Messiah On Trial
Text: Matt. 26:57-68
Introduction
1. Illustration: When C.S. Lewis came to Oxford University he was an atheist. He had lost his mother at nine and the rest of his life was spent in boarding schools. But had no use or belief in God. But while at Oxford he met a man who became his best friend: J.R.R. Tolkein. You know him as the author of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkein, along with some other friends challenged Lewis to investigate the Bible. So Lewis did. It was from that investigation and through the counsel of his friends that Lewis moved from atheism to a deep Christian faith.
2. Jesus went on trial over 2000 years ago, and unfortunately, He is still on trial today.
a. That is unfortunate because the evidence that Jesus is who He said He was is overwhelming to say the least.
b. This is unfortunate because all too often people ignore the truth about Jesus, His claims, and His teachings.
c. However, the good news is, that like C.S. Lewis, there are those that once they examine the truth about Jesus come to faith in Him, resulting in their lives being transformed forever.
3. When people put Jesus on trial today it is often...
a. Unfair
b. Unethical
c. Unbelieving
4. Let's stand together as we read Matt. 26:57-68
Proposition: Once we have honestly and objectively examined the truth about Jesus we can only come to one conclusion: He is who He said He was, the Son of God.
Transition: When people put Jesus on trial today it is often...
I. Unfair (57).
A. Home of Caiaphas
1. After Jesus' arrest in the Garden everything else that happens from there can best be described as a "kangaroo court."
2. Jesus trial had basically 3 stages: 1) before Annas the former High Priest and father-in-law of the current High Priest Caiaphas, which is not mentioned by Matthew, 2) before the Sanhedrin, at night, and 3) before the Sanhedrin in the morning.
a. The session that Matthew is talking about here is the night trial before the Sanhedrin.
b. It was against Jewish law to hold a trial at night, but they were so eager to get rid of Jesus nothing else mattered.
c. They knew that in order to keep Jesus large following from rioting they would have to have some semblance of a trial (Horton, 597-599).
3. Matthew tells the second hearing by saying, "Then the people who had arrested Jesus led him to the home of Caiaphas, the high priest, where the teachers of religious law and the elders had gathered."
a. The Jewish religious authorities have hastily gathered to interrogate Jesus, find him guilty of violating their laws, and then establish a case by which they can accuse him of violating Roman law.
b. The Romans exercised control over all judicial proceedings but allowed some freedom to the Jewish people to try their own legal matters.
c. However, they kept the death penalty under their own jurisdiction and reserved the right to step in on any case and take over the proceedings.
d. The high priest apparently knew well how to frame anyone who was a threat to his power by staying in cahoots with the Roman governor (Wilkins, NIV Application Commentary: Matthew).
4. Everything that happens to Jesus this night are completely unfair, not to mention illegal.
a. First of all, as I stated earlier, this trial was held at night, but Jewish clearly stated that all trials had to take place during the day.
b. Second, they were meeting in Caiaphas's home, and this too is illegal because Jewish law stated that trials had to take place in court.
c. Third, this trial was taking place during the Passover, and no trials were allowed to take place during this festival.
d. The point is that they did everything they could to railroad Jesus and find anything they could, by any means they could, do condemn him to death.
e. Everything that happened to Jesus this night was unfair.
B. Separation of Church and State?
1. Illustration: Atlas Shrugs reports on the outrageous case of a high school choir singing an Islamic song that includes praise to Allah with words like "There is no truth except Allah," and "Allah is the only eternal and immortal." The choir sings the song in the original Urdu language.
James Harper, a Christian member of the choir quit in protest. According to Harper: "I don’t want to come across as a bigot or a racist, but I really don’t feel it is appropriate for students in a public high school to be singing an Islamic worship song. This is worshipping another God, and even worshipping another prophet — I think there would be a lot of outrage if we made a Muslim choir say Jesus Christ is the only truth."
