The Innocence of Jesus

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A few years ago, I heard an interview with Senator Rand Paul, where he was talking about the abundance of federal laws and regulations that are now in the books that have made it. And he made the statement that virtually every American breaks the law several times a day without realizing it. You probably didn’t know you broke the law at some point this morning, It’s easy to do.

I don’t want to get anybody in trouble, so I’ll just say it happened to somebody I know, and way back outside the statute of limitations. And somebody I know went out hunting one day on federal land and was very careful to follow all the regulations. Got everything out to the field and realized he had brought the wrong shotgun shells with him and left the right ones in the truck.

And the ones he hadn’t even loaded the gun, but the ones he had with him were not approved for use on federal land. Because reasons, I don’t know. you can use them on state land, you can use them on private land.

Couldn’t use these on federal land. And so he had to go back to the truck and get the right shotgun shells and go out there. But if the game warden or any federal officials had come out, they might have seen that he had the shells.

And I know it’s happened to me before. Can we look at your gun? Can we look at the ammo you’ve got on you?

Okay, why not? If he had been caught with those shells, it might have been evidence that he was trying to hunt with illegal ammunition, even though he had no intention of doing so. If you want to, if you want to do anything, if you want to hunt, you want to fish, you want to work your, your property, you want, I mean, you almost have to have a law degree at this point.

And, and Rand Paul’s point was that it’s, it’s to the point where we are all guilty of something. And if the government wants to, all they have to do is figure out what it is. And that’s been the way things have, that’s not the way America’s supposed to work, and that’s been the way things have worked in many other countries throughout history, and still do today.

And anywhere it happens, it’s wrong. Anywhere that’s the legal system, it’s immoral. It makes me think of, Brother Rick had to find out who said the quote, because I couldn’t remember, but we were talking a few weeks ago on Sunday night about this, and I thought it was Stalin. I was close.

It was Stalin’s chief of the secret police, Lavrenti Beria, who said, show me the man, I’ll show you the crime. We just find somebody we want to prosecute and we’ll find something he’s guilty of. That is terrifying that they could find something on any of us that we’re guilty of without even realizing it.

But that makes it all the more incredible when we come to the story of Jesus’s trial that they couldn’t find anything he was guilty of. They had to make it up. And even then, they had trouble making it stick.

So the fact that with all their rules, all their regulations, all their traditions, they couldn’t find anything definitive that Jesus was guilty of is incredible. Because as I said, I don’t care how law-abiding you are, we’re all guilty of something. And so this morning, we’re going to look at Mark chapter 14 as we continue this study through the book of Mark and we’re getting closer and closer to the crucifixion, we’re going to look at the trials.

We’re going to start looking at the trials that Jesus went through and the lengths they had to go to to try to find something to use against Jesus. Jesus went through six recorded trials, if I’m counting correctly. Six trials are recorded in the Gospels.

There was a hearing before Annas to determine what they were going to charge him with. There was a hearing before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin to determine the charges. We’re going to look at those two today.

There was another hearing before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin to confirm the guilty verdict. There was a hearing before Pilate. There was a hearing before Herod Antipas.

And there was a final hearing before Pilate at which Jesus was condemned. Like I said, we’re going to look at the first two today as we go through Mark 14. So if you haven’t already turned there, please turn with me to Mark chapter 14.

If you can’t find it or don’t have your Bible, it’ll be on the screen. And if you would stand with me as we read together from God’s word, as they try to find something that this man is guilty of. We’re going to start in verse 53.

It says, and they led Jesus away to the high priest, and with him were assembled all the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes. But Peter followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest. And he sat with the servants and warmed himself at the fire. Now the chief priests and all the council sought testimony against Jesus to put him to death, but found none.

For many bore false witness against him, but their testimonies did not agree. Then some rose up and bore false witness against him, saying, We heard him say, I will destroy this temple made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands. But not even then did their testimony agree.

And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, saying, Do you answer nothing? What is it these men testify against you? But he kept silent and answered nothing.

