Encounter With The Innocent Part I
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As we turn to Luke 23, we have found that Jesus has been arrested and has suffered undo beatings through out the evening hours before He was legally sentenced by the sanhedrin, the Jewish leadership. The trial was not one of finding guilt in Jesus or about seeking truth it was a kangaroo court. The religious leaders were not looking for a fair trial, they were not seeking any real truth. They wanted Jesus dead and out of their way. The tried Jesus and ask for Him to identify Himself, "Are you the King of the Jews?" They were seeking their own truth and they wanted Jesus to incriminate Himself. Jesus saw through their hypocrisy and knew they were after their own truth and He refused to answer. Jesus never affirmed or denied any of their claims and they religious leaders took it as an affirmation from Jesus' mouth that He said He was the Son of God.
This was enough for them to bring Jesus before the Roman government to stand trial. For the next few weeks we will continue to look at Jesus' trials before the Roman Government and we will look at Jesus' Innocence and how His Innocents impacts everyone, from the religious leaders to the Gentile leaders and His impact on the World.
We are going to see how the Roman Leaders of the day react to an Encounter with The Innocent.
Encounter with The Innocent
Encounter with The Innocent
We pick up now in Luke 23:1-5.
Luke 23:1-5
Then the whole body of them got up and brought Him before Pilate.
And they began to accuse Him, saying, “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King.”
So Pilate asked Him, saying, “Are You the King of the Jews?” And He answered him and said, “It is as you say.”
Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no guilt in this man.”
But they kept on insisting, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching all over Judea, starting from Galilee even as far as this place.”
As we look at verse one we see something very interesting. Luke tells us that "the whole body of them got up and brought Him before Pilate." Now I want you to understand something. The Sanhedrin was made up of 70 people, they ranged from Sadducees, Pharisees, and elders of Israel. They were pushing this trial along and wanted Jesus dead, they didn't want to wait and Pilate was in Jerusalem at the time because of the Passover. In order to bring charges before Pilate even in the high court of Rome all they needed was two or three witnesses just a few people to bring the charges. The Sanhedrin was so unified on the matter of Jesus being put to death that they all went. They were also so curious to see what would happen that they all wanted to witness Jesus' end.
Do you know that these men were really pushing for this to take place and they were pushing for it to happen as quickly as possible. This is no accident. These men, these religious leaders have for the past three years encountered The Innocent One. They have heard Him teach and they have witnessed many of His miracles and they have seen the authority He has presented when it come to the things of God. Jesus has also questioned their teachings and their enforcement of the law of God. He has questioned their motives, in essence exposed their sinfulness. This exposure is what has polarized the Israelites. An encounter with the Innocent one will either cause the one who encounters Him to believe who He is or it will cause people to deny Him and misrepresent His character, power and Identity.
These religious leaders were exposed by Jesus and instead of searching their own hearts for the truth they ignored the truth and denied who Jesus truly is and now they have brought Jesus before the High Civil court of the Land so they could remove Jesus from the scene. Their Encounter caused them to Deny The Innocent.
Guilt Exposed
Guilt Exposed
In verse 2 we find the charges the religious leaders have brought before Pilate. Verse 2 says, "And they began to accuse Him, saying, "We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay takes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King." Now Luke is the only one of the Gospel writers who provides the charges for us. What is interesting is the charge of blasphemy was not brought up. Which is the charge the religious leaders convicted Jesus on. Now it was not uncommon for the Jewish people in this time when they had a charge of blasphemy to stone the person to death.
In fact in the book of Acts in Acts 7 we have the martyrdom of Stephen where Stephen exposed the hypocrisy of the religious leaders in respect to their treatment of Jesus and they dragged Stephen out of the city and stoned him to death. So there was precedence for the Jews to put someone to death without bringing the person before the Roman government. The problem with the Jesus was the religious leaders were afraid of the people who believed Jesus was either the Christ, a Prophet or at least Elijah. They saw He was sent by God so if the religious leaders had killed Jesus they would have lost their credibility with the people and they feared a revolt from the people against them.
So now they have to bring Jesus before the Roman government and place the blame in the hands of the Romans so they way they would keep the respect of the people.
The problem is they had nothing to bring before Pilate so they had to conger up charges that would have been a threat to the Romans. These are the charges. Jesus is misleading the nation, notice there is no evidence to how He Jesus is doing this. The forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar which is an out right lie.
They questioned Jesus on this very issue and Jesus answered the question, "render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." They are accusing Jesus of saying things and doing things He didn't do. And all of these charges they are bringing before the Roman government are all against the Roman Government. In order for the Roman's to put Jesus to death He must be proven to be an enemy of the state. That is why finally the last charge is that Jesus claims to be the Christ, a King.
Each one of these charges are a lie, because up to this point all Jesus has been doing is teaching the Word of God and healing people. It has not been political but religious and the Roman government is not going to care if He is a religious leader. The charge is one of political usurper, which is an all out lie. The second lie is He never forbid anyone from paying tax to Caesar, which a rebel against the Romans would have done. This would never fly but it was also a lie.
The last lie is not that Jesus is Christ, a King but that He said He was. Jesus pointed to the evidence of His Messiahship and He acknowledged it when Peter confessed it but He hasn't actually affirmed it with the religious leaders. They are only out to destroy Jesus who is an innocent man and has done nothing wrong, not even against the Law of God.
It was there guilt that was convicting Jesus. Their sin was bringing these accusations before Pilate. Jesus' innocents is actually exposing their guilt. They can't bring up any charges against Jesus so they lie. They are threatened by Jesus' teaching so they conspire murder. Their pride has pushed them to receive exaltation from the people instead of pointing people to God. When the people are exposed to Jesus' innocence the truth about themselves is exposed and those who hate Him will lie and misrepresent Him.
Look at what Jesus tells His disciples in John 15:18-25
John 15:18-15; Jesus tells His disciples how people hate Him
“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.
“If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.
“Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
“But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.
“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.
“He who hates Me hates My Father also.
“If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well.
“But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘THEY HATED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE.’
This doesn't mean that before Jesus no one was guilty of sin it only means that with the Law they could do things to work off their guilt or hid their guilt. Not that Jesus has come He has truly exposed the guilt of mankind because in Christ In Jesus there is the perfect sinless Savior. He has lived in such a way that no one else can live up to. When man's guilt is exposed, man is threatened because the power the thing they have is being taken away from them. So the sin of the religious leaders pushed them away from Jesus and pushed Him to the cross.
Have you ever had a time when you were sharing the gospel with someone and pointed out the fact they are a sinner. They have been born in sin and if they are to stand before God they are guilty of their sin. How do they normally react? Oh I'm basically a good person I haven't killed anyone or stolen anything. I have told some white lies but I'm no sinner. Then when you mention Jesus how do they react, well He was a good teacher or a very moral man, some may even say He was a rebel. Once you mention He is God and He is perfect what do they do, they begin to twist it or try to misrepresent Him in some way, with undeniable proof that He couldn't be God. That is sin that is moving them away from Jesus, it is their guilt that is causing them to turn from the truth and believe the lie.
Guilt is exposed when we encounter Jesus. Jesus is exposes it because He is Guiltless.
Innocence Observed
Innocence Observed
Job 4:7-8; Eliphaz recognizes innocent people are not punished.
“Remember now, who ever perished being innocent?
Or where were the upright destroyed?
“According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity
And those who sow trouble harvest it.
Psalm 37:25
I have been young and now I am old,
Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
Or his descendants begging bread.
Romans 5:6-14 Paul teaches on Jesus' death for all man.
For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—
for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
2 Corinthians 5:21
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Galatians 3:13
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE”—