Peter Has Standing at Pentecost Part 1 of 2
The commendably courageous assertion by Peter in the mount of Olives…after the Lord’s Supper on the night before the crucifixion of Jesus…when Peter said: “Although all shall be offended, yet will not I” (Mk. 14:29)…after which Jesus tells Peter that after the night is over Peter will have denied Jesus three times…the scripture records that Peter replied vehemently: “If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise.” (Mk. 14:31).
All four New Testament gospels then record the denial by Peter of Jesus…in painful detail…that eventful night in the courtyard of the home of Caiaphas the high priest (Mt. 26:69-75; Mk. 14:66-72; Lk. 22:54-62; Jn. 18:15-18, 25-27).
One huge take-away here in terms of the biblical narrative in a modern world…is that Peter that night had no worldly standing…no impressive credentials…no resume of great accomplishments…no list of important political connections…but was a mere common fisherman from Galilee…a financial and political nobody in the eyes of Caiaphas and the powerful religious leaders of Jerusalem…having no special standing for Peter to rely upon to credibly occupy a place alongside Jesus at His night trial…to wield any persuasive impact whatsoever over these well-educated and influential men…who had already made up their minds in advance to condemn Jesus.
No amount of brilliant oratory based upon an appeal to the very best of worldly practical, conventional normalcy and thinking…delivered that night by anyone less powerful than a visiting Roman Governor, a member of the Roman senate, or a Roman military general on behalf of Jesus…could have swayed these men to release Jesus unharmed.
Even a passionate appeal in defense of Jesus…delivered by Jews who had standing and influence…like Nicodemus (Jn. 3:1) or Joseph of Arimathaea (Lk. 23:50-51)…would have fallen on deaf ears.
Which was by the deliberate, premeditated intention of God all along (Jn. 19:11; Acts 2:23)…because Jesus Christ the Son of God…the Second Person of the Trinity…is also the blemish-free Passover Lamb of God atoning sacrifice for sin…”slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8)…the ram caught by the horns in the thicket, for sacrifice in place of Isaac, that Abraham unknowingly foretold in-the-moment that God Himself would someday provide (Gen. 22:8, 13)…the God/man come down from heaven for this very thing (Mt. 26:53-54; Jn. 12:27, 18:11)…and described in the timeless prophetic foresight of Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, and the other Old Testament messianic scriptures…looking ahead over many centuries to the cross on Calvary Hill.
The non-existent worldly standing of the lowly Galilean Peter was of no real significance that night at the house and courtyard of Caiaphas…because the higher ways of God for Jesus the next day was to be crucified early in the morning and to die upon the cross at the traditional time on that Friday afternoon that the Passover lambs were killed…then raising Jesus from the dead three days later on Easter Sunday morning.
The release of Jesus during His night trial through a courageous stand of solidarity by one or more of His outspoken disciples…was not in the eternal plans of God for the redemption and salvation of mankind.
If Peter was able to muster the courage to make an ill-advised, desperate defense alongside Jesus that night…Peter would have needlessly occupied a fourth cross on Calvary Hill the next day…accomplishing nothing and nullifying his future destiny.
The first traditional understanding by Christians of this story of Peter’s utter failure in the courtyard of Caiaphas…of contemplating the orchestration of a defense of Jesus as events unfolded…even failing amongst common people standing around a fire…is that at that moment Peter was operating on his own in the flesh…through the natural man…through self-powered thinking (1 Cor. 2:14)…and not through the power of the Holy Spirit…as Peter should have known and exhibited under fire…being a disciple of Jesus (Acts 4:13).
This was an invaluable lesson learned the hard-way through this bitter failure that Peter had to experience…before he was ready to capably step into the leadership of the early Christian church…soon to explode supernaturally into being in the hostile environment of Jerusalem… through the power of the Holy Spirit…the lesson for Peter and the other disciples to listen and to walk in the Spirit…and not in the natural mind of our own ways and thoughts.
A second, classic take-away that should be recognizable to Christians is that this group of Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers, and scribes meeting at the house of the high priest Caiaphas that night…was an exclusive club of elites that would never admit Peter as an equal member…would not grant a lower class commoner like Peter the basic respect and dignity…to have a voice that night in defense of Jesus…which ordinarily would have been the case had these judicial proceedings been held during normal, daytime hours…and not at the highly illegal and unprecedented time under Jewish law…hastily assembled late at night at the private residence of the high priest.
