The Arrest and Trial of Jesus
We learn in Matthew 26:14-16 (LSB), that Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests and asked, “What are you willing to give me to deliver Him to you?” This question implies previous contact. How would Judas know to go to the chief priests and ask such a question if he had not already been approached with the concept of betraying Jesus in the first place? This is not a question the religious leaders would have broadcast to the masses, like an old, Wild West “Wanted” poster handed out all over town. As a matter of fact, the chief priests were concerned a public arrest would cause a riot (Matthew 26:3-5), so they had to finagle things, even use an insider who could somehow alert them as to Jesus’s whereabouts in order to capture Him at the most opportune and discreet time possible.
We all know the story. Jesus tells his disciples during the Lord’s Supper that one of them is going to betray Him. They all deny it, but Jesus states that the one who eats after Him will be the one. In John’s account, Jesus offered the bread to Judas. At that moment, Judas could have declined, but he took it, and the text tells us, “And after the piece of bread, Satan then entered into him” (John 13:27; LSB). Then, in verse 30, Judas got up and left to carry out the hellish deed.
Later that evening, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas leads a large mob, armed with swords and clubs—hand-picked by the chief priests, teachers of the law, the Pharisees, and the elders (Matthew 26:47)—to arrest Jesus quietly in the middle of the night. Because Jesus had eleven other men with Him, it is understandable that the chief priests and teachers of the law felt they had to have Jesus and his band of men outnumbered so they would not attempt an all-out rebellion.
Our Lord and His disciples were outnumbered and outside the city gate. They were vulnerable, and Judas knew exactly where to find them.
It wasn’t enough to simply point and say, “There’s your man.” Judas walked up and betrayed Jesus with, of all things, a kiss. Think about that for a second. Judas kissed the face of “God in the flesh,” which was usually intended to be an act of respect, devotion, and honor, by the way, in that culture. Judas, however, knowingly did so as an act of betrayal, disrespect, and dishonor.
And Judas was possessed by Satan while doing so.
This scene became a perfect picture of God’s chosen people, in their utter depravity and deceitfulness, being led away from God by Satan himself, standing in front of the literal and figurative face of God. Not to worship Him. Not to honor Him. Not to be in awe of Him. Instead, it was to betray Him. Betray His faithfulness. Betray His love. Betray His grace. Betray His mercy.
When Jesus was seized by the guards, according to John 18:10, Peter steps forward, draws his sword, and takes a swing at the servant of the high priest, Malchus. Peter, not a skilled soldier, wasn’t being cute by cutting off the Malchus’s right ear.
Zorro, Peter was not.
Surely, Peter was going for the man’s head in utter rage with a heavy sword that probably felt awkward in the fisherman’s hands. Malchus, seeing the blade coming, ducked, not getting completely out of the way, obviously.
Did Jesus encourage the rest of His disciples to join Peter? Was He launching the rebellion against Rome they all had been anticipating since Jesus walked out of the Jordan River at His baptism?
No.
Instead, Jesus rebukes Peter, telling him to put his sword away, for those who live by the sword die by it too. He then reminds His disciples that if He wanted to, He had twelve legions of angels at His disposal, which was plenty of might to quell the mob and their measly weapons. If one angel could wipe out 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night (see 2 Kings 19:35), imagine what an army of at least twelve-thousand angels could do?
However, if Jesus did so, He stated in Matthew 26:54 (LSB), “How will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?”
Jesus follows up Peter’s act of savagery with a miracle of compassion by reaching out and restoring Malchus’s ear to its original, healthy state.
Jesus then turns to the mob in verses 55-56 and asks them why they came with swords and clubs anyway? He’d taught in the temple courts. They could have arrested Him then. However, He goes on to inform that even these actions fulfill Scripture.
You would think the miraculous healing of Malchus, coupled with all the thousands of miracles Jesus had performed over the course of three years, would have caused the mob to pause and rethink their mission. Jesus’s disciples, too, for that matter.
At this moment, unfortunately, Jesus’s disciples do not bow in worship. They do not kneel, genuflect, or anything. They fled, instead, abandoning Him in His time of need. Which brings us to one important point to make. Jesus’s disciples obviously were not important in this overall scheme of the chief priests, because the mob didn’t chase after them. This leads us to conclude that the chief priests and teachers of the law apparently believed that if they could kill Jesus, His little “cult” would die with Him.