Again, the high priest asked him, saying to him, Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? Jesus said, I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming with the clouds of heaven.

Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, What further need do we have of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?

And they all condemned him to be deserving of death. Then some began to spit on him and to blindfold him and to beat him and to say to him, Prophesy. And the officers struck him with the palms of their hands.

And you may be seated. Now this section of Mark covers those first two trials. They don’t really, it covers the period of the first two trials.

We see the arrest and then they go straight to Caiaphas. We’ll look in a moment at a passage from the book of John that happens in the middle here where Jesus is actually taken to Annas first. Sometimes skeptics will look at that and say, well, they said the high priest here, but they took him to Annas and Caiaphas was the high priest. Annas was Caiaphas’ father-in-law, the retired high priest. And it’s sort of like how they still call Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, they still call him Mr.

President because they are former presidents. So Annas would be called the high priest as well. So they took him to Annas, they took him to Caiaphas to be tried.

And what we need to understand as we look at these passages is that these trials that were held for Jesus, they were shams from the very beginning. Nothing about this was legal. Nothing about this was right. If you have a really good memory, you may remember back to when we were talking about the Lord’s Supper and the Passover, and I refer to Dr.

Arnold Fruchtenbaum, the Messianic Jew who has written commentaries on the Gospels that, as I read them, okay, things that I’ve struggled with for years suddenly make sense when you began to understand the culture and religion from 2,000 years ago. Dr. Fruchtenbaum outlines in his commentaries 22 places, 22 places where the trials before Annas and Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin violated the Mishnahic law that the Jews were supposed to follow in their trials.

Looking at his notes really opened my eyes to be able to see the problems that there are with the trials that took place. Now, some of what I’m going to cover comes from his work. Some of it is stuff that I began to notice.

I don’t have time to look at all 22 places they broke the law this morning. I mean, unless you just want me to, we can stay here through lunch. But this morning, I want to look briefly at seven problems that took place just in this part of the trials.

Seven problems, seven places where they broke their own law, where they failed to demonstrate Jesus’ guilt. In fact, they demonstrate His innocence, and they show their own guilt. That they, as the religious leaders, are sitting there trying to stand in judgment over Jesus and trying to prove that He’s a lawbreaker, and they’re breaking every law they have to in order to try to make a charge stick.

So let’s look at these seven problems I want to show you from the trials because they tell us something about Jesus and something about these religious leaders. And actually, I’m going to ask you to turn with me to John chapter 18 for just a moment. I won’t have you stand again, but John chapter 18 is sort of wedged in here to Mark 14 because this is where it talks about Annas, the high priest. It says, starting in verse 12, then the detachment of troops and the captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him and they led him to Annas first, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.

Now it was Caiaphas who advised the Jews that it was expedient that one man should die for the people. So before we even get to this trial, we see a little bit of a problem there in verse 14. Caiaphas, the high priest before he’s even brought to Annas, has told the Sanhedrin, he’s told the members of the council that, you know what, we’d be better off for one man to die, for one man to suffer the death penalty and be found guilty, rather than bring trouble on all of the nation.

And so we see here in John 18, 14, that already they’ve decided before they go in that Jesus is going to be guilty. Now, I would venture to say it’s not considered ideal in our justice system, or any other reasonable justice system, to go in with the outcome already predetermined. As a matter of fact, if you want to get out of jury duty, I understand that a good way to do it is to walk in and tell people, yeah, I can tell if a man’s guilty just by looking at him.

I don’t know what he did, but he did it. Actually, don’t do that. They may think you’re trying to get out of jury duty.

It may be a contempt situation. Because that’s not ideal. That’s not how we do things. That wasn’t even how they did things, to walk in and say, this is a formality.

We’ve already decided he’s guilty. So the fact that the verdict was predetermined tells us there was already something rotten going on here. Then we come to John 18, 19, and by the way, we’ll come back in a couple weeks or maybe next week and talk about the times that Peter denied Jesus because those are going on all throughout this hearing.

