Faith Under Fire: The Cost of Discipleship

“Now the chief priests and all the council sought testimony against Jesus to put Him to death.” Now the force of this language here, the seeking of testimony was not that they were on a truth seeking mission. They were not gathering the facts. They weren’t interested in the facts. What they were doing as the Greek implies here is that they were intentionally trying to find something that would convict Jesus of a capital offense. This was a witch hunt. [00:10:26]

And not only that, they were willing to suborn witnesses. They were not interested in finding evidence that would be exculpatory. Only that dirt that they could gather together were they interested in at this time. Now again, this meeting is not held in the normal place for the meeting of the Sanhedrin, which would be much more open to the public. [00:11:03]

And we remember that all of these proceeding were taking place under cover of darkness, covertly lest the people in Jerusalem be awakened to what was going on and perhaps march in protest against it. And so secret Jesus away from the garden of Gethsemane, they only go six-tenths of a mile from Gethsemane to the house of Caiaphas. [00:11:31]

And they hold the hearing at night, which Jewish law forbade. The hearings could only be held in the day, and also the Jewish law prescribed that no trial could be held on either the Sabbath, a feast day, or the eve of a Sabbath or a feast day. And so that regulation was violated as well. [00:12:02]

And again, Jewish law required that if it were in the case a capital case that was being tried and if a criminal was convicted of a capital crime, then the Sanhedrin would be responsible to meet the next day again to confirm that judgment, because the Jewish law put a hedge around any attempts at kangaroo courts, any attempts of rash and sudden judgments in capital cases. [00:12:19]

Also you know from the Old Testament law that in a capital case there had to be two eyewitnesses to the crime and those two eyewitnesses had to agree in their testimony. And so everything about this hearing goes in the face of Jewish law. They sought testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, but found none. [00:12:55]

“For many bore false witness against Him, but their testimonies did not agree. Then some rose up…” These are members of the Sanhedrin. These were members of the Jewish council that had been consecrated and set apart to protect the law of God, just as our Supreme Court is to protect the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. [00:13:38]

They don’t always do it, and neither did the Sanhedrin, because while they were having Jesus on trial, they break the Ten Commandments by bearing false witness against the Son of God. And not only did they themselves bear false witness against Jesus, they encouraged each other to do that. [00:14:01]

You know the word for “witness” in the Greek is the word “martyria,” from which we get the English word “martyr,” and the reason why martyrs were called martyrs in the early church, which gave rise the saying that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, is that because the martyrs gave eloquently the finest testimony or witness to Jesus they could give by dying for Him in the arena, in the Circus Maximus, and elsewhere. [00:14:25]

They testified to the truth of Christ with their lives and hence were called martyrs, those who gave testimony. There’s another word in the Greek that is used here in the text, and it is the word “pseudo martyria,” and you can guess what that means, false witness, lying witness, a witness that is counterfeit. [00:15:12]

And this is what happened at this hearing. For many bore false witness against Him, but their testimonies did not agree. And some rose up and bore false witness against Him, saying, “We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and within three days I will build another made with without hands.’” They didn’t even get that right. Not even then did their testimony agree. [00:15:25]

So finally the high priest stands up, and he asks Jesus really a rhetorical question, “Do you answer nothing? What is it that these men testify against you? What do you have to say for Yourself, Jesus?” And we are told here that kept silent and answered nothing. You can imagine the agitation of Caiaphas when Jesus refused to answer His question. [00:16:00]