Christ Condemned By The Church
Minister: |
Rev. Ronald Van Overloop |
Date: |
3/15/2009 PM
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Text:
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Matthew 26:63-68
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Psalters: |
229, 117, 184, 389 |
- The participants.
- This trial is before the Sanhedrin, the highest Jewish ecclesiastical court.
- It had 71 members, elders and chief priests (former high priests deposed by Caesars), Pharisees and Saducees.
- It was chaired by the current High Priest, Caiaphas.
- The trial is of Jesus of Nazareth.
- For three years He had gone about preaching and teaching and performing great miracles.
- They had frequently spied on Him first to gain information and later to trap Him on various issues.
- They determined that He should die (Jn. 11:50).
- The Sanhedrin and Caiaphas saw only a man they had let irritate them.
- The trial.
- The Sanhedrin violated its own rules.
- They might not meet at night and only in the public meeting place.
- A charge to be valid had to have two separate witnesses and could not be from the mouth of the accused.
- Completely frustrated, Caiaphas, the High Priest, finally places Jesus under oath (63).
- The High Priest was to be a type of Christ.
- Now in his official capacity he puts Jesus under oath: “I adjure thee by the living God.”
- Jesus quickly adds, “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man ...”
- They sentence Jesus to death - for what He is, not for what He had done.
- In itself it was not blasphemy to say that He was the Christ.
- They (the church) were expecting the Christ, so it had to be proven that He was not the Christ.
- And Caiaphas tore his robes, a most prophetic event.
- Then Caiaphas led the real High Priest to the altar to sprinkle the blood of atonement before God.
- The heathen rage and imagine a vain thing, taking counsel against the Lord and His anointed.
- But they are accomplishing only what God had before determined.
- The real High Priest sheds His Lamb-blood for the sake of the people.