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SUBJECT: 08. Chapter 8: Christ Sentenced to Death by His People
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C H A P T E R E I G H T
Christ Sentenced to Death by His People
Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death.
—Mat_26:65-66.
CHRIST first held His peace in the presence of the Sanhedrin; thereupon He spoke, and in speaking expressed Himself completely. Therefore death now overtakes Him.
Now it is inevitable that death come. His word, to which He gave full and free expression, releases the storm of reckless elemental forces. The storm breaks over His own head first of all, For He is the Son of man. It strikes Him down. Every member of the Sanhedrin rises from his seat to join in shouting: He must die. Their shouting is freighted with the burden of God’s tempests in this hour of Christ’s ministration of the Word.
The clock overhead was about to strike twelve. Tensely hung the weights.
The narrative at this point is short but eloquent. After a long investigation the Sanhedrin have as yet unearthed nothing to justly warrant a death sentence against Jesus. But Christ Himself has enabled them to discover what they want. His own declaration to the effect that He is the Messiah and that from now on His messianic inaugural will set in, gives the Sanhedrin the evidence they seek: namely, a clear and nicely circumscribed statement coming directly from the Nazarene, witnessed by many, and quite sufficient, they supposed, for the sentence they wished to pronounce. Accordingly, the high priest gets up from his chair. He asks his fellow members what their opinion is. Do they wish more witnesses? Certainly not. This one statement suffices. The conclusion is easily reached: the Nazarene has blasphemed God. Blasphemy—that is their charge; that is His guilt.
Just what, we wonder, was this blasphemy? According to the Jewish books of law many offences were subsumed under the head of that charge. An exhaustive list of transgressions headed by the caption “blasphemy” would prove too long to insert here. In general we can say that that person was regarded as a blasphemer who made arrogant statements against the law, or who “stretched out his hands against God.” Blasphemy was held to be a more serious transgression than idolatry; the blasphemer, it was maintained, sinned not only against the commands of God but also directly against God Himself and against His honor.
Now this charge of blasphemy was being leveled against the Son of God. True, this is not the first time. Jesus had also been charged with blasphemy the time He had forgiven the sins of the people and the time when He had dared to say: I and the Father are one. By making that assertion, the incriminating judgment of Jewish authority had maintained, Jesus was arrogating the privileges of God to Himself. The right to forgive sins was solely God’s prerogative, they held; and they went on to say that the Nazarene, by naming Himself the equal of God, was robbing God of His honor.
It was in line with that same tendency that the high priest now declared Christ to be a blasphemer of God. For Jesus had just unmistakably asserted that He would enter into His glory and would take His place, presently, at the right hand of the Father. Moreover, He had said that this would take place hereafter.
We must remember that this last word hereafter should be emphasized here. By using it Christ emphatically states that His suffering and death are to serve as the way to His enthronement, to His glorification high up beyond the clouds.
Now the fact that the Messiah, when He should appear, should mount the throne and sit next to God was a conviction among the Jews also. But these supposed that this stately coronation would take place in public. All of God’s excellent people and all the world, too, would be present, they thought, to witness the wonder of that inauguration. God would give expression to a clear call addressed to the Messiah: My Friend and my Favored One, take the higher place of honor.
But that which Jesus lays claim to here in the presence of this Sanhedrin does not correspond to the features of that other picture at all. This Jesus would be known as the Messiah and would experience His coronation hereafter. In other words, He makes the coronation independent of the world of visible things. Very facilely He ties up that sublime, heavenly event with His own actual suffering and with His death. It is this feature of the presentation which the logic of His Majesty the high priest must call blasphemy. For, according to the priest’s well substantiated attitude, this means that the filth of the world is being recklessly strewn over the throne of God. According to this, the arrogant bearing of the rebel-rabbi of Nazareth is unblushingly mingling the pollution of actual life with the immaculate glory of God’s throne. The scum of this world is, without any transitional modification whatever, deemed worthy to decorate the throne of God. Repulsive, such Nazarene pride! Precisely that which the broom of the Sanhedrin quickly sweeps away from its holy door and out of its precious corner is being identified with the beatific panorama of the heavenly Paradise.
This is blasphemy. If Christ really is what these say of Jesus, then His coronation, taking place without perceptible transition, is indeed blasphemy against heaven, an obliteration of the lines of distinction between the ugly and the beautiful, between the profane and the holy.[1]
[1] Compare Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentaar zum N.T., Volume 1, p. 1017.
This, then, becomes the most important—or better, the only— count in the formulation of the charge against Jesus as drawn up by the Sanhedrin: blasphemy.
Now it occurs to us at once that Caiaphas is sounding a very different note at this time from that which he struck when he first advised the Sanhedrin to lead Christ to His death. We have observed before[2] that Caiaphas, as the president of the Sanhedrin, pleaded for the necessity of Jesus’ death. Then his argument had been a different one. This one man, he had said then, must die for all, in order that the disturbance He causes may not induce the Roman authorities to completely rob us of all our authority.
[2] Christ in His Suffering, p. 51, ff. [Chapter 4, “The Last Priest Pointing to the Last Sacrificial Lamb”]
You see that in terms of such logic the death of Jesus was being defended upon a utilitarian basis. Now Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin take a different lead. Now the reason named in the charge is not being grounded upon a utilitarian basis which would necessarily be a human one, but upon a legal basis which is divine. First it had been argued that Jesus’ death was desirable in order to keep the body of the Jewish people wholesome and well: the social unity of God’s people required His death. At this time, on the contrary, His death is deemed necessary in order to preserve the spiritual unity existing between God and His people. The argument now goes that if this man who has blasphemed God does not die, His sin will not merely call out the Roman sword but also arouse the wrath of God against the guilty people. When they had first considered the case of the Nazarene, they had concluded not so much that the intolerance of the Sanhedrin simply had to cast Him out as that the intolerance of Roman authority, which simply would brook no mass revolt, could not be ignored. At the basis of this argument, you see, had lain the assumption that they themselves might, if necessary, still have been able to endure the Nazarene. But here, in this last session, the members of the Sanhedrin make an appeal to the Holy intolerance of God. It is heaven that cannot tolerate the blasphemer. Again, you see, the Sanhedrin divest themselves of the responsibility for intolerance by appealing to the law of God, a law which, as it happens, makes it binding upon office-bearers to put the blasphemer out of the midst of the people. Just as in the ancient Paradise, man had placed the responsibility for his conduct upon his neighbor, upon the outside world represented by the woman and the serpent, first, and upon God Himself, who after all had “given” the woman, then, just so the responsibility is now first transferred to the outside world represented by Rome, and then to God Himself. “Here we stand: we can do nothing else.” Necessity demands that we act as we do.
We do well to note this attempt on the part of the Sanhedrin to divest themselves of responsibility. It shows us how gruesome is the blasphemy—we reverse the charge—which is given expression in the pathetic symbol resorted to by Caiaphas when he rends his clothes. We read that the high priest did indeed rend his garments. The action was a symbol of grief. It is a symbol which recurs often both in the Bible and in other books as the appropriate token for giving expression to a sense of abject misery.
Now we shall not ask, as so many have had a way of doing, just what clothes Caiaphas rent at this time. The text gives us no assurance at all on this point. There is no basis for thinking in this connection, of the official priestly cloak, and even less of the robes worn by the high priest, for they were not in the temple, and the official temple-dress was consequently unnecessary. But to ferret one’s way into such particulars can hardly be justified. True, it is worth remarking that to a certain extent and under certain circumstances the practice of rending his clothes was forbidden to the priest. In general it can be said that he was not allowed to give expression in this way to mourning. The priest does not keep his eyes bent to the earth, but raises them up to God. According to the stipulations of the law, therefore, he was not allowed to mourn the death of a private person. The death of members of the family might perturb and excite others, and these might be allowed a glance at the grave and a day of weeping, but the high priest, and in general even the priest, always had to uphold the dignity of his office. Isaiah, the moment children were born to him, immediately acted as a prophet, and—as is evident from the name given the children—he related this happy domestic event organically to his official calling. Just so the priest, one whose soul had been excited to zeal by official fire, might not allow himself to be detained by taking a glance at the grave, and might not, together with profane people, rend his garments because of a death in the family. In Israel every office proclaims aloud the great ultimatum: let the dead bury the dead, but do thou, O bearer of the office, come quickly! Profane people take a day off for the funeral; they rend their garments; they weep at the gates of the cemetery. But priests are office bearers; they keep their attention unswervingly fixed upon the living God. He is their destination; en route to Him, they must keep their face raised to the sun. The priest is on his way to the eternal East; consequently no death may detain him. God’s servant may “greet no one on the way.” That means that he may not be distracted by the living. And might he then let himself be held back by the dead? No, those who appreciate the priesthood as a full consecration of their persons, of their strength, and of their gifts to God, as a turning to God which can brook no turning back once the hand has been set to the plough—these will understand that the priesthood may not rend its garments in the presence of the dead. That which lies at the periphery of actual, mundane life, may not deflect the priest. He must ever turn and return to the center of things. No mere incident may move a priest to mourning, for his laughing and weeping, his putting on and rending of clothes represent ministration, approach to God, persistent concern about the central truth of God and communion with God.
