Thoughts on Jesus of Nazareth: The Sanhedrin Convenes to Conspire to Have Jesus Found Guilty and Killed By the Romans. Jesus three year public ministry to Israel ends with His pronouncing Gods judgment on the nation and its leaders. The scene in the movie Jesus of Nazareth is an extrapolation of what shortly occurred after this in John 11:49-53. Now the Sanhedrin convenes on Maundy Thursday of Passion Week for a special session with the High Priest Caiaphas presiding, convincingly played by the accomplished actor Anthony Quinn. The Sanhedrin was comprised of the wealthy class of patriarchs (the Elders) the Scribes, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. The Sanhedrin was the highest legal and judicial authority in Israel, outside of the Roman Procurators authority. They had 71 members, including the High Priest. Today, this religious body would be equivalent to the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Several members of the Council begin the meeting by indicting Jesus for violently overthrowing the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple in rebellion and a failure to recognize the authority of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin! Most of the Council wants Jesus denounced in the name of the people of Israel. What is obvious from the outset is that the learned, but blinded members of the Sanhedrin, for the most part, are rankled, disturbed, and very angry over the upheaval the ministry of Jesus has caused to them. Various accusations are blurted out among the Pharisees sitting in council. Jesus is called a blasphemer, a deceiving trickster who makes exaggerated promises to His followers! Others of the Council believe Jesus is a reformer of Judaism, but no more. While still others label Him an imposter--a false Messiah who has studied Messianic prophecies carefully and subtly never misses the chance to identify Himself with them. Another angered Pharisee claims Jesus illegitimately arouses those to follow Him to hail Him as the Messiah. Both Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus attempt to defend the authenticity of Jesus on the grounds of His powerful teaching in keeping with biblical Judaism and the sense Gods presence is indeed with Him performing miracles to furnish proof He is in fact the promised Messiah awaited by the people of Israel. The wise and humble Pharisee, Nicodemus, asks the council to reasonably consider that Jesus of Nazareth may in fact be the Messiah! The believing Pharisee goes on to relate his numinous encounter with the Messianic Nazarene. He had heard him preach--and was moved, lifted out of himself. He was aware of Jesus doing signs and wonders; and from this supernatural encounter seem to see things in a new and blinding light. He goes on to say he was aware that God maybe with Jesus, and through Him, with the people of Israel. But other members of the Sanhedrin cannot entertain for even a moment the Messiah could be an ordinary carpenter from lowly, despised Galilee. Nicodemus rightly points out that the coming of the Messiah is the very heart of biblical Judaism. Why then limit God in the way He should send them the Messiah. Nicodemus eschews the preconceived assumptions that the Messiah must come in regal glory like King Solomon or King David. Is not God allowed to choose whom He wishes--even if that were a reputed, poor carpenters son from Nazareth? After all, David began his life as a poor shepherd boy. Nicodemus ends his most sagacious appeal by chiding the vaunted members of the Sanhedrin by suggesting to them: Who are we to decide the way in which God should choose to help his people? We? Grains of sand, chaff blown in the wind. May the Lord open our eyes to His wisdom! The Council is briefly silent at the profound and simple wisdom of Nicodemus’ argument. They will not, however, seriously consider what Nicodemus has just said and wont concede his point to admit the great biblical truth that Gods ways are not mans way, nor His thoughts mans thoughts (Isaiah 55:8). And this was more truer of how the Messiah would come and who He would be--not according to their wrong notions about the Messiah, but according to the first coming Messianic prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures --which is one main reason Israel and their religious leaders of the Sanhedrin missed Him when He came the first time. Caiaphas then speaks and makes the second blunder reinforcing the leaders of Israel to reject Jesus the true Messiah. He takes Scripture out of context from Deuteronomy 18: 20 to wrongly indict Jesus as a false prophet and a blasphemer. The High Priest ignorantly fails to see that Jesus was indeed the Preeminent Prophet and Messiah prophesied by Moses in the very same chapter just two verses earlier (Deuteronomy 18:18-19) because He did fulfill all the Messianic prophecies foretold to occur when the Messiah comes the first time to Israel! So in his rush to judgment, the cynically pragmatic Caiaphas seeks to preserve his and the Sanhedrins power from being taken away by the Romans and wants to find Jesus guilty and put to death, lest the Galilean’s movement cause the Romans to attack and destroy the city of Jerusalem, the Temple and Jewish people. He is appalled in unbelief that Jesus should be considered the Son of God and therefore equal to God. No, the High Priest decides, Only a false prophet can assume the powers of God and say to a persistent sinner, You are forgiven. Only God can forgive sins. All through our history false prophets have been the plague of Israel! But Caiaphas was totally ignorant of the prophecy in Psalm 2:7 where God calls the Messiah His Son! Both Zerah, and another high ranking Chief Priest, now demand Jesus be arrested that very night to get the religious trial going. Zerah tells the Council he knows the way to Jesus--and that would be through the vacillating disciple Judas Iscariot--who in the next scene is convinced by the cunning duplicity of the manipulative Zerah to doubt Jesus is the Messiah and to therefore help them apprehend Him so that He can prove Himself before the Sanhedrin. But Zerah knows all along, unbeknownst to Judas, that once they have Jesus they will charge Him with blasphemy and seek the death penalty by the hands of the Romans. The Council knows they cannot find Jesus guilty of a capital offense and execute the death penalty on Him, since the Romans have taken that power away from them. So they must convince Pilate and the Romans Jesus is guilty of treason against Caesar and the State and worthy of death by crucifixion on a cross. Finally, Caiaphas makes an astounding prophecy in the movie that depicts what He said in John 11:50. His faulty reasoning, leading him to conclude Jesus is a false prophet and a blasphemer, now causes him to unwittingly prophesy by the Holy Spirit, Is it not better for one man to die, than for a whole nation to perish? Here is a double entendre! Of course, Caiaphas originally meant that Jesus should be sacrificed to save their political positions and power from Roman retaliation for a Messianic revolution over Jesus. But the greater meaning is that by the substitutionary, atoning death of Jesus the Messiah, He would save Israel and all sinners in the gentile world from the punishment of damnation for their sins against a holy, righteous God (Isaiah 53: 4-6; John 3:16; 2Corinthians 5:21; 1Perter 2:24). Please start video at 4:39:06 and end it at 4:49:03. Click on: https://youtube/watch?v=tFUTEWi5EsY&index=45&list=WL
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 00:53:09 +0000