In Matthew 26:46, Jesus had just informed His disciples that His betrayer was at hand. And so he was, for in the very next verse, His betrayer, Judas Iscariot, appeared with a large host of armed men to seize Jesus. As he had planned, Judas kissed Jesus as if he were His friend, greeting Jesus and calling Him Rabbi. When Jesus told Judas to carry out His evil plan, the armed host violently apprehended Jesus, who voluntarily submitted to these men, even though He possessed infinitely superior power over them.
However, one of Jesus’ disciples (Peter) was determined to resist and forcefully struck the personal servant of the high priest with his sword, cutting off his ear. Jesus responded by rebuking Peter, admonishing him that this was no time for physical violence. He went on to explain that since He could call upon His Father who would immediately send Him thousands of angels in His defense, but that He had not made such an appeal, that Jesus was willingly acquiescing to this evil ordeal, because this was God’s eternal plan of redemption as foretold by the Old Testament prophets.
In Matthew 26:55, the now-bound Jesus rebuked the hostile crowd, asking them why they didn’t arrest Him in his numerous times of teaching in the temple. Seeing that Jesus had no intention of defending Himself against such a humiliating experience of secret arrest in the garden of Gethsemane and that the armed crowd was so significant in size, every one of the 11 disciples fled from Jesus, just as He had predicted in Matthew 26:31.
Now deserted by His disciples, Jesus was conveyed in the early hours of Friday morning to a hastily gathered inquisition of members of the Sanhedrin, led by the high priest Caiaphas. Peter resummoned his courage and followed, attempting to see from a distance how things would play out. The chief priests and council of the Sanhedrin were actively seeking false testimony that they could use to slander Jesus and bring about His conviction and death, but this plan failed when their false witnesses could not agree on their lies. Eventually, 2 witnesses came forward testifying that Jesus had claimed He could destroy the temple and rebuild it in 3 days. When Caiaphas confronted Jesus with this claim, Jesus remained silent, not answering Him.
Frustrated, Caiaphas invoked an oath before God in Matthew 26:63, demanding that Jesus tell them if He was the Christ, the Son of God. This time, Jesus answered, first giving a qualified affirmation, “You have said so,” even though these men possessed a deficient understanding of who God’s Messiah really was. But Jesus then went on to emphatically declare that these men judging Him would see Him again, but this time as the divine Son of Man described in Daniel 7:13-14, and as the enthroned Lord sung about by David in Psalm 110:1-2. His statement clearly proclaimed His divinity and predicted that He would return as the everlasting King who will be worshiped and who will reign forever. Thus, these mortal judges of Jesus would one day in turn be eternally judged by Him, THE Judge.
Outraged at Jesus’ words, Caiaphas tore his outer garments, accusing Jesus of blasphemy. The other men agreed, collectively of one mind that Jesus had reviled and defamed the name of God, equating Himself with God. Their hardened hearts could not accept the possibility that what Jesus had said was true, and so they wholeheartedly agreed that Jesus must die. Their hatred for Him was evidenced by their subsequent actions, in which they spit in His face and struck Him, both physically and verbally mocking Him. In so doing, the men accusing Jesus of blasphemy were themselves the actual blasphemers, reviling and dishonoring the incarnate Son of God, which in turn was a blaspheming of the Father who sent Him into the world and of the Spirit who empowered Him for service.
Listen to this teaching on Matthew 26:47-68 by clicking on the link below:
