Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. We just finished our series on consequentialism a few weeks back, looking at examples of how that ethic seeps into our lives and produces compromise all over the place. Even though we finished a couple a couple weeks back, now that we are approaching Easter, another thought came into my head that I I thought I would share with you, kind of an addendum to our consequentialism series. In episode four, we took a look at a consequentialist case study of Pontius Pilate. Well today, right before Easter, I thought I would address what I believe is another good example of consequentialism during Jesus' crucifixion.

That is Peter and his betrayal of Jesus. Now, most call Peter a coward, but I don't think that's true at all, and in fact I think that's a very common misunderstanding of what was going on with Peter, and something that I really only realized once I started digging into this ethic of consequentialism. So today I want to lay out a case against Peter's cowardice and tell you why I don't think he was at all a coward and explain why consequentialism I think makes a lot more sense in explaining Peter's actions. And then I want to take a look at how we are often very much like Peter. Exhibit one, we take a look at Matthew 16 and Peter says that he is not going to allow Jesus to suffer.

Right? That means that Peter says he's going to protect Christ from messianic consequences. Now Peter says this, which obviously doesn't mean that he will put his money where his mouth is, Saying that you're gonna be brave is different than actually being brave, but I want you to realize, like Peter's the only one who said this, the other disciples weren't the ones noted as saying this, and what Peter was was promising, what Peter was saying is a pretty big deal because the messianic the potential messianic consequences for Jesus, for somebody who's claiming to be the Messiah. Right? You have to understand that Messiah is a political figure and in Jewish tradition, he's going to be a conquering political figure.

Right? That's gonna be a big threat to Rome. Don't forget that like back at the beginning of Matthew, we already had a group of people try to anoint Jesus as king. Right? They tried to forcefully make him king.

So that's that's a huge threat to Rome. And then during this time, certainly after Jesus, but also there were a number before Jesus of false messiahs who were executed. Like what Peter was telling Jesus that that he was going to prevent him from suffering was not a small promise. Right? That was a a pretty big thing that Peter was was saying.

So Peter at least, verbally, seemed like he was up for being brave and not a coward since he was the only one who said that he was going to take on all of these consequences in order to prevent Jesus from suffering. Let's look at another exhibit. Exhibit two, John 11. In John chapter 10, the religious leaders had just tried to stone Jesus. Now in John 11, Lazarus dies and Jesus tells the disciples that they're gonna go see Lazarus.

Thomas says, I can imagine him saying it kind of like resigned to death here, like maybe sarcastically or passive aggressively saying, well, if we go with him, we're gonna die too, so let's just go. Alright? Kinda like an eeyore. I don't know, obviously, but that's how I imagine it. Well, what Thomas is saying is true though.

In chapter 10, Jesus just about got stoned and barely escaped and now they're gonna go right back to where people are ticked off at him and just tried to kill him. And Thomas recognizes, hey look, they've had some days to plot now, so if we go back there, we're all dead. But everybody follows, Peter and Judas included. So, right, that takes some bravery to walk into the face of what you think is certain death. Exhibit three, Luke 22 and John eighteen.

Peter cuts off the ear of a high priest, high priest servant, Malchus. So there are a couple things that are really important to note from these two passages. First, we know that there is a group of at least 11 disciples, right, they are without Judas at this point. And I guess there could have been other disciples following besides just the 11, We don't know how big the crowd was exactly. And in that group, there were only two swords because Jesus told the disciples, Hey, go get some swords here.

And they're like, Hey, we already have two. And Jesus is like, yeah, that's enough. So they had two swords among them and they didn't have to go out and buy them, they already had them. So Peter was packing, right, and he was packing for at least some time since he brought it with him. Who knows how long he had been packing?

But Peter was one of only two disciples who was prepared to fight, prepared to prevent Jesus from suffering. And during this confrontation here before Jesus' trial and crucifixion, they're confronted by a sizable group of presumably well trained guards, They're trained soldiers who are coming to seize them. Yet, Peter, puts his money where his mouth is by being the only one to attack, right? He he's like, I am not going to let Jesus suffer and die. He puts his money where his mouth is and attacks this group of people.

Now he attacks the high priest's servant, so nevertheless, even though he attacked probably the weakest, I would assume, of of the group, certainly his attack would have brought on the wrath of of the whole group. So it took a lot of courage for Peter to do what he was doing. And he wasn't just trying to slice off Malchus' ear here, I don't think. I think he was trying to decapitate him. You know in John 18 it says, it kind of puts the action together where it says Peter drew his sword and struck.

