The Trial of Jesus
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Good morning! It is so good to be back with all of you this Sunday. I wanted to thank Bill for stepping in and give a message in my place. Thank you, Mike for covering the slides and videos. Thank you to the worship team for always leading us into a heart of worship and preparing our hearts to receive God’s Word. Thank you to Barb and the teachers of Kid City for building up the children to know and love Jesus. Our family had a wonderful weekend getaway, unplugged from the world for a couple of days and enjoying God’s creation. But it is good to be back with you all. We will continue our study through Luke where we last left off. Jesus has been arrested; He was betrayed by Judas and given to the hands of the religious leaders. Peter silently followed behind to see what was to become of Jesus and during his time of waiting was called out for being with Jesus, to which Peter denied. Then a little while later denied a man’s accusation that he was “one of them.” Then about an hour later another says, “Certainly this man was also with him, for he too is a Galilean,” to which Peter again denies the connection. At this point the rooster crows, Peter looks up and his eyes lock with Jesus and he remembers the words of Jesus about his three denials and he departs from the area and begins to weep bitterly.
Luke’s gospel then continues to our passage this morning with a look into the trial of Jesus—likely what was taking place while Peter was waiting throughout the night. Once more, my hope is for us to understand that while it certainly seems that the situation is spiraling out of control, that Jesus remains in full authority and maintains His power. As difficult as it may be to read through the coming passages in the next few weeks, this is all according to the plan and will of the Father. There is purpose behind it and I also believe it is for us to see the depth of Christ’s love for each of us.
So let us jump into our passage this morning as we close out chapter 22. If you have your Bibles with you, please turn to Luke 22, beginning in verse 63.
PRAY
Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking him as they beat him. They also blindfolded him and kept asking him, “Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?” And they said many other things against him, blaspheming him.
Studies from historical events and from evidence gathered through psychology show that mob mentality is a very real thing. People have been shown to descend deeper into depravity and cruelty if part of a larger group than they would if they were alone.
Studies claim the key factors to this “mob mentality” is a few different things at play. The first is de-individuation—the state where a person's sense of self-awareness and individual identity diminishes when they are in a large group or crowd. Giving an individual anonymity. (A-non-ehm-i-tee)
Another factor is the dispersion of responsibility. Within a group, there is a tendency to feel (and can often be the case) that responsibility is spread throughout the group thus making one feel less responsible and accountable for their actions.
Another major factor is conformity. This happens when a group desires unity and harmony which with high emotions can lead irrational decision making.
We’ve seen this insanity play out on several fronts in the past half decade. From the Covid ordeal to the “peaceful protests” that lead to much of cities burned to the ground, shops being robbed, and vehicles destroyed.
Perhaps the same can be said of the situation we see here with Jesus. One wonders if any in the group would have behaved in such a manner if alone one on one with Jesus. Because what we read here is Jesus becoming the victim of corporate depravity with a group of guards.
Luke paints the gruesome picture. Jesus is blindfolded with a group of guards surrounding him and throwing uncontested punches at him, mocking the self-proclaimed prophet—”Since you’re a prophet, tell us who hit you!” Matthew’s gospel adds, telling us they also spit on him and slapped him along with the mocking taunts.
Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?”
The irony here is that with their actions and their words, they actually fulfilled prophetic words of Jesus.
For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.”
This along with the prophetic words to Peter about his denials further reveal Jesus’ power and authority which remains a theme throughout Luke’s gospel. In the cloak of night, the religious leaders have hustled Jesus off to the house of the chief priest—a man by the name of Caiaphas.
When I went to Israel (which is a trip I would LOVE to offer someday to anyone interested in the church), one of the locations we stopped at is the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu. Gallicantu is a Latin phrase which translates to “where the rooster crowed.” And tradition tells us that this is where Jesus was shuffled off to and was the house of Caiphas. Within this location was a basement-like area that was dug out and used as a prison. There were no doors or windows and was about 10 feet deep. They would have lowered prisoners in using a rope. I have an image of this exact location where it is believed that this whole ordeal would have taken place.
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When day came, the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribes.
Here come the malicious and evil bunch of Sanhedrin. They finally have their enemy in their grasp. Their eyes glaring at the Savior, perhaps even shaking with excitement of the predicament.
This whole ordeal is no doubt what C.S. Lewis had in mind when writing The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Anyone here watched that movie? Better yet, anyone read the book??
If you are unfamiliar with it, there is a character—a lion named Aslan—that represents Christ. And in the story, the White Witch has Edmund (one of the siblings that chose to side with the White Witch but now desires escape). And so Aslan makes a deal with her—he will give himself for Edmund. A one for one trade. The witch’s eyes light up in wicked joy—a deal too good to be true for her. And so Aslan, in the middle of the night leaves the group and begins walking towards the enemy camp. The two girls, Susan and Lucy notice Aslan wake up and walk towards the other camp and decide to follow him.
