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  VOL 2 - CHRIST ON TRIAL
  by Klaas Schilder
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Schilder's examination of Christ's trial covering His arrest, interrogation
before Annas, appearance before the Sanhedrin, trial before Pilate and Herod,
and condemnation, exploring themes of justice, mockery, and Christ's acceptance
of injustice.

  Chapters: 34

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 00.2. Translator Note
    2. 00.3. Foreword (Reprint)
    3. 00.4. Foreword (Original)
    4. 00.5. Preface
    5. 00.6. e-Sword Module Prepared by BibleSupport.com
    6. 01. Chapter 1: Christ Being Led To Annas
    7. 02. Chapter 2: Christ’s Apology Before Annas
    8. 03. Chapter 3: Christ Condemns the Vicious Circle
    9. 04. Chapter 4: The Vicious Circle Condemns Christ
   10. 05. Chapter 5: Christ Standing Mute Before the Sanhedrin
   11. 06. Chapter 6: Christ Taking an Oath Before the Sanhedrin
   12. 07. Chapter 7: Christ Vanquishing the Vicious Circle as the Son of Man
   13. 08. Chapter 8: Christ Sentenced to Death by His People
   14. 09. Chapter 9: Christ Being Mocked Upon the Prophetic Mountain
   15. 10. Chapter 10: Christ Being Isolated a Second Time
   16. 11. Chapter 11: Christ Led Back to the House of Bondage
   17. 12. Chapter 12: Christ Confronted By the Dead Judas
   18. 13. Chapter 13: Christ’s Blood Accepting a Memorial in Jerusalem
   19. 14. Chapter 14: Christ Being Thrust Outside of the Sphere of Mosaic Law
   20. 15. Chapter 15: Christ Being Raised Above the Sphere of Mosaic Law
   21. 16. Chapter 16: Christ Accused Upon the Royal Mountain
   22. 17. Chapter 17: Christ’s Apology For His Kingship
   23. 18. Chapter 18: Christ Being Negated Upon the Royal and Prophetic Mountain
   24. 19. Chapter 19: Christ Being Silent Before Pilate
   25. 20. Chapter 20: Christ Before Herod: Israel Before Esau
   26. 21. Chapter 21: Christ Being Silent Before Herod and Being Mocked in the Vale of Martyrs
   27. 22. Chapter 22: Christ Jesus Completely Outlawed
   28. 23. Chapter 23: Christ the Outlaw and His Forgotten Chapter
   29. 24. Chapter 24: Christ - or - Barabbas
   30. 25. Chapter 25: Christ Is Pleaded for and Travestied
   31. 26. Chapter 26: Christ’s Blood Esteemed Less Than That of Abel
   32. 27. Chapter 27: Christ’s Blood Being Shed By Human Agency the First Time
   33. 28. Chapter 28: Christ Caricatured By the World
   34. 29. Chapter 29: Christ Condemned

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  CHAPTER 1: 00.2. TRANSLATOR NOTE
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Translator Note

Many of the merits and none of the defects of this translation are owing to Dr.
Henry Beets, who carefully read and edited the manuscript.

—The Translator.


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  CHAPTER 2: 00.3. FOREWORD (REPRINT)
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Foreword When Dr. Klass Schilder’s ‘Lenten trilogy’ first made its appearance in
English nearly forty years ago, it was immediately welcomed by evangelicals of
all denominations as a work of outstanding merit. In fact, it was found to be
without equal in modern literature. In treating the events which led up to the
crucifixion, Schilder brings the reader into touch with the spiritual and
temporal forces which converged during the Passion Week. He is careful to keep
Christ central, and blends in a masterful way this culmination of our Lord’s
earthly life with historical facts and psychological realities. With these
dimensions so beautifully intertwined, the offices of Christ as Prophet, Priest,
and King are seen in the light of God’s goodness to Israel and gracious
provision for man’s redemption.

These volumes, treating as they do Christ’s sufferings, trial, and crucifixion,
should not be confined to a pastor’s bookshelf. Preachers, of course, should
have them and read them repeatedly. However, what Klaas Schilder has said can be
read and enjoyed by laypeople as well. This writer hopes that Dr. Schilder’s
books will find their way into many Christian homes and bring blessing and
enrichment to those who will take the time to master their teaching.

Cyril J. Barber Author, The Minister’s Library


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  CHAPTER 3: 00.4. FOREWORD (ORIGINAL)
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Foreword The first volume of Dr. Schilder’s work on the suffering of our Lord
met with an unusually favorable reception from every section of the American
Protestant press. In the Lutheran Standard, we read: “It is a thorough-going
exposition of pertinent Scripture passages, a determined effort to penetrate
beneath the form of words and to establish in the believing heart the glory of
our redemption in Christ and His eternal sufficiency for us in all things.”
Other Lutheran papers agreed. The Presbyterian Guardian commented, “This
treatment of the Passion probably never has been surpassed in its combination of
acute reflection upon the sacred text and fresh, stimulating form of
expression.” The Christian Observer called the book “an outstanding contribution
to the Christian literature of the day.”

“It is hard to write of this volume in measured terms,” wrote the Evangelical
Christian; “in each chapter will be found spiritual treasures that will bless,
inform and delight the mind.” “A great book” agreed the Sunday School Times, and
King’s Business commented, “The Scriptural penetration of this unusual mind and
spirit will challenge the most informed student of the Word, and nourish the
humble believer.”

Summing it all up, the London Service stated: “This book is a masterpiece, not
merely because of the considerable literary ability displayed, nor even because
of the reverent, devotional spirit manifested, but as the publisher states,
‘distinctive of the book are the richly suggestive flashes of exegetical
insight, and the welcome specific detail brought to bear upon the study in the
effort to present the sublimely organic unity of the Saviour’s awful passion.’
This is easily the finest book on the subject that we have yet seen.”

We trust that this second volume, CHRIST ON TRIAL, will be welcomed with equal
heartiness by the English speaking world. These chapters cover our Lord’s
Passion from Gethsemane till He was condemned to be crucified. Mr. Henry
Zylstra, who translated the first volume, continued his work with this second
book. The publishers have not spared any effort to make the exterior of the
volume as attractive as its contents.

HENRY BEETS, LL.D. Grand Rapids, Mich. Dec. 7, 1938


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  CHAPTER 4: 00.5. PREFACE
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Preface

IT is a source of great pleasure and of gratitude to Him, the preaching of Whose
name is the most beautiful task on earth, for me to know that this work, which I
greatly enjoyed writing, is appearing now in English translation.

Acknowledging a sense of great gratitude to those who took the initiative in
promoting this translation, and to those who devoted painstaking care to it, I
express the wish that the work also in the large English-speaking world to which
it is now made available, may, with the blessing of God, keep that confession
alive of which Charles Hodge gave this epitome: “Christ saves us as our Priest”;
and: “Christ saves us as a Sacrifice”—a confession which induced him, a learned
man, to pray, in the words of Toplady’s precious hymn.

Let the water and the blood, From Thy wounded side which flowed, Be of sin the
double cure, Save from guilt and make me pure.

K. SCHILDER Kampen, September 3, 1937.


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  CHAPTER 5: 00.6. E-SWORD MODULE PREPARED BY BIBLESUPPORT.COM
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  CHAPTER 6: 01. CHAPTER 1: CHRIST BEING LED TO ANNAS
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C H A P T E R O N E Christ Being Led To Annas And (they) led him away to Annas
first; for he was father in law to Caiaphas,which was the high priest that same
year. —John 18:13.

GETHSEMANE lies behind us now.

Christ is about to meet the judge. At this point, accordingly, the gospel of the
suffering of Christ passes into a second stage. The Christ of God who can
proclaim justice in this world by virtue of His inherent authority is to come
into contact with “judges” who will pass judgment on Him by virtue of an
authority they have received from God. For, in spite of the fact that they
flagrantly abused it, their authority had its source in God. And this first
contact between Christ and these judges introduces a new element into His
passion and represents an abrupt transition in the gospel of His suffering. The
transition is clearly delineated.

Up to this time Christ was permitted to move around freely. He could go where He
pleased. He could enter Jerusalem, or He could stay out of it. Had He wanted to,
He could at the close have tried to rediscover the combination of the beginning,
the beautiful beginning in which He had united a reformation of the temple with
a wedding. Or else He could have prepared Himself for that different combination
— a reformation of the temple issuing in death. Which of these was it to be?
Temple and wedding march, or temple and funeral dirge? Which shall it be? The
temple and the power of working miracles, or the temple and degeneration, a
degeneration, mark you, under the cover of heavens which withhold their forces
and conceal their light. That question was put to Him by the world which
surrounded Him and especially by the struggle which His ever-active thoughts
were carrying on in the depths of His heart. From all sides He was being bound
by the law and by the evangelical will. But as yet there were no bonds which
restricted His body. There was no authoritative coercion other than that of God.
And God was concealing Himself more and more by the hour. Not so now. Now the
Man of sorrows enters upon a new phase. He is put into bonds. The judge begins
to play a role. External authority is to have a hand in the matter. Moreover,
this new authority does not conceal itself; on the contrary, it imposes itself
upon Him. Christ is no longer allowed to go His own way. Malice becomes His
portion; humiliation and disdain seek out their worldly means to oppress Him,
and we know that the world has many means which it is glad to lend to those who
wish to give the essence of humiliation and disdain appropriate external shape
and form.

Hence all those who think on Him in reverence will acknowledge that Christ now
enters upon a new and narrower way. In everything that took place heretofore,
Christ governed the situation and was victorious over it. Gethsemane represents
a victory won. But who among men recognized that this was so? Who, pray, lifted
up paeans of praise in His honor, or even thought of doing so? Not one, of
course; not even one.

Accordingly, the Son must act as though Gethsemane had never existed, and must
carry the conflict which He first experienced in His soul into the public
market-place and into the world’s tribunal, there to begin that struggle anew.
He bears the essence of His victory within Him, but that too must be put into
hiding. He must appear before the judge. And the judge gets his authority from
God. In fact, God puts Christ into contact with two kinds of judges: the judge
who represents temporal authority; and the judge who is the symbol of spiritual
jurisdiction.

It is before the second of these that He appears first. Christ is led into the
presence of Annas. Now Annas, by reason of tradition and family relationship,
belongs to the priestly court of justice. It is not surprising to learn that
Christ was first brought into contact with the spiritual court of justice of His
own people. It is true that the Jews were fettered by the chains of Roman
dominion. But the Romans followed the tactics of very enlightened despots. They
allowed the peoples whom they conquered to retain as many of their customs and
usages as possible. In matters affecting religious life, Rome gave those she
vanquished an almost entirely free hand. Thus it was that the Sanhedrin, being a
tribunal of justice in religious affairs, still exercised great authority under
Roman rule. The president of the Sanhedrin was the high priest. At this time the
incumbent of the presiding officer’s chair was Caiaphas. And Annas, his eminent
father-in-law, was a prominent figure of the day.

These two, Annas and Caiaphas, had, before time began, been given by the
foreordaining God the horrible mandate of speaking the first word in the trial
of Christ. May they tremble at the responsibility of that terrible mandate . . .
But, alas, they have never learned to tremble. A weightier mandate was never
given than these two received when God told them: Let this ruin be under thy
hand (Isa 3:6); let the crumbled ruins of Israel’s wasted life be subject to thy
rule.

No, never were those who were called to a heavy burden farther than these two
officious ones from replying with that suitable cry of despair: I cannot be an
healer; do not make me a ruler of the people (compare Isa 3:7). These two
suppose they are still doing very well in their office even in these last days.
As a matter of fact, who is thinking about “last days”? Surely, as long as Rome
continues to send out her credentials to these spiritual judges, the world will
continue on its way.

Caiaphas and Annas, then, are seated in their authoritative seats. They sit in
judgment on the case of the Nazarene. Annas has the first word. For He must be
put to death.

He must be put to death. And Annas and Caiaphas must have a hand in it. True,
the Romans have not given the Jews the authority to carry out a death sentence;
it was a formal requirement that the Roman governor had to grant his permission
before a death sentence could be executed. Nevertheless, the Sanhedrin, which
for the most part is Caiaphas, plays an important role in this drama. The
Sanhedrin has the authority to judge in spiritual questions and in matters
pertaining to religion and to traditional rights and usages. Hence Caiaphas and
his Sanhedrin have the advantage of knowing that when they give a religious
color to an issue carefully prepared beforehand, the Roman government will not
easily take exception to any death sentence which they recommend. For it was
precisely in religious affairs that Roman authority wished to give the people of
the provinces free rein.

Thus it happens that the Sanhedrin and its diligent president feel that they are
under the burden of a responsible assignment. They must, if we may put it that
way, provide the substructure to the sentence which Pilate can later pronounce
valid by his seal. They feel that if they make an error tonight—for “it was
night”—or if they fail to find suitable arguments, or if they do not succeed in
satisfactorily defining and formulating their charges against this
revolutionist, it will be unusually difficult for them to get the sentence
confirmed. Particularly is this true in the case of so wonderful and popular a
hero as the Nazarene happens to be. Accordingly, they must carefully employ
every means at their disposal; they must be sure to gather and arrange carefully
all available evidence in time to use it for proper litigation.

It is exactly for this reason that Jesus is immediately placed before Annas, the
father-in-law of Caiaphas. That Annas, also called Ananos, was the first to be
given the “privilege” of seeing Jesus before him is a circumstance which cannot
definitely be said to issue from his official position, for he was, as a matter
of fact, no longer the high priest. It is true that Annas had been appointed to
the office of high priest by Quirinius the governor and that he had served in
this capacity from the year 6 to 15 A.D. But he had been removed from his
position by the Roman procurator Valerius Gratus. When Valerius came into power
in the year 15 A.D., he put Ishmael in the seat of the high priest. After
Ishmael, Eleazar and Simeon followed in rapid succession. And thereupon Joseph
Caiaphas was given the reins of office.

Officially, therefore, Annas had no right to demand a hearing of Jesus, or to
have that hearing entered upon the record as a legal step in the official
litigation against the Nazarene. Anything Annas could do could never have the
character of an official action. He was simply giving Jesus a preliminary
hearing. The official session of the Sanhedrin would come later. Hence, in our
thinking about this matter, we must keep that later session distinguished from
this antecedent hearing which Annas gave Jesus.

How did it happen, then, you ask, that Jesus was led before Annas first? Perhaps
Annas was staying in the house of Caiaphas; it may be that the two shared the
same home; or it is possible that each lived in a separate apartment; of the
same palace. Some observers suppose that Annas, informed of Caiaphas’ plans and
curious to know how these would develop, made it a point to be present just for
this “occasion” in order to see what the result of the movement against the
Nazarene would be. The supposition is not an implausible one, for it would
explain what would otherwise be a rather singular circumstance: namely, that the
captain of the Roman soldiers gave permission to take Jesus into the presence of
a person who had no official position. For if Annas and Caiaphas were together
at this time, there could be no objection to such permission, and granting it
would require no special discussion on the part of military and spiritual
authorities.

We can easily understand why these spiritual authorities, these masters of
theology, were much in favor of having Jesus appear before Annas first of all.
Several reasons can be indicated for this. Or perhaps we can say that things
simply drifted that way of their own accord. To summon the Sanhedrin, with its
more than seventy members, required time. An official session of that body would
have to be called and that could not be done in a moment. Hence those who were
working behind the scenes took advantage of the opportunity to make use of this
necessary interim by placing Jesus before Annas for a so-called preliminary
hearing. These tactics would certainly prove beneficial. In the first place,
this would be making “productive” use of time. Besides, Annas was a man having a
seasoned experience; he had been called upon to act in difficult cases before,
and had developed a technique in the art of finding official formulas and
procedures. This man, surely, would be invaluable to Caiaphas in defining the
arguments, formulating the charge, striking out irrelevant matters, and, in
short, quickly directing the litigation to the main issues. The old man’s advice
would make the work of Caiaphas just so much easier. We are not surprised,
therefore, when we consider the various information given us in the Bible, to
receive the impression that Annas and Caiaphas co-operated in preparing for the
coming session of the Sanhedrin. Naturally, this procedure would make the work
of Caiaphas, the president, easier. But another advantage, not to be disdained,
is that it would help him in his efforts to offset the objections raised by the
Sanhedrin —and objections there were—to a death sentence. In short, it would
help him to make the point that the law required the death of the Nazarene.
Caiaphas, you see, could then quote an authority: the venerable Annas himself
had said so. To these considerations must be added the fact that Annas
undoubtedly took delight in seeing Jesus bound before him. He had followed the
various exhibitions of hatred which had been directed against Jesus with a
sympathetic interest; in fact, he had taken an active part in these. Hence it
was a source of grim pleasure to the old aristocrat finally to see the man
before him who—in his estimation—had almost started a revolution against the
authority of the priesthood. This old aristocrat and Sadducee, this noble man
“who had grown gray in the service” inasmuch as he was the father of a
generation of priests and even the founder of a dynasty of high priests, could
not keep back the thought that the ever-growing popularity of the name of Jesus
spelled a declaration of war by the masses against the priesthood. His lips gave
expression to the grimness with which he deigned to use the word—the masses, the
vulgus. Now that uncrowned king was standing before him. Indeed he was
uncrowned, and unanointed. And he had hurled curses about recklessly, not the
least of which were directed against the priestly caste.

We can easily appreciate his situation. His priestly dignity had been forced
into an attitude of evasive indifference towards the madding of the people who
were being carried away by the Nazarene—those masses, the ’am-ha-arets. In spite
of the haughty imperviousness of his demeanor, however, the soul of the decorous
old master was greatly perturbed. Think, he had been the high priest himself,
the father of five other high priests, the father-in-law of still another high
priest, and the grandfather of a seventh. Accordingly, every disdainful speech
which Christ directed against the high priests and the leaders of the people had
come to Annas as a personal insult to the honor of his family.

Now Jesus is standing before him. Moreover, they are a private company here—no
need here of the decorous restraint required by an official setting. Indeed,
this for Annas is a realization of a desire he had nurtured for a long time. It
is his greatest gratification. It may be that he paused for thanksgiving because
of it. Was not God giving him “grace and honor”? For Christ, however, this is
suffering. The fact that his litigation begins with an “informal” action is an
insult to Him. It is an indication of the kind of mentality that is to judge
Him, and it bodes no good.

However, that is not the worst aspect of it. Worse for Jesus than this formal
violation of law is the fact of the coerced meeting between him, the true High
Priest, and this representative of the ancient priesthood. Annas, who, as we
observed, opened the way to a whole family of priests, manifests in his person
the decadence of the priestly office in Israel. The rights of the generation of
Aaron, although guaranteed inviolable by law, had been violated frequently in
the course of the years. But the later authorities ignored as much as possible
the privileges of priestly families.[1] [1] Holtzmann,Neutestamentische
Zeitgeschichte, 1906, p. 102.

Now the fact that Annas had seen five sons, besides a son-in-law and a grandson,
enter into the office of the priest, and had also held the office himself, was
in itself a forthright unmasking of the deplorable condition of the generations
of priests and of their crowned heads in general. For, if the ancestral law had
still been in force, Annas would have worn his purple robe until his death.[2]
He would not have seen a single successor take his place. From another point of
view, of course, it is also true that the given circumstances do represent a
singular honor. “God gave grace and honor . . .” This was a time in which
priests were succeeding each other all too rapidly. Not seldom corruption led to
murder and to a change of dynasty. Arbitrary Roman administrators did the rest.
Therefore the fact that Annas was able to keep the honor in his own generation
as long as he kept it there is evidence of the respect accorded him, not so much
by the people who sometimes spoke disparagingly of his dynasty, as by the
official leaders of the people. And the days were still far away inwhich the
crowd would venture to murder his son, Ananos, the second.

[2] Holtzmann, p. 164.

Indeed, the honor accorded him was a great honor. We cannot but think in this
connection of the Jewish woman who had seven sons, each of whom was admitted to
the office of priest. She was allowed to regard this as an honor so great that
her admirers applied to her the words of Psalms 45, verse 13: The king’s
daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold. So evil an
application of a text shows us the quality of the spiritual climate in which
Annas also lived. Many continued to bow in reverence before him. As father of
the dynasty of priests, he was accorded so much honor that the incense offered
to him was accompanied by texts drawn from the Bible.

God is not putting our Saviour into the presence of just one of the many
decadent figures of that day, is not placing Jesus before the tribunal of just
one of those transient and trivial priests of which there were all too many at
that time — twenty-eight of them, in fact, in about a hundred years. No, God
places His Son over against the founder of a family of priests in whom a little
of the ancient dignity, pride, and glory had again been fanned into a flame.

Thus it happens that a contrast is most discriminatingly brought to light—the
contrast, namely, between a priesthood according to the flesh and a priesthood
according to the Spirit. True, such a contrast is imperceptible to anyone who
looks solely at the external side of these circumstances. Externally observed,
Annas seems to be the fruition of a new promise. He looks like a new shoot out
of the stem of the priesthood, and who, indeed, can recognize in Christ Jesus
anything but the tree which has been hewn down? But God sees things with eyes
other than those of the world. He points out the contrasts which inhere in the
things which are not superficial and which are not visible. It is true that
Annas personally would not have liked to see such a hymn of praise as the 45th
psalm go out of fashion; nor would he, permeated as he was by the logic of the
priests, have wanted any of the fragrances of the myrrh to be wafted towards the
Christ who is standing before him. But in this which is his weightiest hour God
judges quite differently. In God’s eyes Christ is standing over against a priest
and a generation of priests to which, not the 45th, but the 82nd, psalm is
applicable: How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the
wicked? Or again: O thou tribunal, seated to do justice, dost thou speak justly?
But to its Son who is in bonds, heaven now applies the words of Psalms 45, and
they are very rich in content: My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of
the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready
writer. Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips:
therefore God has blessed thee forever. The dynasty of the priests of Annas may
pride itself in a priestly caste which can point to an eminent father and mother
as the founders of a family of priests. But Jesus Christ desires a higher thing;
He wants to be priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek, too,
was a priest having no priestly father or mother; his coming was as inexplicable
as that of a bolt of lightning. Annas represents a dynasty of priests which
derives from the flesh its standards for determining succession in an office
which augured unusual distinction for a few persons. Over against him stands
Jesus. Jesus represents a mysterious priestly essence which, according to the
Spirit, incorporates into the true priesthood, and ministers the grace of a
priest to all those who know of it by reason of the fact that they are included
in the Messiah through faith. The dynasty of Annas salvages from Israel’s and
Aaron’s legacy what it thinks worth preserving, and steels its heart against the
spirit of prophecy weeping at the ruins of Aaron. It is eager to cover the
nakedness of Aaron, but it is unwilling to do so with its own cloak. It wants to
throw a cloth, borrowed from Rome or from Babel, over the dilapidated furniture
of the house of Israel. On the contrary, Christ would cover the nakedness of
Aaron with His own garment of righteousness, or, failing in that, would exhibit
that nakedness to the staring eyes of all the sons of Ham in the world. He would
build a house for the bearers of the tradition of Aaron, provided that the
architectural plans are according to the vows of Aaron. Should these find this
house too revolutionary in structure to suit them, they can have the alternative
of standing out in the cold of the universe. And the universe is cold . . . The
contrast is complete, is perfect. Therefore it is enduring. Accordingly, it is
no mere coincidence that the dynasty of Annas, long after Golgotha, was still
enraged against Christ’s lambs of sacrifice. We know that the sword of the
children of Annas was crimsoned later by the blood of James, the brother of the
Lord. This contrast, then, became the decadence of Aaron’s wasting priesthood[1]
in Annas, and the florescence of Melchizedek’s fulfilled priesthood in Christ
traces its genesis to the distant past. Moreover, its development extends far
into the future. Hence it is that God, in order to make that contrast obvious to
the whole world, allows the Priest according to the order of Melchizedek to be
led as a captive into the presence of one who exacts tithes by the grace of Rome
and Babel, the decorous old Annas.

[1] In the sense of a traditional connection, the genealogy is unknown

Alas, Melchizedek: it is unfortunate that you are no longer here to bless and to
demand tithes. How pitiable, Lord Jesus, is the fact that God has bound Thy
hands so tightly that they cannot be extended in blessing or reach out to accept
the tenth part of a tithe for Thyself. “Mein Jesu, was hast du getan; in was fur
Missetaten bist du geraten?”[2]

[2]Well-known theme of thePassion of St. Matthew: My Jesus, what hast Thou done;
in what crimes hast Thou been involved.

We see, therefore, that the drama of Jesus’ trial is marked by a prologue in
which the conclusion of the tragedy is plainly announced. Has not Annas himself
personally experienced what it means to suffer as Israel’s priest under Roman
authority? He may insist upon his dignity, but it is a fact, nevertheless, that
he had had to suffer retrenchment, that one of Rome’s satellites had first
appointed him to the priesthood and had later taken that office away from him.
This humiliating experience should have led Annas to ponder carefully the tragic
conflict of Israel’s rejected priesthood, the conflict of a spiritual office
which had become subjected to a carnal authority. The riddle of the hewn-down
tree affected Annas also; in fact, it should have served as a matter for
lifelong meditation for the old priest. Or, in any case, it should have opened
his eyes to the large, eschatological significance of Jesus of Nazareth, who,
confronted by the same problem, experienced it in his body in a far more
excruciating form of suffering than Annas, and who demonstrated it daily in his
life from the time when He lay in His manger.

What Annas objects to in Christ, of course, is that He gave a different solution
to the riddle of the hewn-down tree, than the old priest wished. Christ’s
solution to it was not one of external power but of a life after the Spirit.
Annas is so completely occupied with his own mocking misery, which he evasively
tries to conceal, that he takes no notice of the preaching of the Nazarene. He
chooses to let the stem of David and Aaron lie in all its nakedness and blunt
misery and to send its stench up to heaven, rather than to notice the new shoot
out of Nazareth. After all, this new voice which had risen had raised the old
sound over Israel and its dynasty of priests.

Therefore the short scene presenting Christ before Annas is a compendium of a
pronounced contrast between the flesh and the spirit which within a few years
will divide Israel into a people living by faith together with Abraham and a
people dying by reason of its own unbelief and hardening of heart. This scene
represents something else besides. It speaks to us of an Aaron and of a Levi who
were unwilling to bow the knee before Melchizedek. Aaron bent the knee before
Melchizadek and Levi gave him tithes, but they did so only when they were in the
loins of Abraham. Now that they are standing on their own feet, they say to the
successor of Melchizedek: give us tithes or perish. Not all of those who were
included in the loins of Abraham live by the faith of Abraham. Hence, when God
put the chair of judgment in position, and arranges the curtains behind which
the session of the judges of His own Son will convene, the shadows deepen, and
everything which happens is full of dramatic power and figurative significance.
The gleanings of Aaron and the harvest of Melchizedek are placed in the balances
of the world. Who dares to weigh them?

Annas dares. Now he is lost. This master in charge of the scales had no
knowledge of imponderables; he had lived in vain.


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  CHAPTER 7: 02. CHAPTER 2: CHRIST’S APOLOGY BEFORE ANNAS
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C H A P T E R T W O Christ’s Apology Before Annas The high priest then asked
Jesus of his disciples, and of his doctrine.Jesus answered him, I spake openly
to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue,and in the temple, whither the Jews
always resort; and in secret have I said nothing.Why askest thou Me? ask them
which heard me, what I have said unto them: behold,they know what I said. —John
18:21.

INTERPRETERS differ in their opinions of how we are to think of the historical
sequence of events at the beginning of the trial of Christ. John informs us in
the 19th verse of our chapter (John 18:19) that the high priest questioned
Christ. Now some suppose that this is a reference to the same hearing that took
place, according to the accounts of the other evangelists, before the Sanhedrin
under the direction of Caiaphas. Obviously the Revised Version has regarded this
interpretation a plausible one, for in spite of the fact that according to a
simple rendering of the Greek text, John 18:24 should read, “Annas sent him
bound to Caiaphas” the Revised Version has “Annas had sent him bound to
Caiaphas.” Now it is plain that if this last translation is correct,[1] the
report of the hearing before the high priest, which report immediately precedes
this verse, is an account of the official hearing at the plenary session of the
Sanhedrin, of which Caiaphas was the presiding officer.

[1]It is Identical with that of the King James Version. This interpretation,
which is supported by other arguments besides, is nevertheless objectionable for
numerous reasons. We shall let it suffice to name only this one, that such an
interpretation is possible only if one does some unwarranted manipulating of the
text. Only then can this reconstruction of the chronological order of events,
(think again of John 18:24, to which reference was made), be read into the text.
Hence we prefer to agree with those who accord John the usual meaning, altering
nothing, not even in the translation. We choose the interpretation which has it
that the hearing spoken of in John 18:19-23 took place in the house of Annas, to
which, as we observed, Christ was first brought. When we read in the 19th verse
(John 18:19) that the high priest questioned Christ, we may believe that this
high priest may very well have been Annas, inasmuch as he was the former bearer
of that office, and was still functioning in that capacity in this instance.
That consideration raises a second question, namely: Granted that Jesus was
brought before Annas, who is the high priest that does the questioning recorded
in the 19th verse? Annas himself? Or Caiaphas perhaps, who, being present, may
have joined in the conversation? We shall not state which of the many
interpretations of this point is preferable. The main issue involved in this
matter inheres in the fact that, as is plainly the intent of the narrator, the
hearing before Annas was of a preliminary character. It was designed to gather
materials and to formulate specific charges for the plenary session of the
Sanhedrin to come later. It is very likely, therefore, that both authorities,
the father-in-law and the son-in-law, were present at this hearing. Nor is it
remarkable that this investigation makes it a point to probe into Christ’s
doctrine and to ask about His disciples. As a matter of fact, even that is not
quite true. The narrative tells us first of the inquiries about the disciples,
and only then of the investigation into the doctrine of Christ. It is not
impossible that design and purpose are concealed beneath this order of events as
given in the account. For, from the point of view of the status of the family of
the priest, less depended upon the message Christ proclaimed than upon His
disciples, upon the influence of His words, the so-called “success” of His
preaching. We know that people who flutter about at the periphery of the realm
of truth obstinately insist upon confusing “blessing” with “success.” They have
less respect for the principle of organic life which is illustrated by a seed
which, falling into the ground, slowly unfolds itself, and gradually but surely
evolves into a tree, than for the principle of mechanical things, illustrated by
any structure representing a mere aggregation and juxtaposition of quantities.
They fear a law which proceeds from an organic principle less than a
myriad-faceted organization which clothes the multitudes of its disciples in the
uniform of the voluntary enthusiasm of its Spirit or in the civilian’s garb of
the guerilla warriors of truth. Their first concern is not about the profundity
or the truth of a given view or principle, but about the number of its devotees
or propagandists. If this is a large number, they speak of a “success,” but of
the concept “blessing” in its unique Biblical sense they say not a word. Hence,
when a person preaches some new doctrine, founds some new school of thought, and
begins to get followers, and if it happens that this doctrine and school are
unsympathetic to them, they will soon be asking how many followers there are.
Only after that, if any time remains, will they investigate the substance of the
doctrine which is being preached.

Irrespective of the ultimate purpose of our text, it is plain from the manner in
which “the problem of the Nazarene” is raised for discussion in the conferences
of the caste of priests that that method of approach is quite appropriate to the
order of procedure indicated in the text. They first asked about the disciples,
and only then devoted some attention to the doctrine of Jesus. Caiaphas himself
said: Behold, the world is gone after him (John 12:19). And it is this same
emphasis which moves them to act so relentlessly now.

They first ask Jesus about His disciples, yes. The first question officially put
to Jesus concerned the number of His disciples. In contemporary parlance, we
would say that Jesus was asked first of all about “the success of His
organization.” It is apparent that the ruling dynasty of the priests, as well as
the faction represented by the Sanhedrin, was of the opinion that Jesus intended
to begin a movement, making His starting point a small nucleus. They were of the
opinion also that He had already begun this. At least, they create the
impression that He is gathering a group of disciples around Him, and that it is
very difficult to say just how large His school of followers is. This
insinuation suggests that Jesus is preaching a secret doctrine to an exclusive
circle, or at least that He is preparing plans for a surreptitious conspiracy
against the existing authorities.

Accordingly, the questions put to Jesus by Annas are themselves imputations of
guilt. The atmosphere in which Jesus is received is one of antithesis and
antipathy from the very start. But we should be proving ourselves short-sighted
if we could not say more about the spirit of these questions than that. Perhaps
the queries which Annas addresses to Him do represent a hidden animosity.
However, we may not stare ourselves blind by looking at that fact solely. It may
also be that Annas’ questions give expression to a kind of curiosity and to a
typically human fear even though these particular motives were not openly
expressed.

No, we must not begin by all too facilely casting stones at Annas; we must begin
by seeing in him a man of like passions with us. Can we suppose that this old
man, whose gray hairs are about to enter the grave without peace, is a greater
deceiver than we? Dare we think that we would have spoken differently than this
notable person of Jerusalem spoke?

Surely not. We may not take the tragic out of this tragedy by naming Caiaphas,
Annas, Pilate, and Herod pure deceivers, men so very bad that it would be hard
to find their equals in whole city blocks of respectable contemporary cities.
Such an attitude would betray the fact that we have no real appreciation of the
nature of the human soul, and of the nature of our own sin, which, together with
Annas, dares to sit in judgment — upon Jesus. In fact, every honest observer
must pay Annas this tribute that in conducting the examination he proceeded
authentically and in a manner which showed his familiarity with his times.
Caiaphas had good reason to give the first word in this trial to this
accomplished diplomat.

Annas asked Jesus whether He was secretly gathering a school of disciples around
Him. And his question may be taken as an expression of that picture of the
Messiah which was haunting the imaginations of the anemic minds of Jesus’
contemporaries. Whoever is familiar with that picture of the Messiah which the
Jews of Jesus’ time preferred to conjure up before themselves — a picture
clearly delineated in their writings — will know .that they were confidently
looking forward to a messianic mystery. Their Christology — that is, their
doctrine of the Messiah, or the Christ —contained a very interesting chapter
which treated of the messianic secretiveness. The fact is that the Jews living
in this “fullness of time” wanted to taste the flavor of mystery and
secretiveness in their Messiah. They may put many questions to the Messiah, but
they had better know that they wish no answer to these unless that answer is
given in a piquant way. The true Messiah — as they would have it— must be of
unknown origin. The real messianic movement must get under way under cover. When
Christ cometh no man knoweth whence He is (John 7:27). The attitude was very
generally current that the Messiah would be enveloped in mystery for a while
before He made His public appearance. One Jewish writer thought it possible that
at the time in which he was writing the Messiah had already been born but was
temporarily keeping Himself aloof. The supposition was, then, that during this
period in which the Messiah was living but was still unrevealed, He Himself was
not yet aware of the nature of His future work. This last would not become clear
to Him and to others until later. In short, the burden of this writer’s message
was that the great light might be breaking through at a time when nothing as yet
pointed to its appearing.

Others supposed that the Messiah was intentionally holding Himself aloof because
of the sins of the people. It was even thought possible that He was keeping
Himself in hiding in Rome. Still others asserted that He would come from “the
north.” In any case, however, He would when He made His appearance step forth
out of a condition of seclusion and of mystery. This popular notion had its
resemblances to that arbitrary interpretation of later theologians who concluded
similarly on the basis of Isaiah 7. We read there that the Messiah would eat
“butter (thick milk) and honey.” This these theologians interpreted as meaning
that He would be found among the shepherds in the wilderness, far from the city.
Culture, they said, would affect Him harmfully. You see, then, that many in
Israel were looking forward to a concealed Messiah who would make His appearance
suddenly in the nimbus of a paradoxical, wonder-working power. His appearing
would be a mystery; there would be a careful underground preparation of
armaments. Thereupon, the arsenals would suddenly be broken open.

No, do not cast stones at the aged Annas. Leave that to God. Is it impossible —
a human soul is so unfathomably complicated, we know — that he unconsciously
still reckoned with the possibility that Jesus was the Messiah? Do not reply
that this possibility is barred by the fact that he bound Jesus. Think of
Herod’s many secret visits to the Baptist — in prison. And is not Herod himself
secretly harboring the suspicion that a dark mystery may be lurking beneath the
manacled Jesus? Then why should not Annas feel just that? The human heart
attempts to evade so much of what it cannot face outright. Ah, perhaps the mind
of Annas is haunted by the thought that the miracle, the long-awaited miracle,
may possibly emerge suddenly from this Nazarene.

Note that we are advisedly italicizing “perhaps.” For it may also be that this
supposition ascribed to Annas is not correct at all. We cannot dissect his soul;
God alone can do that. Moreover, just what have we to do with the secrets
lurking in the soul of Annas? Our responsibility is simply to be honest in the
matter, and to remember that, formally considered, the questions which Annas
asks are in conformity with the tenor of the Jewish theology of his time. His
conduct of the hearing directs it straight to the core of the messianic problem
as the Jews of his day conceived of that problem. Viewing in this light, we are
not much concerned to know whether some anxiety lurked in Annas’ soul underneath
the allegations of guilt which this priestly aristocrat flung into the face of
the bound “Galilean” from the provinces.

It is enough for us to know that the logic of the facts and nothing else induced
this spiritual judge to demand that Jesus answer two questions. One of these
concerns His doctrine. Is His doctrine a sealed book, or His teaching open and
above-board? The second question refers to His disciples. Are these people of
the street, these former cripples, these dismissed publicans and but lately
civilized sinners, these untutored ones — are they really His disciples? Or has
He some other school of followers? In short: Jesus, who are you? And Jesus rises
to report on His messianic mystery. That mystery, He says, does indeed exist,
but it is not what they think it is or can be.

Listen to the apology of Jesus Christ. He asserts that He has never done
anything or taught anything in secret. He says He has always done His work in
the full light of day. He has preached daily in the temple and the synagogues.
Yes, in the temple, where the leaders of the people were ever present and where
the censorship was strict. And in the synagogues, where the masses went in and
out continuously, and where, no less than in the temple, the doors were never
closed during the services. The temple was the place where broad principles were
exposed; there the rabbis assigned chairs to those who proclaimed old and new
doctrines and modes of thought. In the synagogues, however, new doctrines were
not presented, but there new applications of current doctrines were discussed.
In other words, Jesus states that He varied His methods of teaching
sufficiently; and He adds that wherever He was He never turned His back to the
community of the people. He says in effect: I have never wanted to found a
secret cult; I have never been a prophet “of the desert” or of the “inner
closet.” To form a nucleus designed to work its way forcibly into the existing
body of the church, state, and community by way of introducing an alien element
into these, bent on eventually destroying them, is a law quite incompatible with
the kingdom of heaven. I have done nothing, Christ means to say, other than to
set free and to cause those seeds to sprout which God Himself has planted in the
field of Israel. I have not planted two kinds of seeds, he asserts; I have
introduced no germinal properties alien to the body of the people, but have
under the full light of the sun wanted to cause the seeds, which the God of
truth long ago planted in Israel’s soil, to germinate. Hence secret doctrines
and esoteric organizations are none of mine. I come not to break down but to
fulfill.

You observe that Christ’s apology leads to this question: Just why are you
examining me? You are asking, He says in effect, for that which you know very
well already. In order to escape from the mercilessly searching condemnations
which you have detected in my teaching, you act as though I used language
designed to conceal my real purposes. You act as though you were perplexed about
what is the real state of things; and as you ask me now to lift the veil for
you, you present your petition in the guise of a prayer on the part of the
uninformed. But that prayer is essentially a mask covering the enmity of the
unwilling. Just why, indeed, are you interviewing me? So far was my preaching
removed from secret and occult doctrine, that you may ask anyone who happens
along and you will be able to get from him a “summary” of what I taught.

We must ask now what the meaning is of this dialogue being carried on between
Christ and the high priest. We must ask what relationship exists between this
apology and the whole history of the passion.

We believe we are touching on the real significance of this apology when we say
that Jesus is here confessing His messianic office, and that He is confessing it
precisely to those whose official life has wholly denied and completely outgrown
its own messianic tendencies. The office which was introduced into Israel at
God’s behest has gradually been turning its back to the people and more and more
been standing aloof from them. The common people are being despised. The priests
feast upon those who bring sacrifices. Single individuals, when they see a
suitable opportunity, climb to the top of the ranks over the backs of the
masses. The spirit of Michal has entered into the colleges of the priests and
into their secret societies. The timbrel of David has become a mere monogram on
their stationery; David’s religious dance has lost its validity for bondmen and
bondwomen.

Over against this delight in aristocratic isolation which tends to fix a gulf
between the office and the people, Christ places His messianic obedience. The
man of the street was never a stranger to Christ. He never acknowledges any
antithesis between the official dignity inherent in Him and the people — those
scurvy sheep who are in great need. It is true that His doctrine contains a
mystery which no one can appropriate to himself except the man who is
regenerated by the Spirit. But there is nothing avaricious about this secret. It
has in it no jealousy at all except in the sense that God is jealous of the
things which are God’s. Life is life and it can never be anything else, and
because the doctrine of Christ is a living doctrine, only he who lives by virtue
of the regenerating Spirit can accept that doctrine in his person and in the
“hidden man of the heart.” In all other senses, however, Christ in the preaching
of this life and in the offer of this living mystery never turned aside from the
masses, from the many, from the communion. You must look for those who shut up
the secret formulations of their subtilized theories among the Pharisees and
Sadducees and also among the members of the priestly caste. These sealed up
their choicest morsels lest some uninitiated ones should eat of and delight in
them. Yes, they graciously kept their apothecary shops open for the “rabble” —
until sundown, you understand, and never on Sundays. However, Jesus never made
an intellectual doctrine of the life which He preached, and accordingly never
confused death and life in His preaching. Unstintedly and unrestrictedly He
spread His offer of doctrine and of life abroad. He did so with an “earnest
calling” which proffered bread and medicine without stint. This His inquirers
must have noticed, for they often criticized Him for keeping His shop open on
the Sabbath day, and for delivering His bread on every day of the week.

Delivering His bread — yes, that is the word they wanted. They wanted a neutral
term. They refused to say that He had given bread gratis; that would make it too
obvious that their “delivering” had none of the connotation of “selling ” in it.
But surely they could not have forgotten this. Again . . . why do they question
Him? In this hearing the contrast between Christ and His judges is fully
revealed. Christ tears all the slips of paper on which they have written their
neutral terms into pieces. He puts that contrast emphatically; He uses
unmistakable terminology. He says: “I spoke publicly; I always taught in the
synagogue and in the temple where all the Jews are accustomed to gather; they
who heard me know what I said.” The emphatic thrice-repeated use of the personal
pronoun “I”[1] has in it the thrust of a criticism; for the judges of Jesus did
not use a searchingly accurate diction. How much of what was in their heart did
they actually proclaim to the world? All that they have in mind at present is
designed to leave the people out in the cold. “Not on the feast day, not on the
feast day” — that is their cry. They are perfectly willing to go through the
regular routine of public worship the procedure and order of which everyone can
learn by heart; and they are quite willing to carry out the regular schedule in
the temple. But the important current issues, such as that of the eschatological
preaching of the Nazarene, for instance, they prefer to discuss behind closed
doors. A sombre secretivenes pervades their private discussion.

[1] The Greek text indicates this very clearly. But Christ spoke His apology
with forthrightness, and thus at the very beginning of His contact with the law
made the good confession boldly. Observe what He does. He immediately places the
issue of His office before this spiritual tribunal, for the institution of any
office in Israel is messianic in its purpose. Hence a proper conception of the
messianic problem was possible only on the basis of a true appreciation of what
the concept of the office implied. In this respect also Christ proves to be the
Obedient One, for He wants to keep the litigation which is confronting Him pure
to the extent He Himself is active in it. In the day of the great judgment — and
that day has arrived now — Annas must not be able to say to Jesus, “You used a
language which was designed to conceal your thoughts from me; I have therefore
good reasons for blaming you.” Instead, Christ comes to Annas, and asks him, “Do
you not know the prescription? It is an old and tested one taken from your own
pharmacy . . . unless, indeed, you have robbed your God of it.”

Even that, however, does not conclude Christ’s defense. His apology not only
proclaims His intention to come to everyone with His word of revelation but also
testifies to the power which resides in His word, enabling it actually to reach
everyone. He said nothing in secret; that is the first emphasis. It refers to
His intention, to His purpose, but that is not all. He adds something. Ask them
which heard me, he says. That is the second emphasis. It refers not to His
intention but to the effects.

If we were to use the language of the church, we would say that in this second
emphasis Christ is touching on the problem of the manifest character of
revelation.

Christ’s teaching may be foolishness and an offence to everyone who does not
believe it, for life is always just that in relation to death, but it must be
borne in mind that Christ also declared in His apology that He attained His
purpose in His preaching. He preached not upon the basis of the law of seclusion
but upon that of a will to communion. Christ spoke to the people of the street
with affection, yes, but also with effect. Now Annas may adopt the pose which
hints that the scroll on which Christ’s real purposes are written is so securely
sealed that not even those who are learned in the Scriptures, not even the
scribes, can have access to it. Annas may act as though an inquiry conducted
among the people in an effort to find out the content of Jesus’ teaching would
be futile, inasmuch as these untutored ones who after all, are not scribes,
cannot possibly know what this Nazarene’s doctrine really is all about. But,
over against this double injustice, Christ puts the pronouncement that He has
taught nothing in secret, that on the contrary He has presented His instruction
in terms intelligible to the masses and in a way which enabled them to grasp the
central significance of it. For Christ faithfully acknowledged the essence of
His messianic calling, even in the method He employed in His pedagogy. Just as
in the incarnation He affiliated Himself with their human condition, so He
allied Himself with the thought patterns of the people in the means He employed
for His teaching. He made use of their concepts, their modes of argument, their
“mind-sets” now, just as in the incarnation He allied Himself with flesh and
blood, and graciously worked His way into all the modes of expression common to
our human life. Surely, Christ’s pedagogy is an expression of the whole secret
of the incarnation of the Word. Christ outspokenly testifies to the truth of
this when He says to Annas: “Ask them which heard me: behold, they know what I
said ” Whoever gives some thought to these words will admit that this epilogue
which was pronounced at the end of His life is in full conformity with the
prologue in which, as is stated in the first verse of the first chapter of the
Gospel according to John, He is announced as the Word made flesh. Just as He
Himself was, so Christ’s teaching was altogether divine, and was derived
entirely from above, from another world; but again, just as He Himself was, so
His teaching was also genuinely and entirely human; it used a language which was
employed here below, and addressed its appeal to the needs of this world. The
Word dwelt among us, and His own incarnation maintained the law of its being in
reference to His messianic message also. For that reason Christ’s apology was
lifted high on this day as a torch of judgment over the house of Annas and
Caiaphas. At this point we cannot but remember Isaiah 29. In that chapter the
prophet speaks of the straying people and of the faithless leaders.
Fundamentally both of these are at enmity with the prophet. They close their
hearts to the message he brings. Hence, by way of judgment, they are struck
blind. Because they were unwilling at first they are unable later on, to grasp
the message which comes to them.