So I can imagine that it's all one fluid motion because it says that it cut off Malchus' right ear, right, so if he's facing Peter, that's Peter's left side, you know, presumably Peter's right handed like most people were, so if he would have slashed down, he probably would have cut off Malchus' left ear presumably, they're standing face to face. If he would have tried to swing a normal blow like forehand, he probably would have cut off Malkus' left ear if Malkus ducked. So I think what happened is Peter draws and slices in all one motion, probably draws from his left side which is where swords often are on your opposite hip and as he's drawing it out, he slices horizontally, Malchus tilts his head and tries to duck under the sword and the sword slices off Malchus' ear. So he's trying to decapitate the high priest's servant, it seems. I mean Peter is definitely putting his money where his mouth is in defending Jesus.

Let's take a look at another exhibit, exhibit four. Peter was one of only two disciples who followed Jesus to his trial. John I think was the other one and John was also at the cross and you have to remember that John probably has less pressure on him because he's probably very young. We know that John lived a very long life and if he's still writing into ninety AD or whatever, if he's still alive around that time, I believe is when he he died. He's probably pretty young, maybe the youngest disciple here and there might be less of, less repercussions for somebody very young at this time.

So Peter though, right, he follows Jesus all the way. So sure, Peter ends up denying Christ in in this area, but you have to consider all of the other disciples except for for John had already run away long ago. And Peter followed Jesus into the heart of danger after he was the one who tried to defend him. So, I mean, yeah, Peter is by no means a coward here. Know, certainly he may have a lapse of bravery to a certain extent, but the fact that he's following Jesus to this extent means he has a great deal of courage.

And then we also see that Peter is one of two, you know, with John again, the first two to race to the tomb of Jesus. They come out of hiding because they're so fearful that they're gonna be be killed, they have no no concept of the resurrection at this point. They just, you know, Jesus told them some things but they didn't get anything And so he doesn't know what in the world is up. Nevertheless, he he leaves hiding to race to the tomb. He's one of the first two at the tomb, risking, you know, could the Roman guards still be there?

Could they be just could this just be a trick to try to get us to come out of hiding and and catch us? Peter doesn't know, but he races to the tomb. So exhibit exhibit five, we're gonna kind of compile some of these things together, but also take a look at some of the other crazy things Peter has done throughout his time with Jesus. So Peter stuck with Christ and he was often the first to accept things and he always had his eyes on Christ. When Jesus said, you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood and lots of people left, Peter didn't.

Peter was like the first person to declare that Jesus is the holy one of God. He's the first to declare that Jesus is the Messiah. He said he was gonna refuse to let Jesus suffer. He was the first and only one to draw his sword. He walked on water.

He's the only one who got out of the boat and walked on water. Sure, he sank later because he he started to get scared, but man, he jumped out of the boat onto water to to go after Jesus. He followed Jesus all the way to his trial, and he went to the tomb and got out of hiding. Peter's life was focused on Christ and he would do crazy things, believe crazy things, do crazy things to pursue Christ. Peter was not a coward.

But if he wasn't a coward, then what in the world was Peter? Well, I think to a certain extent, Peter was a consequentialist of sorts, or he at least expressed a certain aspect that you see in many consequentialists. And that is that so often in consequentialism what we end up doing is we end up transferring our view of what should be onto somebody else, and I think that's what Peter did to Jesus. So Peter thought that Jesus was the Messiah, he thought he was awesome, he thought he was gonna bring in this this kingdom, he thought he thought that he was gonna get rid of Rome and that everything was gonna be great, and suffering was not a part of that. Success and victory were.

But things changed in the garden. The the rest of Jesus seems to have marred the image of the one that Peter thought he followed. If Peter thought of the Messiah establishing an earthly kingdom of overthrowing Rome and of being a powerful son of God, then what Peter was seeing in Christ's weakness couldn't be excused. If Jesus came to overthrow Rome, why did he have Peter Peter put away his sword? Why was he submitting to the kangaroo court of the religious leaders?