Observed from this point of view,[1] the rent garment of Caiaphas the high priest is nothing but the result of his “big” words about Jesus’ “big” words. Jesus had said: “I am the Messiah; my enthronement will soon take place; and he who does not believe this blasphemes God.” That was Jesus’ significant statement. Caiaphas follows in turn with his and says: “To say that is to speak blasphemy.” Thereupon he rends his clothes by way of saying that this Nazarene and his spoken declaration were not merely an incident, an externality, a tiny speck on the periphery of Israel’s life, but that it involves the nervus rerum, the quintessence of life and death, of truth and falsehood. As Caiaphas would have it, that which Jesus the Nazarene says here is not a passing incident which the high priest may ignore inasmuch as this man of Nazareth will himself see to it that He and His work are interred in the graveyard. No, Caiaphas maintains, He is the greatest obstacle to the work of God in Israel. The Nazarene is worth going to the trouble of rending his clothes for, inasmuch as he attacks the essence of Israel’s religion; God has His bow in His hand, and will send the shaft straight to the heart of the Sanhedrin unless that body puts this transgressor out of the way together with all the ungodly. By making use of this token, Caiaphas presents the problem of the day as being one of unusual importance. The priest who ordinarily may permit himself to be detained by nothing is now being withheld on his route to the Father’s heart by this Nazarene. By the act of rending his clothes Caiaphas ascribes to the event of the day a singular importance. According to Jewish rabbis, blasphemy deserved the practice of rending one’s clothes. Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah came to Hezekiah in rent clothes because Rabshakeh, the commander in chief of the army of Sennacherib, had blasphemed the God of Israel (see 2Ki_18:37). We can say, then, that when the high priest rends his clothes because of this day’s blasphemy, he is taking upon himself the role of Hezekiah and his ministers. And this superscription is being written over the Nazarene: Fellow of Rabshakeh, blasphemer of Israel, one who profanes the holy God at the sacred wall of the city of God. Caiaphas grieves at the thought that so false a member could have become incorporated into the body of the people. Alas, alas, to think that Abraham should have given birth to such a son. Brethren, let us mourn in God’s presence, for God’s sake and for God’s benefit. May our rent garments prove to heaven that the ointment of Israel’s divine apothecaries knew how at the proper time to rid itself of this obnoxious fly.
[1] We agree with the interpretation defended by P. G. Groenen, op. cit., p. 261, who says that the prohibition of the practice of rending one’s clothes does not apply to priests in general. Compare also Grosheide, op. cit., pp. 332, 333. True, some think that we may infer from Lev_10:6 and Lev_21:10 that the priest may on no occasion resort to rending his garment. “But in Lev_10:6 some mention is made of a special occasion. In other words, the priests were not allowed to manifest tokens of mourning for Nadab and Abihu who were killed by the fire of the Lord; and in Lev_21:10 allusion is made to a manifestation of sorrow on the occasion of the death of a private person. However, the prohibition did not hold for other circumstances as is apparent from I Mach. 11:71. And was it not required of the priest that he be more sensitive to blasphemy than any other person on this occasion?” (Groenen, p. 261).
You see that Caiaphas is appearing in the role of a procurator of heaven and of the great Name. He takes the burden of the people upon his own shoulders. That which the death of Annas his father-in-law—the old man is sitting beside him—that which the death of his own wife, of his children, of his brethren could not elicit from him, that the word of this Nazarene achieves. For the Nazarene has blasphemed God. Thus Caiaphas shares in Israel’s grief because it has given birth to this abomination of the Nazarene. Thus he at the same time evades the great question whether or not Jesus does the essential mourning in God’s distorted universe. Caiaphas rends his clothes, for he shares the guilt of Israel which has been unable to prevent this blot from disfiguring the immaculate garments of the bride of heaven. By means of his torn clothing, Caiaphas covers the broken heart of Jesus lest it ask Him the great question about the share which God Himself through Jesus Christ took in our sin.
That, then, was the guilt of Caiaphas. He completely eliminated the high-priestly concept of satisfaction and reconciliation from his theology. Really it is astonishing to think that in the trial of Jesus Christ His priesthood was persistently and completely ignored by the people. We have pointed out already that Christ’s prophetic office was subjected to mockery: Declare unto us, who hath struck thee. His kingly office is similarly made the butt of jest and the object of disdain on the part of Jewish and Roman authorities and non-authorities: blows, the crown of thorns, the reed, and the purple robe. But the priesthood? Alas, who has taken note of that? At no time did Caiaphas penetrate through to the core of things. The man who as a priest allows himself to become perturbed about the “phenomenon” of Jesus Christ never once as he pleaded against Him saw by his mind’s eye the great law of the priesthood. Had he understood the hidden meaning of Israel’s priestly office, Christ’s death, Christ’s being bound could have appeared to him as the way to resurrection and to life. Instead, he remains unaffected by his own problem as a priest, and he pronounces the charge of blasphemy upon Him who wants to pursue the line of priestly ministration to its deepest depth in order that thus He may draw its highest heights out of Himself also. And this, surely, was the offer, this was the personally achieved power, the personally accomplished privilege —that significant threefold theme of Israel’s liturgical music. Caiaphas, couldst thou not listen to thy own voice one hour? Was is so great a sin in the Nazarene that He took seriously thine own themes: those familiar themes, personally achieved power, personally wrought privilege? This ignoring by the high priest of precisely that which should have charmed the priest’s attention keeps us from thanking him for what, in other respects, was a trenchant formulation of the problem. We are almost inclined to praise him for putting the issue so clearly. For it is quite true that what Christ says of Himself now does indeed detain all priests who otherwise can be held back by nothing.[1] Christ’s one word, I am the Messiah, suffices to stop all timepieces, even those of priests who are wont to go steadily to their destination even in the presence of death. Hence the fact that Caiaphas granted our Lord the great honor of tearing his clothes in His presence, and of replacing the opportunistic arguments which he had used before by a basic legal argument, would have been a great merit in him if only Caiaphas had related the problem of the Nazarene to the fundamental issue of the priestly office (reconciliation through satisfaction, suffering and death) and if, furthermore, his rent clothes had been but the symbol of a broken heart. As for the first, however, Caiaphas did not even give Christ time to express Himself completely. He had no ear to listen to the word that Christ by His death had to pay retribution to God’s justice, that His decrease had to be the increase of His people. Accordingly, in reference to the second point, the rending of Caiaphas’ clothes was not really an expression of his profound grief. It could be described better as a concealment of his great joy, of the greatest gladness that can move human flesh: the joy of self-vindication over against the priest of another order. When Caiaphas rent his clothes he did not rend his heart. He was merely acting. In his own heart, surely he was glad that he had a count on which he could condemn Jesus.
[1] Compare the unison passage in Bach’s Passion of St. Matthew: (Er hat gesagt) ich bin Gottes Sohn.
The unimpaired majesty of Jesus Christ becomes apparent from Caiaphas’ conduct. That conduct tells us that we cannot even put the problem—to use a mundane phrase for a moment— we cannot even put the problem of Jesus of Nazareth correctly without reference to Christ Himself. Caiaphas’ formulation of that issue is as acute as “flesh” can possibly make it. He speaks of blasphemy, he tears his clothes, and he says that this is no idle detention on his way to God. To this extent his is a true testimony. But the full significance of the problem of Jesus Christ is apparent to and experienced by that man only who has learned to see and live and think in Christ Himself. Such a man will see above the rent garments of Caiaphas the broken heart of Jesus, and will know that this was the great detention of the priest of our confession, and at the same time His great stride foreward on the way to our redemption and reconciliation. The full bearing of the significance of Jesus Christ is appreciated only by those who are themselves included in Christ. He who is the priest is also the prophet. Yes, it is possible to speak of titanic pride (it is so easy to detect pride in others) in Caiaphas when he dares to call that blasphemy which is nothing less than the self-revelation of God in the flesh. Gross arrogance it is, but this arrogance does not inhere in what he expressed nor in stating the charge so truly, but in his wanting to put it as he did, and in his not wanting to listen to God and to His Christ. Caiaphas’ sin did not consist of expressing himself at the time when Christ was making His selfdeclaration; but the fact that he deliberately wanted to conclude what he did conclude, constitutes his haughtiness. Not his caustic speech, but his indifference to God’s speaking, proclaims his pride. As for the rest, all that is alive must say with Caiaphas that here, at Christ’s self-confession, the issue of tolerance is quite out of the question. Only when this problem has been ruled out by you and me can it a parte Dei again be linked up with your destiny and mine. One or the other, the death sentence or worship is in order here, nothing else. One or the other: Christ is deserving of no tolerance, or He alone is the means of our still finding tolerance with God. Either Christ is the object of God’s intolerance for His own loss, or of God’s edict of tolerance for our good.
