Jesus before Caiaphas

After Jesus was arrested, he was taken to Caiaphas, the high priest. He also stood before various religious leaders. This scene sets up what will happen through the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. It is depicted in Matthew 26:57-66, Luke 22:66-71, and Mark 14:53-64. Jesus makes two statements that compels the religious leaders to crucify Him. The first one is, “ you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven..” The second statement comes when they ask Jesus if he is the Son of God. His response is “Yes. I am.” The religious leaders use these statements as evidence to crucify Jesus.

To understand what is going on, you have to see the religious leaders as stand ins for the knowledge of good and evil. Jesus’ fist statement was a declaration that a man will receive God’s immortality and be considered equal to God. The knowledge of good and evil opposes this idea. The second statement was a declaration that Jesus is the son of God and he is the self existing one. To be the son of God meant that immortality was yours. His response “I am” in Hebrew would actually be “Yahweh” the name of God that means self existing one. Jesus is declaring that God’s immortality is His but the knowledge of good and evil is declaring that he is not by sentencing him to death.

This is what takes place in the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. These two views play out. In His death, it appears that the knowledge of good and evil is winning, but Jesus is proven correct in his resurrection and ascension.

Of course, Jesus is also a stand in for us, so this also shows us how the knowledge of good and evil is sentencing us to death. This makes the whole death, resurrection, and ascension a question of whether or not man is the child of God. The death of Jesus shows that the knowledge of good and evil appears to be correct in saying that we are not God’s children. However, the resurrection shows that God’s immortality is a free gift to all who believe, and the ascension shows that we are equal to God.

The Life of Jesus Jesus before Caiaphas|The Trial of Jesus->