SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/17/2024 9:26 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Intro to Matthew 26:57-68”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt 26:57-68
Message of the verses: “57 Those who had
seized Jesus led Him away to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and
the elders were gathered together. 58 But Peter was following Him at a distance
as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and entered in, and sat down with
the officers to see the outcome. 59 Now the chief priests and the whole Council
kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus, so that they might put Him
to death. 60 They did not find any, even though many false witnesses
came forward. But later on two came forward, 61 and said, "This man
stated, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three
days.’" 62 The high priest stood up and said to Him, "Do You not
answer? What is it that these men are testifying against You?" 63 But
Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said to Him, "I adjure You by the
living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God."
64 Jesus said to him, "You have said it yourself; nevertheless I
tell you, hereafter you will see THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF
POWER, and COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN." 65 Then the high priest tore
his robes and said, "He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of
witnesses? Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy; 66 what do you
think?" They answered, "He deserves death!" 67 Then they spat in
His face and beat Him with their fists; and others slapped Him, 68 and said,
"Prophesy to us, You Christ; who is the one who hit You?’”
I want to continue to talk about the laws that the Jewish
people had, as we will see that they broke many of them in this sham trial that
was going on with the Lord Jesus Christ.
The laws that I am talking about come from the quotation that I gave in
the last SD from Deuteronomy 16:18-20, and they added general principles to
this section of Scripture as MacArthur writes:
“They determined that any community that had at least 120 men who were
heads of families could form a local council.
In later years, aft er the Babylonian exile, that council often was
composed of the synagogue leadership.
The council come to be known as a Sanhedrin, from a Greek term (sunedrion) that had been transliterated
into Hebrew and Aramaic, as it now is into English. It literally means ‘sitting together.’ A local Sanhedrin was composed of up to 23
members and the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem was composed of 70 chief priests,
elders, and scribes, with the high priest making a total of 71. In both the local and Great Sanhedrin an odd
number of members was maintained in order to climate the possibility of a tie
vote.”
Now it is because I use the NASB in my SD’s we need to
know that when referring to the national body in Jerusalem, sunedrion is usually translated “Council.”
When referring to a local body it is translated “court.” Luke tells us that the Great Sanhedrin in
Jerusalem was also sometimes referred to as “the Senate of the sons of Israel”
(Acts 5:21) or “the Council of the elders” (Luke 22:66; Acts 22:5).
MacArthur goes on to write “Members of the local
sanhedrins were to be chosen because of their maturity and wisdom, and the
Great Sanhedrin was to be composed of those who had distinguished themselves in
a local council and had served a form of apprenticeship in a national
council. But long before Jesus’ day
membership in the Great Sanhedrin had degenerated largely into appointments
based on religious or political favoritism and influence. The Herods, especially Herod the Great,
exercised considerable control over the Great Sanhedrin, and even the pagan
Romans sometimes became involved in the appointments or removal of a high
priest.
“The general requirements of fairness and impartiality
prescribed in Deuteronomy 16:18-20 and elsewhere in the Mosaic law were
reflected in the rabbinical requirements that guaranteed an accused criminal
the right to a public trial, to defense counsel, and conviction only on the
testimony of at least two reliable witnesses.
Trials were therefore always open to putlic scrutiny, and the defendant
had the right to bring forth evidence and witnesses in his own behalf, no
matter how damning the evidence and testimony against him might be.
“To guard against false witnessing, whether given out of revenge or for a bribe, the Mosaic law prescribed that a person who knowingly gave false testimony would suffer the punishment the accused would suffer if found guilty (Deut. 19:16-19). A person who gave false testimony in a trial that involved capital punishment, for example, would himself be put to death. For obvious reasons, that penalty was a strong deterrent to perjury and an effective protection of justice. An additional deterrent was the requirement that accusing witness in a capital case were to initiate the execution, making them stand behind their testimony by action as well as words (Deut. 17:7). It was that law to which Jesus made indirect reference when He told the accusers of the woman taken in adultery, ‘He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her’ (John 8:7).’”
There is more to this that is speaking about the laws
that were in place, that were not used in the sham trial of Jesus that we will
look at in the next SD.
6/17/2024 10:14 AM
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