must have

that his

Him followers

would pay

not Him divine

honours.

And much more would this be requisite in Christ the case of a person who foresaw (as Jesus must foreseen have done) that his followers would regard as divine, would worship Him-if He did expressly warn them against it. Such a one would be doubly bound to make such explanations and such disavowals as should effectually guard his disciples against falling into the errorthrough anything said or done by Himself-of paying adoration to a Being not divine: even as the Apostle Peter warns the Centurion Cornelius against the adoration which he suspected that Cornelius designed to offer him; saying, "Stand up, I myself also am a man." Jesus of course would have taken care to give a like warning, if He had been conscious of not having a claim to be considered as divine, and had at the same time been aware that the title of Son of God would be understood as implying that claim.

That the title was so understood, is the point to which I am now calling the reader's attention.

understood

divine cha

§ 5. On one occasion, when he had healed a Jesus cripple on the Sabbath-day, and had commanded to claim a him immediately to "take up his bed" (which was a work prohibited by the Jewish law) He vindicates Himself against his opponents by saying" My Father worketh hitherto, and I

• Εργάζεται ἕως ἄρτι.

work;" or, as it might be rendered more clearly, according to our modern usage, "My Father has been working up to this time;" (that is, ever since the creation, the operations of God have been going on throughout the Universe, on all days alike;)" and I work;" I claim the right to perform, and to authorize others to perform, whatever and whenever I see fit.h "Therefore

the Jews" (says the Evangelist) "sought the more to kill Him, because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his [proper] Father; making himself equal with God."i

On another occasion (John x. 33) when He had said "I and the Father are one," the Jews were about to stone Him for blasphemy, "because (said they) thou being a man makest thyDefence of self God." He defends Himself by alleging a charged passage of their Scripture in which the title of "God" is applied to those, "to whom the word the popu- of God came;" implying however at the same

Jesus when

with blas

phemy by

lace.

k

I have treated more fully on this point, in an Essay entitled "Thoughts on the Sabbath."

i Our version, it is important to observe, does not give the full force of the passage as it stands in the Original. It should be rendered, "that God was his own proper (or peculiar) Father" (Tarépa ideov). This it seems was the sense in which (according to the Evangelist) He was understood by his hearers to call God his Father, and Himself "the Son of God."-See Wilson on the New Testament, referred to in the Preface.

time a distinction between Himself and those persons, and his own superiority to them: "Say ye of Him" (He doth not say "to whom the word of God came"-but) "whom the Father hath anointed and sent into the world, thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of God?" This however did not necessarily imply anything more than superiority, and divine mission; and accordingly we find the Jews enduring it; but when He goes on to say "that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in Him," we find them immediately seeking again to lay hands on Him; and He withdraws from them.

before the

But the most important record by far in His defence respect of the point now before us is that which council. I originally proposed to notice, the account of our Lord's trial and condemnation before the Jewish Council. In order to have a clear view of this portion of the history, it is necessary to keep in mind, that when He was tried before the Roman Governor, it was (as I observed at the beginning) not for the same crime he was charged with before the Council of the Jews; but for seditious and treasonable designs against the Roman Emperor: "We found this fellow perverting the nation and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying that He Himself is Christ a King." "Whosoever maketh himself a King, speaketh against Cæsar." Now I need

C

Accounts

of the trial,

hardly remark that this was no crime under the law of Moses; and would in fact have been a merit in the sight of most of the Jews. But what He was charged with before them, was blasphemy, according to the Law of Moses;* and of this they pronounced Him guilty, and sentenced Him to death; but not having power to inflict capital punishment, they prevailed on Pilate, who had acquitted Him of the charge of treason, to inflict their sentence: "We have a law, and by our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God."

In order to understand clearly the trial and in the four condemnation of our Lord before the Jewish Gospels, to Council (which is in many respects a most imtogether. portant part of Sacred History) we should study,

be com

pared

as I have said, the accounts given of it by all four of the Evangelists. Each relates such circumstances as most struck his own mind; where one is abridged, another is more diffuse; each omits some things that are noticed by another; but no one can be supposed to have recorded any thing that did not occur. All the four, therefore, should be compared together, in order to obtain a clear view of the transaction. Jesus con- It seems to have been divinely appointed that Jesus should be convicted on no testimony but his own; perhaps in order to fulfil the more em

victed on

his own testimony.

k See Deut. xiii. 7.

phatically his declaration "No man taketh away my life, but I lay it down of myself." For the witnesses brought forward to misrepresent and distort his saying "Destroy this temple," into "I will destroy," could not make their evidence agree.

tions asked

Council.

The High Priest then endeavoured, by examining Jesus Himself, to draw from Him an acknowledgment of his supposed guilt. He and the others appear to have asked Him two ques- Two questions; which, in the more abridged narrative of before the Matthew and Mark, are compressed into one sentence; but which Luke has given distinctly as two. After having asked Him "Art thou the Christ?" they proceed to ask further "Art thou then the Son of God?" and as soon as He had answered this last question in the affirmative (according to the Hebrew idiom "Ye say," "Thou hast said") immediately "the High Priest rent his clothes," saying, "He hath spoken blasphemy: ye have heard the blasphemy; what need we any further witnesses? for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth."

§ 6. Some readers, I believe, from not fully studying and comparing together accounts of the different Evangelists, are to take for granted that the crime for which

1 See John xx. 31.

care- Jesus not the for professapt the Christ.

condemned

our

ing to be