Crucifixion

There is a peculiar moment in the Gospel of John where, after Satan enters Judas, Jesus says: “What you are going to do, do quickly.” These words are often treated as a gesture of acceptance or inevitability. But that reading misses the functional nature of the statement. Jesus is not describing what will happen. He is intervening in how it will happen.

To understand this, we must begin with a simple observation: satanic action, as presented in Scripture, is not chaotic. It unfolds according to a procedure.

There is a distinction we rarely make, yet it changes everything once seen clearly: the difference between events and their meaning. Events unfold in the world according to causes. They happen as they must. But meaning does not reside inside those events in any obvious, built-in way. Meaning belongs to another dimension of our experience—a dimension we engage, interpret, and live within.

A formidable enemy, and a losing strategy

The Devil is not a trivial opponent. He is not defeated by cleverness, nor by moral self-improvement alone. When calamity strikes—when life collapses in ways that seem targeted, layered, and relentless—people instinctively reach for what feels like the right response: a plea based on righteousness.

They protest. They argue. They appeal.

They say, in one way or another: this should not be happening to me.

But this is precisely where the mistake begins.

At first glance, the Qur’an and the Gospels appear to stand in stark contradiction on the question of whether human beings may be called “children of God.” The Qur’an explicitly challenges and rejects such a claim, while the Gospels seem to affirm it in various forms. From a surface reading, one might conclude that the theological worlds they present are irreconcilable, and thus unlikely to originate from a unified divine source.

The modern imagination, even when clothed in religious language, is deeply forensic. It seeks proof, continuity, traceable material identity. Nowhere is this more evident than in the common interpretation of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, where the retained wounds—those of nails and spear—are treated as decisive evidence: proof that the very same body that suffered has been restored to life. The logic appears simple, almost irresistible: the wounds authenticate continuity.

And yet, upon closer examination, this “forensic resurrection” collapses under its own weight.

There are few statements in the New Testament more unsettling—and more misunderstood—than the words recorded in the Gospel of John:

“This he said to show by what kind of death he would glorify God.” (John 21:19)

At first glance, the meaning appears simple. Saint Peter will die as a martyr, and somehow this death will glorify God. Yet the simplicity is deceptive. For if we pause even briefly, a profound difficulty emerges:

Where is the glory in martyrdom?

When Peter heard from Jesus about the manner of his future death, the news must have stirred many conflicting emotions inside him.

On one side there was a sense of honor.
To follow the path of his master—even to the point of death—meant that his life would carry a great mission. It meant that his faith would not remain merely words. It would become an act.

But on the other side stood a darker realization.

1. The narrative precision of Luke 23:34

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus’ prayer—“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”—is placed with striking narrative precision. It appears not as a detached theological pronouncement, but in immediate conjunction with a concrete action: Roman soldiers dividing Jesus’ garments by casting lots.