p. 185 | The Sabbath-School

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 20, 1882

The Sabbath-School.

Lesson Notes.—April 29.

THE JEWS DECIDE TO KILL JESUS.

THE results of the resurrection of Lazarus were momentous to Jesus himself. Many of the party of the Rabbis who had come to comfort the sisters, found themselves constrained to believe in one whose claims were attested by an act so transcendent, and so indisputable. But some justified all that Jesus had said of their malignity by not only shutting their eyes to what they were determined not to admit, but by playing the informer to the ecclesiastical authorities.

The great ecclesiastical court of the nation, known in the Talmud as the "Sanhedrim," had been in abeyance for many years, for there is no trace of it during the whole period of the Herods, or of the Romans. The name, indeed, occurs in the New Testament, but it is simply as the Greek word for "an assembly," which was adopted by the Rabbis, at a later period. Herod had broken up the great Rabbinical council, and henceforth, the only authorities recognized as the fountains of Jewish Law were the schools of such Rabbis as Hillel and Schammai. There was no such a thing as a legal Jewish court, which had power to enforce its decisions. The authority granted to the leading schools was only a tribute of confidence in their soundness and wisdom. Hence, in the days of Christ, there was no legal Jewish court in existence, and the criminal processes mentioned in connection with him, were only acts of assemblies which the high priest for the time, the only representative of the old theocracy recognized by the supreme Roman authority, called together in angry haste, informally, and which acted by no judicial rules of procedure.

Such an illegal gathering was summoned by the Sadducean chief priests and the leading Pharisaic Rabbis, to discuss what should be done respecting Jesus, now that the incontestable fact of the resurrection of Lazarus had crowned all his preceding miracles. Having no idea of a Messiah apart from political revolution, to be inaugurated by him, it seemed likely that, if something were not done to put him out of the way, the excitement of the people, through his miracles, would become irresistible, and lead to a national rising, fiercer even than that of Judas the Galilæan. To the popular party, represented by the Pharisees present, this would be no undesirable issue; but the courtly Sadducees shrank from any disturbance, fearing that, in the end, the Romans would crush it with their legions, and as a punishment, abolish the hierarchical constitution, which gave them their wealth and position; and, with it, the ecclesiastical and civil laws which flattered the nation with an illusory independence.

The temple, and all the far-reaching vested interest bound up with it, had long existed only on tolerance; and would at once perish in the storm of a national insurrection; and the nation, stripped of its local laws, so vital to a theocracy, would be secularized into a part of Rome, with the hated imperial heathen law, instead of the laws of God and the Rabbis.

The acting high priest at this time was Joseph Caiaphas. He had been appointed by the procurator, Valerius Gratus, shortly before the governor left the province, in A. D. 25—when Jesus was about 20 years of age; and he continued to hold his office till the year A. D. 36, when he was removed by the proconsul, Vitellius, shortly after the recall of Pilate. He was, in every way, a creature of the Romans, and, as such, received little respect from the nation, though his dignity secured him official authority.

Rising in the meeting, which had been hitherto very divided and irresolute as to the wisest course to be taken, Caiaphas begged to give his opinion:—

"You know nothing at all," said he, "else you would not have so much questioning and discussing. You have not considered that it is expedient for you, in view of your interests as priests and Rabbis, that this one man should die, to save Israel, as such, from the destruction that threatens it, if you let him stir up a Messianic revolt; for, in that case, the whole nation must perish. The Romans will come with their legions and close our temple, annul our independence by abolishing our laws, and waste us with fire and sword."

There could be no misconception of words so plain. They were a distinct advice to those present to put Jesus to death, as the one way to save themselves, and maintain things as they were in church and state. Words so momentous, for they decided the fate of Jesus, might well seem to St. John no mere human utterance, but the involuntary expression through unworthy lips, of the near approach of the supreme act in the divine plan of mercy to mankind.

From that day the death of Jesus was only a question of time and opportunity. Henceforth, the Jewish primate and his suffragans kept steadily in view—in concert with their hereditary and deadly enemies, the Rabbis—the arrest of Jesus, and his subsequent death. Their officers, or any one hostile to him, might apprehend him at any moment. It was clearly no longer possible for him to show himself openly, and he therefore retired with his disciples to a city called Ephraim, now difficult of identification. It seems to have been in the wild uncultivated hill-country, northeast of Jerusalem, between the central towns and the Jordan valley. A village now known as El Taiyibeh, on a conical hill, commanding a view of the whole eastern slope of the country, the valley of the Jordan, and the Dead Sea, though only sixteen miles from Jerusalem, has been thought by Dr. Robinson the site. It answers at least in its secluded privacy, and the ready access it offers to the still wilder regions beyond.—Geikie.

Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year.—By the law of Moses, Ex. 40:15, the office of high priest was for life, and the son of Aaron's race always succeeded his father. But at this time the high priesthood was almost annual: the Romans and Herod put down and raised up whom they pleased, and when they pleased, without attending to any other rule than merely that the person put in this office should be of the sacerdotal race. According to Josephus, Ant. xviii. c. 3, the proper name of this person was Joseph, and Caiaphas was his surname. He possessed the high priesthood for eight or nine years, and was deposed by Vitellius, governor of Judea.—Clarke.