The Last Temple Discourse

175:3.1At eight o’clock on this Tues­day evening the fate­ful meet­ing of the San­hedrin was called to or­der. On many pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions had this su­preme court of the Jew­ish na­tion in­for­mally de­creed the death of Je­sus. Many times had this au­gust rul­ing body de­ter­mined to put a stop to his work, but never be­fore had they re­solved to place him un­der ar­rest and to bring about his death at any and all costs. It was just be­fore mid­night on this Tues­day, April 4, A.D. 30, that the San­hedrin, as then con­sti­tuted, of­fi­cially and unan­i­mously voted to im­pose the death sen­tence upon both Je­sus and Laz­a­rus. This was the an­swer to the Mas­ter’s last ap­peal to the rulers of the Jews which he had made in the tem­ple only a few hours be­fore, and it rep­re­sented their re­ac­tion of bit­ter re­sent­ment to­ward Je­sus’ last and vig­or­ous in­dict­ment of these same chief priests and im­pen­i­tent Sad­ducees and Phar­isees. The pass­ing of death sen­tence (even be­fore his trial) upon the Son of God was the San­hedrin’s re­ply to the last of­fer of heav­enly mercy ever to be ex­tended to the Jew­ish na­tion, as such.

175:3.2From this time on the Jews were left to fin­ish their brief and short lease of na­tional life wholly in ac­cor­dance with their purely hu­man sta­tus among the na­tions of Uran­tia. Is­rael had re­pu­di­ated the Son of the God who made a covenant with Abra­ham, and the plan to make the chil­dren of Abra­ham the light-bear­ers of truth to the world had been shat­tered. The di­vine covenant had been ab­ro­gated, and the end of the He­brew na­tion drew on apace.

175:3.3The of­fi­cers of the San­hedrin were given the or­ders for Je­sus’ ar­rest early the next morn­ing, but with in­struc­tions that he must not be ap­pre­hended in pub­lic. They were told to plan to take him in se­cret, prefer­ably sud­denly and at night. Un­der­stand­ing that he might not re­turn that day (Wednes­day) to teach in the tem­ple, they in­structed these of­fi­cers of the San­hedrin to “bring him be­fore the high Jew­ish court some­time be­fore mid­night on Thurs­day.”