Luke 22.54-62
Denial and Redemption
(Luke 22.54-62)
Welcome back to Luke’s gospel!
If you’re joining us for the first time today, let me explain what we’re doing. At Eglise Connexion our regular habit is to preach through books of the Bible. We begin at chapter 1, verse 1, and we preach all the way through the book, chapter after chapter, until the end. We believe that’s the most faithful way to preach the whole of Scripture.
So we have been in the gospel of Luke for two and half years now. We take periodic breaks from time to time (usually during the holidays), but for the most part, we have been slowly and systematically walking through this wonderful book.
And we’re almost finished. Lord willing, we should be finishing Luke’s gospel on Easter Sunday.
So let’s just remember where we’ve been so far.
Luke is writing this gospel—this account of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ—to a man named Theophilus, who is presumably either an unbeliever or a new Christian, so that Theophilus may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught (1.4).
He recounts the events that preceded Christ’s birth; he tells us how Jesus was born; and he recounts his ministry—his teachings, his incredible miracles. He writes his book in order to show that the gospel is for all peoples, because Christ is the King of all peoples—he is the Savior, the Messiah God had promised in the Old Testament.
We saw Jesus make his way toward Jerusalem, knowing full well what awaited him there. We saw him enter Jerusalem as the promised King of God’s people. We saw his rejection by the Jewish religious establishment, who saw him as a threat to their way of life. And most recently, we saw Jesus take his final meal with his disciples, and the disappointments that met him following that meal.
In particular, I’d like us to remember one of those disappointments.
Go to Luke 22.31. If you remember, Jesus is still at the dinner table with his disciples, and at one point he turns to one particular disciple—a man named Simon Peter.
Peter is the courageous disciple, the hothead who says whatever’s on his mind (whether it’s appropriate or not), who always wants to get in on the action.
In Luke 22.31, Jesus turns to him and says,
31 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, 32 but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” 33 Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” 34 Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.”
Which, of course, would have been unthinkable to Peter—he had literally just said that he would go to prison and even die for his Master. And yet, Jesus’s prediction hangs over him.
After this meal, Jesus leaves the Upper Room, and he goes up to the Mount of Olives with his disciples. While he is praying there, one of his disciples betrays him to the chief priests and the officers of the temple, who arrest Jesus in the middle of the night.
When they come to arrest him, here comes courageous Peter, ready with a sword in hand. And Jesus tells him to stand down. He lets himself be arrested, and the soldiers take him away.
And that is where we pick up the story today.
In this particular passage, we’re going to follow Peter. We’ll see what happens to Peter after Jesus’s arrest. We’re going to see, first of all, how right Jesus was when he predicted Peter’s fall; and then we’re going to look elsewhere to see why these things happened the way they did, and what these events mean for us today.
Peter’s Denial (v. 54-60)
54 Then they seized him [Jesus] and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house, and Peter was following at a distance. 55 And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them.
So already this scene is full of menace. All of the other disciples have left, run away—at the very least, Peter had the guts to follow, even if it is at a distance.
When they arrive at the home of the high priest, they take Jesus inside to be questioned, leaving a handful of people—more than likely servants of the high priest—outside. It’s the middle of the night; it’s cold; so someone has lit a fire. And although Peter is essentially in enemy territory, he’s cold too. Those who had been present at the garden are presumably inside the home of the high priest, so Peter comes close to the fire to warm himself, hoping to keep an eye on what’s going on with Jesus.
But almost immediately, Peter is recognized by several people around the fire.
V. 56:
56 Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “This man also was with him.” 57 But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” 58 And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” 59 And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.” 60 But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.”
Now I think it’s important to remember that we’d probably have done no better in his case. Peter had seen Jesus do the unthinkable during his ministry; he had seen him heal the sick, and raise the dead, and cast out demons, and even control nature itself when he calmed the waves. And yet, just a few minutes earlier, he had watched as Jesus was put in chains, beaten and led away like a common criminal.
