Putting Jesus on Trial

Trial Lawyers

I have lost count of the number of times I’ve been notified that I’m in the pool for jury duty. Yes, it’s an imposition and an inconvenience, to say the least, but it is also a intriguing educational experience. Of the many times I’ve been in the jury candidate pool, I have been selected to serve on one local shoplifting trial, and was next in line, as an alternate juror, on a federal, child pornography case.

I find it fascinating the way trial lawyers will lie, omit, rephrase, and “spin” their case, couching despicable activities in easy-to-swallow pills of terminology. At times, the attorneys will be questioning, not their witnesses but, rather, the jurors themselves, putting them/us on trial by making statements to imply, “Oh, you’re just as bad. You do the same things.”

No. I don’t. And try as you might, mister attorney, you’re never going to browbeat me into saying I do.

Jesus on Trial

A mere four chapters deep into Luke’s gospel account, we find the Jews already incensed with Jesus and attempting to kill him. Jesus, in the synagogue at Nazareth, on the Sabbath, had just read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and then, as was common, he offered some rabbinical commentary on the passage. As is also common, the audience didn’t care for what Jesus had to say about the Isaiah passage.

When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff.
– Luke 4:28-29, ESV

In Jesus’ case, the jury was self-chosen. There were no qualifying questions, no pool from which the decision-makers were chosen. An enraged mob decided that offending words were worthy of a death sentence. No trial. No testimony. No consideration that what the man said was possibly true.

Later in Jesus’ ministry, those who sought to kill him were much more deliberate and stealthy in their efforts. Rather than the lawless riot we saw early on, the quiet scheming evolved into a highly organized plan, using the letter of the law to destroy the spirit of the law. Conspirators manipulated the protocols of the Sanhedrin and the Roman Empire to achieve their flagitious outcome.

The supposed shepherds of Israel wanted the death of a man who threatened their power and highlighted their hypocrisy, but they had no capital crime of which to accuse him. Without an actual crime, they needed to begin layering evidence against him.

False Witnesses

Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death.
– Matthew 26:59, ESV

When we are consumed with a specific outcome, and we don’t have the truth to support that desired outcome, we can construct a truth to get us there. In this case, the Sanhedrin was suborning false witnesses to construct a truth that Jesus was deserving of death. 

The challenge they faced, however, was the requirement of first-century Jewish law that required a minimum of two witness for capital cases, and those two witnesses had to agree in every detail. What the Sanhedrin was putting together was nothing short of orchestrated perjury.

Adjuration

At last two came forward and said, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.’” And the high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” But Jesus remained silent.
– Matthew 26:60b-63a, ESV

At this point, the Sanhedrin had the matching testimony they needed. What the witnesses testified was accurate. Jesus did say what they claimed he said,¹ but, as the sheep before the shearers is silent,² so Jesus refused to respond, until…

And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so.”
– Matthew 26:63b-64a, ESV

Unlike the United States legal system, there is no fifth-amendment protection against self-incrimination. By speaking the formulaic “I adjure you by the living God,” Caiaphas placed Jesus under divine obligation to speak the truth.

So long as the false witness stories did not fully align, Jesus was free to remain silent. But now that we had matching testimony of two witnesses, and we had the adjuration from Caiaphas, Jesus was obligated by the Law of Moses to respond.

Additionally, by adjuring Jesus “in the name of the living God,” Caiaphas moved the trial from a civil court to the court of Heaven, an irony that is difficult to miss. If Jesus persisted in silence, it would appear that he was treating the name of God with contempt, something Caiaphas, himself, was absolutely doing. Or, Jesus’ silence could suggest that he was not bound by the Torah’s requirements which, of course, he was.

Jesus had to respond.

But Jesus didn’t stop at the truthful response, “You have said so.” Under the adjuration, Jesus spoke the full truth, knowing, I’m sure, that it would go right over the Sanhedrin’s heads.

Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death.”
– Matthew 26:64-66a, ESV

Drawing Conclusions

The adjuration was given, the question posed, and the question answered. The court had witnesses that aligned and a statement from the accused. All that remained was to re-frame the response from Jesus as something blasphemous.

The claim to be Messiah was not technically blasphemous. It was a political claim. It was a claim to be something of a military deliverer from the Roman boot that remained on the necks of the Jews. If the Messianic claim were taken in that spirit, Jesus would be exactly who the Jews wanted him to be, a military hero who would drive Rome out of the promised land. But that’s not what Jesus meant, and Caiaphas knew that.

With the overly-dramatic tearing of his robes, Caiaphas twisted Jesus’ Messianic assertion into a direct attack on the essence of God. In his theatrical moment, Caiaphas roused the Sanhedrin’s religious fervor beyond the boiling point and, in doing so, managed to get the crowd to bypass any investigation of Jesus’ claim, moving straight to a death sentence.

What We Learn

I am an emotional guy. Unlike my father, who rarely showed emotion, my emotions run deeply. They do, at times, bubble to the surface, and I could/should do better at tempering them. What I understand, however, is that emotions are a horrible indicator of, or seeker of truth. We cannot, and must not, make life-impacting decisions on the basis of how we feel about a given circumstance.

We can be seekers of truth, or we can be seekers of outcomes. Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin were looking not for the truth, but for an outcome, and they got it. Their power was threatened, their hypocrisy exposed and because of this they were fearful, outraged, and self-protective. These emotional states drove them to act in ways that have made them infamous in the annals of history.

Contrast the mob actions of the Sanhedrin with the investigative approach taken by Nicodemus and the Berean community. Rather than be fearful of Jesus and joining the religious opposition against him, Nicodemus sought out opportunities to question Jesus, to learn from him, to get at the truth for himself.⁴ The Berean people listened attentively to the apostle Paul, and when he was done teaching, the dug into the scriptures to confirm or deny the teachings of Paul.⁵

The Western world is saturated with people driving various agendas, just as it is lacking in people earnestly seeking truth. Push back against the tide. Seek truth rather than outcomes. Follow the truth wherever it leads you and you will know that you are on the right path…not necessarily the comfortable path, but the right one.

1. John 2:19
2. Isaiah 53:7
3. Leviticus 5;1
4. John 3:1-21
5. Acts 17:11