A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture/LXXI. Jesus before Annas and Caiphas
Chapter LXXI.
JESUS BEFORE ANNAS AND CAIPHAS.
[Mat. 26, 57. Mark 14, 53. Luke 22, 54. John 18, 13.]
THE troop of soldiers and servants first led Him bound[1] before Annas[2], a former High Priest, and the father-in-law of Caiphas, the High Priest of that year. Annas questioned[3] Jesus concerning His disciples and His doctrine. Jesus calmly told him that He had spoken openly[4], and he might question those who had heard Him. Then one of the servants who stood by gave Jesus a blow[5], saying: “Answerest thou the High Priest so?” Jesus meekly[6] replied: “If I have spoken ill, give testimony of the evil; but if well, why strikest thou Me?”
Annas sent Jesus bound to Caiphas[7], who had meanwhile assembled the Great Council of the Jews. Now he and the whole council would willingly have found some pretext for putting Jesus to death; but they could find none, although many false witnesses[8] had appeared against Him.
At last there came two false witnesses who affirmed that they had heard Jesus saying He would destroy the Temple, and after three days build it up again. But they still contradicting each other, the High Priest arose and said to Jesus: “Answerest Thou[9] nothing to the things which these witness against Thee?” Jesus was silent[10]. Then the High Priest said to him: “I adjure[11] Thee by the living God, that Thou tell us if Thou be the Christ[12], the Son of the living God?” Jesus answered[13]: “Thou hast said it. I say to you, hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”[14] Then the High Priest rent[15] his garments, saying: “He hath blasphemed[16]; what further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now you have heard the blasphemy; what think you?” They answered: “He is guilty of death.”[17]
COMMENTARY.
Our Blessed Lords own testimony to His Divinity. In the face of death Jesus affirmed on oath that He was the promised Redeemer and the Son of God, and in the most solemn manner possible ascribed to Himself divine power and majesty 1 To the question put to Him on oath by the High Priest He replied, not as an accused man might address his judge, but as a ruler would address his subject, and threatened His hardened accusers with the divine judgments He would hold in His Hand when coming again in the clouds of heaven! Truly that was not the speech of a man, but of God! The members of the Sanhedrin quite understood that Jesus declared Himself to be God, for it was on this plea that they condemned Him to death for blasphemy. And later on, when they accused Him to Pilate, they said: “We have a law’, and according to the law, He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God!” So it was on account of His own testimony that our Blessed Lord was condemned to death. As His enemies could prove nothing against Him, they turned His testimony that He was the Son of God into a crime, for which they put Him to death. He met His Death, therefore, for bearing testimony to His Divinity!
The Gentleness of Jesus. Our Blessed Lord had proved His Godhead not only by His great miracles (and especially by the raising of Lazarus, which not even His enemies could contest), but by the extraordinary holiness of His life and by His truly divine virtues. When He was brought before Annas, Jesus showed a gentleness which has never been equalled. The ruffianly servant struck the Face of the Most High, with an unjust, painful and shameful blow; and Jesus bore this horrible treatment with patience. He did not upbraid or threaten the man, but pointed out to him the injustice of his action, with calm and gentle words. “Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of Heart!”
Sharing the guilt of the sins of others. Annas sinned in this way by not punishing, nor even blaming, his servant for his unjust and illegal treatment of Jesus.
False witness. The two witnesses sinned against the eighth Commandment; and they sinned grievously, because they gave false evidence on a very important matter.
Oaths. The example of Jesus, Who accepted the oath applied to Him by the High Priest, teaches us that it is lawful and right to take an oath when it is required of us in a court of justice, by those in authority.
Application. It was for love of us that Jesus let Himself be bound, buffetted, struck in the Face, abused, blasphemed, and sentenced to death! He suffered all this to make satisfaction for our sins, and turn away from us the sentence of everlasting punishment which they had drawn down on us. Thank your Redeemer for His unbounded love, and prove, this very day, by your patience and gentleness, that you love Him in return.
Every wilful sin we commit is, so to speak, a blow struck on the Face of our Divine Lord. Whenever you are on the point of sinning, your conscience says to you: “Do not do it! God has forbidden it!” But then, perhaps, you reply: “All the same I will do it. What is it to me that God has forbidden it!” Do you not see that to act in this way is to strike the Face of God with a blow? And if you go on to commit the sin really, those words of our Blessed Lord are in truth addressed to you: “Why strikest thou Me?” O Lord Jesus, for love of Thee, I will never more commit a wilful sin!
