It does matter whether or not Jesus received a fair trial before He was crucified. If the trial was fair and just, and He was rightly found guilty, then you, I, and every other Christian who trusts Christ for our salvation, are still in our sins. If, however, Jesus was unjustly condemned, then the skeptics’ claims that Jesus was a sinner are unfounded and false, and it is they, not we, who should be concerned about the state of their lives.

Did Jesus receive a fair trial before He was crucified? Does it really matter? He died. That’s all we should be concerned about, right?

Recently, I became aware that some skeptics maintain that Jesus could not have been the sinless Son of God as He claimed because He was justly and legally tried and convicted by the highest courts of the land in His day and found guilty of blasphemy and sedition. So where (they say) do these Christians get off telling everyone that Jesus was sinless?

I’d like to address this issue this morning as we continue to look into the Passion of Christ. We've considered why He had to die. We've looked at Gethsemane. This time we’ll consider Jesus’ trial.

According to the Bible, if we are to have any hope of redemption from the dreadful consequences of our sin, two things must be absolutely true about Jesus Christ:

1. He died as a ransom for our sins.

2. As the sacrificial substitute for our sins, Jesus was an innocent victim.

Of course the Bible validates both of these requirements. The first is authenticated in 1 Timothy 2:5-6 where we read, "For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all…," The second is likewise confirmed in the Bible in 2 Corinthians 5:21 where we read, "He [God] made Him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

But such Biblical statements mean nothing to skeptics, so we'll also need to look at the various elements of the trials themselves.

It does matter whether or not Jesus received a fair trial before He was crucified. If the trial was fair and just, and He was rightly found guilty, then you, I, and every other Christian who trusts Christ for our salvation, are still in our sins. If, however, Jesus was unjustly condemned, then the skeptics’ claims that Jesus was a sinner are unfounded and false, and it is they, not we, who should be concerned about the state of their lives.

So what are the facts?

There were two legal systems that Jesus faced on the night He was arrested. The Jews put Him on trial first and condemned Him to death under the charge of blasphemy. Then, because they lacked the authority under Rome to carry out executions, they went to their Governor, Pontius Pilate, in an effort to have Him condemned to death by Roman authority under the charge of insurrection. Neither of these tribunals even remotely succeeded in finding Him guilty according to the very laws they were charged to uphold.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s begin by reading the pertinent Bible texts of the trials to refresh our minds with what happened. We’ll begin in John 18:12-14. These verses describe the events that happened sometime after midnight at the home of one Annas, the ex-high priest.

At this time in the history of Israel, the office of the high priest was very corrupt. Though the position was supposed to be held for life, because of difficulties in governing the Jews, Rome had imposed the practice of appointing men to the office for only short spans of time. By the time of Christ, the position was often procured in exchange for bribes or political favors. About 20 years before this, Annas (the man mentioned here) had held the office four or five years. Upon his deposal, he had arranged for each of his five sons, one grandson, and then his son-in-law, Caiaphas, to succeed him, one after another. Both Annas and Caiaphas are referred to as the "high priest" throughout the accounts of Jesus’ trials. So at this time Caiaphas was the acting high priest but his father-in-law, Annas, was the main influence behind the priestly office. This first stop then, after the arrest in Gethsemane, was at the home of this older man, the ex-high priest, Annas. It was likely that the Lord was brought to him first since he was more experienced and might perhaps extract something from Jesus with which they might charge Him. Notice the bias against Jesus from the very beginning.

We move now to Matthew’s gospel. Matthew describes what happened next before the quickly convened "whole council" (that is, the Jewish Sanhedrin) sometime before dawn. Keep in mind as I read this that the purpose of the Sanhedrin council was to adjudicate cases, not instigate them. Yet as we shall see, matters such as legal procedure and due process were suppressed on this night when man put God on trial.

Mark adds at this point, "And they were saying many other things against Him, blaspheming." Apparently this continued until dawn. Then when morning had come, they moved to have Jesus executed.

This is not all that the Bible says of these trials. Both Mark and Luke tell the story, too, adding a few things that Matthew and John don’t record. I’m not reading them here only because we are limited by time.

The Jews prided themselves with their sense of fairness and justice - and they had good reason to be proud. Their legal system was based on God’s law which spelled out in no uncertain terms in Deuteronomy 16:18-20: [You] "…shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not distort justice; you shall not be partial, and you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, that you may live and possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you."

Even their rabbinical traditions reflected a fairness and justice that was a thing to be admired in that day. When carefully followed, someone falsely accused of a crime had a fair chance to defend himself. A defendant could only be tried in a public proceeding, and could be convicted only on the testimony of at least two reliable witnesses. He could bring forth evidence and witnesses on his own behalf. If a person knowingly gave false witness for the prosecution, he was to receive the same penalty that had been intended for the accused.(1) In capital cases, the witnesses whose testimony condemned the accused had to initiate the execution.(2) If the penalty was death by stoning, the witnesses had to cast the first stones. We’ll look at some more characteristics of their law as we progress through this message. Their system was fair - when they adhered to it. However, in the case of Jesus, as we shall see overwhelmingly, He was denied these basic protections all the way through the proceedings. One author who studied Jesus’ trials claimed that there were twenty-seven separate legal violations by the prosecution.(3) We’ll only look at eight of them, beginning with:

You’ll notice that in all of the accounts of the arrest of Jesus, there is no valid indictment mentioned. Christ was seized and bound over without any formal charge made against Him. In fact, no accusation was made until Jesus was brought before Caiaphas, the high priest, after he had already been brought to the home of Annas, the ex-high priest for questioning - and that charge, it seems, was made up on-the-fly. You might recall that Saul of Tarsus had to get written "warrants" or "letters" to arrest the Christians who had fled Jerusalem as described in Acts 9.(4) No such warrants are evident here. These men are working outside the law from the beginning.

Why was it illegal? It was unlawful because Annas had no legal authority as high priest. I’ve already mentioned the succession of high priests forced upon Israel by Rome. By now it was Caiaphas, not Annas who should be in charge. Yet He was taken to Annas.

Furthermore, this illegal hearing was not one where charges were made. It was rather a fishing expedition where Annas questioned Jesus in the hope of finding something with which to charge Him.(5) That would be like a policeman stopping you, putting on the cuffs, and slamming you into the back of his patrol car. You as, "Why am I being arrested?" He says, "We're just going to take you down to the station to see if we can find something to charge you with." Actually, what happened here violated another procedural law which forbade the prosecution to compel a defendant to testify against himself. We have a similar law in our jurisprudence that you know about. It’s called the "Fifth Amendment." Someone accused in a court proceeding cannot be made to testify against himself. During this interrogation by Annas, Jesus was illegally compelled by being struck by one of the officers standing nearby. The Lord responded with these words: "If I have spoken wrongly, bear witness of the wrong; but if rightly, why do you strike me?" Jesus was aware of the injustice, and He most certainly knew that it would only get worse as the night wore on.

From Annas, Jesus was brought before Caiaphas, the official high priest. You might recall John’s words about Caiaphas that we read earlier. John said, "Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was expedient for one man to die on behalf of the people."(6) In other words, the philosophy of this judge was that it was acceptable for an innocent man to be condemned to death as long as, in the opinion of the court, it served the good of the majority. Does that sound like the kind of judge that you would like to try your case if you were accused of a crime?

Actually, judicial law among the Jews required that the judge sitting on the bench be neither friend nor foe of the accused. Because Jesus had cleansed the temple on two occasions before this, evicting the moneychangers who ran a moneymaking racket on behalf of the high priest, both Annas and Caiaphas were strongly biased toward Him. Legally, they should have been recused. According to their law, in no case was a biased judge allowed to preside in a trial where he had a known enmity toward the accused. Even the ordinary people of Jerusalem knew that there was no love lost by Caiaphas for Jesus. John 7:25-26 says, "Therefore some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, ‘Is this not the man whom they are seeking to kill? And look, He is speaking publicly, and they are saying nothing to Him.’" Everybody knew how these leaders felt about Jesus. Perhaps that is the reason for the next travesty of justice that was allowed in the case of Jesus:

Matthew tells us that this hearing before Caiaphas was in the presence of the "whole council."(7) This nighttime assembly was of the entire Sanhedrin - the highest court in the land among the Jews. It was hurriedly summoned at this highly irregular time of night by Caiaphas, presumably while Jesus was earlier detained at the home of Annas.

