Mark chapter 14 and verse 53. And they led Jesus away to the
high priest, and with him were assembled all the chief priests
and the elders and the scribes. And Peter followed him afar off,
even unto the palace of the high priest. And he sat with the servants
and warmed himself at the fire. And the chief priests and all
the council sought for witness against Jesus to put him to death
and found none. For many bear false witness against
him, but their witness agreed not together. And there arose
certain, and bare false witness against him, saying, We heard
him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands,
and within three days I will build another made without hands. But neither so did their witness
agree together. And the high priest stood up
in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness
against thee? But he held his peace, and answered
nothing. Again the high priest asked him,
and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?
And Jesus said, I am. And ye shall see the Son of Man
sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds
of heaven. Then the high priest rent his
clothes and said, what need we any further witnesses? Ye have
heard the blasphemy, what think ye? And they all condemned him
to be guilty of death. And some began to spit on him,
and to cover his face, and to buffet him, and to say unto him,
Prophesy. And the servants did strike him
with the palms of their hands. May the Lord bless this reading
to us. We are returning in this passage
to follow our Saviour in the final hours before his death
and crucifixion, his crucifixion and death. We saw that in the
Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples had fled, leaving Jesus alone. We saw him bound by his enemies
and led back to Jerusalem and the high priest. And Mark tells
us here that the high priest was gathered with all the scribes
and the Pharisees, the council were there, what's called the
Sanhedrin, and these people were going to sit in judgment of the
Lord Jesus Christ. But something odd happens before
they get to the high priest and the council. Something that only
John tells us about. The arresting party stops at
the home of Annas. Now, Annas was father-in-law
to Caiaphas. Caiaphas was the high priest
and Annas was father-in-law to him. So before they got to Caiaphas,
the high priest and his palace and the a place where the council
was gathered in order to judge the Lord, they stopped at the
house at the home of Annas. Now these two, it would appear
from the New Testament writings, the gospel writings, may have
shared high priestly duties because Luke tells us that both were
high priests. was father-in-law, which perhaps
suggests that he was the older man. And it may be that the Romans
had deposed Annas and put Caiaphas in his place, but that Annas
still had seniority, at least in the minds of the Jewish people. A little bit of speculation there,
but the odd thing is that there are these two men, both called
high priests, both related to one another. And the band that
had arrested Jesus first went to the home of Annas before they
took the Lord to the council that had been gathered in the
home or the palace of Caiaphas. And I just found it interesting
to think that here John was giving us a little insight that none
of the other gospel writers mentioned. It may well be that this annus
continued to be, as it were, the power behind the throne. And whatever dynamic was going
on here, Annas wanted the first opportunity to speak with Jesus. Now, John speaks about this in
John chapter 18 and verse 19. And he refers to the fact that
Annas had this private conversation with the Lord. And if we're right
in thinking that these verses from John 18, 19 refer to this
private encounter, then it appears to occur before Jesus gets to
Caiaphas and the whole council. And it seems that Annas' interest
was to do with Jesus' disciples and Jesus' doctrine. John 18
and 19 says, the high priest then asked Jesus of his disciples
and of his doctrine. Now it may be that Annas sought
to determine the strength of Jesus' following and whether
there were large numbers of his disciples present in Jerusalem
at that time. That would be important information
if they were going to take Jesus to be crucified or they were
going to try and kill Jesus. Might there be a large number
of his disciples in the city? Could this be a cause for trouble?
And it may be that Annas sought to determine that kind of information. But in truth, that sort of information
could have been obtained or purchased from Judas. Judas was intimate
with the Lord, and having betrayed the Lord, he would know about
the circumstances also of Jesus' disciples. So the high priests
could have interrogated Judas about these things. Rather to
me it seems as if Annas was probing Jesus on his doctrine to see
what it was. where it came from, how it differed,
why it motivated his followers the way that it did. He probably
was interested to know why Jesus continued to better the scribes
and the Pharisees in every dealing that he had with him. Where his
wisdom came from. And at the very least, this shows
us that these priests, these scribes and Pharisees, this Sanhedrin,
was condemning the Lord in ignorance. They still didn't know what the
Lord's doctrine actually stood for. What we discover is that
this interview gained no new information. And Annas then sends
the Lord Jesus on with this group who had captured him in Gethsemane
to Caiaphas and the rest of the council. But it does reveal to
us that even at this stage, the religious leaders did not understand
Christ's gospel, though they hated it nevertheless. And we're
