Christ In His Suffering, Trial, and Crucified by Klaas Schilder: Schilder, Klaas - Vol 2 - Christ on Trial: 06. Chapter 6: Christ Taking an Oath Before the Sanhedrin

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Christ In His Suffering, Trial, and Crucified by Klaas Schilder: Schilder, Klaas - Vol 2 - Christ on Trial: 06. Chapter 6: Christ Taking an Oath Before the Sanhedrin



TOPIC: Schilder, Klaas - Vol 2 - Christ on Trial (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 06. Chapter 6: Christ Taking an Oath Before the Sanhedrin

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C H A P T E R S I X

Christ Taking an Oath Before the Sanhedrin

And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said.

—Mat_26:63-64 a.

CHRIST passes from a state of silence to that of expression. Up to this time He has manifested His obedience by His silence; now He will give expression to that obedience by His speaking. In fact He will make use of the oath.

He takes this oath at the last meeting of the Sanhedrin which that body may regard as officially warranted by God. For as soon as the veil of the temple shall have been rent, the Sanhedrin, too, will be dismissed.

That is why this particular meeting represents a high point in the life of Israel. Israel has almost reached the very top of the high mountain of all her prophets, priests, and kings taken together.

In the form, then, of this last session of Israel’s high council, the proudest monument of the marvelous nation which has now completed its journey through the world confronts Jesus. And the question it asks Him is, “Who art Thou?” In this question all of the centuries meet at a point, all the long centuries from Abraham to the present. Many are the epochs that looking down upon this session, await its decision. In this session the life of Israel may for the last time assert itself in an official-spiritual capacity and may once more take its stand at the zenith of the nation. And at this session, in which the ends of preparatory ages meet, Christ swears with a precious oath that He is the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

The curtains of this session hall have never hung so tensely suspended as they do now. Never was a spoken word so becoming to the place in which it was spoken as was this final word. The oath which was sworn here was the unfolding of a drama, a drama which had gone on for many years. This oath was the great theme of the fugue of world history, and was now developed to its loftiest height. Men felt that this could not go on; that the organ must cease playing now. The oath which was a last chord sounding in the oratorio which God had been conducting from the time of Abraham’s prologues to this present action, to this last act in the final meeting of God’s elect people, represented by its Highest Council, and placed at the head of the peoples. It is upon that gathering, then, that the oath of God suddenly impinges.

No, indeed, never was spoken word so appropriately fitted to the place and occasion.

But the Sanhedrin itself did not understand this. It did not know just how oppressive the atmosphere in its session hall really was. It did not sense just how depressingly the burden of the centuries weighed down upon its meeting. There seemed to be room to spare in the book of its minutes.

Hence from Caiaphas’ point of view the way which led him to go with Christ into the hall of oaths was a purely human way. It was simply the ordinary work of an ordinary human being.

Caiaphas made up his mind that this man had to be put out of the world. Now that the summoning of the false witnesses has gained him nothing, now that the desired unanimity is still lacking, now that both text and exposition of a reason for condemning Christ are wanting, Caiaphas is compelled to make use of the last resort: the oath. And, as he does so, He faces the problem of the Messiah squarely. He touches on the messianic issue in its extreme complication and in its austerest meaning. Note that he does not ask Christ whether He is “a” Messiah, or whether He is a harbinger of “the” Messiah, or whether in some respects He sees Himself as the equivalent of the Messiah in His life, speech and thought. No, he asks Jesus whether in His whole person and in the totality of His thought and conduct, He is the Messiah, the only, the great, the predestined One, the meeting place of all the world’s ways, and the bearer of the great mission.

That Caiaphas now reaches the point of swearing an oath, and of putting this question as he does, can from his point of view be understood easily. As for that oath, he simply had to demand it. Nothing seemed to be ascertainable on the basis of human testimony. Besides, Jesus’ deliberate silence has prevented Caiaphas from extracting a poison from Jesus’ last words out of which to concoct a new charge. Hence he makes use of his official status as a high priest, as a legal authority, and demands that Jesus take an oath. Now this oath was an acknowledgment of the fact that up to this time uncertainty had prevailed. It places the Nazarene in the presence of God. Yes, we can say that this was an ironic happening. The Son of God was placed in the presence of the majesty of God. However, this is not surprising. It is but another instance of that common, tragic irony characteristic of all unbelieving life which is always appealing to God in an attempt to escape from an appeal to self and in an effort to deny God’s right to appeal by simply ignoring it.

Moreover, it can also be appreciated easily that Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin now immediately take up the messianic problem. There had been some provocation for asking Jesus — we say this humanly speaking — about the conclusion at which He arrived in His self-appraisal and self-evaluation. Caiaphas had a good reason for wanting to know whether Jesus did or did not regard Himself as the Messiah. That provocation Caiaphas could find in the immediately preceding controversy which had been carried on by the false witnesses. These “witnesses” differed among themselves about Christ’s statement in the matter of that marvelous reconstruction of the temple to which after its eventual destruction He would dare to commit Himself. Building, reconstructing the temple, yes — that was important. Had not prophecy named just such rebuilding of the temple the characteristic work of the Messiah? Had it not been said: “Behold the man whose name is Branch: and he shall grow up out of his place and he shall build the temple of the Lord: even he shall build the temple of the Lord, and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne” (Zec_6:12-13)? Surely, the tone of this prophetic utterance was sufficiently penetrating to give the fact that Jesus had called Himself a temple-builder a meaning of which Caiaphas now must make use. Is Christ, the Messiah, the official temple-builder, the fulfillment of prophecy, or is He not that?

It is possible that the passage just cited from Zechariah’s prophecy was in Caiaphas’ mind. True, these words are not a part of the text, but it is unreasonable to believe that no more words were exchanged between Jesus and the Sanhedrin than are included in our Scriptural passage. The account of the Gospel, naturally, gives us only the high spots in the sequence of events; the stress regularly falls on the conclusive and not on the subsidiary factors. It is quite possible, therefore, that Caiaphas remembered the text just cited from Zechariah. This is especially true because the passage just quoted speaks of the glory of the Messiah. This glory it regards from two points of view. It tells us that building the temple is the Messiah’s peculiar work. In building it, He lets the glory of all of life ascend to God. By means of the “precious things” which the world offers, He proceeds from the natural world to the God of all grace. Just such reference is the essence of the sabbath-task of temple-building. But, in the second place, Zechariah also indicates that the Messiah “shall bear the glory” Himself. God will beautify Him, will adorn Him with every beautiful thing. God will prepare a throne for Him; He shall be great and shall reign.

If we keep that background in mind, it will not be difficult for us to follow the pattern of Caiaphas’ thoughts and to trace the scheme of his thinking. The true Messiah is to accomplish the building of the temple in glory. But what, pray, is this Nazarene going to do? Look: chains are dangling from His wrists. He has neither form nor comeliness. The Messiah of Zechariah’s prophecy is to mount a throne. But up to this time all thrones have thrust the Messiah aside. According to Zec_6:13 the true Messiah is to succeed in uniting the priesthood and the kingship. He will succeed in merging the offices of priest and king. But this Nazarene has incurred the animosity of every priest. Is it not true, gentlemen, that the priesthood will have nothing to do with this Nazarene? Let Him say, then, if He dare in our presence whether the divine oracles named in Zec_6:12-13 are applicable to Him?

Again — we do not know whether this statement from Zechariah was directly quoted by Caiaphas or not. It is not unlikely that he did quote it. Especially not when we recall that this circumstance would explain Christ’s later statement to the effect that hereafter He shall be seen, seated upon a throne, and shall actually receive the power of God, actually receive the glory of His kingship from the hand of the God of all “priests.”

Whatever these particulars may have been, certain it is that Christ’s public ministry itself sufficed to raise the question whether or not He were the Messiah. True, we remember that at times Christ charged His audience and those favored ones whose garments still had in them the perfumes of love, that “they tell no man.” But later Christ called Himself the Messiah outright, and in no ambiguous terms. In more than one public discourse which Christ spoke to the Jews the theme of the false and true Messiah was sharply emphasized. And on these occasions Christ plainly declared Himself to be the true one. The circumstances themselves, therefore, prepared the way for Caiaphas to arise from his chair and to adjure Christ by the living God, that He unmistakably assert whether He was the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Then Christ broke the silence and answered Caiaphas. He had to speak now; under the circumstances that was the only appropriate manifestation of obedience. However, we may not forget that His speaking in no sense indicated a relief from suffering. The heaviness of soul continued, the suffering and the labor continued during the expressed reply as well as during the silence.

