We have already dwelt sufficiently upon the irregularities which attended the Lord’s trial: it was in every sense a travesty of justice, taking no account of the principles which the Lord God had laid down in the Old Testament. This must be regarded as the fundamental sin of the rulers. Moreover, commentators are unanimous in declaring that the trial violated the principles of justice which the Jews themselves had formulated and which should have governed the proceedings. What we have already considered took place at night, and this in itself was illegal 1.
The arrival of morning provided the opportunity to convene a legal assembly. Thus, Matthew states, “Now when morning was come, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death” (Matt. 27:19 RV as all quotes). In his parallel statement, Mark also refers to the “whole council” (Mk. 15:1). Although similar expressions have already been used of the night session (see Matt. 26:59; Mark 14:55), it seems probable that by morning it would be possible to convene a fully representative assembly. But these considerations are in one sense irrelevant for the members of the Sanhedrin would be aware that the night session could have no legality. However, and this is important to remember, it had provided them with the opportunity to determine their tactics.
When we compare the records in Matthew, Mark and Luke, we discover that the first two give prominence, as we have seen, to the night session, while Luke is strangely silent about these proceedings. He makes no mention of the false witnesses, and of the interrogation of Jesus by the high priest. We do learn much from Luke about Peter and his denials. And while Matthew and Mark recount after slapping our Lord in the face, his tormentors said, “Prophesy unto us, thou Christ: who is he that struck thee?” (Matt. 26:68; Mk. 14:65), Luke adds the detail that they blindfolded the Lord before questioning him (Lk. 22:64).
Night and daytime trials
Our major problem is the following: why do Matthew and Mark content themselves with a passing mention of the morning trial, while Luke, who is so sparce about the proceedings at night, gives details about what happens in the morning?
We can at least attempt to solve this enigma. In our consideration of the night trial, we learnt from Matthew and Mark that, after the miserable failure to find witnesses against the Lord, the high priest asked him whether he was the Christ, the Son of God (Matt. 26:63; cf. Mark 14:61). When the Lord assented, the Sanhedrin was convinced that Jesus was worthy of death because in their eyes he had spoken blasphemy.
While they would have to recognize that what had happened at night was illegal, the Sanhedrin knew in the light of the night’s events that they had a trump card. Come morning they were not going to resort to the vain quest for witnesses. All they needed to do was to repeat in the legal assembly what they had already learnt. Accordingly, Luke, who would be well familiar with the night’s illegal proceedings, reports that in the morning Jesus was asked, “If thou art the Christ, tell us” (Luke 22:67). The Lord now replies in a different manner, a fact which indicates the situation is not the same as the one at night, “If I tell you, ye will not believe; and if I ask you, ye will not answer” (vs. 67,68). The last comment is particularly illuminating — the members of the Sanhedrin knew full well that if they allowed the Lord to interrogate them, he would soon tie them in knots. They accordingly gave him no opportunity but asked him a further question which was an echo of the night’s exchanges, “Art thou then the Son of God? And he said unto them, ye say that I am” (v. 70).
Luke has no mention of physical abuse; the morning’s proceedings are a factual, clinical concentration upon what has been earlier learnt and this is, in itself, a great mark of accuracy. Now, in a proper, “legal” assembly, they have evidence of what they regard as blasphemy on the part of the accused. Yet, alas, the Jews must defer to the occupying Roman authority. They could not crucify the Lord without connivance of the procurator. Hence their next problem is to bring pressure upon Pilate. Jesus is accordingly bound to the latter.
We do not know what contact had previously been made between our Lord’s enemies and Pilate, but the fact that he was ready to conduct a trial so early in the day indicates surely that the Jews had briefed him, and probably in detail.
The Roman trial
The integration of the four records of the trial by Pilate into a single coherent account is not without its difficulties. A more modest aim is pursued in this study — to highlight the major features of the proceedings.
Matthew and Mark give us the briefest records. They do, however, agree in asserting Pilate perceived that the Jewish leaders were moved by envy (Matt. 27:18; Mark 15:10).
Luke and John give us fuller accounts. We remember that the latter was in a unique position to recount details of the trial. We recall that he says of himself, “[he] entered in with Jesus into the court of the high priest” (18:15). From the court of Caiaphas, the Lord was conducted into Pilate’s “palace” (praetorium). While it is not expressly stated, we would expect John to follow his Lord. What is unquestionable is that he alone provides vital information which enables us to understand Pilate’s movements. His account provides the best framework of what occurred in the Lord’s civil trial. We think of what he says of his own testimony to Jesus, “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also” (I John 1:3).