reminded by that, I think, that the gospel is a spiritual revelation
and that it is hid to the world and it remains hidden until God
the Holy Spirit opens the eyes and ears of sinners to see to
hear, to understand and to believe. They need to see and know their
need and they need to see and know Christ's supply of that
need. The title of my sermon today
is Guilty of Death. And it's a little phrase that's
used in the passage with respect to the judgment that was passed
upon the Lord Jesus Christ by the Sanhedrin when he testified
as to his identity. They said he is guilty of death. And it comes from that little
phrase, all condemned him to be guilty of death. And that's
what I want to dwell upon. But I'm going to make two quick
applications before I come to this little phrase. So once again,
I want you to be aware of the way in which I'm dividing up
my thoughts today. So the main part of our narrative
will be on this question about the guiltiness of Christ. But here's just a couple of little
points that might be drawn from the verses before us. And one
has to do with Peter. We notice that Peter and, again,
John tells us about another disciple as well, which is probably John
himself. But Peter and John quickly regained
their composure after the incident in Gethsemane. And we find that
Peter follows after the Lord and the arresting party all the
way back to the city. And Peter is eager to know what
is going to happen to the Lord and with the Lord. And perhaps
he's even interested to know that if if the Lord is confronted here
with his enemies, that he might be provoked even at this stage
to overthrow his enemies and to exercise his power in some
miraculous and majestic way. However, and here's the point,
here's the application. Despite the boldness of Peter
to go to the high priest's palace, He now finds himself sitting
amongst the servants of the Lord's enemies. Verse 54 says, he sat
with the servants and warmed himself at the fire. If Peter hoped for some comfort,
at that fire, some warmth or some security there amongst these
servants. He was mistaken. And there's
a little application for us here, I think. The Lord's people will
never find peace and safety among the servants of our enemies. Peter may have thought that these
servants looked like him. He may have thought that they
sounded like him. He may have thought that he might
be able to conceal himself amongst them, but they proved to be a
snare to him. They proved to be a source of
temptation and shame to him. and thus it will always be. It
is always safer for the Lord's people to remain standing outside
in the cold than to warm ourselves sitting at the fire of Satan's
servants. Peter got too close to the enemy
here. and it caused him to end up denying
his Lord. We're going to come to this on
another occasion, but I just wanted to point out that these
servants with whom Peter sat and warmed himself were the very
ones who later slapped the face of the Lord and spat upon him. Our Saviour says, come out from
among them and be ye separate and touch not the unclean thing
and I will receive you. The Lord's people need to choose
their company carefully. We cannot warm ourselves at Satan's
fires and escape without being noticed. And the other point
that I wanted to just draw to you briefly before we get into
our main section is the parade of witnesses, the succession
of false witnesses that we see here. And I think this is worthy
of just a quick mention also. Mark tells us many, many bear
false witness against him. there were a lot of people gathered
that night to bear false witness against Christ. Here were religious
Jews prepared to break Moses' commandment regarding and concerning
bearing false witness. And we need to remember that
there are lots of religious people who despise the simplicity that
is in Christ and are happy to bear false witness against the
Lord Jesus Christ as he is revealed to us in scripture and against
the gospel of Christ. And they do it for their own
gain. Paul met such people in Corinth and he laboured and wrote
against them. And bearing false witness, it's
a dishonourable thing even amongst men and women of the world. But
when religious people do it, when preachers teach lies and
bring a false gospel to the souls of men and women, it is a crime
of the gravest kind. It is bearing false witness against
Christ. And just as many did it then,
many do it today. There are those, says John, in
whom the truth is. and there are those in whom the
truth is not. Paul writing to Timothy says, For the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts they
shall heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, and they
shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned
unto fables. And it is my conviction that
we live in such days today. People might say it's always
been thus, and that's probably true. It certainly was at the
time of Christ, because there were many who bore false witness
against him. And I believe that it is also
the same today in our religious circles. However, it's to the
words of the Sanhedrin regarding the man Christ Jesus that I would
like to turn your attention and a few thoughts with which we'll
conclude our time today. We're told that all those who
were present, they all condemned him to be guilty of death. This was the condemnation, this
was the judgment that these people passed upon the Lord. When they
heard him speak at the end of their discussion, the end of
their interrogation, they all condemned him to be guilty of
death. And I want to think with you
for a few minutes why this was not true and yet, why in one
way it was true. And here's what I mean by that.