You ask what course that judgment will take? You wonder how it will be realized?
As the prophet thinks about the effect of that judgment, he distinguishes two
groups of people, each of which in its own manner is actually experiencing that
judgment and is giving expression to the experience in words. These people — and
it is this consideration which compels our thoughts in this direction — greatly
resemble Annas and his questioning court of priests. The first form in which the
judgment pointed out by Isaiah overtakes these spirits is nicely delineated by
means of a figure of speech. He refers to the scribes; that is, to people who
know how to read, and are proud of the fact. But these say to Isaiah: “I cannot
read, for the book in which the prophecy is written is sealed (Isa 29:11); hence
it is no fault of mine if these words are hidden from me. If only they were
accessible, I should understand them at once. It is not my understanding or my
will which is at fault; it is because of its external character that I cannot
appreciate the book. It is sealed.”

Mark how these children of death, these people who are struck down by the
judgment of God, struggle hard to vindicate themselves. If they are condemned,
they say, it is through no fault of their own, but is owing to the prophecy as
it is, objectively. And the ground of their vindication is the very one which
Annas dares to name against Jesus today. Annas is the first judge to give Jesus
a hearing. Listen to Isaiah, and note this: Annas is the last of the learned
among Israel, and the eldest of the people; and in the person of Jesus, a
greater than Isaiah is here. But the first thing Annas says is: Your look is
sealed. If only you would be frank and outspoken, O Nazarene, the whole matter
in all of its implications would be clear to me at once. I am learned in the
Scriptures, but that means nothing to me until you remove the seals from your
scroll. If only you would loosen the clasps of the book, I would quickly state
the meaning of this matter. I can read, but you must break the seals.

Such, then, is the first charge. But the prophet Isaiah spoke of a second group.
He tells us also that the book of the prophecy had been put into the hands of
certain other people, and that it had been unsealed and opened before them. But
these make the reply: “It is useless for you to give me the book, for I cannot
read. I am not learned. I am willing to do it; I am not opposed to the book;
nothing in my ethical practice would make me hesitate to absorb its content, but
the one thing that hinders me is this inadequacy in my education. The thing that
keeps me from the prophets and my soul from the Word is not animosity, but a
difference of degree in intellectual attainment (Isa 29:12).” In short, these
people take the other way out. The first group denies the accessibility of the
prophetic revelation. The second group simply remains untouched by a preaching
which proclaims that prophecy is a power unto salvation. Isaiah may preach as
loudly as he wishes that the Word of revelation is a hammer, a fire, a miracle
in its potency. These people do not believe it. A person who because of
temperament or intellectual capacity cannot “follow” such things, can hardly
profit from such preaching. Now the plea of this second group also has its
parallel in what Annas says to Jesus. What, Annas asks, could he possibly expect
to find out by going to the masses who do not know the law? What could he expect
to learn from the ignorant rabble? The people cannot read. In order to
understand Jesus’ teaching one must be able to grasp such things. According to
this logic, and it is the very same which will put Jesus to death after a while,
the question is not one of life or death, of peace with God or enmity against
Him, of flesh or spirit, of this world or the other. The only relevant
consideration is whether one has the intellectual capacity to grasp Jesus’
teaching.

You see, therefore, that the case for the plaintiff against Jesus will begin by
asserting that the doctrine of Christ is neither clear in its objective
expression, nor effectual or miraculously influential for the person who hears
it.

We have already suggested that this double charge really represents a twofold
effort to escape from the divine judgment. Isaiah had said that a judgment of
God would be effected in the form of a failure to understand the words of
prophecy; but that judgment is not acknowledged as such by those who are
included within it. They attempt to push the guilt—if indeed it can be called
guilt under such circumstances—from their own shoulders and to place it upon
those of God and prophecy.

Jesus had to take thought in replying to this charge which was flung at Him. He
had to purge Himself of the blame entirely. For if He could not do so, He
Himself would become the cause of the judgment which, according to Israel, was
accruing to Israeli leaders in this moment.

Observe closely now. Christ opens His mouth to reply. He addresses His appeal in
two directions. He speaks to Annas and says: I deliberately repudiate your
criticism. At the same time He addresses God and says: For this tangible
judgment of blindness and of hardening of heart, Lord, my God, I, the prophet
whom Thou hast sent, am not responsible: Lord, do not let their hardening be
charged to me as though I had known sin or had acted sinfully in my relationship
to them.

You see, therefore, that Christ places a twofold repudiation over against the
double charge they name against Him. In response to the first charge which had
it that He certainly had sealed the book of His teaching He replied: I have kept
nothing hid. My scroll is unclasped. True scholars of the Scriptures may never
appeal to the secret character of my prophetic pedagogy, or to my love of
seclusion as though these were the cause of their unbelief. If they do not know
what I teach, it is because of their enmity that they do not know it. The
natural man does not appropriate to himself the things belonging to the Spirit
of God—and that is his lack.

Just so, over against the second charge, which had it that the simple must have
reached a certain stage of intellectual development before they can appreciate
what Jesus is doing, He mentions the fact that He counts His faithful disciples
among “the poor,” the untaught, the blind, the deaf, in short, among the common
folk. Faith is not a question of more or of less knowledge but of self-assertion
or self-denial over against God. The appropriate question to ask is not “What do
you know?” but “In what is your life rooted?” Do you draw your sustenance from
the Spirit or from the flesh?

Thus Christ, in this closed session, and in the presence of the priestly caste
which existed in this fullness of time, declares that He stands in communion
with Isaiah and with Him who sent Isaiah. This is the “day” whose coming Isaiah
had prophesied (Isa 29:18). This is the messianic day in which the deaf hear the
words of Christ and in which the blind see Him. This is the day in which the
meek (whose life instead of being intellectually broadened is ethically renewed)
shall rejoice, and in which the needy, those who frankly ask and seek instead of
haughtily asserting themselves, shall see the dawning of a new light (Isa
19:19). Thus Christ proves that He does indeed present a revelation which comes
from above and which can be appropriated only by those who have been born again
(regenerated “from above”); but Christ proves also that anyone who hungers and
thirsts for the Word and who opens himself to the Word can meet his Messiah in
righteousness. The questionings of Annas are present at all times and at all
places. Inasmuch as they are an expression of enmity, they call the sin of an
unregenerate heart the piteous inadequacy of an inferior mind. But Christ tears
the mask from the lie. His words at once point out and fulfill the judgment. And
how should we escape from so great a condemnation? Alas, we are included in it.
It is a disturbing thought that Christ at the very beginning of His conflict
with the law at once fully maintained His genuine Messiahship, for it is because
of this fact that the dialogue between Annas and Jesus has a bearing upon us. We
who calmly read these things are being taken from the street by Christ Himself
and are being placed in the presence of Annas. Remember now that Jesus Christ is
at this very moment saying to Annas, “You may ask him, you may ask her, what I
said.” Alas, in this Jesus goes so far as to dare to make His own death and life
contingent upon the answer which we give to the question put to us by the
tribunal of the world. The question being asked us is this one: What has Jesus
in mind; what is His intention; what is the purport of His teaching?

No, do not reply that you beg to be excused from this matter. Simon Peter made
the same request. But the very moment in which Jesus takes pride in the fact
that the first hewer of wood and drawer of water who is casually snatched from
the street is able to state the essence of Jesus’ teaching, one of His great
ones, one who had been with Him upon the mountain, with Him in the room of the
Passover, and with Him in Gethsemane, arises, and swears with an oath: “I know
not the man; the Nazarene means nothing to me.” And this terrible culmination
was the result in Simon Peter of the secret thought: I shall hold myself aloof
from this matter.

Step out into the open now, son of man, whoever you are, you who are literally
steeped in sermons, in calendar leaflets, in edifying books. Listen carefully,
for this is the situation. Annas, i.e., Israel, i.e., the flesh, i.e., the
natural world, is asking Christ this question: Who are you; what are you doing,
what is the thrust of your preaching? And Christ pointing to you answers: Ask
him. He can tell you if he wants to do so. This is a very personal and a very
perturbing issue, for it immediately involves us in the trial of Jesus. It
involves us, together with all hewers of wood and drawers of water who have
suffered the great misfortune (such is the language of the flesh) of having
lived in Jerusalem. It is dangerous to live in Jerusalem, for to do so is to
become involved in the great trial, in the great litigation.

Now cease looking for ways of escape. Do not, for instance, attempt to take this
avenue out: Yes, I know, but I have not yet been thoroughly instructed; ask one
of the older ones, one of the more seasoned Christians. No, do not attempt it.
For Christ’s apology stands or falls with the truth that everyone, the unlearned
also, even the unconverted, can grasp enough of the clear teaching of Jesus to
make it impossible for him to plead ignorance of it. Never, no, never say in
your heart: The book is sealed; or, I cannot read.

How vehement, how forceful the Christ is! They draw Him into court, and by His
first sentence He draws you and me into that court also, and involves us in His
trial. How oppressive this is. To have heard a sermon of Jesus is to have become
implicated in His trial. And that means that we have been brought before the
tribunal which must sit on and satisfactorily solve the one great
world-litigation. But that too is grace. Yes, He implicates you in His trial,
but He does that because He has first made your case His own in the presence of
God. If you serve as a document entered as evidence in His apology over against
Annas, you may know what Christ said beforehand about that which He would repeat
in the great day: namely, that it would not be because of Him if any are left
outside of the communion of life in that last judgment.

Reply now, and tell Annas, and say to Caiaphas, and to the whole world, that in
reference to Christ there is but one appropriate ate thing to do: to surrender
and to be willing to believe. Thereupon we shall see a great schism, a
thoroughgoing separation made. And this separation will not be effected by the
acute insight of Annas but by the genuineness of Jesus. It will take place at
the door of the tribunal as the people come in. This will be the nature of that
separation; by these tokens you can know it. Two persons came into the court of
the Nazarene to pray. The one strode boldly in, lifted up his eyes to heaven,
placed one hand over his heart, and with the other pointed to Jesus, saying,
while Annas and Caiaphas nodded their approval: There[1] is the Nazarene. His
book was sealed. I had no chance to bring my mind to bear upon it. His message
simply did not reach me. Father, if it be that Thou didst speak through Him,
forgive me, for I pray the prayer of an unwitting one.

[1] Iste: the accused, the alien, who does not belong with us, whom I do not
recognize. The other also came. Shamefacedly he crept into the corridor, fell to
the ground, his eyes touching on the dust. Father, he groaned, here[2] is he who
fulfilled the great mission. His scroll was unfurled; my eyes were opened; He
taught me to read. Father, I believed; help Thou my unbelief. His giving and His
preaching was mighty and conquering; but my guilt in taking it and in listening
to it continues daily, and that is a great guilt.

[2] Hic: mine, the one I love.

Two men had prayed in the court of Christ Jesus. Behind the clouds the verdict
was read. There the “prayer of the unwitting one” was named a declaration of war
and an act of war on the part of “an unwilling one.” This petitioner was dragged
from the entrance to the exalted tribunal, lest he defile the sanctuary. The
angels, as they bound him, sang: “Thou dost allow no petitioner to stand.” And
they sang that before God. They said: “Thou makest him to go forth from Thy
presence if he is not one who prays; but none can stand in Thy corridors, O
God.” As for the other, he came from his house justified. The angel of the Lord
conducted him into the inner sanctuary. This angel as he led him on sang before
God: “Thou dost let no petitioner stand before Thee; blessed is he whom Thou
beckonest to come to Thee.” The clarity, the manifest character of the messianic
revelation is the shibboleth in the titanic war between angels and devils. It is
the mark of genuineness which characterizes the bread of life. It was the first
thing upon which the Son, as the messenger of God, insisted. Without it He has
no free passage among angels, for these will accept only one who cares for the
poor. Hence the manifest character of the messianic revelation was, through the
man Jesus Christ, the theodicy of God in the presence of Annas. Hence it
naturally became the first term in the apology which Christ presented to the
high priest.

One day He will let the words of that apology be accompanied in the clouds by
the organ tones of the judgment. Ask them who heard me—I am one of them. Alas,
this word breaks open the sources of God’s destructive, purifying winds. Mea res
agitur; I have long ago lost sight of Annas. I hear Christ playing His mighty
organ. He has drawn out all the stops. Ah, the overwhelming sublimity of that
day.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 8: 03. CHAPTER 3: CHRIST CONDEMNS THE VICIOUS CIRCLE
========================================================================

C H A P T E R T H R E E Christ Condemns the Vicious Circle And when he had thus
spoken, one of the officers which stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his
hand,saying, Answerest thou the high priest so?

Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil,bear witness of the evil:but if
well,why smitest thou me? —John 18:22-23. THE apology which Christ addressed to
Annas at the beginning of His trial was not concluded by the words considered in
the preceding chapter. That apology is deepened by Christ’s response to the
blow, which, as a symbol and as a brutal revelation of the whole actuality of
this sinful world, rocked the atmosphere when Jesus stood before the aged Annas.
Christ was struck on the cheek. He was struck before the accusers were able to
set on paper a single formulated charge. Moreover, the blow was dealt Him by one
who had no authority to administer blows. A subordinate, a servant, whose
business it was neither to determine nor to execute penalties, is the one who
struck Christ.

We know approximately how matters went. When Christ replied to Annas by means of
the words we pondered in the foregoing chapter, He placed this superannuated
high priest—and Caiaphas also, if he was present—in a position of great
embarrassment. Had they wanted to convict Christ of a revolutionary attack upon
the existing order, or at least of the fact that He was considering such
forceful means and coups d’etat as were employed by this world, the proper
procedure for them to follow would have been to question those who had been in
direct contact with Christ’s word. They could have called in any amount of
witnesses from the street, and Christ, by lightly touching on the fact that they
were not following this logically natural procedure, simply—if we may use a
current phrase—simply left Annas “without a leg to stand on.” At this point the
flame of self-assertion leaps from the master to the servant. In their hearts
Caiaphas and Annas have already concluded what they want to do with Christ. The
only question which still concerns them is on what legal grounds they can best
base their proposed action. For that reason the penetrating light which Jesus
suddenly throws upon their strangely illogical procedure is doubly uncomfortable
for them. Now it happens that in this embarrassing situation one of the
attendants has been so sympathetically identifying his own with his patron’s
feelings that he makes use of the “argument” which is the first resort of
stupidity and hate. He gives Jesus a sharp blow on the cheek. Perhaps the blow
was to the jaw. If one wants to, one can turn to a great deal of material which
has been written about the exact nature of this blow and what name characterizes
it best. At this time we shall be content with the knowledge that Christ was
struck while still standing before Annas. The attendant names as his motive for
this brutal piece of business the fact that Jesus answered the high priest
unbecomingly. Well, this is not the first time that people in the effort to
escape from the content of a message, choose to criticize the form in which it
is given. Naturally, such response is always foolishness. It is especially that
when the message is one which comes from Christ. Obviously, if I am to determine
whether any given expression has been clothed in a “becoming form,” I must first
determine what its meaning, its content, its purpose is; I must appraise this in
reference to the standard of the law of God. For it would be folly to say that
there is only one form which is appropriate to all possible messages in the
world. The richer one’s mind is, and the more qualified one is in discriminating
issues, and in enhancing their meaning, so much richer will be the forms which
give the argument and testimony expression. As a matter of fact, each meaning
must have its own and peculiar form. Now Christ, also inasmuch as the forms and
manners of His replies and protestations are concerned, is infinitely rich, for
He never makes hackneyed, stereotyped speeches. Every speech, every
protestation, every testimony which He makes, He makes but once. His spoken word
always has its unique meaning, its peculiar place in the history of revelation,
and it also has its peculiar purpose there. The dates of His letters determine
their form, for each day for Him differs from the others, and each of His
messages is appropriate to the day on which it is spoken. For this reason, then,
it was folly for the servant of the high priest to raise the question of the
form, of the manner, of Christ’s reply, in his effort to absolve himself and his
patron of the content of that reply. No one may ever ask Jesus, “Answerest thou
the high priest so?” as long as he has nothing to say about the content of
Jesus’ words.

Again Christ’s majesty appears in the fact that he immediately refers the
question of the manner, of the style, of His speaking to the content of His
message. If I, he says, have spoken evil, go on and testify of the evil; and if
I have spoken well, why, pray, do you strike me? By this rejoinder Christ does
not allude to the speech He has just made in reply to the high priest, but He
refers to all of His speaking, all of His pedagogy, all of His prophetic
teaching as He conducted these throughout His public activity in Israel. Christ
does not engage in discussion with this eye-servant about the manner and tone of
His last words, but raises the question of the synthetic content of all of His
teaching taken as a unit. If ever I have taught anything which was evil, you may
point it out, He says. Have I not said just now that anyone who heard me can
testify of my doctrine? If you were present at my addresses—very well, say on.
Tell your patron by all means, then, what you know of the content and purpose of
my prophetic teaching. Begin at the beginning, I pray you. The blow which you
gave me is an expression of overbearing impetuosity. And if you cannot point out
that my teaching is subversive of true obedience to the law, binding as it is
upon all, who gives you the right to strike me?

Such is the record of what happened in the hall of Annas. The next question is
whether all of this is suitable matter for more specific study. Some seem to
think that it is not. These do their best to add a little color to the somber
data of the Biblical narrative.

It is well known that Chrysostom—a name meaning “golden- tongued orator”—wanted
to make this story interesting by maintaining that this servant of Annas or
Caiaphas was related to Malchus, the man whom Jesus had just healed and
protected from injustice in Gethsemane. Similar efforts to make interesting that
which really weighs as heavily as eternity can be detected in a few other
preachers “with golden tongues” also. Nevertheless, these efforts remain
essentially mean, and are a disparagement of what is really a weighty message of
revelation. Similar worthlessness characterizes the assertions of others to the
effect that the man who struck Jesus was Malchus himself. Those who make this
claim ignore the fact that the Greek text uses very different words in referring
to these two. Malchus is called a slave, and the second subordinate is named a
servant. In other words, we do not know who this man is. To go on, however. As
we read this story we must be on guard against shaking our heads in amazement at
the brutality of this uncouth man. For if we do no more than to shake our heads
incredulously, and then pass on to the order of the day, we overlook the fact
that the logic of this impetuous person is by nature characteristic of us all.
This narrative must also be related to a setting. If we separate this blow from
the moment in which it was given, and pass judgment upon it from the outside
only, it becomes lost among all the insults and disparagements of soul and body
which will take place afterwards. But if we pause to consider what is taking
place in this moment and at this place between Christ and the person who struck
him, this apparently trivial episode becomes a definite subsidiary part of that
extensive history of the passion in which everything has its special place.

Now if we were asked to say what to our mind appears to be the main issue in
this matter, we should reply as follows. Christ at the very beginning of His
legal process was, because of the course things were taking and because of the
pathetic fate of the whole world-order, involved in the vicious circle to which
our life is subservient. But He, asserting Himself in His strength, passes
judgment upon that vicious circle, and, as a greater than Samson. He begins to
deliver the world and Himself from it. In principle He on this occasion already
comes down from the cross and redeems Himself—Himself and us.

He begins to do so. For the process of the redemption is merely set in motion by
this means. And we may remember that our Samson is not hesitant as was the other
one.

If this is the main issue, our first duty is to point out that there is a
vicious circle in the world in which we live. This we want to indicate in part
by reference to the events of the day, and in part by allusion to the world-view
which explains and sheds its light upon these events. In the first place, the
facts of the “trial” which is being carried on here speak an unmistakable
language. We can put the message of that language in these words: In the place
of judgment, wickedness was there! A legal process is in course of action. That
process must be set in motion according to law. But unrighteousness enters into
the place of justice. Certainly it was illegal for a servant to do what only a
judge has authority to do. The law emphatically forbade that an accused person
be treated as a convicted person before the charges had been investigated and
sustained. Now if it be true, as it is here, that unrighteousness sits in the
seat of judgment, and that this violation of law is the first step in the trial,
then the circle which life is describing here must be named a vicious circle. By
the use of such methods no one can ever escape from his own problems, and the
provinces of justice and injustice can never be properly circumscribed. The
unpunished blow which was given to Jesus, therefore, really amounts to an
official placement of Jesus outside of the sphere of law. Essentially Christ is
being regarded as an outlaw.[1] The trial has not even begun; there has been no
opportunity to give the law a chance to express itself against Him, but already
He has been placed outside of the sphere and the course of law.

[1] Used here and throughout this work not in the sense of a “rebel,” but as
“one having no rights.” That is why this blow, which Caiaphas and Annas are
quite willing to countenance, represents a new phase in the suffering of Christ.
Until now He has been an exile; now lie becomes an outlaw. And there is a
significant distinction between the two. Being an exile means that one is no
longer in one’s original dwelling place, that one is a man without a country.
But of such a man it can at least be said that the authority which drives him
out of his country is the authority of law. The law pursues him, the law exerts
itself against him. Hence to be an exile is not the same as to be an outlaw. An
exile stands outside of the pale of his country, but not outside of the bourne
of the law. But the outlaw? Alas, he is thrust outside of the sphere of law. He
is given up into the hands of arbitrary forces, of whoever wishes to take him.
He is not merely exiled; he is accursed. Such is the vicious circle. The circle
describes itself around the chair of Annas.

Note the situation. Those seated here are the official executors, the officially
appointed bearers, the authentic proclaimers of the law in Israel. We must
remember that Israel, although fast decaying, is still, according to God’s
ancient ordinances and according to the “dispensation” of this particular phase
of the history of revelation, the people which peculiarly sustains and exercises
and proclaims the law. In the kingdom of heaven up to this time this people has
been entrusted with the laws of revelation, and consequently also with the law
of that particular proclamation of justice whose fundamental principles of
jurisprudence coincide with the realm of heaven. Hence this place especially
must everywhere reflect the light of the law. According to the dispensation of
the ages it must lead to the specific “case” of Christ. The law must fan the
flames prompting Caiaphas and Annas to action. All things here must scintillate
with the lights of the perfect commandment which alone can illuminate a lawless
world. But the tragedy of the blow which is dealt Christ in this room arises
from this that it proclaims aloud: We cannot sever the knots of sin; we cannot
and will not explain the riddles of human life in terms of the law which God
announced from above. Hence this body of officials proceed to take the shortest
route. Here is the Lawgiver Himself, One who professes to be the expressed Image
of the Highest Lawgiver, and the Reflection of His legislative glory. And this
one is named an outlaw, is beaten and insulted as such, and is thrust outside of
the pale of legal procedure. Says Christ: I am the expressed Image of the
Lawgiver of heaven and earth. In me you will find an expression of law a
thousand times stronger, a thousand times more moving and alive than were the
tables of Moses, though these were written with the finger of God. I am the law,
and I am the one who both interprets and fulfills it. But before Caiaphas and
Annas can say whether the law is compatible or at variance with Christ, they
have “in the place of judgment,” that is, in the place dedicated to the law,
thrust Him outside of the sphere of jurisprudence altogether. That is what
prompted us to say that the repercussions of this blow were felt in all the
worlds. This is the last self-defense of a lost mankind: a curse, an impetuous
stroke of the sword upon the knot which God has tied in the rope, the rope of
the Forbidden Admission. It represents a departure from the unique office of
justice at the very moment in which that office should have made itself felt
most effectively.

All this is sad enough. Nevertheless, it can also be very easily understood.
That statement referred to above, “In the place of judgment, wickedness was
there,” can readily be explained by the truth which underlies it: namely, In the
place of knowledge, blindness was there; at the place of insight into the hidden
essence of things, a superficial sense of externalities was there. Or, if we
wish, we can put it even more directly: In the place of insight into the essence
of the Messiah (Christ), we find only a superficial sense of the exterior Jesus
(the man as He appeared in history). This much, at least, is certain: Justice
whirls around in a vicious circle because knowledge does. Significant,
therefore, is the question put to Jesus by the high priest, a question which we
have already illuminated from another side. Annas asks Jesus, you remember, to
inform him about His disciples and His doctrine. In other words, two matters
require his attention: Christ’s influence and Christ’s teaching.

Now it is plain that this question is put to Jesus too soon. Surely, before I
can say anything about the disciples which Jesus has and about the teaching
which He gives I must know about his hidden essence. Who art thou? That is the
first relevant question. And the second question, “What art Thou revealing to
me?” (the doctrine), as well as the third, “With what success art Thou
influencing others and me?” (the disciples), may never be separated from the
first question. Only when I have seen the essence of Christ, the reality of the
Messiah, the basic significance of the Son of man, the real meaning of God
become flesh—only then can I have a proper perspective and true knowledge of His
teaching and of His success. As long as I look only at the externalities of the
number of His disciples and of His doctrine, as long as I fail to believe and
appreciate the deep mystery of His being, I must continue to be an embarrassed
or an arrogant fool. For externalities can never explain externalities. “Jesus”
is not the explanation of “Jesus.” The historical manifestation of Jesus does
not explain itself. That which the externalities explain and make tangible must
be illuminated by the light of the concealed essence, of the inner being. Jesus
and His historical appearing must be understood in reference to Christ (the
messianic being foretold long ago, and conceived in God’s eternity). The
historical manifestation of the Word of Life can be understood only in relation
to the super-historical, external decrees of God, arrived at in the council of
peace and derived from the mystery of His trinity.

Inasmuch, therefore, as Annas limits his investigation to those two
externalities, Jesus’ success and Jesus’ propaganda, he, in spite of the fact
that he is standing on ground which by special revelation had been prepared for
receiving the hidden meaning of the God of the Messiah, remains entangled in the
vicious circle of purely natural knowledge. He remains oblivious to the great
blessing of special revelation. He nonchalantly overlooks all of the Scriptures,
for these point only to the hidden essence of the Messiah. He is perfectly
willing to look upon Jesus the Nazarene in the light of his own impoverished
theology, of his own Sadducean party-interest, and of his Jewish ideal of
nationalism. But he refuses to look upon Jesus in the light of special
revelation. He explains time in terms of time, externalities in terms of
externalities, and historical phenomena in terms of historical phenomena.

Such is the tragedy of the events of the day. We have said already that as a
judge Annas cuts the knot which was tied instead of untying it. This also
applies to him as a seeker of the truth. As a thinking man also he cuts the
knots into pieces instead of unraveling them according to the wisdom of the
Scriptures. Hence Caiaphas and Annas become enmeshed in the same snare which
trapped Pilate later. Just as Pilate degenerates from sinning against truth
(“What is truth?”) into sinning against justice (“What is justice?”), so
Israel’s priests at this time degenerate from a false approach to the problem of
truth to a false solution of the great problem of justice.

Such is the vicious circle as it was drawn by the events of the day. Can it be,
then, that the events of this day are so much different from those of other days
in the world? No, not at all. If you fit the trial of Christ Jesus into the
whole course of the world you will come to recognize the fact that this is all
that could possibly be expected to take place. Jesus must be condemned by the
world at all times, for the world simply cannot escape from the vicious circle.
How, indeed, can circles and straight lines ever get on together? How can the
flat planes of the world and the intervention of God’s lightning harmonize? Can
we suppose that there will be no more friction, no more nameless antagonism
between the sons of men included in the vicious circle and the Son of man who is
of the line of transcendant revelation? But for this purpose came Christ into
the world, that He might break the cycle of the vicious circle. And because He
came into the world for this purpose, I must learn to appreciate the seriousness
of this session which is being conducted by Annas. In other words, I must learn
to correlate the events of the day with the whole scheme of the Biblical
world-and-life-view.

We may be sure that the events of this day (and this night), in other words,
that the events as they concern Annas, are appraised aright only if related
properly to the world view which teaches us the essential despair of that
vicious circle. For it is only from such a viewpoint that we can see in that
circle in which both knowledge and justice are spinning around, not only an
incident in the life of Annas and Caiaphas but also a symptom of all purely
natural life.

Who, indeed, can teach us the nature of that circle? Which philosopher, which
philosophy can teach us its secret or point out its laws? Surely, no philosophy,
no world-view which observes things from a human vantage point can do so·. For
all things human and all things mundane in so far as these arc not vanquished
and blessed by the God of special revelation and of special grace are included
in and cannot escape from the viciousness of it. Every philosophy, every
“theology,” every system of morals, every body of jurisprudence which is built
up solely on a base of human wisdom and is worldly in its origin, is and remains
natural and carnal. Each of these is included in the maelstrom of the world;
each is another effort to explain time in terms of time, to regulate the world
by means of the world, and to proclaim justice by means of those who themselves
are unjust. In short, every world-view not derived from special revelation is
itself included in the fatal cycle. That world-view alone which comes from above
and not from below will be able to discover the vicious circle of our human life
as it really is and to reveal to us that God may deliver us from it.

Such a world-view chants its lamentation in the book of Ecclesiastes. We must
pause to consider it. The book of Ecclesiastes occupies a unique position among
the books of the Old Testament. It is one of the last of all those Scriptures
which, taken together, constitute that Old Testament. Formerly this fact was
denied by many. It was thought that Solomon was the writer of Ecclesiastes. Were
this true, the book of the preacher would by no means be one of the latest of
the Old Testament writers. In recent times, however, the conviction is becoming
firmer that Solomon was not the author of the book. As a matter of fact, the
original text of Ecclesiastes indicates nowhere that Solomon wrote it. On the
contrary, this book was written after the time of Nehemiah and Malachi. It dates
from a period in which Israel’s glory had long waned and in which alien despots
were treading upon the vestiges of her proud past.[1] And the sole and
ever-repeated theme of this wonderful book is the vicious circle.

[1]Compare Dr. C. van Gelderen,De boeken der Koningen, Volume 1, J. H. Kok,
Kampen, 1926, pp. 241-242. Its author has observed that Israel’s glory has
departed from her. The empire of Solomon has been trodden upon and broken; first
by his epigones, and later by the enemies of Israel. Now Solomon himself, after
many centuries, arises from his grave—for Ecclesiastes, embodying a well known
rhetorical device, introduces Solomon to us as the speaker—in order to declare
that everything associated with the great king, his wisdom, his might, his
culture, amounted to nothing save vanity and the tedium of endlessly cyclical
movement. That is what the glory of Solomon amounted to, observed solely from a
temporal point of view. Solomon does not suffice to explain Solomon. He had
great power, but his power was broken. He had great wisdom, but his
philosophical system was mocked by succeeding thinkers—other philosophers
succeeded him in the world. Solomon issued books of law and outlined a system of
legal procedure, but what has remained of these? As for Solomon’s culture? In
all of its splendor it also had to give way to destruction, bit by bit. The
whole of Solomon’s artistically evolved life is part and parcel of the vicious
circle. And what, alas, can be done about that? Who, pray, can push back its
ever-moving wheel? No one is capable of doing it. The wheel of history is ever
turning, to and fro, up and down. Nature and history, these two acts in the
drama of general revelation, never reveal the hidden mystery of the eternal,
immovable things of God in a way which gives peace to human hearts, always being
hurtled to and fro as they are. Just as nature is ever repeating itself, in an
endless, expansively cyclical process, so is the history of men. Everything goes
but to return, rises to fall again. The one breaks down what the other has
begun. No lecture room, no court of justice, no seat of culture, no conference
group devoted to a discussion of war and peace, is fixed and sure. What exists
today will return tomorrow and the tedium of such interminable repetition is
fatiguing even to the point of death. So says the Preacher about general
revelation. He demonstrates to himself and to us how pitifully wanting this
general revelation is when it is separated from special revelation. But he says
more. Next to the general revelation stands general or common grace. Of that the
Preacher also speaks. He points out how meager common grace is when it is
independent of special grace. Of these two the Preacher is constantly talking:
of nature, and of the busy and multiple historical life of man. These are the
two domains of general revelation and of common grace. And these two are a part
of that deterministic cycle which we have called the vicious circle, unless ....

Unless? Yes, unless the domain of general grace is governed by a living and
quickening power derived from special grace, and unless the domain of general
revelation is illumined by the special revelation of God which intervenes from
above.

You see, then, that the book of Ecclesiastes has a beautiful significance for
the Old Testament. This book laments the meagerness, the essential poverty, the
insufficiency of general revelation and of common grace. That is the value of
the book. Yes, that is its peculiar value. The old covenant must die with a
lamentation, must pass out with a cry, because of the insufficiency of general
revelation; for thus a sound of rejoicing may break out later when Christ
appears in the New Testament to give Himself to the victims of God’s vicious
circle as the great gift of special revelation and of special grace. True, these
were found in Israel before this time also, but in the New Testament they reach
their fulfillment, their pleroma. This Preacher, then, stands at the very end of
the weeping wall of the Old Testament, mourning. He raises his bitter cry. And
this is the burden of his lament: outside of the pale of the messianic light,
eye (in nature) has not seen, nor ear (in history) heard, nor heart (in general
philosophies of life) conceived the great mystery of final knowledge, redeeming
insight, of absolute certainty, and eternal life. Only when that cry has been
uttered, only when the sound of the dirge of all God’s bondmen has been heard,
will it be the time for the New Testament to point out to us the tower of the
Lord’s redemption standing behind the weeping wall of the Old. Then only will it
be the time for Christ, the Chief Prophet, to drive out by means of intervention
from above the uncertainties of the spirit of Solomon, the spirit which in
itself was unable to sustain life. That will be the time for Paul to answer the
Ecclesiast by pointing to Christ, the Messiah who has come. Then Paul can say:
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart conceived (that which could not be
obtained from general revelation) what God hath prepared for all of them that
love Him. The great mystery is not discovered by a science which subsists on
general revelation only, and builds its conclusions up on that, climbing from
below upwards, but is revealed from above to those below by the authentic Word
of God. For in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. And that Word by its own sovereign sharing of itself has become
flesh.

Those are a few of the main ideas in the book of Ecclesiastes; such is the
essence of its life. That is why this book in which the Old Testament breathes
its last breath is the book of the vicious circle. It is in this book that the
thought to which we alluded before was raised: In the place of judgment was
wickedness, and in the place of knowledge was doubt.

No, no, he who speaks in this book is not a rebel clenching his fist against the
palace which keeps the keys of the Bastille. He who speaks and voices his plaint
in this book is a son of man who has shared in the misery of the world. For he,
too, knows that without God and outside of the temple which is subject to that
law of the world which says that wickedness is in the place of judgment, license
in the place of law enforcement, he is in the place in which law is thrust aside
at the very time when it should let its light shine upon the events of life.

No, the Preacher was not satisfied to say that the vicious circle was present
even in the hall of justice. The awful merit of the Preacher is that he
describes the whole of natural life, the whole of life not blessed by special
revelation, as being subservient to the yoke, to the fate, of the vicious
circle. Take nature, for example. In every respect and in every place nature
describes a complete arc. The sun rises and sets again; clouds absorb water and
release it again; hidden springs supply the rivers, but the sea is never so full
that it overflows and smothers the springs. The whole of nature represents a
continual vacillation, an endless repetition. Just such a cycle, says the
Preacher, characterizes the life of culture, as long as it is not healed and
redeemed by the temple, by special revelation, by the special law which is
revealed by God. That which the one builds, the other breaks down; that which
past generations evolve the future generations destroy; positions of rank shift
from one to another; the leaders of today are the slaves of tomorrow. Thus it
becomes apparent that the whole life of the world is subject to the law of
rotation. Who is there that teaches a philosophy from one point of view and does
so authoritatively? The wise teach us wisdom; tomorrow a wiser comes to destroy
the wisdom of yesterday. Who can lay down a binding system of morals? That which
is named right today is called wrong tomorrow. Virtue and vice continually
exchange places with each other. Alas, when life is really left to itself, it is
a mere merry-go-round of futility. It turns and turns, et l’on revient tonjours
a ses premiers amours. And even as history does, so men return to their first
antipathies also. Today hordes of slaves assume the ranks of aristocrats,
tomorrow others take their place. Not one of the world’s classes is assured of
its status forever. Just as the servant of Annas arrogates to himself the
function of a judge, just as Annas lowers himself to the status of a servant, so
the whole world. The world would propel itself by its own ears, but it moves in
a circle, and the circle is a very vicious one. On earth man walks in a medium
of mystery, and there is no priest to explain God to him, no priest, at least,
trained in the schools of nature and history, and in those two alone. Such is
the vicious circle.

Fortunately, the Preacher said more than this. To that we shall refer later.

Pausing here, however, we ask ourselves: But is not this the core of the matter?
And must we not return to this real issue as often as we undertake to say
something about that blow given Christ, the great outlaw? Remember, that blow
was a demonstrative blow. Accordingly, instead of hurling invectives against the
servant of the aged Annas, we must acknowledge that he fits perfectly into the
scheme of a world which wants to live outside of the pale of special revelation.

What we have here is a secularized house of priests which will have nothing to
do with “the” law and which, accordingly, shuts out the law and the lawgiver.
This is the vicious circle: to know nothing, and to act as though everything was
perfectly clear—in short, to administer a blow. This is the pathetic state of
things: to fail to place Christ the lawgiver over against Jesus the accused, to
fail to measure and to judge Jesus by the standard of God who is the highest
lawgiver, and yet to allow the meanest servant to take upon himself the
prerogative of the most assured among the people. Such is the world: to refuse
to see God in the man Jesus, but to punish the devil in him nevertheless —
although this last act is an eternal impossibility. An eternal impossibility,
for he only can discern the devil who can discern God. Only the spiritual man,
says Paul, judgeth all things — the spiritual man, he who is nourished by the
bread for which the Preacher hungered. When the palace of the spiritual court of
justice has been secularized, when all the windows looking out on the
everlasting east, on God the lawgiver, have been walled up, that court cannot
possibly deal justly with Christ. By such conduct it begins to look up on Him as
upon a man among men, and upon His teaching as one among many teachings, upon
His influence in procuring disciples as just another manifestation of a
recurring phenomenon in the world. But it does not succeed in really explaining
Him. Life can never explain life. History cannot lay history bare. And this
inadequacy which refuses to confess itself is quite willing to cut the knots it
cannot untie, is perfectly willing to smite the Wonder on the cheek. Such is the
feeble gesture of victory on the part of the defeated. Moreover, this is the
tragedy of us all. Every high priest who forgets God, every slave who forgets
God, every zealot, be he serious or frivolous, who wants to explain the world in
terms of the world will smite Jesus on the cheek in just this manner. They all
strike Jesus; all strike the Wonderful, the Counselor, the Mighty God, the
Prince of Peace. Every philosophy, every theory, every so-called orthodoxy, and
every heresy, which is not derived from special revelation, is a blow against
the cheek of God, the sole Interpreter of the world, the sole Giver and
Proclaimer of the law. The house of Annas has not properly evaluated the mind of
the ranking person in this place. But by means of the fist of the meanest
person, it frankly and facilely acts as though it had come to the right
conclusion. That is the meaning of the blow on the cheek. You and I were born in
this same house, and were expertly brought up in its traditions. Left to
ourselves, we too would not have known the one lawgiver. The blow on the cheek
means that we are attempting to argue Him out of existence. Every court of law
in the world witnesses the gruesome injustice of the man who does not believe in
God. The blow dealt in the hour of his trial demonstrates the folly and the
vicious character of sin — of the sin, that is, which has separated the activity
of the creature from the Logos of God. Because it has done that, it can never,
never be logical again. As this blow echoes through the air, I think of Ecc 1:15
: That which is crooked cannot be made straight. Such is the empirical fact. The
crooked line which follows a circular course cannot be made into a straight line
by life itself. And I tremble when I read next to it the statement recorded in
Ecc 7:13 : Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight which He
hath made crooked? Alas, in these words that which I experience empirically is
laid down as the inescapable lot of the whole world, for it tells me that God
Himself has created the world so that it can never solve its own problems nor
unravel its own knots. If “God” does not become the “covenant God,” if “God”
does not become “the Father,” if the Almighty does not say “I am Jaweh,” if the
voice of general revelation is not drowned out by the thundering approach of
special revelation, then the rashness of the weary circuit-rider of time will
ever again deal the blow against God’s own Son. The tragedy of the matter
certainly is that Annas and Caiaphas lagged behind; they came late and they came
crippled. They searched, but could not find. Now they literally take the law
into their hands, they resort to the blind solution of force. They take recourse
to blows. But they do not know the Son of God. Shall I condemn them? Indeed,
not. For who can make straight that which God has made crooked? Who can carry
the straight line of all-conquering truth into the world, and who can break or
bend into shape the crooked line of the vicious circle, if God Himself does not
do so? Unless God is very gracious to me, unless He reveals the secret of
Himself and the world to me, I, together with the whole world, will raise my
hand to smite God on both cheeks. The act will be the most pious gesture in the
prayer of the unwitting. In that terrible prayer the fatigue of the world, and
its tedium, will be unaware of itself though unmistakably clear to all who have
spiritual eyes to see . . .

Bind the hands of the man who smote Jesus just now, and look into the eyes of
the Smitten One. He is your Lord and your God. As such He comes to point out the
vicious circle to you. Mark how He reveals Himself as the Mediator just when
that revelation is necessary. Christ answers the man who struck Him. If I, He
says, in my public teaching, in my discourses, ever said anything evil, bear
witness of the evil. But if not, if you can testify of nothing against me, why
do you smite me? By this reply Christ at once gets at the heart of the issue.
The vicious circle, ever moralizing, argues: plead — or smite. The Mediator
demands: bear witness — or believe. Has the man who strikes Him, possibly, some
critical ability in reference to the Christ whom he strikes with such dispatch?
Has he mastered the difficult teaching of Christ? Has he some authoritative
standard, some touchstone, according to which he can appraise what Christ has
said? If so, let him speak. He who wishes to judge must be able to refer to his
sources of law, and if he has no such standard, how can he administer the blow?
That blow is a false front designed to enhance the mask behind which is
concealed the face of an ignorant man. Christ merely asks a question but in that
question the Messiah asserts Himself and swears that the legal process begun by
the world against Him can take but one course. It must long for and bow before
absolute authority. Whoever has not the capacity to criticize Christ may do
nothing, may not even say anything which assumes that he knows what it is all
about. Whoever has not discovered the sole relationship between Christ and the
Chief Lawgiver of heaven may not summon Him into his court or reject Him from
the sphere of law. The man who is ignorant simply may not deal with Christ as a
problem which he has personally solved. By pointing to and condemning the
vicious circle at the beginning of His trial, Christ, therefore, remained the
true Mediator. He enmeshed us in our own snares, entangled us in our own skeins.
He proved to us that the only way to evaluate Him is to accept Him on His own
authority. To every discourse He gives He appends the same introduction: Why did
you strike me just now? Ah, how He embarrasses us. But what do we want? What do
we expect outside of the pale of His authority? Imagine for a moment that
Christ’s absolute authority does not exist. Then we can never escape from our
own difficulties, never elude the vicious circle. The servant may not smite, and
the high priest can not bless. For Jesus of Nazareth passed by. Did He really
pass by? No, if only He had. He is so very troublesome to the flesh. Who that
has listened to His “Why did you smite me?” can fail thereupon to fold his hands
in prayer? If I want to evaluate Christ without regard to His own claims to
authority, what can I possibly expect to do? The blow represents folly; and a
prayer is not wisdom. Nevertheless, up to this time those are the only two
things to which I can resort.

Therefore I must let Christ reprimand me as He reprimanded the servant who
struck Him. He strikes at the very manner in which I put the problem. My flesh
was unwilling to listen to the Preacher, unwilling to attend to the book of
Ecclesiastes. For the Preacher had declared that life could never explain
itself, that a worldly court could not establish its own moral code, as long as
it refused to subject itself to special revelation. So much my flesh would never
grant the Preacher. And “Nazareth” does not explain my flesh. Heaven must
explain the Nazarene, and His own deep heart — so large that it can contain the
heaven of heavens — must interpret Him. Thou fool of Annas, the highest wisdom
is to bow before authority. To appropriate the revelation which comes from above
is the first principle of reasonable religion, thou mercenary hireling, thou who
art continually breathing out blasphemy against the temple. Nature (including
Jesus’ food and drink, Jesus’ life and death) is not explained by nature, but
solely by special revelation. And today it is this special revelation which is
addressing itself to thee. History (including Jesus’ stay in Nazareth, Jesus’
preaching in Galilee, and His being captive in Jerusalem) is not explained by
history, but by special revelation. Today that revelation is addressing itself
to thee. That, also, the Preacher knew. Can it be that any among us sometimes
thought that the Preacher knew only how to complain about nature and about
history? Remember, we can truly and canonically lament the phenomenon of doubt
when we look down upon it from the vantage point of the achieved certainty of
faith. The insufficiency of the vicious circle is apparent only to the person
who has reached that vertical course which leads upward from below. Only he can
lament the relative inadequacy of general revelation who has learned to rejoice
in special revelation. No, the Preacher is not a member or a guardian saint of
that group of doubters which teaches that one can strike Jesus on the cheek
without incriminating one’s self. The Preacher, too, had drunk the clear waters
which flow from the fountains of the Highest Wisdom. When He had done so, He saw
the temple rising out of and standing above nature. He saw the venerable temple
rise out of the vicious circle of natural life, of natural wisdom, and of
natural reason. That temple does not deign to discuss its authority but makes
its authority binding. It does not argue in mundane terms about the right of God
to demand sacrifice, but simply makes sacrifice a binding requirement. It does
not make man the measure of good and evil but makes the standard of the temple
of God absolutely authoritative. Those are the three articles of the basic law
of the temple. Without consulting any of his ministers, the King is exalted far
above the need of counselors. The first article of that fundamental law, then,
was that the temple simply imposes its authority. Hence the call is sounded on
all sides: Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God (Ecc 5:1.). Freely
translated that means: Go cautiously, be on guard, do not let your impulse
dictate your steps, “keep your foot” for it is bound, keep your hand lest it
smite the cheek, for you are bound. Keep thy foot, keep thy hand, restrain thy
tongue, for the beginning of all wisdom is to bow before special and absolutely
authoritative revelation. Nature will never teach you to restrain your foot:
what difference does your conduct make to it? Nor does history make anything
binding upon your conscience: what, pray, is good and what evil? But the temple,
special revelation, that it is which really knows, which dictates the law, and
does so without asking whether it suits you. The temple only can inspire
caution. The second article of the fundamental law of the temple has it that
God’s right to demand sacrifices — sacrifices instead of blows to the cheek — is
not based on legal argumentation which is of earthly origin. The question “What
must I do and what must I not do?” can be answered solely by the Chief Lawgiver
Himself in His special revelation. That is why the Preacher says — and he hears
the temple itself sounding the cry: bring not the sacrifice of fools. Liberally
translated, that means: do not dally in the place of seriousness, and do not
play idly with sacrificial blood, for everything you do and do not do must be
governed by special law-giving revelation. Nature and history tell you to follow
your own impulses, to bring sacrifices in the company of fools. Nature and
history teach you that there is no absolute command. But the temple binds your
hands and does not ask you whether you like it. Special revelation teaches the
sacrifice of the wise. The third article of the fundamental law of the temple
maintains that I may never regard myself as my own standard of conduct. My
subjective inclination can never be a sufficient authority in itself.
Accordingly, the temple advises: say not in the presence of the angels that you
made a mistake,1when you promised a great sacrifice and substituted for it a
small one. For, even after you have begun to bring sacrifices, even after you
have become obedient in a general way, even then you have by no means been given
the privilege of determining what is good and what is evil. Not only the fact
that you must bring sacrifices but also the kind of sacrifices you must bring is
governed by the commandments. In the temple everything is revealed with
authority. Sovereign authority, then, is at the bottom of our lives. And that
sovereign authority is absolutely binding for all of the efforts and results of
our conduct.

[1]Ecc 5:5. As though you had mistaken the value of your sacrifice and are now,
just as when you made the offer, following your own whim and fancy.

You see, therefore, that the blow which insulted heaven in the house of Annas
was not condemned in human terms based on expedience, or good taste, or natural
love, but in the terms of the law of God. Christ disciplined the man who struck
Him in terms of the same wisdom which informed the Preacher’s temple-discourse,
a discourse which sharply sets the temple off from nature and from history.2 But
Christ disciplined in order that He might heal. He who spoke in reprimand is the
very same for whom the Preacher yearned. He is the bearer of absolute authority
and its proclaimer. He is the sole revealer and preacher of the true law of the
temple. In fact, He is the Temple, for God dwells in Him bodily. Destroy this
temple, and within three days it will be built up again.

[2]Ecc 5:1-5. According to some (with or without other texts)AZwischenstiick

Christ, then, at the beginning of His trial immediately pointed Israel’s judges
back to the book of Ecclesiastes, in which the Old Testament was reaching out
its hands to that great exponent of authority who would place the life of nature
under the full rays of heavenly revelation, who would convert the merry-go-round
of world history into a straight path to God — or into a straight road to Satan
— and who would by the grace of the Lord make straight all the crooked lines of
“God.” For God is present in the general, and the Lord (Jaweh) is present in the
special revelation. We must let Christ tell us this truth. The blow with which
the last legal session of the Jews concluded its preliminary action is the
confirmation of the tragical conflict expressed in the book of Ecclesiastes. But
the word which Christ spoke on this occasion is the maintenance and fulfillment
of the solution which the Preacher discovered when he saw that no human norm,
but only the Word which was in the beginning, is warranted in proclaiming the
truth. This Word which was in the beginning and which was with God, is here. It
is no wonder that John, the same evangelist who wrote the well-known prologue
about the Word which was made flesh and which could put the weariness of the
Preacher of the Old Testament to rest, is the one who brings together the blow
given by the servant of the priest and the reprimand given by Christ. The
problem raised in this late book of wisdom in the Old Testament is solved in the
prologue to John’s gospel. And Christ was willing to suffer for that solution.
He offers His cheek to those who would strike Him today in this terribly
vicious, terribly malignant circle. Today all the ennui and tedium which the
Preacher suffered accrues to Him. The blow “grieves His spirit” so severely and
makes Him so weary that no one can hope to give expression to it. Have courage,
my Saviour, for “the conclusion of the whole matter is this: Fear God, and keep
His commandments.”

No, do not ask whether all this constituted suffering for the Christ. Was there
no pain in this labor? Indeed, the worst of it was not that the blow hurt Him
physically. That again is but the external side of the matter, although it has
significance for those who recognize the inner, hidden side. But the main thing
also in this instance is the soul-suffering of the Son of man. We can put it
thus: a blow dealt Him by the Greeks hurts Him less than a blow given Him by the
Jews. For, up to this time the Greeks have been left to heathendom, have been
allowed to stay in the vicious circle; to them the oracles (special revelation)
of God have not been entrusted. The Greeks have only general revelation. But
Israel is a people of special revelation. To Israel the holy Scriptures came and
with these the hook of Ecclesiastes. The whole of the old covenant closes with
the summons: Look to the Messiah; keep your foot when you go into the temple;
restrain your hands when you meet with the image of God; and know that the world
cannot explain itself, that the external side of things, be it of Solon of
Athens, of Solomon of Jerusalem, or of Jesus of Nazareth, cannot account for
itself. Tremble in the presence of the great mystery. And begin with the
beginning, with the Word which was in the beginning.

However, in spite of the fact that Christ is the great goal to which the
Preacher longingly looked forward, and in spite of the fact that the attention
of the dying Old Testament pointed to the distant horizon on which the Messiah
would sometime dawn, Christ as He appears here today stands as a smitten one.
Darkness — also the darkness dwelling in His people — prefers the vicious circle
to the straight line of the Messiah, that line of revelation which extends from
above downward. They ask about His disciples and about His doctrine, but not
about the essence of His being.

Because of its frightful inadequacy, therefore, this question becomes the
downfall of Israel. It was a denial of the yearning of the Preacher; it was an
outspoken abnegation of that which wounded the Ecclesiast even unto death. In
short, it was an acceptance of the external, the empirical, the historical side
of things, and of that side only. Ah, but this was suffering for the Christ!
Think — to be the bread of heaven, for which the Old Testament had hungered
because the scraps of nature could never satisfy. And to be rejected now, now
when He is lying on Israel’s display table as the bread of heaven! To be
rejected because no one would look upon this bread in the light of heaven! Men
placed it in the scales of earth and found it too light — and used it later as
the bait by which to entice death to come. The blow on the cheek — it is an
outright denial of the burden of the Preacher. The dog returns again to his own
vomit. The Preacher himself said so .. . In view of what has been said now, it
is a futile pastime to set up labored arguments about the weighty question of
whether Christ, by reprimanding the man who struck Him, was practicing what He
had preached on the mount. There are those who raise that question. They call
attention to the fact that in His sermon on the mount He said: Whosoever shall
smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Christ said that,
these critics aver, and then tremulously add: But as a matter of fact He does
not practice the theory Himself; instead of keeping silence, He pronounces a
sharp reprimand.

Those who say this, however, are mistaken. For it is precisely in this that
Christ fulfilled the sermon on the mount. The great fundamental idea underlying
that sermon is that everything in the kingdom of heaven, everything, including
the least significant detail of life, moves in a medium of infinite earnestness.
Everything is subject to the law. Nothing is insignificant. And, although Christ
in the sermon on the mount includes everything within the pale of the law, Annas
and Caiaphas, and the servants attempt to thrust everything outside of the
circumference of law. They find an outlaw in the very place where the Chief
Lawgiver takes his stand. The vicious circle dresses the Chief Lawgiver in the
ragged burlap of the outlaw, just as it dispatches the Chief Wisdom to Rome in
the motley garb of a fool. In short, they place the whole trial outside of the
sphere of Christ’s sermon on the mount. When they did so, Christ restored things
to their proper place by proclaiming to the man who struck Him that He must not
exert a single muscle of his clenched fist before he has pondered upon and
reached a conclusion about the problems of absolute authority, of the law and
gospel, of the Word and eternity. The impulsive reaction of our “natural” life,
such as the blow to the cheek doubtless was, must be interpreted in the light of
the absolute seriousness of life. If that is done, we will see that Christ who
first pressed Himself and His judges against the high wall of the kingdom of
heaven, now proceeds to offer the man, who struck Him on the one cheek, the
other also, by way of giving him the right to testify of the evil if he can. “If
I have spoken evil, testify of it.” Christ does indeed turn His other cheek to
all orators and all authors who manipulate their pen without reference to the
sphere of revelation, and to all theological faculties who have humanized
revelation. He says, Testify against me, lest you speak some word which shows
that you do not understand God and eternity. If you cannot do this, bow before
authority, acquiesce in it as the first principle of life, and then see whether
I am not always what I say I am, to all who believe; then see whether I will not
kiss you upon both cheeks.

Christ’s reply, therefore, to the blow on His cheek is a messianic
self-revelation. He reveals Himself to the fatigued people of the Old Testament
and hears the prayers of the Preacher, in whose momentous book prophecy
approached its culmination. In that book prophecy was awaiting its great First.
A blow on Jesus’ cheek without the word with which Christ accompanies it, would
have left the court of Israel in the helpless condition of the Preacher, would
have left it in the tragic conflict of the vicious circle. If Jesus had held His
peace He would have been unfaithful to the house of Israel, He would have failed
to respond to the duty of active obedience, He would indeed have failed to turn
the other cheek. But now we know that He speaks the Word, that He ministers the
Word, and that He has done well in this. He has done it for us, as an example to
us. He has also done it in our stead. This is a marvelous discovery. I am the
one who by nature am ever trying to rid myself of this great Representative of
authority by means of a blow to His cheek. Every word hastily spoken, every
doubt-prompted leap to a false serenity, every flight from the pain of the
absolute to the sedative of my accursed relativism, is but another blow which I
am giving Christ, the great bearer, and the holy content of God’s most special
revelation. Alas, how often have I not struck my Saviour on His cheek! Alas,
alas again — for now He comes to offer me the other. He hurls His lasso around
me, He throws that evil circle of His condemning Word around my flesh. He tells
me: If I have spoken evil, testify of it. This He says to me now. His patience
is very frightening, for He inducts me into the world of His sermon on the
mount. In that world I may strike Him on both cheeks if I feel like doing that —
He swore with an oath that I could. Alas, Annas, you and I stand next to each
other, next to each other and almost pressed to death against the High Wall of
the kingdom of heaven. There He will offer me His cheeks — He has sworn that He
would with an oath. His bonds wound me terribly. I cannot oppose this man whom
you suspect, Annas. What must I do with your prisoner?

Annas does not answer. The High Wall is dumb. I know of only one thing which I
can do. I shall tell Him that in this other world in which He offers me His
other cheek and in which He offers me the right to speak out my cogitations
aloud — that in this world I cannot breathe. I shall ask Him whether He will not
first carry me into that world, receive me in grace, transfer me to the realm of
His Spirit and teach me to breathe the atmosphere of eternity. When I open my
eyes there, I shall not accuse Him, for He will have drawn me with the cords of
love, and brought me to the place where I might reach His cheeks. I shall kiss
His cheeks; I shall kiss Him whom my soul loves. Strike Him? Behind me, insane
Satan; for who would strike Him? I shall sing hymns of praise in His honor, for
faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things which
cannot be seen in the vicious circle. I have read the sentence which my blow to
His cheek has pronounced upon me; I read it from 1 Corinthians 2. The natural
man cannot discern the things of the spirit; he has not the critical capacity to
explain the things of time in terms of time, for these are all distorted. But he
that is spiritual “judgeth” all things, even though he himself is “judged” of no
man. Hence I must suffer the affliction of the blow on the cheek together with
my Saviour from now on. I must do that as soon as He has bound my hands lest I
should strike my Lord and my God. But I will bear the blows. I shall offer Annas
both my cheeks. Thou art great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised, and our hands
tremble restlessly at our sides until such time as Thou dost bind them, dost
bind them with cords of love.


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  CHAPTER 9: 04. CHAPTER 4: THE VICIOUS CIRCLE CONDEMNS CHRIST
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C H A P T E R F O U R The Vicious Circle Condemns Christ 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 the chief priests and all the council sought for
witness against Jesus to put him to death; and found none. For many bare 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.
—Mark 14:53 and Mark 14:55-59. OUR preceding chapter was an exposition of the
thought that the vicious circle in which, according to the Preacher, the whole
world is ensnared as long as it shuns the Christ, is pointed out and condemned
by Christ. It was His privilege and it was His duty to do so. Hence He presents
Himself to us in the hall of Annas as the one solution to all questions.
Moreover, His solution is not only the closing speech of all human argument, but
also the beginning, the first contention, the word “which was from the
beginning” proceeding as it did from the revealed God.

Now the Gospel turns the tables around. It shows us that darkness prefers itself
to the light. Christ who would break through the vicious circle is in turn
broken by it Himself. For in the session of the Sanhedrin that which demands the
death of Christ, God’s great Answerer, is its obstinate clinging to an
unsolvable riddle. We shall investigate precisely that in greater detail now. It
will be a piteous story about the wrath of the vicious circle.

Jesus is taken from Annas to Caiaphas. The preliminary hearing in the presence
of Annas has produced no results. They did not know what to do with the Nazarene
there. Accordingly, Annas rids himself of this great burden. He can do this very
easily because his time has already been served. Thus Christ is led to the
Sanhedrin. This body was present in toto (Mark 14:53-55; Mat 26:59). By that we
do not mean to say that every last member was present, for it is also possible
that the constituent colleges of the Sanhedrin were present in sufficiently
adequate numbers to constitute a quorum. The assembly meets in the palace of
Caiaphas. That is not surprising. It was night and the gate of the hill of the
temple, accordingly, was closed, so that they could not meet in their official
assembly hall. The work of darkness was in a hurry. This was a very tragic
spectacle, this opening of the session. They knew just what they wanted.
Caiaphas said as much at the time. All they needed now was a formal basis for
the sentence, a kind of formulation of the charge which could be made public to
God and men. But that was not easy. We say again, that the preliminary hearing
had proved fruitless and the Sanhedrin virtually was turning around in the same
impotent situation. The Gospel according to Mark, particularly, points out very
clearly how they must coil and twist themselves about in their attempt to arrive
at some legal version of a charge and of a condemnation. At first all the
members of the assembly set themselves to work at the task. All of the
respectable gentlemen together try to find some testimony against Jesus.
However, they find none. True, there were false witnesses enough but these
contradicted each other badly. At least no one could find a harmony in the
several testimonies which they presented.

Then, at long last, there were a few who found something. From the variety and
abundance of the testimony heard, the subject they wished to discuss comes into
the foreground sharply accentuated. Among this group, too, there is still some
difference of opinion about the exact formulation and the precise phrasing of
what Jesus has done amiss. But, after all, one cannot be too particular in a
situation like this one. An argument which really carries weight has now been
brought to the fore. It concerns a certain statement which Jesus made long ago
when He had been challenged by the Jews to authenticate His, messianic rights.

Now the fact that the issue concerned messianic rights tells us that it was
indeed one which could legitimately be raised here. For Christ’s messianic
qualifications are indeed the major consideration in any trial which the world
engages in against Him. Everyone should sit at attention now, for it seems that
the main issue has finally been reached.

Just what is it that they have found? Well, let them tell it themselves.
Everyone remembers that Christ once purged the temple. He found all kinds of
traders there who were teaching the people to play with the law of sacrifice. A
false desire for comfort had made God’s commandments impotent by means of
caricatured human promises. Everywhere the doors of the temple had the
superscription, “Open for business.” That holy zeal which gives God what is
God’s due was gone. The temple had been turned into a den of murderers. When
Christ noticed that, He had arisen in opposition. He had arisen by virtue of His
authority as the Messiah. He had said to Himself — as He did so He was employing
the logic of the Son thinking about His Father’s house — that they had no right
to defile or profane the house of His Father. If they persisted in doing that
the task of the Son was clear. And thereupon Christ had whipped these people out
of His Father’s splendid palace. He had driven those out who had defiled the
temple and whose conduct sent its foul stench up to heaven.

After this zealous business had been completed, the authorities had come to
Jesus. Just what had He taken into His hands? Who had given Him the authority?
Where were His credentials? Naturally, Jesus did not have these, at least no
credentials written by men. Neither the political nor the spiritual authorities
had qualified Him for such or for any other conduct. Nevertheless Jesus insisted
that He was qualified to act as He did. His credentials, He suggested, came from
above.

Well, if that were true, there was only one thing to do: to demand a sign. If He
as a worker of miracles could exhibit some convincing token (just what kind they
would consider in greater detail afterwards), they might be willing to consider
the fact that indeed Jesus did get His rights from above. In response to the
request to show some sign by way of proving His qualifications, Jesus gives a
very fitting answer. On the other hand He answers the fools according to their
folly, for He suggests a sign which not one of them is willing to challenge. He
tells them that they can go ahead and break the temple down, and within three
days He will build it up again.

Naturally Christ knew very well that they would not proceed to break down the
stone temple in the shadow of which this dispute was being carried on. To that
extent, therefore, His answer begs the question, and rules out of consideration
the request they have put to Him. Why does He do it? Why? Because Christ is
willing to show a sign only when it is accompanied by the Word. A sign which
does not come accompanied by the Word cannot possibly convert anyone. A sign
cannot in itself convince anyone. True, it makes its appearance in the
phenomenal world, but if it is not explained in terms of the prophecy of special
revelation, the sign is the exact equivalent of anything else in that world of
phenomena. Then the sign also is but a part of the vicious circle of all
natural, mundane life. Unless the sign is accompanied by the Word, it cannot
help one to escape from the circle. One can never explain the sign with
certainty, unless one has first been taken captive and vanquished by the Word of
God. If that has not taken place, if faith is not present, the sign will have
nothing to reveal, but will remain a conundrum which one explains this way, and
another that way. A sign proves to be a sign only to those who beforehand, and
without it, have believed solely because of the Word. To this extent, therefore,
the answer which Christ gave the dignified gentlemen at the side of the temple
who asked Him for His credentials was a true answer, replying to the fool in
terms of his folly. On the other hand, however, Christ also answered not the
fool according to his folly (and that, too, is advised in the Proverbs). In
other words, Christ presents a new folly by way of an answer to the other. In
this He is quite serious. The answer which He gives contains a profound, a
hidden meaning, a sublime and sacred seriousness, a sovereign and messianic
sensitiveness, an awareness of His own worth; and it contains, besides, a
judgment, a distinction between good and evil, between faith and unbelief. That
becomes apparent to us the moment we listen carefully to Christ’s reply. For
when He says, “Feel free to break down the temple, and I shall build it up in
three days,” He is giving expression to a riddle, to what in the Hebrew tongue
is called the maschil. Such a riddle, or maschil, accordingly, is an intentional
concealment of the truth. A concealment, yes, and to what end? Simply to keep
something away from the auditor? No, but, on the contrary, to make him want a
further explanation. The maschil is not a temptation designed to drive a person
from the truth to the lie; but it is a testing, a proving designed to give him
an opportunity to say what he wants. Does he want to be content with a concealed
truth, or does he want to ask for the full revelation? The maschil does not dull
the point of truth, but does indeed cover it. Especially in the instruction of
Jesus does the maschil make a remarkable impression. It is a riddle in His
prophetic instruction in which He presents a problem in such a way that all
those to whom He speaks about it must be hurt by it, inasmuch as they will never
escape from it in their own strength. After the maschil one can say which of
those who heard Jesus desired further assistance, and which of them shut
themselves up within the limits of their own pride.

All of these considerations hold true of the riddle which Christ spoke in
reference to the breaking down and building up again of the temple. Who, indeed,
would be able to say exactly what that statement meant? The enigmatic element
was certainly conspicuous enough in this maschil of Jesus. His speech was full
of obscurities. For instance: Christ knew very well that no one would undertake
to break the temple down. In fact, if anyone should have undertaken this work at
His behest, He would thereby have been taking responsibility for something which
He on other occasions definitely opposed. Very often, we know, Jesus assured
those who heard Him that He did not desire the destruction of the temple.
Moreover, such a “sign,” if some one, for instance, had accepted the challenge
to break down the temple, would no longer be a genuine sign. The question which
was being touted here between Christ and the Jews was whether or not Jesus had
the right to take any initiative inside of this stone temple. His right to do
that was highly disputable to the Jewish guardians of the temple. Now imagine
that they had broken the temple down simply in an effort to see whether Jesus
could restore it before the next Sabbath day. Then they would have indicated
that they had so much respect for His words that they needed no “sign” to
convince them. The sign, then, would no longer have constituted evidence, which
Jesus, as an alleged craftsman of unusual qualifications and extraordinary
ability, had been asked to present. Instead of “seeing,” of “testing,” they
would have been trusting. Then they would have had to take the responsibility
entirely upon their own shoulders, even though they had begun by emphatically
placing it upon the shoulders of Jesus.

Well, you see that no matter how they may twist about and contort themselves,
people cannot escape from this answer. This is so completely true that we also
would have been unable to escape from it, if we had been present at the
occasion. Even if we had absorbed the whole Bible, even if we had absorbed the
whole truth of the Scriptures, we would have learned nothing about the hidden
meaning of this maschil, if Jesus had not told each of us in particular what He
meant by His reply. However, He told His disciples what He meant, and by means
of the Scriptures gave us the right interpretation of His riddle. It is to that
we owe the knowledge of what Christ meant by His answer and of how He could
fulfill it in Himself. We are told that the temple of which He spoke is His own
body. Just as the Jewish temple was a house in which God dwelt, just so Christ’s
human nature is filled with the presence of God. The stone temple is stationary;
it is the immobile property of God; it is the dwelling place, the domain of the
great King. But Christ is the wandering temple. In Him God begins to move, comes
to the world, makes His approach to the people and the powers here below.
Therefore Christ may bear the name: the temple of the Lord. He knew this by
virtue of His messianic consciousness; and from that He derived, as the greater
than the stone temple, the right to proclaim the laws of the lesser temple. From
that He derived the right to proclaim and apply, also by means of the purging,
those laws of the lesser temple which grieved the Jewish authorities so sorely.
Now it is this greater temple which the Jews are to break down (as they proceed
to crucify their Saviour). But He will Himself, as the wandering dwelling place
of God, restore that temple again, making it more glorious than it ever was
before. He will make it translucent with the majesty which is in the highest
heavens. This He will do by means of His resurrection from the dead. So much for
the hidden significance of this maschil pronounced by Christ. We return now to
the point of our departure. And if we give our thoughts a natural and a free
reign, we too will ask ourselves in astonishment: How in the world can this
maschil be regarded as a sublime answer? How can we seriously maintain that by
means of this maschil Christ answered the fools among the Jews not according to
their folly, but according to His messianic wisdom? Is it true that the
messianic majesty and dignity express themselves fully in this riddle? Surely,
the Messiah is called, not to the great concealment, but to the manifest
revelation; He is sent not to be secretive, but to be a discoverer of reality.
In reply to this, we would answer that the highest revelation also has the right
to be the profoundest concealment. The most powerful love has the right to
express the most powerful wrath. He who gives most can also take most. He who
always hastens when he comes to me, has the right to detain me as long as he
pleases. And such is the right of the maschil — of the maschil of my Lord
Christ. For a maschil, a riddle, without Christ is nothing more than the pain of
the Preacher, that late writer of the Old Testament.[1] It is a fatal suffering,
a brutal interference with my roving through the thoroughfares of the carnival
of vanity. Of course, the maschil in the mouth of Christ Himself also causes
acute pain, but it is a pain which the physician inflicts upon us not to put us
to death but to heal us. It is an ingenious excitement of the sense of hunger in
order that we may at the right time ask for bread.

We must not fail to take careful notice of the maschil as one of the ways used
by Christ to reveal Himself. It does not commend our Christian thinking that we,
in speaking of the means of revelation which God employs, write extensive
articles about the dream, about the deep sleep, about the vision, and about the
theophony, as being so many means of revelation of God in the Old Testament, and
then leave no room in our thoughts at all for the maschil of Christ. We say that
this does not commend our thinking. If we follow that course, the maschil will
remain a riddle. That holds true not only for its content, but also for the fact
of its existence. However, if we leave the maschil uninvestigated, it condemns
us; for it is designed precisely to excite us to investigation. Why, it asks us,
why does Christ speak in “parables;” why does He use riddles instead of
forthright speech — riddles which involve people in attempts at explanation
without ever providing the possibility of a solution? Is Christ not the highest
prophet? After all, He is the one person in the whole world who in the most
absolute sense of the term is called to use a language which makes His thoughts
and the thoughts of God clear to us. Why does He speak in parables that cannot
be understood; why does He use riddles which give no one a key to their
explanation?

[1] See the preceding chapters in which the book of Ecclesiastes was discussed
in connection with the vicious circle, and in connection with the insufficiency
of nature and of historical phenomena to explain themselves.

Christ alone is able to answer these questions. Moreover, He has answered them.
Once when His disciples challenged Him for the intentional concealment of His
thoughts in the form of parables, He told them that He did this in the sense of
Isaiah: to reveal the thoughts of each man’s heart. He used the parable, the
riddle, in order to make manifest a hardening of the heart where that was
already latent, and to effect conversion wherever a human heart was susceptible
and willing to listen to the pure words of God. Consequently there is a double
task here. On the one hand, there is the calling “to make the heart of this
people fat.” Note that it is a question of this people. In other words, the
question concerns a fleshly people, a people which already has a heart which is
“fat,” a people which already is unbelieving. On the other hand, there is also
another people, and that people is very willing to take Christ at His word. This
people allows the layer of fat — to retain the Biblical figure of speech — to be
melted away, gives itself up to Christ without reservation, and then, in
proportion to the measure of its faith, sees in the Christ not a concealer of
thoughts but a revealer of them.

He must Himself provide the key for the explanation of all His parables to this
people. The children of this spiritual seed look at the details of His
instruction in the light of the main issue. They look at the periphery from the
viewpoint of the center of truth. The unknown drives them to the known and to
that which they love. If they have discovered a particular statement which
weighs heavily upon them because they cannot account for it, they take it to the
Word, to Christ Himself, and pray: “Do Thou explain this further.” And can you
believe that He will fail to hear their prayer? Indeed, He hears them, and
answers them. The embarrassed children who come to the Master of riddles for a
solution have their reward. He gives them an even clearer revelation, one which
disclosed the riddles that went before; He gives them a revelation which puts
the key of wisdom, fashioned by God Himself, into their trembling hands, so that
the doors of God’s house and of the palace of the Highest Wisdom are opened by
means of it. By means of His difficult riddles He has given them an arduous
task, but He also gives them their wages withal. But what about that first
people? What about the unbelieving people? Alas, although it has ever so
luminous a light, it prefers the darkness. It is the enemy of light. The
unregenerated personality chooses against Christ and against His truth and in
that way disowns everything which it did understand in His instruction.

These people are also affected by the maschil. In the last analysis, everyone in
the world gets what he wants. We know that the much tormented Old Testament
preacher wanted to reach out above the circle of human science and of human
investigation to the absolute, indubitable truth. Now if this hunger, which the
Preacher knew, is not satisfied by the Christ, we can say that Christ is vain.
That is one side of the truth about Jesus Christ. But this truth has another
side. When the people who listen to Him would rather hunger with the Preacher
than be satisfied with the bread of Christ, their choice for hunger instead of
bread and for the vicious circle instead of the straight line of revealed truth
is a gruesome sin which carries condemnation within itself, which calls God’s
judgment down upon it. In this way, then, Christ bears his maschil into the
world. He is the great proposer of riddles. He is that now also and it is as
such a presenter of riddles that He makes His appearance as the great sifter,
and as the divine judgment. For the maschil is also an instrument of judgment.
As often as Christ speaks in parables, He compels men to present themselves as
they are. The maschil is essentially a sifter; it reveals what is in man. The
reaction to the maschil can be one of two possibilities. To everyone who hears
it, it is, until further explanation ensues, a riddle. That the two have in
common. But this is the difference. One person will hunger for the truth;
together with the Preacher of the Old Testament he will honestly long for the
light. In the depths of his solitary life he will look to the divine Word which
answers all his questions and puts his soul at rest. Now this person will say to
himself: I have in my hands a lock which I cannot open; it is a secret lock. But
I know one thing: Christ has the key. I shall go to Him at once and ask Him what
He wishes of me; I shall ask Him what preaching He has hidden in the maschil for
me. Such is the course of a disciple who comes, asking, “Tell me the meaning of
the parable.” But there are others who take the opposite course in their
thinking and secret pondering. They also experience that they cannot
satisfactorily explain Jesus’ word. And secretly they are glad of that, for they
do not really want to face Him honestly. At least not as He is in His person and
doctrine. And these use the fact that He speaks in parables as an argument for
stopping the attempt at finding their solution. They turn the maschil against
the Christ who gave it, for they regard it as a precious privilege to say: “He
spoke so obscurely that I am compelled to advise myself.” They think they have
made a very delightful discovery when they say: “He gave me a riddle; He let me
walk about in a maze from which there was no escape. Hence it is no fault of my
own that I have stayed inside my vicious circle.” They are so glad that the
riddle gives them a kind of excuse that they forget His willingness and ability
to put into their hands the thread by which they can escape from their vicious
thought-cycle. They have a lock; it is a secret lock, and as far as He is
concerned, He has not given them the key. Consequently they take the liberty to
putter with the strange lock after their own fashion in order that in that way
they may cling to their own wisdom and their own mistaken science.

Thereupon—just notice it—you will find that a new prayer is being composed. It
is the prayer of the ignorant. No, I am not mentioning Annas by name, nor
Multatuli, for how could I dare not to name myself? This only I know—that every
maschil spoken by Jesus elicits prayers from people: the prayers of publicans
and the grim prayers of the “ignorant” who are terribly happy about being able
to blame God for having darkened His sun and who just then break their leg upon
the rock of offence.

Surely, if these people were honest with themselves in relation to Christ they
would want to ask Him what He meant, and would want to ask Him for a further
explanation. Even the person who eagerly wants to condemn Jesus as the great
proclaimer of vanities in the world must do that. But if one is unwilling to let
Christ be the explainer of His own proverbs, he uses the riddle which God puts
to him as an argument for staying in the night of darkness. All so-called
“prayers of the ignorant” complain about the maschil, but secretly rejoice in
it; they jot it down in their memorandum book, supposing that it will come in
handy in the last judgment. Let God wait; they have their reply.

We can say then that it is God’s zeal for the crisis, for the sifting, which
hurls the maschil into the world. It reveals the heart. After this, friendship
and enmity will have to give a further account of themselves.

What is the conclusion of the whole matter? Who are you, son of man, who are
you, you who compose the prayers of the ignorant? How dare you take the maschil
into the condemnation of Christ? Who are you, daring as you do, to deny the
prophecy of Christ because of the maschil? May that maschil teach you to forget
to tremble, and to shudder? No, it is just when the maschil is pronounced by
Christ Himself that it is a thing to inspire trembling, a mystery in which
revelation is not hidden, as though it never wanted to be made manifest.
Instead, it is a mystery in which revelation is proclaiming aloud that it has
been very well known. The maschil does not deny the manifest character of Jesus’
instruction, but assumes precisely that, and it forces you back into the aisle
out of which you have departed so quickly. It was the aisle in which the clear
prophet spoke a word to your soul as the Good Shepherd. Surely, if Christ spoke
in parables only, He would not be the bread of heaven. Then the hungering soul
of the Preacher would not have found satisfaction with Him. But the fact is that
He presents His maschil only in the place where He has first made His word and
deed clearly manifest, and where He always stands ready to answer everyone who
asks an honest question about it. Because that is the fact, this maschil is an
awful thing. Christ takes you out of the full light of the midday sun, places
you in a dark room, and asks: Now you have seen that there is light; which do
you want, light or darkness? By means of the maschil Christ provokes the sense
of hunger, and a conscious sense of uncertainty. Just that—a conscious sense of
uncertainty. Therefore we say that the maschil, yes, even the maschil, is a last
instrument of grace, just as a rude awakening of a man who lies in danger of
freezing because he is about to go to sleep in the cold also is grace. If this
man loses consciousness, he will fall asleep—forever. The maschil is light.
Everything which reveals, and everything which reveals inner truths, is light.
The one will return from the maschil complacently to the labor of his own soul,
in order to pay out money for that which is not bread, and to devote effort to
that which cannot satisfy. The other will be just so much more desirous for the
true bread which God extends to them. He eats the roll. Has it the label
“maschil”? No matter, he takes it and eats. It may be bitter, or sweet, or both
together. No matter, God will teach him. . . .

Therefore we can say that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge lie
concealed in the maschil. These lure us, and invite. In His maschil Christ makes
us sense that all of His plainly spoken answers contain so many wonderful truths
in their mysterious depths that He has only to turn His prophet’s cloak inside
out and we will see that this cloak is lined with the stuff of riddles. On the
garment which as a prophet He wears among us, the names of God and of God’s
virtues are embroidered in human characters; even the foolish cannot go astray.
But the inside of His sublime cloak is embroidered with figures of cherubim, or
is it of demons? In any case they are figures which I cannot understand and
which lure me either to leave Him or otherwise to trust Him entirely, and to
seize Him by His garments, the very thing by which He would be seized. Christ’s
prophetic instruction (to which He appealed first in the presence of Annas, in
the beginning of His trial) is very manifest; it makes the hidden things
obvious. But Christ’s maschil which He now hears brought into the trial against
Him again makes the obvious hidden.

Accordingly the person who has heard Christ speaking in riddles, is in a
position to make only one practical application. He must bring the riddle to
Christ Himself, he must bring the letter in which the conundrum is written to
Jesus, asking: Do Thou break the seals, read me the words, explain to me the
hidden sense, for blessed is he who is not offended by a riddle-speaking Jesus.
The maschil keeps me from making God’s word the word of man. It keeps me from
saying of the sun of righteousness: I have found the formula of its light. The
maschil reminds me in the most painful if most effective manner that I may not
separate the Word from its sublime Speaker. That is the great admonishment
contained in the maschil of Jesus. And it was this admonishment which also lay
contained in, and was brought to the foreground in the maschil which Jesus spoke
when He purged the temple. If one separates the enigmatic word which He spoke at
that time from the speaker, and if one refuses to relate Jesus’ external action
and audibly spoken word to His inner essence and to His continuous revelation at
all times and places, one can make of Jesus precisely what one pleases. Then He
can become a destroyer of the temple or a builder of the temple, a rebel or a
reformer, a destroyer or a fulfiller, a magician or a prophet, an ironical
proposer of riddles or a physician, one who presents divine answers or a
relative of the Egyptian and Greek oracles—who also spoke in riddles in an
effort to conceal the fact that they had nothing to reveal. Then Jesus can
become the great prophet of Israel, one who tempts God by a display of stupid,
haughty boldness, which is a blasphemy of the tenor of the holy temple, or one
who trembles before God and fears Him, who honors God’s temple as being God’s
house, because God dwells in it Himself.

Unless the historical manifestation is not explained in terms of God’s eternal
concept of Christ, then Jesus and His maschil is included in the same
classification as circumscribes other world powers and world peoples; then He is
passively taken into the vicious circle of which the Preacher complained,
together with us all. But Jesus is the Christ and it is as the Christ, that is
as He is in His office, in His messianic office, that He pronounces His maschil.
The maschil of Jesus irks people intensely precisely because it makes everything
subservient to Christ. All who hunger for God out of the depths cry aloud to the
maschil of Jesus for the answer of Christ. But the person who knows not this
hungering for God, rubs his hands as he deals with the devil, and as the devil
teaches him the statement he is requested to repeat to God later on: If I am
lost it is Thy fault; Thou dost speak in riddles, at least the prophet whom Thou
gavest me does. The italicized phrase was used before. Adam used it. And some of
Adam’s children learn it by heart even though Adam himself quickly revoked it.
But Thou, my Saviour . . . Thou, who art the second Adam . . . now Thou art
caught in Thine own snares; Thou art being entangled in Thine own skeins.
Incomparable necessity: the Son of man is caught in His own crisis. At the
beginning of His public ministry He casts the maschil into the life of His
people. Now, having arrived at the end of this ministry, He is reaping—is He not
the Surety?—His own bitter fruit.

If Christ had not introduced the maschil among the self-satisfied guardians of
the temple, His sentence would not have been pronounced against Him so quickly.
Then the Sanhedrin, which had struggled so long in vain in order to find some
kind of charge against Him, would have found nothing. But now these members of
the Sanhedrin discover the maschil which Christ Himself originally laid down.

No, we do not mean this in a sense which would make Christ responsible for their
distortion of His word. The atrocity of this distortion remains the
responsibility of the false witnesses. When they distort Christ’s words, “Break
down the temple,” into the other statement, “I shall break down the temple,”
they are guilty of falsification which is entirely the sin of the false
witnesses. But for the rest, we maintain that Christ Himself has done this. It
is apparent that Christ’s riddle was remembered for a long time in Israel. He
has been teaching for three years; and not a single point of the whole store of
His discourses is brought to the fore, save this riddle, spoken at the very
beginning. In this way, by pronouncing the maschil, Christ at the very beginning
of His official ministration, Himself brought the end nearer. By means of that
maschil Christ began to sift. Sifting always implies that sinners are being
irked. A Christ who wants to sift, looses His own murderers against Him. Christ
sifted. He intensified the hunger of the hungering souls, and then gathered them
under the shadow of His wings, to comfort their trembling hearts with
certainties. Hearing, these heard, and seeing, they saw, and observing, they did
indeed discover. But at the same time, and by the same means, Christ also
hardened the others, inasmuch as they were hardened already. He made hard the
heart of fat, and hearing, these did not hear, seeing, they did not see, and
observing, they did not discover.

This, too, was the will of Jesus. Therefore the fact that the maschil now turns
against Him may be said to be His own work. The crisis spoken of in Rev 20:11
was loosed against Him by His own riddle and all His days are but a single day
of passive and of active obedience to His God.

Therefore the beginning of the session of the Sanhedrin, as told in the gospel,
is a beautifully artistic conclusion to the end of the preliminary session
before Annas. You can see that for yourself. In the presence of Annas, Christ
concluded by laying bare the vicious circle in the argumentation of the world,
the circle, that is, which would explain life in terms of life, and the
historical manifestation, the external side, of Jesus, without reference to
Christ. The same thing happens now in the presence of the Sanhedrin. The riddle
which Jesus proposed has not been solved by anyone present here. Nevertheless,
they force the enigmatic out of the enigma and proceed to “explain” the unknown
in terms of the way they wish to understand Him. They proceed to explain Jesus’
riddles with the aid of commentaries which the flesh has written. They do not
understand Jesus; but in spite of that they hurl Him into the maelstrom, into
the vacillations of life, able as these are to give birth to rebels and to
reformers, to those who would destroy as well as to those who build the temple.
In short, they proceed—they are forced to it!—to look upon Jesus as though He
were but a subordinate part of the world. They explain and interpret Him in
terms of the world itself—as though they understood that. The overbearing
character, the brutality of the blow to the cheek administered by the servant of
Annas, returns daily, in the Sanhedrin first, and later in the conflict of the
spirits. Every instance of applause with which the Sanhedrin greeted the false
witnesses, every excited pulse among these old gentlemen who turned the maschil
against Jesus is but another blow against Jesus, an attack on the heart of the
Chief Prophet, a mockery of the Bearer of the sovereign authority, an
overlooking of the messianic issue, even though that issue made itself obvious
in the maschil to a painful extent.

Accordingly, the episode which introduces the maschil of Christ into the debate
occupies its own unique position in the account of Christ’s passion. Annas in
his preliminary session and Caiaphas’ Sanhedrin and its official hearing are
perfect complements to each other. When Jesus had to give His account to Annas,
they began to assume that His discourse was not clear but enigmatic. They
overlooked the obviousness of His instruction in an attempt to blame Him for
speaking obscurely. Here, in the presence of Caiaphas, they turned the tables
around. To the extent that Christ actually spoke in riddles, they treated those
riddles as though everyone understood perfectly what was meant, as though even
the simplest could easily appreciate their meaning. Now they tell Christ: You
are not preaching under the full light of the sun, but in a dark room.
Tomorrow—no, even today—they tell Him: The roof of your dark chamber leaks; we
understood and appreciated everything you said. On one and the same day the
mystery which is in Christ is confirmed and denied, according to the whims of
the flesh. Therefore the one who is always responsible is Jesus Christ. In this
way, then, the maschil of Jesus becomes the predominant element in the trial.
The high priest not only demands an answer from Jesus in reference to the
maschil at once (Mat 26:61; Mark 14:60), but at the cross of Golgotha the theme
of the maschil returns for consideration (Mat 27:40; Mark 15:29). In fact, even
after Christ’s death and resurrection the maschil was turned against Jesus’
disciples, for Stephen too seems to have been sentenced because the Sanhedrin,
too old to learn,[1] had no objections to using the maschil of Christ against
him also (Acts 6:11-14).

[1]And this happened, mark you, after the prophecy stated in Verse 64 had been
fulfilled (see Chapter 7).

Now let us bow before the sovereign authority of Christ. He has loosed the
storms over His own head, but He also places us in the whirlwind of that
world-process of sifting between good and evil, between the obedient and the
disobedient. Therefore we enter into the same judgment with Him. The riddle He
spoke lies on the table; it is embroidered on His garments; it is involved in
doctrines. Hence our heart, too, is made manifest. Some day it will become
apparent whether we are willing to ask Him for the answer to His own riddles or
whether we condemn Jesus in the light of our self-vaunted wisdom. Not to
appreciate Christ and nevertheless to act as though we knew Him—that is the
peculiar evil of the Sanhedrin. So the servant, so the judge; so the preliminary
hearing, so the official session. But who is not like the Sanhedrin according to
the flesh? Alas, our heart also would rather hunger in the company of the
Preacher, than be satisfied with the bread of Christ. By nature we, too, choose
the vicious circle, “explain” time in terms of time and Jesus’ external deeds in
the temple in terms of the externalities of Jesus and of the temple. Now this
our sin also is unmasked in each and every maschil of Christ which is too great
and wonderful for us. In the last analysis, every riddle from which we have
forcibly turned ourselves aside, every doubt with which we did not flee to
Christ’s authority, is just so much applause for the false witnesses of the
Sanhedrin; it is to be on the wrong side of the condemnation released by the
maschil.

We must fear that at this time there are many of these doubters. They mumble the
prayer of the ignorant, and write it on the fan with which they cool themselves
in the overheated room which is burning with the fire of judgment. With this
beautifully embroidered fan they flatter themselves even in the presence of the
chair of their judge. But their doubt is not a real doubt and the Judge knows
it. It is but the effect of their unbelief. They overlook Jesus’ revelation and
do not know that the dignity of His own revelation has hurled the maschil
towards them to do His work in them. In this matter we can only choose for or
against. We can but believe or reject. If we acknowledge that Christ by His
maschil governed and intensified His trial, we will catch a glimpse of His
suffering, He has unloosed the crisis, and now He Himself becomes involved in
it. He has made the filthy more filthy still, and the unrighteous more
unrighteous, and now all that filth is flung into His face and all that
unrighteousness beats against His soul. Oh terrible necessity! Here is a Christ
who can say nothing, who must be mute over against His God. A Christ who is
buried under the chaff which He has Himself separated from the wheat.

We catch a glimpse of His majesty also. One who enters upon His suffering in
this way, one who has already fixed the terms of His sentence at the beginning
of His public appearance, that is, after the purging of the temple, may be
beaten down a thousand times, but if so He will rise again ten thousand times.
Break down this temple, and He will arise at once. Yes, just now the filth which
Christ has loosened still beats against His face, against His gentle face, His
cloak, His soul. But so great a majesty is contained in this passion, that faith
is already assured that He, when the crisis which breaks through at this time
has been entirely completed (Rev 22:11), will sit upon the seat of judgment,
lifted up, so high and so safe that all the filth and all the unrighteousness of
the world cannot soil Him throughout eternity. This will be the day of judgment.
That day was never so simple as it is now, as it is in the plain logic of the
events of the present.

Finally, we get a glimpse of the Suretyship of Christ. Behold, He is bearing our
guilt today. We were the ones who loved nature, and wanted to redeem the time in
terms of the time. We, each one of us individually, are the ones who have
rejected the “why” of revelation and of its manifest character. We are the ones
who cry our false “whys” aloud before God simply in an attempt to escape from
his “therefores.” Of the pincushion of His maschil we make a pillow; we pull all
the pins out of it. And for this great guilt Christ bears the penalty. He who
once pronounced the maschil not because He lacked certainty but precisely
because it wanted its reward from men now hears all the members of the
Sanhedrin. He also hears you and me as we boldly proclaim that we knew the truth
long ago, that we know enough about Him, that we have “placed” Him. Thus we avow
that man can conquer the problem of God incarnate. For this false glorying in
the therefore of our pride Christ later must pay a price so high as to induce
Him to conclude His profoundest utterance from the cross with a “Why, why, why
hast Thou forsaken me.”

Here is the fully assured person who can propose His maschil on the top of the
mountain of highest wisdom, when He Himself has sunk beneath the foot of His own
mountain of truth. The Speaker of the maschil later becomes His own sacrifice on
the cross. God puts Him to death with His own maschil. Meanwhile men jeer at
Him: Ha, breaker of the temple, when will the building start? Thereupon Jesus
sobbed: God, Why? He sobbed; His own maschil had cut off His breath. And this is
called Suretyship. The Surety who first called out His therefore now sobs out
His why. But God be praised. In His why also the Surety did not turn from God to
Himself. He wanted to solve His own riddles only at the gate of God’s palace,
with His ear close to God’s infinite heart. Thus Christ suffered, leaving an
example for us. He left an example of how to respond genuinely to the maschil.
Take all your riddles to Him who proposes them. The “why?” must be immediately
referred to “My God.”

Speak for yourself now. Does the maschil hurt anyone—except Jesus? No, indeed,
the pain of the maschil is not a pain of death unto death for him who believes.
On the contrary it is to be aroused to love and to life. For everyone who has
found his Prophet as Surety, the maschil is the great appetizer for the daily
recurring banquet of Christ’s prophecy, which leads the meek in their way, and
satisfies the hungry with bread, and never satiates. Whoever has once eaten out
of His hands will always return to His table, even though He spices His foods
with the galls of the maschil. Even though? . . . No, but because. . . .


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  CHAPTER 10: 05. CHAPTER 5: CHRIST STANDING MUTE BEFORE THE SANHEDRIN
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C H A P T E R F I V E Christ Standing Mute Before the Sanhedrin And the high
priest arose and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? What is it which these
witness against thee? But Jesus held His peace. —Mat 26:62-63 a. THE chief
Prophet maintained the profoundest silence in the presence of the highest court
there ever was in the world.

Those are three striking adjectives: the “chief” Prophet, the “profoundest”
silence, the “highest” court. As for the last one, we have previously pointed to
the fact that the Sanhedrin by virtue of the direction of God, the great
Lawgiver of the theocracy, was the highest juridical body in the sphere of
spiritual law in the world.[1] Athens is the foster-mother of beauty, Rome is
the center of world empire, and Jerusalem, in a similar category, is the city of
religion, of revelation, of spiritual authority. Accordingly, the Sanhedrin, up
to the moment of Christ’s apology, bears the heavy responsibility and the high
honor of being the first and highest court of justice in religious matters.
Spiritual authority as it is found in the world finds its points of culmination
there. As for such irregular and “wild” pretenders to authority in spiritual
things as Melchizedek represented, no one need fear being troubled by them any
more. Who had ever seen Melchizedek come to life in the world? Melchizedek is a
person about whom one can only preach sermons and write commentaries. No, for
spiritual regulations and critiques one must go to the Sanhedrin.

[1]Christ in His Suffering,p. 58f. In very truth, therefore, the highest Counsel
is here in session. In that Council our chief Prophet and Teacher is present.
The conjunction of these two, of Council and Teacher, would lead us to suspect
that the discussion would go on incessantly. Surely the highest college of law
is duty bound to speak, and the chief Prophet is similarly bound. The chief
Prophet, the highest council,— that at least guarantees a religious discussion,
one would think. But instead of vigorous speech the profoundest possible silence
characterizes this place. Jesus held His peace.

Various explanations for Christ’s silence in the session of the Sanhedrin have
been given. One commentator argues that Christ, our High Priest, stood mute
because of resignation, just as Aaron was once silent before God when God struck
him. These suppose that Christ saw in the Sanhedrin nothing but the chastisement
of God, and therefore overlooking the Sanhedrin, He said nothing to God, without
paying any attention to the Sanhedrin at all. Another commentator will say that
Jesus maintained His silence by way of protest, first of all, against the
injustice which had been done Him when the Sanhedrin began its official
procedures by riding roughshod over all kinds of rules of law. Then there is a
third group who are inclined to believe that Christ held His peace because
defending Himself would not “do any good anyhow.” Now it is self-evident that
there is an element of truth in these and similar explanations.

Nevertheless, these cannot constitute the full explanation. If one limits
oneself to these reasons, one would have to marvel later on when Jesus does not
persist in His silence but begins to speak. If it were actually true that Christ
could respond to the injustice done Him and to the plagues which God inflicted
upon Him in a genuine way only if He stood mute, His later speaking would
virtually be condemned.

Or, on the other hand, if Jesus had kept His silence only because He did not
want to “cast His pearls before the swine,” He would have been playing
extravagantly with God’s pearls. Now there is a tendency sometimes to give our
attention solely to Christ’s silence, to use it as a beautiful theme for a
sermon about “the silent Prophet, the silent Priest, and the silent King.” But
if we should at any time accentuate His silence too emphatically, or should name
it the only means by which He could assert His official obedience, then the
prophecy of Christ would be nullified by His later speaking, just as His
priestship and kingship would then also suffer shipwreck on the rock of His
spoken word. There is no more dangerous application of what is a rather foolish
proverb anyhow: namely, that speech is silver but silence is golden.

No, we must leave things in their context. Naturally we recognize the Christ,
also in His silence, as Prophet, as Priest, as King. He is always fulfilling all
His offices; whether He speaks or holds His peace, He does it all to the glory
of God. But if we want to understand Christ’s silence correctly, we must pay
attention to the relationship in which it stands to the whole gospel narrative.
Then we must beforehand be convinced—after all, faith is simply full of
presuppositions—that Chris’s silence at a given moment must have a specific
purpose in the whole of this wonderful and strange trial.

Now whoever sets himself to the task of reading the gospel of the passion
patiently and believingly with this presupposition clearly in mind, will
gradually be able to see that Christ is silent at one time and that He speaks at
another time for a definite reason. Moreover, the meaning of Christ’s silence in
the presence of the Sanhedrin as well as in the presence of Pilate and of Herod
will also become clear to him to a certain extent. Such a person tells himself
beforehand that three instances of silence must necessarily have three different
meanings, that each instance of speech and silence has its own specific meaning
whether it take place before the Sanhedrin, or before Pilate, or before Herod.
It is only by a complete recognition of the justness of this general exegetical
rule that a believing student of the Scriptures can cling to the truth that
every new and different thing which the Christ of God does is new, and
different, and pure in its reaction to the particular afflictions of the moment.
That is also the reason for which we may not be satisfied with the contention
that Christ by His silence was simply resigning Himself to the will of God. An
exegesis which is satisfied with such an explanation is but another revelation
of that same, unfortunate one-sidedness which so frequently has profaned and
contaminated our thinking about the Man of sorrows. We mean the one-sidedness
which pays attention chiefly, or solely, to Christ’s passive obedience at. the
expense of his active obedience. Naturally if we pay attention solely to
Christ’s suffering in obedience, to His patience and meekness, we have said
enough if we interpret Christ’s silence to be an expression of a calm
resignation, an acquiescence in the will of God, even though that sublime will
is leading Him to His death. But Christ manifested more than a passive
obedience. He remains active to the very end. And that is the case here also. To
the extent, first of all, that Christ does not give a wrong answer to the
Sanhedrin, His silence is indeed a “speaking” revelation of the Lamb of God
which willingly allows itself to be led to the slaughter. But, on the other
hand, the silence of Christ in this connection is also a deed. It is an
expression of His lordship. His own strong will is on this occasion regulating
the course of the trial, and intervening in the critical moments of it.

It may be true that by His resignation to what God is inflicting upon Him,
Christ is manifesting obedience. But that does not take away the fact that He
may abuse the law of resignation towards God by resigning at the expense of men.
In this connection, this means that Christ may do no injustice to the Sanhedrin.
The chief Prophet may, as a man, withhold nothing from the Highest Council which
is necessary to that council at this time for its salvation. Even if the Son is
compelled of God not to take His place in the judge’s seat, but in the open
circle in which the Sanhedrin regularly places its accused, Christ,
nevertheless, may not passively let that come upon Him which does come. For He
still has a task over against this assembly which is seated to do justice. If
His silence had merely been an expression of resignation and not a deed also, a
redirection of the trial to its genuine purpose, Christ would have become a
debtor to those who accused Him. Then the second Adam would Himself have been
unjust in the exercise of His office. By virtue, then, of the presupposition of
faith previously named, we shall now look for the deed in Christ’s inactivity.
We shall seek out the speaking in His silence. We shall try to find the active
obedience in the passive. In this connection we remember how, in the preceding
chapter, mention was made of the so-called maschil of which Christ had made use
in His speech next to the temple. This maschil, this riddle, had been brought
into the discussion by the false witnesses who were contaminating the atmosphere
around Jesus. Now Caiaphas himself comes to demand both text and exegesis of
Jesus. Or—to be very accurate, even that is not quite true. In fact, we might
wish that he had asked for both text and explanation. Then Jesus would have
answered him by once more citing to him at the behest of the government which he
honors the genuine text of His maschil. But the terrible fact is that Caiaphas,
although he is the judge, does not ask for the “text.” He asks only, and he does
that very formally, for the explanation. Whether or not the text which they were
quoting to him on this occasion was accurately presented or not does not affect
him at all. At least in the presence of the Sanhedrin the witnesses did not
agree with each other about that “text.” The one cited the maschil of Jesus in
one way, the other in a different way. No, the text was by no means certain.
Plainly, a faithful judge would, before he did anything else, want to determine
the precise phrasing of the text; not until he had done that would he demand a
further explanation. But what does this judge do? He loses his poise, and
without any kind of dignity, demands whether the Nazarene will care to explain
what He meant by that strange statement He had made. And without giving any
further attention to the uncertainty of the text of Jesus’ speech, he hopes to
hear an explanation at once out of which he can forge a chain of condemnation
for this proposer of riddles.

It is this explanation which Jesus refuses to give.

He refuses because in His prophetic work Christ moves along His own ways. If he
chooses to pronounce the maschil without giving its explanation, that is His own
privilege. The distinguishing characteristic of the maschil is precisely the
fact that it is a text without an explanation; that, and also the fact that by
means of it people who listen honestly, and are willing to investigate, are
compelled to preserve the literal text in its exact form, or else the
explanation will be hopelessly impossible. Can Caiaphas actually suppose that
Christ is going to bury His own texts by way of a premature exegesis of them? By
no means. True, Christ will presently give the one great explanation of Himself
which will at bottom explain all of His discourses, and disclose their secret.
That will take place when He says with an oath that He is truly the Messiah. But
His maschil—that He will leave alone. The maschil is His privilege because it
belongs to His office and no government will ever succeed in compelling Him to
deny anything which is a part of the work of His office.

Therefore we can say that this is the element of Christ’s active obedience: He
maintains His maschil: He holds His peace.

Just what this means in reference to His trial we can perhaps appreciate best if
we ask ourselves for a moment just what would have happened if Jesus had not
stood mute, if in place of His silence, He had carefully exposed the meaning of
what He meant by His maschil. That maschil, we remember, was to the effect that
His body was the temple which men would break down and which He Himself would
rebuild in three days. Now if Christ at this moment had given this complete
explanation to these people, He would not have spoken a word at the right time.
But the Just One of Israel knows the time and the way in which He must do
things. In the first place, riddles and parables are explained only to those
whose hearts are open to them. After all, only such people are in a position to
hear what is being said. Here, however, in the assembly of the Sanhedrin, there
are only insusceptible hearts. These are the birds which never pick up any seeds
on the threshing floor of righteousness; they are, on the contrary, birds of
prey which feed on rotten spoils.

Moreover, what would have been the results if Jesus had expressed Himself
completely on the issue of this particular part of His prophetic speech? If
Christ in this conclusive hour, and in the presence of all the witnesses, had
pointed to His body, and had said, “This is the true temple; just break it down,
and within three days I will restore it,” Jesus would have been doing
irretrievable damage to the Sanhedrin as well as to Himself.

Let us note each of those considerations for a moment.

We said that Christ by a premature disclosure of the maschil would have done
damage to the Sanhedrin. In that case, He would have prophesied that the
Sanhedrin would certainly break His blessed body, that the Sanhedrin would
certainly put Him to death. He would have indicated that so much had been clear
to Him for years, that the iron will of God, who is seated above the clouds, had
so directed it, and that the sublime decree of election and reprobation, that
the predestination of that exalted God, had in His sovereign good pleasure
appointed Him for this very purpose from all eternity. Plainly, at this place
and in this hour, that would have been an untimely preaching. No one, surely,
has anything to do with the hidden things. Only revealed things are the
yardstick by which we should measure what we do and do not do. The hidden things
are of the Lord, and the revealed things for us and our children. Now the
revealed things, the holy books, all the prophets taken as a unit, had indicated
definitely enough the standard according to which we should act, and had
indicated it to the Sanhedrin also. The revelation of the Messiah had, in fact,
been so adequate that if it had been obeyed, Jesus would not have been crucified
by the rulers of the world. Therefore Christ is silent about the hidden things.
Could He want to be wiser and more compassionate than God, who chooses to
instruct by means of the Word? And would it have been compassionate in Him if
Christ said: “Ye are predestined with me even in this same hour”? No, that may
not be said; it would be the greatest brutality to say that, to say that
Jerusalem is being made the equivalent of Egypt today (Rev 11:8). Christ knows
that. Just what did God say to Egypt? Listen, Scripture does indeed say to
Pharaoh, “And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in
thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth” (Exo
9:16; Rom 9:17). But every Pharaoh in the world can take this word in either of
two ways. God can make His power manifest in the world by Pharaoh’s triumph as
well as by Pharaoh’s decay; by his repentance as well as by his hardening of
heart. And God’s name can be declared throughout all the earth not only over a
grave of Pharaoh, but also at the moment of his being received into the Father’s
house. God never gives a human being a prophecy about his future perdition.
Predestination is God’s great warfare against fatalism, and the preaching of it
is that also. For he has also predestined the fact of responsibility. No one is
ever told that his perdition is absolutely certain, and that he lies under the
irrevocable judgment of a hardening of heart. Such an announcement, certainly,
would dull the predestined awareness of responsibility. In fact, it would break
down predestination. Besides, it would do injustice to the majesty of God,
calling aloud as it does in the Word with a “most earnest cry,” and by means of
that cry making everyone responsible for what he does and does not do. Moreover,
it would be doing injustice to the love of God which is proclaimed aloud in the
announcement of the possibility of repentance. Did you think, perhaps, that the
prophecy of Christ was a kind of forecasting, a kind of fortune-telling? Not
that, surely, but it is a sending out of God’s light. And this light God indeed
did send out in His maschil His light even lured the curious, just as a strange
star lured the Magi to the solid Word. The prophecy of Christ is never a kind of
divination. Accordingly, it never puts one under the accursed ban of an
absolute, eternal, predestined unproductiveness. It does not do that as long as
the God of Christ has not announced: Let him bring forth no more fruit in all
eternity. It does not do that as long as this saying of God is not taken up into
the sublime announcements of the Kingdom, which take place there in that Public
Court. The prophesying Christ makes everyone face himself; He asks everyone what
he wants to do with the Word of his God.

Therefore Christ does not tell the Sanhedrin that the Counsel of God has chosen
this hour to break down the body of the Son of Man, the temple of the Spirit.
The Good Shepherd does not take the opportunity for repentance away from the bad
shepherds, by assuring them beforehand of the impossibility of it. True, Christ
does know that the Sanhedrin will be to Him, who is the fulfillment of the true
Israel, what Assyria was once in the eyes of Isaiah. Assyria and the Sanhedrin
will be a rod, with which God inflicts the penalty; these will be the saw with
which God cuts down the trees of Israel. But the fact that the Sanhedrin will
realize the Assyrian-service in the true, great, and only Israelite is a fact
which is not preached to the Sanhedrin as a fatum to which it is inescapably
subservient, for then the High Council of Assyria, seated on the chair of David
and of Moses, would say: Are we predestined to be Assyrians? Come, let us then
prove that we are Assyrians. Could it be God’s fault that the saw will rebel
presently against him who draws it? Will it be reckoned against Christ, if in
the judgment day “the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up” (Isa
10:15)? No, no, this glory Christ will not grant the Sanhedrin; the theodicy of
the last day may not be allowed to break upon the Christ. Accordingly He wraps
His cloak about Him, covers His maschil, does not explain His riddles to those
who would abuse them anyhow, and—O incomparable grace—He keeps even this
degenerated college to its own legal name. He does not say to the Sanhedrin,
“You are predestined to the great, to the acute destruction of the temple.” He
says simply: “I demand that you do your duty: it is your calling to be the
guardians of the temple.” And He does not say to the select: elders of Israel:
“After all, you are Assyrians, drawn up in battle array against the Son in God’s
great universe.” No, He lets them be what they are, and simply says: “Ye are
Israel. Therefore I want to tell you that I am the Messiah. Know now what ye
would do with Him.” Thus Christ lets the responsibility rest squarely upon the
shoulders of the highest Council. By His absolute silence He is obeying the
predestining God. For this is to tremble before the God who is in election:
namely, to let Him do what it is God’s work to do. Thus Christ compels His
judges to leave the hidden things to the Lord and to busy themselves with the
revealed things.

We can say, then, that Christ’s silence over against the Sanhedrin is a perfect
revelation of justice. He is by no means eager to become the rock of offence
over which they are to fall. A “careless” omission—how ridiculous our poor
language in these things proves to be—, a bold and hasty exegesis of a text that
has not even been critically ascertained, and Jesus, outside of His office,
would have announced their condemnation to the Sanhedrin. But that would have
meant that He, independently of His office, would have been a stumbling-block
upon their way. For there is no one in the world who will ever circumvent the
absolute assurance of his own predestined condemnation and this assurance,
accordingly, God never gives to any man.

Now it was the majesty of Christ that He laid not a single stumbling-block in
the way of anyone on that road which all men and all devils literally bestrew
with stumbling-blocks and with rocks of offence.

O exalted majesty; O great Christ, eternal light, Thy way is strewn with stones.
Eager human hands throw them before Thy feet. Ardent passion of devils arranges
them for your difficult going. Laws of eternity forbid all the angels together
to keep Thy foot lest it should stumble upon a rock. Nevertheless, Thou, O
Christ, didst not play with a single stumbling-block; Thou didst not lay a
single one in the road. Thy incomprehensible office was more than enough for
Thee: to be set as a fall and a rising again for many in Israel was more than
enough for Thee. Thy office satisfied Thee so completely that Thou didst not
play a single indifferent game with it in the days of Thy sunshine, nor unleash
a whirlwind in it, when bulls and goats, the “wild beasts” of Jerusalem were
baying Thee. Thou didst suffer under the responsibility of this office, this
being set as a fall and a rising again of many. And never in Thy office didst
Thou act arbitrarily. That simply was no part of Thee. Hence Thou didst hold Thy
peace, in order that Thou mightest speak at the proper time. Neither by Thy
speaking, nor by Thy silence, neither by a false exegesis, nor by an untimely
explanation, neither by placing text and exegesis over against each other, nor
by wrenching text and exegesis apart, didst Thou, my Saviour, place the rock of
offence in the way. Thou wast the rock; that was enough for Thee to endure. In
this, O Saviour, Thou didst find grace with God and the angels. They may not
praise Thee to Thy face, but, surely, God keeps a memorandum book. Canst Thou
suppose that it would not be written there above that Thou, although surrounded
with stumbling-blocks on every hand, didst not once inadvertently kick one with
Thy foot in the direction of the president’s chair of Caiaphas, or of any of the
seventy chairs standing in the court? Thou didst do justice to Thy judges. And
by doing justice to them, Thou didst also condemn them. For, now, the maschil
tells them: If you wish to explain time in terms of time, and if you wish to
analyze Jesus’ words without any reference to Him who spoke them, you must walk
in the flames of fire which you yourselves have kindled. The maschil is an
expression of the great art of the prophet of heaven. He lets us feel the
impotence of all speech which is cut loose from revelation. And he who would not
enjoy the benefit of this thing by going with his unwholesome life to the
Physician of his life, will be left to shift for himself. Every maschil ever
pronounced announces to the meek who cannot escape from its entanglement: “Who
is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, that
walketh in darkness, and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord,
and stay upon his God.” Thus also every maschil that was ever spoken proclaims
to those who prefer to assert themselves, even when they are caught in the coils
of the maschil: “Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves
about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye
have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.”
Today it is the second of these judgments by the silent Christ which accrues to
the Sanhedrin. He lets the maschil lie just where men would have it be: that is,
in the vicious circle of a “worldly” speech, which refuses healing from above.
Salvation will wipe away all tears that are wept for the sake of the maschil,
and will answer all questions. But an unsolved maschil is the beginning of the
judgment. And this was the judgment which the silent Christ pronounced upon the
Jews.

If we retrace our steps now, we will see that Jesus’ silence at this particular
moment is an act of justice to Himself also. Accept for a moment that Christ
without any further ado had stated exactly what He meant about His maschil,
about his temple which they could break down and see restored again within three
days. Then He Himself would have lured[1] the people to overrun the place where
He is to be buried later, in order to see what would become of this
fortune-teller. If Jesus Himself, standing before the Sanhedrin, had
emphatically said: “Ye must bury me, and within three days I will arise again,”
then . . .

[1]The issue here is the deed of Christ Himself, for the Jewish leaders were not
ignorant of Christ’s own announcement of the resurrection. CompareMat 27:63. In
this connection, many observers also think of such other passages as are found
inMat 12:39f.; 16:4; 21:42; 26:61; and 27:40 (Compare Zahn) And still others
think, but that with a “perhaps,” ofJohn 2:19(Grosheide,Kommentaar).

Yes, what then?

Then the Prophet Christ would have identified Himself with the fakir who also
lets the wonder run amuck in the slough of his self-ostentation. He would have
identified Himself with the oriental figure, who plays with his body and with
himself not by way of causing the wonders to contribute to salvation, but by way
of garnering praise for Himself. If Christ had lifted the heavy burden of
complete responsibility from the shoulders of the Sanhedrin, and if He had
placed the advent of His resurrection-life, coming as it did through a
predestined death, in a sphere in which it is possible to look at the miracle
without being involved in it, Christ would have profaned the majesty of
prophecy, and would have exchanged it for the empty ostentation of a clever
magician. And He would have made Himself intolerable in the eyes of God. For He
must accept death from God’s hand, He must accept the personal breaking down of
the temple from God’s hand, but He emphatically may not accept it from the hands
of men. By virtue of the secret will, we must say to God: Feel free to break
down the temple of my flesh. But it is the revealed will which He must minister
to His people: never, not in all eternity, break down the temple of my flesh; it
will be your condemnation, if you do so. That is why He may not by an untimely
disclosure of the meaning of the maschil lead the rulers of His people astray,
invite them to a sacrificium obedientiae, to a joyous sacrificial feast, at
which the heavy burdens of complete and infinite responsibility are cast into
the fire—inasmuch as He would have given permission to His strange funeral
feast. No, no, He cannot do that. The “burden of the Lord” has a place here. If
Christ had lightened that burden by calling attention away from the revealed
will and to the hidden will, He, who had to be the greater than Moses, would
have fostered fellowship and would have mingled with the Egyptian sorcerers who
opposed Moses. Then Christ would have been the third, or really the great first,
in that unholy coalition of Jannes and Jambres, who opposed Moses and the truth
(2Ti 3:8). Then it would have been by His fault that Jerusalem became an “Egypt”
(Rev 11:8). Then Golgotha, that holy place of judgment and necessity, would have
been degraded to a fine occasion for a game, to an invitation to an interesting
experiment in the laboratory of Satan and of God. Then the resurrection of
Christ would not have represented the breaking of the New Testament Sabbath
through the shadows of Israel. But then, at about the time when God would cause
the clock of His New Testament Sabbath to strike, a multitude of
curiosity-seekers would have poured in the direction of Jesus’ grave in order to
see whether the fakir could actually arise from the dead. Then God’s holy
Sabbath joy would immediately have become contaminated by the profanum vulgus}
which, in that case, would have been invited by Jesus’ own word. Cross and
resurrection would then have constituted an examination, instead of a judgment.
These would then have been presented in Christ’s own announcement as a fencing
bout between Spirit and Beast, between death and life. But we may not climb the
hill of death to feast on a spectacle; we may climb it only to place ourselves
under the judgment. Had Christ explained the maschil without demanding faith,
the scornful cry, “Let us see whether Elias will come down,” would have issued
in that other cry, “Let us see whether the angels will come in their fiery
chariot to get Him.” And such mockery would then to a small extent have become
Christ’s own responsibility. Also for Him—an untimely exegesis of the maschil
can harm Him for all eternity. If He Himself takes judgment, if He takes the
tension of the sermon on the mount out of His trial, then He will Himself rob
His work of its strength, and will perish with us. One docs not play with God’s
lightnings; Christ may not forget that.

God be praised: He could not forget that. Consequently we see Christ busy in the
struggle for the maintenance of the sacredness of God’s house. He leaves the
maschil as it is, unexplained. By doing that He convinces the children of
darkness of an obligation to go to no one else with all their honest questions
save to Jesus Himself. But that is not all He does. He also sees to it that the
redemptive facts which God is now making ready, remain holy and undefiled. For
Christ is at this time striding through all the world in order to release the
forces of law and gospel. The great redemptive event is about to be born of an
accursed death and of a blessed resurrection of Christ from the dead. Now it is
a great joy to us to know that Christ’s silence before Caiaphas and before the
Sanhedrin left the maschil just what it was—a maschil. No recklessly spoken,
untimely word relieved the tension of the events of the day of the Lord. The
praise of folly is never sung in Christ’s discourses. The gospel never offers
itself as an experiment. Jesus Christ maintains to the extent that is possible
for Him the character of the great mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the
flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, and believed on in the world
(1Ti 3:16). In virtue of the essence of this mystery, His resurrection, the
restoration of the temple of His body, will have to remain a mystery, to be
revealed only by the intransigent Word. It will never prostitute its chaste
holiness before the eyes of a people which would like to see the last great
stunt of the magician of Nazareth. Even though that resurrection will be a
wonder of world-perturbing might, still—no, therefore—it will not be prostituted
before the eyes of those who have gone out to see a magician. The miracle comes
to the world with authority: it asks acknowledgment solely through the preached
word. The miracle is never a piece of evidence which God is giving man as an
“argument” in a peace conference between God and worldly unbelief.

Again, therefore, we see the great gulf which is fixed between canonical and
apocryphal gospel. We have repeatedly pointed to the fact that the Apocryphal
Gospel lets an avid Jesus perform His miracles simply for the sake of
ostentation.[1] In it the miracle is but a sensational something to which every
redemptive purpose is alien; it is a miracle without holiness, and without
necessity, a miracle which is sheer play and in no sense represents awful
seriousness. Indeed, if Christ had presented the wonder of His most astounding
restoration of the temple as a piece of sensationalism, He would have been quite
in line with the apocryphal emphasis.

[1]Christ in His Suffering, p. 108 f. [Chapter 7, Christ’s Necessary
“Circumlocution”] But Jesus held His peace. This is a transporting moment, for
in it Christ’s sublime silence draws the absolute line of demarcation between a
canonical and an apocryphal narration of the Gospel. It may be that the miracle
of resurrection exists in His mind in a perfect state; His knowledge of it may
be pure, strong, and very great. Nevertheless, this Christ lures no one to
Himself by means of worldly publicity.[2] The Passover will never be a dazzling
display, an ostentatious spectacle, but it will be the great advent of justice
to Himself and to the world. The Passover is not an end in itself, but simply a
fact of redemption and of judgment. O sublime majesty; O silent Christ. Thou
dost refuse to “explain” Thy maschil by means of an untimely discourse to carnal
men, but dost explain it by means of the events in which a speaking and a
judging God comes to the world.

[2] SeeChrist in His Sufferingsp. 108 ff. [Chapter 7, Christ’s Necessary
“Circumlocution”]

O sublime trust, O goal-conscious Christ. At the beginning of Thy ministration
of office Thou didst turn Satan back when He suggested that Thou perform a
breath-taking miracle in front of the temple.[3] And again at this time thou
dost regard the temple court as being altogether too holy for a miracle which
would astonish externally but convert no one.

[3] Leaping from the pinnacle of the temple. The silence of Christ is as
reasonable as the canonical Gospel. It is as serene as the dew on a clear
morning. It vindicates the canon of absolute authority over against apocryphal
Jewish presumptions, first of all, presumptions which regarded the Messiah as a
breath-taking wonder-worker, and over against those piteous fireworks, next,
which an unbelieving world is eager to set off when it proceeds to explain the
Messiah in its own way. And it also vindicates the absolute authority of the
canonical Gospel over against my sins, O my Lord and my God.

Feel free to break the temple down now. For a temple it is indeed. Yes, and more
than a temple is here, for God is dwelling in this Christ. God and the Spirit
are dwelling in Him, and entirely without restraint. This is the Holy of Holies;
this is the temple in its fulfillment. And, just as the ancient temple had once
been built without the distracting sounds of hammer and saw—inasmuch as it was
to be God’s house—so Christ will presently restore the temple of the body
without the profane accompanying noises of the mob, and without inviting the
profanum vulgus to come and defile His holiness. In other words, the conclusion
of the matter is that Christ by maintaining His maschil rescued the redemptive
event as such and kept the holiness of God from becoming profane. This was the
great demonstration of His active obedience; this He did by a silence greatly
and highly to be prized. That is the first conclusion: active obedience. This
obedience exercises its authority. By maintaining silence, Christ kept His
judges from deriving an official phrasing of their sentence from His maschil. It
is remarkable that Christ’s words about breaking down the temple and restoring
it again do occasionally occur in the haranguing of the crowd, and in the
mockery which periodically came to the fore during the course of the trial, but
are not used in the official sentence of the Sanhedrin. This is Christ’s own
achievement. He compelled His judges to return to the main issue, and to return
to the main message which, quite uncamouflaged, and with no hint at all of the
veil of the maschil, would soon be repeated in the form of the testimony that He
was indeed the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

Now that we have seen the active obedience of Christ at work in His silence, we
may speak of the passive side of His obedience. Again we look upon the Man of
sorrows who stands mute and dumb as He gives Himself up to death, Alas, it had
been determined that He should make the riddle about the destruction and
restoration of the temple true in actual experience. He had to explain the
statement not by an untimely, ostentatious word, but by a bloody event coming at
just the right time.

Thus He is to be punished for that which is not His own sin. Now He must
actualize His confident utterance about the destruction and restoration, of the
temple by letting His body be broken and by building it up again from death
itself. In this we worship Christ’s passive obedience.

Silence, silence . . . in this we bow before the will of the Father. Silence,
silence . . . He scorned to speak when speaking could have hindered His death or
made it prosaic. And He scorned to hold His peace when it was a matter of
confessing His Messiahship. In speaking and in silence, therefore, He is
obedient to His death,

Such silence is a resignation to God. He stands, as a sheep dumb before his
shearers. Now He is the greater than Aaron who, although afflicted for no sin of
His own, acquiesces in the will of God, and lets Himself be led where justice
must lead Him. Now He is the silent prophet who proclaims aloud the atrocity of
sin, the holiness of justice, and the adequacy of the messianic self-revelation:
I am He. Now He is the silent King who calmly announces, “He who does not
understand me even now, He who has not appreciated the sense of the maschil even
now, need not reach out His hand to me.” And now He is also the silent Priest
who obediently goes upon the way of the cross. In the presence of the Sanhedrin
Christ was tempted. His own riddle was being used against Him; and great was the
temptation to free Himself from the terrible death by a single word. One
untimely word, and the very concept of His death would be transformed into the
dazzling glory of a miracle, of a miracle so splendid that there would be
nothing of humiliation in it. This was a temptation just as severe and exacting
as the proof to which He was put on the mount of transfiguration. On that
mountain also the great question had arisen whether Christ by a premature
speaking or an untimely silence would depart from the way of the perfect
ministration of office. In this temptation Christ triumphed completely.
Moreover, this triumph adds a new terror to the cross. No, this does not mean
that Christ could prove terrible only in His silence, for His silence is
precisely the way by which He arrives at the important utterance later: I adjure
thee that I am the Messiah. No, that which adds a new terror to the cross is not
solely that the maschil is still unsolved, but is owing also to a clarity, to an
eloquent and convincing potency of a Messiah who reveals Himself. Jesus held His
peace because He had said enough. Presently a superscription will be hung over
His martyred head bearing the words I.N.R.I., Jesus the Nazarene, the king of
the Jews. That is the “title” which Pilate will give Him. The Jews will petition
for a different “title,” for another superscription. As a matter of fact,
everyone will conceive of his own personal title for the crucified Christ. But
above any title which the fiendish hatred of our flesh will conceive for the
cross, the calmly accusing finger of the unexplained maschil will always arise.

Jesus leaves the judgment hall. They let Him go, and every one knows that in
reference to this man they still have an unexplained riddle. The maschil has not
been satisfactorily accounted for yet. The test has not been ascertained, and
the explanation has not been given. If only there were a grain of truth in the
teaching of the person who says that a man can keep from revealing himself in
his public utterances, we could safely say that Caiaphas’ statement, “What need
have we of further witnesses?” is virtually a betrayal of the secret sense he
has that the Nazarene is not being dealt with justly, and that the unexplained
maschil is detracting perceptibly from the judge’s self-confidence. But do not
condemn Caiaphas. Confess instead that Christ’s death in the cloud of an
unexplained maschil places a huge question mark over the cross on which you and
I, by which you and I because of our sin hanged Him. Every sentence which the
flesh pronounces upon Jesus contains within itself an unsolved riddle, and the
consciousness of that. Let us watch, therefore, and fear, now that Christ has
taken His secret with Him to the grave, obstinate from the viewpoint of men,
patient from the viewpoint of God. He takes His maschil with Him to the grave
now. Now the riddle of Christ becomes a command:

If you His saving voice have heard, In faith accept His precious word — Dare not
rebel, but follow where He leads. For Christ Jesus is the temple of God. Every
temple has its mysteries. The maschil is His mystery. But the temple of God does
not live by the grace of its own dark corner. Light falls upon it from above,
light issues from the sides, light comes from within, and there is such
abundance of light that even the foolish need not go astray. And as the light
falls upon Him, a voice can be heard, saying: This is He, this is the Messiah,
the Son of the living God. For in this great temple of God, which is broken down
now, and will quickly be built up again, the question (which remains after the
maschil) is not the obstacle which stands in the way of the answer, but the
preliminary and recurring divine answer is the incitement of a thousand new
questions on the part of those blessed souls who throughout eternity will call:
Thou art He; Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the living God; and because Thou
art that, Thou must become that more and more manifestly; and because we know
that, we want to investigate it eternally. Thou hast explained Thyself, and hast
explained God. Explain Thyself further, therefore, and explain God further.
Explain Thyself and Thy God throughout all eternity.

Thereupon my Jesus will never again hold His peace. His silence was the way by
which He earned the right to speak eternally. His silence moved His Father’s
pen; the Father wrote and wrote again as silent angels watched.

He wrote of Jesus saying that He would give Him all speech in heaven and on
earth, now that He had learned obedience from that which He had suffered, and
speech from the silence He had kept.


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  CHAPTER 11: 06. CHAPTER 6: CHRIST TAKING AN OATH BEFORE THE SANHEDRIN
========================================================================

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,Iadjure 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:Iadjure 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.


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  CHAPTER 12: 07. CHAPTER 7: CHRIST VANQUISHING THE VICIOUS CIRCLE AS THE SON OF MAN
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C H A P T E R S E V E N Christ Vanquishing the Vicious Circle as the Son of Man

Jesus saith unto him,Thou hast said:nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall
ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power,and coming in the
clouds of heaven. —Mat 26:64.

CHRIST’S speaking and silence, Christ’s teaching and actions, Christ’s
instruction at the pulpit of His passion and His maschil, Christ’s
self-revelation and His self-concealment, in short, everything which Christ
Jesus is, was bandied to and fro by those who had to judge Him, within the
circumference of that circle which is exceedingly vicious, the circle of
earthly, of mundane scope. It all took place within that circle which God had
never touched upon, the circle of carnival, and of the knowledge of vanity. As
the Messiah He pointed out that circle;[1] thereupon He condemned it;[2] and
finally we observed that He patiently bore the wrath which came to Him when He
wished to break it,[3] when He wanted to vanquish the wrath which the
unregenerated life fostered against Him because of its extreme love for the
viciousness of the circle.

[1] If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil, but if well why smitest
thou me?

[2] Why smitest thou me? An allusion to the messianic problem.

[3] Insistence upon the maschil as a riddle, which has no solution yet; silence
over against the distortion of the maschil by the false witnesses.

It was a beautiful sight to see Christ maintaining His maschil over against the
fatigued but self-sufficient drifters, who are stretching their snares from one
to the other wall of their vicious circle of life. A very beautiful sight,
indeed. Surrounding Jesus were all those reliable lights of Israel, and
underneath them was the Christ who has not the formulae either for His bright
sunshine nor for what they call His Nazarene lamps of heresy. There stands the
Christ, a poised and a calm judgment. He stands there with His riddle, but He
holds the Book of Solutions in His hand. Why the riddle? In order that all those
who can no longer sustain their lives within themselves might flee to Him from
the narrowness of the vicious circle; and also in order that those who prefer
the tedious movement of the vicious cycle of natural life to the vertical ascent
of the Son of man, and who will be offended by the “folly” of the straight
descent of the Son of God, might be made to appear what they are — betrayers of
God, and asserters of themselves.

That, and that first, was the silent Christ. Thereupon Christ spoke. He spoke
plainly and emphatically. He swore with a precious oath. He swore by God that He
is the Messiah, the true intervention coming from above, and the One who at the
right time will again ascend from below. Now when Christ confessed Himself to be
the Messiah, He placed the whole problem which was being treated in the judgment
hall of the Sanhedrin in its proper position. The oath of Christ discloses their
Messiah to His judges. That Messiah is the revelation of God, the most special
revelation of God, impinging upon and entering into the earth from heaven; and
He is also the one who hereafter will again ascend from these depths of
annihilation to heaven.

Both in the descent and the ascent He will move vertically, without meandering,
without once tracing a “crooked line.” Thus does Christ, standing within the
vicious circle, draw the straight line. He draws it from heaven to earth. The
reaction will either be that of faith or that of unbelief.

Unbelief will say that this man must be reckoned with the malefactors. He is
drawing a straight line, they maintain, which bisects our own. That is an
atrocity of devastation, and it is done in the holy place where it should not be
done. Take it away, remove it; whoever reads this, mark it: lectori salutem. But
faith will rejoice. Now that Christ permits the straight line of His revelation
coming from above and reaching down below, and rising from below and extending
up to heaven, to bisect the accursed plane of the vicious circle, He is healing
the world and redeeming mankind. Now He stands in the Sanhedrin, a living
condemnation of all those who, prompted by the will of the flesh, choose to
return to the vicious circle and to their condemnation; but He is also a living
wonder of grace for every Nicodemus who would flee from the vicious circle which
is luring Israel to its death, and who would flee from his own sombre narrowness
to the Christ, even though in doing that he must endure the sight of the dead
Jesus. The fact that Christ by preaching the Messiahship does indeed conquer the
distress of the captives of the vicious circle becomes plain to us from the
words which He spoke. Mark what He says: Hereafter ye shall see the Son of man
sitting on the right hand of the power of God and coming on the clouds of
heaven. Surely, these are words which do not harmonize with the dominant tone
and prevailing style of the Sanhedrin. They fall like so many stones, so many
unassimilable bits, into the meeting. But when Christ pronounces these words, He
is as the highest Prophet and Interpreter of the words of God grasping the
prophecy of the Old Testament and explaining it in terms of heaven. This is the
word of the New Testament — in His blood. The first thing to strike our
attention here is the fact that Christ prophesies. And it is but another
evidence of the majesty of this most exalted Speaker of God that He pronounces a
word pertaining to His kingship in the form of the ancient prophecies. We may
not forget this element of prophecy in this speech which Christ makes before the
Sanhedrin: to do so would be to make ourselves less worthy than that body. For
when the Sanhedrin proceeds to mock and defy Jesus later on, their activity
differs from that defiance which is heaped upon Christ in the presence of
Pilate. Here, before the Sanhedrin, it is precisely the prophetic office which
is being mocked. In Pilate’s presence Jesus is being mocked as a king: think of
the reed, of the crown of thorns, and of the gorgeous robe. True, this same
kingship is now being defied by the members of the Sanhedrin as they spit in His
face and buffet Him, by way of asking: “Is this, perhaps, your ‘hereafter,’ your
ascent to God and ascent with God, and can this, perhaps, be your share in His
exalted glory?” Nevertheless the profoundest implication of their grim defiance
does not consist of this. What they are doing especially is that they are
mocking His prophetic office. Jeering and grinning the while they say: “Prophesy
unto us O Christ, who is he that struck thee?” Very diabolical, this mockery.
However, it has one thing in its favor. It proves that Israel’s leaders have
understood that Christ was standing in the council of the Sanhedrin in a
prophetic capacity. When He announces that He will come in His glory after a
while as the Son of man, He is interpreting prophecy, a prophecy handed down in
old time, and He is interpreting that by virtue of His authority as the first
and best interpreter of the Scriptures.

We can find the prophecy which Christ is entertaining in His heart and
explaining by His words in Dan 7:13. If we read the verses at the head of our
chapter in connection with their context, we see that the same line of approach
characterizes it which has characterized our previous chapters again and again.
In other words, we hear the paean of victory which the history of redemption
will sing because it has vanquished the fatal movement of the vicious circle of
common grace as manifested in general history. We hear Daniel telling of the
breaking through of the messianic kingdom. That kingdom, He tells us, will break
right through the circle of natural, mundane life. Accordingly, we do well to
pause as we watch the prophet Daniel delineating for us the lines of the future
by means of a few deft strokes. The seventh chapter of the prophecy of Daniel
contains a vision, a dream, which the prophet received in the first year of
Belshazzar, the king of Babylon. When his kingly father had gone into exile,
Belshazzar had received jurisdiction over the Babylonian empire. Now in the
first year of the epoch of the rising sun of Belshazzar of Babylon, God takes
the spirit of Daniel and shows him how the confusion, the action and reaction,
the swinging pendulum of forces active in the world are nevertheless always
subservient to the steadfast law of God. Daniel himself was greatly comforted by
this sublime vision, for he had suffered much because of this fatiguing
vacillation of human life. The theme of Ecclesiastes was sung into his ears
every day and was there developed in the manner of a fugue. Vanity of vanities,
all that is here below! Vanity of vanities, that is the characterization the
spirit of Solomon must assert as its plaint over the ruins of the ages. For what
has remained of Solomon? His powerful realm has been destroyed. The pagan who in
the days of Solomon had respectfully looked up to Israel’s great king had now
moved against the kingdom of Solomon, broken its power, and destroyed its
beauty.

Nevertheless, there is no distress now. The living prophet of today cannot weep
eternally with the dead Solomon of yesterday. The prophet sees the morrow
dawning. He sees how this process of perpetual vacillation, of needless action
and futile reaction will some day be broken in two. True, this process of change
and further change, this shuttlecock movement of events was going on in his day
also. Hardly has the ruler who put Israel in bonds returned from his devastating
work before he himself is sent into exile. Accordingly, the first year of the
reign of Belshazzar had most conspicuously demonstrated the vanity of the
vicious circle of life.

Another time is coming, however. The future belongs to the Messiah, and the
prophet receives a vision in which everything on earth is placed in a higher
light. He sees four animals arising out of the sea. Mark that word: the sea. Why
the sea? The sea, the sea rolls on in endless undulation, The waves divide and
then unite again, They shift and move, returning to their source In myriad and
changing formulation, Singing a glad and plaintive song along their course.
(William Kloos)

We can say therefore that the sea is especially typical of the vicious circle of
our captive lives: they shift and move, returning to their source; the sea, the
sea rolls on in endless undulation.

Thus the sea with its endless undulation, with its movement and
counter-movement, with its ebb and flow, was a suitable figure expressive of the
world of men. In Daniel’s prophecy, also, accordingly, the sea is the symbol of
the forces which churn the world of nations into a tumult, and which whip the
movements of culture into an endless ebb and flow.

Now Daniel sees four beasts arising out of this sea of nations. The four beasts
are symbols of the four great powers, of the four great empires of the world.
These four are: first, the Babylonian empire; second, the Medo-Persian empire;
third, the Macedonian empire; fourth, the Roman empire. These four empires — the
Lord tells him — are to follow each other in succession. The message is a tragic
one. It is tragic because it reveals that not one of the four powers will be
able to accomplish the government of the world, or bring to rest the tumult of
that sea of nations, that great expanse of restlessness. The one great power
will but build its kingdom upon the ruins of the other.

There is the first beast. The first beast is a lion with the wings of a bird.
However, the bird must lose its wings, and be transformed a little later from a
four-footed creature into a biped. This is a striking image of the decay of the
Babylonian power which began with a portentous strength but later perceptibly
lost ground. This is but a repetition of the endless ebb and flow. Then there is
the second beast, “like to a bear.” Three of the half-broken ribs of the
opponent which he has made his prey still are caught between his carnivorous
teeth. This violent beast, although ready to spring, will also lose his power
after a while, and see that his passion for preying will come to nothing. The
endless ebb and flow, again the endless ebb and flow. Then comes the third
beast, a leopard with four heads and four wings. This beast also represents
life’s tedious circle. For the Greco-Macedonian empire represented by the
leopard is divided later on, and made into four parts, into four empires. This
too represents the ebb and flow. Finally the fourth beast comes, representing
the Roman empire. It cannot be compared with any other animal. This beast has
huge iron teeth, massive legs, and ten horns. Nevertheless, dangerous as it may
be, it does not escape any more than do the others from the fatal vacillation of
the vicious circle of all mundane life. The sea, the sea rolls on in endless
undulation. Into this each of these animals is thrown. This fourth animal is
also bandied to and fro by the cyclical turn and return of natural life. In the
midst of the ten horns a new and small horn arises, a horn ever growing. In
order to make room for this horn, three of the others must be removed. This is
also the endless ebb and flow.

Restlessness everywhere. The whole world is involved in a game of position and
transposition, of planting and supplanting. We would almost feel like referring
to an eternal recurrence, but . . . but? But God intervenes and lets another
force enter into this world of the vicious circle, another influence impinges
upon the sea of the nations, upon this graveyard of reciprocally carnivorous
animals. This new influence, this new element, puts an end to the mutable and
the ever-changing in the world, and substitutes for it an immutable, an
unchangeable, and steadfast rule. Who will teach us the songs of this immutable
Kingdom? Praise be to God, for He teaches us those songs of praise. Praise be to
God who, caught as our lives are in our vicious circles, permits His Christ to
interfere with them. God lives, and in the Messiah He manifests Himself with a
dazzling glory dawning over the sea, the sea. The prophet saw that everything in
the sea of nations was in a state of endless undulation. Was there only one
statement which could truthfully be said on earth: We are given a moving
kingdom? But prophets look up. Daniel, too, being seized upon of God, learns to
lift his tired eyes to the hills. And behold, over yonder, away up yonder he can
see it. Whoever looks to the hills, whoever fastens his eyes upon heaven will
come to the great discovery: We are given a kingdom which cannot be moved. The
eternal God now makes His appearance upon the clouds. He presents Himself this
time in the form of an old man, a venerable graybeard, who very calmly and far
exalted above the restless ebb and flow of the world of nations, is seated upon
His throne of fire steeped in the clouds of heaven. But this God is not a Deus
otiosus, who, highly exalted upon His throne, is unaffected by the world. Even
less is this God a “being” who lives only in the hearts of men. No, this God of
Daniel is united with the world and with the sea of men in an abiding covenant.
He has entered into this covenant by means of one who is “like unto the son of
man,” though a genuine human being. No, heaven is not exclusively a banquet and
it is not exclusively a place of rest. The walls of heaven have not been set up
as a partition shutting out the kingdom of heaven, circumscribing a luminous
wall of festivity and revelry in which salvation antiphonally responds to
salvation, and in which one chorus of angels antiphonally responds to another
chorus. No, that circle of salvation seeks contact with the circle of perdition
here below, in order to vanquish it and heal. Between the Ancient of days in
heaven and the ferment of human beings here stands one who is called the Son of
man. He may approach His God freely and frankly; for He knows that He is like
God. But as the Son of man, He is also like men. Hence He is the Mediator, He is
the Messiah. He effects the living relationship between the circle of salvation
there above and the circle of condemnation here below. No, no, that circle of
salvation in heaven is not vicious for us children here on earth.

God is no king resplendent on a throne, Surrounded by a far-flung angel host Who
endlessly repeat a single boast, While clarion notes in golden horns are blown;
Long bell-like chords from ringing cymbals roll; Through all the sky the echoing
sound is known; While God directs the dance, and God alone Conducts it unto
heaven’s fartherest pole.

No, God is not such. Nor is His heavenly circle such. He presents the Son of man
to us. The circle of His seventy-times- seven blessednesses enters into the
circle of our misery, the vicious circle; it enters into our circle unto
salvation, and vanquishes it. Hence God takes the Son of man, crowns Him with
honor, pours blessing upon His head, lays His hand upon His heart, and places
Him not in the midst of those angel choruses in order that He might be the
center of . . . yes, of what? of a sublime festival in heaven, a festival in
which the angels constantly “repeat a single boast,” antiphonally sing their
praise in the endless cycle and ever-recurring vacillations of heaven’s imminent
blessednesses? No, no. This Son of man is placed in the center of the earth. He
relates the clouds which are God’s fiery chariots to the restless sea of the
dull, dead life here below. In His own time He enters into the empires of the
world, walks on the blood-soaked ground still shaking with the noise of war and
of the four envy-fed beasts, establishes a kingdom for Himself and us whose
authority indeed comes from above and whose florescence will indeed be for the
praise of the Ancient of days. But it will be a kingdom, nevertheless, which
will maintain itself here on earth, among men, and within the pale of the
vicious circle. Thus will He establish contact, and a living and powerful
contact lasting forever, between the Eternal one there above and those who are
the captives of time here below. Thus He will establish the contact between the
self-sufficiencies of heavenly blessednesses, and the futile and vain movements
and counter-movements of the world empires here below. He will reveal an
immovable and steadfast kingdom here on earth by virtue of the power of heaven.
To that end He is now being authorized by the Ancient of days, by God Himself.
With this authorization in His hand He steps down to the earth and receives the
honor of all people whom the new man shall have to bring forth for His new
kingdom. Have you observed all these particulars very carefully from the
Scriptures of Daniel? If you have noted his writing very painstakingly, you will
discover in Daniel 7-13 a powerful prophecy of the Messiah, who steps into the
presence of God iure suo, who comes to the world with heavenly authority, and
who consequently will break the vicious circle by putting an end to the
perpetual transpositions of the empires of the world, by putting an end to the
four beasts who prey on each other, and by substituting for it the steadfast,
immutable, eternal, and vertically ascending messianic fellowship. This will be
a fellowship in which the Messiah will also include those who in Daniel’s
prophecy are given a glorious name: “But the saints of the Most High shall take
the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and forever” (Dan
7:18).

If you are still able to do so, turn back from Daniel’s prophetic chair to
Christ who is standing before the chair of the judge. Lord my God, is the Son of
man here? Is He here so far removed from the chariots of Israel, so far beyond
the sight of all their horsemen? Yes, the Son of man is here, and everything is
against Him, everything is opposed to Him. Nevertheless, He knows Himself. He is
singing a song in His soul, a very old song. It is the song of Daniel, the fugue
of the Son of man. Mark, He is beginning the recitative, He is announcing the
theme. Today, He tells the Sanhedrin, this prophecy is being fulfilled in your
ears. When Christ preached in Nazareth for the first time He applied the
prophecy of Isaiah to those who heard Him. Thus He now applies the prophecy of
Daniel to Himself. That first time when Christ said that prophecy was fulfilled
in Him He placed the whole emphasis upon the fact that His messianic mission was
amiable and comforting, that He came to comfort the meek and establish the
miserable ones. But now, as He applies the prophecy of Israel to Himself for the
last time, and points out how He is fulfilling it, He stresses the violence and
the vehemence of His messianic office. He tells them that the power of a king is
His. He tells them that this power of the king will become manifest very soon.
Hereafter, He says, they shall see the Son of man. Hereafter. Christ does not
leave the word of prophecy stranded in the future, where so many people would
safely put it, in order very piously and with due anxiousness to leave its
implications to their posterity. No, He applies the prophecy to this very
moment. Hereafter, from now on, they shall see it; for the Son of man is here.
He is now achieving His deepest depth, and in doing this He will prove to be
very man. Together with all the other sons of men He will be bandied to and fro
between the forces of death and life; He will be dashed to pieces against the
hard wall of the vicious circle of all mundane activity. Consequently, in His
death He will first prove to be the Son of man. However, when He enters into the
deepest depth of His distress and passion, He will occupy a central place in it.
He will be the Representative, and the Head, and the Bearer of all those
oppressed people, who have arisen with Him out of the sea of the seasons and the
times. This is His first and His great fate; and this will begin at once. But,
when He has entered into His deepest depths He will afterwards again feel free
to walk into the presence of the Ancient of days as the Son of man. He will
arise by virtue of His intrinsic qualifications. He will speak to God as the Son
of man, in communion with men and unto their salvation; He will feel free to
place His hand upon the throne and to desire that the crown be given to Him by
the Ancient of days, the crown for His own human head. This will take place at
once. Hereafter, from now on. As Christ takes His own word into His mouth, He is
placing His hand upon a milestone which He has reached on His way. Hereafter.
Once He put it this way: Hereafter ye shall see the angels of God ascending and
descending upon the Son of man. When Christ said that, He manifested Himself as
the Son of man situated in the depths of His passion. The angels, the
subordinates, had to come to Him and watch for Him. Now that the deepest depth
has almost been achieved, He — such is His authority — reverses the role, and
points to the fact that He will transcend all angels, and feel free as the
Bearer of the crown to make His appearance before God, ahead of all angels.

Hereafter ye shall see it. When Christ said that the first time He was subject
to the law of heaven which permits the angels above to remain in contact with
the earth below. God’s angels came to earth from heaven; they watched and paid
attention to the Son of man, left Him and returned to heaven, and there told God
everything about this exceeding great Child of God. The Child could not appear
before the Father. Men bound the Son of man, even though they did not
acknowledge Him at any time. Now everything will change. Now the Son of man will
maintain contact with heaven in virtue of His own authority. He will make His
appearance before His God, and the power of God will not consume Him. He can
withstand the power of God, because that power of God is with Him. Thus, having
the earth as His vantage point, and constantly maintaining communion with His
people, He will communicate with the Father’s heaven. And in like manner He
shall return to the earth in order to give His kingdom a place there, to give
peace to the world of nations which now can find no peace, to put an end to its
fatiguing vacillations by means of the steadfast character of His immutable
kingdom, and in order to arrive at the day of days.

Consequently Christ does not prophesy the coming of the last day of judgment in
a way which might suggest that He had an interest only in that last moment, when
He shall return upon the clouds. For there is a continuous process of government
and of the exercise of justice going on from the moment of the resurrection to
the time of His return. And everything in this continuous process will culminate
in that translucent final day.

This, then, is what Christ said. His word, His sublime word becomes a trumpet
call, penetrating the world. They shall see it. The Sanhedrin also shall see it.
They shall see it hereafter, from now on. No, not that the Sanhedrin will see it
in faith. They will not see it as spiritual people in the right way, discerning
aright. For they will overlook the real essence of the immovable kingdom to
come.

Yes, they will not know whence the wind cometh, but they will hear the sound
thereof. The source of the four winds of the earth they will be able to name.
These are the winds which blow in the circumference of the vicious circle of
nature. These are the winds which Daniel knew by name when he explained the
storms of the great sea of nations in terms of the four winds of heaven (Dan
7:2-3). Yes, indeed, the people will know whence the wind conies on this day,
the wind which blows over the great sea of the world; tomorrow they will know as
much about the wind of the morrow; and each day will be sufficient unto itself,
and will have enough of worldly wisdom within itself to predict the weather and
the wind. But the wind which is to blow hereafter will have its origin in the
deep treasure-room of heaven. This will be the messianic wind. Of that wind they
will hear the sound, but they will not know the origin.

They will hear its sound; the storms of Pentecost will be heard; the spiritual
evolutions of the church will not pass over the world imperceptibly. Hereafter
they will see it. Even they will see it.

Plainly, these were sublime words on the part of the Son of man. They were
hurled into the face of the Sanhedrin as a judgment. This prophecy of Christ
manifests its majesty by the very fact that it does not support itself by any
kind of evidence. The self-testimony of Christ is even more sober on this
occasion than when He once explained Himself for John, His harbinger. When
Christ assures the Baptist who loves Him that He is indeed the Messiah, He
points him, by way of supporting the wavering man, to the signs which He has
done to the blind, the deaf, the poor, and the dead. But now that He manifests
Himself to this Sanhedrin as the Messiah, He does not refer to His past. He does
not authenticate Himself by any signs. For a sign is a sign only to the man who
believes. In His sovereign way, Christ points only to His future. He tells the
judges of His people that He will exercise His might. That must suffice for
them.

Accordingly, Christ speaks differently about His future now than the people have
been speaking of it during this week when they drew Him into the city of the
fathers. We have previously pointed out[1] that the crowds then honored the
Christ because of the many mighty deeds which He had done. Especially the powers
which they had “seen” became the substance of the hosannas which they sang to
the Son of David. Now it is true that Christ Himself again emphasizes the
element of might, of power, in His prophecies. They shall see Him, He says, at
the right hand of the power of God. However, by relating His Messiahship with a
cross (“hereafter”), He also introduces the element of offense into His
messianic preaching, and makes this element tangible: hereafter . . . Thus He
Himself appropriates that which His people did not know of Him and could not
confess about Him. He appropriates, He assumes, the humiliation as the way to
exaltation; He undertakes the course of the depths as a condition for achieving
the way of the heights. He accepts for Himself all the viciousness of our
world-circles by way of pressing upwards out of and above the crooked line of
the circle of our captive lives the straight line of ascent to God. “I ascend to
my Father and your Father, brethren; hereafter I shall ascend. The way is a
straight way, it is the shortest way which God could mark out.”

[1]Christ in His Suffering, p. 123. [Chapter 8, “Christ Welcomed — and
Travestied”]

We can say, then, that the statement of Christ is a sublime turning aside from
vain hosanna-shouters. He invites all those who sing hosannas under the vine of
His blood, first of all, and under the fig tree of His cross, next. The vine is
a burning bush, the fig tree is a thorn. By thus confessing His kingship as one
which must be achieved by means of death He sets Himself against the whole of
the Messiah-expectation of His day. Surely, the Jews will laugh about His
statement: hereafter. As far as they are concerned, they would not use that word
until a strong man should come who could throw down the gates of Rome and raise
his flying banners above the restless sea of the world, and that at once,
understand.

However, Christ pays no attention to the gate of Rome. In fact, He allows the
guardians of that gate to cast Him out. He gives the same privilege to the
watchmen upon the gates of Jerusalem. His kingship definitely awaits the
sentence of the Sanhedrin and of Pilate. After all, His vindication lies behind
the clouds. This malicious Sanhedrin may say that He is a false Messiah, and
that His death will be well pleasing in the eyes of the judge of heaven. Over
against that judgment, however, Christ puts His own: I am the true Messiah; My
death is the fulfillment of My messianic calling.

We do not say that Christ did not in another sense pay attention to “the gate of
Rome.” On the contrary, Daniel himself had already said that the unchangeable
kingdom of the Son of man would put an end to the reciprocal animosity of the
four beasts. Hence, this is the hour for the fourth beast for Rome, and for the
Son of man. Christ’s kingship spells the decay of the Roman empire. But that
fourth empire will not decay because of the fact that the kingdom of the Son of
man will conform itself to the manner of war employed by the “beasts,” but
because of the fact that He, as the Son of man, will release a spiritual and
eschatological power on earth, which will raise His kingdom above all that is
“flesh” and all that is bound by the limitations of time. This fleshly, mundane
life is busy at Rome adorning itself with gold. In this respect, Rome becomes a
type of the dazzling Antichrist. But the judgment of Christ comes upon Rome from
above; it does not come from below; it does not issue from the restless sea of
the world. The sea of the world will wash up the figure of the Antichrist later;
he is the small horn of Daniel’s prophecy. But he will be thrust down by a
judgment which comes from above, because the Son of man who has come up out of
the sea of the world with us could not be held captive by it. The “little horn”
and the “branch” (Dan 7:8; Isa 11:1), the “little horn” and the “rod,” these
will ever remain two things. The first is the Antichrist; he can only grow among
the other horns, and on an undecapitated head, the head of the fourth beast of
Daniel. But the Branch and the Rod is the Christ of God. He is born by a wonder;
for He can flourish out of the stem, and out of the dry ground. His growth is
not a phenomenon of nature, or a manifestation of history; it does not spring
from the vicious circle. Hence the origin of the Branch already guarantees the
destruction of the “little horn,” the late florescence of the realm of Rome.
“Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace.”
“Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.” “For our God is a
consuming fire” — in His Son of man (Heb 12:26-29).

Thus Christ spoke to the Sanhedrin. He made foolishness perfect and offense
infinite. For just as Christ was talking of His kingdom, which should descend to
the earth upon the clouds of God’s power, hereafter, the cock crowed. The curse
of Peter shattered the air. “I know not the man.” That was the answer to the
mighty hereafter.

Nevertheless, hereafter this will take place. By passing through denial and
humiliation Christ will achieve the glory of the Son of man which makes itself
the subject and the object of all Christian prophecy and which makes the cursing
Peter a witness on the feast of Pentecost, testifying to the great powers of the
world to come.

Let us not, however, abandon this discussion, until we have given some attention
to the completeness, to the adequacy, of Christ’s confession spoken to the
Sanhedrin. By this spoken word He broke the vicious circle. And He will vanquish
the vicious circle again by His accomplished deed. This much for His spoken
word. He took His precious oath and said: I am the Messiah. This He did by way
of proclaiming that He was the Messiah, “the Father of eternity,” amidst those
witnessings and inquiries, amidst those fantasies and critiques and humanly
fabricated comparisons which bandied Him to and fro between the powers of the
earth. Thus He introduced His word, and the high service of the Word into the
vicious circle to which you and I are captive, and thus He vanquished that
vicious circle. Next to the word, however, is the necessity of the deed. For He
is to assume the power of God, and by the power of God to triumph over the
confusion of the world. By means of His word and deed, then, Christ vanquishes
the vicious circle of the world, the crooked cycle of our uncertain lives. Thus
was the judgment and the blessing set free in the world. For that crooked line
about which the Ecclesiast spoke so often and persistently has a double
function. On the one hand, it is a hindrance to the curse which came upon the
world for the sake of sin, a hindrance to keep it from conducting the life of
the world straight down to eternal death. In this sense, therefore, the crooked
line is a postponement and a moratorium of the death sentence which would have
thrust a cursed world into the depth of hell by the straight route of death
itself. In this sense, too, we can accordingly speak of the circle of common
grace, regarding it negatively as restraining the full power of curse and death.
On the other hand, however, that crooked line is also a postponement of the true
and boundless life which would soar straight up to God and to full and
unrestrained blessedness. For the cycles of our temporal life have by God’s
redemptive will been inserted between the first sin and the final penalty. These
consequently are a moratorium; they represent a postponement of the punishment,
in order that by means of it He might cancel the penalty and prepare the way for
a breaking through of grace in Christ. These cycles will therefore continue
until the process of redemption, of the most special activity of the special
revelation of history, the continuous Christological work of the “day of the
Lord,”[1] shall be complete. Thereafter that “great day of the Lord” will see
the new life, which cannot yet fully unfold its capacity for blessedness and
glory, nor triumph or soar directly to perfect blessedness. Accordingly the
vicious circle which we have been called upon to deplore so often will always
remain vicious, for it would never have existed if it had not been for sin. If
evil had not entered the world, the world of the alpha described in the first
chapter of Genesis would gradually but certainly have developed until it had
reached the omega of completed things. Hence the circle which fatigued the
Ecclesiast is vicious; it is vicious because it is the effect of sin.

[1] For the concept “day of the Lord” seeChrist in His Suffering, Chapter 18. On
the other hand, however, the compassion of God proclaims aloud against the
judgment. There are struggles of grace in the fatigue and weariness of the
world’s vacillation. The cycle to which our lives are captive represents a
postponement of heaven but also a postponement of hell. It represents a delay
(by virtue of the “common grace” and the “common judgment”) for eternal death as
well as for eternal life.

Hence Christ is very terrible and mighty when He presents Himself before the
Sanhedrin as the conqueror of this vicious circle. Standing in His own place, in
the place where He belongs (see Mark 14:61-62), He releases both judgment and
blessing. He opens the doors of hell and the doors of His own festive chambers.
True, Christ is here suffering the judgment of men; but He who for our sake
allowed Himself to be sacrificed together with the other captives of the vicious
circle is at the same time the Judge of heaven and of earth. Jesus’ “hereafter”
is a striking revelation of His perfect self-awareness. From this time on this
shall take place. The moratorium has been recalled. Hereafter every man is duty
bound to conform himself not to common but to special revelation. Hereafter any
prophecy derived from common grace unattended by a sincere desire for special
grace is but a rejection of the Christ into the vicious circle of this hopeless
life. It is to take one’s place in the electric chair in which Caiaphas today
has tied himself. All moratoria have been recalled: hereafter, from now on.

Yes, indeed, from now on they shall see that Jesus is the Christ. To me, too,
the world must disclose the fact that Christ is not only an angel, being wafted
up and down in the skies, occasionally casting a glance upon the earth, proud
and important but cold and without redemption. To me, too, the world must
disclose the fact that Christ is the Son of man who has emancipated the original
qualities of humanity in the life of His kingdom and of His free, sovereign
self-existence by means of fellowship with the living God.

Hereafter the circle of this wearisome life will be broken. Hereafter nature
will be vanquished by grace. Hereafter the dead will rest from their restless
work, because of the fact that the Sabbath has come and the vacillation of the
world has been put at rest by the Son of man. The great labor is accompanied by
the great rest, hereafter.

Hereafter I shall take up the cup of salvation and preach His name. His name is
not God only but Lord also. The question was once asked and the voice of the
questioner was the voice of the tired Ecclesiast: “Behold the work of God: for
who can make straight that which He hath made crooked?” No one could do that.
God Himself cannot do that. For God Himself has in His great compassion made the
crooked lines. He — to summarize the whole matter — drew a crooked line between
Adam’s first sin and Adam’s straight descent into the realm of death, in order
that He might cause that history to be born which brings about the interchange
of day and night, of death and life. In this history, which interposes itself
between the breaking of the line of Paradise represented by the first world, and
the straight line of the development of the curse, on the other side, God makes
room for Christ and for the history of redemption. The crooked ways — alas, from
our point of view they are very vicious, for they do not suffice to bring heaven
or hell near. They cannot be bent straight, and they keep hell and heaven back
from breaking through. But, observed from God’s point of view, these crooked
lines are luminous. God’s will to grace projected them in order to save the
world through the peace of Christ.

Therefore, behold the work of the Lord, the work of Jaweh, the covenant God, the
God of special revelation. For who can make that straight which He hath made
crooked? I can, Christ Himself says, in this sublime moment of the might of the
Son of man. I alone can do that. I am doing it already; hereafter ye shall see
it; ye shall see your vicious circles broken. Behold the work of Jehovah again,
for who can ever make that crooked which He just now has bent straight?

Hide yourself now, and flee, for the time of the breaking through has come. This
ministration of the word of Jesus Christ in the presence of Caiaphas has a more
than volcanic power. It casts every human being in front of the gate of hell, or
portentously hurls him before the gate of heaven.

O Man of sorrows, O Lord of sorrows. These are overwhelming joys. I see abysses
and hear the sound of a volcano. Presently the veils must be rent, for all
moratoria, all postponements of blessing and of curse, have been recalled today.


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  CHAPTER 13: 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 zumN.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.


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  CHAPTER 14: 09. CHAPTER 9: CHRIST BEING MOCKED UPON THE PROPHETIC MOUNTAIN
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C H A P T E R N I N E Christ Being Mocked Upon the Prophetic Mountain

Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him,and others smote him with the
palms of their hands saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote
thee? —Mat 26:67-68.

CHRIST has been given the death sentence. Now He is made the butt of mockery.
From this is evident the decay of a period which luxuriates in the fruitlessness
of its vicious circle. And from this is evident also the complete and awful
character of sinfulness of any life that is lived outside of God.

Surely, to send Christ to His death is to do a very big thing. Only one response
is becoming to a so formidable event: profound reverence, and a complete
crushing of the judges who were condemned, yes, elected and constrained, to take
the place of God for the day. For that, after all, is the role of Israel’s
judges. They have their appointment from above. It was the will of the living
God that placed them in the seat of the judge, and issued to them the mandate:go
out and do God’s work; let God’s voice move over Israel’s threshing floor
through your mouths. That is the first condition which limits them. They carry
the keys of God. The are still office-bearers and, accordingly, they work under
the pressure of the word: Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven—provided that
your binding and your loosing is a genuine response to the command of God from
whom you have your commission. But there is also a second reason for active
mourning and for an attitude expressive of the high and awful seriousness of
life. They have just sent someone to his death. That is always a terrible thing.
It means surrendering a man from a life of “becoming” to a state of eternal,
immutable “being.” It means the letting go of a man who still moves in a world
of opportunity for improvement into a state which assures his stumbling into
another world of certain evil. It means taking a man out of the range of human
sight, which is still able to see in him a possible elect person of God. To put
a man to death is to give expression to the certainty that this man can be none
but a reprobate.

Now this sublime seriousness of the event of the day should have impressed the
Sanhedrin with all the solemnity of its significance. Looking up, the members of
the Sanhedrin preach a life which is forever immutable; looking down they
portion out unchangeable death. They give Jesus into Satan’s hands, but before
they do so they claim that their hands while delivering Him up have been
tremulously placed in the hand of God. It is God, therefore, who through their
agency, is delivering Him into Satan’s hands. They themselves are servants, mere
servants, who, like the rest of mankind, can live by grace alone.

If Israel’s judges had appreciated the burden of their office they would have
pulled down the curtains of their session hall as a token of mourning because of
the sentence which God had exacted from them. But the truth reveals itself in
all of its naked actuality; they literally laugh the seriousness of the occasion
out of court. They make fools of themselves. Hardly had Caiaphas pronounced the
sentence before the tension which the Sanhedrin has felt recedes and a gruesome
drama of mockery and defiance takes the floor.

Such is their sentence . . . Had the Sanhedrin sensed the burden of the high
responsibility of its office and the tenseness caused by the relationship
existing between God and it, that sense of responsibility and awesome pressure
would have remained after it had reached a conclusion also. For God is ever
placing man in an atmosphere freighted with significance and responsibility. But
that which had made the Sanhedrin feel depressed was not, of course, the
presence of God. No finger had written a sinister script upon their wall, as it
had once in the house of Belshazzar. But God’s finger had once written the law
on tables of stone — yes, such a story was told in the history books. However,
that was long ago. Come, get up now, and have your fun at the expense of the
fate of Joshua of Nazareth. The old gentlemen do get up from their places. They
have their fun, and at the expense of the Nazarene. Look: they spit in His face.
A symbol of defiance, a token which spoke a language very well known to the Jews
(Num 12:14; Deu 25:9; Isa 50:6; Job 30:10). Besides, they strike Jesus with
their fists. For, according to the meaning of the original text of these various
reports, this beating was not merely a slapping with the open hand but nothing
less than brutal fisticuffing. Now to beat a man with one’s fists was in the
estimation of the Jews to give expression to a token of utter scorn (see Mat
5:39). To these methods for giving vent to their mockery, furthermore, they add
the spoken word by way of lashing His spirit and His soul. First they blindfold
Jesus. Then the worthy gentlemen make their approach, accompanied after a while
by the house-servants and slaves who are gradually growing less reticent and
shy. They step up to Jesus, strike Him on the face, and then, grinning
maliciously, say: Come now, prophesy unto us: who was it that just gave you the
lusty blow? They dance around Jesus, mocking His prophet’s name and His
prophet’s calling. They have at times observed that the Nazarene was referred to
as a “great prophet arisen among us, with whom God has visited His people.” One
of the titles given Him by popular usage was that of “the Prophet.” Besides, He
Himself had just prophesied about His future. To all this now, to the people and
to the people’s prophet, they take exception by resorting to the device of
caricature. Let this latest pretender to prophecy say, if He can, who it was
that just struck Him. What, you say He cannot see the fellow? But prophets are
supposed to see what ordinary mortals cannot see.

You see that prophecy is being identified here with a kind of knack for making
predictions. The illuminating function of God’s prophets is identified with
something which amounts to little more than fortune telling. According to this
pitiable notion of it, to prophesy means simply to light flickering little
flames in those places which the sun never reaches. But of that
misinterpretation of the role of prophecy these mockers take no note. They are
not susceptible to suggestions such as these. But there, in that other world,
Christ Himself is watchful and alert. Accordingly, all this constituted
appalling suffering for Him. Again the physical and the spiritual suffering go
hand in hand. Yes, He is wounded in the body; the slapping, the fisticuffing
hurt Him. But He suffered especially in His soul, for Christ is being mocked
while He stands upon the mountain of prophecy.

What is meant by this prophetic mountain, you ask? That can be indicated. Its
contour is very clearly outlined. God, who is the Father of all illumination,
had established a high mountain of prophecy in Israel. Today Christ is standing
upon it. He is standing upon its peak. All other prophets by whom God spoke to
the fathers stood on levels below that which He now occupies. None of these
spoke the whole truth. None had succeeded in pushing the heavy load of prophecy
to the very top of the hill of the prophets. True, they climbed high, very high,
but none scaled the peak. They were born on the mountain’s declivity, and on its
slope they were buried.

Now Christ stands in the presence of the Sanhedrin. Christ is the chief Prophet.
In Him God’s speaking is fulfilled. In Christ, His prophet, God reaches the peak
of prophecy. In His Son who is fully and completely man, God scaled the top.

Now as Christ stands there at the apex of that prophetic mountain, just after He
has been pronouncing that full-bodied prophecy which succeeded in placing
Himself and His judges under the full illumination of God’s sun, and which
related the place where He stood to the Ancient of Days, and to the immovable
kingdom of Daniel 7—now that highly prophetic mountain in Israel is cut down to
the level of the plain of Moab. Remember, this is done not by the Romans nor by
the pagans but by the chief officers among His own people. They take the tension
out of the atmosphere, they release a smoke-screen to hide the sun. After all,
the sun can be very annoying at times. They reduce the prophecy of the mountain
top to the fortune telling in the valley of superstitious folk. They set up
their establishment on the peak towards which many centuries have made wearisome
progress. That establishment is nothing but a fortune-telling grotto. In it they
demand that Christ prove that He is master of the trick of saying who struck Him
last. Such conduct indicates that they identified the pure atmosphere
surrounding the peak of God’s prophetic mountain with the dank, disgusting
stench pervading the grottos of the fortune tellers and magicians of the plain.

It is for this reason that this particular piece of mockery is to he
differentiated from that which overtook the Saviour later in the palace of
Pilate, and also from that with which He was afflicted on the hill of the cross.
True, after Pilate’s sentence also, Jesus was mocked. Simply recall to mind the
crown of thorns. And He was made the butt of mockery again in Herod’s presence.
You remember the gorgeous robe. Moreover, He was mocked even as He hung on the
cross itself. Remember the jest-prompted summoning of Elijah, and the way in
which the people abused Jesus’ maschil —His breaking down and His rebuilding of
the temple.

Each time that mockery recurs, it occupies a different, a unique position in the
gospel of the passion. First it is Israel that mocks Him; next the world of
heathendom; then the false brother; and finally it is the company of all these
together. Israel first: the Sanhedrin, judges and servants both. Heathendom
next: the soldiers of Pilate, prompted to do so by Pilate himself; in other
words, the servants and their patrons. After that the false brother: Herod, who
traces his lineage to Edom, that is, to Esau, Jacob’s pursuer from long ago even
to the present time. And finally, these all acting as a unit mocked Him, when
all those who stood around the cross joined in defying the Christ.

Therefore we say that the mockery which Jesus has to endure in the presence of
the Sanhedrin occupies a unique place in the account of the passion. He is
standing upon the mountain of prophecy. While there He is being degraded by His
own people. He was humiliated by this mockery because the prophecy which in Him
reached the highest possible point of knowledge was identified with the drab
caricatures which fortune tellers used in trifling with God’s name, with God’s
pellucid truth, and with God’s messianic, prophetic mission. Need we ask whether
Christ suffered because of this humiliation? Hardly. We have already observed
that Christ Himself, even in the presence of the Sanhedrin, left His maschil
unexplained precisely in order that it might never be His fault if the world
should convert His most sacred mysteries into an idle game, a curiosity,[1] an
entr’acte in its carnival of vanity.

[1] See chapter 5, p. 104 ff.

However, in spite of the fact that Christ, to the extent that He could,
purposely kept the holy mysteries of messianic dignity from becoming the idle
games of false caricaturists, He was not spared this suffering. They mocked the
most awesome and most profound function of His life; they converted His office
into a joke. Therefore we can say that the stinging mockery contained in the
“Prophesy, prophesy . . .” is grievously painful to the spirit of this Son of
man; as painful, indeed, as the nails will be presently when they penetrate His
palms. The fact that in this same hour a lost cock once crowed, and that it had
to crow because God wrenched the creature’s beak wide open in order that what
Christ as a prophet had foretold to Simon Peter might be demonstrated — that
fact no one understood, and that cock no one heard. Nevertheless such crowing
would have been a fitting answer to the brutal question-and-answer game which
the Sanhedrin was conducting, for it would have become apparent from this that
Christ could prophesy about heaven and about a cock under heaven. Had He not
beforehand governed the crowing of that cock and had He not pronounced this
prophecy concerning the cock while He was in a condition of unmistakable
communion with the Almighty God? Which is the easier: to say Judah ben Zadok is
the man who just struck me, or to say that in this exact hour, after this
particular statement of this specific person, the cock will crow? Which is the
easier: to know who was laughing just now or to control the omnipotent and
omnipresent power of God which can open a cock’s beak at precisely the
preappointed time? For to do this last thing is to perform a miracle greater
than to cause a comet to come, or to stop the sun in its course at Joshua’s
behest.

However, you need ask no questions today, O Nazarene. The time has passed in
which you can put those disarming questions: Which is the easier? Pray, who
would take note of a cock now, crowing somewhere in the distance? The Word is
within you, and is hidden there.

Things are still thus in the world. Men ask for proof of the fact that Christ is
the Prophet, the preacher of truth, the great light. And indeed the proof is
there; we are next to it; there is nothing between us and it — but there is none
to see the evidence. By nature there is not one who can see it. Who, indeed,
would look for the will of God in the phenomenon of a crowing cock? The one
thing needful for us, therefore, in view of this, is to find the Surety for our
soul. What will it profit us to condemn the world by saying that it is the
equivalent of the Sanhedrin if we do not find Him who is able to consume our
condemnation? What good does it do us to condemn the Sanhedrin, to exhaust our
imaginations in an effort to find words fit to curse the folly of this High
Council? Can scathing attack save us? Would we not be the more guilty the more
we should, while scurrilously maligning the Sanhedrin, think ourselves superior
to those mockers? As though, indeed, our flesh would have acted differently
under the circumstances than theirs!

No, their work is ours. Hence it is unbecoming to us to throw the penetrating
rays of caustic censorship upon the Sanhedrin. For we ourselves must sense and
experience the criticism which God exercises upon all flesh when He issues His
summons from the top of the prophetic mountain. Whoever has been made sensitive
to the truth of that will begin to ask: Show me my Surety; point Him out to me,
even as He is in the mockery which He must suffer on His prophetic mountain. He,
then, who finds His Surety will discover Him precisely in those most
excruciating of afflictions. Attend once more to the Form for the Lord’s Supper:
“. . . where He was bound that we might be freed from our sins; that He
afterwards suffered innumerable reproaches, that we might never be confounded.”
This points us to the essence of the matter. For Christ, having been mocked on
the peak of the mount of all prophecy, in the place, that is, of perfect
relevance, of perfect seriousness, of the awful tension of God and of the
angels, is now to be defied. In other words, He is treated as though He stood
outside of the atmosphere of high seriousness. He is dressed in the motley garb
of a harlequin, the garb in which the world in its odd sense of humor puts its
friends and especially its foes. By mocking Jesus in this manner the Sanhedrin
is putting Jesus outside of the pale of law. Christ against Christ the outlaw.
He is placed outside of the sphere, outside of the domain, outside of the wall
and of the gate of that province of law whose boundaries have been fixed by
God’s covenant choice. Men may treat Him as they please. He is no longer
acknowledged as having any rights in Israel.

We know that He had been thus rejected from the circumference of law before.
This took place when the servant, in the presence of Annas, struck Him. Now His
judges do the same thing. When the servant struck Him, he was, from an official
point of view, doing so against the law, for he did it before a charge had been
lodged against Jesus. But now the judges themselves attack Jesus. The charge has
been filed, and now they say: Thou blasphemer of God and of the highest
authorities, thou who permittest the storm of blasphemy to beat against the
mountain of prophecy, we thrust thee out of the domain of law. As far as we are
concerned, people may do with thee as they please. Philistine, the Samsons are
upon thee.

Note that this time it is a legal act which puts Jesus outside of the sphere of
ethical law. The game of mockery which ensues upon that act is its logical
sequel. For what is mockery, downright mockery at bottom but the act of putting
the subject of its jest outside of the domain of law? What is it but to say by
word of mouth and to confirm by the act that the object of the mockery is
irrelevant to righteousness, and that truth cannot assume a serious demeanor
over against it?

There is an awful harmony here: on the one hand, the spitting, the buffeting,
the blows; on the other, the mockery of the statement: Prophesy, and tell us who
gave you that stinging blow. Observe that two elements are active here, the act
and the word. The act of the jeering crowd greets Christ as the outlaw, as the
man unaffected by law. And the word of that same crowd proclaims that He is the
outlaw — one gasping for air, and finally dying, outside of the sphere of law.
For mockery, simon-pure mockery when it is unmixed with tears, is simply a
denial of seriousness. In the whole world there is but one power which can give
things the character of a high seriousness. That power is God’s Word of law, the
law according to which God and the world are differentiated from eternity, but
according to which God and the world are also placed in relationship to each
other in conformity with His will and according to His sovereign good pleasure.
In the final analysis, it is according to that law that each thing in His
eternal good pleasure takes its place and has its unique meaning. In terms of
this law everything has its own meaning, yes. Strictly taken, there is no such
thing as vanity. Fiction and the idol only are vain. Even idolatry is not
vanity. For all that exists in reality has either preserved its harmony with the
law, is kicking against the pricks of the law, or is included in the struggle of
the great “Yea” and “Nay” which is going on before God, the law, and the Word.
Hence, when someone begins to mock, his mockery, if it is pure, becomes an act
of brutality. Mockery then becomes a cruel defiance, for it denies someone his
rights over against God and the universe. Virtually one regards the person who
runs the gauntlet of mockery as one who belongs to the vanities of life. One
classifies him with the idols and we all know that an idol amounts to nothing.

Inevitable, logical mockery numbers its victim among the exgods — the figurative
language is taken from the Bible itself. All mockery which is unmingled with
ingredients of wrath and love, and which has not sprung from the source of
truth, calls its victim Belial, Belial![1] And that means: good-for-nothing,
idler, one to whom God even pays no attention, taugenichts.

Now that is the way the Sanhedrin addresses Christ Jesus. On the mountain of
prophecy it cries aloud: What, thou a Messiah? Thou! Nay, but thou art Belial,
an empty vessel, a worthless one.

[1] Compare myTusschen“Ja”en “Neen”Kampen, J. H. Kok, p. 32 ft

We are the ones who do the mocking. We do it; and they call us the most
respectable in Israel. Know this, that our mocking is a luxury reserved for
judges. It is an exaggerated but a significant mockery. We refuse to say, Hail,
Messiah! We say only, Belial, good-for-nothing, unhappy caprice of the Will
which for the rest created the world. We call you Belial and ask, What
fellowship hath Christ (Messiah) with Belial?

Thus the Sanhedrin. And, really, what fellowship is there between Christ and
Belial? Paul can ask that question everywhere and at every time. Gamaliel can.
Caiaphas can. And Nicodemus. And we all.

We said a moment ago that simon-pure mockery, as soon as it places someone
outside of the domain of law, becomes defiant.

Mockery and defiance are not identical. Between the two lies the dimension of
law. As long as mockery is mixed with seriousness and as long as it seeks a
relation to truth, consciously or unconsciously, it still acknowledges that a
person resides within the circle of divine law. But defiance drives its victims
outside of that circle and does this fully conscious of the fact that it is
doing so.

Hence we must discriminate carefully if we are to determine whether mockery in a
given instance is still compatible with God’s holiness, love and justice, or
whether by approximating defiance it breaks the bond which relates it to God’s
justice and law.

We can say in general that mockery as such does not necessarily represent a
defiance of God or even of man. Mockery which sets itself up on the basis of
reality has the merit of calling things by their real names. That frequently
gives it a comic effect; this comic effect may not issue from the mockery
itself, but, in part at least, from the persons who listen to or observe the
mocker. Then, too, the tendency towards the comical can sometimes arise from the
fact that it calls those people by their real names who have never wanted to be
known by them. Mockery can present a man who is a giant in his own eyes as the
puny dwarf which he actually is. A prophet presuming unctuously holy endeavor
can be presented by the caricaturists in all the meagerness of his spirit and
the lethargy of his intelligence within which he activistically and officiously
bobs back and forth; his confines are limited, he never undertakes competition
in the great arena of the spirit. Again, a man who gets up on the high pedestal
of philanthropy can be revealed by the mocker as one who makes himself obtrusive
as a stickler for his own precious prophet. Such people immediately become the
objects of mockery. Hence, if the mocker does not distort the truth, or wrench
the ratio of overstatement and understatement out of proportion, he can be of
service and his mockery can remain compatible with the holiness of God. His
caricaturing is then a demonstration of truth; it is a rent torn straight
through the mask of hypocrisy. It is the water which seeps through the bottom of
the dyke, the firm dyke which was to protect the lowland of our smug
self-satisfaction or of our unpardonable arrogance against the high tide of
common sense, honesty, and integrity. On the other hand, however, mockery can
just as easily become a weapon in the hands of an undeserving one. If in such
cases, this weapon causes wounds which cannot be healed because the poison of
the mocker has introduced gangrene into them; the fault lies not in the weapon
of mockery, but in the soul of him who manipulates it. Therefore, we can still
say that in spiritual struggles mockery need not necessarily be evil. We know
that God is Himself presented in the Bible as a Mocker. We read that He laughs
because of the folly of men. Now when heaven laughs, when God mocks, because of
the feverish and activistic folly of men, His mockery always represents a holy
revelation of that concealed truth which the world simply would not countenance.
We shall say nothing further about these considerations because they have been
discussed incidentally before this. Hence if we were to pass judgment upon this
or that instance of mockery, we should not be governed by whether or not it
gives expression to the truth. It is not enough for the mocker to call things by
their true names. The only important question is whether the mocking arises from
a heart which is itself in direct relationship to truth. In this consideration,
surely lies the difference between the mockery of God and the defiance of men.
Among men the difference between mockery and defiance can never be exactly
designated. Neither is found in a pure condition in the human heart. Human
mockery is always mixed with other ingredients. Hence it will always be fraught
with danger — especially with danger to the mocker himself. Yes, he will often,
while mocking, be speaking the truth. But if the sin which dwells in his own
heart has not yet been consumed he is, to the extent that such sin in his bosom
still contributes to the mockery arising there, in principle like the devil. The
devil also tells truths about others. But he himself is not in the truth. We
know that he does not desire it but despises it. He is that devil who refers the
standards of law to others but not to himself. Hence he does not always maintain
the whole of the relationship of all power and of all created beings to the law
of God. He uses the law arbitrarily. He plays off the idea of the lawless one
against the word of the lawgiver, and vice versa, and he does this in whatever
way pleases him most. Accordingly, his diabolical mockery may be a sneering
declaration of “a” truth, but it can never be a complete maintenance of “the”
truth. He never draws up his position together with the victim of his mockery
under the arc of the holy justice of the Lord. Not so the living God. In Him, to
mock is always more than to tell the truth; it is also a full maintenance of the
truth. God’s mockery in every respect acknowledges the law which He has laid
down for man and for every creature. The arc of that law is never bent in such a
way as to put anyone, even though he be the devil, outside of its circumference.
We can say, therefore, that God never recognizes such an entity as the “outlaw.”
That is the great, the infinite, the fundamental difference between divine
mockery and human defiance. Why do the heavens laugh, and why does God mock?
Because He places over against the false front of sin the truth of reality, and
this He never does without simultaneously proclaiming and maintaining alongside
of the contrast between appearance and reality that other and abiding antithesis
between good and evil. God’s mockery never sees its object as being independent
of law. Hence it is never satisfied by merely pointing out the pigmy stature of
a man who had counted himself among the giants on the earth. At that point human
mockery generally stops. It delineates the contours of folly in its victim, but
it does not raise the issue of guilt either in itself or in him. Such human
mockery is conceived and born independent of a clear vision of the great
lawgiver and outside of the circumference of the revealed law. Very often the
person mocked escapes in the eyes of the mocker, and very often the mocker in
the eyes of God escapes from the absolute demands of God.

Now you can see our purpose in raising these considerations. We want to point to
the fact that the mockery carried on by Israel degraded itself to the diabolical
level when it placed Christ, who is the lawgiver, and who Himself bears the law
in His bowels, outside the sphere of law. Ecce homo, behold the man. Thus said
Pilate. Ecce exlex, behold the man for whom God would not trouble Himself to
place a finger upon a stone tablet, or to write down one memorandum in His
journal. Thus say the Jews. In this way, then, their defiance becomes
diabolical. They change the boundaries of the domain of law in order that they
may escape from the terror of the thought that to do so is utterly impossible.
They manipulate the law as they please; for he who plays with law makes himself
the target of its arrows. He who thrusts another outside of the domain of law,
places himself above it. As if he could . . . This is the last resort of a man
who is defending himself against the Chief Lawgiver, but who is unwilling to
admit even to himself that he is merely toying in his effort to escape from his
dread. In this, accordingly, inheres the difference between the mockery of the
Jews and that of God. God too knows what it is to laugh, to laugh a holy
laughter, but God in His laughing never recognizes such a thing as an outlaw. He
does the opposite. He makes the law binding upon every object of His sublime
mocking. Even though all heaven seems to rock with raillery because of our
derailment, still that very same sublime laughter of God (Psalms 2) points us to
the fact that the signals of the two tables of law which God gave could have
kept the coach of our life from meeting with this disaster. God’s mockery always
brings the law to bear upon the matter, is ever reaching out for the law, never
intervenes unless accompanied by the law. He is, to the extent that He reveals
Himself to us, the last remedy: He seizes upon the emasculator of law for his
life’s sake: He brings the law to bear upon him. Yes, God’s mockery may be a
prediction, sent by way of warning, of that macabre accompaniment with which the
heavens will greet the vaunted arrogance of sin, and of the sinister prophecy
presently, of the destruction and of the catastrophe-ridden guests at the
banquet of unrighteousness. But God maintains His law withal. He does so now and
He will do so eternally. He does it here and everywhere. Even in the regions of
hell, He lets the echo of the law resound against the wide walls of every human
soul, and of the entire community of hell. God’s laughter is His deliberate
maintenance of the law, just as the intercession of Christ is the maintenance of
the Gospel.

Human mockery is not satisfied simply to take a position below the exalted
laughter of God. By moving in the direction of the satanic, it puts itself in
opposition to God’s mockery. To such mockery, to such defiance, the taint of sin
necessarily clings. Hence it in turn immediately becomes the object of God’s
sublime laughing. The defiance of the people who beat, and spit upon, the
Christ, and who degrade His prophetic office to the level of the meanest fortune
telling, strikes truth full in the face, refuses to call Christ by His right
name, and if it can, tries by ignoring it to put Christ’s work to death. But the
chief thing is that their mockery, which turns into defiance at last, places
Christ outside of the sphere of law. The soldiers of Pilate at least threw a
mock-garment around Jesus, but Their Eminences, the Sanhedrin, let the outlaw
stand outside of the sphere of justice altogether. They let Jesus wander around
through the universe naked. They do not bring the law to bear upon Him. Even
though He is called the arch-liar, they do not call Him to repentance. They do
not call upon God. In fact, they do not even surrender Him into Satan’s hands.

