John 18:18

John 18:18. And the servants and the officers were standing there, having made a fire of charcoal; for it was cold, and they were warning themselves; and Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself. These ‘servants' and ‘officers,' it must be remembered, are those who had so recently laid hold of Jesus, and who were the instruments of His sufferings. They had made a fire of charcoal, a circumstance in itself exceedingly natural in the cold of that spring night; and at it they stood and warmed themselves. ‘Peter' also ‘with them' was standing and warming himself. Such seems at first to be the sole meaning of the words: but the clause ‘for it was cold,' reminding us of chap. John 10:22 and chap. John 13:30, forces upon us the impression that the Evangelist has something more in view than the simple fact apparent to the first glance at the words employed by him. The fact is historical. We know that even from the other Gospels. But it is more than historical. To the symbolic eye of John it has a deeper meaning. In this night of cold he sees Peter associating himself with the enemies of Jesus, perhaps consulting his own comfort while his Master suffers, at all events putting himself in a position where the faithlessness that had already led to his first denial must gain strength; and he thus prepares us to expect that the sin of which he has been already guilty may, probably will, be followed by a still greater fall. Whether this idea is brought out also by the ‘fire of charcoal' is more difficult to say. It seems not unlikely that it is, for the word is not used by the other Evangelists; ‘coals of charcoal' are in the Old Testament one of the symbols of Divine judgment (Psalms 18:13; Psalms 120:4; Psalms 140:10); and this symbolic meaning may be extended to chap. John 21:9, the only other passage of the New Testament where we find the word. Apart from this, however, there is enough to show that John 18:18 is not simply historical. The peculiar spirit of the Evangelist appears in it, and we have thus the less occasion for surprise if we meet in the narrative other traces of the same spirit.