But the third take-away for me is the most instructive…because it reintroduces at the critical point in time the displacement element that is common to all of the biblical narrative stories of faith…of a much smarter God brilliantly displacing our ways with His higher ways and thoughts in crafting a much better storyline…a storyline that a few short months later at Pentecost (Acts 2) has Peter experiencing the dramatic turnaround of the highest standing attainable in all of the created universe…and in all of heaven itself…at the peak and pinnacle of personal credibility and validation…at the level of uninhibited boldness of liberated love that casts out all fear (1 Jn. 4:18)…produced through the authority of true conviction…of being trusted by God with a priceless message to the world…empowered correctly through the divine anointing of the Holy Spirit.
At Pentecost…Peter and the other disciples were “filled with the Holy Ghost”…along with roughly three thousand people (Acts 2:41) who were also anointed by the Holy Ghost beforehand…prepared in advance amongst a larger-sized crowd to hear with open ears and open hearts the preaching of Peter…who were convicted of their sins and responded in repentance…which can only occur through the working of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 10:14-15).
Unlike at the courtyard of Caiaphas during the nighttime trial of Jesus…at Pentecost Peter exercised a standing that is not conferred through the consensus of worldly conventional status…of elevated social, financial, or political position…but comes about instead solely through the higher ways and thoughts of God…from the divinely confirmed route of walking in the Spirit (Mic. 6:8; Zech. 4:6)…that transcends above the wisdom of this world (1 Cor. 2:4-12).
Peter searching for a way to help-out God as he and John walked stealthily behind the mob conducting Jesus to the house of Caiaphas the high priest…by some way at the appropriate time coming forth to courageously stand alongside Jesus at His nighttime trial…is similar to Abraham and Sarah trying to help-out God in the debacle of Hagar and Ishmael (Gen. 16:2)…or Joseph in Pharaoh’s prison trying to move along the fulfillment of his two earlier dreams by enlisting the help of Pharaoh’s butler and baker to procure his release (Gen. 40:14-15)…or Moses prematurely killing the Egyptian in hopes that the Israelites would recognize Moses as their deliverer (Acts 7:25)…or Gideon assembling too large of an army (Jud. 7:2)…to name only a few examples.
What does this say about God displacing our ways with His higher ways and thoughts...as recorded in the biblical narrative stories of faith?
All four New Testament gospels then record the denial by Peter of Jesus…in painful detail…that eventful night in the courtyard of the home of Caiaphas the high priest (Mt. 26:69-75; Mk. 14:66-72; Lk. 22:54-62; Jn. 18:15-18, 25-27).
One huge take-away here in terms of the biblical narrative in a modern world…is that Peter that night had no worldly standing…no impressive credentials…no resume of great accomplishments…no list of important political connections…but was a mere common fisherman from Galilee…a financial and political nobody in the eyes of Caiaphas and the powerful religious leaders of Jerusalem…having no special standing for Peter to rely upon to credibly occupy a place alongside Jesus at His night trial…to wield any persuasive impact whatsoever over these well-educated and influential men…who had already made up their minds in advance to condemn Jesus.
No amount of brilliant oratory based upon an appeal to the very best of worldly practical, conventional normalcy and thinking…delivered that night by anyone less powerful than a visiting Roman Governor, a member of the Roman senate, or a Roman military general on behalf of Jesus…could have swayed these men to release Jesus unharmed.
Even a passionate appeal in defense of Jesus…delivered by Jews who had standing and influence…like Nicodemus (Jn. 3:1) or Joseph of Arimathaea (Lk. 23:50-51)…would have fallen on deaf ears.
Which was by the deliberate, premeditated intention of God all along (Jn. 19:11; Acts 2:23)…because Jesus Christ the Son of God…the Second Person of the Trinity…is also the blemish-free Passover Lamb of God atoning sacrifice for sin…”slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8)…the ram caught by the horns in the thicket, for sacrifice in place of Isaac, that Abraham unknowingly foretold in-the-moment that God Himself would someday provide (Gen. 22:8, 13)…the God/man come down from heaven for this very thing (Mt. 26:53-54; Jn. 12:27, 18:11)…and described in the timeless prophetic foresight of Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, and the other Old Testament messianic scriptures…looking ahead over many centuries to the cross on Calvary Hill.