School officials, of course, sided with the music teacher. As Harper said, imagine if a Muslim had quit in protest over a song praising Jesus? The ACLU, Americans for Separation of Church and State, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) would already have had the music teacher fired and fined for engaging in hate speech against Islam(http://www.christianresponsealerts.com/2012/02/christian-student-quits-choir-when-forced-to-sing-praise-to).
2. Society is unfair to Jesus by giving preferential treatment to other religions.
a. Acts 3:14-15 (NLT)
You rejected this holy, righteous one and instead demanded the release of a murderer. 15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. And we are witnesses of this fact!
b. If a school wanted to sing Christmas carols that proclaim the name of Jesus it would be rejected by the ACLU, the Supreme Court, and public outcry as a violation of Church and State.
c. However, it is alright to sing songs about Allah and praise a false god whose followers not all that long ago murdered millions of people on Sept. 11, 2001.
d. In fact, at the memorial service held for those victims there were clergy representing every major world religion except Christianity.
e. The followers of Jesus are considered by our society as intolerant, but it is society that has become increasingly intolerant of anything that has to do with Jesus.
3. Society is unfair to Jesus by trying to strip Him of His divinity.
a. John 20:31 (NLT)
But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name.
b. Those in our society that do not completely reject Jesus will only accept Him if He is stripped of His divinity.
c. They will accept Him as a good person.
d. They will accept Him as a great teacher.
e. They will accept Him as a great prophet.
f. But they miss the point that if Jesus is not who He said He was, the Son of the Living God, He cannot be any of those other things.
g. You cannot separate Jesus from His rightful title as the Son of God and the only way to salvation.
Transition: Not only is our society unfair to Jesus, but they are also...
II. Unethical (59-61).
A. Witness Who Would Lie About Jesus
1. Once the trial begins the hypocrisy of the proceedings becomes more corrupt.
2. Matthew tells us, "Inside, the leading priests and the entire high council were trying to find witnesses who would lie about Jesus, so they could put him to death."
a. The composition of the Sanhedrin at the time of Jesus is debated, but it probably was a mixture of the priestly nobility and the aristocratic elders of Jerusalem, but with some elements of Pharisee influence through their legal experts.
b. The court was not convening to see if Jesus was guilty. The court was meeting to seek false witnesses against Him.
c. They wanted to sentence Him to death. They had already determined in their hearts to reject and oppose Him.
d. He was a threat to both their nation and their personal security and position. They feared the loss of both, so they were set on killing Him.
e. The problem is no one was ever able to point a finger at Jesus for any kind of sin, and anyone who tried to trip him up were eventually forced to recognize that He was right.
3. We can clearly see this dilema for these hyicritcal religious leaders, because even though "they found many who agreed to give false witness, they could not use anyone’s testimony."
a. Instead of presuming innocence until proven guilty, the Sanhedrin tries to find false witnesses who will testify against Jesus that he has violated the law.
b. There is no lack of false witnesses, because many come forward, but their testimony does not stand.
c. Mark states the Sanhedrin is unable to convict Jesus because the witnesses cannot put together consistent testimonies.
d. Mark 14:56 (NLT)
Many false witnesses spoke against him, but they contradicted each other.
e. A valid testimony required at least two witnesses. If they contradict each other in any way the testimony was considered to be invalid, and that is the case here.
f. Although a number of people were brought forward no valid testimony against Jesus was found (Horton, 599).
g. The entire proceedings are a sham, for the Jewish leaders are manipulating the events to get Jesus out of the way as quickly as possible (Wilkins).
4. Then Matthew tells us, "Finally, two men came forward who declared, 'This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the Temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’”
a. They finally got two men to agree about something in their testimony, but it is derogatory from the start.
b. They refer to Jesus as "this man," which was a designation of disrespect and contempt.
c. Their disdainful reference to Jesus as "this man" shows that they are not among Jesus' followers, so they have a skewed perspective of his saying.
d. They are apparently referring to a statement made by Jesus during the earliest stages of his ministry, in which Jews demanded from Jesus a "miraculous sign" to justify his actions in cleansing the temple.
e. Jesus replied to them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days"
f. John 2:19-21 (NLT)
“All right,” Jesus replied. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
20 “What!” they exclaimed. “It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can rebuild it in three days?” 21 But when Jesus said “this temple,” he meant his own body.
g. This saying was difficult enough for Jesus' own followers to understand, but easy to distort by those unsympathetic to its intention.
h. Apparently the saying circulated among Jesus' opponents in a variety of forms wherever stories about Jesus were told (Wilkins).
