Luke 22:31-34 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.”
There is much to provoke thoughts of of Jesus’ omniscience, sovereignty, & love in this passage...
His omniscience in His understanding of both Peter’s denial & his return.
His sovereignty in His ability to pray to assuredly facilitate his return.
His love in that He never fails to exercise His sovereignty over our situations.
But I believe His omniscience extends far beyond a simple understanding of the future. I believe despite Peter’s many past & present expressions of a deep, passionate faith in Him, Christ knew there was a major, fleshly flaw in his beloved’s belief.
We can trust Him... because of His complete knowledge of us. He “searches mind and heart”, He knows us better than we know ourselves. “He… needed no one to bear witness about man, for He Himself knew what was in man.”
One fascinating thing to ponder in this passage is that Jesus prayed that Peter’s faith would not fail, yet only three verses later He emphatically tells Peter that his faith would fail! The “Bart Ehrmans” of the world, in their utter faithlessness, critique the paradoxes of Scripture in the most simplistic fashion & try to tell us to not trust the Bible because of such as these.
But the beloved are nevertheless drawn to God’s Word as true by the new creation within, being instead encouraged & motivated by its depth.
The Bible reveals the glory of God, & His glory is great. So, it follows that the elucidation of such glory would also be great. We see & believe in God’s resplendent transcendence in part because it is seen in His Word. Like God Himself, there seems to be no end to the depth of the glory of Scripture; this thrills our soul, for it evidences it was neither composed by, nor about, an ordinary, simplistic God.
In regards to this passage, what’s also interesting is that the only thing comparable to Jesus’ emphatic declaration of Peter’s coming faithlessness is the Peter’s forceful denial of the possibility of his denial! The disciple unquestionably refused the reliability of Jesus’ clear words concerning himself.
Now if his faith was truly & fully in Christ, he would never deny anything his Master says, yet here we have him steadfastly refuting Jesus’ distinct words. This action subtly reveals the carnal nature of Peter’s faith.
Today in the church, we have a movement known as “Word-Faith”. It teaches a didactic that has an individual's faith as the foremost cause of the direction & difficulty of his journey, instead of God’s constant omniscience, sovereignty, & love. They falsely declare “God doesn't give you more than you can handle, & if it seems like He is, then that is just a failure of your faith to speak your life into order.” The emphasis is continually on us to “speak” & “seed” great degrees of health & wealth into our lives.
This is so subtle, & the biblically naïve never catch it at first, but it is a false faith grounded on our words, our deeds, our strength, our righteousness. It is a Romish sort of faith, often even worse so, that relies on an imparted righteousness, wherein God supposedly delivers us the power to save ourselves by a faith & righteousness that is our own, in complete contradiction of Paul’s instruction in Romans 4 & 9. This sort of “faith”, being largely divorced from the life-giving glory of Christ & His substitutionary righteousness, is actually a dead, lifeless faith that results in a dead, lifeless righteousness, the filthy rags of Isaiah 64:6. Peter, to some degree, had this manner of faith...
He believed in his faith in Christ more than he believed in the
words of Christ.
Our Lord omnisciently knew this, & out of love for Peter He sovereignly wielded Satan as a tool to destroy this weak, fleshly faith.
He gave Peter more than his flesh could handle.
Yet, the text also says, “but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.”
What of this prayer of sovereign God that seems to witness the steadfast perseverance of the disciple's faith?
Even the most cursory reading the first ten chapters of Acts, as well as his two epistles, reveals the incredibly deep, passionate faith of this apostle…
Acts 4:11-13 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.
The same guy that refused to confess any knowledge of Jesus to even a lowly servant girl was now boldly declaring Christ’s full glory to the very seat of all Jewish authority. This is now a true & deep seeded faith that he possessed, & it was not forged in the cold fire of man’s ability, but in the hot fire of God’s glory! Our God is a consuming fire, & He will, sooner or later, jealously consume all anthropomorphous religion, even (& especially) within His beloved. (Deuteronomy 4:24)
Though certainly Peter’s faith failed in one sense, a better, stronger, faster six-million-dollar sort of faith (sorry, I was raised in the 1970s!) roared back less than two months later at Pentecost.
1 Peter 1:6-7 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 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.
I recently spoke with a dear saint who had recently suffered some trials. She said that when the Lord takes her out of this world, she hopes it would be brief experience; she didn’t think she could handle an extended illness that would result in a slow death. I told her of how Christ carried Peter through seemingly impossible trials & brought him out so much stronger on the other side, & He continues to do the same for us today. God & God alone knows our capacity for trials, & He alone is sovereign over these events, only giving us the “various trials” that are “necessary” & in accordance with His love for us, His beloved.
The Lord will never take us on a journey that will utterly destroy our faith in Him. His omniscient, sovereign love for us will never allow that, & in that sense He never gives us more than we, meaning our faithful new creation, can handle.
But also, out of that very same omniscient, sovereign love He will seek to destroy our faith in ourselves & our abilities, in the creation that is old & passing away, as that faith is false & futilely fleshly. In this way, He always gives us more than we can handle, to take the “we” part off the center stage & place our faith fully in Him & His rightful place on that stage.
Hebrews 12:5-8 And have you forgotten
the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My
son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when
reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises
every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to
endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father
does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have
participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