The End Justifies the Means
Jesus is formerly taken into custody and escorted to the first of six trials. He had three religious trials before the Jews and three political trials before Pilate (twice) and Herod.
For the first trial. He was taken to house of Annas, a former high priest and father-in-law of Caiaphas (John 18:12-13). There, Annas questions Jesus about His disciples and His teachings, to which Jesus replies, “I have spoken openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues or in the temple, where all the Jews come together; and I spoke nothing in secret. Why do you question me? Question those who have heard what I spoke to them; behold, they know what I said” (vv. 19-21; LSB). All Jesus did was question the legality of the proceedings.
When Jesus said those words, one of the nearby officials struck Jesus in the face and said, “Is that the way you answer the high priest” (LSB)? Jesus said, “If I have spoken wrongly, bear witness to the wrong; but if rightly, why do you strike me” (vv. 22-23)? In other words, “If you are so confident I misspoke, put your accusations on record. If not, then you are abusing a prisoner, which violates the Torah” (cf. Exodus 23:2).
With no evidence to use against Jesus, Annas sent Him to see Caiaphas (John 18:24) while the Sanhedrin looked for any evidence against Him. But Matthew and Mark both state they could not find any, although they produced many false witnesses (Matthew 26:57-59; Mark 14:55-59). Mark even goes do far to say the false witnesses’ testimony didn’t even agree. Of course, that is how lies operate, so we are not surprised.
Finally, two of the false witnesses come forward. They claimed that Jesus said He was able to destroy the temple in Jerusalem and rebuild it in three days (vv. 60-61). Mark puts it this way in 14:58 (LSB): “We ourselves heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this sanctuary made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.’”
Like all false witness testimony revolving around the words of the accused, it’s all in the way you interpret those words, or in this case, try to make the accused sound by putting words in his mouth. False testimony also likes to pull statements out of context, thus making them say something they didn’t. This testimony was false because what Jesus said was entirely different from the bogus witnesses’ testimony.
The Real Words of the Actual Event
In John 2:13-25, Jesus goes into the temple courts and clears the temple with a whip. He’s upset that they had turned His Father’s house into a place of dishonest business dealings. At that moment, Jesus was attacking the entire Jewish system, set up by the chief priests—principally Annas. A system which took advantage of fellow Jews who had traveled to Jerusalem, in this particular case, for the Feast of Passover.
The context must be understood in order to fully understand Jesus’s words.
The entire Levitical priestly system in Jerusalem had become corrupt. By this time in Israel’s history, if you were a Jewish worshipper who had traveled to Jerusalem for a feast, you were required to bring with you an offering, based on your economic status. If you didn’t have an offering to bring or could not bring one for whatever reason, you could purchase an offering in the temple courts at an exorbitant rate, of course.
Keep in mind that your dove or lamb or whatever your offering happened to be had to be “without blemish.” When you entered the temple courts, if you brought your own, your offering was inspected by the temple priests to see if it met their questionable Levitical standards. In most cases, the offering was deemed to have a blemish, so the worshippers would have to purchase another offering from the priests that had already been “certified.”
How convenient.
In addition to this, the temple treasury did not accept foreign currency. Most travelers would arrive with the coins of Rome. These were not accepted. They bore the image of Caesar, which was considered idolatry because the Caesars considered themselves deity.
Therefore, if you were a
Jewish sojourner, arriving at the temple with your Roman coinage, the priests
would demand that you exchange it for Hebrew currency. Of course, there was an
exchange rate, much like we have today, and within that exchange rate, the
priests exacted a fee which resulted in the worshipper not receiving his full
amount. Therefore, not only did you get gouged when you purchased your “approved”
offering at an inflated price, but then you lost even more money when you
exchanged your foreign currency for the temple shekels. And we must note here
that it was okay for the temple priests and their people to accept, handle, and
deal in Roman currency during this entire process.
How convenient.