Jesus had always escaped the leaders before, presumably in order to build a larger following until he could make his move. But now, Jesus was willingly, being recognized as a criminal and he was refusing resistance that seemed pointless and suicidal to Peter. It must have destroyed Peter's hopes and dreams and undermined his assurance of who Jesus truly was. You know, like so many other messiahs before him, maybe Jesus wasn't who Peter thought he was. Peter's denial then was likely not primarily the denial of a coward who was trying to save his own skin, it's the denial of a broken man disillusioned by the image of who his savior appeared to be in contrast to all that Peter envisioned his savior should be.

Peter's fear wasn't that his body would be harmed or destroyed in defending Jesus. Peter already proved his willingness to sacrifice himself. Rather, Peter was disillusioned because it appeared that his dreams and ideals were being destroyed. Draft dodgers and deserters are cowards and Peter was neither of those. He was willing to stand with Jesus even unto death.

Instead, Peter retreated. He recognized that both the commander and the ideal he had been fighting for were killed and he had nothing left to fight for. Now I think it's also important to understand at this point that Peter and Judas weren't really all that different in their betrayals of Christ. See Jesus says that Peter was being influenced by Satan and Luke tells us that Judas was influenced by Satan. Judas, at least in some traditions, betrayed Jesus because he thought that creating a confrontation would force Christ to stop beating around the bush and finally bring his kingdom with force.

Judas was likely hoping a confrontation with Jesus would cause him to move forward with a confrontation with Rome. It was only when Judas saw that Jesus was arrested and condemned that he realized what his betrayal had done. See Judas expected Jesus to do something and to start the revolt at the confrontation. You know, Peter seems to have, seemed to have the same nationalistic mindset, the same proclivity to using force, and it was the undermining of his nationalistic ideal which likely brought about his willingness to deny Jesus. We can even see Peter's and the other disciples continued misunderstanding of Christ's kingdom post resurrection as they ask Jesus in Acts one six if he will finally restore Israel now that he is resurrected.

I mean, that that nationalistic ideal just lingered. The only major distinction between Judas and Peter is in their final responses to their realization of what they had done in their betrayal. While Judas' eyes looked to himself, his own guilt, and the tragedy of the outcome he brought about, Peter's eyes looked once again to the Messiah he loved so much. While Peter felt often, it was always momentary and it always caused him to bring his eyes back to rest upon Jesus. Peter truly, deeply loved Jesus and it was his love for his savior which was stronger than any ideal or desire that he held.

So is Peter a consequentialist? I don't know. I I can't prove that. But I think I can prove that he wasn't a coward. That's that's not who Peter was.

I think Peter had this ideal and he projected that onto Jesus and he thought that this is who Jesus was just like so many other people did, which is why people got ticked and crucified him, which is why his disciples ran because they thought he was somebody else who's going to bring the kingdom, who's going to relinquish them the rule of Rome. Peter didn't lose courage in the garden, he lost hope. I think we see the same thing today with my group of Christians, conservative Christians in particular. I'm sure you see it in all groups but again I speak from my own experience. In my group, we do the exact same thing as Peter, right?

We feel like we have courage because we are willing to stand for issues that we think are important and some of those issues are for sure, but we are also willing to compromise on other issues. We have this agenda and we project that as God's agenda, right? We have to accomplish all of these things for Him, we have to bring His kingdom in a particular way through politics, through forcing our society to be a certain way. And so we project that agenda onto God as God's agenda. But we fail to recognize that God's agenda is often different than our own.

And even though He might like a world where where things are more the way that that we think they they should be, you know, less killing, better education, more health care, no abortion, all those sorts of things. May maybe God does want all of those things. But the how is just as important to God as the what and Jesus shows us that. Right? He could have given in to Satan's temptations for political power and kingdoms, military might, for religious institutional power, but he didn't.

Right? The how was just as important to Jesus as the what. And, you know, he's willing to wait several thousands of years to ultimately accomplish what he started with a trivial life back two thousand years ago. Now if there's one thing we can learn from Peter, it's that, you know, it's not really cowardice that we have to fear as much as it is false ideals. Because if Jesus isn't our savior, if we're if we're like Judas and our ideals are our identity, then when we feel like we've lost our ideals, we lose our Messiah too.

But if we're like Peter and we can assess our ideals and our desires and our goals, we can recognize that some of those things are are not the way Christ wants to do things or the ideals that he would have, then you know what? We can discard those and we can bring our eyes back to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. It's my prayer for myself, and that's my prayer for you guys. So, that's all for now. So peace, because I'm a pacifist.

When I say it, I mean.