CSI Jerusalem...The Kiss Investigation

We are exploring the evidence surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Last week we looked at the passages of Scripture that teach us about the unfolding conspiracy and the traitor among the disciples. We begin this week with the mob on the way to the garden.

Luke says the mob included members of the temple guard (“captains of the temple”—Luke 22:52). These were security officers who acted as policemen in the temple grounds and also had limited powers (sanctioned even by Rome) to arrest people for violations of the Jewish law. On at least one prior occasion, the chief priests had ordered the captains of the temple to arrest Jesus, but when they heard Him teach, they were so confounded by the way He spoke with authority that they came back stunned and empty-handed (John 7:45–46).

John notes that the mob also included a detachment of Roman soldiers (John 18:3). Since the Sanhedrin had orchestrated the arrest of Jesus, they must have been the ones who requested the soldiers to participate in taking Jesus. Obviously they planned to try Him on capital charges, and since only Rome had authority to carry out the death penalty, it was necessary to have a contingent of soldiers involved at the time of the arrest. A garrison of Roman soldiers was permanently stationed at the Antonio Fortress, adjacent to the temple mount. These soldiers were no doubt sent from there. In order to gain the army’s support in capturing Jesus, the chief priests had probably told the Roman authorities that Jesus was an anti-Roman insurrectionist.

None of the gospels gives a numerical estimate of the size of the mob, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke all agree that it was a great multitude (Mark 14:43; Luke 22:47).

Depending on the size of the detachment of soldiers (there were six hundred soldiers in a typical Roman cohort), the crowd could easily have numbered in the hundreds. The fact that the chief priests sent such a large crowd to make the arrest indicates the degree to which they were frightened of Jesus’ power. Many times before this they had sought to arrest Him or silence Him, and their schemes had always been foiled. Jesus Himself called attention to their absurd and cowardly tactic of sending an armed multitude to arrest Him in the middle of the night. “Have you come out, as against a robber, with swords and clubs to take Me? I sat daily with you, teaching in the temple, and you did not seize Me” (Matthew 26:55). Such a large group was clearly overkill.

They would face no resistance from Jesus. Of course, if He had not been willing to be arrested, no amount of earthly force would have been sufficient to capture Him. If it were not now His time in the perfect plan of God, He could easily have escaped even from such a large mob, as Jesus pointed out to Peter.

It had been a few hours at most since Judas left the Upper Room. It was already dark outside when he left, and by the time he arrived with the band of armed men it could not have been much later than midnight. Obviously he had gone directly from the Upper Room to the chief priests. Ever since they had paid him the blood money, he had been seeking an “opportunity to betray Him to them in the absence of the multitude” (Luke 22:6). Now, just in case, the conspirators decided to bring with them a multitude of their own. It would obviously have taken some time to round up such a crowd. But the readiness with which they were able to assemble so many temple guards, armed soldiers, and others shows their level of determination.

Who knows what they had told the Roman authorities in order to get an immediate detachment of troops like this? It is clear that they had falsely made Jesus out to be a serious threat to Roman interests.

Judas was well familiar with the location of Gethsemane, having been there many times in recent days with Jesus (John 18:2). Perhaps that evening’s trip to Gethsemane had been planned and discussed ahead of time among the disciples. Or maybe it was such a well-established habit that Judas simply knew where Jesus would go after supper. In any case, Judas must have been fairly certain Jesus would be there, to have brought such a large crowd along with him. As far as the conspirators were concerned, it was an ideal place to arrest Jesus without arousing the notice of the multitudes.

Passover always fell on a full moon, so it was brighter than most nights, but in an olive grove the moonlight would barely provide enough light to make dim shadows in the darkness. So Judas had previously arranged a signal by which he would identify Jesus for his fellow conspirators.

Judas may have also feared that one of the disciples would surrender to the authorities in Jesus’ place, pretending to be Him in order to spare His life. After all, just hours before in the Upper Room, Judas had listened while each of the other disciples had professed his willingness to go to prison or die for Christ. Therefore to be certain that they could distinguish Jesus from the others, the conspirators had set up their prearranged signal. Judas had told them, “Whomever I kiss, He is the One; seize Him” (Matthew 26:48).

The kiss in that culture was a sign of respect and homage as well as affection. Slaves kissed the feet of their masters as the utmost sign of respect. Disciples sometimes kissed the hem of their teacher’s garment, as a token of reverence and deep devotion. It was common to kiss someone on the hand as a gesture of respect and honor. But a kiss on the face, especially with an embrace, signified personal friendship and affection. The gesture was reserved for the closest of friends, so that a disciple would not ordinarily embrace and kiss his teacher unless the teacher first offered the kiss.

The word Matthew employs to describe Judas’s kiss is kataphileo, which means, “to kiss earnestly, intensively, or repeatedly.” (It is the same word used to describe the affectionate worship lavished on Jesus by the woman at the Pharisee’s house who anointed His feet with fragrant oil, wiped them with her hair, and repeatedly kissed [kataphileo] them—Luke 7:38.)

As if it weren’t enough for Judas to betray Jesus, in doing so he pretended the utmost affection, making his act even more despicable. Still under Satan’s control, Judas evidently knew no shame. He could have chosen any signal for identifying Christ to his fellow conspirators. He deliberately chose one that compounded his own guilt with the most diabolical kind of hypocrisy. He seems to have deliberately drawn out his kissing in order to detain Jesus as long as possible, to be sure that the soldiers had time to apprehend Him.

Jesus’ reply to Judas’s false display of affection conveys a tone of sadness, but no malice or hostility: “Friend, why have you come?” (Matthew 26:50). There is a note of restraint and possibly aloofness in the expression. Christ did not employ the normal word for “friend.” It was not philos, the word He used in the Upper Room when He told the disciples, “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends” (John 15:14–15). When he addressed Judas He used the word hetairos, meaning, “comrade,” or “companion.” Nonetheless, there is an irony in the fact that when Peter, a true friend, tried to impede Jesus’ advance to the cross, Jesus addressed him as “Satan” (Matthew 16:22–23). But here Judas—a willing tool of Satan, indwelt and controlled by the prince of darkness himself—hands Jesus over to those who would crucify Him, and Jesus addresses him only as “comrade.”

He asks, “Why have you come?” not because He did not know. But He wanted Judas to face up to—and the other disciples to recognize—what an evil thing Judas was doing. Luke records that He said, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” (Luke 22:48). Even at this late hour, when Judas’s heart was so obviously hardened against Christ, there is still an obvious tenderness in the way Jesus dealt with him. He uttered no invective; He did not speak harshly to Judas or call him names that would have been perfectly fitting, like villain, infidel, traitor, or fool. Instead, He addressed him as a comrade, called him by his name, and gently asked questions that would have smitten the conscience of anyone who was not utterly hardened. Judas’s perfidy, set against the backdrop of Jesus’ tenderness, looks all the more wicked.

But Judas was not deterred. He did not break stride. With bold-faced treachery, he handed Jesus over to His executioners, still pretending affection yet nurturing the most diabolical hatred in his heart.

Later Judas would have deep regret over what he had done (Matthew 27:4–5). But even then his regret was devoid of any true repentance. Having sold himself to Satan for thirty pieces of silver, he had already doomed himself to an eternity apart from the Holy One whom he so callously betrayed. It would have been better for him if he had not been born (Matthew 26:24).