they were no longer sure of?
So...am I reading correctly or am I way off??
When we're told that the disciples saw the Lord Jesus get arrested and 'they all abandoned Him and fled', what was the reason behind it? Was it just simply that they were scared of being arrested too and potentially facing the same fate? I guess there has to be some element of that but was that the main reason?
Or given that, in Luke's Gospel, six days prior to the transfiguration, Peter had to be rebuked by the Lord for denying that He was going to suffer and die, was the thought of a suffering Messiah still too much for their minds to grasp?
The Lord tells them they were all going to caused to stumble because of Him and Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthians that 'we preach Christ crucified; a stumbling-block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks'. Would it not be fair to say that the thought that Messiah was not, at that point, riding in on a charger for war but had come to suffer and die was still alien to the Jewish mind? The Lord even tells them that the Holy Spirit would later remind them of the things that He had said when He was with them and says that He was telling them things before they happened so when they had happened they could believe. The implication being that, at that stage, they hadn't fully grasped what the Saviour was about.
So when the Lord tells the disciples that Satan had demanded to have them so that he could sift them, it was a testing of their faith that was in view rather than a test of their courage or loyalty. Because the Lord tells Peter that He had prayed for him so that his faith did not fail. And when they saw what they must have thought was the Lord being put on the back foot when He was arrested, they surely started to doubt whether He could really be the Messiah at all? And, if that was in doubt in their minds, who would risk their lives for a cause that they were no longer sure of?
So...am I reading correctly or am I way off??