CONCLUSION
We have endeavored to study the members of the
Sanhedrim that sat at the trial of Christ from two points of view — in their individual
character, and in their acts.
After a minute and conscientious study of the subject, we find first, as
to its membership, that this court of justice consists of a body of men, the
majority of whom are unworthy of their function, possessing neither piety,
uprightness, nor moral integrity.
Historians of their own nation have not hesitated to so describe them.
As to their acts — that is to say, their
manner of conducting the trial — we have summed up twenty-seven irregularities,
a single one of which would have sufficed to annul the sentence. The number of irregularities which we have
noticed as direct violations of the laws then in force among the Hebrews would
be largely increased were the trial of Christ to be analyzed and judged
according to the more perfect system of jurisprudence of the present day. Can any one honestly and sincerely reflect
upon these things without being convinced of the utter lack of moral character
in the judges, and the shameful injustice of their proceedings against
Christ? And now, we ask, is not every
Israelite bound by the highest principles of honor and justice to withhold his
ratification of the sentence pronounced against Christ by the Sanhedrim until
he has thoroughly studied the question, “Who was Jesus Christ?”
Surely He could not have been an ordinary man. Not only do His character and works show it,
but also the conduct of His enemies toward Him. The detection of some irregularity on the part of the judges conducting
a trial does not necessarily imply the innocence of the accused, but what can
we say of a trial abounding from beginning to end with the gravest infractions
of law and decorum? The fact of such
scandalous proceedings having been permitted by the body of men composing the
highest tribunal of the land, proves beyond a doubt that they recognized in
Jesus an extraordinary personage with an influence that threatened ruin to
their ambitious prospects.
Who, then, was this wonderful person?
On the day when Jesus made His triumphant entry into
Jerusalem (that was five days before His trial), the Jews from all quarters,
far and near — “Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in
Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, in Phyrgia, and
Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of
Rome” — all gathered together to celebrate the Feast of the Passover, on seeing
the joyful enthusiasm with which the people greeted Him, wonderingly asked
themselves, each in his own tongue, “Who is this?” Matthew 21:10.
And if, in the hour of His triumph, this question
should have forced itself upon the astonished minds of the Jews of His own
time, how much more should the story of His humiliation and unjust sufferings
provoke the same question from His brethren after the flesh of the present day!
Who is this,
to secure whose downfall all forms of law had been wantonly violated?
Who is this,
who met the insolence of His accuses with meekness and serenity?
Who is this,
who drank of the bitter waters of Kedron like David, and was sold like Joseph?
Nineteen hundred years have passed. The tumultuous passions of Christ’s enemies
have subsided. Yet this question
continues to resound with a resistless clamor in the ears of those of whom He
once said, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.”
As for ourselves, your own brethren after the flesh,
we solved the question twenty years ago; and it is never without profound
emotion that we turn to a certain page of God’s Holy Word to which we desire to
call your special attention. Meditate
upon it. It will show you who the
condemned one of the Sanhedrim was; it will also show you how the Jewish
people, by repentance and faith in Him, shall enter with their tribes and families
into the promised land of Christ’s Church on earth in glorious anticipation of
the heavenly Canaan.
The passages to which we refer are found in the
prophecies of Zechariah:
“In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of
Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David, and
the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them.
“And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and
they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as
one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him as one is in
bitterness for his firstborn.
“And the land shall mourn, every family apart;
“The family of the house of David apart, and their
wives apart;
“The family of the house of Nathan apart, and their
wives apart;
“The family of the house of Levi apart, and their
wives apart;
“The family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart;
“All the families that remain, every family apart,
and their wives apart.
“And one shall say unto Him, What are these wounds in
Thine hands? And He shall answer, Those
with which I was wounded in the house of My friends.
“They shall call on My name and I will hear them: I
will say, It is My people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God,” Zechariah
12, 13.
By this description, by this dialogue, by these
wounds in the hands and feet, how can you fail, O Israelites, to recognize the
God-man, the Lord, the promised Messiah?
Our fathers, it is true, have not known Him, but their sons shall know
Him, and every one shall say unto Him, “The Lord is my God.”
Acknowledging Him as their Saviour, they will, in
contemplating the wounds in His hands and His feet, shed bitter tears of
repentance. At such a sight the whole
earth will be moved; and all the families that remain shall join in their
lamentations, “every family apart, and their wives apart.”
We who have written
these pages will not live to see the glorious day of Israel’s redemption; but from
heaven, where we trust God will have graciously received us, we shall
contemplate with joy unspeakable the gathering in of our people to the fold of
Christ. W