Before the Sanhedrin Court

184:3.1It was about half past three o’clock this Fri­day morn­ing when the chief priest, Cai­a­phas, called the San­hedrist court of in­quiry to or­der and asked that Je­sus be brought be­fore them for his for­mal trial. On three pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions the San­hedrin, by a large ma­jor­ity vote, had de­creed the death of Je­sus, had de­cided that he was wor­thy of death on in­for­mal charges of law­break­ing, blas­phemy, and flout­ing the tra­di­tions of the fa­thers of Is­rael.

184:3.2This was not a reg­u­larly called meet­ing of the San­hedrin and was not held in the usual place, the cham­ber of hewn stone in the tem­ple. This was a spe­cial trial court of some thirty San­hedrists and was con­vened in the palace of the high priest. John Zeb­e­dee was pres­ent with Je­sus through­out this so-called trial.

184:3.3How these chief priests, scribes, Sad­ducees, and some of the Phar­isees flat­tered them­selves that Je­sus, the dis­turber of their po­si­tion and the chal­lenger of their au­thor­ity, was now se­curely in their hands! And they were re­solved that he should never live to es­cape their venge­ful clutches.

184:3.4Or­di­nar­ily, the Jews, when try­ing a man on a cap­i­tal charge, pro­ceeded with great cau­tion and pro­vided ev­ery safe­guard of fair­ness in the se­lec­tion of wit­nesses and the en­tire con­duct of the trial. But on this oc­ca­sion, Cai­a­phas was more of a pros­e­cu­tor than an un­bi­ased judge.

184:3.5Je­sus ap­peared be­fore this court clothed in his usual gar­ments and with his hands bound to­gether be­hind his back. The en­tire court was star­tled and some­what con­fused by his ma­jes­tic ap­pear­ance. Never had they gazed upon such a pris­oner nor wit­nessed such com­po­sure in a man on trial for his life.

184:3.6The Jew­ish law re­quired that at least two wit­nesses must agree upon any point be­fore a charge could be laid against the pris­oner. Ju­das could not be used as a wit­ness against Je­sus be­cause the Jew­ish law specif­i­cally for­bade the tes­ti­mony of a traitor. More than a score of false wit­nesses were on hand to tes­tify against Je­sus, but their tes­ti­mony was so con­tra­dic­tory and so ev­i­dently trumped up that the San­hedrists them­selves were very much ashamed of the per­for­mance. Je­sus stood there, look­ing down be­nignly upon these per­jur­ers, and his very coun­te­nance dis­con­certed the ly­ing wit­nesses. Through­out all this false tes­ti­mony the Mas­ter never said a word; he made no re­ply to their many false ac­cu­sa­tions.

184:3.7The first time any two of their wit­nesses ap­proached even the sem­blance of an agree­ment was when two men tes­ti­fied that they had heard Je­sus say in the course of one of his tem­ple dis­courses that he would “de­stroy this tem­ple made with hands and in three days make an­other tem­ple with­out hands.” That was not ex­actly what Je­sus said, re­gard­less of the fact that he pointed to his own body when he made the re­mark re­ferred to.

184:3.8Al­though the high priest shouted at Je­sus, “Do you not an­swer any of these charges?” Je­sus opened not his mouth. He stood there in si­lence while all of these false wit­nesses gave their tes­ti­mony. Ha­tred, fa­nati­cism, and un­scrupu­lous ex­ag­ger­a­tion so char­ac­ter­ized the words of these per­jur­ers that their tes­ti­mony fell in its own en­tan­gle­ments. The very best refu­ta­tion of their false ac­cu­sa­tions was the Mas­ter’s calm and ma­jes­tic si­lence.

184:3.9Shortly af­ter the be­gin­ning of the tes­ti­mony of the false wit­nesses, An­nas ar­rived and took his seat be­side Cai­a­phas. An­nas now arose and ar­gued that this threat of Je­sus to de­stroy the tem­ple was suf­fi­cient to war­rant three charges against him:

184:3.101. That he was a dan­ger­ous tra­ducer of the peo­ple. That he taught them im­pos­si­ble things and oth­er­wise de­ceived them.