The Lord Jesus Christ, in all his ways, for all his life, was
perfect, holy, pure, and upright. From his conception, It was said,
that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called
the Son of God. That holy thing which shall be
born of thee shall be called the Son of God. In the book of
Acts, Luke tells us that Christ was called the Holy Child. and Peter calls Christ the Holy
One and the Just, who did no sin, neither was any guile found
in his mouth. He was, the writer to the Hebrews
tells us, a high priest who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners and made higher than the heavens. It was said
of Christ, thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. and the father
of our Lord Jesus Christ from heaven declared, this is my beloved
son in whom I am well pleased. Now we know from the scriptures
that death is the wages of sin. And yet the Lord Jesus Christ
could see to his accusers without fear of conviction or contradiction,
which of you convinceth me of sin? God's holy law found Christ in all points, tempted like as
we are, yet without sin. It is not possible that in himself
the Lord Jesus Christ could be guilty of death. Death had no
hold upon him. Death had no right to him. There
was no sin in him. The wages of sin is death and
death could not touch the Lord Jesus Christ. There was no way
possible that in himself the Lord Jesus Christ could be guilty
death. Again, when the high priest asked
the Lord, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? Matthew,
in his account of this, in his narrative of this moment, he
has an even more emphatic, I referred to it yesterday in the little
introduction that I sent out, as employing an oath. And I think that's right. He
says to Jesus, I adjure thee by the living God. Now, when
the high priest spoke to a Jewish person in that way, he was demanding
an answer, and indeed, he was obliging the person to speak
an answer. It was like being under oath
in a court of law. I adjure thee by the living God
that thou tell us whither thou be the Christ, the Son of God. That was the question that the
high priest, that was the question that Caiaphas asked of Christ. And the Saviour rightly, properly,
and truthfully answered the question, I am. He was asked, art thou
the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And the answer came back, I am. The Lord Jesus Christ never denied
it. Indeed, he often asserted it. We discover in the testimony
of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is attested to by the scriptures,
it is attested to by Peter, James, and John, that on the Mount of
Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah bore witness to the identity
of the Lord Jesus Christ. As we've already seen, God the
Father spoke with a voice from heaven. The Holy Spirit descended
upon him in the form of a dove. This is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased. The types and the symbols of
the Old Testament all pointed to the true identity of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The Jewish religious leader's
own officers attested, listen to what they said, never man
speak like this man. The words that flowed from the
Lord Jesus Christ's mouth were not the words of a man. Never
man spake like this man, was the testimony, was the witness
of his enemies. His miracles proved his power
to do what God alone could do. He had power over life, over
death, over nature, over demon possession, over bodily sickness,
and everything that the Lord Jesus Christ said and did confirmed
the truth of the answer of the question that Caiaphas posed. It showed the divinity and genuine
messianic authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. Had Christ said anything else
in answer to that question, when asked that question by Caiaphas,
he would have been guilty of death, because he would have
told a lie, he would have sinned against God. But when he answered,
I am, he spoke the truth. And in speaking the truth, he
could not be guilty of death. The Lord Jesus Christ was, in
Psalm 15 verse 2, he that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness,
and speaketh the truth in his heart. And despite what these
men said concerning the Lord, answering as he did, he could
not be guilty of death. but there is one way in which
the Lord Jesus Christ was guilty of death. One way in which the
words of these enemies of Christ were actually prophetically true. That the Lord Jesus Christ really
and truly was guilty of death. Not for the reason that the Sanhedrin
gave, Not for his own sins. Not for his claim to be the Son
of God and the Son of Man, which he most truly was. He demonstrably
proved that to be so. Not for faults and failures and
transgressions or crimes which he committed. The Lord Jesus Christ was guilty
of death for one reason and one only. Our Saviour deserved to
die and our Saviour was justly punished with death, the wages
of sin. Not for sins that he committed,
but for sins imputed to him, sins that were laid upon him. Our sins, because he willingly
and voluntarily took our sin, owned our sin, made it his sin,
and bore the suitable punishment for it. He took our guilt. He made it his guilt. He took
our condemnation. He made it his condemnation. He owned our very faults and
failures as his very own. because the Lord Jesus Christ
stood surety for his people in the everlasting covenant of grace
and peace. And because he agreed to answer
both for our debt and for our duty as fallen creatures to pay
what we owed to the offended God and his broken law, Our dear Saviour was guilty of
death. He was guilty of death. Really, truly, justly, guilty
in his own right as our surety and as our substitute. Because we are sinners, because
we are guilty, our Savior became all we are in order to make us
all he is. God was in Christ, reconciling
the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, but
laying them on him as a representative and holding him accountable as
justice demands. God did not, could not, slay
the innocent and save the guilty. So he must make the innocent
guilty and he must make the guilty innocent. The pure, he who was
pure and holy and upright and true in all his ways was made
cursed and defiled and the transgressors went free. Christ gave himself
for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify
unto himself a peculiar people, says the apostle Paul to Titus.
He made us holy by taking our sin. by bearing it in his own
body on the tree. He carried our sorrows. He took
our griefs. He became a curse for us. Paul tells the Galatians, Galatians
chapter 3, 13, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,
being made a curse for us. He tells the Corinthians, For
he had made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in him. Epistles, it was the testimony
that the Lord Jesus Christ bore in his life. It was what the
prophets of the Old Testament looked forward to and understood. Isaiah could say in chapter 53
verse 6, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone
to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us
all. and Christ having willingly undertaken
to stand in our place, and the Father having laid our iniquity
on Him, Christ became fully responsible, justly culpable, and lawfully
guilty of death. Isaiah tells us, it pleased the
Lord to bruise him. Why? Because that was justice
being effected. Christ took our sin, took our
guilt, and justly bore the punishment of God's wrath against it. He was lawfully guilty of death. The wicked Jews of Christ's day. And every man Jack of all time
who cries in the heart away with him, we will not have this man
to reign over us. They condemn Jesus as guilty
of death. But little do they know of the
true nature of Christ's guilt. They make their false allegations
and their false accusations and they pretend in their self-righteousness
to judge God himself, draw him from his throne and assert their
own power. The writer to the Hebrews tells
us Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many, and unto
them that look for him shall he appear the second time, without
sin unto salvation. And we look forward to that day
coming. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us and encourage our hearts in them. Amen.