Testing and Triumph
Introduction
But in that night they understood none of these things. While all were staggering under the blow of their predicted scattering, the Lord seems to have turned to Peter individually. What He said, and how He put it, equally demand our attention: ‘Simon, Simon’d—using his old name when referring to the old man in him—‘Satan has obtained [out-asked, ἐξῃτήσατο] you, for the purpose of sifting like as wheat. But I have made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not.’ The words admit us into two mysteries of heaven. This night seems to have been ‘the power of darkness,’ when, left of God, Christ had to meet by Himself the whole assault of hell, and to conquer in His own strength as Man’s Substitute and Representative. It is a great mystery: but quite consistent with itself. We do not, as others, here see any analogy to the permission given to Satan in the opening chapters of the Book of Job, always supposing that this embodies a real, not an allegorical story. But in that night the fierce wind of hell was allowed to sweep unbroken over the Saviour, and even to expend its fury upon those that stood behind in His Shelter. Satan had ‘out-asked, obtained it—yet not to destroy, nor to cast down, but ‘to sift,’ like as wheat1 is shaken in a sieve to cast out of it what is not grain. Hitherto, and no farther, had Satan obtained it. In that night of Christ’s Agony and loneliness, of the utmost conflict between Christ and Satan, this seems almost a necessary element.
This, then, was the first mystery that had passed. And this sifting would affect Peter more than the others. Judas, who loved not Jesus at all, had already fallen; Peter, who loved Him—perhaps not most intensely, but, if the expression be allowed, most extensely—stood next to Judas in danger. In truth, though most widely apart in their directions, the springs of their inner life rose in close proximity. There was the same readiness to kindle into enthusiasm, the same desire to have public opinion with him, the same shrinking from the Cross, the same moral inability or unwillingness to stand alone, in the one as in the other. Peter had abundant courage to sally out, but not to stand out. Viewed in its primal elements (not in its development), Peter’s character was, among the disciples, the likest to that of Judas. If this shows what Judas might have become, it also explains how Peter was most in danger that night; and, indeed, the husks of him were cast out of the sieve in his denial of the Christ. But what distinguished Peter from Judas was his ‘faith’ of spirit, soul, and heart—of spirit, when he apprehended the spiritual element in Christ;a of soul, when he confessed Him as the Christ;b and of heart, when he could ask Him to sound the depths of his inner being, to find there real, personal love to Jesus.c
1 Then he showed me aJoshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and 1bSatan standing at his right hand to accuse him.
2 The LORD said to Satan, “aThe LORD rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the LORD who has bchosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a cbrand plucked from the fire?”
3 Now Joshua was clothed with afilthy garments and standing before the angel.
4 He spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying, “aRemove the filthy garments from him.” Again he said to him, “See, I have btaken your iniquity away from you and 1will cclothe you with festal robes.”
5 Then I said, “Let them put a clean aturban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments, while the angel of the LORD was standing by.
6 And the angel of the LORD admonished Joshua, saying,
7 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘If you will awalk in My ways and if you will perform My service, then you will also bgovern My house and also have charge of My ccourts, and I will grant you 1free access among these who are standing here.
8 aBe of sober spirit, bbe on the alert. Your adversary, cthe devil, prowls around like a roaring dlion, seeking someone to devour.
9 1aBut resist him, bfirm in your faith, knowing that cthe same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your 2brethren who are in the world.
שָׂטָן:—1. accuser, adversary: a) human: 1 K 5:18; b) malʾak yhwh + Nu 22:22, 32;—2. spec. supernatural figure: haśśāṭān, the Satan + Zc 3:1f; Jb 1:6–2:7 (14 ×); > śāṭān (proper name) + 1 C 21:1
36 “But akeep on the alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place, and to bstand before the Son of Man.”