But to try to break it up, here’s a little bit of a hearing, here’s a little bit of denial, here’s a little bit of hearing, here’s a little bit of denial, that was just going to make a mess in the sermon. So we’re going to cover the hearings, come back and talk about the denials, and then go on to the Sanhedrin and Pilate. But we come in John 18, 19.

It says the high priest then asked Jesus about his disciples and his doctrine. He’s on a fishing expedition here. He’s trying to figure out, is there something we can accuse him about?

Tell me about your disciples. Tell me about the things that you’ve taught. And under their law, they were not supposed to do that.

Under their law, under the Mishnah, you could not convict a man based on his own testimony. For complicated reasons I’m not going to get into. But they needed two other witnesses to agree and to charge the accused with something.

And they didn’t necessarily question him and ask him, what do you say for yourself? And yet here they’re violating their own legal process by saying, we’re going to question him and see what dirt we can come up with that way. Because they didn’t have anything.

If they went the way they were supposed to and found witnesses, they didn’t have anything. So here they’re dealing with Jesus and they’re fishing. And that’s why Jesus says that, you know, sometimes we read things in the Gospels and it sounds like Jesus is a little surly with them.

You know, why are you asking me? That kind of thing. And from our perspective, we think, well, why would he answer that way?

Well, Jesus is not just being rude here. He’s calling them out on their inattention to the proper legal process. When he says in John 18, 20 and 21, I spoke openly to the world.

I always taught in synagogues and in the temple where the Jews always meet. And in secret, I have said nothing. Why do you ask me?

Ask those who have heard me what I said to them. Indeed, they know what I said. He’s not just being a jerk to the prosecutors here.

He’s not just saying, why are you asking me? Ask somebody else. He’s saying, if you think I’ve done something wrong, you should have witnesses.

You’ve had witnesses to everything I’ve taught. So if I’ve said something wrong, let somebody come forward and say so. That’s what he’s doing.

He’s pointing out you’re not doing things the way you’re supposed to be doing it. They get mad at him for this, and he’s struck across the face, and he says in John 18, 23, if I’ve spoken evil, if I’ve said something wrong, bear witness of the evil. In other words, if I said something wrong, tell me what I said wrong.

Otherwise, why are you hitting me? If I said something wrong, tell me what it is. If I haven’t said anything wrong, you shouldn’t have hit me.

That was another violation of their rules as well. Third problem here is that they recruited people to perjure themselves. Now, unless we’ve just abandoned all pretense of fairness, that’s not the way it works in any country.

Hey, we’re going to bribe you to say whatever we want you to say so that we can make something stick. If we go back to Mark 14, verses 55 and 56 tell us, Now the chief priests and all the council sought testimony against Jesus to put him to death, but found none. for many bore false witness against him, but their testimonies did not agree.

They went out looking for people. They went out recruiting people, saying, if you’ve got something you can say about Jesus, come say it. And so they had this parade of false witnesses come forward, but when they questioned them out in the open, they couldn’t find anybody whose stories were straight.

And when these people didn’t agree, they said, okay, bring on the next ones. They’re just looking for somebody who can make something stick, because again, they’ve already decided what the outcome is going to be. Now they just have to work backwards from that and figure out how to get there.

So they had recruited people to perjure themselves. This was against their law. It was against any sane law.

The fourth problem here, they charged him without a credible accusation. It says in verses 57 through 59. Then some rose up and bore false witness against him, saying, We heard him say, I will destroy this temple made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands.

But even then their testimony did not agree. So they finally find something that maybe they can use. But even here they can’t get their story straight.

And the reason why this is important is because Dr. Fruchtenbaum explains that even though the Sanhedrin, under most cases, did not have the ability to impose the death penalty, there were a few limited cases where they could. And one of the places where the Romans would allow them, apparently, to impose the death penalty would be an insult against the temple.

That’s why they start circling this idea that Jesus was threatening to destroy the temple. But the witness that’s recorded in Matthew tells us, oh no, I only heard Jesus say I have the ability to destroy the temple. Where the witness recorded in Mark says, oh, Jesus said he would destroy the temple.

And so they’re left to determine how serious a threat this is. They can’t, even that, they wanted so badly for that accusation to be true. And they couldn’t make that stick.

So they’re still trying to charge him, even though there’s no credible accusation that they can make. Then if we look at Matthew, Matthew 26, 63, it says, but Jesus kept silent. As they’re all accusing him, as they’re all accusing him, Jesus said nothing.

That in and of itself is miraculous. Because for most of us, somebody accuses us of something, even if it’s something minor, we want to jump to our own defense. He just stands there and takes it.

Jesus kept silent and the high priest answered and said to him. He asked him in Mark, do you have anything to say? But Matthew tells us, the high priest answered and said to him, I put you under oath by the living God.

Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. In their court system, if somebody was placed under oath, they had to answer. Jesus, as the accused, was not supposed to testify against himself, was not supposed to be called on to testify against himself.

But here, Caiaphas puts him under oath and says, by the living God, I want you to tell me who you are. And so against their process, against all reason, he’s putting Jesus under oath in order to force him into a confession. Jesus should not have been put under oath by their law.

A confession should not have been forced out of Jesus by their law. And yet it had to happen this way. It was God’s plan that it would happen this way.

And so Jesus tells him. Jesus says in the next verse in Mark, I am. Are you the Messiah, the Son of God?

And he says, I am. But he makes a statement after that. I am, and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming with the clouds of heaven.

He tells Caiaphas, not only am I the Son of God, but one day you’re going to recognize it. You’re going to see it for yourself. Caiaphas just loses his mind over this.

He did something the high priest was not supposed to do, which was to tear his clothes. It was a sign of extreme distress and mourning. The high priest was only allowed to do that if he heard blasphemy.

And he even says to the others gathered there at the Sanhedrin, you’ve heard the blasphemy. And they all agree with it. Now the problem with that is that what Jesus said did not meet their legal standard of blasphemy.

First of all, God can’t blaspheme himself. We know that. But even according to their legal standard, looking at it, not believing Jesus is God, not believing that Jesus is who he said, it still didn’t meet the standard for blasphemy.

And they convicted him of blasphemy for what they heard in front of them, for what should have been inadmissible because he couldn’t implicate himself and he didn’t actually commit the crime. The seventh problem is they condemned him illegally. Verse 64 here says, and they all condemned him to be deserving of death.

Now we know that not every member of the Sanhedrin was there because Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were also members of the Sanhedrin, and we’re told that both of them were followers of Jesus. And yet there’s this unanimous vote of the Sanhedrin because there could be as many as 71 members of the Sanhedrin, but they didn’t all have to be there in order for them to hand down a verdict. You had to have a minimum of 23.

And so you’d say, well, 23 votes. That’s a guilty verdict in any country. But they had a rule about how many guilty votes there could be.

that would be acceptable. Because in their law, they realized that Jews maybe are a little like Baptists, kind of a contentious lot. I’m not saying that about the Jews.

Their law said that. The Mishnah said that. Dr.

Fruchtenbaum said that. I’m saying we as Baptists can be a contentious lot. I’ve been in business meetings of 12 Baptists where there are 13 opinions in the room.

And so there was this rule in their law that a unanimous vote indicated there was some kind of conspiracy. Because they thought, we’re not going to get 23 plus people to agree on anything in this group unless we’re all in on some kind of conspiracy. So if the vote was unanimous in favor of guilt, they had to let the man go.

They had to let the accused go. I know that’s totally foreign to our thinking. But they had to have a.

. . It’s kind of complicated.

In that 23, they had to have a margin of at least two. So if they had 23 people there, they had to have between 13 and 22 guilty votes. Otherwise, he went free.

They had 23 or however many people were there. It was unanimous of those who were there, and they condemned him anyway. So by their own law, they should have turned him loose.