Caiaphas did not understand that. To understand it one must be living in the Christ. When he rent his clothes he was groping for just such life. But in his groping, in his feeling for it, he was prompted by a perverse will. That is his condemnation.
We have said that it was God who rent the clothes of Caiaphas. Ah, the heavenly mockery, the exalted irony of that! In the last session in which the Sanhedrin might officially meet, the high priest rent his clothes. He said: quis non fleret?[1] The man who may never express sorrow, never manifest mourning, who may let himself be detained by nothing, now mourns officially, for he can go no further. The Nazarene stands in his way. Caiaphas, you have spoken truth and said the right thing. Such is the answering voice of God. You have spoken truth, but unto your own death, God thunders. The priest rends his garments: for the moment, mourning keeps him out of the service. God accepts this formulation of the problem by tearing the clothes later behind which He Himself was concealed in Israel; that is, by tearing the veil in the temple, the veil of the sanctuary of the Old Testament dwelling place of God. By that token God will eternally dismiss the Sanhedrin, remove the office of the priest forever and choose crepe as the uniform decoration for a temple which is now dedicated to death.
[1] Who would not weep?
Christ the high priest withholds the hands of every priest: quis non fleret? Praise, praise the Lord, my soul, with all thy strength.
God, we said, comes forward a second time and rends the heart of Jesus. For the fact that His people now point Him to His death grieves the heart of Jesus most acutely. He had come to His own, and His own receive Him not. It is true, of course, that the Sanhedrin could not harm Jesus, for the Sanhedrin could not put Jesus to death without the authorization of the Roman government. The sentence of the Sanhedrin had to be confirmed by that of Pilate.
But it is just that which aggravates the suffering of Jesus. Imagine for a moment that the Jews had been able to send Jesus into death without the authorization of the Roman empire, and of Pilate the procurator. That judgment of the Sanhedrin, then, would not have declared that it regarded Jesus as being accursed by the whole world. A father sometimes punishes his child within the boundaries and regulations of family life when he would by no means like to make that child subject to the chastisement of the outside world. The church sometimes punishes someone according to the regulations of the church, but does not by that act accede to a motion of striking his name from the books of the world. Just so it is conceivable that Israel had wanted to sentence the Nazarene within the pale, within the limits and laws, of the Jewish nation, and at the same time by no means have wished to see Him be accursed by the outside world in general. But when as now the Sanhedrin pronounces the death sentence upon Jesus because it maintains that Jewish laws and legal interpretation demand it, and then goes on to ask Roman authority to confirm the action, this act means nothing less than disowning a child of Abraham, not only in Abraham’s presence but also in that of the pagan world.
We can say, then, that the sentence of the Sanhedrin having been made in full cognizance of the fact that it required Pilate’s confirmation, was the severest possible condemnation of Christ. For Christ as a child of Abraham this sentence is conclusive. As a legal pronouncement this decision of the Sanhedrin weighed more heavily upon Him than did the sentence of Pilate. Pilate gives Jesus up with a shrug of the shoulders; Caiaphas does so with rent garments. Pilate gives Him up while washing his hands in innocence; Caiaphas says: If I may not surrender this man to Satan, all my official work will be fruitless, and I have sacrificed to God in vain. Pilate says: Perhaps He is a threat to the state —perhaps, perhaps; and Caiaphas: Most certainly He is a threat to the universe—there is no doubt about it. Pilate says: His death is one way out of a difficult situation; at least I hope it is; I could wish very much that it were. Caiaphas concludes: His death is an act of justice; it is a restoration of justice; the world cannot go on except over His dead body; I swear that this is so. Pilate argues: The peace of my divine Caesar will be preserved by His death. And Caiaphas: Remove this offence, for my God cannot keep His holy Sabbath this way; and my orthodox faith has a great respect for the Sabbaths of God. Pilate gives Jesus up while he asks the conundrum, what is truth? Pilate gives Jesus up because of excessive pressure being put upon him; Caiaphas because his office compels him to. Pilate surrenders Jesus in the name of human law (ius), a law which must seek out. and work out that which is best for the well-being of society. But Caiaphas surrenders Jesus on the authority of spiritual, divine law (fas), a law which has no concern about how it can be of service to the people but only in making all things work together for the glory of the most blessed God. Pilate sentences Jesus alogically (Why ask what truth is, when expedience can be our only norm?); Caiaphas sentences Him swearing that the Logos, the eternal Word, by whom all things were made, demands the death of the Nazarene.