Suddenly the words Jesus spoke during the last supper—This is my body…this is my blood…—would have taken on a much more dire meaning.
If this could happen to Jesus, then who knows what could happen to Peter!
He was, quite understandably, afraid. Afraid that he would be brought into the high priest’s house and accused of the same crimes as Jesus—or at best, accused of following this blasphemer. He could well be tried alongside his Master, and beaten, made a public spectacle of, and killed as well.
And for all of his posturing, Peter was afraid: afraid to lose his life as Jesus surely would.
First, he denies knowing him (v. 57).
Next, he denies following him (v. 58).
And finally, he exclaims frustration at the interrogation (v. 60). Mark’s gospel is even more explicit—Mark 14.71 says,
But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know this man of whom you speak.”
Angry, frightened vulgarity, when for so long he had boasted of his courage.
This was what was really going on in Peter’s heart. He wasn’t courageous. He wasn’t bold. He was a frightened man who wanted to think himself something he wasn’t.
And in this midst of this final exposure of the true state of his heart, he surely wasn’t ready for what happened next.
Apparently at that very moment, Jesus was being led out of the house again; or perhaps he was next to a window out of which he could see the courtyard. Regardless, when Peter launches his curse and final denial (the second half of v. 60):
And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. 61 And the Lord turned and looked at Peter.
That sound, and that look from Jesus, would have been a gut-punch to Peter. Because he knew how much bravado he always tried to show. He knew the face he tried to put on before the other disciples, and before Jesus himself.
And in that instant, when the rooster crowed and Jesus looked at him (v. 61):
And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.”
He knew. Jesus knew what was really going on in Peter’s heart, and he knew exactly what would happen. He was right.
And Peter, finally, reacts appropriately. V. 62:
62 And he went out and wept bitterly.
So there are two things happening in this text: one is primary and one is secondary.
The secondary thing we see is the failure of Peter himself—we’ll deal with that first.
Peter’s Redemption
In this text we see a huge step in the process of Peter’s being shaped into the man God wants him to be.
If we’re Christians, we’ve all had this experience. Something seemingly innocuous—a look, a throwaway sentence from another believer, a verse in the Bible we’d never quite seen before—can be enough to make us realize that we are not the people we thought we were.
We all have ideas in our minds of the people we are, and it’s usually a picture of the kind of person we’d like to be. We think of certain kinds of behavior, certain attitudes, certain desires, and we think, Well I’d never do that. And then something happens to show us what we’re really like, and that realization can be devastating.
Think of a husband who is unfaithful to his wife. (It could also be a wife who cheats on her husband, but say it’s a husband for the sake of illustration.) This isn’t the kind of thing that just happens. He makes a series of tiny desires, tiny decisions—casual flirting with a colleague, or an occasional look at pornography—and these tiny decisions grow over time, almost imperceptibly, until they lead to something big.
At the same time as all this is happening, this man experiences a series of tiny self-deceptions, moments when he is able to convince himself that this little thing isn’t such a big deal, this little moment of weakness doesn’t fundamentally change who he is. Over time, as the sinful decisions grow, the self-deception grows as well. He sinks deeper and deeper into sin, all the while convinced that really, that’s not who he is. Really, he’s basically a “good guy.”
And then his wife finds out. She discovers a text, or opens a web page he forgot to close, or sees a charge he made with the wrong credit card. She is devastated, and confronts him with her devastation. And because, for the first time, he sees himself through her eyes—sees the immense pain he has caused her—for the first time, he sees himself as he actually is.
That’s what’s going on with Peter in this text.
He has spent three years convincing himself that he is worthy to be with Christ. He’s been the go-to disciple, the one who gets things done, the one who would follow Jesus where none of the others would. And some of the time, that served him well—like I said, at least he was there, following Jesus from a distance when all the others had left.