The non-existent worldly standing of the lowly Galilean Peter was of no real significance that night at the house and courtyard of Caiaphas…because the higher ways of God for Jesus the next day was to be crucified early in the morning and to die upon the cross at the traditional time on that Friday afternoon that the Passover lambs were killed…then raising Jesus from the dead three days later on Easter Sunday morning.
The release of Jesus during His night trial through a courageous stand of solidarity by one or more of His outspoken disciples…was not in the eternal plans of God for the redemption and salvation of mankind.
If Peter was able to muster the courage to make an ill-advised, desperate defense alongside Jesus that night…Peter would have needlessly occupied a fourth cross on Calvary Hill the next day…accomplishing nothing and nullifying his future destiny.
The first traditional understanding by Christians of this story of Peter’s utter failure in the courtyard of Caiaphas…of contemplating the orchestration of a defense of Jesus as events unfolded…even failing amongst common people standing around a fire…is that at that moment Peter was operating on his own in the flesh…through the natural man…through self-powered thinking (1 Cor. 2:14)…and not through the power of the Holy Spirit…as Peter should have known and exhibited under fire…being a disciple of Jesus (Acts 4:13).
This was an invaluable lesson learned the hard-way through this bitter failure that Peter had to experience…before he was ready to capably step into the leadership of the early Christian church…soon to explode supernaturally into being in the hostile environment of Jerusalem… through the power of the Holy Spirit…the lesson for Peter and the other disciples to listen and to walk in the Spirit…and not in the natural mind of our own ways and thoughts.
A second, classic take-away that should be recognizable to Christians is that this group of Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers, and scribes meeting at the house of the high priest Caiaphas that night…was an exclusive club of elites that would never admit Peter as an equal member…would not grant a lower class commoner like Peter the basic respect and dignity…to have a voice that night in defense of Jesus…which ordinarily would have been the case had these judicial proceedings been held during normal, daytime hours…and not at the highly illegal and unprecedented time under Jewish law…hastily assembled late at night at the private residence of the high priest.
But the third take-away for me is the most instructive…because it reintroduces at the critical point in time the displacement element that is common to all of the biblical narrative stories of faith…of a much smarter God brilliantly displacing our ways with His higher ways and thoughts in crafting a much better storyline…a storyline that a few short months later at Pentecost (Acts 2) has Peter experiencing the dramatic turnaround of the highest standing attainable in all of the created universe…and in all of heaven itself…at the peak and pinnacle of personal credibility and validation…at the level of uninhibited boldness of liberated love that casts out all fear (1 Jn. 4:18)…produced through the authority of true conviction…of being trusted by God with a priceless message to the world…empowered correctly through the divine anointing of the Holy Spirit.
At Pentecost…Peter and the other disciples were “filled with the Holy Ghost”…along with roughly three thousand people (Acts 2:41) who were also anointed by the Holy Ghost beforehand…prepared in advance amongst a larger-sized crowd to hear with open ears and open hearts the preaching of Peter…who were convicted of their sins and responded in repentance…which can only occur through the working of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 10:14-15).
Unlike at the courtyard of Caiaphas during the nighttime trial of Jesus…at Pentecost Peter exercised a standing that is not conferred through the consensus of worldly conventional status…of elevated social, financial, or political position…but comes about instead solely through the higher ways and thoughts of God…from the divinely confirmed route of walking in the Spirit (Mic. 6:8; Zech. 4:6)…that transcends above the wisdom of this world (1 Cor. 2:4-12).
Peter searching for a way to help-out God as he and John walked stealthily behind the mob conducting Jesus to the house of Caiaphas the high priest…by some way at the appropriate time coming forth to courageously stand alongside Jesus at His nighttime trial…is similar to Abraham and Sarah trying to help-out God in the debacle of Hagar and Ishmael (Gen. 16:2)…or Joseph in Pharaoh’s prison trying to move along the fulfillment of his two earlier dreams by enlisting the help of Pharaoh’s butler and baker to procure his release (Gen. 40:14-15)…or Moses prematurely killing the Egyptian in hopes that the Israelites would recognize Moses as their deliverer (Acts 7:25)…or Gideon assembling too large of an army (Jud. 7:2)…to name only a few examples.
What does this say about God displacing our ways with His higher ways and thoughts...as recorded in the biblical narrative stories of faith?
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