hen all their efforts to do good are made the very ground of accusation
against them, there is the strongest provocation to give up all such
attempts and to arrange for one's own comfort and safety. This world has
few more sufficient tests to apply to character than this; and it is
only the few who, when misinterpreted and ill-used by ignorance and
malignity, can retain any loving care for others. It struck the
spectators, therefore, of this scene in the garden as a circumstance
worthy of record, that when Jesus was Himself bound He should shield His
disciples. "If ye seek Me, let these go their way." Some of the crowd
had perhaps laid hands on the disciples or were showing a disposition to
apprehend them as well as their Master. Jesus therefore interferes,
reminding His captors that they had themselves said that _He_ was the
object of this midnight raid, and that the disciples must therefore be
scatheless.

In relating this part of the scene John puts an interpretation on it
which was not merely natural, but which has been put upon it
instinctively by all Christians since. It seemed to John as if, in thus
acting, our Lord was throwing into a concrete and tangible form His true
substitution in the room of His people. To John these words He utters
seem the motto of His work. Had any of the disciples been arrested along
with Jesus and been executed by His side as act and part with Him, the
view which the Christian world has taken of Christ's position and work
must have been blurred if not quite altered. But the Jews had
penetration enough to see where the strength of this movement lay. They
believed that if the Shepherd was smitten the sheep would give them no
trouble, but would necessarily scatter. Peter's flourish with the sword
attracted little attention; they knew that great movements were not led
by men of his type. They passed him by with a smile and did not even
arrest him. It was Jesus who stood before them as alone dangerous. And
Jesus on His side knew that the Jews were right, that He was the
responsible person, that these Galileans would have been dreaming at
their nets had He not summoned them to follow Him. If there was any
offence in the matter, it belonged to Him, not to them.

But in Jesus thus stepping to the front and shielding the disciples by
exposing Himself, John sees a picture of the whole sacrifice and
substitution of Christ. This figure of his Master moving forward to meet
the swords and staves o