But the simple force of his will—his desire to be that kind of disciple—isn’t enough to do the deep work in his heart necessary to make him a different person. When the going really gets rough, he shows the kind of person he actually is: not the courageous disciple willing to follow Jesus into fire, but a frightened man who wants to preserve his own life, even if it means leaving his Master alone in his suffering.
And through the sound of a rooster crowing, and one look from Jesus, suddenly he knows it. He is confronted with his sin, with the state of his own heart, and he is horrified by what he sees.
Now here’s the thing we have to keep in mind. When we hear the example of the unfaithful husband, most of us think, No, of course I’d never do THAT. But it’s hard not to identify with Peter here, because who among us can really be sure we’d act differently?
The problem is that the unfaithful husband with whom we can’t identify, and the frightened disciple with whom we can identify, are in exactly the same situation. Different results, same root cause. Both men are sinners who have convinced themselves they’re really not as sinful as they seem. Both of them are confronted with their sin and realize that they are in reality far worse than they imagined.
And to both, Jesus holds out the same hope of redemption.
I don’t want to presume that anyone knows the rest of Peter’s story, so let’s do a quick overview.
Following this event at the high priest’s house, Jesus is tried, falsely accused of blasphemy, convicted and executed as a common criminal. This is what we’ll see in the coming weeks.
And during all of this, Peter is nowhere to be seen. He runs away weeping after Jesus’s look, and disappears entirely until after his death (presumably, he is in hiding like most of the other disciples).
The next time we see Peter is three days after Jesus’s death. A handful of women have gone to Jesus’s tomb, and found it empty. So they run back and tell the other disciples. Peter comes running to the tomb to see for himself, and Luke tells us that after seeing the empty tomb (Luke 24.12), he went home marveling at what had happened.
This is the last thing Luke says specifically about the apostle Peter in his gospel, and there’s a reason for that: Luke’s gospel is Part One in a two-part story he’s writing. Part Two is the book of Acts, which Luke also wrote, and which picks up Peter’s story where he left it off here.
In the book of Acts, Luke describes a very different Peter.
On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes down and fills the apostles where they are praying, and Peter gets on the roof and preaches a sermon to the crowds—a masterful sermon which God uses to save three thousand people.
Following this, Peter is the leader in the initiative to begin the Christian church. He is the first apostle to receive the news from God that the gospel should go out to all peoples of the world, and not just to the Jews. He is the apostle whom we see arrested and ordered to stop preaching, and miraculously delivered from captivity. He is the apostle who would later write (1 Peter 1.6-7):
6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
He can write this way because this is what has happened to him—tried in the fire of his own failure, he came out the other side a different man entirely, whom God used to help establish his kingdom on this earth.
Peter’s failure in this text is not the end of his story, and Luke will take great pains in the book of Acts to remind us of that fact.
But Peter’s failure and redemption are actually not the main point of this text.
The primary thing Luke is trying to show us in this text is the extent to which Jesus is completely and utterly alone in what he’s about to suffer.
Christ’s Solitary Work
Jesus had already been betrayed by Judas, and deserted by the other disciples. But like we said, Peter was always the disciple whom, at least from a human perspective, you’d expect to stay with Jesus.
But he didn’t. In the end, Peter denied him and left him alone.
So when Jesus was taken from the high priest’s home, he was completely alone.
When he stood trial, he was completely alone.
When he was tortured, he was completely alone.
And when accomplished his saving work by dying on the cross, he accomplished it alone.
The point is that Christ didn’t achieve salvation for his people through his disciples’ help. They couldn’t help, because they needed saving too.
Christ’s work for his people was absolutely solitary, and beyond the help of any other human being.
Why does this matter?
Because if someone helped Christ accomplish salvation for his people, then we might be tempted to think he’s not enough to save us on his own.
We’d be tempted to think that Jesus isn’t enough, so we need other sources of wisdom.
Jesus isn’t enough, so we need relationships.
