Sinclair B. Ferguson

We're thinking this week about some of the people who met Jesus during the last week of his life.

Some of them, like Judas, had known him for a few years.

He was the apostle who betrayed him, you'll remember.

Today I want to think about someone else who had probably known him even longer, Simon Peter.

It's interesting that in Matthew's gospel, the verb betrayed is used in connection with Judas' act, I think about 14 different times.

But the verb deny is used in connection with Simon Peter only, I think, twice.

Once when Peter says he'd die before denying Jesus, and once when Jesus tells him he will deny him three times by cockcrow.

I say it's interesting because if you'd been walking the streets of Jerusalem after Jesus' arrest and trial, you might well have encountered two very distraught apostles full of self-recrimination.

We're told that Judas regretted what he had done.

And we're told that after Simon Peter had denied Jesus, he went out and wept bitterly.

So here's a question.

If you'd encountered both these men, would you have been able to tell that one of them would take his life in despair while the other would be saved?

Put it another way, is the difference between denying Jesus and betraying Jesus a difference in magnitude or a difference in kind?

Or put it yet another way, how come Peter denied Jesus and yet was saved?

whereas Judas betrayed Jesus and was damned.

I said yesterday there was a mystery to Judas' sin.

We're told that Satan's hand was instrumental in what happened.

But Satan was also involved in Peter's sin.

Jesus told him that Satan had demanded of Peter to sift him like wheat.

Yet in some ways, Peter's failure was much more straightforward, wasn't it?