If only they had done that much: if only they had given Christ up to Satan, for
— this may seem strange to some — delivering Christ up to Satan is quite
different from defying Him. Had Christ, in a formal session, after God’s name
had been called upon and full cognizance had been taken of all the incisive
words of the law, been delivered up to Satan by the Jewish authorities, He would
at least have been subjected to a process which recognized the magnitude of the
event. Then His sentence and everything which followed it would have remained a
part of that great synthesis of binding seriousness and of the eternal,
infinite, and weighty dispensation of the law. Then the soul and spirit of the
judges would have been moved equally by and their attention concentrated on
death and life, hell and heaven, Satan and God, world and church, falsehood and
truth, eternal woe and eternal weal, absolute yea and absolute nay — just as the
soul and spirit of Paul were moved when in an hour of prayer he and the church
at Corinth were united in spirit and purpose, even though he was absent from
them in body. Yea, just as Paul and the church at Corinth were when, together
with the church, he sent out the energies of prayer to God and delivered into
Satan’s hands the hardened sinner of that church (1 Corinthians 5). Had the
Sanhedrin, after struggling with God in just this way, delivered Christ up into
Satan’s hand, their sin would have been less severe. Their act, then, would at
least have been taking cognizance of law. They would have been able to say with
trembling lips: O God, here we stand; we cannot do otherwise. God help us. Amen.
But no trace of such spiritual trouble is perceptible in the Sanhedrin. They do
not surrender Christ to Satan. They go farther: they thrust Him outside of the
domain of law: they buffet Him, beat Him, spit upon Him, they laugh, they grin,
and they do it in unison, master and servants together. In doing this they
become guilty of what can no longer be called mockery. This is not mockery but
defiance, poisonous and demonic. This is not giving a condemned man to Satan,
the giving accompanied by a broken heart, and the whole done in the name of God.
There is no summoning of the law here, no asking the law to set up its walls on
all sides of this meeting of judges and of accused. No, Christ is being
surrendered into the hands of any or all. Satan may have Him, the angels may
have Him; even timid angels if they wish to, may still hurl a wilted flower at
His feet, some little vestige of their heavenly banquet. Nothing matters in
reference to Him any more. Law does not affect Him. Never will evangelical grace
summon this evil one to repentance, or any teacher of the law speak pleadingly
with Him by way of inspiring Him to prayer before He gives up the ghost. No
father in Israel will ever plead with the Nazarene and say: My son, give honor
to God.

Plainly, then, their mockery becomes the opposite, the very opposite, of God’s
mockery. Even as God’s wrath is the other side of His love, and is always the
highest conceivable form which the maintenance of His justice, of the justice of
His love in all of its tendencies and decrees takes, just so the mockery of God
is simply the other side of His infinite passion for truth, and is a maintenance
of truth in all of its holinesses and sublime tendencies. But that which men are
allowing to come upon Jesus here is not love, and consequently is not genuine
wrath either. Truth is no part of it, and consequently this mockery has nothing
in common with the mockery of God.

Therefore Jesus suffered terribly. Mockery runs up the side of the mountains of
prophecy and, having arrived there, becomes defiance.

These are unattractive because they are diabolical contrasts. If there is one
place near which defiance should never come that place is the mountain of
prophecy. For such mockery dares to develop the theme of an outlaw, is
indifferent to right relationships, and never measures with an accurate rule.
How different this from what God, the Father of the spirits of all flesh, does
on His mountain of prophecy. There He puts everything under the most searching
of beacons and teaches us to discern very discriminatingly. Prophets can feed
upon those discriminations and flourish only because of them. But Israel’s
judges, standing upon the very top of the mountain, distort the truth and make
it obscure. This according to the laws of a simple and inexorable logic must
lead to the direct degradation of their official rights as prophets. The
defiance hurled against Christ, the chief Prophet, by Israel’s mentors in the
concluding act of their last official session deserved God’s rending of the veil
of the temple later, God’s destroying their credentials, and His letting the
spirit of discrimination and prophecy move into Jerusalem. Into Jerusalem, but
past them. For it comes with a quivering echo into the hearts and heads of
Galilean fishermen. The mountain of prophecy was eternally defamed by its own
last sons. Then God called the unanointed to His mountain — unanointed, yes, but
bearers of His own pure spirit. His doing so was an act of justice as well as an
act of grace.

Meanwhile we must not forget that this mockery constituted awful suffering for
the Christ. When defiance thrust Him outside of the domain of law, His true, His
mysterious being as it is basically and essentially, was being ignored. The
secret meaning, the hidden logic, the logos in the life of the incarnate Logos —
all these were brutally negated. One hesitates to touch on these things, for
these hands tremble only when the lightning visibly strikes here and there with
a thundering report. But it was most excruciating suffering to Christ, when He
who bore the law in His bowels, was ejected from the pale of law.

Nevertheless — to this point was He come. Necessity demanded it. Had Christ been
condemned for anything which was peculiar or characteristic of Himself as such,
He would not have been in His person what He had to become: namely, the falling
and rising of many in Israel. Christ as a living person can never be separated
from His work. Either the whole Christ is condemned by the “flesh” or the whole
Christ is appropriated and embraced by the “spirit.” Therefore we can say that
the defiance hurled against Him on the mountain of prophecy was not an accident.
It is precisely in this defiance that the denial of Christ reaches its bottom.
It placed the Lawgiver outside of the law; it removed the Preacher of Truth from
all problems of truth; it removed the Bearer of judgment far from all serious
and whimsical issues. The world must necessarily arrive at an outlawed Christ at
last. This diabolical invention is but the continuation of the old folly of sin
which once worked in the dark at the door of God’s house and took the lie for
granted in the God of truth. This was the keenest edge of Christ’s acute pain.
In the very moment in which heaven must laugh because of the folly of men, of
men, that is, who name their lawgiver an outlaw, Christ Himself may not laugh.
The clear, uninhibited vision with which God is able to see the mountain of all
prophecy, and the high vantage point which God enjoys, are not possible to the
man Christ at this time. This time afflictions engulf Him from below. In
Gethsemane there was a resting point; in the garden His irony discovered the
equilibrium; there His groping soul could find itself again in order that, after
being reinforced by God, He might continue on the way. But now He is again being
driven away from that resting place. The drama of His passion has reached the
second act and it moves on without interruption. There is no respite here;
instead a perturbation continues the battle in His soul. The same Jesus who in
Gethsemane could triumph and express His triumph in the confident utterance,
Sleep on now, and rest, cannot at this time say: Have at me, buffet me to your
heart’s content. For feverish restlessness drives Him on. Judgment strikes him.
Besides, they whom He sees around Him here, and whose foul breath is blown into
his blindfolded face are not disciples, but enemies.

However, Christ may not allow Himself to succumb to this passion in a passive
way. His suffering must ever be a laboring, and He must persevere in the labor.
We should like to characterize the labor of Christ’s soul which is prompted by
the defiance which is hurled against Him as the labor of prophetic
discrimination and also the labor of a mediator’s love. In the first place He
must suffer the labor which is caused by trying to keep things clearly
discriminated. Yes, the eyes of His body have been blindfolded, but those of his
Spirit have not. Who, indeed, could blindfold the eyes of Christ’s spirit? No,
He sees, He discriminates, He remains the spiritual man, and thus He preserves
Himself and us. “Prophesy, prophesy,” they tell Him. And to themselves they say,
“He cannot, He will not succeed today.” But they do not know that it is
precisely as a prophet that He is laboring heavily. For prophecy is much more
than a knack for guessing the names of the people who happen to be blessing or
cursing one. To prophesy is to see God’s name, to hear God’s name, to preach
God’s name, and to clearly discern God’s being. And in this sense, Christ
prophesied. His prophecy in this particular hour inheres in the concrete ability
to “distinguish the body of the Lord” even in the face of the man Jesus who is
being spat upon at this time.

Prophesy, O Christ: who is he that struck thee? Now note this. He knows very
well who it is that struck Him. Repeatedly He answers: It is God. And again the
reply comes: It is God who smites me. Thus does Christ distinguish the great God
who is doing this buffeting in the presence of these milling Jews. Christ has
continued in the maintenance of His Holy Supper. He distinguishes the body of
the Lord though it be covered with spittle. Praised be He who stood at the table
of the communion of the New Testament, distinguishing the body of the Lord.
Besides, in His incomparable forsakenness He does not drink judgment unto
Himself nor does He eat judgment unto Himself. “For he who knew no sin, him hath
God made sin for us.” And God asks Him: “Canst Thou not see me?” Yes, Father who
art in heaven, He sees Thee; the bandage which is blinding His eyes proves to be
a favor; to the extent that He is not distracted from the outside, He is better
able to look inside and to set His soul in search of God. To see God means to
see distinctions, to see discriminatingly. To see God means to discover
differences, to have perspective, to see distance, to stand and to remain
standing erect on the mountain of the prophets. Thus does Christ discriminate
sharply and lucidly. He labors and labors. His struggle is carried on while He
is mute, but it works profoundly and intensely, ever distinguishing. These by
their scurrilous attacks upon Him are trying to drive Him from the prophetic
mountain; but He climbs it and scales the peak.

Lord, art Thou seeing clearly, art Thou making sharp distinctions? Ah, see on
now, for Thy own sake; see on, lest we perish with Thee. Discern the fact that
the judge is there seeking Thee because He is seeking us.

Yes, I know that now. He tells us gently—I know that too: Do you be still. I
hear Him saying that He has distinguished between the second and first cause.
Because He has He is my Saviour, my Surety, He who paid my debt. Let no one tell
me that His bearing the defiance, that His absorbing the spittle and the slime
suffices to pay that debt. That is but the passive obedience. The active
obedience must also be satisfied. By it the second Adam kept His prophetic
spirit awake and alert over against God. Adam hears God and sees Him in the
soughing of the winds through the trees of Paradise; the second Adam hears and
sees God even in the coiling and hissing of snakes.

Yes, He is great and He is obedient in discriminating between the “ultimate” and
“approximate” cause. He knows that these members of the Sanhedrin are doing the
distinguishing in their way and with evil intent. But God has determined that it
should take place in His way, and He does it and intends it all for the good.

He makes distinctions: Blessed, therefore, is He who mutely prophesies within
the house of His own sublime soul, and who does it in the name of the Lord. Very
lucidly He distinguishes between the second and the first cause, between human
defiance and the sublime mockery of God.

Men say: Aha, that good-for-nothing! They are wrong. God says: Aha, that
worthless one! And He is right. For Christ stands in our stead, “He who knew no
‘worthlessness’, Him hath God made ‘worthlessness’ for us.”

Praise be to God: the Prophet and Teacher He has sent to me has made careful
distinctions. No bandage put on Him at the impulse of impetuous wrath could
detract from His holy mind. Sharply He discriminates; and then He meditates. To
His own soul He says, “Wait on the Lord, Thou pious soul. Take courage, for God
is rejecting me from the domain of law, hallelujah. Through me, therefore, God
is maintaining His whole law, hallelujah amen.” To Himself He says: “True, these
defy me with evil intent; but God mocks me for good. It is good, it is a benefit
of grace; grand, consuming seriousness of God . . .”

He admonishes His soul saying: “These are they, indeed, who hurl me from the top
of the mountain of prophecy without asking where I will come down. These give me
up as one cut loose from every norm; they surrender me to any who is willing to
put me to death. But God delivers me only into Satan’s hand, and God is right in
all His doings. God’s Spirit, drawn up against their polluted spirits, has
already decided to give me directly into Satan’s hand. What He does He does with
justice. He it is who does this. The heavens laugh, but in their laughing, they
mourn. O great necessity — all the heavens exercising their irony for the sake
of the grief with which I am afflicted because of my Suretyship. But I can
believe still, Father, for I know that irrespective of Thy sublime mockery all
Thy counsel ‘treasures up wrath’. Lord, my God, I praise Thee, and I believe in
the justice of that mockery which preserves the wrath and the law unimpaired. I
have seen my judge; I do not stand outside of the domain of Law. I move in a
medium of seriousness. This great, fearful heart is not beating in vain. Thou
art not hanging me between time and eternity as a curse, as those who mock and
defy me. But Thou dost suspend me as a curse in time, completely in time.
Completely, because driven by the pressure of eternity. Accept my thanks,
Father: there is still seriousness for Thee and me. Father, I thank Thee for not
thrusting me outside of legal relationships, for now I can redeem my people and
can tell Thy name to these men who are drunk with blood now and will be drunk
with wine later ...” A Christ who could labor as hard as this· and discriminate
as keenly as this never failed of being the Surety and Mediator. He finds
reconciliation for us with God. He suffers the mockery in our stead. It is in
our place that He endures the mockery of God and the defiance of Satan. The
mockery of God and the defiance of Satan, yes. For we have deserved God’s grand
mocking. We are the dwarfs who kicked against the throne of God. We ordered our
expensive seven-league boots for our violent attack against God’s throne — but
the throne does not budge. We call our names great; and we are incomparably
small. We call our sin virtue, though it represents folly and enmity without. We
present our wiles and our lies as though they were serious and indicated a
passion for the truth. However they are but the generation of vipers. Then comes
God’s mockery; then comes His sublime laughter. He humiliates us even though as
He does so He brings salvation to us. The mockery of God may be very terrible,
but it makes no man an outlaw. It cuts the soul in two, but it does so in order
that the divided soul can be united in the fear of God’s name. Only if in this
earthly life we remain God’s enemies essentially will God put that deplorable
condition on display in the cracks and crevices of the perfect house of sorrow.
And even then He will not cut us loose from the law, but will keep it binding
for us eternally.

We have earned the mockery of God, for we have earned the punishment of hell.
But Christ wanted to take our place. The fact that in the Mediator’s progress to
the stage of God’s mocking He never once lost the proper distinctions, spells
our salvation. A Saviour who can keep His eyes upon God can also discover His
people among those who spit and scoff; He can include us in His strong will, in
the plan of His redemption, and in the deed which, at any moment now, will
fulfill that plan.

We must say more, however. The defiance of Satan was also deserved. By our sin
we have subjected ourselves to the master of our own choice. The master is
Satan. We who thought we could remove God from His own litigation by sinfully
opening a case against Him, have as our punishment been given to Satan by the
justice of God. Then — it had been our will — God’s mockery delivered us up to
Satan’s defense. In Satan, mockery is demoniacal. True, he caustically calls
things by their right names. And to that extent He differs from the people who
in their mocking distort that truth, in part at least, and who cannot,
therefore, name the victim by His full, real name. But Satan never keeps his
spirit pure. Although he is himself subjected to the mockery of God,
nevertheless he carries on his own defiance over against others who share his
condemnation. Although he is himself related to sin, he demonstrates its
ludicrousness and never ceases doing so. On this banner hell continues to
embroider all its maxims. Just as a Satan hurls his defiance at those in hell,
so every person there who is steeped in sin hates every other person. The one
curses the other and mocks his afflictions. Hell is so perfectly sustained by
the principle of dissolution, of separation, that it is comforted by the fall of
those who arrive there. Thus hell becomes the comfortless world of defiance, as
well as the deep abyss of God’s dismissed prophets. Dismissed prophets, indeed.
For seeing distinctions clearly is a gift which returns to everyone as soon as
the vain banquet of his revelry in sin has ended. Hence the defiance of every
man in hell, of every other man there is but its sinister business. It is the
continuous laughing out of court of seriousness, of infinite things, by the grim
byplay of desperate defiance. And yet it is at the same time a vain pretense at
seriousness, inasmuch as it tried to measure every small norm by the great
standard of God.

It is a comfort to us to know that Christ was defied in our stead. He was tried
on the mountain of the prophets. There, back of the curtain of death, He tasted
of the hellish terror which exists in the deep abyss of all dismissed prophets.
The Sanhedrin has a world-wide significance. The judgment of God makes its last
members top-heavy. Then they fall against Jesus Christ. As soon as their mouths
opened Satan’s laughter rent the air. But Christ Jesus continued to stand erect.

He had noticed the mockery and He sang a song in God’s honor. He had borne the
defiance, and He sang a hymn of love for His people. Because and since this took
place in the world, no one can ever be an outlaw again. Now everything has
significance. None will ever escape from the extended arms of God, of the God
who carries a table of stone in each hand.

Lord, preserve me, or I shall perish. A voice replies: Ecce homo, go out to meet
Him. Lookup to the prophetic mountain. There is great seriousness of life,
evangelical and gracious in the insult which wounded Christ even unto death. By
His stripes we are healed, and by the insult heaped upon Him we have our reward.


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  CHAPTER 15: 10. CHAPTER 10: CHRIST BEING ISOLATED A SECOND TIME
========================================================================

C H A P T E R T E N Christ Being Isolated a Second Time And Simon Peter followed
Jesus,and so did another disciple: that disciple was known unto the high
priest,and went in with Jesus unto the palace of the high priest.But Peter stood
at the door without.Then went out that other disciple,which was known unto the
high priest,and spake unto her that kept the door,and brought in Peter. Then
saith the damsel that kept the door unto Peter,Art not thou also one of this
man’s disciples? He saith, Iam not. And the servants and officers stood
there,who had made a fire of coals; for it was cold; and they warmed themselves;
and Peter stood with them,and warmed himself. And Simon Peter stood and warmed
himself. They said therefore unto him,Art not thou also one of his disciples? He
denied it,and said,I am not. One of the servants of the high priest,being his
kinsman whose ear Peter cut off, saith,Did not I see thee in the garden with
him? Peter then denied again: and immediately the cock crew. And again he denied
with an oath,I do not know the man.And after a while came unto him they that
stood by, and said to Peter,Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech
bewrayeth thee.Then he began to curse and swear,saying,I know not the man. And
immediately the cock crew. —John 18:15-18; John 18:25-27; Mat 26:72-74.

BEFORE touching on the subject of Peter’s denial of Christ it will be worth our
while to ask ourselves just what we expect to discuss. Perhaps it is not putting
it too boldly to say that in many of our sermons about Peter’s denial we
introduce a break into the passion story, a kind of pause which recurs annually
during the seven-week season of Lent. Not that we sever the text we choose from
the gospel of the passion, for no one would think of doing that. But the moment
many of us begin to ponder this “episode,” we all too frequently follow in the
rut of an applicatory sermon about Peter’s soul, or otherwise set ourselves the
task of presenting a study “zur Psychologie des Petri.”Then we speak, either
with sympathy or disgust, about Peter’s act of denial, add an application in
which the audience is compared with Peter, and, depending upon our personal
attitude at the time, draw certain conclusions from these parallelisms. Much
reference, of course, is made to Peter’s remorse and to his fears. This is
generally done in a poetical form; at least the treatment is always a lyrical
one. Perhaps Jesus does come in for some consideration; perhaps He is alluded to
once or twice—say, when He looks upon Peter and when His glance causes Peter to
burst into tears. In other words, two favorite themes generally arise from this
connection: the “glance” which Jesus casts upon Peter, and the tears which he
wept bitterly. Now we will admit that much significance can be attached to the
effect of the eyes of Jesus upon those of Peter. For we, too, believe that the
mastery which Jesus exerted with His eyes when He looked upon Peter was a
far-reaching and salutary one.[1]

[1] At this point the author inserts a sonnet of Heiman Dullaart which serves to
illustrate and typify this preoccupation with the “subjective” influence of the
eyes of “Jesus” upon the “soul” of Peter, a preoccupation to which the author is
here taking exception. The poem is omitted because in the translator’s opinion
it is too authentically artistic to be faithfully reproduced.—Translator.

We ask leave to remark, however, that a sermon which limits itself to these
considerations is something quite different from a preaching of the suffering
Christ. All times are fit occasions to talk about the tears which Peter wept,
about the potency inhering in Jesus’ eyes, and about the conflict in the soul of
Jesus’ impetuous pupil, Simon Peter. All times are fit occasions for that; it
makes no difference whether the day be included in the passion weeks indicated
on the calendar of the church. But he who would preach the suffering Christ must
not present psychological sketches “based on” Peter’s denial, for to do that is
not to preach the suffering Christ. That is to preach about some subdivision or
other of the doctrine of redemption, about the course which the life of grace
takes in the human soul, and which is illustrated then in the dramatic story of
Peter’s denial of Christ, but that is not a preaching of the suffering Messiah.
He who would preach Him may not even be satisfied when he has pictured the
irresistible appeal of Jesus’ eyes simply by way of getting a kind of messianic
flavor into the sermon. Instead, he must begin and end with Christ, and must
feel bound, from the beginning, to the underlying principle that Christ’s
passion is at this time entering upon a new phase of suffering. Proceeding from
this idea he must try to discover the route by which Christ now moves towards
deeper abysses of affliction in the moment of Peter’s cursing and swearing.

Unless the event is treated in that way, the “passion” sermons are not worth
that very serious title. At best they are but the treatment of a subject (that
of repentance, for instance, or of remorse, or of the power of God as manifested
in Christ, or of the first cause of repentance) which can be considered just as
well on any Sunday of the year.

Accordingly, we commit ourselves consciously now to the theme of the history of
revelation in the passion as we make our starting point and constant emphasis
the fact that Christ because of Peter’s denial becomes more deeply entrenched in
His isolation.

We have referred before to the isolation, to the forsakenness of Christ. We did
so in connection with the flight of the disciples in Gethsemane, and with that
of the anonymous youth who while fleeing left his loin cloth behind him. Perhaps
the question arises with you whether it is good sense to raise the motif of
Christ as He is in His isolation again at this time.

We reply at once that it is reasonable to do so. For the process by which the
Son of man is left absolutely alone comes to Him in varying tempos. The theme
will return again later on. That will be when the sun hides its light from Jesus
and when God in the darkness which lasts three hours, hours as long as three
eternities, forsakes Him and makes Him the victim of a death caused by bleeding
and being utterly forsaken. That point Christ has not now reached. Yes, He is
approaching it. The course of Christ’s suffering moves on at its tragic pace.
The first time we saw Christ in His isolation was in the first part of the
gospel of the passion. It overtook Christ as He entered upon His suffering. Now
He has arrived at its second stage. He is passing through His passion. In this
stage also He tastes the bitterness of absolute isolation. This drives Him to
the third stage, to be treated in our third volume, in which we see Him
suspended in darkness. The isolation which began in Gethsemane was intensified
as He stood before the Sanhedrin, and will become infinite in that concluding
movement which may be called: Christ emerging from His passion.

We cannot ignore the climax any longer. It becomes an obsession. For that which
accrues to Him now must be a heavier burden of suffering than that which was His
when the disciples fled, and when the bashful boy, that candidate for the
threefold Christian office of prophet, priest, and king, was taken from Him. The
roaring of the water rushes on; the awful quiet grows more oppressive; the
solitude ever increases. In this connection we think of the statement in the
psalm where we read: God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this. Note the
pronounced emphasis of that statement. It tells us that our hearing is not the
equivalent of God’s speaking. We human beings must listen twice to a statement
which God has spoken once, and we must do so for two reasons. The first reason
is that our sinful life by nature is opposed to God’s speaking. Hence we must
listen to His voice twice in order to learn the meaning of what it says, in
order to be captivated by it, in order to thoroughly appreciate its
significance. This is a reason which does not hold for Jesus Christ inasmuch as
He is without sin. Rut there is a second reason. We human beings must grow in
attention, must develop in the capacity for and the act of hearing. The river
bed along which the stream of revelation is slowly driven must be worn deeper
and deeper in our inner life; we must be prepared more and more for becoming
receptive to God’s utterances. Now this development, this deepening of the
stream of revelation in our lives, this becoming more and more receptive to
God’s speaking, characterizes Christ also. He is sinless, yes; but He is also
true man. Think, for example, of His significant statement about having learned
obedience from that which He had suffered. To return now to our starting point.
God addressed Himself to the soul of Christ once, saying: Be forsaken. Twice
Christ heard it. And He will hear it once again. The second time that Christ
noticed the threat of His being forsaken, of His being completely isolated, is
this moment in which Peter denies Him by his oaths and curses.

Naturally, we must not think that this denial was an expression of something new
in Peter, of something which had not been characteristic of him before,
something which up to this time had gone quite unnoticed by the Master. The
polluted springs welling up out of the dark recesses of Peter’s heart had long
been active in their subterranean abodes. Peter’s sin of denying the Christ had
been conceived in his soul long before this moment in which it was born. Who,
then, would dare to say that, as Jesus was aware of it, a new thing was taking
place when Peter denied Him? Had He not Himself predicted beforehand that this
very denial would occur? Had He not said: Before the cock shall crow twice, thou
shalt deny me thrice?

No, this moment adds nothing to what existed already, to what was already
impregnating the atmosphere and the polluted hearts of men. Jesus Himself knew
“what was in man.” And He also knew what was in Simon Peter.

Jesus knew it, knew it precisely, and knew it well. But the experience of it—ah,
the experience of it, and the suffering of it in actuality—that was new. The
actual experiencing and suffering always contribute a new element to the passion
of Christ. Once God had pronounced the fact of isolation; but in this moment of
Peter’s denial Christ is feeling it a second time. The first experience of
isolation (the flight of the disciples) and this second experience of it
(Peter’s denial) differ greatly from each other. The first time the theme is
being specifically realized. The details, the particulars, of that grievous
affliction begin to become actualized in Him. Can you personally appreciate this
new experience of Christ? His first isolation was terrible, but the disciples at
least, when they fled, did not choose to oppose Him. They simply chose in favor
of themselves, in favor of their lives. They lack the strength to make the full
affirmation, but not one among them stoops to positive negation. But now, as
Christ is being thrown back into abject forsakenness a second time, the last
disciple whose soul’s ebb and flow courses through that of Jesus, positively
chooses against Him. Peter’s answer is full of enmity: I do not know the man.
Can it be that Simon Barjona is not quite sure of the name of Joshua of
Nazareth?

We can say that when Christ experienced what was meant by isolation that first
time, the fatal thrust of the affliction reached His flesh only. But now that
Peter thrusts Him into profound isolation, the thrust reaches His bones. The
figure is a Biblical one, and lucid enough. It is precisely that which the
faithful disciple, the positive confessor, the confidant of Jesus does. This he
does who was twice forgiven for speaking a satanic word. Indeed, he was forgiven
much. And can he really love so little now? That first time the disciples fled.
But at least they said nothing. Theirs was a dumb flight. But Peter, as he
immerses Christ in awful solitude this second time, curses and swears; his oaths
and his profanity shatter the night. In fact, those fleeing disciples a little
while ago—or is it a longtime ago?—cry out as they flee: I know Him; yes, one
and all, we know Him; we know Him, therefore we flee. But Peter, denying Him,
segregating Him now, asserts: I know Him not, good people, I know Him not.
Hence, I can keep on comfortably warming myself at the fire. When the disciples
fled from Christ, they, by the act of their embarrassed fleeing, proclaimed
aloud: We are abandoning Him for the future, although we confess to having had
dealings with Him in the past. But Simon Peter says: I knew Him not, and His
future does not affect me; His problem is no concern of mine; all this commotion
about the Nazarene leaves me cold. The disciples isolate the Master according to
the soul. But Simon Peter delivers the Master up to the pain of solitude as He
is in His office and in the ministration of that office. In short, Peter
abandons the Christ according to the spirit.

We shall return to that last consideration again. But is it not true that in the
short space of time that intervenes between the capture and the nightly session
of the Sanhedrin, God is greatly and quickly aggravating Christ’s suffering?
When Christ must plunge into a deeper recess of the abyss of curse and death—and
this is intentional on heaven’s part—Peter is brought into His way, and made to
swear in Jesus’ hearing: Who is that stranger? I do not know the man.

If anyone should think our phraseology somewhat irreverent, we would remind him
of the duty of appreciating what a blow on the cheek and what a fatal thrust to
the loins mean for Jesus, and how actual is the realism of an event in which a
disciple can declare himself independent of a host whose intimacy he has enjoyed
at His first communion, at His last passover, and in Gethsemane.

We shall say very little about the chronological order in which the particulars
of the day took place. In putting together the several episodes we shall not be
doing any guesswork if we form the following pictures in our minds.

First of all we must know that Simon Peter had fled with the others when the
Master was taken captive. Then, when the band had gone on, he, prompted not by
curiosity but by love and by the inner conflict raging within him—these made his
flight seem unpardonable—felt constrained to follow the Master again. In this
endeavor he was accompanied by another person. We are not told who this other
man was. Some think that it was John; but others raise objections to this
supposition. These say that there is not a single reason to justify the
assumption that John accompanied Peter. And they suggest that we must think of
this second person, who had access to the inner court of the high-priestly
palace, as one of high descent, one who must have belonged to the followers of
Jesus in a more general sense. Be that as it may, the right of access enjoyed by
this second person—he was known to the people at the palace—was used by him as a
means of getting Peter into the court also. Now it may be that this court should
be thought of as the part which connected the two wings of Caiaphas’ palace with
each other. However, it may also be that the court lay between the dwelling
place of Annas and the house of Caiaphas. That is enough to throw the necessary
light on what follows. As Peter enters, the servant sees him and asks whether he
perhaps also belongs to the company of “that man.” Peter disavows it; but when
she talks to him again later as he is warming himself at the fire, she persists
in making the suggestion. Peter can only deny it anew. The ground at his feet
may be aflame—that makes no difference; he holds his position. A little later
another of the maid-servants reiterates the suggestion that he too was with
Jesus, the Nazarene. Naturally, this interests the onlookers. Here and there a
group of people begin to congregate. One can detect a whispering among them.
Peter may enter a second disclaimer, may shift from foot to foot in his effort
to keep his poise and to deflect this embarrassing attention which is being paid
to him, but the fact is that he has now twice lost his game. The cock may crow:
Peter clings to his place. What is more, he swears an oath to confirm his
disavowal.

Even that does not mark the conclusion of Simon’s temptation. After about an
hour, another person approaches him, and this person touches a vulnerable spot.
For this fellow is a relative of Malchus, the man whose ear Peter struck off in
Gethsemane. This man, moved by curiosity perhaps, steps up to Peter, notes his
manner of speaking, detects that he has not yet overcome the inflection peculiar
to a typical Galilean, recalls further that he has seen this very man in the
glare of the torches and candles in Gethsemane, and, consequently, announces:
That man also belongs to his crowd; he is one of the Nazarene’s friends. That
was placing Peter “on the spot.” If he were to acknowledge now that these had
told the truth, the eventual condemnation of Christ would also spell his doom.
Accordingly he denies having had any association with Him. He uses strong words
in his denial. He curses and swears, swears many heavy oaths. The curses and the
oaths reach the ears of Jesus. This is the moment in which they are leading
Christ across the inner court, whether by way of conducting Him from Annas to
Caiaphas or from Caiaphas, that is, from the session of the Sanhedrin, to the
waiting room which will detain Him until the events of the morning.

Just as Jesus passes Peter, the cock crows. God opens the beak of the fowl,
because He needs it to call Peter’s attention to the word which Christ had
spoken beforehand. That is the first demonstration of might in the schedule of
heaven. Priests and asses, Levites and serpents, Sanhedrins and cocks, each and
all have their place in the programme of the kingdom of heaven, and each speaks
at its appointed time. But there is a second manifestation of power now in the
kingdom of heaven; Christ fastens His eyes fixedly upon those of Peter. This
irresistible glance of Christ whose mouth is mute but whose eyes are just so
much more eloquent combines with the sign of the cock’s crow to break the chains
to which Peter’s soul and spirit have been captive. It breaks his heart. All his
curses turn in upon himself. A sob—and Peter stumbles out of doors to weep very
bitterly. He has rejected the faithful heart, smudged his uniform, trampled upon
his banner, and all this in a moment.

Why say more than that about Simon Peter? We would seek not him, but Jesus. What
did the denial of Simon Peter mean to the Saviour? That is the only question
deserving an answer here. There is no gain in talking further about Peter.
Simon, too, must go back to Jesus; and we all must learn to take our eyes off
Simon’s soul and to attend exclusively to the Christ. The truth is such as
Heiman Dullaart once had Peter himself say:

O Christian sinner, fallen in the way, come see A guilt incomparable in me, And
see the love in the Redeemer’s face For every penitent who trusts His grace; I
feel the former fevers burn, The ancient fires now return; Defying envy, might,
and sword Danger and death, I seek my Lord That He, though bound, may set me
free.

What has the spirit of prophecy to say to me as I see Christ standing there
forsaken and denied. But one thing: namely, Behold the Man of sorrows. He is the
Man of sorrows but the penetrating glance which He fastened upon Peter tells us
also that He is the Man of highest wisdom. He knew when Peter spoke His “big”
words; even though He stood at a distance, He knew all. Then He experienced the
pain, more keenly, more bitterly than in Gethsemane, of the fact that henceforth
communion would be impossible to him. That was part of it, but not all. When
certain things are withheld from a person, that person merely suffers the
poverty and meagerness of a negative something. But Christ in His suffering also
senses the positive side of isolation. The sin of His people cuts His soul with
its acute right angle of death and curse, wounding Him positively. He must know
that the seed of the woman, the spiritual seed of Abel and of Seth, is
disintegrating and falling away from Him who is the crown of that woman’s seed,
the Saviour of Abel, the afflicted man of innocence, the end and glory of the
generation of Seth.

Alas, Christ is being forsaken, abandoned, at each of His own zeniths, thrown
down from each of His own mountain peaks. He stood on the prophetic mountain and
there He was humiliated. The place was His own—it was peculiarly His own. Now
again He is standing on his own heights, on a peak which is peculiarly His, for
God has placed His foot on the hill of the Seed of the woman. But the one of
that most holy seed who was nearest of kin to Him forsook Him. And did more: he
denied Him. In the hour of the crisis, Christ Jesus must observe that the seed
of the woman is disintegrating. He may not, He can not, and He does not want to
comfort Himself with the thought that even He is the very one who will bind
together that disintegration. He feels that He is one with all the rest of that
seed. The enigma of Gethsemane comes back, and in an even more serious guise his
time. We observed then that Christ could not comfort Himself with the thought of
the coming life as He stood over against the impending death. Now we must
observe again that He cannot solace Himself with the thought of the assurance of
His coming power of reunification (drawing all people unto Him) as He stands
here, surrounded by this awful abandonment, and filled with a realistic sense of
complete isolation. For He must desire His own even as they are in the. very act
of rejecting Him. Christ knows that He is one with them all. He must confess
before the Father that all are conjoining with Him. Should He fail to do so, He
could no longer be a Mediator in this unique hour. Completely rejected though He
is, He must now, with the full force of His love, draw these all unto Himself.
He must confess them with all of His strength, not before men, but before the
Father. He may not act as though this were already the day of judgment—that
great day in which He will some day refuse to confess those who have not
confessed Him.

Certainly, the sorrow of this true seed of the woman is an incomparable grief.
He sees a great rent being torn in the mystical body in which, as the Head of us
all, He knows Himself to be incorporated with us. Yes, this is incomparable
abandonment: to be the point at which disintegration sets in—the nucleus of the
process of dissolution. Ecce homo: Behold the man: the great seed of the woman.
His soul is being driven into solitude. By whom? you ask. By Cain and his ilk?
Yes, indeed, by the friends of Cain. But by the friends of Abel too. The great
Abel, that is, the greater than Abel, can achieve salvation for the children of
His spiritual generation only through absolute abandonment. All who have eaten
bread with Him, who have greatly desired to eat bread with Him in the kingdom of
heaven, have rebelled against Him. There is no friendship to support its own
Author; no food to feed its own Root.

Accordingly, Jesus’ soul no longer has a tribune from which to express itself in
the world. Nor did anyone approach the place of intercession used by His love.
Or if any came, it was but to chase Jesus away, to chase Him away in order that
the wicked Absalom (for so they called him) might no longer lure the subjects of
the great David of the future, the coming Messiah, whom the Jews await, away
from Him. He may no longer talk with anyone. Pray, Peter, do not talk too loud;
not too loud; for He might hear the voice, and the priest in Him, it may be,
might yearn to comfort you in the place of communion which is His love. Then He
would feel even more painfully that His hands and feet are bound, that He may
exercise His right to comfort no longer. Be very still, Simon: He may want to
draw Himself up by the help of your extended arms, and experience that these too
are denied Him. What echo is there to throw His voice back? What resonator
responds to His calling? Ah, my God, is it His lot to have to be the rock of
offence against which Peter must stumble in his impetuosity? Lord God, hast Thou
Thyself made the heart of this people fat, and dost Thou “send” Him “leanness of
the soul,” who would find pasture with Thee? But even this is not the end? Simon
isolated Christ, the solitary One, as He is in the conflict of His office also.
Simon swore against Him by the use of oaths and it is the oath which has done
this to Him. That preciously sworn oath is what thrust Him, as the bearer of
God’s office, farther into the abyss than anything else in Peter and in Peter’s
denial.

Caiaphas swore with an oath.

Christ swore with an oath. And Peter also swears.

All these are paying in the same coin—but they are paying the enemy. They are
robbing Christ. It is precisely the oath-swearing of Peter which aggravated His
suffering, and which most severely tested the strength of His messianic will to
redemption.

We must step nearer now to listen to that oath.

There are two kinds of denials: a denial with, and a denial without, the oath.
The two are not equally severe. When Simon Peter denies Jesus by means of an
outright disclaimer, he has loosened his hold of Jesus’ soul. But when the oath
is added, and the self-condemnation, then the basic concept of Christ’s office
is also being rejected. The denial taken simply as a denial separates Peter from
Jesus’ existence. But the denial accompanied by the oath is a repudiation of the
purpose of Christ’s existence, and a disavowal of the raison d’etre of the
Christ. Peter takes an oath.

We shall say no more about the swearing of oaths as such, for we have spoken of
that before in this volume (page 124 ff). It is enough to recall here that from
Christ’s point of view a casual act of swearing an oath means a complete
self-withdrawal from the possibility of meeting God, and from the sphere of
communion with God. The man who lightly takes an oath upon his lips has wrung
himself loose from the sense of dread which he should feel at the mention of the
name of God. When Simon is swearing his perfervid oaths, he is wounding Christ’s
spirit a thousand times worse than he would be doing if he were simply to deny
the Master without the act of swearing. Peter is not merely laughing away the
sublimity of Jesus’ soul, but also the substructure of Jesus’ maintenance of His
office, the great assumption underlying all His words and thoughts, the basic
principle governing all He does and does not do. By taking the oath, Peter not
only disclaims all share in the joys and sorrows of Jesus’ soul, but he also
disavows any participation in the background and underground, in the life
principle of Christ’s official life.

Peter’s oath, therefore, had to reach Christ’s ears in order that He might be
absolutely isolated, not only as He is in His life-functions but also as He is
in terms of His most basic and official being. The disciple who disowns Jesus
Christ by means of his facile laughter, his resounding oaths, and his positive
curses, is withdrawing from the very atmosphere of which Christ says, “Only in
this medium is it possible for me to live.” Simon Peter, who lightly swears his
oaths, completely sets his Master apart on the mountain of Israel’s perfected
existence. He puts Him on exhibit on the mountain of prophecy also. There the
wind of God’s justice beats against the innocent Jesus, draws out the tornado of
Satan’s wrath, and blows the poison of Israel’s flesh into Jesus’ face. And thus
even the last disciple to follow Him sets Him apart, alone. This means not only
that Peter leaves Jesus to what in the future may chance to happen to Him; no,
it means that he positively sets Jesus outside of the pale of friendship. Simon
rises up to oppose Christ’s quintessential life movement; by his facile
oath-taking, he mocks the simplicity of Jesus’ service of God, a service which
calls yes, yes, and no, no, and which regards, irrespective of its further
content, whatever is more than these as coming from evil. Do not forget the
modification, irrespective of its further content. Even if Peter had confessed
his association with Jesus, had admitted that he had sworn his oaths
unnecessarily, that he was spiritually warming himself at a fire of his own
lighting, that he was maintaining and honoring the degree of absolute zero, the
absolute zero of God’s law-laden presence—even then he would have caused the
Saviour uncommon suffering. Simon denies, and that is something. He denies with
an oath—and that is everything. Simon swears. He wounds the Rabbi not only in
terms of the externalities of His Work, he mocks not only this or that
manifestation of “Jesus,” but he mocks the climate in which Christ must live,
the atmosphere which Christ must breathe. He laughs at the thought that Christ
has lungs which can inhale with impunity only the air that is found on God’s
mountain peak.

Simon’s swearing, then, was severer suffering for Christ’s soul than the blow of
a hammer was for His body later. Simon’s false oath laughs in haughty and
derisive laughter about that which for Christ is simply and absolutely primary.
A person can be grieved by nothing quite as much as by a maligning and negation
of his basic life-theme, of his basic life-motivation, of the raison d’etre of
his being. If on occasion one acts out of character, and people mock one’s
conduct, then the mockery is actually a kind of vindication of one’s dominant
and prevailing character. But when a person’s character itself is being mocked,
when the scheme of his life, its basic and unifying principle, when that which
for him is self-evident is being blatantly mocked and defied, then such a person
feels that he is being subjected to the crucifixion of his spiritual self. And
thus Simon Peter crucified his Lord, Jesus Christ. He crucified Him spiritually,
crucified and buried Him as God’s office-bearer, as the Author of the naive yet
very consciously uttered statement: Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s
business? Surely that simple statement made self-evident the fact that He was
filled with God. No need, certainly, to swear an oath when God’s own sun shines
full on one’s face!

Therefore we may not underestimate the significance of the oath which Simon
swore; we may not limit our consideration to the fact that he swore it. In the
same hour in which Christ is struggling to preserve the purity of the oaths, and
the possibility of persevering in the kingdom of continuous oath-taking, in the
very moment, that is, in which He officially, as the Servant of the Lord and of
the authority, swears the oath in the presence of God and of the court, Satan by
means of Simon’s lips had the oath falsified. In one and the same moment, then,
two oath-swearers are standing in the judgment hall of Israel. The one swears
his oath in obedience and thus emphatically dedicates His life-seriousness to
God; the other takes the oath in the strength of the old man of sin and thus
demonstrates how troubled the atmosphere of the world is, how the heart of man
has been withdrawn from the law of the dwelling place of God, and how natural
man must deny Christ not only as he manifests Himself in His ordinary life
functions but also as He is in His essential being. Simon, Simon, Do you see
what you have done? You have presented three incidents of falsehood by swearing,
and by swearing just as positively as did the decadent personnel of the lost
priests of a decaying people; and you have related those three incidents to a
state of being, have related the acute transgression to a state of chronic
decay. The people must see this and hear it. Just as Mary’s act of anointing
must be remembered by the whole world, so the Spirit has directed that these
ill-savoring oaths of Simon be remembered.

You ask why the Spirit perpetuates the memory of these unedifying things? Ah, do
not put it that way. He wants you to see the Christ and to remember Him. The
Spirit would present the Christ as He, entirely alone, went through all the
stages of suffering inherent in the word, that is, in the Word of the sermon on
the mount.

Alone, entirely alone. Such was His appointed task. For Christ gave expression
to that which He had seen and heard (John 3:32). No one in all the world had
ever spoken thus. In the sermon on the mount He also gave expression to that
which He had seen and heard. Quite naturally, therefore, He touched on the
subject of the oaths. But He who gave expression to a statement which in
conception and intent can only proceed from Himself and from God must bear His
own ordeal. In the last analysis it is the task of the solitary to be alone
unless they can succeed in becoming a life-giving spirit.

Today this miracle is being achieved in the Christ (1Co 15:45). However, the
miracle cannot take place without suffering. Hence He must be alone in His
fundamental, basic motivation. He must be alone over against the via dolorosa of
the word, over against the whole sermon which He pronounced on the mount about
the kingdom of heaven. Some interpreters have a way of thinking which suggests
that Simon sinned against this or that text which might be cited from the sermon
on the mount. Against this or that text denied by the flesh, contradicted by the
unsanctified mind, yes. But the situation is worse than that: the background of
the sermon, the substructure, the scheme, the fundamental purpose and tendency
of the sermon, it is this which sin and flesh are here denying. That is why
Simon uses oaths to deny; that is why Christ heard those oaths, and why He had
to go on in spite of them, to go alone and along a way which was hardly paved
with texts and figures borrowed from the sermon on the mount. He says: swear not
at all. Simon, you are as ill as you are because you cannot be ordinary. The
angels are very ordinary, very common in the presence of God, and I am. We swear
no oaths. Alas, how thou dost grieve me. Have you seen the Man of sorrows in His
isolation? Then you may go on to say: In His isolation lies His strength; in His
bondage He performs His task. Look, they are leading Him from one corridor to
another. He is bound; He cannot speak; He can do nothing. The usual avenues of
contact between Jesus’ soul and the soul of Simon are barred by those people who
are passing judgment on Jesus. Accordingly, Jesus appropriates this fact; He
does not approach Peter and He says nothing to him. But there is still one
language left to Christ with which He can speak. It is the language of the eye.
Christ, turning around, looked at Peter. And immediately the cock crew.

Those were two quakes in the kingdom of heaven. Christ opened His eyes; and the
cock opened its mouth. The last point first. We do not agree with those who
prefer to ignore the cock’s crowing. These say that the expression “the cock
crew” was nothing more than the usual, daily phrase for indicating time; and
they sometimes add the unproved contention to support their position that there
were no cocks in the city. According to this, the phrase “immediately the cock
crew” means only that a certain hour had arrived. This interpretation is wrong.
The text says, “Immediately the cock crew.” Obviously, the “immediately” would
not make sense if no cock had actually crowed. Besides, Jesus had predicted
beforehand that it would take place just as it did actually occur.

Hence we must say that the crowing of the cock is a separate moment, a unique
step on the way which God traverses, and on which He works miracles from
beginning to end. The fact that the cock crew at exactly this time, and that the
dispute in which Peter was involved reached its climax just now and that Christ,
by being led from one place to another, was given a chance to fix His eyes upon
Peter’s soul, represents a confluence of circumstances possible only to divine
providence. The cock’s crowing at just this time was a wonder. God wanted the
miracle to take place and He arranged it so that Peter’s soul might by this
meatus be led back to its Lord and God. The conjunction of these three events in
a single moment is surely not less miraculous than—to select a comparison at
random—the rising of the star which pointed the Magi to God and to the manger.
One cannot speak of degrees of the miraculous in speaking of miracles. The
forces which caused the waters of the Red Sea to wall up and be released again
are the very same which at God’s appointed time governed a cock’s crowing, the
chatter of a conglomeration of people, and a conflict between an old and a new
man. The confluence of these three moments proves to be an even more striking
evidence of God’s providence if we remember that the cock had crowed before, but
without arousing Peter to introspection. Now the familiar sound of the fowl
recurs and now Peter’s consciousness is shocked. Suddenly the meaning of
Christ’s own words spoken before Gethsemane leap from the subconscious margin to
the crest of Peter’s attention. Whence that contrast between the first and
second crowing of the cock? Why should the cock-crow mean nothing to Peter the
first time, and everything the second?

There can be but one answer. The reason is the overwhelming effect of
Jesus’eyes. Christ desired the cock’s crowing with fear and trembling. He
fastened His eyes upon heaven and at the same time upon Peter, His weak
disciple. Most miraculously do the ways and avenues of the providence of God and
of the fore-vision of the Son of man coincide here. Now that Christ can turn His
eyes upon Peter He, very human the while, cooperates with the high God who is
exalted above the clouds but who is also very present, and who is present in
Jesus’ words and heart. God’s government and maintenance together form the
mystery of His providence. And God’s providence is an almighty and omnipresent
power. Accordingly, it is God’s providence which, according to the will of God,
opens and closes the eyes of men, and which opens and closes the door of their
normal and of their subconscious life according to His genuine counsel. It is
that providence which permits the complications of the discussion between Christ
and the Sanhedrin and the discussion between Peter and the soldiers and servants
to issue in a climax in its own way and in its own time. This providence it is
which in its sublime purposiveness opens and closes the mouth of a fowl in order
that everything may at exactly the right time perform its right function in the
universe. Everything—servants, soldiers, asses, slaves, and the jealousies of
slaves, these and the soul of my Lord Jesus who is being subjected to
murder,—all combine to perform their function at precisely the right time. This
is the one thing—this is the providence of God, the almighty and omnipresent
power of God which is present also in a cock’s mouth; this, and the concursus of
Jesus who as the servant of servants carefully seeks out His route in His
striving to reach God’s providence. And the second thing is the potent humanity
of Jesus Christ. As a servant He worked in the direction of the providence of
God; now He will be clothed upon with power from above. God puts an overwhelming
potency into His tired eyes. Now those eyes can lure with a potency as
irresistible as the cords of love. God has a commission for His Jesus. Just for
the moment, God wants to lead Christ past Simon. Just for a moment God will give
Christ the chance to do something, to do everything for Simon. For just one
moment God will create the possibility of human fellowship between Simon and
Jesus. Only the language of the eyes will be possible there, however; and eyes
are always restricted to a narrow focus. Nevertheless, on that very narrow path,
in that split second in which God’s speeding judgment leads Him past the
restless soul of Peter, Christ must fasten all the energies of His genuine
humanity on Simon’s soul in order that the crest of Peter’s conscious attention
may again recognize the symbol of the crowing cock, and in order that the power
of Satan may now be broken in him. As genuine man, Christ must by means of His
eyes exert an energy so strong and puissant that our meagre, human words, which
mutter something about telepathy, auto-suggestion, hypnotism, and the like, are
by comparison hardly an approximation to this great human reality which inhered
in Prince Messiah and resided in the Son of man.

Jesus looked upon His disciples in just that way. Now that He was become a man,
He consciously joined Himself with that God who, when Jesus was still a child,
directed a star in the sky so that it would lure Magi to a King in the manger
and who now opens a cock’s mouth so that it may lure Simon back to his King on
the cross. This was incomparable obedience and awful passion. For Christ is like
us in all things, sin excepted. Because He is like us in all things, because He
is true man, His soul is inclined to concentrate on its own passion. To be
condemned to death, to have to go on the way of the cross, robbed of the common
favors of God, mocked and defied by the first citizens of the state, is for one
who is true man so severe a trial that he could wish to say: Let me alone; I
have enough to do to bear my own burdens. But this day God directs the soul of
Simon Peter to the tired heart of Jesus. That God knows that this is an
assignment of responsibility, that this is to muzzle the ox that treads out the
corn lest he should eat before he does his work. The Son bears all the burdens,
and must nevertheless fasten His eyes on Simon and lavish all His energies upon
him. Never was a telepathist or hypnotist as mortally tired as was the case when
Jesus fixed His will upon Simon, concentrated His full attention upon Peter,
lest the Father should let a cock crow in vain. Yes, God describes a circle
around Jesus’ attention, a circle in which angels and devils are included—angels
and devils, and cocks, and the spirit, the old man and the new, the spirit that
is willing and the flesh that is weak. Within this circle, which is spacious
enough for the attention of the suffering Christ, the Christ of God must
accomplish genuine obedience.

Oh, incomparable passion—to bear death and the death sentence, and in spite of
that to have to work creatively and in life-giving fashion with the soul of
Simon. To be beaten by all the watchmen of this world (Song of Solomon 5:7), and
in his own city and nevertheless to have to excite love where it no longer cares
for itself any more. A bitter affliction—to be placed at the crossroads of the
world, to confront the most painful enigmas which God’s providence can put, and
yet to have to accommodate Himself to that providence of God in each moment. To
be ready as soon as the cock crows, to be ready in order that He may immediately
send out all the energy of His love for the preservation of Peter’s soul in that
brief moment in which His eyes can focus on him. This He must do in order that
those whom God has given Him may not be lost. O grievous commandment—to have a
God who has blown all those given Him by the Father away from Him, and who
nevertheless forbids Him to lose as many as one of those given of the
Father—even when that one disowns the Son by his act of cursing and of swearing.
O inexorable law of God— to have to work in cooperation with God, to give cocks
and souls and spirits safely into His hand in the very moment in which He knows
He has been forsaken of God. This is incomparable suffering. But in the course
of this passion the obedience of Jesus’ soul exerts itself beyond measure to
stay inside of the limit of the commandment. Heaven and earth cooperate in this
moment. True, heaven may work mechanically through a cock’s mouth, but it lets
Jesus act on the basis of His own resources, and move at His own prompting. And
He has understood the Father perfectly. By virtue of His own energies and forces
He works organically in the direction of heaven so that His eye may at the right
time release the energies of eternal life in Simon’s soul, and so that this
disciple may again pay attention to cocks, devils, and God.

God’s servant was never more obedient than when He, prompted by His own sense of
responsibility, conformed Himself to God— to the God who in the crowing of the
cock laid all His obligations bare before Jesus. Never was Jesus greater in His
acknowledgment of God. Never did He respond more sensitively to the times and
circumstances of the Father. We will never see Him more beautiful in His love
than He is here—isolated, all His attention fixed upon this given disciple of
the Father, and upon the Father Himself.

Ah, how can we praise God enough for the vision of the absolutely isolated
Christ, and for the fact that in His office He was quite alone? Only that one is
faithful to official obligation who greatly desires the office even when
everything attractive, when all that is congenial (the word has a sublime
connotation here) has been taken from it. Has the office of Christ nothing to
give Him except cold solitude; does the service rob Him of everything; does God
come to insist on all His claims on love, and will He as He does so not even
give Him the favor of a pair of faithful eyes with which to appreciate? Must the
keeper of the sheep fasten His heart upon the lord of the flock, even when the
sheep by their conduct seem to be goats; and can He still remain faithful at
all? If so, that man has made it plain that His desires are purely for the sake
of God. That means that He is Christ—ordained with God the Father, anointed with
the Holy Spirit. Thus did Jesus take the task of the shepherd upon Himself. The
office gives Him a responsibility from which all appeal and congeniality have
externally been removed. There is not so much as a prayer of Simon to maintain
spiritual fellowship with the Master.

Nevertheless the Master fulfilled the office. He kept giving Simon the paternal
gifts of God. He kept adding His spirit to Simon. Simon, Simon, gold and silver
have I not, and words and gestures have I not, but what I have I give you: look
closely upon me. Spirit of God, Spirit of the Son of David, veni creator
spirtus, there lies one who is wholly naked. O God, the office calls me, and I
come, and I have greeted no friend upon the way. Father, I have no friend any
more. The friends are gone; henceforth I shall have to call brothers. Henceforth
God’s seed will have to spring from my blood. No, I have not avidly joined
myself with Peter in order to be rid of Caiaphas, not even for a moment, O
Father who art in heaven. The servant of the Lord has not paused to greet anyone
while en route; He had gone right on. He had no friend; at least, He felt the
companionship of none. Nor did the servant curse the one who swore. The Lord
said to Him: Curse David and his son. The Lord pronounced the curse, the curse
of the great abandonment. Father, I did not greet my friends when Thou didst
call, and I did not curse the man who swore against me when Thou wast teaching
me how to extend the blessing. I only sought out Thy child, Father; I did so in
passing, and did so intentionally and naturally. I have administered the office,
and have found the comfort of luxury nowhere under heaven. That luxury is with
Thee, where communion is, and where I cannot come except I drink of Thy cup.
Father, in Thy thoughts I have not broken faith with the company when I suffered
grievously because of an individual. I looked at Simon, but was not slack in
finishing the course for the great congregation. Caiaphas, I am here. I did not
fail to respond when the powers that were bade me go.

No, indeed, He paused nowhere; He greeted no one on the way. Therefore He would
weep—could weep the tears of Simon, but He had to do so in faith. For He may not
yet see the tears of Simon, and seeing, enjoy them. The hour for such comfort is
not yet His. And Peter, going without, wept bitterly.

True, God put his tears into His own bottle (Psalms 56), but He advisedly saw to
it that they were not gathered up into Jesus’ flask. Jesus may do but one thing:
He may labor for Simon. And rest also? Yes, later, not until later. The storm
raged past Him, the moment sped by, and Peter went outside. He went outside
because he himself wished to, of course; but he went also because God desired
that it should be so. God conducted him out of doors, in order that Simon’s
tears might not serve as a premature comfort to the Man of sorrows.

We know that Simon found Jesus again in these tears, but know also that Jesus
may not yet rejoice in that. Not until later may He ask: Simon, lovest thou me;
Simon, lovest thou me?

Yes, He may ask that later, but not now. The dew which now lingers over Simon’s
soul as a blessing to him and a comfort does not rest upon Jesus. He knows all
things, yes, but He must experience all the suffering which inheres in the
things He knows. And Peter, standing without, wept bitterly.

O bitter necessity. Time was when Jesus could say: Get thee behind me, Satan. He
had to say it. It was a part of His passion. Now He would like to cry out: Step
out before me, thou angel of God. But He may not say it. Sorrow is His only
portion. His voice can find no place. He moves rapidly now in the direction of
His comfortless death. And Peter may not do his weeping inside. My Jesus passes
by again. Jesus of Nazareth passes by. Someone shouts as He goes: Who will
follow? But as He goes Jesus fastens His heart upon God. He cleanses the
atmosphere which has been contaminated by Peter’s weeping. He pronounces His yea
over the eternal election of Simon Barjona, and He softly sings the new song: I
come, O God, to do Thy will. I will compensate for the false oaths which Simon
swore. Father, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love him.


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  CHAPTER 16: 11. CHAPTER 11: CHRIST LED BACK TO THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE
========================================================================

C H A P T E R E L E V E N Christ Led Back to the House of Bondage When the
morning was come,all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel
against Jesus to put Him to death:and when they had bound him, they led him to
Pontius Pilate the governor. —Mat 27:1-2.

THUS Christ was condemned to death. While seated in official session, the
Sanhedrin declared the Saviour of the world to be guilty of death. Now they go
on to the next act: they deliver him up to the secular judge. It is true that
the ‘‘church” thirsts for His blood (in the original of verse 1 the word
translated people is one which points to Israel as a spiritual nation, as a
covenant or “church” people), but only the secular authority is able to pour out
Jesus’ blood.

Hence they are to go to Pilate today and are to say to him: lord, this man has
sinned against heaven, and especially against thee. He does not deserve to be
called a son of Abraham. Make Him one of Rome’s hirelings. The hirelings, too,
are not registered in official census. Just so, this man is no longer counted
among men in our books; He has become an outlaw to us. Come, join us, and strike
His name from the books. Our text tells us exactly what happened. Early in the
morning —the exact time has not yet been determined definitely—the Sanhedrin
came together officially to pass judgment upon Jesus for the last time, and to
determine what ought to be done next.

We must pause to say that there is a great difference of meaning among
expositors about the purpose for which this early morning session of the
Sanhedrin was held. Some think that the death sentence still had to be confirmed
officially, inasmuch as, strictly taken, this body was not allowed to pronounce
the death sentence on the same day the witnesses were heard. Others surmise that
they simply wanted to deliberate further upon how their plans might best be
carried out. For it was plain that they would have to reckon not only with the
difficulties presented by a mass of people who were in a state of excitement,
but that they would also have to hit upon those means and methods which would
most effectively and quickly elicit the Roman’s approbation of their wicked
plan. They had to determine how the charge might be phrased best, to consider
what ought and ought not to be said. In other words, the exact purpose for which
this morning session was called will perhaps never be clear to us, but it is not
necessary that it should be. That which we should know is clear enough. The
Sanhedrin is determined to be rid of the Nazarene; and they act upon that
resolution by immediately going from their own hall to that of Pilate. They are
intent upon getting official approval from him for carrying out the death
sentence against Christ.

Just who and what Pilate proved to be upon this occasion affects the important
issue very little. Much has been written about Pilate, about his work and public
career, about his character and about his governmental policies. The several
interpretations of each of these subjects differ greatly among each other. For
our purpose we need to know only that Pilate is acting here as the
representative of Roman authority. The empire of the world has placed him here,
that empire which goes by the name of Rome. Now Rome had governed Israel
precisely as it has pleased for some time. It had sent Pilate to this particular
province of Syria, that is, to Judea. Under the direction of God, Rome gave him
legal jurisdiction over the people of Israel, and thus over the mundane,
historical manifestation of Jesus Christ. Pilate’s authority was both civil and
military. In other words, the whole of the Roman empire stands back of Pontius
Pilate and acts through him. The moment, therefore, in which Jesus is sent to
Pilate does begin a new phase of Christ’s suffering. That which is to take place
now is not a matter-of-fact rubber-stamping of the sentence which Israel has
already pronounced upon Him. The vehicle of death in which Israel had placed its
Messiah did not move to the place of curse and destruction as automatically as
that. Instead,

Pilate had to judge Christ independently. The spiritual people of Israel is one
thing; Rome’s empire is another. And both have to pass sentence upon the Christ.

This, therefore, is the piteous state of things. Israel turns to the world for
assistance in destroying its own Redeemer. In short, Israel returns to the house
of bondage; Israel goes back to Egypt. The journey from the palace of Caiaphas
to the house of Pilate represents the return to the abandoned house of bondage.
Israel while en route to the old Egypt takes its own yoke upon itself again, and
takes it with Him who said, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light” The people
who would have nothing to do with Him now conduct their own Messiah, that is,
their own Yoke- bearer, to the house of Rome. The yoke of Rome is not easy, and
the burden of Rome is by no means light, but Israel will gladly bend its neck
under the burden of that weight if only the neck of the Messiah of Nazareth is
broken at the same time. It prefers this to listening to Him who invited them to
an easy burden and a light yoke.

Thus Israel goes on its way to the house of bondage. Behind the clouds the
angels raise their voices in that hymn of the redeemed: Thou art the Lord who
didst lead Thy people out of the house of bondage, out of the land of Egypt. But
as they sang, God turned a page of His holy book, and pointed to the passage
which said that His people had again sought out the place of bondage, and that,
accordingly, in the future another and a different communion would flourish for
Him, a renewed church which in the essence of its being would hate the house of
bondage and would convert the mourning of Egypt’s and Rome’s enslavement into a
bitter lamentation about that other house of bondage which is the house of sin.
This other fellowship of the new covenant would from now on be called blessed of
the Father and would share in a grace and glory capable of leading them
eternally from a state of bondage into a state of freedom. These contrasts,
although they may not have been clear to the Jews, are in faithful accordance
with the trend of the biblical history of revelation.

We want to indicate that this is the case by pointing out briefly: first, the
relationship between Israel and Rome; second, the relationship between the
priesthood and Rome; and, third, the relationship between Christ and Rome. This
much we can say about the first consideration. When the Sanhedrin as the
representatives of the people of God conduct Christ from Caiaphas to Pilate in
order to beg him to allow them the terrible favor of Jesus’ death, that which is
revealed is the relationship between the people of God and the Roman empire.
Whoever has followed the lines of development characteristic of the history of
special revelation, whoever, that is, has followed these guided by the light of
Scripture, knows that the Bible time and again preaches and maintains the
contrast between the sphere of special revelation and grace and that other
sphere in which general revelation and grace make themselves felt. Since the
days in which Abel stood over against Cain, the seed of the woman over against
the seed of the serpent, Isaac over against Israel, Jacob over against Esau,
Babel and now Rome, the Bible has ever maintained that these contrasts do not
spring from the vicious circle of purely natural life, that they cannot find
their explanation in the ever-recurring movement of action and reaction.
Instead, the Bible insists that these contrasts spring from a basis as
fundamental as the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, of election
and reprobation, of freedom and slavery, of eternal life and eternal death. It
may be that to the research student in history who has an eye only for that
which is included in the circumference of life’s vicious circle, these contrasts
are little more than the normal vacillations of natural forces. Such a student
may see in them no more than the ever-returning undulation of thesis and
antithesis, an illustration of that ironical and inevitable logic according to
which Israel pounces on the neck of its enemy one day and must itself bow before
the foreign yoke. But the Bible tells a different story. It introduces into this
age-old conflict between the world empire and the people of revelation the
messianic element, and sees the great crisis of reprobation and election
realized in it. A line of demarcation drawn by a handwriting as old as eternity
bisects the contra-polar movement and counter-movement of the history of men.
And we all stand either on the one side or on the other side of this line of
demarcation. Hence it was not employing a false logic of inferences or a mere
delight in spiritualization, which inspired Christian exegesis to a deeper and
ampler New Testament interpretation of the caption standing at the head of the
law.

We remember that this caption says: I am the Lord Thy God which have brought
Thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Now those who
explain this statement according to the methods usually employed by “general”
historical research, discover in it simply the contrast between Israel as one
cultural influence and Egypt as another. As for the house of bondage, such
students see in the flight from the slavery of Egypt nothing more than a
general, historical, daily recurring phenomenon or change in cultural
influence—a very common occurrence, indeed, in which the oppressed everywhere
break their bonds and in which the tyrant everywhere feels the thongs of his own
whip returning eventually to bruise his own back. But He who reads the Bible,
and believes, knows that when God led Israel out, He was leading out the people
of special revelation. When God removed Israel from Egypt, He was removing
Christ from Egypt. This is so essentially true, and the deeper meaning of
Israel’s own departure from the house of bondage so plainly inheres in this,
that we may not call Israel’s exodus a mere analogy to Christ’s victory over the
slavery of death, or to the redemption of the Christian church, which is the
body of Christ, from the sin of that house of bondage later. The great exodus of
Christ and of the body of Christ from the bondage of sin and Satan was the real
purpose for which God Himself rescued Israel from Satan’s grasp. As a matter of
fact, we can say that God began rescuing Christ and the body of Christ from the
bondage of sin and Satan in that historical moment when, under Moses’ conduct,
He led Israel out of Egypt.

Therefore we can also say that Israel’s redemption from the house of bondage
which was Egypt was essentially Christological. Take the Messiah out of the
picture and the whole event loses significance. Then everything becomes as vain
as the vanity described by the tired Ecclesiast of the Old Testament as he
looked upon the things circumscribed by the vicious circle and saw only action
and reaction, thesis and antithesis, movement and countermovement, and nothing
else.

We should tremble, therefore, in the presence of a God who gives everyone what
he wants, what in the deepest recesses of his being he really desires. We should
tremble and beware. At this time Israel, by means of the Sanhedrin, comes to ask
a favor; it asks that the bones of David be broken. For the name of the Messiah
is David. Thus Israel confessed that it wished to profit from the great
accident, from the circular movement of the great cycle of cultural and
political history. It refused to acknowledge that its national history could be
interpreted only as being essentially Christological in character. In an
axiomatic as well as in a theological sense, Israel profaned its own eschatology
by considering and “solving” the problem of David, the problem of his kingdom,
and of his eternal lamp. This it did with the aid of a light other than that of
the history of special revelation. And since it has done that Israel has
voluntarily been taken captive by the cycle of its own natural life. Grace no
longer redeems it. The people who had once been rescued from the bondage of the
world now return thither. They ask the judge of the world’s house of bondage to
permit Israel’s best blood to be shed. Egypt is one with Babel and with Rome as
an enemy empire of the world. These all arise from the same source just as the
“four beasts” of Daniel do. The Pharaoh of days gone by lives on now in the
Caesar of the Babylon which is now called Rome. Israel is giving up its own
First-born—He is also its great Only-Begotten —to the latest Pharaoh. It
presents itself with a polite bow, and asks that he throw the Child into the
river.

Such conduct represents the return of an entire people to an abandoned house of
bondage. By means of it, this people is acknowledging that the vicious circle
has a lasting and a legal status. Accordingly its fate can be delineated
ironically by the figure of a dog returning to its own vomit. They are a people
who in the play of world forces and world powers automatically go back to their
unproductive source. But even though Israel chooses to shut itself up within the
narrow confines of natural life, not as Jaweh’s covenant people now but as just
one more cultural influence among the many nations, God will countenance no
interference in causing His covenant grace to triumph, and the straight lines of
His evangelical grace to reach their fulfillment. When Israel delivered Christ
into Pilate’s hands it forfeited absolutely the freedom which God had given it.
This people no longer understood that the war of liberty which God had won for
it in the day of Moses had been an essentially spiritual conflict. It had been a
spiritual warfare, an emancipation from the bondage of worldly tyranny, but it
had been an emancipation from the bondage of sin also. And now that this erring
people does injustice to its own exodus and denies the privilege of its own
freedom, now its surrender of Christ to Egypt must necessarily be called a
retracing of its steps through the wilderness. This people of God is forfeiting
its rights to the ancient privileges. While on its way to the house of bondage
Israel presents its petition to the autocracy of the world, and does so in the
presence of Him who is greater than Moses. It asks for the privilege of eating
out of Pharaoh’s hand again. It asks the death sentence for the very One who is
the fulfillment of Moses.

Therefore Israel made room for another, and prepared the way for us who are the
communion of the New Testament. In this perturbing hour Israel cleared the way
for the emancipation of the new, the mature, church which is gathered together
out of all nations, and which as it bows before Jesus Christ recognizes in Him
the greater than Moses who delivers us from the bondage of sin, and thus
prepares a place for us in the eternal kingdom. When Israel on that last, the
dying day of Jesus, went up to Pilate early in the morning, it was reckoned as a
spiritual people, to be valued above all other peoples (laos, verse 1). But when
at the end of the journey it had reached Pilate’s palace, it called itself one
nation among others, and wished to be appraised by the same standard by which
other peoples were evaluated (ethnos,Luk 23:2). A people that can sell its
beautiful and honorable name at such a price is traveling the road of death. By
changing from laos to ethnos Israel degraded itself to the plane of the other
peoples of the world (ethnos) and so paved the way for the New Testament church,
the inclusive laos of God’s prophets, priests, and kings in Christ Jesus. God
buries no one. Men dig their own graves, and do so by their own choice. In the
second place we must consider the relationship which exists between the priests
and Rome. For those who saw the chief of their ranks sitting in the presiding
officer’s chair were the priests of Israel. This high priest delivers that other
High Priest into the hands of the world’s representatives and adds the request
that He be forever removed from their midst. As he does so we hear in his voice
the polemical arguments of the old priesthood, arguing at the very gates of
Rome. He argues, so that Caesar may hear, against that better Official who is a
priest not according to Aaron’s order but according to the order of Melchizedek.

Now this, for all who read the Bible in the light which it sheds upon itself,
represents the decay of the priesthood. The priesthood had ever been involved in
argument and wrangling. Without discipline and dispute, without break and
schism, without zeal and rejection a priesthood cannot exist in this world.
However, the argumentation of the priesthood must be governed by the spirit and
not by the flesh. And if we listen to the record of the disputations of the
priesthood in Israel as it is recorded in history, we will notice that two
subjects come into the foreground prominently. The first is the deathbed of
Jacob. The second is the farewell address of Moses. When Jacob died he said
something about Levi (Genesis 49). While dying he shook his head in
disapprobation, for Levi had carried on a quarrel; he had been a wrangler. He
had quarreled about the problem of Father Jacob, but not about the problem of
Prince Israel. When Shechem had seduced Dinah, Levi had undertaken to punish
him. He had taken steps which avenged father Jacob’s family pride and the family
loyalty of Levi’s brothers, but which had done so in a purely carnal way. The
quarrel which Levi conducted then was a quarrel of the flesh, for the flesh, and
by the flesh. No one had asked how it might be possible for messianic light to
pass from Jacob’s house to that of Shechem. Not a moment of thought was given to
the spiritual, messianic element which should hallow every war in which Jacob is
a participant. In fact, Levi went to the other extreme. The false zeal of his
flesh went so far that he mocked a sacrament which was a sign and seal of
messianic, spiritual grace. He asked Shechem and the inhabitants of the city to
circumcise themselves. Levi falsely promised Shechem that after the
circumcision, the ritual of transfer to the spiritual communion of Israel, he
and his people would also be accepted by the family of Jacob as determined by
ties of blood. And when this seemingly pious requirement was satisfied, Levi
proved that he meant none of all his pious words. Instead of accepting Shechem
into the fellowship of Jacob’s blood and Israel’s spirit, he faithlessly breaks
the vow, institutes a massacre among the citizens of Shechem and thus becomes
guilty of gruesomely mocking the sacrament of the Lord’s holiness. He proves
that his quarrel has its origin in, is conducted by, and is being carried on
for, the flesh. That is the first phase of Levi’s violent wrath as it expresses
itself in the world. Levi “knows” his brothers as brothers according to the
flesh, and he “knows” his father and mother as being his parents according to
the flesh. In the quarrel which Levi conducted the spiritual blessing of grace
is actually being prostituted into a merely external protection of family pride
and carnal arrogance. Hence Jacob dies with a sigh of disapproval upon his lips.
He was sad because of the quarrel which Levi had carried on.

Later in the Scriptures—Deuteronomy 3—there is a more specific discussion of
Levi’s quarrel. The discussion is carried on by one of Levi’s own family. Moses
speaks of it. As Moses prepares to die, he refers to Levi again, and looks upon
him as a wrangler, as a man insisting upon sharply defined antitheses.

However, in the place where father Jacob curses, there Moses rises up to bless.
Jacob and Moses both make the wrath of Levi the subject of their farewell
address. However, over against Jacob who condemns and curses the quarrel of Levi
stands Moses who puts that quarrel into a hymn of rejoicing. The hymn of praise
which he sings over Levi’s head rises up to God who, because of Levi’s violence,
exalted and accepted him. Moses’ hymn rises to God who because and together with
the brutality of Levi accepted him as a special favorite. Does it seem strange
to you that Moses should praise what Jacob chooses to curse? Nevertheless, that
is what actually happened. Besides, we should not suppose that in the course of
years Levi’s quarrel subsided, or that the fires of his zeal were extinguished.
Moses is quite willing to acknowledge that Levi continues to be filled with the
spirit of quarrel. He alludes to the fact that Levi long ago, at the side of
Sinai, painted his sword red in his effort to punish those who worshipped the
golden calf; and he also refers to the fact that not long since Levi had again
taken up violent quarrel with those who had celebrated a feast of immorality and
idolatry in the camp of the covenant people. This had taken place in that dark
hour in which Israel had given itself up to sin at Baal-Peor. At that time
Phinehas, the priest of the tribe of Levi, had raised the hands which were wont
to minister the sacrifice of atonement, against his unspiritual brethren.

Yes, Levi was still very much the wrangler. But there was this difference, and
it gave Moses cause for rejoicing. Levi’s quarrels were now springing from a
different source. Jacob’s objection had been that Levi’s quarrels had been
carnal in character. Levi “knew” his brothers and his father only according to
the flesh. As he saw it, the generation of his father Jacob was included only in
the vicious circle of natural life. Levi’s quarrel at the time had nothing of
the messianic in it. But as Moses looks back upon this most recent instance of
Levi’s rebuke, he acknowledges in him a different motivation. Levi no longer
“knows” his father and his brothers and his sons. Levi, regarded now as a tribe,
naturally, has transferred the quarreling from a carnal to a spiritual plane.
Now he does not even think his own family too good for the penalty of purging
which the quarrel of the Spirit of the Lord comes to carry on against the flesh
of Jacob and of Esau. Levi, working through Phinehas now, does not look for
family ties but for the fellowship which comes through the Holy Spirit. He is no
longer storming against Shechem but against sin, also against the sin which
dwells in his own house. “For this was the time in which the judgment against
the house of Levi should begin.” Thus did Levi repent of his past. He subjected
the things of nature and of the flesh to the far greater consideration of the
Spirit of God. He subordinated birth to rebirth and the tie of the blood to the
bond of the covenant. Thus he quarreled against his brothers in order to make
room among them for the holiness of the Lord, and for the rights of the covenant
— that is, for the Messiah.

You ask how it happened that the zeal of Levi succeeded in escaping from Jacob’s
curse and in arriving at the blessing of Moses? This is the explanation. God
Himself quarreled against Levi. God had tested him, and had stormed against him
by the waters of Massah and Meribah. Moses’ voice catches in his throat as he
thinks it, for there God had quarreled with Moses and Aaron, the two greatest of
the tribe of Levi. That had been when they struck water out of the rock. They
had been told to do something else. When the people had called for water, and
God had wanted to give it, they had been told to speak to the rock. God wanted
the water of the miracle to be accompanied by the hearing of the preached word.
Moses’ speaking was to be a part of the wonder of the day, for what good is it
to a thirsting covenant people for God to give it water, if the word is not
given at the same time? For Moses and Aaron this was the most significant
matter; for the rock which poured out water really was an image of Christ (1
Corinthians 10). Therefore the wonder which calls forth water out of the rock
must be accompanied by the preached Word in order that God’s name may be
hallowed. Thanks to the word which hallows that name, the miracle would not fade
away as did the running water, but would be recalled as an instance of
sacramental grace which could open men’s eyes to the perfect messianic gift of
the future, and thus bring the people to an acknowledgment of the wondrous ways
of God becoming manifest in Israel in the person of the Messiah. But Moses had
not spoken. Neither he nor Aaron had at that time hallowed the name of the Lord.
Levi had quarreled again in these his two greatest representatives. And this
time he had quarreled not against Shechem, but against his own brothers. This
quarrel was again carried on in such a way that the flesh polluted the channels
of the spirit, even though the fountains of the spirit had been reached. Levi
had stormed and quarreled again; Moses and Aaron had inveighed vehemently
against Levi’s own “murmuring” brothers. Again he had done so according to
carnal and not according to spiritual laws. His sharp wrath had been poured upon
the children of Israel, but because of their caustic speech, he had neglected
the word of the Lord. The service of the word was replaced by a quarrel inspired
by self. Then the Lord Himself quarreled against Levi in Moses and Aaron. In the
presence of the whole people God denied these two giants the privilege of
admission to the land of promise. Thus Moses and Aaron learned that God is
willing to accept those who quarrel, that He even gives them a definite place in
His kingdom, but that every quarrel must give full and free expression to the
messianic idea, and in that way subject the flesh to the spirit of God. This
judgment of God Levi had acknowledged in fear and trembling as a holy and a good
one. Levi, who had always wrangled at the prompting of the flesh, now becomes
humble as God conducts His quarrel against him. And when Levi turned the rudder
around, God also reversed his fate. The Levi who heard his wrath being cursed at
Jacob’s deathbed is now being acknowledged by the way of purgation as a
quarreler by the grace of God. and as such is given the blessing of the priest.
He asserts that the spirit of God is inspiring this hymn of war and peace, this
farewell hymn of Moses in which Moses sings of the rights and grace- given
privileges of Levi.

What Moses said is that God’s urim and thummim were to be entrusted to Levi.
These two stones which the priests were to wear in their robes, and with aid of
which they were to ask what was the Lord’s will, were now given to Levi.
Hereafter Levi might as a judge and a priest pronounce the word of curse and of
blessing, of rejection and acceptance, of quarrel and of peace, of yea and nay,
and of approbation and reprobation.

Since that time the priesthood has been endowed with the urim and the thummim.
This privilege carries with it the heavy responsibility of declaring war and
peace, of saying yea and nay, of binding and loosing on the earth, and of
carrying out the superquarrel, the dia-crisis of the Lord among the people.

Levi knows that he owes the privilege of the urim and the thummim, the privilege
of declaring judgment, to the miracle of grace. He knows that as he himself is
subject to the quarrel which God is conducting against him and which purges his
own sin, he may himself execute God’s quarrel in the world and thus recognize
and carry out the conclusive decision of the urim and the thummim of the Lord in
the whole of life.

Now to return to the hour in which. Christ is being led to the house of bondage.
Caiaphas leads and behind him follow the whole of the priesthood, in other
words, this is none other than Levi. These are the old priests, the priests of
the generation of the glorified past. As always they quarrel, they wrangle. At
present they are carrying on their argument with the Nazarene. They have read
the urim and the thummim and have said? These stones of Jaweh pronounce a curse
against Jesus of Nazareth. Sheer curse — that is the message they have. The
curse is an unmixed one. God is saying nay to Jesus, and the “nay” has no
modifying overtone. Hence Jesus must die. Together they go to Pilate, the
company of the tribe of Levi. And they say: “Yes, we know that you also must
judge Him, but it is according to our law, according to the Levi-law of the
quarrel that He must die.” That the urim and the thummim[1] have infallibly
said.

[1] It is unnecessary to say that this is naturally figurative speech, in these
times.

O Levi, Levi, wrangler between the Spirit and the flesh! When in the ears of the
world and in those of Rome and of Egypt he conducts his quarrel against the
Nazarene, he identifies himself with the dog returning to his own vomit. Levi
quarrels, and he strikes the rock, “and the rock was Christ.” Levi no longer
ministers the word of God. He simply asserts his own flesh. He no longer
recognizes his brother except as he is according to the flesh. Rejecting his
brother-Nazarene he comes to beg that the heathen give him a writ of capital
punishment for a fleshly brother. Why? Because he has this fault to find with a
son of Abraham: namely, that He wants to subject the flesh to the spirit, and
that He, regarding Levi’s blood as impure the while, wants to subordinate the
flesh to the Word and to the ancient covenant. Levi does not recognize his
brother. But to say that is not to praise him, as Moses once did when he used
the same words to call Levi a brother. Levi’s failure to recognize Jesus of
Nazareth, his brother according to the flesh, is not due to his maintenance of
the will of the Lord but to his assertion of his own flesh. It is an expression
of Levi’s quarrel of the flesh and of nature against the preaching of the
Nazarene. Levi would save himself. Therefore when he led his own brother
according to the flesh to Pilate, Levi signed his own death warrant. Cursed be
his wrath for it is violent. When Levi throws out the bearer of the office
according to the order of Melchizedek, he forfeits his own office forever. Levi
quarrels against his Messiah, waives the redeeming Spirit of Christ, does indeed
desire the glamor of Moses but not his messianic mystery. Hence the march of
Levi’s priests to the house of Pilate is another profanation of the holy war.

Henceforth Levi is dismissed. Begging, and bristling with wrath, he stumbles up
Pilate’s porch to ask a death warrant for Abraham’s best son. In doing so he is
prostituting the Saviour, he is honoring over against the citizens of the
Shechem of his day, the family pride of Jacob’s flesh at the complete expense of
Israel’s messianic spirit. He is trampling on the sacrament, rejecting the Lamb
of the Passover, and is administering death. Cursed be his wrath for it is evil.

Thereupon God’s own hand took the urim and thummim out of the priestly robe and
gave them to the Son. Now He has been given all rights to curse and to
contradict in heaven and on earth. But on this important condition, of course,
that He will bear the quarrel of the Lord against Him without murmuring, that He
will die outside of His Canaan, in order that He may suffer the curse in His own
flesh.

Melchizedek will dismiss Levi, but not until Levi himself has reported at the
house of bondage. And Melchizedek will bless the lost sheep of Levi no further
with his lavish pentecostal blessing, until Levi himself has acknowledged that
he is empty-handed. Or can we say that a beggar knocking at the door of the
house of bondage for a favor is able to fill the arms of God to overflowing? In
the third place, we pause to note the relationship which, as is plainly outlined
here, exists between Christ and Rome. Jesus goes to Pilate as the Son of man. We
have observed before (chapter 7, p. 140 ff.) that Christ Himself had the
prophecy of Dan 7:13 in mind as He walked on the way of death. He knew that He
was the Son of man, empowered from above to put an end to the empires of the
world, and to make room for His own immovable kingdom.

Now that luminous, prophetic picture of the future, described in Dan 7:13 is
overshadowed; now the scroll of prophecy of the old Daniel is thrown as so much
rubbish on the heap of “evangelical folly” and of “messianic offence.” What? Is
this the Son of man who is to destroy the world empire which Daniel saw? Surely,
that cannot be. He comes to Pilate in fetters; He comes to Rome bound. What can
this man achieve against the kingdom of iron and clay which Daniel saw? Plainly,
Christ as well as Levi is subservient to Rome and Rome will soon, will very
soon, tread upon Him.

Thereupon they led the Son of man from Caiaphas to the throne of the Beast. They
led the Son of man from Caiaphas to a place beneath the feet of iron and of
clay, that is, beneath the feet of the image which bodied forth all the empires
of the world taken together (Chapter 7, “Christ Vanquishing the Vicious Circle
as the Son of Man”, pages 141-142). This too is foolishness and offense. It is
as foolish as the cross; as offensive as any and all of the great concealments
of God in this world. The Word disappears from sight in the stream of
paradoxical phenomena. Prophecy is being laughed at here; the kingdom, reputed
to be immovable, finds that its king is being trodden upon en route from
Caiaphas to Pilate. This is the way of the house of bondage. This is the way of
death. This is the course of the lie. From the viewpoint of faith, this is the
way of thorns, of foolishness and offense. May God be very gracious here. But
that He cannot be on this occasion. He cannot be that here. May He be gracious
to my soul; for from this time on it will be possible for Him to be gracious
again.

Thereupon they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the house of judgment. Strange
reversal: the dead are about to bury the Living. The judges are about to deliver
Him up who is the very one from whom they have their commission. These
wranglers, whose duty it is to build for peace, quarrel with the Prince of their
peace and I am one of them. I belong to their accursed company. Do not restrain
me now. I would go to Jesus. I would fall at His feet, and kiss Him again and
again. Because I am walking the path of the dead anyhow, there is but one escape
for me. He is the life and the way, and He is also the truth. He conducts
Himself from the hall of judgment to the house of the Father, from the place of
bondage to the throne of freedom, and from the quarreling which is solely
Spirit-motivated to the immovable kingdom which, uncontested now, proceeds to
draw its spacious circle on the new earth. From now on I shall see the Son of
man sitting on the right hand of the power of God in heaven. And from now on I
shall be better able to read and to understand the law of the Lord. Hereafter I
shall take the tables of the law into my hands, read the familiar words, “I am
the Lord thy God who hast led thee out of the house of bondage,” and I shall
interpret this faithful statement of the Old Testament in the light shed upon it
by the New. I shall say to my soul: Look upon this Jesus. He is the Lord thy God
who for your sake was led back to the house of bondage. And to that Lord Himself
I shall say: Thou art my Surety, O Lord; this hast Thou done for me.

Thereupon He will speak to me again, but now in the fullness of the revelation
of the new day. He will say: I am the Lord thy God who have led myself into my,
and thee out of thy, house of bondage. As for thee, do thou learn gratitude, and
the first principle of it: the law, the law, seen in the light of the Gospel.
For we know that Moses went up out of the house of bondage in order to make room
for the Lamb and for His fulfilled service.


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  CHAPTER 17: 12. CHAPTER 12: CHRIST CONFRONTED BY THE DEAD JUDAS
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C H A P T E R T W E L V E Christ Confronted By the Dead Judas

Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented
himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and
elders, Saying I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.And they
said, What is that to us? see thou to that.And he cast down the pieces of silver
in the temple, and departed,and went and hanged himself. —Mat 27:3-5.

ISRAEL led its own Redeemer back to the great house of bondage; it delivered Him
who was the head and crown of Moses into Pharaoh’s hands. You ask why Israel did
this? Because it hated freedom? No, but because it wanted a different freedom
than that which Jesus chose to give. And therefore it wanted a different
prophesying of that freedom. Well, they could very easily have confronted
Christ, the prophet of true freedom, by many of the prophets of that other
freedom which they wished. If it is true that the people failed to place the two
kinds of prophets over against each other, it is also true that the angels did
not hesitate to do so. They set the one over against the other, and God did this
also.

Two prophets of that other freedom were brought into judgment together with
Jesus on one and the same day, and were cited before the throne of God and men
simultaneously. One of these was Barabbas to whom we shall refer later. The
other was Judas Iscariot, of whom we have spoken before.[1] This was a striking
contrast. Jesus Christ wants to give Israel its freedom, but His people give Him
up to the house of bondage. And here are those “other” heroes of liberty who on
Christ’s own day have seen their ideal of freedom called into judgment. On the
night when Jesus’ soul departed, Barabbas celebrated a great feast and the body
of Judas Iscariot lay shattered on the ground. We can say that both of these
were dead; but the angel said of both of them that they were not buried.

[1]Christ in His Suffering, various chapters. The banquet of Barabbas is not
complete, therefore, without the death of Judas. For God shows us in both of
these that false freedom may indeed be able to announce its festivities, but
that the end of these is despair. Barabbas’ happy frame of mind and Judas’
bitter despair are seldom compared with each other, but from God’s point of view
they are but two phases of a single process. And above these contrasts, which in
another sense are not contrasts at all, God has put His Son on display. He takes
the life of His Son in the same moment His death purchases the true freedom, a
freedom born not of the flesh, but of the Spirit. This struggle of the Spirit of
prophecy to demonstrate in the events of this darkest of all days of freedom the
issue of two crusades, the one for the true and the other for the false freedom,
has its origin in the death of Judas Iscariot. Everything becomes awful now.
There were but two of these crusades, not three. The person who thinks that
there were three, one by Barabbas, one by Judas, and one by Jesus, minimizes the
seriousness of matters. Tragedy loses its tragic force the moment it increases
the number of its conflicts. Two conflicts cause a stricter tension than three,
three than four. But in this drama of death’s day of freedom the tragic conflict
arises from the antithesis between two crusades. The Barabbas who laughs and the
Judas who commits suicide are not opposed to each other as well as to Jesus
Christ. The one may laugh and the other weep, but both are a single phenomenon.
In the struggle for the false freedom, both laughed and both wept.

However, the Son’s struggle for freedom is the antithesis God places over
against both of these. Hence it is a part of the calling of Jesus Christ to
endure this suffering in which God confronts Him with Barabbas’ frothing cup not
only but with Judas’ ebbing blood also. At this point, we must follow the
narrative for a moment. After his sinister betrayal, Judas could find no peace
again. He saw Jesus given up into the hands of murderers and, restless and
tortured in his conscience, he followed Him in his thoughts. Now, as ever before
— such was his nature — he did not join the others, but locked up all of his
fears within himself, taking counsel with his own soul and his own spirit only.
He kept back his anxieties with his own hands. He erased the question marks
which his own fingers had written upon his conscience; he personally obliterated
the exclamation points of his tortured sense of self-sufficiency. Now, with a
bitter despair, he wars against the logic of the facts which he himself has
unloosed. In the last analysis, Judas also was in his own fashion an “idealist”
Hence he could not feel at ease now. Once he had passed the crisis which had its
climax in the act of betrayal, it became clear to him again that if it were true
that the Judean, the idealist, the nationalist, the chauvinist had in part
prompted him to the act of betrayal, it was also true that his love of money had
been one of his motivations.

It is not always possible to keep back introspection, to keep from seeing
oneself as one really is. It was not possible for Judas. He saw himself as he
was, at least in part. Thereupon he began to make discriminations. He said to
himself that he must go to heaven or hell. He feels that he is very near his
death. The veil of sin disappears after a time. The hand which keeps turning the
mirror aside tires at last; then there is nothing to hinder us from seeing the
motives which have prompted our soul to the act of sin, and from discerning
precisely the several causes. Then self-revelation comes with a pang. We wake to
find that while we were in our sinful drunkenness, that while we were steeped in
the sleep of sin, we have tossed ourselves naked. And we discover besides that
our son, Ham, has invaded the privacy of our room. Judas now also arrives at the
moment of reflection. He detects the differences between one motive and another.
He sees at once that it was something more than the orthodox yearning of his
Judaistic soul for Israel’s national freedom which drove him to the act of
betrayal. Yes, that obstinately held idea of freedom may have induced him to
take exception to Jesus Christ — for Jesus certainly was not living up to that
ideal. Still, he cannot deny that his greed has also played a part. That fact he
can no longer hide from himself. The knowledge one learns from Satan is very
clear. But it comes too late, and it does not convert the heart to and by means
of a father’s love. At this point, then, Judas falls into Satan’s sieve. That
evil spirit convicts him of sin, righteousness, and judgment, but the Holy
Spirit does not simultaneously unite him with the righteousness of Christ, with
Christ’s merits, and with Christ’s satisfaction for guilt. Now that he has
confessed to himself that his avarice was one motive prompting the betrayal, all
those other rationalizations derived from his Judean orthodoxy disappear. He
discovers suddenly that although Jesus did not come to establish an earthly
realm of freedom, He never thwarted a single cry for liberty. He becomes fully
convinced that in the persistent contest of war and peace such as Judas had
wanted to conduct, Jesus had borne himself as one whose “character” was
unimpeachable, even according to Judaistic ethics. Accordingly, Judas now faces
the atrocity and the “immorality” of Jesus’ death. All patriots who have
“character” must say, “But this is not the royal way of doing things.” They must
say that even though the place is seething with priests. Judas confesses it to
himself: he has tainted the banner of his Judean order with innocent blood. He
confesses to himself that those who shed that blood were tyrants. When he sees
Jesus being driven from the judgment hall of the Sanhedrin to the praetorium of
Pilate, he understands that nothing can be done about it any more. The blot of
blood can never be cleansed from his knightly banner. Judas is no longer an
honest man, he knows, not even in the eyes of men.