Jesus isn’t enough, so we need stability.
Jesus isn’t enough, so we need a family.
Jesus isn’t enough, so we need a seminary degree.
Now obviously, God gives us good gifts which, through his Holy Spirit, absolutely do help us to grow in our faith. He gives us the relationships of our brothers and sisters, and he gives us the testimony of the church, and he gives us circumstances which guide us into life.
But none of those things save us, and none of those things can complete or add to what Christ did for us.
Our only source of salvation, and our only hope, is the finished work of Christ, which he alone accomplished for us.
Our only hope is that Christ lived our life and suffered our death, and that God killed our sin on the cross with Christ, and that he alone transforms us into Christ’s image after saving us.
All of our salvation, and our growth in holiness, comes from God alone.
We see this in our own lives, and we can see it in how Jesus changed Peter.
Remember back to the last supper Jesus ate with his disciples. At that dinner, he prayed for Peter. Luke 22.31-32:
“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, 32 but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”
We saw this a couple months ago: when Jesus prays for something, you can be absolutely sure that it will come to pass. So before Peter ever denied Christ, before he ever ran away, it was absolutely certain that his faith would not fail, and that he would strengthen his brothers.
This fact helps us to see everything that happened in our passage today in a different light, doesn’t it? Peter’s denial wasn’t a surprise to Jesus. His failure didn’t shock or discourage Jesus. Jesus was waiting for it, to use it to shape Peter into the man he would soon become.
He predicted Peter’s fall, and the rooster’s crow, so that Peter would realize who he really was: not a courageous disciple, but a frightened man intent on saving himself. He looked at Peter at just the right moment, to drive the nail home: not only had Peter denied his Master, but the Master knew it had happened.
On the cross, he took Peter’s sin on himself—even that sin of denial and betrayal—and was punished for it, in Peter’s place.
And after appearing to him and encouraging him in his resurrected body, he sent his Spirit to Peter, to give him the boldness and the courage Peter had so desired. The man Peter wanted to be—the best version of himself—is exactly what he became, but not for his own glory. He wasn’t perfect (as we see in Paul’s letter to the Galatians), but he became courageous, and bold, and wise, for the glory of the One who had saved him, because he knew that his salvation wasn’t owing to anything in himself, but to Christ, who accomplished it alone.
Often when we read texts like this, we can come away simply feeling depressed. We just see a massive failure—one with which we identify, on top of everything else. So it can be easy to have a hard time knowing what to do with it.
That’s why it’s important to know the whole biblical story: when we see failure in the Bible (and there are many failures to see!), we need to understand what those failures have to do with the overarching narrative of the biblical story, what God did through and sometimes even because of that failure—and what can do through our failures as well.
So reading the story of Peter’s denial of Christ, we need to remember three main things.
1. You are worse than you think you are.
When the rooster crowed and Christ looked at Peter after his denial, it was a wake-up call for him. Peter realized that for all of his posturing, he was not the solid, courageous disciple of Christ he thought he was.
And neither are we. You may think you’ve come a very long way with Christ, or you may think there’s not much wrong with you, and you don’t really need him. Regardless of our situation, we are all far worse than we think we are.
The prophet Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 17.9:
The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
That’s why this is a problem for us: it’s not a question of our behavior. Peter wasn’t a sinful man because he denied Christ; he denied Christ because he was a sinful man. He did his best to let everyone around him see what he wanted them to see—courage, and honor, and a willingness to deny himself and follow Christ.
But ultimately his heart was still turned toward himself—his own desires, his own self-preservation. And when the right “stressers” were applied, when the right situational cocktail arrived to its boiling point, his own weakness got the better of him, and he denied his Lord.
God expects us to be honest about that reality: that no matter how good or bad we think we are, we are all much worse than we think.
That’s the bad news. But there is good news...
2. Jesus doesn’t need your help.
Luke makes a point to show us that when it came time for Jesus to pass by his greatest trial, he was absolutely alone: even the disciple everyone would have expected to stay by his side abandoned him.
