“And the whole multitude of them arose and led him unto Pilate,” (Luke 23:1).
God takes blasphemy very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that when he was laying the foundation for how his own people should think about him and behave toward him, God warned them, “He that blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death,” (Lev. 24:16). This explains why those Jewish religious leaders who prided themselves on knowing Old Testament Law went into a rage, tearing their clothes, when Christ confirmed to them that he was the Son of God. There was now no alternative to his sentence of death: “I adjure you by the living God, that you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said it yourself; nevertheless, I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses? Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy,” (Matt. 26:63-65).
What they failed to consider, however, was that God himself spoke these very words from heaven when John the Baptist baptized Jesus, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” (Matt. 3:17). And they completely missed what the Apostle John so beautifully portrays regarding the relationship between God and his Son in the first chapter of his gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.” The next day John the Baptist saw Jesus coming to him, and said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God,” (John 1:1, 14, 29, 34). Finally, Christ himself verifies that “I and my Father are one,” (John 10:30).
Blasphemy is any form of irreverence or untruth about God, which means if Christ had denied his divinity before these mocking priests and pharisees, that indeed would have been blasphemy! So, though malice may call what Christ said blasphemy, it is, in fact, the epitome of truth itself.
And yet, to all their accusations of blasphemy, “he answered not a word.” Was this some obstinate weariness of life and subsequent desire to die? Or was it some confused inability to acquit himself from their accusations? No, of course not. He had already fully submitted himself into the severest hands of both his Father’s wrath and his enemy’s malice. He had already affirmed, “not my will but thine be done” to his Father, and “it is I whom you seek” to his enemies.
As God, he could have spoken to them in fire and thunder as he did at Sinai (Exod. 19). He could have laid them at his feet with mere words, as he had already done in the Garden. Why, then, do we find him here with nothing to say as if he could not hear or could not speak? (Ps. 38:14)?
We must surely say that the cause of his silence was our own guiltiness, ours in whose place he now stood. We were guilty of all their accusations. Regarding sedition (rebellion against authority), in Adam we rebelled against God and his command to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that grew in the Garden (Gen. 3). Regarding seduction, in Eve we were seduced by the serpent, and in turn, we seduced Adam. Regarding usurpation (taking what is not rightfully ours to have), we traitorously invaded and usurped that divine prerogative of knowing good and evil. And lastly, regarding blasphemy, in doing so we attempted to make ourselves what Christ is here unjustly accused of, being equal with God. As the serpent tempted Eve, “You shall be as gods knowing good and evil,” (Gen. 3:5).
When Adam fell, God made a derisive pronouncement, “Behold the man is become like one of us.” And here, standing before his accusers, we are rightly able to say in a just devotion of almighty God, “Behold God is become like one of us.” He chose to humble himself by taking on the cloak of humanity and becoming like us so that he could die a selfless death, bearing our sins in his body on the tree (Phil. 2:6-7), paying for our guilt with his own blood.
Contemplations:
- When that adulterous woman was brought before you to be judged, Lord, you wrote with your finger on the ground and so sent away all her accusers with shame. So when I shall be then brought before you to be judged, O Lord, I beg of you to write my pardon with the finger of your mercy on the ground of your merits, and so shall all my accusers be driven out of your presence.
- Who shall be able to lay anything to the charge of your chosen, Lord, when it is you that justifies (Rom. 8:33)? I will fear the Lord, seeing I am rightly accused (Luke 23:40), but you have done nothing amiss. And yet you willingly bore my burden. Therefore, when you sit in the seat of judgment, your own wounds cannot but witness payment for my sin and pardon for my soul. And where you have paid the debt, your justice cannot deny my acquittal. Lord, on earth you were my attorney and suffered for me, in heaven you are my advocate and plead for me. What shall I then fear though the wickedness of my enemies encompasses, if the faith of my heart can lay hold on you above? You, O Lord, will not nor cannot forget to be gracious. You are still the same when decked with majesty and honor as when clothed with reproach and shame (Ps. 35:26).
- O Lord Jesus, you who are the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8), I come before you, before that Shepherd and Bishop of my soul (1 Peter 2:25) and ask that you plead before your offended Father on my behalf. It was the Father to whom I stood guilty and indebted. Then, now, and evermore you are an incessant Intercessor for me. Every wound, every drop of blood that was pledged on my behalf was of much more value than that of Abel’s (Heb 12:24). How can I imagine that mercy is above sacrifice? And yet, in this your work, O Lord, there is both mercy and sacrifice; a sacrifice that cannot fail of mercy.
Further References for Luke 23:1:
Luke 22:66; John 18:29, 19:1; Acts 3:13
