The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ. James Stalker
to say, he put Him on oath to tell what He claimed to be; for among the Jews the oath was pronounced by the judge, not by the prisoner.
This was one of the great moments in the life of Christ. Apparently He recognised the right of the high priest to put Him on oath; or at least He saw that silence now might be construed into the withdrawal of His claims. He knew, indeed, that the question was put merely for the purpose of incriminating Him, and that to answer it meant death to Himself. But He who had silenced those by whom the title of Messiah had been thrust upon Him, when they wished to make Him a king, now claimed the title when it was the signal for condemnation. Decidedly and solemnly He answered, "Yes, I am"; and, as if the crisis had caused within Him a great access of self-consciousness, He proceeded, "Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven." [6] For the moment they were His judges, but one day He would be their Judge; it was only of His earthly life that they could dispose, but He would have to dispose of their eternal destiny.
It has often been said that Christians have claimed for Christ what He never claimed for Himself; that He never claimed to be any more than a man, but they have made Him a God. But this great statement, made upon oath, must impress every honest mind. Every effort has, indeed, been made to deplete its terms of their importance and to reduce them to the lowest possible value. It is argued, for example, that, when the high priest asked if He were "the Son of God," he meant no more than when he asked if He were "the Christ." But what is to be said of Christ's description of Himself as "sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven"? Can He who is to be the Judge of men, searching their hearts to the bottom, estimating the value of their performances, and, in accordance with these estimates, fixing their eternal station and degree, be a mere man? The greatest and the wisest of men are well aware that in the history of every brother man, and even in the heart of a little child, there are secrets and mysteries which they cannot fathom. No mere man can accurately measure the character of a fellow-creature; he cannot even estimate his own.
How this great confession lifts the whole scene! We see no longer these small men and their sordid proceedings; but the Son of man bearing witness to Himself in the audience of the universe. How little we care now what the Jewish judges will say about Him! This great confession reverberates down the ages, and the heart of the world, as it hears it from His lips, says, Amen.
The high priest had achieved his end at last. As a high priest was expected to do when he heard blasphemy, he rent his clothes, and, turning to his colleagues, he said, "What need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard His blasphemy." And they all assented that Jesus was guilty, and that the sentence must be death.
Sometimes good-hearted Bible-readers, in perusing these scenes, are troubled with the thought that the judges of Jesus were conscientious. Was it not their duty, when anyone came forward with Messianic pretensions, to judge whether or not his claim was just? and did they not honestly believe that Jesus was not what He professed to be? No doubt they did honestly believe so. We must ascend to a much earlier period to be able to judge their conduct accurately. It was when the claims of Jesus were first submitted to them that they went astray. He, being such as He was, could only have been welcomed and appreciated by expectant, receptive, holy minds. The ecclesiastical authorities of Judaea in that age were anything but expectant, receptive and holy. They were totally incapable of understanding Him, and saw no beauty that they should desire Him. As He often told them Himself, being such as they were, they could not believe. The fault lay not so much in what they did as in what they were. Being in the wrong path, they went forward to the end. It may be said that they walked according to their light; but the light that was in them was darkness. Their proceedings, however, on this occasion will not tend to soften the heart of anyone who looks into them carefully. They had hardly the least show of justice. There was no regular charge or regular evidence, and no thought whatever of allowing the Accused to bring counter-evidence; the same persons were both accusers and judges; the sentence was a foregone conclusion; and the entire proceedings consisted of a series of devices to force the Accused into some statement which would supply a colourable pretext for condemning Him.[7]
But it was by what ensued after the sentence of condemnation was passed that these men cut themselves off forever from the sympathy of the tolerant and generous. A court of law ought to be a place of dignity; when a great issue is tried and a solemn judgment passed, it ought to impress the judges themselves; even the condemned, when a death sentence has been passed, ought to be hedged round with a certain awe and respect. But that blow inflicted with impunity at the commencement of the trial by a minion of the court was too clear an index of the state of mind of all present. There was no solemnity or greatness of any kind in their thoughts; nothing but resentment and spite at Him who had thwarted and defied them, lessened them in the public estimation and stopped their unholy gains. A perfect sea of such feelings had long been gathering in their hearts; and now, when the opportunity came, it broke loose upon Him. They struck Him with their sticks; they spat in His face; they drew something over His head and, smiting Him again, cried, "Christ, prophesy who smote Thee." [8] One would wish to believe that it was only by the miserable underlings that such things were done; but the narrative makes it too clear that the masters led the way and the servants followed.
There are terrible things in man. There are some depths in human nature into which it is scarcely safe to look. It was by the very perfection of Christ that the uttermost evil of His enemies was brought out. There is a passage in "Paradise Lost," where a band of angels, sent out to scour Paradise in search of Satan, who is hidden in the garden, discover him in the shape of a toad "squat at the ear of Eve." Ithuriel, one of the band, touches him with his spear, whereat, surprised, he starts up in his own shape—
"for no falsehood can endure Touch of celestial temper, but returns Of force to its own likeness."
But the touch of perfect goodness has often the opposite effect: it transforms the angel into the toad, which is evil's own likeness.
Christ was now getting into close grips with the enemy He had come to this world to overcome; and, as it clutched Him for the final wrestle, it exhibited all its ugliness and discharged all its venom.[9] The claw of the dragon was in His flesh, and its foul breath in His mouth. We cannot conceive what such insult and dishonour must have been to His sensitive and regal mind. But He rallied His heart to endure and not to faint; for He had come to be the death of sin, and its death was to be the salvation of the world.
[1] Here would come in the curious little notice in St. Mark: "And there followed Him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him; and he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked"; on which I have not commented, not well knowing, in truth, what to make of it. It may be designed to show the rudeness of the soldiery, and the peril in which any follower of Jesus would have been had he been caught. Some have supposed that the young man was St. Mark, and that this is the painter's signature in an obscure corner of his picture. (See Holzmann in Handcommentar zum Neuen Testament.) In the first volume of the Expositor there is a paper on the subject by Dr. Cox, but it does not throw much light on it.
[2] On the Sanhedrim and the high priests see Schürer, The Jewish People in the Time of Christ, div. ii., vol. i.
[3] This, many think, is what is given in St. John.
[4] Many think that this is what is given in St. Luke.
[5] The full number was seventy-one, including the president.
[6] See Psalm cx. 1, and Dan. vii. 13.
[7] Even Jost, the Jewish historian, calls it a murder; but he does not believe that there was an actual trial; and in this Edersheim agrees with him.
[8] In allusion to His claim to be the Messianic Prophet. The Roman soldiers, on the other hand, ridiculed His claim to be a King.
[9] "The central figure is the holiest Person in history, but round Him stand or strive the most opposed and contrasted moral types. … The men who touch Him in this supreme hour of His history do so only to have their essential character disclosed."—FAIRBAIRN.
CHAPTER III.