He wants us to see this in order to remind us that what God accomplished in the life, death and resurrection of Christ, he accomplished without the help of anyone or anything else.
What God accomplished in the life of Peter and the apostles following this event, he accomplished without any outside help. Of course, they responded to God, and went where he led; but they only did that because God alone so radically overhauled their hearts and minds that doing otherwise was unthinkable.
What God accomplished in establishing the church and causing his gospel to go forward throughout the world, he accomplished without any help.
Our immediate temptation, when we realize just how sinful we actually are, is to wonder, OK, what can I do? Give me a book to read, give me a 12-step program, give me some music to listen to, I’ll do anything. Just tell me what to do.
But you can’t do this work in yourself—only Christ can do it, through his Holy Spirit, and he doesn’t need your help. This is why we pray—if we pray that God would do something in us, or in someone we love, it’s because we know we can’t do it ourselves.
One of the biggest battles of the Christian life is to really believe that what we need for salvation, Christ does for us and in us, and he does it without our help.
Now there’s one last thing we have to remember here, and this can sound shocking at first:
3. No sin is too great to be used.
I hesitate to say this, because I know how someone could hear that wrong.
I am not saying it was a good thing for Peter to deny Christ, just as I am not saying it is ever good for any of us to sin in any way.
But here is the goodness of our God: he is capable of taking even the worst sins we commit and using them to make us more like Christ.
In John’s gospel, we see one last encounter between Jesus and Peter. It is the third time Jesus has appeared to his disciples after his resurrection. And as they’re finishing breakfast (such a mundane situation for a life-changing event) something extraordinary happens.
John 21.15-19:
15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep."
Now what is clear, if you know what came before, is why Peter was grieved when Jesus asked him if he loved him for the third time. He was grieved because that is exactly how many times Peter denied Jesus. And because the memory of Peter’s failure was still very fresh in his mind, he knew what Jesus was getting at.
Very often when we talk about God’s forgiveness, we talk about it in terms of forgetting. Forget the past; forget what you did before; only look forward to what’s ahead. I’m sorry, but Jesus would disagree with you. (That’s a misapplication of what Paul says in Philippians 3.)
Jesus doesn’t want Peter to forget his sin. He wants to remind Peter of his sin, because he wants to use it, to make him see his sin as horrible, to make him fear sin rather than the authorities who would soon persecute him.
I hope you can see how beautiful this is. Our sin is what separated us from God. And Christ alone did what was necessary to remove that sin from us. But rather than simply taking an eraser to the past and acting as if it never happened, Christ redeems our sinful past, using it to make us more like him.
Again, this is not an encouragement to treat sin lightly (Scripture has strong words for those who would have such an attitude), but rather assurance for those who are burdened by their sinful past, who can’t forget what they’ve done, and who have been beating themselves up about it ever since.
That guilt you feel is right. That sadness and horror you feel over your sin is right.
Which is why you mustn’t let it go to waste. Rather than trying to forget your past sin, own it. Be honest about it. Confess it. And let the fact that Christ has suffered your punishment anyway, and given you his righteousness anyway, shape your desires for holiness. Let the memory of who you were fill you with wonder at who Christ has made you become.
Or, perhaps you’re filled with shame at present sin in your life—as Peter was when he heard the rooster crow, and saw Jesus look at him. How are you going to respond to that shame? Most people try to fix it on their own—OK, I’ll do better—but this text makes it abundantly clear that Christ doesn’t need your help. The only thing you can do in this situation is let him save you, and repent of that sin, and trust his perfect righteousness for your future.
So whether you’re a Christian or not today, the call of this text is the same: trust in the finished work of Christ, who achieved salvation for you. Trust that because he suffered and died alone, he doesn’t need any help saving you. And trust that he can take even your mistakes and use them to shape you into his image.
