THE KING’S BUSINESS
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2. The “Trial.” (1) Before Annas. The Lord was first led to Annas. Whether John 18:19-23 belongs to the appearance before him or that before Caiaphas is questioned. If the latter, we have no account of the for mer. We are sure, however, that Annas with inquisitorial impudence would try to force the prisoner to incriminate Himself. (2) Before Caiaphas and the informal as sembly of sanhedrists, in “the high priest’s palace” (58). The murderous illegality and injustice of the whole proceeding is seen in verse 59. Its intent was not to try the pris oner but to kill him. The result of it was not the execution but the lynching of Jesus. The court ( ?) was convinced of His inno cence. Therefore they “sought false wit ness.” They could have witnesses enough. Thousands throughout the country would have thronged to the city. Lame men would have run to witness; dumb men to have testified; blind to describe what they had seen; and deaf to tell what they had heard; pardoned publicans and harlots to plead for His acquital; and even the dead for His life. But they need not have sought beyond the walls of the Council Chamber, or the sanhedric circle itself. “He spake openly to the world,” in the synagogues,-and where the Jews resorted. “Ask them that heard me,” Jesus said, probably glancing round the company (John 18:20, 21). (3) The false witness. They found per jurers enough (60) but their lies were tan gled (Mk. 14:56) and would have snared the court, not its Victim. “A t last came two false witnesses.” They had had a hard time to find them. Their efforts should have been spent to find witnesses that could justify Him. Their testimony (62), "This (contemptuous) said, “I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days." If this had been true they could but dismiss Jesus as a crank or a madman. He had not said “I am able,” neither “I will,” but, “Destroy (ye) this temple and I will build it again,” etc. (John 2:19). Jesus said He would build not destroy it; that they would do. “But he spake of the tem ple of His body” (John 2:21; 2 Cor. 6:19),
The kiss of Judas was unique only in that he kissed the Truest and the Holiest with “the kisses of an enemy” (Prov. 27:6). To flatter Jesus with the lip and with the same to deny His Person and His Word is to play the part of Judas. Wonder of wonders, he “kissed the Son” (Ps. 2:12) and He was not angry but with gentlest reproof called him “Friend (Comrade).” “Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kissf” (Luke 22:48), as if to rouse him to a sense of his profanity and villainy. 3. The Arrest. “They laid hands on Jesus." Without His consent they could as easily have atrested the sun as the Son. He said, “I am he" and all, Judas among them (John 18:5), “fell to the ground” (John 18: 6), a visible proof of John 10:18, 19; 19:11, to teach us that He “gave (delivered up) himself” for us. They came with “lanterns and torches” to hunt Him, a cursed kiss to identify Him, and “swords and staves" (clubs) to take Him from His friends (John 18:3), but He showed and identified Him self, bade “more than twelve legions of an gels" to veil their wrath, the puny arm of brave but rash Peter to sheath its sword, and healed the wound his glancing blow had dealt. In all this the Lord (1) demon strated the voluntariness of His delivery. (2) Deprived His accusers of the charge that He had resisted arrest and disturbed the peace. ■ (3) By miracle showed Himself a doer of good and that God was with Him. (4) All took place, “That the Scriptures might be fulfilled.’’ II. T h e T rial and C ondemnation H-57-66. 1. The Judges. (1) Annas (John 18:13), titular high priest, of great wealth, wicked ness and influence, without official right or moral disposition to qualify him to sit in judgment. (2) Caiaphas, actual high priest, son-in-law to Annas and as corrupt as he, one who had already publicly declared that they should put Jesus to death (John 18:14), thus, every way, unfit to judge. (3) Scribes and elders informally gathered at an hour specifically outlawed to judicial process, an assembly without even a grand jury’s au thority.
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