I’ve heard it said, ‘Do you want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans’. Wartime US President Dwight D Eisenhower famously said, ‘In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.’[1]
While planning is everything, plans are nothing. Without planning, almost always our endeavours come to nothing. However, those ‘plans’, those intentions of our hearts, well the ebb and flow of life can dash them to pieces. Yet, the planning process was important to prepare us for the foreseeable unforeseen event that left our plans ruined on the floor. For the saying that became ubiquitous in the recent middle-eastern wars, was, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” The observation originated with the Prussian field marshal Helmuth Von Moltke in the mid-eighteen hundreds, who actually said: “No operation extends with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the main body of the enemy.”[2]
It might appear that it is the same with God. In fact, it seems in Luke chapter 22 that all the human vagaries of inconstancy, betrayal, cowardice, disloyalty, and indeed devastating frontal assault and apparent outflanking, have met and bested the Lord Jesus Christ. However, the truth is very different. All that is transpiring before him and us occurs in accordance with God’s plans. All the manure of human sin and wickedness that we see in this chapter is reploughed by God into his field to bring out something good, according to his own purpose and will. God is fully sovereign and in control, and nothing has happened that he did not fully design and purpose.
From Luke chapter 9, Jesus has been heading to Jerusalem to die. There Jesus said that he, the Son of Man, must suffer many things, be rejected, and be killed. And every one of his followers must pick up his cross and follow him (page 33). Jesus is going to complete his departure, literally his ‘exodus’, in Jerusalem (page 34).
In Luke chapter 11, Jesus has promised only the sign of Jonah to this evil generation: which Matthew identifies as the pattern of the prophet’s three day and three night’s stay in the belly of the sea creature. It sets up the pattern of Jesus three days and three night stay in the heart of the earth (cf Matthew 12:39-42; 16:4).
In Luke chapter 12, Jesus has a baptism to achieve, and is distressed until it is achieved (page 45). This too, is a reference to being overwhelmed by death and the grave. And in Luke chapter 17, Jesus says that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation (page 55). Again, in Luke chapter 18, Jesus reiterates that the Son of Man will be handed over, be ridiculed, insulted, spat upon, flogged, killed, and on the third day raised to life (age 57). And in Luke chapter 20, under the figure of the parable of the vineyard, Jesus has said that he himself, the beloved son of the Master of the Vineyard, is thrown out and killed (page 61). I would say that all of this is in the realm of divine planning and prediction.
And so, events are now in train to bring about the death of Jesus Christ. From God’s point of view, it has been prepared from before time began. Peter later would say that Christians are redeemed with ‘the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect, chosen before the creation of the world’ (1 Peter 1:19-20). His death was promised from Genesis 3:15. He is the seed of the woman that will crush the serpent’s head, but whose heel will be struck in the process.
But there are other actors in this drama. God’s purposes will be fulfilled, and the Lord Jesus will do what he was set apart and chosen to do before the world began. But there are other responsible agents in this account. And they have their own motives, and their own agendas, and they are seeking outcomes favourable to them. And God will bring his purposes about through and even by their own sinful acts. As Peter would say later of the whole grubby affair of the betrayal, trial, and condemnation of Jesus:
This [man], delivered up by the determined will and foreknowledge of God, you lifted him up [i.e. killed] him, nailing [him to the cross] through the hands of lawless [men]. (Acts 2:23)
God had decided beforehand what would happen to Jesus Christ. But God brought his purposes about through secondary causes that he created, including the sinful and rebellious will of Satan and sinful human beings and their lawlessness, rebellion and sin.
We see Satan’s plan throughout chapter 22. Satan is active at the beginning of the chapter when he enters Judas. Such a total, complete possession shows us there has been something wrong with Judas all along. It is interesting that Satan enters Judas, but because of the intercession of Christ, because Jesus prays for all the other disciples, Satan only ‘sifts’ the other disciples, but does not ‘enter’ them, and so their ‘scattering’ is not a final fall. Just as in the Book of Job, where God had put bounds around the activity of Satan, so here, Satan can go this far—sifting the disciples and entering Judas—and no further.
Yes, Satan might sift. But Jesus has prayed. And so Peter will rise from his fall. Jesus prayed that Peter’s faith will not fail. Peter will deny Jesus, just as Jesus predicted. And Peter will face a great challenge to his faith, for it is in the midst of the reality and ugliness of our sin that our faith faces a great challenge—not just, ‘will God forgive me?’, but ‘will I accept his forgiveness?’
Peter will learn that Jesus’ words in Luke chapter 10 were indeed true. Jesus has given the disciples authority to trample over snakes and scorpions and every power of the enemy. Absolutely nothing will harm them. And this fall of Peter will be for the strengthening of the disciples, and indeed the church. So Jesus says to Peter:
‘Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has insisted that he sift you all like wheat, but I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith might not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers’. (EJ 67)
Even now, in the midst of his own suffering, Jesus is performing his high priestly function. He is an advocate with the father in Peter’s defence. He intercedes and mediates for his people. And Jesus, who said in chapter 9, ‘if anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the son of man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory’, now says, ‘when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers’. Peter’s sin is not unforgivable, but it is real, and the result of his own weakness and Satan’s sifting.
What is motivating Satan? We know from the account of Jesus’ temptation in the desert that Satan has opposed himself to the Son of God (Luke 4). And Luke poignantly tells us there that after his failure to get Jesus to sin, Satan left Jesus ‘until an opportune time’. And here, at this last hour, Satan so boldly re-enters the scene.
