Life of Christ 80
'After these things
Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews
sought to kill him' (John 7.1). Jesus never sinned one time (John 8.46). He
'went about doing good' (Acts 10.38). Why then did He keep running into this
resistance? What was behind it? What caused it?
The underlying reason
behind all of the opposition to Him was Satan. The devil rose up in rebellion
against God in Heaven. God cast him out down to Earth. Satan didn't content
himself with either Earth or with losing and he has been waging war against God
ever since. This war has many fronts and many battles, but it isn't a stretch
at all to say that since the Creation it has always revolved around Jesus
Christ. 'And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed
and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel'
(Genesis 3.15).
We can see this in this
viciousness with which Satan has attacked the Jewish people through millennia.
Why? Simply because they are God's chosen people, and because one day one of
them would be born the Messiah. It was Satan that motivated Pharaoh to kill the
Jewish male children in Exodus. It was the same Satan that stirred up Herod the
Great's paranoia, and pushed him to slaughter all the little boys in Bethlehem.
We must never forget that Satan is a murderer (John 8.44), and that the one he
wanted to murder, more than any other, was the ultimate seed of the woman
Israel, Jesus Christ.
I'm convinced that so
much of what we see in politics and war in human history is simply the visible
evidence of the invisible hand of the devil. Three times Scripture calls him
'the prince of this world.' Ephesians 6 tells us that our fight in this life
isn't with earthly powers, but with spiritual ones. Daniel 10 tells us that
Satan and his minions have divided up sections of the Earth to rule over. In
this light, I believe that Satan's murderous intent is the real source of all
the trouble that Jesus faced. He stirred up all of the human opposition that
Jesus faced, from Herod the Great in His infancy all the way to Caiaphas in His
maturity.
Humanly speaking, there
were three groups and one family arrayed against Him. The Pharisees, by far the
largest group, were opposed to Him for doctrinal reasons. To the Jews, the
greatest commandment is that there is only one God (Deuteronomy 6.4-5). Alone
for centuries, they had struggled to learn the concept of monotheism, and
finally succeeded in the years following the Babylonian Captivity, helped in no
small part by the emerging movement of rabbinic pharisaism. This commandment
was hugely important to them. Imagine how they felt, then, when this Galilean
carpenter came along, and claimed to be God. Jesus couldn't be; there was only
one God, Jehovah, and He was in Heaven.
Actually, the truth is
that the Old Testament is filled with clues or allusions to the concept
Christianity calls the Trinity, and to the deity of the Messiah. For instance,
in the very first chapter of the Torah, Elohim says, 'Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness' (Genesis 1.26). The Psalms reference Jehovah's Son,
such as 'the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten
thee' (Psalm 2.7) and a verse Jesus would later quote in His own defense, 'the
LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies
thy footstool' (Psalm 110.1). Then there is that indisputable reference to the
Messiah, 'For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government
shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor,
The mighty God, The everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace' (Isaiah 9.6). To
this day, of course, the Jews ignore all of these, just as they ignored them
back in Jesus' day.
It is true that Jesus
didn't claim to be God immediately upon launching His public ministry. Wisely,
He understood that He needed to establish a baseline level of belief in Himself
first so that He didn't come across as a crackpot. The noonday sun will blind a
man emerging from a dark room rather than enlighten him, and Jesus realized
that the concept of His deity needed to dawn gradually on His followers. But
that doesn't mean He didn't claim it. In fact, I think that is perhaps the most
ignorant argument that theological liberals and biblical minimalists make
against Him. He most certainly did claim to be God, did so repeatedly, and was
clearly understood to make that claim by the Jews in His own day. As we shall
see, this was the very reason that the Pharisees sought so urgently to kill Him
at His trial (Matthew 26.63-66). He claimed to be God, and the Pharisees viewed
that as heretical blasphemy and worthy of death.
John The Baptist Rebukes Herod, Giuseppe Fattori, 1865 |
The Herodians, though
again not near as numerous as the Pharisees, were a political party rather than
religious group. As their name implies their loyalties lay with the various
Herods, and thus implied a Jewish faction that wanted to side with Rome rather
than against it, as the Zealots did (see Life of Christ 50, 'Jesus and Politics').
Both of these groups
viewed the rising popularity of Jesus as a threat to the status quo that they
dearly wanted to maintain. The Sadducees, focused on the present world, and
with wealth, power, and influence to protect, didn't want a political
revolution. All this talk of a Galilean so-called Messiah, and the
corresponding kingdom that went with it concerned them greatly. The Herodians,
with all their eggs in the basket of that one family, didn't want anyone to
upset that basket. You and I understand that Jesus didn't have political
aspirations, as such, but the Sadducees and Herodians of His day did not.