Now do you understand Jesus’s frustration? The place where His chosen people were to come to worship God had been turned in a crooked market run by none other than the Levitical priesthood, who took advantage of the very people these priests were supposed to help.1
The priests knew what Jesus was doing. They must have recalled the text in Ezekiel 43:1-12, where the Son of Man was given directions on how to reestablish the temple and set it right again by expelling all who had prostituted themselves by worshipping idols. The reason why it seems clear they recalled such Old Testament passages is because of their request. They ask Jesus for a miraculous sign in order for Him to display His authority to do what He did. In other words, they knew Jesus wasn’t sent by the “Roman health department” or Rome’s version of the IRS. You don’t request the health inspector or the tax man to do something miraculous to prove their authority. They are just humans doing human jobs. However, if the person clearing the temple was doing so as the Son of Man, then you’d want to know if He was legitimately the Son of Man. And just so you don’t miss it, Just a few verses before this event, Jesus refers to Himself as just that, “the Son of Man” (John 1:51), thus aligning Himself with the passages in the Old Testament, like Ezekiel 43, proving He is the Son of Man.
In response to their request, Jesus tells them, “Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). He would be crucified, buried, and resurrected. A miracle, for sure. However, the chief priests and teachers of the law were blinded by their corruption, their hard hearts, and their total allegiance to Satan, thus they totally missed the promise of a miracle. They thought He was talking about rebuilding the temple in which they currently stood (John 2:20).
Back to the Trials
Therefore, getting back to the trial in Matthew 26, these false witnesses, based on their so-called evidence and first-hand, eyewitness accounts, misspoke. They testified that Jesus was going to tear down the temple in Jerusalem and rebuild another one, similar to the current one, but different. And do so in three literal days. An absurd notion.
At this point, Caiaphas, the high priest, stood and said to Jesus, “Do you not answer? What are these men testifying against you” (v. 62; LSB)? However, Jesus remained silent.
Then, Caiaphas says something very interesting in verse 63 (LSB): “I put You under oath by the living God, that you tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God.” First, he asks Jesus, in essence, to speak the truth under an oath to Himself, the living God. He then asks Jesus if He is the Messiah, the Son of God. In other words, Caiaphas understood what Jesus meant when He said He was able to tear down the temple and rebuild it in three days. Only one person could do all of that: God. Not only is that true, but to make the logical and theological leap between the what Jesus actually said in John 2 (of which I am convinced Caiaphas knew) and Jesus claiming to be the Messiah shows that Caiaphas knew exactly what Jesus meant. How else would Caiaphas know to link “destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days” to “Tell us if you are the Christ,” unless he completely understood what Jesus was truly claiming?
Under oath, to Himself, I might add (“the living God”), Jesus tells Caiaphas, and ultimately to all who are listening, that He is the Messiah, and that “hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (v. 64; LSB). Jesus spoke the truth, and He did so under oath to the living God. And here again is the “Son of Man” reference, being made by Jesus, just like in the early part of His ministry and quoted in John 1:51. The bookends are now complete. The Son of Man has come to destroy the temple of stone and rebuild it into a living stone (1 Peter 2:4-13), wherein Jesus is the cornerstone laid in Zion (Isaiah 28:16). From the beginning to the end, whether it be the three years of His earthly ministry or for all eternity, He is the Word, the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Christ, God in the flesh, the God of the universe, the God over all Creation, and the King of kings and Lord of lords.
However, Caiaphas didn’t see it that way. He tore his robes, which was an act of shock and surprise, even dismay at what was considered horrible or unbelievable news.
What was Caiaphas so upset about? “He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses? Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy. What do you think” (vv. 65-66; LSB)?
The entire lot agreed in verse 66. He deserved death!
The Sanhedrin then proceeded to spit on Jesus. They struck Him with their fists. They slapped Him and then said mockingly, “Prophesy to us, O Christ. Who is the one who hit you” (v. 68)?