All of this shows us they were not concerned about their law. They were concerned with finding some way Jesus had broken the law, and they were willing to break any law they had to. to make that happen.

But all of this shows us that Jesus didn’t do anything to deserve the cross. And a skeptic might look at that and say, well, it shows that he didn’t, under their legal process, maybe he didn’t. But how can we say he never did anything?

Because these were the most nitpicking religious people in the world. If there had been even a hint that Jesus had done something wrong, they would have found it. If there was even a rumor that Jesus had done something wrong, they would have tried to make something stick, and they could not.

If they couldn’t find it, it’s because it wasn’t there. Jesus did nothing to deserve the cross. And we have to understand that’s the reason why we’re told all of this.

I know that what is told to us in Mark is here because we need to know what happened, but I always look at it and say, what is the point he’s trying to make in including these details? He could have just said Jesus was tried, and then they went to the cross. What is the point of including all these details?

And the gospel writers all go to great lengths to make us understand that these were phony charges and that Jesus was innocent. That’s the reason we’re given all these details, is so that the readers would understand Jesus did nothing to send him to the cross. When Jesus went to the cross, it was not because of anything he had done wrong.

Jesus went to the cross in part because they hated him, but there’s something deeper going on here. Jesus went to the cross because it was God’s plan for him to go to the cross. Jesus had been telling his disciples for years that that’s where he was headed.

And when he was given opportunity after opportunity to escape, he still said, I’m going to Jerusalem, I’m going to be crucified, I’m going to be buried, and I’m going to rise again. God’s plan sent him to the cross. He went willingly to the cross.

Jesus was not an unwilling participant. This is not Aztec human sacrifice, somebody being offered on the altar that didn’t necessarily want to be. Jesus went willingly to the cross.

So he was there because of the Father’s plan. He was there because he was willing to carry it out. And he was there because our redemption required him to go to the cross.

There was no way for you and me to be saved. There was no way for you and me to be forgiven, for our sins to be washed away. There was no way for us to be made right with a holy God in our sinful condition if Jesus Christ did not go and take responsibility for our sins in full and bear the punishment that we deserved on the cross.

The indignity that he suffers even now during these trials is not because of anything that he did wrong. It was because that was the only way that you and I could be forgiven. And the fact that this innocent man went to the cross shows us that our guilt was the cause.

Somebody’s guilt put him on that cross. Somebody’s guilt put him on that cross, but it wasn’t his. It was mine, and it was yours.

It was all of us. Our sin put him there. Our sin separated him from the Father.

All those times that we’ve been disobedient to God, that put Jesus on the cross. Sin is anything we say, think, do, or don’t do that displeases God. And we’re all guilty of that.

I know we look around the world and we compare ourselves to other people and we think, I’m pretty good compared to that guy. Compared to that guy, I’m a saint. But compared to God’s standards, we’ve all fallen short.

Because we’ve all said something that displeased God, we’ve all thought something. We’ve all had an attitude that displeased God. Maybe you haven’t gone out and murdered anybody or had affairs.

But Jesus talked about the condition of the heart. And in our hearts, no matter how good we are on the outside, in our hearts, we still fall short of God’s standard. I’ve been a Christian for over 30 years and I still fall short of God’s standard all the time.

The only way for me to be forgiven, the only way for you to be forgiven, was for Jesus to take our guilt on himself and go to the cross. And that’s what he did. He was nailed to the cross and shed blood and died to pay for our sins in full.

And the trials that he went through before it happened just show that he wasn’t there for himself. He was an innocent man who was condemned so that we could go free. And this morning, he offers you forgiveness.

He offers you a right relationship with God. He offers to wipe your slate clean. And all you have to do is believe that he is that Savior that he claimed to be.

Believe that he is the Son of God coming in power, who was crucified as our one and Savior, paid for our sins in full and rose again three days later to prove it. If you believe that, you can ask him for that salvation this morning. You can ask him for that forgiveness and you’ll have it.

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