Chapter 19
The temple guard brought Jesus to the home of Annas. The Romans had conquered the entire region
but had allowed the Jews to continue worshiping their God under their
rule. Annas had been the high priest,
but when he perturbed the Romans they removed him from that office and
Caiaphas, his son-in-law had been made high priest instead.
Caiaphas was only high priest in name, though. It was Annas who still controlled the Great
Sanhedrin – the supreme court of the Jewish nation. Caiaphas was not altogether an innocent in
the proceedings, though.
Caiaphas had been told by God that Jesus would die for the
Jews, and not only that, but also that his death would gather the
scattered children of God and bring them together and make them one. He saw it as his God-ordained duty to see to
it that Jesus was martyred.
The other leaders in the Sanhedrin were also worried that if
everyone believed Jesus to be The Messiah the Romans would see it as a
threat and dismantle the Great Sanhedrin along with the entire Jewish
nation. It was these leaders of the
Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem
who had been plotting to kill Him and had been looking for any excuse to do so.
As a legion of God's angels stood silently, surrounding the house where Jesus had been brought, Annas began to question Jesus about what he had been
teaching. The problem with this is that
Jewish law did not allow for anyone to be questioned in the matter of a capital
offense at night. It also mandated that
any such questioning must be done in public.
This made this entire questioning illegal according to Jewish law.[i]
“Everything I have said I have said in public,” said
Jesus. “Why question me, ask those who
heard what I said. Surely they know what
I said.”
Jesus said this because another mandate of Jewish law was
that a man could not be convicted of a capital offense unless two witness could
be produced who agreed with each other about what had happened and provided the
same testimony. Further, a person could
not be compelled to give evidence against himself!
After Jesus replied, though, one of the officials hit him
in the face. “Is this the way you answer
the high priest?” he demanded?
Another Jewish law compelled the Jewish authorities to protect those who were
taken into custody and not allow any harm to come to them until such a time as
they had been convicted of a crime. The
entire setup was a sham and obviously so.
“If I said something wrong,” Jesus said, spitting a small
amount of blood from his mouth, “then tell me what I said wrong, but if I told
the truth then why did you hit me?”
He was pointing out all of the illegalities of His situation and everyone there understood the true meaning of His words.
He was pointing out all of the illegalities of His situation and everyone there understood the true meaning of His words.
Annas, feeling uneasy about what was going on and knowing
that laws were being broken, had him sent to Caiaphas. God's angels followed them everywhere they went ensuring that His ultimate will was carried out. The demons of Satan also followed the crowd assembled in both the earthly and heavenly realms. Satan himself stood at a distance and watched with amusement as his plan was carried out. He was unwittingly orchestrating his own demise.
It was about half past three in the morning when Jesus arrived at the home of Caiaphas for his second illegal questioning of the night.
It was about half past three in the morning when Jesus arrived at the home of Caiaphas for his second illegal questioning of the night.
Here the entire Great Sanhedrin had gathered together. They were trying to find some evidence
against him so they would have some reason to execute him. Several people lied about him, but none of
their lies agreed with with each other so none of them could legally be used against him.
Throughout all this Jesus said nothing.
Caiaphas finally looked at him and raised his eyebrows with
disdain. “Are you not going to say
anything? What is all this they’re
saying about you?”
Jesus said nothing, but stared at the ground at Caiaphas’
feet.
Caiaphas bent down to look Jesus in the eye. He furrowed his brow and said “Are you the
Christ[ii],
the son of the Blessed One[iii]?”
Jesus raised his head and stared directly into the face of
his accuser.
“I am.” He said,
calmly. “And you will see the Son of Man[iv]
sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
By admitting here to be the son of the Blessed one and
claiming the title of Son of Man he was in fact claiming to be both God and The
Messiah!
A collective gasp escaped from the part of the crowd who was
paying attention. Caiaphas roared with
rage and ripped his clothes in profound shock at what he had just heard.
“Why do we need any more witnesses?” he asked. “You have all heard the blasphemy! What do you think?”
They all agreed that his crimes were worthy of death. Then the mob mentality began to set in and
they began to spit on him and hit and kick him.
They blindfolded him and hit him in the face and shouted
“Prophesy!” The temple guard watched the
crowd for a while and then, emboldened by the scene, they seized him and began
to beat him themselves.
All of this was against Jewish law and the members of the
Great Sanhedrin knew that none of it would hold up, so they waited until the
sun rose and then deliberated during the day and in public as the law
required. Then and there the reached the
decision that he should be put to death.
Now this public spectacle of a trial was still not
legal. There were very strict guidelines
about what was required in a capital case beyond those already decimated in
these pre-dawn trials.
