The Suffering Savior 22:
By F.W. Krummacher
Our present meditation will console us for the grief we experienced when considering the depth of Peter's fall. The star of divine grace rises on that gloomy scene with benignant radiance. We here witness the shedding of tears, which, next to those that flowed from our Lord himself at the grave of Lazarus, over ungodly Jerusalem, and in Gethsemane, may be regarded as the most remarkable that were ever shed upon earth. They have dropped, like soothing balm, into many a wounded heart. May they not fail to produce a blessed effect on many of my readers, and be renewed in their experience!
We again meet with Peter at the horrible moment when completing his denial of Jesus, he formally abjures his discipleship with heavy curses. Observe, this is done by the very individual from whose lips the great confession had previously proceeded--"We have known and believed that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God;" and the ardent and sincere declaration--"Though all men should forsake you, yet will not I." But what are even the best of men when left for a moment to themselves? And what would become of the most faithful of Christ's followers, if the Lord were only for a short time to remove the restraints of his grace? O the folly of trusting to the finest feelings, seeing that we are not sure of them for a single second! What childish presumption to rely for success on the airy weapons of what men call good-will, or noble resolutions! We might indeed do so, if the "weak flesh" did not always accompany the "willing spirit," and if Satan did not always go about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
Peter has first to learn, in the school of experience, like us all, that we presume too much if we rely upon ourselves, even in the most trifling temptation. The love of Christ constrains us to venture everything for him; but it is only the belief in Christ's love for us, and the trusting to his gracious power and strength, that enables us to overcome. He who trembles at himself, as being capable above others of denying his Master, will gain greater victories than he who deems himself sufficiently strong to be able to say, "Though all men forsake you, yet will not I." "You stands by faith," writes Paul to the Romans, "Be not high-minded, but fear." "Therefore," says the same apostle, "I will rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
Peter is vanquished. Hell triumphs. And why should she not? Had ever a soul become hers which had drawn down upon itself the curse so deservedly as that of this apostate disciple? and did the cause of Christianity, so hated by her, ever receive such a painful shock as in this instance, where one of its apostles basely succumbs under the first danger which menaces a candid confession of his discipleship, and is unable to find language strong enough for his affirmation that "he knows not the man?" Nevertheless, hell begins to cry "victory" too soon. There is no such hurry with regard to the curse which is to light upon Peter. Listen to what is passing in the judgment hall of the palace. The appalling sentence has just been uttered in the midst of a tumultuous uproar, "What further need have we of witnesses! He has blasphemed God, and is guilty of death." "Who?" we ask, astonished. "Simon Peter?" No, another--a Holy One: even he who once exclaimed, "I lay down my life for the sheep." He is now ready to do so, and Peter belongs also to his flock, from whom the curse is transferred to him, the Surety, and with respect to whom the words are henceforth applicable, "They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." As regards the shock which the cause of the Gospel endured through Peter's denial, it will survive this also. Yet a little while, and there is One who will be able to give such a turn to the whole affair that it must tend rather to the advancement than the injury of the Gospel.
