Blasphemy - Matt 26:65-68; Mark 14:63-65

With an incredibly powerful statement, Jesus has affirmed that He is, in fact, the Christ, and warned his accusers that the time is coming that he will be their judge. The high priest is not pleased and “rent his clothes, saying, he hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.” The IM comments, “Be definition, blasphemy meant to revile, despise, mock, or curse God. Jesus Christ did none of these, but Caiaphas considered the Savior’s statement that He would sit ‘on the right hand of power’ to be blasphemous. However, the Savior’s claim to divine power and authority would have been blasphemy only if it had been untrue. When Caiaphas heard this statement, he rent his clothes and declared that the Savior had spoken blasphemy- an offense punishable by death under the law of Moses.” I guess this is the problem with expecting someone to come and save you and then killing all the people that claim to be that person.

The high priest asked the rest of the council there, “what think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death.”
So the Jewish leadership has decided that Jesus is guilty of death for blasphemy, but there is a problem with that. It seems like forever ago because we studied the triumphal entry several months ago, but in real time, only a few days earlier, thousands of Jews had celebrated Jesus as their king. Some people have said that the people had all turned on Jesus because he didn’t immediately start a revolt against Rome, but I don’t think that that’s the case. It had only been a few days since Jesus entered Jerusalem, and honestly most of the people who were celebrating Him were probably just visiting the city too. Plus it was the week of the Passover, which is a special observance for the Jew and there was probably some sort of prohibition against beginning a war within so many days of Passover.
If I recall correctly, there were only a few thousand permanent residents of Jerusalem, but during festivities travelers could push the population to over a million. Those permanent residents were probably mostly the wealthy Jewish elite leadership who wanted Jesus to die, because he threatened their lifestyle. The other hundreds of thousands of visiting Jews actually liked him and believed in much of what he was teaching, so there were two competing ideologies when it came to Jesus. He was popular with the people but hated by the leadership, so if Caiaphas had Jesus killed because “he’s teaching false doctrine,” then the people might revolt against their leaders, causing not only the Sanhedrin to be destroyed, but it would also get the Romans involved which wouldn’t work out for anyone. So they had two options, either leave Jesus alone and have him grow in popularity until they lost their influence over the people or they could have him murdered on the charge of blasphemy, which would have made Jesus a martyr and enraged the people who believed in him, resulting in their loss of influence over the people. Either way, once Jesus started preaching a new gospel, the Jewish leadership was going down.
Cleverly, the council came up with a loophole, they found a way to have Jesus killed and have the people be ok with it, they got the Romans involved. If the Romans put Jesus to death, then the people wouldn’t have been focused on the part played by the Sanhedrin in the execution. It also would have discouraged people from publically protesting Jesus’ death because that would be denouncing Roman justice, and the protesters probably would have been killed as well. It also would have taken Jesus’ doctrine out of the equation completely because the Romans didn’t care about Jewish doctrine, they only cared about loyalty to Rome.
The IM says, “The Jewish council decided to take Jesus to Pilate, who represented the Roman authorities. The council wanted to charge Jesus not with blasphemy- a Jewish matter that would have not concerned the Romans- but with treason, which was a serious concern to the Roman leaders. If the Jewish council were to punish Jesus for blasphemy by stoning Him- as prescribed in the law of Moses- it could create a riot among the many people who believed in Jesus. Such civil unrest would bring harsh retribution from the Roman authorities. But if the Jewish leaders could persuade the Romans that Jesus was trying to set Himself up as a king, the Romans themselves would put Him to death as a traitor to Caeser.” The irony here is that many of the Jews rejected Jesus because he wasn’t militant enough against Rome, and now the council is going to try and kill him for treason against Rome.
While the Sanhedrin consider these problems, Jesus is held by their guards, so that they could talk privately. The guards take full opportunity to let Jesus know that they don’t appreciate His insights. While being held, the guards, “spit in his face and buffeted him; and other smote him with the palms of their hands, Saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote thee?” This is where it becomes ironic, Jesus has been condemned for blasphemy because he acknowledged that he is the Son of God, but when these guards mock Jesus, they are in fact the ones committing blasphemy and are worthy of death. Jesus could have absolutely answered which one of them had hit him, he could at any moment just thought of their demise and it would have happened, but he didn’t. As God, he forgave them for the very act which they were going to kill him for. Now that’s ironic.
I understand why Jesus had to suffer for our sins, I understand that he had to die in order to be resurrected and complete the cycle, but why did he have to be killed in the most horrific manner ever known to mankind? Why couldn’t he just have like, died in his sleep or something? Why did he not only have to die, but be beat up too? Why did he have to been put on trial and convicted by the people who were actually guilty of that crime instead? And why did he have to be tortured before hand, why was that so necessary to the process of the atonement? The IM gives excellent insight on my questions, saying, “The Son of God would have been in terrible physical condition as He stood trial before Jewish leaders. During the hours prior to His interrogation, Jesus had experienced the agony of Gethsemane. He had been back and forth across the Kidron Valley. He would have also been experiencing the effects of blood loss and likely the effects of chills from the night air upon His weakened body. He had also likely not slept in many hours. It was in this weakened physical condition that He faced additional abuse at the hands of his accusers…
Elder Bruce D. Porter of the Seventy taught that the Atonement required the Savior to endure the abuses of the Jewish and Roman leaders without sinning: ‘The cruelties and indignities suffered by Jesus during the various trials represented a last-ditch effort by Lucifer to cause Christ to stumble. A single misstep- a cross word, an angry outburst, even a moment’s indulgence in self-pity or pride- and all was lost. Hence, every possible indignity was heaped upon the Savior: false accusations; blasphemous outbursts; a crown of thorns; the horrible scourging by bone-embedded whips; the mock robe of royalty; the spitting, taunting, and physical blows of the soldiers. The whole pitiable drama was masterminded by Lucifer in the hope that he might yet find a way to nullify the Redeemer’s triumph at Gethsemane.”
There is so much about this that I don’t understand, but looking at a statement like this makes me feel just how close we were as people to being lost forever. But then I think, would Heavenly Father create us just in the off chance that Jesus would be able to actually accomplish the atonement? That seems like a pretty big risk to me. It’s like asking, would I be willing to be born into this world and face the possibility of suffering torment forever, if the only way to avoid it was the slim chance that Jesus would have been able to atone for me? I wouldn’t, that’s playing stakes too rich for me. So there had to have been so much more “guarantee” or something, to where it wasn’t a complete crap shoot. And Satan had to have his full chance to thwart the atonement, because otherwise, he could have gone back and said, “well I could never convince anyone to do the absolute worst thing that I could come up with, and you never would have been able to atone for that.” That would have negated justice right there. And we don’t know what was going on behind the spiritual scenes. And maybe this is why Jesus said that he descended below all things, there was nothing that Satan could come up with that the Savior couldn’t withstand in righteousness. Jesus won.