Caiaphas’ question and the demand that He take an oath represented severe humiliation for the Christ. As a matter of fact, those few words, “I adjure thee,” are the most excruciating form of Christ-denial conceivable. The oath, surely, is demanded only in exceptional instances. And the peculiar characteristic of Jesus Christ is that all of His words are spoken in the binding medium of the oath.

We have several times had occasion to recall Christ’s sermon on the mount. We did so for a good reason. The sermon on the mount is a declaration of the law of the kingdom of heaven. It was because of His relentless insistence upon the absolute imperatives of the sermon on the mount that Christ was crucified, Now this sermon has always presented something of a problem to those who have pondered upon it. Somehow it did not seem to fit the actual world. No conceivable or actual form of human social organization seemed to leave room for a personal, individual life which answered adequately the principles laid down upon the mount. And that says nothing of any social organization actually embodying those principles. The sermon on the mount seems to be the most utopian scheme ever proclaimed; it appears to be the great oratio obliqua. It suggests much ado about nothing.

But the sermon is very clear in telling us that it describes the true life as that life is lived in the atmosphere of heaven. It shows us that Christ does not regard things as they actually are as the standards for building the kingdom of peace and virtue, but that He has the kingdom of heaven make and maintain its own laws. Besides, the sermon shows us just as unmistakably that this heavenly kingdom with its lofty idealism makes all things temporal and actual subject to the absolute demands of the exalted Lawgiver in heaven.

Accordingly, in such a context of ideas, the oath also had to be included in the sermon on the mount. We know that the Jews of Jesus’ time were used to swearing oaths on the most trivial of occasions. The oath was invoked for every little thing in the daily routine; boldly and unblushingly they swore the most precious of oaths in connection with all the little exigencies of the home, the kitchen, and the shop. As a result, of course, the potency of the oath was diminished, and its edge blunted. In short, these Jews incorporated God’s name into the name of things which were not God’s; they took the awesome and miraculous out of God’s name, and the consuming fire out of God’s house. This they did by sinfully “taking for granted” the tremendous realities of the kingdom of heaven.

The Christ preached the sermon on the mount. He said that things should be approached from the other side. Men must not draw eternal things — God’s name, God’s being, God’s temple, God’s residence, God’s work — down to the level of the actual in order to accommodate these to finite human life. Eternity makes its own demands and these, consequently, are immutable, absolute and inescapable. The principle of wisdom is not to suit the heavenly to the earthly, but to refer all actual and temporal things to the perfect seriousness and authenticity of the heavenly and eternal. It is the part of wisdom to become used to the atmosphere of God, to breathe and live freely in the climate of absolute seriousness and truth. In pursuance of that principle, Christ during the course of His sermon says: Let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay. This is His reply to frivolous exchange of oaths customary now among the Jews. When they take the oath upon their lips in connection with the meanest and most trivial things — meanest and most trivial in their own estimation — they are but manifesting that their lives have at no time learned to tremble in God’s august presence, that they do not appreciate the great Presence of the power, the immanence and the puissance of God and of the kingdom of heaven. Just why do these Jews resort to the oath so facilely in the market place, in the cattle trade, and at every little occasion? Simply because they are used to making their utterances while standing outside of the bourne of God’s presence. He who on occasion states that God must be witness to a thing simply is stating, is he not, that in making his other speeches on other occasions he leaves God out of consideration? Now that too is wrong. But such conduct, at least, acknowledges the greatness of God and the awful terror of His judgment. But the man who calls upon God’s name in connection with every little this and that, and who does so without feeling the awesome sense of being in the presence of God, sins continuously. The first person sins because he reserves God for special occasions; the second sins because, although he includes God in the routine of his daily business, he does so without fear and trembling. But in the kingdom of heaven — such is Christ’s emphasis — a man must try to combine the good in each of the two positions. In God’s kingdom every single thing should experience the tension of the presence of God. So much is to be learned from the second man. But in that case everything which refers us to God’s presence ought to fill us with a sense of respect, inasmuch as God is in it, sees it, hears it, and judges it. And that the first man to whom we alluded can teach us.