184:3.112. That he was a fa­nat­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion­ist in that he ad­vo­cated lay­ing vi­o­lent hands on the sa­cred tem­ple, else how could he de­stroy it?

184:3.123. That he taught magic inas­much as he prom­ised to build a new tem­ple, and that with­out hands.

184:3.13Al­ready had the full San­hedrin agreed that Je­sus was guilty of death-de­serv­ing trans­gres­sions of the Jew­ish laws, but they were now more con­cerned with de­vel­op­ing charges re­gard­ing his con­duct and teach­ings which would jus­tify Pi­late in pro­nounc­ing the death sen­tence upon their pris­oner. They knew that they must se­cure the con­sent of the Ro­man gov­er­nor be­fore Je­sus could legally be put to death. And An­nas was minded to pro­ceed along the line of mak­ing it ap­pear that Je­sus was a dan­ger­ous teacher to be abroad among the peo­ple.

184:3.14But Cai­a­phas could not longer en­dure the sight of the Mas­ter stand­ing there in per­fect com­po­sure and un­bro­ken si­lence. He thought he knew at least one way in which the pris­oner might be in­duced to speak. Ac­cord­ingly, he rushed over to the side of Je­sus and, shak­ing his ac­cus­ing fin­ger in the Mas­ter’s face, said: “I ad­jure you, in the name of the liv­ing God, that you tell us whether you are the De­liv­erer, the Son of God.” Je­sus an­swered Cai­a­phas: “I am. Soon I go to the Fa­ther, and pres­ently shall the Son of Man be clothed with power and once more reign over the hosts of heaven.”

184:3.15When the high priest heard Je­sus ut­ter these words, he was ex­ceed­ingly an­gry, and rend­ing his outer gar­ments, he ex­claimed: “What fur­ther need have we of wit­nesses? Be­hold, now have you all heard this man’s blas­phemy. What do you now think should be done with this law­breaker and blas­phe­mer?” And they all an­swered in uni­son, “He is wor­thy of death; let him be cru­ci­fied.”

184:3.16Je­sus man­i­fested no in­ter­est in any ques­tion asked him when be­fore An­nas or the San­hedrists ex­cept the one ques­tion rel­a­tive to his be­stowal mis­sion. When asked if he were the Son of God, he in­stantly and un­equiv­o­cally an­swered in the af­fir­ma­tive.

184:3.17An­nas de­sired that the trial pro­ceed fur­ther, and that charges of a def­i­nite na­ture re­gard­ing Je­sus’ re­la­tion to the Ro­man law and Ro­man in­sti­tu­tions be for­mu­lated for sub­se­quent pre­sen­ta­tion to Pi­late. The coun­cilors were anx­ious to carry these mat­ters to a speedy ter­mi­na­tion, not only be­cause it was the prepa­ra­tion day for the Pass­over and no sec­u­lar work should be done af­ter noon, but also be­cause they feared Pi­late might any time re­turn to the Ro­man cap­i­tal of Judea, Cae­sarea, since he was in Je­ru­sa­lem only for the Pass­over cel­e­bra­tion.

184:3.18But An­nas did not suc­ceed in keep­ing con­trol of the court. Af­ter Je­sus had so un­ex­pect­edly an­swered Cai­a­phas, the high priest stepped for­ward and smote him in the face with his hand. An­nas was truly shocked as the other mem­bers of the court, in pass­ing out of the room, spit in Je­sus’ face, and many of them mock­ingly slapped him with the palms of their hands. And thus in dis­or­der and with such un­heard-of con­fu­sion this first ses­sion of the San­hedrist trial of Je­sus ended at half past four o’clock.

184:3.19Thirty prej­u­diced and tra­di­tion-blinded false judges, with their false wit­nesses, are pre­sum­ing to sit in judg­ment on the righ­teous Cre­ator of a uni­verse. And these im­pas­sioned ac­cusers are ex­as­per­ated by the ma­jes­tic si­lence and su­perb bear­ing of this God-man. His si­lence is ter­ri­ble to en­dure; his speech is fear­lessly de­fi­ant. He is un­moved by their threats and un­daunted by their as­saults. Man sits in judg­ment on God, but even then he loves them and would save them if he could.