Aslan notices their presence and asks them to walk with him for a bit and as he approaches the enemy he tells the girls to hide in the bushes so as not to be seen. And then he walks into the open where the enemies tie him up and drag him to the stone table where they mock him, shave off his mane, beat him, and eventually would kill him.
And all the while the girls look on horrified and wondering aloud to each other, “Why doesn’t he do something? Why doesn’t he fight back? Why doesn’t he take down the White Witch and her bunch of loathsome monsters? Why is he just taking this abuse?”
It’s a gut wrenching scene but it is exactly like what we read here. Part of me gets angry at what is happening and what seems like a lack of effort from Jesus. Why doesn’t he do something. Tell them who hit you, Jesus! Show them your power and your might!
Oh, but He does! He does from the empty tomb, yes! But even here he displays His power, although it is in ways less observable.
Finally, I imagine the Scribes and Pharisees believe they are now in control! But they were, again, deluded in their thinking. Back in verse 53 Jesus tells the crowd arresting Him, “But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.” But in truth, their hour of darkness was really His hour and Jesus would utilize this moment to once more confirm exactly who He was (with a formal declaration to His deity). In fact, we will see three of His divine titles here during His trial before the Sanhedrin—namely, Christ, Son of Man, and Son of God.
And although this section of Scripture breaks my heart to read through (even though I know its necessity for our salvation), I also love that it is the representatives of Israel—these truth-rejecters—that hear the full assertion of Jesus’ full deity.
The Sanhedrin don’t beat around the bush, but cut to the chase.
When day came, the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribes. And they led him away to their council, and they said, “If you are the Christ, tell us.” But he said to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe,
We’ve now gone through 22 chapters of Luke’s gospel over the course of nearly 2 years. And so I hope by now you see that Luke’s account leaves no question that Jesus is the Christ—the Hebrew word—the Messiah. In fact, the word Christ is used as a title for Jesus twenty-five times in Luke’s gospel, just over once per chapter.
Even the very earliest thematic elements of Luke’s gospel are dripping with Messianic language even if the word Messiah isn’t used. Look at the promise to Mary from the angel:
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,
Jesus would be the Messiah because it is only the Messiah that would be able to sit upon the throne of David. Then we see the proclamation of the angels to the shepherds:
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
Then, let us not forget the moment 8 days later when Jesus is presented in the temple where he is held by the prophet Simeon:
Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.
Then we have the crowds wondering if perhaps John the Baptist is the prophesied Messiah and so he gives a word to the people:
John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
John’s language clearly points to Jesus as the Messiah. Then we come across Peter’s proclamation. Jesus first asks His disciples, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” They tell him, “Some say you are John the Baptist. Others say you are Elijah, and others simply think you are a prophet of old who has risen.” Then He asks His disciples directly, “Okay. But who do you say that I am?”
And Peter, always quick to respond, speaks up and says, “You are the Christ of God.” (Luke 9:20).
Then we have the wonderful scene in Luke 20 between Jesus and some of the religious leaders where He quotes from Psalm 110:1 and asks them, “David thus calls him Lord, so how is he his son?”
The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
Throughout Luke there is clear references to Jesus as the Christ/Messiah.
But what is interesting is that Jesus very rarely employed this title of Messiah. Why? Because in His day is was almost entirely politicized. In Jesus’ day the title Messiah was not generally seen as a divine title, but simply as an anointed agent—one from David’s line, who would cast out the Romans and restore and rule Israel. That is what the people wanted and were expecting. Even the disciples had this understanding which is why they were so thrown for a loop at Jesus’ death (even though He clearly predicted it for them on many occasions).
But this is also why Jesus avoided the title. For one, the people misinterpreted it. And second, it was the one title that would get Jesus killed by the Romans. Again, we ask why? Because the title itself spoke of rebellion and uprising. The Romans were actually very lenient to other religious throughout their Empire. One of the reasons for their prolonged success as they overtook other kingdoms and countries was that they would allow the people to continue to practice their own religion.
They couldn’t care less if Jesus claimed to be God. But Messiah? That spoke to uprising and an attempt to usurp control from the Romans and that could not be tolerated. So if the Sanhedrin could get Jesus to say, “I am the Messiah” then they would have the consent of the Roman government to put Him to death!
So now you can see why they would lead off with that question. So they begin their trial, “If you are the Christ, tell us.” And let us look at Jesus’ response.
“If you are the Christ, tell us.” But he said to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe, and if I ask you, you will not answer.
Jesus knew it was pointless in responding to their question and knew they would reject anything He told them. Also, His interactions with them throughout His ministry has proven them to be a deceptive bunch revealed to be entirely dishonest.
Now what we must understand is that Jesus’ “non-answer” isn’t a denial to His Messiahship. In fact we will come to see His embrace of this title with Pilate next week and that this would even be the epitaph that hung over His head on the cross. I believe that his non-committal here does, in fact, indicate He was the Messiah, but it just didn’t give the Sanhedrin the ammunition they needed to crucify Him…yet.