- ↑ Led Him bound. What a tale of ignominy and ill-treatment is contained in these few words! Both the soldiers and the chief priests’ servants knew how intensely their employers hated Jesus, and that the best way to gain favour with them was to maltreat our Blessed Lord. They bound His Hands together tightly and cruelly, and having put a rope round His neck dragged Him by it into the city, abusing and maltreating Him all the way. The road to Annas' house took about half an hour to traverse, and during that half-hour our Lord, according to tradition, fell to the ground seven times in consequence of the inhuman treatment to which He was subjected.
- ↑ Annas. The Romans were in the habit of setting up and deposing the High Priests in the most arbitrary manner. At the time of our Lord’s Death there were therefore several High Priests, for even those who were deposed kept the title. Caiphas was the fourth High Priest since Annas’ deposition, but Annas still exercised great influence, for Caiphas had married his daughter, and Caiphas himself had no strength of character. Annas and Caiphas both lived on Mount Sion, about a hundred and seventy yards apart. To reach the house of Caiphas they had to pass that of Annas, so the troop led Jesus there on the way, both to curry favour with him, and because the Sanhedrin had not yet had time to assemble at the High Priest’s house.
- ↑ Questioned. Although he had no authority to put the questions. His interrogation was, moreover, superfluous, as both the disciples and doctrine of Jesus must have been well known to him.
- ↑ Openly. Our Blessed Lord attempted no defence; He merely appealed to the many impartial witnesses before whom He had openly preached.
- ↑ A blow. Annas, who hated our Lord, allowed this man’s brutal conduct to pass without even reproof.
- ↑ Meekly. In order to bring the ruffian to a sense of his injustice.
- ↑ To Caiphas. Annas was in a great dilemma, for he could not answer our Lord’s calm words; and, moreover, he had no authority to pass sentence on Him. The only thing he could do was to have our Blessed Lord’s bonds replaced, and send Him to Caiphas, at whose house part of the Sanhedrin had assembled as soon as the news of the capture of Jesus had reached its members. It was now about three o’clock in the morning, yet the chief priests and Pharisees were but too willing to give up their night’s rest in order to gratify their hatred of Jesus.
- ↑ False witnesses. They had already made up their minds to put Jesus to death, but they called witnesses in order to preserve some appearance of justice, and to enable them to pass a legal sentence; for, by the Jewish law, sentence of death might not be pronounced unless the offence of the accused were proved by the unanimous testimony of at least two witnesses. If the testimony of witnesses did not agree, the evidence was adjudged false (see the story of Susanna, Old Test. LXXVI).
- ↑ Answerest Thou. Their evidence did not agree as to the exact expressions used by our Lord. He had not said “I will destroy this Temple”, but “Destroy this Temple”, or in other words, if you destroy it. Moreover He had not said : “Destroy the Temple”, but this temple, meaning His Body (chapter XV). Finding that the evidence of the false witnesses did not serve his purpose, the High Priest induced Jesus to speak, in the hope that His own words would incriminate Him and afford ground for accusation.
- ↑ Silent. He would not answer false evidence, or defend Himself against the lies of men. Had it been really the truth which His judges desired to ascertain, they could have easily seen that the evidence was absolutely worthless, by reason of the contradictions contained in it. The silence of our Blessed Lord filled the judges with despair, for it took from them all pretext for condemning Him. Then it was that Caiphas resorted to a final measure, by adjuring our Lord, in the holy and terrible name of God, to speak, and thus forced an oath on Him. The way in which a judicial oath was applied in those days was this: the judge suggested the oath to the accused, who accepted it by replying to the question put, by a simple “yes” or “no”. This was how Caiphas applied an oath to our Lord.
- ↑ I adjure. I demand of Thee under a solemn oath to tell me & c.
- ↑ The Christ. The Messias, and the Son of God in the fullest sense of the word. Our Lord no longer kept silence, for the High Priest was justified in putting this question to Him. The question was put in the name of God, and its subject was one of the last importance to the whole world. Therefore Jesus gave to this solemn question an equally solemn answer.
- ↑ Answered. “I am the true Son of God.” And as He knew that this assertion, made even on oath, would obtain no credence, He added as a proof of the truth of His words: “Hereafter you shall see the Son of Man &c.”
- ↑ Of heaven. As Judge. One day their own eyes would convince them that He was the Almighty Son of God.
- ↑ Rent. As a sign of his indignation.
- ↑ Blasphemed. By making Himself out to be the Son of God, and God Himself. And without further loss of time Caiphas (by his words: “What think you?”) put it to the vote as to what punishment our Blessed Lord deserved.
- ↑ Of death. For by the Jewish law the punishment of blasphemy was death by stoning (Lev. 24, 16). Without even considering whether our Lord’s solemn assertion on oath might not, after all, be true, they pronounced His words to be blasphemy, and with awful blindness and malice, pronounced on the All Holy One the most unjust sentence that has ever been pronounced!