Now the practical world of the Jews condemned this kind of teaching as making for a topsy-turvy universe. The Jews, you see, are departing from all the fundamental ideas of divine law. And this process of segregating actual life from the kingdom of heaven is, alas, so common that everyone is taking it for granted.

As a matter of fact the whole of Jewish life is quite independent of the legislative God, and of the kingdom which lays down its own fundamental laws, and makes them binding.

Over against this distorted life, then, Christ has manifested Himself in the sermon on the mount as the struggling Messiah, as the One who must make the crooked straight. By means of His sermon Christ again wants to raise the life of His people which has disappeared under the floor on which the very feet of the lawgiver are resting back to the high plane of the awful mystery of His silent but sublime majesty. To all those people who, because they are not living in the atmosphere of law are actually living carefree lives, Christ says: Let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these is of the devil.

Whatsoever is more! Not, whatsoever is against these. All “respectable” Jews and all “good” people and all “conventional” citizens like to say: Whatsoever is opposed to yea and nay is of the evil one. Only when it should be yes and it is no, do such people become aware that something is amiss. Outright agnosticism, outspoken heresy, revolt against established authority — in these only can such people recognize sin.

But Christ sees matters differently. For Him evil begins the moment one abstracts one’s yes and no from the sphere of the infinite, the eternal, the absolute. Our yea and nay, He says, must be fully informed by eternity. In fact, they must be so surcharged with the atmosphere of eternity that there is no room for more. The true version is not something artificially created. He whose yes and no come as the product of the soul’s struggles with God need not raise his voice or have recourse to oaths, for such a man professes to live under the pressure of the absolute command, and therefore imparts to his affirmation and denial the force of an oath. After all, the greatest sin is not, in the first place, that a vow is broken, but it is that a person regards the making and fulfilling of vows as something which can be done apart from the living presence of God. There the sin begins. Consider in this sense, for instance, the vows which men exchange with each other in reference to traffic regulations set up for the common good. The rules governing such traffic are conceived and fixed solely in terms of the commercial needs of a metropolis. Man always regulates his legislation in terms of man; he acts autonomously; in his legislating he leaves God out of consideration. However, in the city of the earth, the traffic must be directed by the raised arm of God, the chief Lawgiver. In the city of God, traffic cannot be conducted on one level, for the communication is going on between the people and God. The first table of the law cannot be separated from the second for one moment. Christ wants to tell us that sin does not begin where heresy has actually interfered with right thinking, but has already come in as a chronic malady the moment the problems of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, of yes and no, are cut loose from the absolute demands of the eternal truth of God. Not only does the heretic sin, but also the so-called orthodox man who does not feel the burden of a binding pressure in the presence of God. In fact, the latter is, by and large, the first of transgressions in the house of God, or, to put it better, the sin of the former begins in the shape of the transgression of the latter. The Pharisees maintain a sharp lookout for heretics and they do well. But when they fail to ask in the center of God’s forum about what is truth and what falsehood, they have already contaminated the atmosphere, both for their favorites and for those whom they dislike. Such is the first great heresy. Such is the heresy of the heart out of which are the issues of life.

Now by disseminating these ideas among the people Christ dismissed the oath completely in as far as the free communion of the citizens in that kingdom of heaven is concerned. Such was the painful labor of the Messiah to raise His people back to the level of the theocracy. Thus He heated the floor on which the feet of these people were dancing.

To this, His own rule, Christ always remains entirely faithful. He spoke all of His words in the light of the full day. He took them straight to the heart of God. He compiled no dictionary of formal and dignified phrases for use on certain occasions, retaining the jargon of the vernacular the while for all ordinary purposes. No, into all of His words He poured a content which was authentic and serious, freighted with the burden of eternity. As He senses it, the usual weighs as heavily as the unusual.

