3. Christ's Refusal Matthew 26:50b-54 Luke 22:49-51 John 18:10-11 the Apostles raised the question about resorting to force in their resistance. "Lord, shall we smite with the sword?" they asked. And Peter, without waiting for the Lord's direction, smote Malchus, the servant of the High Priest, and cut off his ear. But Jesus, still holding the situation under His absolute control, healed the wounded servant, and then turned to deal with the Apostles, and their question of resorting to physical force. He began by commanding Peter to put up his sword, saying, "for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." By this proverbial statement Jesus meant that the matter then in hand belonged to the world of the spirit, where swords have no effect. Yet He paused to say that, if force were needed, He could, by simply requesting such of His Father, have more than twelve legions of angels at His own command. But the will of His Father, as set forth in ancient prophecy, must be carried out. Therefore He said to Peter, "Put up the sword into the sheath: the cup which the Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?" This Christ asked with a note of decision and authority which brought to a close all thought of using physical force on that occasion. Having settled this question of physical force, Jesus formally addressed the rabble who had come to arrest Him. Matthew states 4. Christ's Address to His Captors Matthew 26:55-56 that Jesus spoke to the multitude in general. Mark makes no definite reference in this connection. Luke says that Jesus addressed His words to "the chief priests, and captains of the Temple, and elders, which were come against Him." Certainly the charges which He made were directed against the leaders of this cowardly piece of wickedness which they were perpetrating under cover of dark Luke 22:52-53 ness. Jesus spoke with an assured sense of His sovereign control of the situation. He boldly charged His enemies with physical and moral cowardice. "Are ye come out as against a robber with swords and staves to seize Me? I sat daily in the Temple teaching, and ye took Me not." In these words Jesus set vividly before His enemies the sneaking malice with which they had cowardly planned His death in secret because they feared His friends among the common people. The Lord Jesus showed also in these words how deeply He felt the indignity and shame and injustice, which He was here under going, and was yet to undergo, at the hands of this mob. He was willing to die for sinners: but He could not have been other than deeply sensitive to the moral suggestion of the situation, when He was arrested as a robber, and was to be tried as a blasphemer of God and a traitor against the government, and then to be crucified between two thieves. Yet He was willing to endure the Cross, despising the shame, because of the joy that was set before Him.15 Christ endured these afflictions, and these indignities, because, as He here stated, the plan of God for saving the world, foretold in ancient prophecy, must be carried out in this way. Patience and silent acquiescence were the price of Saviorship. It was so agreed in the Covenant of Redemption which He had made with His Father in Heaven. Christ could neither resort to physical force, nor yet could He save Himself by summoning the aid of angel hosts. He must drink the cup which His Father had given, Yet Christ desired that His enemies also should know that they, too, in a deep and awful sense, were in the hands of God, unwittingly carrying out His sovereign purposes." Christ desired also to save the Apostles at this time from the danger of being taken also by this mob. Matthew and Mark were 5. Christ's Excusing content merely to state that the Apostles "all left Him, and fled." " But John, writing later, went into the matter in detail, showing how Jesus had centered attention upon Himself, and had also issued an authoritative command to His enemies, in order that the Apostles might escape from the scene in safety. His Apostles John's account of the matter is this: "Again therefore He asked them, 'Whom seek ye?' And they said, 'Jesus of Nazareth.' Jesus answered, 'I told you that I am He: if therefore ye seek Me, let these go their way': that the word might be fulfilled which He spake, 'Of those whom Thou hast given Me I lost not one.'' Thus John pointed out again how Jesus held the control of events; and how that, even in this small detail, the enemies of Christ unwittingly carried out the plan of God, and thereby helped to confirm the truth of Christ, Whom they were even then persecuting unto death. 15See Hebrews 12:2-3; and Isaiah 50:5-6. 16See Acts 2:23; 3:18; 26:22-23; and 1. Peter 1:10-11. 