B. Historical Jesus
1. Illustration: "I claim to be an historian. My approach to Classics is historical. And I tell you that the evidence for the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ is better authenticated than most of the facts of ancient history . . ." (E. M. Blaiklock, Professor of Classics at Auckland University).
2. Like the witnesses at Jesus' trial, people today speak lies about Him.
a. Luke 24:5-6 (NLT)
The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? 6 He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead!
b. There are those today who say that the story of the Gospels in more than myth and legend.
c. That the story of the Resurrection is nothing more than fabrication.
d. However, if they were going to make something up, why would they use women as their main witnesses to the resurrection?
e. The testimony of a woman in the ancient world was considered unreliable and worthless.
f. If they were going to make up a story wouldn't they had made up something more believable?
g. Maybe these eyewitnesses just told the truth they way it actually happened!
3. Just like the witnesses at Jesus' trial, the modern testimonies against Jesus unreliable.
a. Acts 2:32 (NLT)
“God raised Jesus from the dead, and we are all witnesses of this."
b. Illustration: Professor Thomas Arnold, for 14 years a headmaster of Rugby, author of the famous, History of Rome, and appointed to the chair of modern history at Oxford, was well acquainted with the value of evidence in determining historical facts. This great scholar said: "I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead."
c. Yet today there are scores of people who deny the validity of the resurrection to Jesus.
d. They claim that it is all fabricated.
e. There are those that go so far as to claim that Jesus was burried in a shallow grave and his body eaten by wild dogs.
f. But there is no greater truth, no fact more verified by history than the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Transition: All of these are because they are...
III. Unbelieving (62-68).
A. You Have Said It
1. We need to ask ourselves why these religious men would treat Jesus this way when He had never done anything wrong? The answer is that there hearts were hard, and as a result, they did not believe.
2. Matthew tells us that when the high priest heard what Jesus had said about the temple he vehemently asked Jesus, “Well, aren’t you going to answer these charges? What do you have to say for yourself?”
a. Matthew does not explain why this charge catches the attention of the high priest when the others have not, but he considers this a serious charge against Jesus, for he stands up and confronts Jesus.
b. This may seem innocent enough, but in this charge the high priest apparently views Jesus as exalting himself over the temple of God (Wilkins).
3. However, "Jesus remained silent."
a. Jesus "held His peace." He was silent; He said nothing in defending Himself against the false charges.
b. The High Priest and court become disturbed and perhaps confused by Jesus' silence.
c. They needed Him to begin speaking, hoping He would add evidence to the charge and thereby incriminating Himself.
4. This enraged the high priest and he said to Jesus, “I demand in the name of the living God—tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.”
a. Such patently distorted charges cannot be answered, for whatever Jesus might say to defend himself will be further distorted. So he remains silent.
b. But it is "a sovereign silence." Throughout this long night Jesus has spoken of the divine inevitability of these events.
c. Isaiah 53:7 (NLT)
He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.
d. The Scriptures have prophesied them, and the Father's will is in control of them. The theme of silence is noted at various times during the trials, fulfilling Isaiah 53:7 and placing the responsibility for his death back on his accusers.
e. Jesus' silence frustrates the high priest since he cannot get Jesus to incriminate himself on the trumped-up charge from the two witnesses.
f. So he goes to the source and places Jesus under a solemn oath by the living God: "Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God" (Wilkins).