Therefore we can say that all of the words which He spoke were oaths. Christ never had to place His hand upon the Bible at the occasion of an inaugural, for the Word of truth is in His heart and ever issues from His mouth. In thought He adjures Himself each moment. He does not need the ritual. He is ever in an atmosphere of oath-taking, for He is always living in the kingdom of heaven, in Paradise, even though He is in the desert of the passion throughout these years.

Now if you cling to the fact that Christ was continually adjuring Himself, without making any use of a formal ritual for the purpose, you can begin to sense how grievously Caiaphas humiliated Him. We repeat: this request which Caiaphas put to Him was the most gruesome form of Christ-denial conceivable. Implicit in it is the denial of the fact Christ has never spoken, thought, or prayed, except as standing in the presence of the eternal and living God. The suffering of this was for Christ as bitter as death. The man who denied Him in this way was His judge. It is evident now that the judge cannot but condemn Him. He faltered in his best moment, the moment he exacted the oath. All the words of hatred and scorn, all the spitting, and beating, and buffeting were not quite as serious as this demand: “I adjure thee by the living God.” Christ had as the Messiah given His people the sermon on the mount as the fundamental ministration of the Word. In that sermon He placed His people under the spacious vault of truth. But in the Sanhedrin, where God puts Him over against His legal judge, the full arc of the justice and truth of God has disappeared behind a painted screen on which little stars have been embroidered. Stars and attractive little cherubs, embroidered perhaps by some respectable Jewish ladies’ aid society at which one feels himself to be at home “chez soi,” and not at home with God, “coram deo.” In the place of judgment godlessness entered first; thereafter, and consequently, ungodliness came in.[1] It was therefore a heavy burden which the Author of the sermon on the mount had to bear when God subjected His Son to authorities such as these. He who needed no adjuring is now adjured, just as is every heckling Jew in the market place.

[1] For that reason the Sanhedrin, by first explaining the burden of special revelation (their “exceeding great weight of glory”) on the basis of the life of the people and of the social and political life of the nation, had to yield to the vicious circle even though the special history of revelation had in principle overcome it (the relationship between general and special revelation in history).

We do well to appreciate fully that Christ’s suffering because of the Sanhedrin reached its zenith here. Suppose for a moment that Caiaphas had calmly listened to Christ’s defense, that the Sanhedrin because of the oaths which they themselves had exacted, had acknowledged that He was the Messiah, that all the bufferings to come later had been spared Him, that these men had now come to make the confession: Well then, we believe Thee; because of the oath which Thou hast sworn, we believe that Thou art the Messiah. Come now, let us talk together about the future of Israel. Even then, surely, Jesus would have been abused, mocked, blasphemed, and terribly afflicted. For then also, by simply demanding the oath, they would have been denying blasphemously that He was always living in an atmosphere of oath-binding seriousness. Any agreement which such a group might enter into with the Christ of God upon such a basis would at bottom have been and remained denial, disobedience, and unbelief.[2]

[2] The sin of unbelief, in the preparatory sermon, for example, can be very severely reprimanded if one takes the text of Caiaphas: I adjure thee. In line with the argument above part of the discussion could treat of the difference between the oaths God swears to Himself and the oaths which we demand of Him (He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar.) In this way such issues as asking for signs and insisting upon certainty are also seen from a proper perspective.

Nevertheless, even though Christ is suffering greatly when the demand that He take an oath is put to Him, He obediently takes the oath. He was moved to this not solely by the respect for the authorities designated by God, but also by His direct messianic duty.