The sinful ideology of Israel’s forefathers in 1 Samuel 8 had now infiltrated the entire Jewish community, fully corrupting the leadership. Satan completely owned them. God was standing face-to-face with Caiaphas and all the members of the Sanhedrin—the ruling, religious leaders of God’s chosen people. They were meeting illegally in Caiaphas’s house, as it is stated that Peter had to wait outside Caiaphas’s courtyard, which would have been in front of the chief priest’s expensive home (poor people didn’t have courtyards; see Matthew 26:58). This “trial” at Caiaphas’s house was after they had taken Jesus to see Annas at his house (John 18:13), which was also highly illegal. It also must be understood that they were conducting these trials during the Feast of Passover, another illegality. Trials were supposed to be held in the temple, not during religious festivals, and there were very specific rules and regulations about how to conduct them so the accused received a fair trial (Leviticus 19:15; Deuteronomy 16:18-20; 17:2-7; 19:15-21).2
God was in the flesh, right in front of them, and they didn’t recognize Him. They didn’t recognize His words either. They had so degraded the Torah with their own interpretations and traditions, their own political affiliations, and their own instinct for survival amongst an oppressive empire, that when Jesus spoke plainly—and did so with authority and not as the teachers of the law (Matthew 7:28)—they couldn’t truly hear His words. Their eyes were blind. Their ears could not hear (Isaiah 6:9-10; Matthew 13:11-17). They wanted to be like the other nations around them, and sadly, they had completely succeeded.
Thought
for the Week:
It is truly a shame how the nation Israel slid from the top of Mt. Sinai and into the Abyss of Hell. Judas became a poster child for her deceit. The chief priests and scribes had become the fulfillment of the elder’s wishes in 1 Samuel 8.
Yet, when we look out across the landscape of Christianity today, things are looking eerily similar. It seems more and more “believers” are running from the Church. Poll after poll marks how bigger, more mainline denominations are seeing their numbers dwindle as they fight over social issues and the believability of the Scriptures. God is being replaced with our own “kings,” so we can be like the other nations around us. We preach messages and tickle itchy ears. We dabble in politics to manipulate the masses for the secular good (although we often try to spiritualize it). We spend more time worrying about the state of our country than the state of the souls around us. Our church leaders exchange the monies of worshippers for expensive houses and lavish lifestyles. And worshippers come to worship God with hearts of stone instead of hearts of flesh.
However, take heart. This path looks very similar to the one Jesus trod, does it not? And Jesus also said that if you live a Beatitude life, persecution can be expected (Matthew 5:3-12).
And rewards await those who are faithful and obedient to the end.
NEXT WEEK:
We will look at the sin that cannot be forgiven.
Endnotes
1. Matthew, Mark, and Luke write that Jesus did this again later in His ministry when he entered Jerusalem during His last week on earth (Matthew 21:12-17; Mark 11:12-19; Luke 19:45-48), thus causing many Bible detractors to claim the Bible is in error. “Was it one temple cleansing or two? they ask. They see it as an error on the part of the gospel writers. However, when you begin to see how God uses events to establish His Kingship, things become much clearer. There were two separate temple cleansing accounts. One near the beginning of Jesus’s earthly ministry, and one near the end. Bookmarks, if you will, denoting the Son of Man’s work of reestablishing the temple as God’s Most Holy Place as is spelled out in Ezekiel 43:1-12. However, with Jesus’s words in John 2, it is clear Ezekiel and Jesus are talking about a different arrangement moving forward, and the reason why this must take place—i.e., God dwelling in the hearts and spirits of men as opposed to physical temples build by the hands of men—is because of the corruption and utter sinfulness of the present system. God calls it “prostitution” in Ezekiel 43:7. The chief priests and teachers of the law had prostituted themselves ultimately to Satan by rejecting God, as we have established thus far in this blog series.
It must be noted that there are differences in the two cleansings as well. In John’s, he mentioned oxen and sheep while the other gospel writers do not. He says Jesus made a whip out of cords, which was something not mentioned in the other accounts. He told the priests selling doves to get them out of the temple. The disciples remember Psalm 69:9 (LSB), which says, “For zeal for your house has consumed me.” However, John does not include Jesus’s quotations of the passages in Isaiah 56:7 (LSB, emphasis added): “For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples,” (insinuating more people than just the Jews), nor does he include Jeremiah 7:11, calling it a “robbers’ den.”
From the beginning of Jesus’s ministry until the very end, Jesus was all about setting things right and reestablishing God’s Kingship, which meant right worship of God must take place in a clean, holy, sacred, set apart, qadosh temple. One not made of hands or stone, but one made of flesh.
2. There are many
things we could say about the illegality of Jesus’s trials, but the discussion
would not be pertinent to this portion of our blog series.
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