5. Finally, Jesus replies, “You have said it. And in the future you will see the Son of Man seated in the place of power at God’s right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
a. Now that there remains no need to continue the messianic secret, Jesus reveals publicly that he is God's Son.
b. But Jesus must define that sonship, not allow the leaders' cultural preconceptions to define it for him.
c. Thus by responding in scriptural allusions, Jesus defines his mission in terms his interrogators cannot misapprehend: he is both Son of Man and Lord.
d. Jesus was greater than merely a messiah, a son of David (Keener, IVPNT:Matthew).
e. Jesus affirms that he is the Messiah, but it allows him to go beyond Caiaphas's inadequate conception to give a further clarification of the kind of Messiah he is and in what way he is the Son of God.
f. Jesus avoided those kinds of titles in his ministry because of the way that they could be misunderstood. Now is the time for clarification (Wilkins).
6. As a result, "the high priest tore his clothing to show his horror and said, “Blasphemy! Why do we need other witnesses? You have all heard his blasphemy.
What is your verdict?” “Guilty!” they shouted. “He deserves to die!”
a. What a drama queen! He sounds like a teenage girl on Facebook! (lol)
b. One would tear one’s clothes as a sign of mourning or repentance; more to the point here, one who heard the sacred name blasphemed was required to do this.
c. But the high priest must be desperate for a conviction; unless Jesus mentions the sacred Hebrew name of God, or summons them to idolatry, or in some other way insults God’s dignity, he is not technically guilty of blasphemy.
d. Jesus’ association of himself with God could be considered offensive, but the high priest would first have to prove it untrue (Keener, IVP Bible Background Commentary – New Testament).
e. Blasphemy means to act or, more specifically, to speak contemptuously against God. Leviticus 24:11 tells of the stoning of a man who "blasphemed the Name with a curse."
f. The culpable act of blasphemy in Jesus' case is not speaking against the name of God, but rather his assertion that he has divine status as the Son of Man. He claims for himself prerogatives that belong to God alone (Wilkins).
g. The issue wasn't that Jesus couldn't prove He was the Son of Man, because He had done that time and time again, but rather that they didn't want to believe it.
B. Why People Don't Believe
1. Illustration: "I’ve become convinced that the problem with believing the Bible is not based on what we don’t understand about the Bible – but it’s based on what we do understand about the Bible. "What we do understand challenges everything about us. Jesus calls us to follow him, and that means we have to give up our life. That, I think, is the major reason why people don’t want to believe in the Gospels, because it involves self-surrender, the hardest thing in life to do." (Dr. Scott McKnight, Biblical scholar, professor of religious studies at North Park University, Chicago. Quoted in Exploring the Da Vinci Code, Lee Strobel and Garry Poole).
2. Unbelief brings judgment.
a. John 3:18-19 (NLT)
“There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. 19 And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.
b. The judgment of God is coming not merely for our sinful behavior but because we do not believe.
c. We do not believe because we do not want to give up control to Jesus and submit to His Lordship.
d. The truth is, we do not believe because we love our sin more than we love Jesus!
3. Unbelief clouds our understanding and hardens our hearts.
a. Romans 1:21-23 (ESV)
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
b. It causes us to reject, dishonor, and degrade Jesus.
c. It causes us to do foolish things.
d. It causes us to forfeit the abundant life the God desires for us.
4. However, if we believe we receive the greatest promise of all - eternal life!
a. John 11:25-26 (NLT)
Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. 26 Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?”
b. If we believe we have the promise to live forever with Jesus in paradise.
c. If we believe we have the promise that He will never leave us or forsake us.
d. If we believe we have the promise of abundant life here and now.
e. All things are possible to those who believe!
Conclusion
1. When people put Jesus on trial today it is often...
a. Unfair
b. Unethical
c. Unbelieving
2. Proposition: Once we have honestly and objectively examined the truth about Jesus we can only come to one conclusion: He is who He said He was, the Son of God.
3. How about you?
a. Are you unfair to Jesus by the way you live your life?
b. Are you unethical to Jesus by professing one thing and doing another?
c. Are you demonstrating unbelief because you do not give Jesus first place in your life?
4. Come to Jesus and live!