Christ must still acknowledge the authority represented by the Sanhedrin. He must still acknowledge this spiritual court. Hence He takes the oath. The oath does not conflict with the justice of God. The ritual harmonizes with the idea. The transgression is that of the judges; it is not His. Just a moment ago when the judges together here had trampled on justice, Christ refused to subject Himself to them. His silence was a complete condemnation of their travesty on justice. He refused to allow the authorities to break up the avenues of revelation which He Himself had paved — recall, for instance, what He said of the maschil. On the other hand, however, when the authorities demand that He take an oath which enables Him, together with them, to stand in the presence of God in order that He may confirm the “good confession,” He stands ready to comply with their request. This represents several advantages. It puts Him in the one place where He wants to be. It puts Him in the atmosphere, in the medium, of God’s omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and holiness. There is another advantage. By arranging His speaking and His silence as He does, He can teach the Sanhedrin a true knowledge of itself. In the Sanhedrin, too, He can be the “falling and rising again of many.” For there are sheep in this stable also. An accused who can be made to express Himself only when the oath intervenes between Himself and His judges is taking that means to say that the rest of the judges’ conduct, be it the presentation of the charge or the answer to it, is acting apart from God. For the accused to employ such a method is for Him to aggravate the guilt, the condemnation, of the judge.

But Christ is also willing to take the oath now for the sake of His messianic office. Remember, Caiaphas has just raised the one important question in the world. He has asked whether Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

By this question all discussion of peripheral matters not related to the central issue is barred. Only the main issue will be discussed now. The question is not whether Jesus is a harbinger in the messianic cycle, nor whether He can make a rather formidable showing of Himself, can fearlessly hold His own in that corner of the temple where the gallery of the messianic types can be seen. No, no. The all-important issue now is whether He is or is not the Messiah. Is it true, Nazarene, that you are going to let the issues of the world converge upon us? Are you consummating the ages? Is it true that God “who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke to us through the prophets has in these last days” spoken to us through you? Art Thou the Son?

Had Christ been mute over against these questions, He would, as the Author of the sermon on the mount, have been a traitor to Himself, a traitor to the world given to Him for redemption, and a traitor to a universe which He must deliver from perdition, or at least from the tedium of the vicious circle, by virtue of the power of eternity. Above all, He would then have been a traitor to God who sent Him.

Christ must break the vicious circle now. If He is the Messiah, the last, the chief, the predestined One, then the very cycle of time has its consummation in Him. Then the world through Him will rise straight to the plane of heavenly, sovereign, transcendent, and positive redemption. If He is the Messiah, then from this moment on, this moment in which the Messiah puts Himself in the center of the movement of the world, the crisis of the world will be brought about. Then the vacillations, the terribly fatiguing vacillations of blessing and curse, of faith and unbelief will be frustrated by His equilibrium; then the present world, the world of common grace, will rise vertically to the plane of heaven, of perfect special grace, or it will, on the contrary, descend straight to the hell of perfect bereavement, also of the smallest measure of grace.

Come, Christ, and make the reply. Now doth Thy soul bear the responsibility for the whole world. Now everything is conditioned by Thy answer, and Thy expressed reply is as important and as ordinary now, as unimportant and as unusual as being born and dying are, as the resurrection from the dead and the return to judgment are. Ah, speak now, O Christ, and take the oath. Say but a word; be very simple, very common, Christ, my God. Be very simple, my Saviour, and the windows will tremble and crash. All the windows will break, and all the hearts, and all the thermometers by which they would measure Thee. Swear, O Christ; for Thee to do so is as natural and as ordinary as the caress which brushes a child’s forehead, as a breath of Thy sublime sleep. O Saviour, speak, Thy purpose and attention fastened on God. God is standing behind the president there. He has ever heard Thy voice; He hearkens every day. Speak now, Thou Christ Jesus, and say: “I swear that Jesus of Nazareth, bound or free, is the predestined Messiah and that this hour is conclusive for eternal weal or woe.” So wilt Thou bring time to its consummation. The world will never again be able to rid itself of Thee. Thy speaking will inoculate the world with the serum of eternal judgment, and thus be the loosing of every bond in which it lies ensnared. The world lies bound in the web of a relentless, vicious circle. Death and life, grave and cradle, failure and success, justice and injustice, the yearning for the Messiah and the blasphemy of Him — these balance each other. But if Jesus of Nazareth will, under the pressure of the oath, put Christ in the center of the world’s activity, that world will fill out its measure of sin, and thus loose the bonds by which the last judgment is still held back. Then — and this is the second result — the surrender of souls to God, the worship and the faith of the called of God, will cause the work of God’s true church to flourish until the last day. Swear now, O Christ, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full (Gen_15:16). And, is it not true that a great birth, the birth of a church, is due according to the programme of the great Creator of all things? Swear — time hurries on, say the Jews; Thy oath is due, saith Thy God.