17 Apparently the last to leave the Lord at this time was the young man, mentioned by Mark (14:51-52). Since this incident was recorded only in the Gospel by Mark, it is generally thought that this young man must have been Mark himself, the author of this Gospel, 6. Christ's Final Surrender Matthew 26:50b Mark 14:46 Finally Jesus, having controlled the situation to this last moment, surrendered Himself into the hands of His enemies. "So the band and the chief captain, and the officers of the Jews, seized Jesus and bound Him." This was their hour, as Jesus had said; and He surrendered Himself unto the Powers of Darkness. "And they that had taken Jesus led Him away." That is the statement with which Matthew has closed his record of this arrest of the Lord Jesus Christ. But Luke and John both suggest that there was violence in the manner in which the mob "seized Him, and led Him away," after that He had delivered Himself into their power. Luke 22:53 John 18:12 So ended the last hours which the Lord spent with His Apostles before His death. When the curtain fell upon his scene of evil forebodings, the Apostles were all scattered and gone, and the Lord Jesus had started on the way to His Trial, and after that to His Cross. CHAPTER XXI THE ECCLESIASTICAL TRIAL OF JESUS CHRIST "This is the Heir: come, let us kill Him, that the inheritance may be ours." Luke 20:14. "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." Acts 2:23. "And now, brethren, I know that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out." Acts 3:17-19. There were two Trials of Jesus Christ, both of them held on Friday of the Passion Week. The first Trial was Ecclesiastical. Trials of Jesus It began at an early hour on Friday morning, soon after the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. The charge in this Trial, which was held before the religious authorities of the Jews, was that of blasphemy against God, in that Jesus had claimed Himself to be Divine. The second Trial was civil. It was conducted before the courts of the Roman Government, presided over by Pilate and Herod. The charge against Jesus in the second Trial was that of treason against the Roman Government. Through both Trials, however, the Lord Jesus was prosecuted, or persecuted in fact, by the same combination of Jewish Rulers, who endeavored to secure, at every turn of events, not justice, but a judgment of death. The two Trials will be carefully analyzed in this chapter and the next that follows. Naturally the Ecclesiastical Trial came first. The religious authorities of the Jews desired to go as far as they could before First Trial of the Mark 14:53-72 and Luke 22:54-71 John 18:12-27 referring the case to the Roman Court. In this First Trial, there were three stages, or separate hearings. The first stage was the hearing of the case before Annas, the exHigh Priest. The second stage was the hearing before Caiaphas, the ruling High Priest at that time. The third stage was the hearing before the formal court of the San hedrin, which was legally convened, after sunrise, to confirm the conclusions already arrived at in the previous hearings. Through all of these ecclesiastical hearings of the case, the charge against Jesus was that of blasphemy, in that He made Himself Divine; and always the fixed purpose of His enemies was to secure the verdict, that He was worthy of death. I. The First Stage: The Trail Before Annas The first stage of the Trial of Christ on its religious side was that before Annas, the ex-High Priest. John alone has given First Stage: Before Annas John 18:12-24 an account of this hearing. The interest here, as also in the succeeding stages of the Trial, centers in the setting of the court, in the process of the investigation, in the results arrived at, and in the incidental events that happened while the Trial was in progress. These points of interest, as a rule, will be observed in the following study: 1. The Court of Annas. The location of this court is uncertain. It may have been at some distance from the palace of the High Priest, possibly indeed on the opposite side of the City. It was probably pre-arranged that Jesus should be taken there first, after His arrest in the Garden. The hearing was in the nature of a preliminary examination, looking toward the second, and more important stage of the Trial which was to follow. 1. John's Record of Christ before Annas John 18:12-14 There is a point of special interest in John's account of this appearance of Jesus before the court of Annas. John's use of the word "first" in his statement shows that he was consciously supplementing the narrative as it had been given by the earlier Gospel writers. The same conscious intention of supplementary narration is seen in John's careful explanation of the status of the High Priest at that time.' John's careful record is as follows: "So the band and the chief captain, and the officers of the Jews, seized Jesus and bound Him, and led Him to Annas first; for he was father-in-law to Caiaphas, which was high priest that year. Now Caiaphas was he which gave counsel to the Jews, that it was expedient that one man should die for the people." 1John was well aware of the regular order in the Jewish succession of the high priesthood. He was also informed as to arbitrary appointments made to that office by the Roman Government. This Annas, who was now an old man, had been appointed to the high priestly office, in the year 7 A.D., by Quirinius, who was then Governor of Syria. In the year 14 A.D., Annas was succeeded in this appointment by his son Ishmael, and later by a second son Eleazar. In 25 A.D., Joseph Caiaphas, son-in-law to Annas, was appointed High Priest, and held the office until 37 A.D. Annas was a capable man, but a man of exclusiveness and fiery temper, and of bitter hatred toward the Pharisees. |