Luke 22:52
Then Jesus said unto the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and the elders, which were come to him, Be ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and staves? Then Jesus said unto the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and the elders, which were come to him, Be ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and staves?
In Gethsemane after His agony He was seized by an armed, murderous band of men and soldiers carrying swords and staves and spears, accompanied by the chief priests and captains of the temple and elders who had come out with the crowd to take Him. To those leaders He put the challenge why they had come out against Him as against a thief and robber and criminal, when He had taught openly in the temple day after day and they had ample opportunity to seize Him there and had not done so. Their nighttime approach exposed the injustice of their action. This nighttime arrest was their hour and the power of darkness.
His question lays bare the shame of that treatment, which He keenly felt. Though holy and undefiled as the Majesty of Heaven, He was not insensible to ignominy but felt disgrace and scorn and mockery and abuse and pain far more keenly than fallen man can feel them. This seizure belonged to the foreseen trying ordeal of betrayal and agony in Gethsemane and condemnation in the judgment hall and humiliation and crucifixion. Because He knew which followers were unbelieving and weak in faith and undecided in character, He had deliberately brought an earlier crisis to sift out the faint-hearted while He was still present to comfort and strengthen the chosen and prepare them for His betrayal and death.
Thus when He was seized and when He was condemned and humiliated and scorned by the hooting rabble as one doomed to the cross, the faithful were not overwhelmed with surprise nor sunk by fear and disappointment and grief over ruined hopes nor carried away by apostasy. When the multitude that had hailed Him as king hissed and reviled Him and the cruel jeering crowd cried for His crucifixion, and when those who had professed to love the Master turned from Him in His trouble, they remembered that the same fickleness had occurred before for less reason. They had tested the inconstant favor of the world and no longer hung their faith on the opinions of others. After taking the nature of fallen man in unexampled humiliation, yet for the sake of guilty rebels He went on to endure the most ignominious and painful death mortals can suffer, the death of the cross fit for the basest criminals.
His willingness to suffer such shame to ransom guilty man proves God is merciful and compassionate but also just, so none can continue in sin and still share the salvation He dearly purchased. As surely as the guiltless Christ suffered for the guilty, the wrath of God will fall on those who persist in transgressing His law.