John 18:4-5 NLT
[4] “Jesus fully realized all that was going to happen to him, so he stepped forward to meet them. “Who are you looking for?” he asked. [5] “Jesus the Nazarene,” they replied. “I Am he,” Jesus said. (Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them.)”

Only John recorded this unusual interlude in the arrest of Jesus, the same John who presented Jesus as the Son of God. Jesus’ announcement “I am He!” had a surprising effect on the arresting mob.

John 18:6 NLT
[6] “As Jesus said “I Am he,” they all drew back and fell to the ground!”

They fell backwards as if a blast of wind had sent them flying! What happened? Jesus did much more than identify Himself as the one they had come to arrest. He declared, with authority, His name… Yahweh! That should have been enough to send them scurrying in the opposite direction.

How strange! A mob of soldiers, threatening, brandishing weapons, rough and unruly…arresting the Son of God! Why? How can this be?

The story unfolds as if copied and pasted from God’s history book written in eternity before time began, every detail a perfect match with the eternal story.

John 18:4, 8-9 NLT
[4] “Jesus fully realized all that was going to happen to him, so he stepped forward to meet them. “Who are you looking for?” he asked…
[8]  “I told you that I Am he,” Jesus said. “And since I am the one you want, let these others go.”
[9] He did this to fulfill his own statement: “I did not lose a single one of those you have given me.”

Let’s match the story…

The betrayal…

Psalms 41:9 NLT
[9] “Even my best friend, the one I trusted completely, the one who shared my food, has turned against me.”

The price…

Zechariah 11:12 NIV
[12] “I told them, “If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.” So they paid me thirty pieces of silver.”

The arrest…

Zechariah 13:7 NLT
[7] “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, the man who is my partner,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “Strike down the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I will turn against the lambs.”

The trial…

Isaiah 53:7-8a NIV
[7]” He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. [8] By oppression and judgment he was taken away…”

The sentence…

Isaiah 53:5 NIV
[5] “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

The suffering…

Psalms 22:14-15 NIV
[14] “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted within me. [15] My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death.”

The dying…

Isaiah 53:8-9 NIV
[8] “By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.”

The burial…

Isaiah 53:9 NIV
[9] “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.”

The resurrection…

Psalms 16:10 NIV
[10] “… You will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay.”

… all written in detail before the beginning of time.

The ancient hymn writer captures, in beautiful poetry, this awful event in history.

1. My song is love unknown–
my Savior’s love to me;
love to the loveless shown,
that they might lovely be.
Oh, who am I, that for my sake
my Lord should take frail flesh and die?

2. He came from His blest throne
salvation to bestow;
but men made strange, and none
the longed for Christ would know.
But oh, my Friend, my Friend indeed,
who at my need His life did spend!

3. Sometimes they strew His way,
and His sweet praises sing;
resounding all the day
hosannas to their King.
Then “Crucify!” is all their breath,
and for His death they thirst and cry.

4. Why, what hath my Lord done?
What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to run;
He gave the blind their sight.
Sweet injuries! Yet they at these
themselves displease,
and ‘gainst Him rise.

5. They rise, and needs will have
my dear Lord made away.
A murderer they save;
the Prince of Life they slay.
Yet cheerful He to suff’ring goes,
that He His foes from thence might free.

6. In life, no house, no home
my Lord on earth might have;
in death, no friendly tomb
but what a stranger gave.
What may I say? Heav’n was His home;
but mine the tomb wherein He lay.

7. Here might I stay and sing–
no story so divine!
Never was love, dear King,
never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend, in whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend.

Samuel Crossman (1674)
https://hymnary.org

Surely, then, for Jesus, the Son of God, to be arrested, tried, crucified, and buried, it could only have been that He chose to submit Himself to humans. There is no other way that God could have died in the place of sinners.

Philippians 2:6-8 NIV
[6] “Christ Jesus… who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; [7] rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. [8] And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!”

So, when the soldiers took Him to trial, He went, like a lamb to the slaughter, unresisting, without a murmur. Surely, this alone should have alerted them to something so unusual that they would have stopped to ponder…