So they held "night court." To what? Well, the problem was that according to Jewish law, a capital trial could not be conducted at night. As mentioned earlier, it had to be done in a public proceeding at a time convenient to those who would attend. Yet these corrupt leaders saw no problem with breaking the law so long as it benefited the nation in their jaded view.

But there was something else illegal about the timing of this trial. Capital trials could not be held just prior to or during a Sabbath day or a feast day – both of which were either in progress or were about to begin.

We have an English idiom for what happened in the case of the trials of Jesus. We call it a "rush to judgment." And like the negative connotations of the idiom suggest, it is usually perpetrated with the intent to bring about a predetermined outcome and not a careful investigation of the facts so as to promote fairness and justice. The council moved rapidly, after hours, so that by the time the people got wind of what they were doing, it would be too late for anyone to stop it. Jesus was probably arrested in Gethsemane around midnight. He was crucified sometime between 9:00 A.M. and Noon on that same day. That is less than twelve hours in which the Jews squeezed in the interrogation of Annas, the hurried meeting of the Sanhedrin with Caiaphas, the early morning "official" meeting of the same, the hearing before Pilate, the hearing before Herod, the scourging, the second hearing before Pilate, the permission given by Pilate to kill Jesus, the long march through the streets to Golgotha, and the crucifixion.

In contrast to this rush to judgment travesty of the Jews who handled Jesus’ trial, jurisprudence among them was supposed to give great latitude and sufficient time for the accused to prepare and present his case. If found guilty, the sentence could not be legally pronounced until two days later. The council members were required to fast during the intervening day. On the morning of the third day, each council member was asked, in turn, if he had changed his mind about his decision. A vote for condemnation could be changed to acquittal, but not the reverse.

If the final vote was for condemnation, the prisoner was to be escorted to the place of execution, preceded by a herald who was to declare loudly the reason for the condemnation, the names of the witnesses who had sworn against him, and that if anyone had evidence that might acquit the prisoner, he should come forth quickly. If, on the way to the execution or at any time before it began, the convicted person thought of something he had forgotten that might change the verdict, he was to be brought back before the council for a hearing to reconsider the verdict. This could happen up to five times. If, at any of these times the vote changed to acquittal, it ended the trial and the accused could not be charged again with the same offense. Under their legal system, mercy was to prevail. The council’s purpose was to be to save and not destroy if it were at all possible.

Were any of these rights afforded to Jesus? Not one of them. The Jewish leaders violated nearly every principle of their own legal system. Contrary to the law’s intent that the council provide a neutral forum for justice, these lawbreakers "sought false witnesses against Jesus that they might put Him to death."(8)

If you follow the progress of the trial (and perhaps by now you hesitate to call it a "trial," just as I do) you will note that the initial charge lodged against Jesus after the false witnesses were called and dismissed because their stories could not be corroborated, was that He had said that He would destroy the temple and build it again in three days.(9) Of course that spurious charge should have been quickly dismissed when witnesses for the defense were called to show that the words were taken out of context. But of course there were no witnesses for the defense. Jesus was denied that right. Then after that, the charge was changed to blasphemy when the Lord was illegally forced to confessed that He was the Son of God under interrogation. Unable to execute Jesus by their own authority, they then took him to the Romans where the charge was changed once again to sedition for claiming to be a king when there was no king but Caesar. It is easy to see the hypocrisy of that charge. The last thing in the world the Jews worried about was sedition against Rome. They hated the Romans! If they had truly been so concerned, they would not have consented for Pilate to release the convicted insurrectionist and murderer, Barabbas.

Even in our system of justice, you cannot be arrested without charges, interrogated by judges in order to discover a possible charge, and then have that charge changed in the middle of the trial if the prosecution discovers something that they like better with which to charge you! Jesus wasn’t tried fairly. He was lynched!