Jesus is the Messiah and is far greater than any Messiah the people of Israel would come to expect. Because He is also the prophesied Son of Man! And he would make that clear to the Sanhedrin and to all who would read His Word.
But from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.”
This is a self-given title that Jesus often used and it comes from a prophesy in Daniel.
“I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed.
And Jesus took that prophetic word and made it personal and declared it to the people, and especially so here—as His words were entirely intentional to garner the attention of His enemies.
Remember how I said that as we read this, we think, “Come on, Jesus. Don’t let them treat you like this. Do something!” Well here we see that Jesus is certainly doing something. He isn’t backing down. He isn’t passive. There is a calm and commanding presence. While He may be arrested and the Sanhedrin think they are in control, Jesus has command of the situation.
This self-given title was Jesus’ favorite. He would begin to use it in place of the personal pronoun “I” early in His ministry. In fact throughout the four gospels it is used 82 times and nearly all of them are by Jesus Himself. This is exactly how Jesus saw Himself.
And the term—like Jesus—is absolutely perfect because it expresses two realities of His earthly life. The first is His human mortality and the second is His heavenly existence.
R. Kent Hughes expounds on this. He says:
As to his humanity, that title perfectly expressed the incarnation and the paradox of his subjection to death. Immediately after Peter’s confession that Jesus was “the Christ of God,” Jesus said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (9:22; cf. 9:43b–45). As to his divinity, he was and is the awesome being to whom the Father gives everything. Upon his ascensiofn, he declared, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18)—a veritable bookend to the original bequeathal of “dominion and glory and a kingdom” to the Son of Man in Daniel 7:14.
Jesus’ words here to the Sanhedrin in Luke 22:69 —“But from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.””—is a prophetic exhaltation as the Messiah that would sit at the right hand of the Father at His resurrection and would be consummated at His second coming.
Also, it speaks to His eventual and ultimate judgment. As Joseph Fitzmyer points out, while the Sanhedrin may be judging Jesus here, one day they would see Jesus as their eternal judge. A rather terrifying thought.
Now the Sanhedrin were well versed in Scripture and would have understood Jesus’ words as the Son of Man and so they respond with another question.
So they all said, “Are you the Son of God, then?” And he said to them, “You say that I am.” Then they said, “What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips.”
Similar to the title Messiah, Son of God is also woven throughout Luke’s gospel account. From chapter 1 onward.
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
Then at Jesus’ baptism in chapter 3 we receive words directly from the Father.
and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
Even in His temptation, Satan employs the title; “If you are the Son of God…”
Then again on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Father speaks of his Son.
And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!”
While Messiah and Son of Man are exalted and unique to Jesus alone, the title Son of God carries perhaps an even greater nature. It connects Him directly to the Father-Son relation within the Trinity. To be the Son is to be divine. John’s opening verses of His gospel capture this connection well.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
R. Kent Hughes states:
To be the Son of God is to be God!
Thus, in the next few hours when God “gave his only Son” (John 3:16), it was God the Son who was given for our sins. The atonement’s sufficiency would come from the infinity of the eternal Son.
And so Jesus answers their question aptly. “You say that I am.” This was a Greek expression that threw responsibility back upon the one asking the question. Kind of like, “You said it…” But since it wasn’t clear denial, the Sanhedrin ran with it.
Then they said, “What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips.”
While in the moment it would seem that the situation had slipped out of the grasp of Jesus, the reality is this is exactly where He was meant to be and exactly where He wanted the Sanhedrin. In essence He brought them down the line with each title and in the end essentially reveals that they are putting the Messiah, the Son of Man, the Son of God to death.
CONCLUSION: MESSIAH, SON OF MAN, SON OF GOD
We mustn’t forget that on the night prior to His crucifixion Jesus proclaimed before the Sanhedrin and thus before the world that He was and is the Messiah. He is the prophesied One who sits on the throne of David.
He is the suffering and atoning Messiah of Isaiah 53 and His death was promised as is necessary for our hope. As we will see (spoiler alert) Jesus speaks to its necessity after His resurrection.
And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”
We must also never forget that the night before His resurrection, Jesus proclaimed He is the Son of Man. He is the prophesy of Daniel 7. He is both human and divine; and in His humanity He was judged but in His divinity He will come to judge the entire world.
And we must never forget that before His crucifixion, Jesus declared He is the Son of God. It is through His blood shed that He bore our sins and it is through His sacrifice that we have eternal hope.
Even in the midst of His passion, Jesus remained in authority and His power was displayed. Luke’s account leaves no room for debate, this Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of Man, the Son of God. So we must all make a decision of eternal consequence: will we deny His claims as the Sanhedrin the night of His arrest. Or do we accept His claims, place our faith in Him, and walk into eternal hope upon His shoulders?
I pray that we would all come to recognize Jesus as Lord and Savior and see the depth of His love for each of us as He endured the beatings, the mocking ridicule, the hatred, the nails, the cross, the spear that we would have the hope we carry today. May our lives, in turn, be an offering unto Him.
PRAY