A man’s testimony against himself could not be used in
evidence against him. An agreement of
two or more witnesses was required, but it was never provided. Furthermore, sentence on a verdict of guilty
could not be pronounced until the third day after the finding, and then only
after a second vote resulting the same as the first.
Despite these miscarriages of justice, these Jewish leaders
knew that the Romans had removed from them the power of passing sentence of
death. All death sentences had to be
pronounced by the Roman governor, in this case Pontius Pilate.
So the temple guard took Jesus to see Pilate. They arrived in the court outside his palace
at about half past six in the morning.
----
Satan had long since left Judas who had been watching the
proceedings early that morning. When Judas made the deal with the high priest had not been possessed by Satan and he had no idea their intention was to kill
Jesus. When he saw that Jesus was
condemned he realized what he had done.
He watched from afar as Jesus was hauled away by the temple
guard to see Pilate. How could he have
been so stupid? How could he have been
so greedy? No amount of money could buy
enough water to wash the blood from his hands.
He ran up to the chief priests after the crowd had disbursed
and tried to give back the thirty pieces of silver they had paid him for his
betrayal.[v] “I have sinned, Jesus was innocent and I have
betrayed him!” he cried.
“What
is that to us?” one of them replied, showing the callousness
with which they addressed the entire matter.
After all was it not the chief priests who where to help the people
atone for their sin? “That is your
responsibility,” he said.
Judas looked down at the small purse full of coins that he
held in his hands. With tears streaming
down his face the threw the money at the priests who stepped aside allowing the
bag to hit the floor. It burst open and
coins spewed out rolling around the floor and coming to rest as Judas fled the
temple.
One of the chief priests turned to one of the temple guard
who was still there and said “Follow him.”
As he fled through the marketplace Judas noticed a man
selling rope. He still held the purse
which contained what money Jesus and his band of disciples kept to pay for food
and other expenses as they traveled around the countryside preaching the word
of God.
His mind raced as he stopped suddenly to consider what had
just entered it. It didn’t take long for
him to make up his mind. With tears
still streaming down his face he paid the man for a rope and, remembering a
good spot to carry out his plans, he ran out of town.
He ran down a narrow road to a field on which stood a high
ridge. Growing on the edge of the ridge
was a large tree which had a branch that stretched out over a sharp cliff. He attached one end of the rope to a broken limb
he found on the ground near the tree and threw it over the branch. He tied the rope to the branch and fashioned
a noose out of the other end.
He fell to his knees in absolute sorrow, holding the rope and
hoping against hope that God would forgive him for what he had done.
The guard had followed him the whole way and stood a short
distance away watching the scene unfold before him. Several of Satan's demons stood with him with smiles on their faces. No person is too far gone to be forgiven. If Judas completed his act of suicide then he belonged to Satan forever.
With bitter resolve Judas placed the noose around his neck,
pulled it tight and jumped off the cliff.
The rope stretched tight around his neck pulling his head sharply to the
right and snapping his spine. His body
gave an involuntary spasm as his life ended.
The branch strained under the weight of Judas’ body and
after a short time the branch snapped.
Judas lifeless body fell twenty or thirty feet before it struck the edge
of the cliff and tumbled to the bottom striking one sharp outcropping of rock
after another until it finally came to rest at the bottom. His head and body had burst open from
striking the boulders on the way down and his intestines spilled out of his body
onto the ground next to him at his final resting place.
The guard was horrified; he had never seen such a
thing. He ran to the edge of the cliff
and looked down to see the final resting place of the man who betrayed the Son
of God. He stood, staring at the body
for a long moment, with his jaw agape and his fingers rubbing his forehead in
disbelief. The demons returned to watch the proceedings at Jesus' latest illegal trial.
After the guard had seen all he could bear he ran back to the
temple and reported to the chief priests what he had seen. They had already determined that they could
not take the silver back from Judas, it was blood money and they could not by
law put it back in the treasury. That
money belonged to Judas, but he was no longer around to collect it.
After considering the predicament for a while they came to
an agreement. They used the money to buy
the field where Judas had committed suicide.
It could be used as a cemetery for foreigners who had no burial plot.
[i]
Thompson, George W. “The Trial of Jesus”, Bobbs Merrill, 1927. Chapter 2, The Jewish Law.
[ii] Christ
is the Greek word for Messiah, meaning “The Chosen One”.
[iii] Jews,
out of reverence for the most holy name of God were not permitted to say the
name of God out loud nor write it. As
such they used other terms for God such as “The Blessed One” and in writing in
many instances even today will spell it G-D rather than spell out the word.
[iv] Son of
Man is a title used in Daniel 7:13 in reference to The Messiah. Also, claiming to sit at the right hand of
God the Father is a claim to the same title based on Psalm 110:1.
[v] 30
pieces of silver was the cost of a slave.
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