From Satan’s perspective, this final period is the opportune time to test Jesus Christ. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus urged his disciples to wake and pray, so that they will not enter temptation. Jesus is aware that this is the hour of temptation, and that Satan is operating once again against him.
Moreover, we know from the Parable of the Sower that the Satan, the devil, is the one who snatches away the word, so that people do not believe the truth and be rescued (Luke 8). Satan does not want people to be saved or rescued. Rather, Satan wants humans bound, like the poor crippled woman for 18 long years. He is the strong man that himself needs to be bound and his possession taken from.
Satan in Luke is presented as the tempter of the Son of God, the sifter or tester of humanity, one who brings misery to humans, and one who does not want them to accept God’s word and be saved.
The irony, here, then, is that Satan and his tempting of humans and his love of human misery, was going to be the means by which God would bring about the rescue of sinful humans. God was bringing unimaginable good from Satan’s evil. For it is God who is in control, sovereignly pulling the strings, through what Satan does, in spite of the intentions of his heart.
Now both Judas and Satan are fully responsible for what they do by their own decision and will. Judas is about to engage in a betrayal—what he does is the definition of betrayal—and it is better if he had never been born. Judas is the one who goes to the chief priests and temple guard. Judas looks for an opportunity to hand Jesus over with the crowd present. Judas leads the mob and approaches Jesus. Judas kisses Jesus on the cheek in his final act of betrayal. And Scripture nowhere talks about Judas ‘turning back to strengthen the brothers’ as Peter did. Sure, he throws the money back, and in despair commits suicide. But it seems that his final acts of despair fall short of Peter’s repentance. Jesus says: ‘For the Son of Man is going just as it has been determined. Yet woe to that man by whom he is betrayed’.
Jesus in Matthew and Mark’s gospel says, ‘it would be better for him if he had not been born’ (Matthew 26:24; Mark 14:21). As the Psalm of David says, ‘It is the one who shares his bread who lifts his heel against him’ (Psalm 41:9). God has determined that betrayal is the way that Jesus will go—but woe to him who does it of his own volition and will. It would be better had he not been born.
The religious leaders also have their plans. Ever since Luke chapter 4, and Jesus’ homecoming sermon, he has upset the religious establishment. First it was his own home church, who wanted to throw him off a cliff. Then in Luke chapter 6, Jesus infuriated the Pharisees in the controversy over his healing on the Sabbath. And since Luke chapter 9, Jesus has been warning that he will be killed by the elders, chief priests and scribes (EJ p33). Jesus spends Luke chapter 11 insulting the Pharisees and religious lawyers for their hypocrisy (EJ p41), and by the end of it the scribes and Pharisees began to be very resentful, and attack him with questions, hoping to hunt him down in something he might say (EJ p42). And while Jesus was in the temple during that last week, the Pharisees, scribes, the chief priests and the Sadducees were all trying to catch him in his words. That is the story of Luke chapter 20. And by the beginning of Luke chapter 22, the chief priests and scribes are searching for how they might do away from Jesus.
Why? They are worried about the people. They are worried about their power. They are worried about their Roman overlords. They wish to defend the status quo. And Jesus is a troubler. He must go, for the sake of the nation.
The disciples’, of course, have their own plans. They have come all the way from Galilee to Jerusalem. They have stood by Jesus through all his hardships. So they are hoping for a little payola, a little pay off. And just as Jesus is explaining that he is now going to die for them, they are busy jockeying for the best place in the kingdom that they think Jesus is going to bring in before their eyes. They are squabbling over who is the greatest. Little do they realise that the places at Jesus’ left and right hand will be occupied by two condemned criminals on death row.
It is not that their desire for kingly authority is wrong. Jesus indeed promises that they would judge Israel’s twelve tribes. The problem is that their desire is premature. Now is the time for the greatest to become the least. For that is Jesus. Though in the very nature God, Jesus took on the very nature of a servant. He became obedient to death on a cross. And the disciples to become great must become servants.
Nor is it a time for taking up arms. Jesus provocatively has said to the twelve, ‘Whoever does not have a sword should sell his cloak and buy one’. They will need to be self-sufficient in a time of violent opposition. Unexpectedly, the disciples already have two swords. And they begin to take Jesus literally, a mistake that becomes clear when Jesus says ‘that is enough’ and ‘enough of this’, stops the fighting, and heals the severed ear. For now is not the time for the disciples to die for Jesus. Now is the time for Jesus to die for the disciples. And he must do this alone.
Peter no doubt was truly prepared to go with Jesus to prison and to death. Jesus would take him up on that later, but not now. For the New Covenant must be sealed in Jesus’ blood. Now Jesus will give his body for the disciples. Now his blood will be poured out for them. That is the mission the Father has given the Son.
On the Mount of Olives, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus engaged with his enemy in his final temptation. Now was Satan’s ‘opportune time’. Would Jesus go through with his Father’s plan? Would he drink the cup the Father set before him? Would he be led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, would he open his mouth?
The author to the Hebrews speaks about Jesus’ prayer on the Mount of Olives in this way:
During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 5:7-10)
The Father heard the Son’s prayers. This didn’t mean that the Father took the cup away. It meant that when our Lord Jesus said, ‘Not my will, but your will be done’, he was acting with the reverent submission that pleased the father. Jesus was being perfected by his obedient suffering. He was not born the perfect high priest, but he was made the perfect high priest by his suffering. In undergoing the agony of Gethsemane, he was completed for us. And the result of his successfully submitting to his Father’s will is our salvation. He has become the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.
[1] Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/dwightdei164720.html
[2] http://www.ralphkeyes.com/quote-verifier/