Thereupon Jesus opened His mouth and said just two words: Thou sayest, or, Thou hast said.

Two short words, as simple as yes and no. But those two words had the force of an oath even for the Jews at this time. By pronouncing them in reply to a demand for an oath, Christ assumed the burden of the demand, and swore that He was the Son of God.

This was the last and the perfect fulfillment of Christ’s prophetic office in the state of humiliation which He performed over against His people. In the final hour He reaches into the highest council and confesses Himself. Now He has sworn this good confession in the presence of the Sanhedrin and of Caiaphas. Now His official obedience has attained perfect faithfulness to itself. And this was done in the very hour in which the demand of Caiaphas was, as we saw, a denial of Christ, just as Peter’s extravagant oaths, as we shall see later, also denied Him. Over against this denial of His work and of the essence of His being, then, Christ places the good confession.

For Israel this trial has now reached its deepest depth. Israel began by asking about His disciples and His doctrine, about His temporal, His external, His mundane manifestations. Now it is asking about the essence of His being. This question brings about the decision, for the essence explains the work; the peripheral manifestation does not explain the central significance.

Then Jesus swore by God; He swore by Himself. He is God and man in one person. That also proved to be the great concealment. That which the incarnation began and death consummated became one reality when the Son of God swore by Himself. Hence the oath can benefit only Him who takes the oath, and God, and Christ at His word. The God who swears by God is merely saying yes. He cannot transcend His own word. His yea is yea. His nay, nay. Whatever man would have which is more than this is of the evil one. God, swearing by Himself, is simply God, saying yes and no. But this is of as tremendous import as is everything which God does. Hear, Israel, God is swearing by God. The futile attempt of worldly wisdom to appraise Jesus in terms of His own disciples and doctrine has been frustrated. This vicious circle has been supplanted by a luminous arc, a circle again, it is true, but now it is a wonderful one: God appealing to God. What else could He possibly do? The simplest thing is the mightiest, and all of His mighty deeds are as simple as is the morning light. But what else could Jesus do except to have God swear by God? As far as heaven is exalted higher than the earth, so much higher is the circle of God exalted higher than the circle of men. God swears by God; why any further argument about this on our part? What is more reasonable than authority?

The ground under the feet of Jesus was not on fire; there was no burning bush in the vicinity — only the chair of the priest. Someone sat in it, a man preening himself; and all of his adornment was but a maligning of the stars and of God. Irrespective, however, of the fact that the Sanhedrin remained essentially unperturbed and that no burning bushes were seen, this hour is of greater importance than the other one in which Moses met Jaweh.

Then also God pronounced His name. The mightiest name has the simplest shape. I am that I am, He said. Could any name be simpler? Any more humiliating? What in the world could God possibly say besides this? He is who He is — and that ends it.

Now just as Moses learned to know God as one who called Himself Himself and as One who turns man away from all inquiries about Him with a holy smile and a reference to Himself, so God now swears by God.

That ends the matter. God dismisses the session. O God, He has gone already. No more may be said. He will not allow another word to be spoken in all eternity.

Take the shoes from your feet, for the ground on which you are standing is holy ground. God swore by God. In all questions put by professional theologians God refers us to Himself. He is what He is. That is His terrible name. Now that it has been uttered, the plagues begin to take effect in Egypt, the exodus of Israel begins, and we all take our position in front of a Red Sea. To the one it will be a grave, to the other a way across. No, I made a mistake. I mean the Red Sea.

Thou hast said. Thereupon the earth quaked, the heavens shook. The angels fell back, and the blessed took respite from sighing.

For He said it. An oath binds Him to me. The crisis has come. And all of the thermometers are bursting because of the heat of the atmosphere here. He is the Lord. Did He not come to bring fire upon the earth?

Religion is terribly simple. That is why no man can appropriate it in his own strength. And the cause of this is an oath-swearing Jesus.