Then God rent the heart of Jesus. God had introduced Him into the loins of Abraham, had sent Him into the world, into the fellowship of Abraham’s flesh and blood. Jesus’ heart did beat and had to heat in harmony with the heart of Abraham. But the blood of Abraham and of his degenerate offspring refuses to accept the blood of Jesus. His own receive Him not. He is driven out by His own blood; and this is called the purging of Israel, of an Israel which knows how to rid itself of infectious matter. Thus God wrenches the heart of Jesus out of the body of Israel. That means excruciating pain, it is true that while God was tearing this heart out of Israel’s physical body, He was also destroying His people. But that was no comfort to Jesus. If He had consoled Himself with the thought that His destruction as a child of Abraham also involved the destruction of all that was carnal in Abraham, this would have constituted His first sin. Then He would have been guilty of death, guilty not for our sakes, but because of His own transgression.
Therefore suffering is His only portion. God steps up to Him and tears His heart out. Quis non fleret? Father Abraham is saying, praise the Lord, my soul, with all thy strength. His flesh has been torn from His body; both His heart and His head have this day been lost to Him. But His Te Deutm never ceases. Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, Thy Father Abraham joyfully longed to see this Thy day; and he saw it and was glad . . . Jesus, Jesus, darest Thou assume the burden of Thy own word? For Thou Thyself hast said it.
But now God arises, and, raising His voice above that of the Sanhedrin, He cries: He is guilty of death. We have noted before that Caiaphas’ utterance, “One must die for all,” was a statement made by God as well as by the high priest.[1] That applies also to Caiaphas’ conclusion, which pronounced Jesus guilty of death. This statement, too, is in this unique hour being sounded in the world from hell below and from heaven above. Both of these make use of the tongue of Caiaphas to pronounce the sentence in human language. Jesus is guilty of death. According to the one, because He has blasphemed God (that is the first explanation); according to the other, because He has taken the blasphemy of others upon Him (that is the second commentary). The conclusion is the same: He is guilty of death. The one, in commenting upon the sentence says: He almost caused the world to vanish in the fervent heat of the wrath of God called out upon it by His unbearable blasphemy; but we at the opportune time rescued the world by casting before Satan the sacrifice of this least worthy of men in order that the wrath of God might be stilled over the ship of state. The other explanation says: God rescued the world by having all the guilt of blasphemy converge upon Him, by putting Him in the place of all those who by their sins have mocked and blasphemed God.
[1] Christ in His Suffering, p. 61 ff. [Chapter 4, “The Last Priest Pointing to the Last Sacrificial Lamb”]
Never was it as plain as in this awful hour that the question of sin and of virtue is not a question of taste but of necessity, not one of utility but one of justice. Not one conditioned by the needs of felicitous social life among men but one which has bearing on the relationship existing between God and creature. Since this sublime hour the language of man is no longer a mere children’s prattle but has become a psalm sung in condemnation of the curse, a doxology condemning blasphemy.
For the Word became flesh and this Word is inescapably relevant to all things. All human words are measured by the standards of this one Word. Either Christ blasphemes God or all those not included in Christ blaspheme Him. However that may be, no human speech after this last session of the Sanhedrin can declare its independence of the Word which was in the beginning. No longer are there idle words.
Rend your clothes; mourning befits the universe. Rend your garments, for He who has never wept will meet His crisis here. But in your weeping remember that the grief must spring from the heart. Rend your heart, therefore, and not your garments. In the last analysis doxologies and blasphemies are not little things. They issue from the inner life. In the beginning was the Word and it tabernacled among us; and it wants to tabernacle within us also, and remain with us into eternity. The end of Caiaphas and the flesh is the torn garment. But the beginning of all those included in Jesus is a broken heart.
That broken heart God will not despise. He yearned for it greatly when He broke the heart of Jesus as He stood behind the chair of Caiaphas. So highly did God esteem our broken hearts that He gave the torn heart of Jesus for them. They were worth that much to Him. Alas, alas, if He had despised the broken and the contrite heart . . . then had He despised the broken heart of His Son precious as it was! And then Caiaphas would have deserved that a monument be planted for him at this crossroads of the world.