As the Jews had no power at the time to put a condemned prisoner to death, the cooperation of the procurator was essential. Accordingly the Jews handed Jesus over to Pilate. Those who conveyed Jesus to the Roman authority did not enter the “palace” “that they might not be defiled, but might eat the passover” (John 18:28). What supreme irony! The sole concern of the Jewish leaders was with ceremonial purity. The Law of Moses laid down clearly that on the first day of the feast all leaven had to be removed from each household (cf. Exo. 12:15). This practice would certainly not trouble Pilate and the Jews knew it. Hence, the praetorium was ceremonially unclean, and by the same token, the Lord would technically be defiled by his presence within it — the one who was “holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners” (Hebrews 7:26).
Pilate then conducts the trial within the praetorium, as the Jews cannot enter it, the governor has to go outside to communicate with the Lord’s accusers. This he is constrained to do three times (John 18:29,38;19:4). There is incidental confirmation of Pilate’s movements, for after his first exit (18:29), we read that he entered again (v. 33) and while we read no such confirmation after his second exit, we do in the case of the third (cf. 19:4 and 19:9). The first two gospels are completely silent on these revealing details. Likewise Luke, though interestingly, he does confirm the mention of Pilate’s threefold appeal to the Jews, “And he said unto them the third time, why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him and release him” (Luke 23:22).
Accusation of treason
Where the four gospels are at one is in the report of the charge that was brought against the Lord. They all mention his claim to be the Messiah, though in the case of Matthew, Mark and John we learn this from the way Pilate interrogated the Lord. Luke gives a fuller record of the charges, “And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this man perverting our nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ a king” (Lk. 23:2, see also Matt. 27:11; Mark 15:2; John 18:33). This accusation was a manifest lie. Far from forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, the Lord had stated that one should render to Caesar what was due and this would include tribute (for example, Luke 20:25).
The reason for the Jewish emphasis upon the Lord’s messianic claim is obvious —they were trying to imply Jesus was usurping the place of the emperor, Tiberius. Years later, the Jews of Thessalonica resorted to the same tactic in order to discredit Paul and Silas (Acts 17:5-8). In their delirium of hatred of the Lord before Pilate, the chief priests cried out, “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15), an instance of hypocrisy which was to have fearful consequences in A.D. 70.
Pilate’s futile effort
Pilate, we can be sure, shared the common Roman contempt for the Jews and their “superstitions.” As Jesus stood before him, however, he was moved to interrogate the Lord about his kingship. In his justly famous reply, the Lord declared, “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence” (John 18:36).
While Pilate must have been impressed by the demeanour of the prisoner before him, there were also other considerations which must have weighted with him. There was such a thing as Roman justice which the Jews obviously were seeking to violate, and he was its representative. Further there was the message from his wife, “Have thou nothing to do with that righteous man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him” (Matt. 27:19).
He tried by various means to rescue the Lord from the malevolence of the Jewish leaders. Consequently when he learnt that Jesus was a Galilean, he deferred the case to Herod, who was doubtless in Jerusalem for the Passover (Luke 23:7). Herod treated Jesus as some kind of magician who would perform a miracle at his behest. The members of the Sanhedrin followed Jesus as he was escorted to the king (v. 10). They were not going to allow the Lord to defend himself in their absence. In these circumstances, the Lord again refused to defend himself (Lk. 23:9). Disappointed that he had not seen some wonder performed, Herod allowed his soldiers to subject the Lord to further indignities: they ridiculed the Lord, poking fun at him and arrayed him in “gorgeous apparel” (v. 11). There is no evidence that they subjected the Lord to physical abuse on this occasion.
Pilate now had the support of Herod in his judgement that Jesus had committed nothing worthy of death (Luke 23:15), but his plea for clemency fell on deaf ears, “But they shouted, saying, crucify, crucify him” (v. 21). We have now reached a late phase in the proceedings, and the Jews are feeling frustrated by what they regard as Pilate’s delaying tactics. Hence they stridently call for his crucifixion. The governor’s rearguard action is proving fruitless. In a final endeavour to placate the Jews, Pilate said, “I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him and release him” (v. 22). But even this did not satisfy the Jews who were now inexorably bent upon the Lord’s destruction.
- A. Carr’s comments on the illegality of the proceedings conducted by the Sanhedrin are well worthy of our notice. “The question is sometimes asked, Was the trial of Jesus fair and legal according to the rules of Jewish law? The answer must be that the proceedings against Jesus violated both I. the spirit, and 2. the express rules of Hebrew jurisdiction, the general tendency of which was to extreme clemency…
“But even the ordinary legal rules were disregarded in the following particulars: (a) the examination by Annas without witnesses; (b) the trial by night; (c) the sentence on the first day of the trial; (d) the trial of a capital charge on the day before the Sabbath; (e) the suborning of witnesses; (f) the direct interrogation by the high priest.” (The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Cambridge University Press, 1906, p. 297).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One