Well, what do you do
with a highly popular man who has the ability to do miraculous things? If you
cannot subvert him to your side you must assassinate him. This put them, in
spite of all of their differences, directly in league with the Pharisees.
Christ Before Caiaphas, Mattias Stom, 1630 |
The high priest was
opposed to Him for financial reasons. The Sanhedrin was composed of 70 highly
educated, powerful, religious leaders. They were, under Roman suzerainty, the
body that ruled Israel politically and religiously. They were led by a high
priest, the positional descendant of Aaron. Under the Romans, the high
priesthood continued its long history of religious and political rule, but lost
its moral integrity. By the time of Christ it had become an office in which the
occupant was changed for political and financial reasons, and once the Romans
found a compliant political underboss who wanted to use his position to make
money they left him alone.
In AD 6 Annas came to
the high priesthood, and for the next 60 years he, five of his sons, and one of
his sons-in-law, had the position. Scripture strongly implies that for these
six decades the high priesthood was essentially a family business. Caiaphas was
the high priest who judged Jesus at His trial, but he actively included Annas,
the former high priest and his father-in-law in the deliberations (John 18.13
and 24). Later, after the Resurrection, when Peter was called on the carpet
before the Sanhedrin, found himself faced with the entire family. 'And Annas
the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and as many as were of
the kindred of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem' (Acts
4.6).
In actuality, the high
priesthood of Israel had become a family business, and it was a corrupt family
business. All the Jews, inside and outside of Palestine (roughly eight million
en toto) were commanded to tithe once a year to the Temple, but the Temple
refused to accept any currency that had an image or face on it. Thus, before
one tithed, they had to convert their national money to Temple currency. The
high priest had a tremendous influence over the rate of that exchange, and it
had become nothing more than a crooked opportunity to extort money.
The other great profit making
center of the high priesthood was Israel's sacrificial system. Hundreds of
thousands of animals were slaughtered on the Temple precincts each year, and
each of those animals was supposed to be without blemish. Of course, the Temple
would provide you one, for a small fee, or you could bring your own. If you
brought your own, however, you had to have a seal indicating it had been
inspected and certified as without blemish. Guess who controlled the inspection
side of things? Yep, you guessed it, the Temple did, which also put that under
the purview of the high priest. It was ridiculously easy to fail your animal,
and force you to purchase an inferior one at inflated Temple prices.
Thus it was that between
these two rackets the family of Annas had the entire Jewish over a financial
barrel. It was no coincidence that one of the first public acts of Jesus'
ministry was the cleansing of the Temple (John 2.14-17, see Life of Christ 27, 'He Drove Them All Out of the Temple'),
and this certainly brought him to the attention of Annas, Caiaphus, and their
cronies. Jesus would, yet again, at the very end of His ministry, repeat that
cleansing process (Matthew 21.12-13) on the morning of His Triumphal Entry into
Jerusalem the Sunday before He died. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn
that a slowly simmering hatred on the part of Israel's high priest was flipped
into an open permission to the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians to
assassinate Jesus immediately following that last event. I do not know that
this is the case, but the scriptural record is clear that the family that ran
the high priesthood had great cause to hate Him, to fear Him, and to want Him
completely out of the picture.
Annas' family had money
and power, and Jesus had hurt them. The Pharisees, the party of the people,
viewed Jesus as heretically blasphemous. The Sadducees, the party of the elite,
didn't want Him to rock the boat. The Herodians, the party of Herod, didn't
want Him leading a revolution. So even though all of these groups hated each
other, they hated Jesus more, and jointly determined that eliminating Him would
solve a great many existing and potential problems. And Satan, pulling the
strings behind all of this hatred, greed, spiritual blindness, rebellion, and
lust for power, thought he had finally found a way to succeed at his aims.
Reviewing this
incredibly long post my mind cannot help but run to Psalm 2, which so
eloquently describes God's reaction to those who would launch an attack on Him.
'He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.'
When Easter Sunday rolled around and the news arrived to the Pharisees that
Jesus was resurrected the Pharisees had a bad day, to put it mildly. The
Herodians probably ran around in a panic. The Sadducees, with their refusal to
belief in any kind of a resurrection, had to be positively apoplectic. Caiaphas
and Annas, I'm sure, shouted every bad word known to man and threw the
messenger out of their office. But Satan, he who schemed and planned and fought
for so long to kill Jesus, well, he had the worst day of all, didn't he?
…and I cannot help but
smile at the thought. Yes, the Jews sought to kill Him, and there are many
sorrows wrapped up in that phrase. But He just wouldn't stay dead!
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