Jewish rabbinical law required that each witness for the prosecution be examined by the council to determine if their testimony was credible. In our system, this right is afforded to the defense. We call it cross-examination. In that day it was supposed to be done by members of the council. Also, in the case of corroboration of witnesses, each witness was to be interrogated separately so that their stories could be compared without the possibility of collusion. We see none of that in the trial of Jesus.

Also, once the witnesses gave contradictory stories (which apparently happened with the initial witnesses that were called) the case should have been dismissed. But it was not because this was not justice. This was a charade.

Finally, if a witness was found to be false, as were most or all of those that testified against Jesus, he was to receive the same punishment intended for the accused.(10) What that means is that had this been a trial where there was justice; there should have been more crosses on Golgotha the next morning than three. Yet apparently the witnesses received a pass and were allowed to lie with exemption from this law.

When the Jews had ultimately dismissed their kangaroo court, they had to go to Pilate for permission to execute Jesus. Only trouble was, Pilate had no concern for violations of their religious law. A charge of blasphemy to him was nothing. So they had to trump up some new charges. That’s where the charge of sedition came from. Luke 23:2 says, "And they began to accuse Him, saying, ‘We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King.’"

Jesus did not forbid His followers to pay taxes.(11) And He had refused to allow them to make Him and earthly king.(12) But that didn’t matter in the face of the murderous intent of this bloodthirsty council. By now they cast all pretense of justice and truth aside and flat out lied and distorted the truth.

And what did Pilate say to all this? After personally interrogating Jesus, he said three times that he found no guilt in Him.(13) That should have been the end of it. But the enraged Jews raised such an uproar that the weak willed Pilate also decided that the death of one innocent person was better than a revolt. So He ordered Jesus, the innocent victim to be crucified. He ordered a bowl of water to be brought to him then washed his hands in the presence of the mob and said, "I am innocent of this man’s blood."(14) I don’t think so!

I started this message with the intent to disprove the claims of skeptics who assert that Jesus could not be God’s innocent victim because He was tried and legally convicted of blasphemy, a sin, and executed for insurrection, another sin. I believe I’ve dismissed that point overwhelmingly.

But there is one thing that amazes me as I have considered these things and that is that all through this sham of justice perpetrated on God’s innocent Son, neither heaven nor earth moved to stop it. The very Author of all that is just and right, allowed this sin to go on against His Son. Why? So that the sacrifice for sin, even those sins that took place during this farce of a trial, could be forgiven in those who would turn to God in faith and repentance, confess their faith before men, and wash away their sins in baptism by the power of Jesus’ resurrection.(15)

God the Father stood by while merciless men unjustly condemned and crucified His Son so that when it was over, and Jesus had risen from the grave and ascended back to heaven, He could extend mercy to the likes of us. That kind of love ought to move us, friends! It ought to cause us to rethink our lives and consider returning to God what He so justly deserves – our loyalty, our allegiance, and our lives.

Footnotes: Please use your back button to return to your place

1. Deuteronomy 19:16-19
2. Deuteronomy 17:7
3. I drew from four main sources in preparation of this study:
The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, (c) Moody Press and John MacArthur, Jr., 1983-2002 (Reference to Matthew 26:57-58).
The Theological Implications of the Trial of Jesus, Part 1 and Part 2, by Wayne Jackson:
http://www.christiancourier.com/archives/implicationsJesusTrial_1.htm
http://www.christiancourier.com/archives/implicationsJesusTrial_2.htm
The Fourfold Gospel, by J.W. McGarvey and Philip Y. Pendleton:
http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/jwmcgarvey/tfg/TFG000I.HTM
4. Acts 9:2; 26:10
5. John 18:19-23
6. John 18:14
7. Matthew 26:59
8. Matthew 26:59
9. Matthew 26:61; Mark 14:58
10. Deuteronomy 19:16-19
11. Matthew 22:15-22
12. John 18:36
13. John 18:38; 19:4-6
14. Matthew 27:24
15. 1 Peter 3:21

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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