Therefore the thirty pieces of silver burn in his hand. Mark the plea of this
man who has often passed by Jesus, but has never entered into Christ. He goes to
the chief priests, throws the money at their feet, fully confesses that the
blood of Jesus was innocent blood, and says, “I have sinned, betraying innocent
blood.” This is the cry of despair uttered by a broken man, who comes back to
his father confessor because he has no other to whom he can go. Nevertheless he
knows that he has lost respect for the chief priests. And these have nothing to
say other than that he may see for himself what course things will take with
them and with his former Master, and that they cannot worry about his scruples
and regrets. Hence the confessor stands alone in the darkness. Piteous and
despairing, he stands alone in the night. The night is cold and frosty, and
there is no one to cover him. God does not — He has not been asked to help. The
people do not, the father-confessors do not help him, and Judas’ own soul, too,
cannot comfort him any more. He leaves these fathers who have no good word to
say to him, and goes out into the night. No, he does not weep bitterly there; he
swallows his tears. This was ever his manner. He has changed, and yet he is the
same. He stops to talk with no one. He soon finds himself a secluded spot and
there he hangs himself. A comparison of Matthew’s account with what is written
in the Acts of the Apostles reveals further that Judas, who hanged himself on a
tree, could not be supported by the branch after a time, that he fell forward to
the ground, and lay there disemboweled. At this point our thoughts can take
various directions. We can study the figure of Judas; we can tediously and
patiently try to plumb the depths of his soul. We can attempt to point out the
wide divergence between his sorrow, between his manifestation of grief, on the
one hand, and the spiritual remorse which is in conformity with God and which
leads to genuine conversion unto salvation. We can consider the difference
between Peter’s denial and the remorse which followed upon it and which was
fruitful unto salvation, and Judas’ fruitless coiling about on the same human
plane. We can even stop to point out that the words which Judas spoke were not
the expression of a heart which is truly penitent and converted to God.

Those are possibilities and each might be pursued with profit. For it is true
that Judas does not by his manner of speaking and confessing appear to be a true
penitent. “I have sinned,” he says. But what the passage really states is this:
“I have made a mistake.” And this confession is nothing more than a condemnation
of a particular thing; it is not a condemnation of the evil root of which that
thing is the product, nor of the whole condition of his lost life. It is true,
besides, that Judas condemns his act only as measured by human standards and not
as evaluated in comparison with the eternal righteousness of God. Moreover,
although Judas admits that Jesus’ blood is innocent, he does not take a refuge
in this blood as having in it the power to make others innocent before God. In
addition, we can say that although Judas comes to make his confession before
men, he does not come to God; he does go to the confessional of his former
paymasters, but he makes no admission to the one Paymaster of all human guilt.
Him he should have seized upon in order to implore Him to give him that which
could have ministered to his peace. Yes, he no longer condemns the man Jesus as
He is over against human law, but he does not seek the shelter of Christ over
against the divine judgment. Then, too, by determining his own penalty he does
what is the prerogative of judges and thus manifests an arrogance which would
certainly not be his if he had been converted to God in Christ.

All this is true, is very true. But it is not appropriate for us to emphasize
such issues now. Our purpose here is not to discuss true and false repentance,
true and false remorse, human as compared with divine law, or anything of that
kind. Our subject is Christ. Christ as He is in His suffering. Our theme is the
redemptive event as it impinges upon the chaos of natural history — that
redemptive event which by means of special revelation reveals the naked essence
of things, and brings them to bear upon the conscience.

Because that is our subject, we cannot take time to present a psychological
treatise on Judas and his remorse, nor even a theological study of the same
theme. The important question is what significance the death of Judas has for
the holy event of the day, that is, for the death of Jesus Christ, for heaven,
for sacred history. As we lead our thoughts in that direction, we see that Jesus
is compelled to face the corpse of Judas. Here again Jesus Christ must prove to
be the Elect of God, savouring sweetly because of the anointing of the Holy
Ghost; He must prove to be the living, the strong, the son of David as he is in
his immovable kingdom.

Now who, in this connection, can keep from thinking first of all of the
invisible world? There is a way on which only spirit- sent souls travel; it
takes its course straight through the meandering paths of the world. If we
really had eyes to see that invisible world in all of its movement and life, it
would have our undivided attention. Then we should want to see to what
surprising extent these invisible forces busy themselves with the world that we
can touch and see. He, especially, who lets the holy Scriptures have their say
in this matter will direct the attention of his soul to these spiritual forces
in the air. He will think immediately of the activity of angels, and of the
activity of the souls of men. As for these angels, we have seen them make their
appearance more than once in the history of the passion of Christ. But may we
ignore the work done by the souls of men? Certainly not, for this would mean
that we were being unfaithful to the God of revelation. God Himself in His
gospel has given us a glimpse of that seething activity and life which arose in
the world of departed souls because of and for the sake of the death of Christ.
Those who doubt this should look ahead for a moment to what we hope to discuss
more fully later[1] when we shall listen to what the Bible has to say about
those souls of the redeemed who have died before, and who become alive at the
moment of Jesus’ death, in order to make their appearance in Jerusalem (Mat
27:51-53).

[1] In the next volume of this work.

We shall give separate attention to this activity of the souls of departed
saints later, but here, in connection with the death of Judas, a part of the
concealing veil is removed for us. On the morning of the same day in which God
sent out the souls of the redeemed who had to go from heaven to earth at the
moment of Christ’s death, God calls the soul of Judas before Him in judgment,
There is a disturbance on the way of the souls. It is a mighty disturbance, and
no wonder. The stone which God is throwing into the sea of all the worlds today
sends its generous wave out everywhere. That is evident here also. There are
souls who must go down to earth. They stand ready to carry out their mission
faithfully. That mission is to present the testimony of the saintly dead. They
will come. Presently they will go out upon their mission. The moment the King of
glory enters heaven, they will leave it. The great “loss” of the moment — not to
be present at the welcome given the soul of Jesus when it enters heaven — is
something they gladly endure for God’s sake when obedience to Him demands that
they go on an errand for Christ. But what folly is such language. The word
“loss” is in no sense compatible with that other phrase which characterizes
heaven, “perfect blessedness.” But heaven and the redeemed souls regard
obedience as being blessedness. When the will of God sends them on a mission, it
is their great delight to carry out the errand. At this time, however, while
these souls hold themselves in readiness to descend to the earth as soon as the
soul of Jesus has entered heaven, the soul of Judas makes its appearance in the
world of spirits, in that world of invisible things.

Judas’ soul had enjoyed the company of Jesus’ soul throughout the three years of
Jesus’ official career. The earth quaked, the deep was moved, a shudder
disturbed the world of spirits. Judas’ soul stepped ahead of that of Jesus and
confronted the judgment. This event represents the transplanting of the offense
and foolishness of the cross to the supersensuous world. The same heaven and the
same God who must forsake Jesus, and are beginning to forsake Him now, and the
same angels whom God withholds from giving any service to Jesus’ human soul,
must all join in judging the soul of Judas, for he has betrayed Jesus. Those who
together forsake Jesus must arise in judgment against him who also forsook and
abandoned Him. Judas forsook the soul of Jesus, and that will be his
condemnation. Moreover, the condemnation must come from heaven itself, from God,
from all the angels who pronounce their amens upon it and who, nevertheless,
basically and absolutely forsake and abandon the Son also. In this the offense
of the cross became tangible in heaven and in this the folly of the Friday of
the great death became concrete. Christ is regarded as an offense on earth, and
heaven itself punishes Him for being such. But in the soul of Judas the offense
of the cross is simultaneously punished with the bitter and grievous cup of
death. A wave of restlessness moves through the company of the angels and the
heavenly souls. But when Judas enters into judgment, heaven can only judge this
last great representative of the Old Testament who helped build the gates of the
new. Heaven has no choice but to judge him according to all that is written in
the books about the justice and truth of God. That, if we wish to use the word,
is a paradox. Heaven holds vials of wrath in each of its hands, and will pour
them upon the head of Jesus Christ very shortly. Nevertheless the same heaven
confirms and seals with an oath in the hearing of the ravaged soul of Judas, the
question: He who does not love the Lord Jesus, let him be accursed: maranatha
....

It took great faith on the part of the redeemed souls and on the part of God’s
bravely faithful angels not to be offended by the condemned Judas. By faith in
this connection we of course mean simply that in heaven, too, one must cleave to
God perfectly and not to the self; one must cling not to what one experiences in
each particular moment, but to God’s single inclusive plan for the future. In
heaven also one may not let oneself be governed by anything but the will of the
Eternal which has been revealed. Heaven, too, although it has of course attained
the full measure of the luxury of manifest revelation, must live by faith. It
must live by the Word, the same Word which curses the very Jesus whom Judas had
to bless from Zion. Judas’ soul appears before God, and all God’s servants must
pronounce their amen upon the sentence of that God who rejects Judas because he
has rejected the one whom God also has cast out. A strange judgment of heaven!
Never in the invisible world was there a moment in which the divine judgment
passed upon a son of man was as strange, as “foolish,” as much of an “offense”
to the flesh as it was now that Judas entered into the radiance of manifest
revelation above.

Yes, if you wish to use the word, all this is paradoxical. But that after all is
little more than a word. Rightly considered the speech and the utterance of
heaven in this moment of Judas’ entrance upon the spiritual world is quite in
accord with its usual tenor. Just what, after all, is it for which heaven is
blaming Judas? Not for the fact that he has forsaken Jesus whom heaven also has
forsaken. Heaven’s charge against him is that he has not accepted this forsaken
Jesus as the Surety for his own soul. For that and for the fact that Judas did
not seek his own blessing in the curse of Jesus Christ. When heaven condemns and
forsakes the One whom Judas has also condemned and forsaken, heaven is
condemning Jesus as the Mediator, is condemning sin, the sin of Judas and of all
men. But Judas denied and betrayed and despised Jesus because he never
acknowledged the Mediator in Him. Hence it is safe to say that heaven never
affirmed the mediatorship of Jesus Christ as being the content of faith more
strongly than when it rejected Jesus and Judas on one and the same day. This
tension which was caused by the darkest of Fridays was not limited to the earth;
heaven which judges the world and angels and men and all things in the shadow of
the Almighty, fully shared in this tension. Heaven was involved in all of our
problems. Father Abraham, rejecting his own child, Judas in the hour in which
God is forsaking the holy child Jesus, greatly desired to see the end of this
day. He saw it and rejoiced. The end of the day brought the soul of Jesus into
heaven. But Abraham never proved to be a father of faith more than when he,
before the end of this day came, cast off that idler of Abraham’s fleshly
generation, although he knew that Judas’ destruction was the beginning of the
destruction of Abraham’s fleshly race. In rejecting Judas, Abraham disowned his
own fleshly children, and greatly desired the spiritual children who are by
faith in Abraham. Hence he could sing now of the sacrifice of the Great Isaac
from whom a knife was not averted, and could at the same time reject: Judas who
thought the sacrifice of the Great Isaac was folly, and who would have averted
the knife from him, had he still been able.

Abraham was the father of the faithful, and he was that after his death also. In
this hour of Judas he is also the father of the church of the New Testament. He
is Abraham, the father, who leaves the eldest Son, the great Doer and Meriter
outside, and who celebrates the festival with the youngest son, he who would be
freed from sin. That is the redemptive event which is celebrated in heaven as it
is on earth. That is faith. So great is not found on earth. Nor was so absolute
a preaching of the Mediator ever heard on earth as took place now in this court
of judgment.

We must add, however, that thick veils hide very much from our view here. We do
not know whether Judas, as he opens his eyes on the other side, wishes that one
of the dead may descend to the earth in order to tell his brethren that Jesus is
truly the Christ. We do not know whether that profound longing of the rich man
which Jesus pointed out in the well-known parable also stirred in the heart of
Judas at this time. But if that prayer of the rich man was also the prayer of
Judas’ heart, we can say that his prayer was heard. For when Judas appears in
the presence of God, the souls of many departed saints stand ready (Mat 27:52)
to descend to the earth to enter the holy city and to preach to the “brethren”
of Judas among others that Jesus is indeed the Christ.

Nevertheless, the holy city will not turn to God because of the preaching. This
was the great confirmation of the judgment. Judas enters the invisible world to
find that an unimpaired view of Jesus Christ is possible only to him who looks
upon the Mediator from the vantage point of the Word.

It was very quiet in heaven that day. Two souls entered into judgment beside
Christ: the soul of Judas and that of the converted murderer. Two entered into
judgment: the one had much in his favor, the other had much against him. God
pronounced judgment upon them, declaring that Jesus Christ cannot be discovered
in human experience neither above nor below the clouds, but that even in heaven
He explains Himself only in terms of Himself and always with divine authority.
When Abraham added his amen to the verdict which decided against Judas and in
favor of the murderer, he desired to find his own seed only among the generation
of his great Son, the Greater than Isaac. Thus He again by faith put Isaac to
death, relying in spite of the judgment against Judas on the assurance that God
would raise Him from the dead, and confident that He should see the seed which
Judas had refused to look for in Him. The report of the suicide of Judas on the
day of Christ’s sacrifice opens up another perspective for our thoughts when we
take note of the history of special revelation as it has been realized thus far.
We have spoken more than once of the place which Christ occupies in the house of
David. It was His glory, we said repeatedly, to be the great Son of David and to
be his crown. Again and again, we observed, this royal lineage of the Christ was
pointed out in prophecy. Hence we are not looking for more or less coincidental
analogies and parallelisms, but are simply touching on the significance of
sacred history when we compare the story of the man who betrayed the Son of
David with the text of that other Biblical record of the suicide of the man who
betrayed David himself. In other words, we are to compare Jesus and Ahithophel.
You remember the story. When David had to flee from Absalom, his own son, it was
Ahithophel who betrayed him. This treachery on the part of Ahithophel was,
doubtless, the bitterest cup which David had to drink. For Ahithophel was
certainly the man who had lived intimately and in close contact with David; he
had counseled David on many matters; as David’s close friend and cabinet member
his advice to David was like the voice of an oracle. Now this Ahithophel with
whom David had eaten bread at one time rises to take exception to his king. As
long as Ahithophel hoped that he could cause David’s destruction, he, together
with Amasa, had been the very soul of the revolution against David. However,
when the tables were turned eventually, when it became evident that God had not
given David into the hands of his enemies, Ahithophel, hearing that David was
returning to his capitol at Jerusalem victoriously, left the city, went to his
home, arranged such matters as needed arranging, and then hanged himself.

Therefore we can say that two gallows hang suspended over the row of graves
belonging to the house of David. One stands at the head of the row, and one at
the end. At the head, raising its sinister beams into the sky over David’s
grave, stands the gallows of Ahithophel; and at the end, suspended over the
grave of David’s great Son, we see the gallows of Judas. Between these two
suicides all the princes of David’s house lie buried. When the first of the
royal funeral processions comes into the house of David, the celebrities present
rub against the corpse of Ahithophel, who committed suicide because of David.
And when the last grave opens to receive a king of the house of David, that is,
when it opens to receive Jesus, the dead body of Judas is put on display next to
that grave. This is the body of Judas, who committed suicide because of Jesus,
because Jesus was not what in Judas’ opinion He ought to have been. The first
father of the king, and the founder of the house of David had to die with his
face turned towards a traitor who had hanged himself in protest against David’s
life. And now the last to bear the crown in the house of David must die with his
eyes turned towards a traitor who hanged himself because of Him.

These comparisons are sombre enough. The circumstances are analogous in many
respects. Just notice them. Ahithophel was one of David’s confidants and Judas
was one of the inner circle of David’s Son. Ahithophel had a place in David’s
advisory cabinet, and Judas was one of the advisory group of the apostolic
circle surrounding David’s Son. Ahithophel had conspired with David’s enemies
against him; Judas had done the same over against the Son of David. And finally
Ahithophel hanged himself when it appeared that his plans had run aground on the
will of God and on the logic of the events in the life of David himself. And
Judas similarly commits suicide when it appears that his conduct is incompatible
with the will of God and with the logic of the evangelical events in the life of
David’s Son.

There are similarities enough, as we see. But there are also tremendous
differences. The most important, the most essential difference is that
Ahithophel can reproach David for good reason, but that Judas can find nothing
blameworthy in Jesus Christ inasmuch as the great Son of David is guiltless over
against Judas of Kerioth.

Yes, David was not guiltless in his relations with Ahithophel, and, for the
matter of that, with the whole people. He had not continued to be the
ministering, theocratic king, but he had become like the oriental despots of his
time. He was beginning to resemble a sultan. That becomes apparent especially
from his shocking transgression with Bathsheba. Bathsheba herself may have been
ever so culpable, but David scandalously abused his power when he had her come
to him, and when he craftily, and under the guise of justice, sent Uriah to his
death. Ahithophel’s relation to all this, you ask? He was involved in it in two
ways. In the first place it must have grieved Ahithophel, as an earnest
counselor in shaping kingdom policies, to see David trifling with the blood of
his best and most faithful officer (for Uriah had not only been a good soldier
for David, but he was also a member of David’s bodyguard). It must have offended
Ahithophel that the king who certainly had not supplanted Saul purposelessly,
now falls into Saul’s sins and dares to tread upon the marital happiness of a
son and daughter of his people. A king who conducted himself and publicly forgot
himself as David did was setting a bad example, and was abusing the kingship for
personal gain. To this another consideration must be added. If we may be allowed
to share the opinions of various authentic expositors of the Bible and students
of history in the combining of certain Biblical data, we will say that as a
person, too, Ahithophel was most intimately concerned in David’s transgression
with Uriah and Bathsheba. Ahithophel was Bathsheba’s grandfather. She was the
daughter of Eliam, and Eliam was the son of Ahithophel. Now it certainly was a
painful discovery to this punctiliously refined, this able, this highly honored
grandfather, to find that the king with whom he was on such friendly footing,
had played with the life and the honor of his granddaughter, and in such a way
that it would soon become a public scandal. Could it really be that the king was
interfering as audaciously as this with the family relations of his own
courtiers? Were Ahithophel’s rank and intellectual competence not sufficient to
protect a young granddaughter? For another reason, too, David’s sin with
Bathsheba had deeply wounded Ahithophel’s soul. The name of Bathsheba’s husband
was Uriah and when Uriah had refused to degrade himself before the king by
covering up the king’s scandal with his own name, David had hit upon the
diabolical idea of putting Uriah out of the way, and of using the sword of the
enemy for the purpose. He decided that he would have the man put on the “firing
line,” on the “front,” we would say today. Meanwhile the king lived on in his
luxurious palace ... In comparison with such a tyrant, Saul seemed a paragon.
But — to return to Uriah — this man was a colleague of Eliam, Ahithophel’s son;
the two together were strong men who belonged to David’s bodyguard. And when
David put his own bodyguard to death, solely in an attempt to cover up his
personal shame, and to be able to marry Bathsheba, the “war-widow,” — well, then
it was as clear as day that the blood and even the honor of David’s best
defenders counted for little with him.

Ahithophel, accordingly, was seriously wounded in his deepest soul. Moreover,
who could blame him? A family scandal had completely spoiled his old age. David
had demonstrated with a shocking frankness that the life and honor of his most
intimate confidants and aides were not sacred to him when it pleased his
despotism to dally with them. This is the tyrant who is no longer serving
theocratically, but thinks only of being served himself. Whoever pauses to think
how deeply this must have grieved an aristocrat like Ahithophel — and, remember,
he had to keep it all to himself for David’s sake — must be inclined to agree
with Ahithophel and to feel an aversion to David’s psalms. If only we had
experienced what this old man had felt ....

Indeed, Ahithophel could reproach his king for good reasons. Hence, when David
presently returns to his capital from his exile, and everyone knows that God is
not going to make this tyrannical hedonist an object of public disgrace, but is
to return him to the throne, Ahithophel cannot stand it any longer. He does not
want to live in the same world with this David any more. His repressed ire, his
thwarted sense of justice, and his scandalized family pride — all these had
cried aloud for justice when David had gone into exile — all had prayed God that
He who had dethroned Saul, depose David also. Tyrants and despots, Ahithophel
felt, had no right to parade in God’s country, or in God’s city. But the fact
proved to be that God did not dethrone David; Jaweh returned him to the throne.
Therefore Ahithophel complains against God, and curses the government which lets
such people live. Finally he hangs himself by way of protest against heaven and
against David. His act is a protest against the throne in heaven and the throne
on earth. And we can say that this protest contains several truths. It is an
expression of astute if impotent objection to an attack on his personal
integrity; there is something in it of the “die-hard” aristocrat who would
rather make a public break with David than ignore his sins for the sake of the
meager comfort of the thought that his great-grandchildren will be of the royal
blood. So much for Ahithophel.

Now we must return to Judas, and to the Son of David, to Christ. What faults can
Judas find in Jesus? He has betrayed the Son of David. He has said, just as
Ahithophel said of David, “The title of king is not safely His; He does not
deserve a king’s office.” But after the betrayal the pendulum swings to the
other side for Judas. Jesus is to be sent to His death. You see that what
happens is the exact opposite of what happened to David himself. David is
betrayed by Ahithophel, but before long Ahithophel sees David returning to the
throne. Judas betrays Jesus, and before long sees him entering into inevitable
death. That is the first difference. There is another. Although Ahithophel
obstinately insists that he has betrayed guilty blood, Judas must confess that
he has betrayed innocent blood. God forces Judas to this confession; He does so
in order to vindicate the history of the house of David in Christ Jesus. When
Ahithophel surrenders David, he has much to complain of, many charges to make.
But when God finally yields His son into death’s hands, after Judas has betrayed
Him, this same Judas, the second Ahithophel, cannot substantiate a single charge
which he directs against Jesus, the Son of David.

Frankly now, was this comparison of Judas and Ahithophel a too far-fetched
inquiry or an analogy which simply “happens” to be coincidental? Not for the
person who is looking for the perspective of prophecy, not for those who know
that God, to whom a thousand years are as one day, sees the grave of Ahithophel
standing next to that of Judas, and the grave of David beside that of Jesus. No,
this is no place to speak of coincidences. God draws the line of David through
the centuries, and He makes manifest the essence of the struggle which all flesh
again and again conducts against the sovereign good pleasure which comes to
place David and his Son upon the throne. He comes to all those who have the
patience to think through to the deepest implications of the Ahithophel-David
relationship in its bearing on the Judas- Jesus relationship, to demonstrate
that the opposition which the enmity of the flesh opposes to the bearers of the
Sovereign will and to the seed of the woman does indeed have its origin in what
that seed of the woman did amiss, but that the essence of the enmity is the sin,
is the perverse will, is unbelief, is enmity itself. Take all the sin which
David did out of David’s house, and give David a perfect son, and you will find
that the generation of Ahithophel will nevertheless refuse to live in the same
world with David and his Son. The death of Ahithophel was occasioned by David’s
sin, but the most fundamental cause of the suicide arose in Ahithophel himself.
It was inherent in his bitter anger which refused to acknowledge God’s
government as it proceeded to vindicate David solely in terms of God’s sovereign
pleasure. Ahithophel refuses to live with David any longer, because he is
warring against God’s will, because he cannot endure the Gospel of free grace,
as it returns David — mark how the penitent weeps — to the throne, and
accompanies the return with a message that God justifies the ungodly — freely.
And this is also true of Judas. God has taken all guiltlessness away from him.
The blood of Jesus was innocent, perfectly innocent; Jesus had done Judas no
wrong. To Jesus all semblance of oriental despotism was entirely alien. That
became abundantly clear in the room of the Passover, where Jesus, knowing full
well that Judas would prove to be His Ahithophel, nevertheless breaks bread with
him, and raises not as much as a finger against him. And that is saying nothing
of the incident of Malchus, even though Judas was present on the occasion when
Jesus refused to countenance any form of despotism in His relation to that
slave. Moreover, Jesus had called Himself the Son of David.

Now, you ask, does Judas hang himself, nevertheless? Yes, he went out and hanged
himself. Why? By way of self-accusation, self-condemnation? But a genuine
self-accusation, surely, can proceed only from the Spirit of Christ; therefore,
at bottom, the suicide of Judas also represents a rebellion against God’s
sovereign good pleasure which Christ is revealing in His own way. It is this
which goes against Judas’ fabrications, which causes him neither to laugh nor to
gnash his teeth as he sees the ruins of the Messiah of God’s sovereign will.
Those ruins Jesus Himself had predicted. But Judas refuses to believe. He does
not want to accept a Gospel which justifies the ungodly — freely.

We can say, therefore, that the house of David and the seed of the woman are
always a rock of offense in the world. Take all of the sin out of the picture,
if you will, and demonstrate that at bottom no other conflict exists between
David and Ahithophel, between Judas and Jesus, than that of an acceptance or a
rejection of the law of election and reprobation. Even then — no, then
especially — the children of the flesh will set themselves grimly against the
house of David of both father and Son, and will go to their death as they gnash
their teeth. Ahithophel reproaches David, saying: You are too much of a despot,
and are guilty of great sins. And Judas blames the Son of David while asserting:
You are not despot enough, although you are sinless. But both commit suicide
because they do not want to breathe the same air that is breathed by God’s
elect, the companions of David, the invited ones of David’s Son. Apparently the
death of these traitors is a protest against the house of David, but actually it
is an expression of their grim opposition to the election of God — an election
which causes fruit to spring forth out of dry ground — and to a Good Pleasure
which establishes the kingdom according to the counsel of God and not according
to any human philosophy. Ahithophel lies next to Judas in the grave, and on the
countenance of each of them a grim, malicious expression of protest against the
Gospel of free grace may be seen. Theirs is a protest to a free grace that
placed an unworthy David back on his throne, and that causes Jesus to say he is
a king, but of a kind which Judas does not want to see. He is a king of cripples
and of blind men, of the poor and the maimed; a king not according to outward
appearance but according to the spirit of meekness, crowned with a mediator’s
honor.

God lives — hence the death of Judas becomes a new suffering to the Christ.
Satan throws the dead Judas at the foot of the throne of God, just as once
before he laid the body of Ahithophel at the foot of David’s throne. The world
of spirits — do not fail to reckon with that. Just notice: Satan has done the
impossible. He desired greatly to contaminate the fragrance of God’s love with
the stench of a corpse, and he desired to do it in heaven. He quarreled against
Jesus, appealing to Judas’ arid death. In one and the same day the death of the
apostle Judas is called into judgment with the death of Jesus, the Great Apostle
of God. In the presence of God, Christ Himself is being confronted by the dead
Judas. Do not Thou be perturbed by it, O Saviour, Son of David. Thou didst not
murder Judas, didst not even incite him to murder; Thou hast done him no wrong
and this truth, too, is being written into God’s book today.

Jesus, Jesus, theodicy of God, apology of the house of David. The angels know
it; the great book contains a record of it: Thou needest not to blame thyself
for anything over against this dead body of Judas. Thou hast purged the house of
David. Thou hast atoned for everything that flesh could reproach in David and
then Thou didst stand before the world, asking all Ahithophels: Have you any
other objections to raise? In answer, I hear them all testify against Thee. Yes,
we have this against Thee: Thou art the bearer of God’s good pleasure. That is
the foolishness, that is the offense in Thy life. Because of it, we refuse to
sleep with Thee under the same roof of stars. We would rather die than do that.

Thus the “foolishness” and “offense” of the cross of Christ has not only, as we
have observed already, been transferred to the heights of heaven today but also
to the depths of hell. The soul of Judas has made its appearance while on the
way to judgment in the world of spirits. The man who has souls in heaven, who
can thank God for what Judas has done for them — that man is destroyed, and
Christ is his rock of offense. This makes the foolishness of the cross and its
offense more patently apparent in the spiritual world of heaven and hell than it
ever was before. When Judas is swallowed up in darkness because of the judgment,
his downfall proclaims the offense and foolishness to all the souls in heaven
above, and to all the recesses of hell below. The wonder, in the last analysis,
is that Jesus’ soul was able to remain entirely poised when God confronted Him
with the corpse of Judas. We may believe that Jesus, who saw a Nathanael sitting
under a fig tree, and who always sees clearly the fatal issue of sin, knew that
Judas committed suicide. Can it be that He knew everything about Simon when that
disciple denied his master, and nothing at all about Judas? Surely, that is
untenable. But, in His unfathomable grief, He maintains His own unimpeachable
integrity as He and His conscience face the dead Judas. He can look straight
into God’s eyes, and straight into the future of His long way of suffering
without blinking.

There are people who find it very easy to pray for strangers the petition,
“Father, forgive them.” But to their immediate neighbors these people frequently
are an offense. But when Jesus, a little later, prays the same prayer for
strangers, His prayer does not curse what He has done for Judas, His neighbor.
For He did Judas no wrong. Yes, there are those — in fact, we are all such — who
must immediately smother all their fine prayers and all their philanthropical
intercessions when one calls their attention to the misery of their wives, of
their children, of their next-door neighbors. But when Jesus, in the very moment
perhaps in which Judas falls to the ground becomes the intercessor for those
strangers who are His murderers, and knocks at the gate of Paradise to ask
admittance for the man crucified next to Him, the Father cannot dismiss Him by
pointing at the body of the dead Judas. For Jesus did Judas no wrong. This
precisely is His justification before God. Jesus was the Mediator, and as
Mediator He vindicated Himself over against Judas.

Now broad perspectives open up before us. Judas and Ahithophel are not two
exceptional cases about whom decent people must shake their heads. God buried
them and He placed no special marker over their graves. They are buried quite
ordinarily next to all those others who ruin themselves by taking offense at the
mediatorship of God’s good pleasure. God did not compel Jesus to face the dead
Judas by way of testing whether it would cause a flush of shame to cover His
face, as though He were one suspected of murder. God was summoning you and me
into court. We, we must make our appearance in judgment, we must learn to see
those two next to each other before the throne of God. We must learn to see the
broken Jesus and the broken Judas, must learn to see the house of David that has
been destroyed and the bodyguard of Saul, an Ahithophel who simply cannot live
with the poet of God’s psalm. We must be present at this confrontation. All the
angels must give us their undivided attention, must see how we conduct ourselves
there. For the angels want to know whom we choose, and in whom we believe. It is
fortunate if we can still blush in shame because we have so often raised
objections to David and to Jesus, even though we reach the conclusion: innocent
blood, innocent blood! Then we will know that the only escape left us after this
most painful experience of soul is the avenue of humble prayer. As we face the
dead body of Judas, our one escape will be a prayer asking to be confronted by
the broken body and shed blood of the Son of David. Except for that we should be
lost eternally; because of that we can confess our faith in the Mediator of God
and man. The death of Judas is the beginning of Christ’s Passover feast. We
should remember that the first cantos of the Hymn of the Passover are full of
references to justice. And one learns to scan God’s verses of justice and grace
only in the school of sovereign good pleasure. Such scansion is the great
stumbling-block. But what else would one do on the Friday which puts Judas to
death in the morning and Christ in the evening? I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s
Only-Begotten, David’s high-born Son. I believe that He was cast into hell, but
also that He Himself descended into hell. No, Judas, you did not want Him, but
the feast of the Passover could not wait for you. The serpent on your grave
argued in vain against the second Adam, and confessed that she was more
effective in paradises than on graves.


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  CHAPTER 18: 13. CHAPTER 13: CHRIST’S BLOOD ACCEPTING A MEMORIAL IN JERUSALEM
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C H A P T E R T H I R T E E N Christ’s Blood Accepting a Memorial in Jerusalem
And the chief priests took the silver pieces,and said,It is not lawful for to
put them into the treasury,because it is the price of blood. And they took
counsel, and bought with them the potter s field, to bury strangers in.
Wherefore that field was called,The field of blood,unto this day. Then was
fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the
thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued,whom they of the
children of Israel did value; And gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord
appointed me. —Mat 27:6-10. THE history of Abraham’s rights of inheritance
begins and ends at a graveyard.

It begins at a grave. Abraham for a considerable sum of money bought a garden
which might be used to bury Sarah’s body and which his family even in their
death might regard as a place of their own. This was the first struggle in which
Abraham, who was a stranger among the heathen, engaged, in order to command a
piece of the promised land. Thus he possessed in his death that which he did not
actually own in his lifetime.

Now the seed of Abraham has almost reached its end. This is a significant
moment. When Abraham bought his field, he was still roaming about, but he was on
his way to the inheritance which had been assured him, to the promised Canaan.
Now, many centuries later, the seed of Abraham still peacefully occupies that
promised land. Abraham is still living in the ancient Canaan, but he is about to
begin his roaming about again over the whole earth. A few more minutes will
speed away, and the fleshly seed of Abraham will have lost its right to a place
in the world. Only a few more moments, and he will have become unfaithful to the
divine calling by means of which God’s sovereign will gave him a graveyard
first, and a fertile country then. The Jews will have become unfaithful, yes,
because they refuse an honorable grave to Abraham’s great Son. Because of that
they will have forfeited their right to their beautiful country. A few more
moments, and the seed of Abraham will begin its sad, age-long vagabondage: the
nomadic life of the wandering Jew.

Now that seed of Abraham has reached another crisis, and now the history of his
inheritance again culminates in a graveyard. This takes place when Judas throws
the thirty pieces of silver back into the temple. The priests are compelled to
say of the very wages which they themselves have weighed out: “This is a scandal
to the holy place; this money lies where it does not belong” And then they take
those coins which deserve no place in the temple and use them to buy a graveyard
for strangers. This is the moment of the purchase of Akeldama. In this moment
Israel’s rights to its inheritance are forfeited.

We must recall, for a moment the events which lead to this purchase. When Judas
noticed that nothing could be done for Jesus or himself any more, he rushed into
the temple and threw the money he had earned by treachery at the feet of the
priests. Judas wanted to be rid of those coins. Hence he upsets the tables of
the money-changers, even the tables standing outside of the temple wall. Life
has nothing to offer Judas now and the wages which enabled him to live for four
months[1] at the expense of the Sanhedrin, and thus gave him an opportunity, if
he wished it, to look around for a more suitable vocation[2] than that which had
been his during these years with Jesus, mean nothing to him. He has no use for
this money now, because he sees nothing in life worth living for.

[1]Christ in His Suffering, p. 70. [Chapter 5, Christ Evaluated]

[2] This gives us a glimpse at Judas’ soul, which we must be honest enough to
take: perhaps he had warned to use the thirty pieces for his current expenses
while he calmly looked about for another position.

Thereupon Judas went his own way. We shall say nothing further about that. We
give our attention to the priests, to the scribes and to the Sanhedrin. They
were embarrassed to know what to do with their own money. They felt that it was
tainted money. It was tainted with the blood of Jesus. Intuitively they sensed
that this money was not clean. It was not consecrated money, for it had been
used to traffic in blood. Accordingly, they do not dare to add these coins to
those in the temple. The temple is a hallowed place, and this money has served
in war. Could one wish to use money, tainted with human blood, to cover the
expenses incurred in the temple-service? Could the guardians of the temple
permit the tables of money-changers to stand right-side-up within the sanctuary?
By no means. The Nazarene had merely imagined that they had made a house of
merchandise of the house of God. Even David, whose hands were tainted with the
blood of other men, was, because of that blood, not allowed to build a temple.
Hence they do not want the blood which clings to these coins to be in their
presence. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Sabaoth. He who dwells with His Levites,
who lives with His clean priests in a clean temple. So much is certain, then:
this money must be kept outside of the house of God. Not that a separate
commandment dictates it in so many words. But various commentators point to such
places as Num 35:33-34 where reference is made to blood which defiles the
sanctuary, irrespective of how it has been shed. And they allude also to Deu
23:18 where we are told that the hire of a harlot or the wages of a dog may not
be brought into the house of the Lord for any vow. In short, say these priests,
all that has been earned by foul means may never be dedicated to the perfect
temple service. Hence this blood money also must be kept out of the sanctuary.
But what can be done with it? Can it be equally divided among those present? No,
it might be harmful, and, besides, it originally came from the treasury of the
temple. Hence it would be better to assign it to some public use, to some good
cause. As yes — the solution finally comes. After careful deliberation they
decide — at exactly what time we do not know — that they will use these pieces
for buying a plot of ground which can be used as a cemetery for strangers. From
this decision we get a glimpse of the worth of the wages which had been paid
Judas. The amount was enough to support the traitor for so many weeks, and was
enough to pay for a piece of ground, large enough for a graveyard.

However that may be, it is remarkable that prophecy again insists upon being
most strikingly fulfilled among the people of revelation. These Jewish leaders
when they proceed to buy the field naturally take great pains in the selection
and purchase. But it is also true that God has directed everything pertaining to
this crooked business according to his most special providence. We read that
they bought a field which had belonged to a potter. This means that the piece of
ground had very likely been used by a well-known member[1] of the potter’s guild
for carrying on his business. The field very likely lay on the southeast slope
of the so-called valley of Hinnom, a place which prophecy had pointed out as a
striking symbol of hell, that great house of the dead. The purchase of this
particular piece of ground was, as we have mentioned before,[2] a fulfillment of
prophecy. We observed then that the prophet Zechariah had once predicted that
the thirty pieces of silver, with which Israel had sent the Good Shepherd to His
death, had to be thrown at the feet of the potter, and we indicated also that
the thirty pieces were an unjust price in the eyes of God. Being a foul and
filthy price, it had to be brought to a foul and filthy place.

[1] A. Nede,Die Leidensgeschichte unsers Herrn Jesu Christi nach den vier
Evangelien,II, p. 15.

[2]Christ in His Suffering,p. 76.[Chapter 5, Christ Evaluated]

Now it may be true that the text at the head of our chapter does not quote
Zechariah himself, but refers to the quotation from Jeremiah. Irrespective of
what we may think of that, we can at least be sure that the Evangelist was
thinking of Zechariah’s words.[3] Hence this is more than a “striking detail”
and more than an allegory (which, because it is subjective, must at bottom
always be a profanation). God intentionally governed events in such a way that
prophecy was even literally fulfilled according to demonstrable, officially
registered data. There is a potter here; he is here literally. Filth and
impurities are here, and are literally here; for what could be more foul than a
cemetery, especially acemetery for “strangers”? And God’s holy mockery is here.
The prophecy of Zechariah had already mocked the price at which God’s faithful
shepherds were “evaluated” by calling the sum a “goodly price.” That same irony
is active now.

[3] Many different attitudes are taken towards this problem. The marginal
notations of the “Statenbijbel” have suggested that the solution could be
reached by means of textual criticism. Others believe that Matthew was in
several places thinking of Jeremiah, but that he found the summary of all these
references in Zechariah. Compare Grosheide,Kommentaar Mattheus, p. 339, and
Groenen,op. cit.pp. 306-308; and the standard commentaries. This establishes
beyond a doubt that Israel does not know what to do with its own blood-money.
The treasury of the temple was used in order to take the great Builder of the
temple captive. But, for the rest, this people which is treading upon its
Shepherd does not know what to do with the thirty pieces. It bandies its own
stipend to and fro between its spiritual leaders, until finally the coins come
to rest between unwhitened graves (Mat 23:27).

Yes, the money which Judas returned to the temple is used to buy a cemetery, a
cemetery designed for strangers. Now we may not “spiritualize” these things.
Unfortunately this has been done more than once.

“In reference to Mat 13:13, where Jesus by way of explaining a parable says,
‘The field is the world,’ commentators, after the fashion of certain church
fathers, point to what the blood of Christ has achieved for the world. For the
price of His blood, they explain, the field of this world was purchased as a
place of rest for us who are strangers on the earth.”[1] Hilarius takes the fact
that this field was designed for strangers to mean that the price of Jesus’
blood would not benefit the Jews but the heathen, to the extent, of course, that
they learned to believe in Christ. And Chrysostom and Augustine also thought
that the field of the potter represented the church.[2] [1] Groenen,op. cit.,
pp. 304-305.

[2]Ibid,304-305.

Those who would “spiritualize” the material in this way miss the core of the
significance of the whole event. Akeldama is not a divine prophecy about the
church of the New Testament which never speaks of the heathen at the expense of
the Jews, but lets them both together grow up out of the truths of Abraham. It
is not a prophecy of God about the church but a protest on the part of the Jews
against the church of the New Testament.

Even in Akeldama — for that is what the place is called later (because it had
been bought for the price of blood) — even in Akeldama we can see a protest
against the Spirit of Pentecost. For the Spirit of Pentecost will come after a
while in order to bring the heathen and the Jews together by means of Christ’s
death, and in order to break down “the middle wall of partition.” But the Jews
strongly reinforced that middle wall of partition. It almost seems as if they
purposely wanted to disown the prophecy and the judgment which God had
proclaimed when, on the Friday of Jesus’ death, He rent the veil of the temple.
By means of that rent veil, we know, God is preaching that there is no holy
place left in the world for the representatives of carnal Jewry. But those who
turn the thirty pieces over and over, at the same time pretend to cling
tenaciously to the inviolability of their age-old rights. They set apart a
graveyard for strangers. In other words, they once more declare emphatically
that a distinct line of demarcation separates Israel from the heathen. Here
Israel’s dead are to be interred; there those of the stranger. Here a child of
Abraham must be buried; there the child of the stranger. The difference between
a Jew and a non-Jew is the greatest conceivable difference. The middle wall of
partition, they insist, is not to be broken down in all eternity. In fact, it
may even be that their passion for insisting on distinction is carried even
farther. It is quite certain that the word “stranger” does not refer to the
“heathen” but to those people in general who could not be counted among the holy
people and could not be regarded as citizens of the holy city in a restricted
sense. Perhaps the term refers to alien Jews, those who were born outside of the
country, and who frequently visited the city on feast days. Moreover, it is also
possible that the term “stranger” refers to proselytes.[1] But when we think of
this meaning of the term, it is even more evident than when we think of it as
referring generally to the “heathen” that the passion for distinction and
separation was exerting itself to the limit among these Jews. To set apart a
special cemetery for strangers is to insist on the distinction between what is
Israel and what, strictly taken, is not Israel, on the difference between the
natives of the country, or even of the city, and those outside of it.

[1] Nebe,op. cit.,p. 15; Grosheide,Kommentaar.

Therefore we say that Akeldama is a protest issued beforehand against the
flourishing communion which God for the sake of Christ will presently build up
on the feast of Pentecost — when God, for Christ’s sake, will wipe out all
distinctions between Jew and non-Jew, native and alien, initiate and proselyte,
and when He will call Jew and heathen together to repentance in Jesus Christ.

Seen under the proper light, the purchase of Akeldama appears to be the most
vivid illustration of the carnal thinking on the part of Abraham’s lost sons
with which we have met thus far. They array against the God who rent the veil,
who moved their landmarks, and who mocked their passion for distinctiveness from
on high. Akeldama was purchased with Judas’ blood-money; it represents the wrath
of Rachel who weeps for her children and will not be comforted because they are
not. Just as weeping Rachel will not dry her tears because she blames Jesus and
will never forgive Him for doing an injustice to Abraham’s flesh, and for not
accepting the nation as a special nation, just so Rachel’s dirge is sung now as
the Sanhedrin proceeds to dedicate Akeldama. Hoping against hope, they insist
even to the point of appealing to the cemetery that the children of the home are
different from the children of strangers. They refuse to accept the teaching of
the Crucified One who said that those of all nations who fear God and deal
justly are acceptable to God. Akeldama is a protest against Jesus and His
open-hearted precursor who once preached this message to them: “Say not among
yourselves, We are Abraham’s children. For God is able of these stones to raise
up children unto Abraham.”

No, they are and will remain the children of Abraham, and the whole face of the
world must, they insist, continue to be divided into nooks and corners. This
part for the citizen, that for the strangers, Barbarian and Israelite must be
kept separate in the world. After all, an alien scent lingers even in a death
shroud. Akeldama, field of blood: newest and most obsolete of cemeteries.

We know, of course, that the Jews who hit upon the idea of setting Akeldama
apart as a way of disposing of the thirty pieces did not look upon the matter in
this way. Just as they were quite unconscious of the fact that the particulars
given by Zechariah— the potter, the thirty pieces and the like—were being
literally fulfilled in their odd transaction, so they were quite unaware that
they, by keeping Judas’ blood-money out of the temple, were making themselves
subject to the threat of the ancient prophecy. The consideration that money
tainted with blood had no place in the temple was, naturally, an outgrowth of
the Levitical character of the laws of purification but it was not in itself a
proof of the fact that such money was ethically tainted. Levitical cleanness or
uncleanness is not the same as ethical cleanness. Hence when the authorities in
Jerusalem refuse to receive this blood-money into the temple, they by no means
want to have it supposed that the shedding of blood made possible by this money
was not well-pleasing to God. They mean only that the temple will not be served
by such anti-pacific contributions. The temple is irenical; consequently it
wishes to have nothing to do with the price of blood. The business of war is not
suitable to temples. And although these leaders appeal to David who was also
kept from building a temple with “bloody hands,” they are nevertheless a long
way from David. David’s hands never manipulated the stones of a temple, but
David’s heart and mouth sang psalms for the temple, and the psalms were
messianic in character. These curators of the temple share David’s bloody hands,
but not his messianic heart. So thoroughly have the psalms of David become lost
to their spirit that they oppose them diametrically. They sell the real Author
of those psalms, the great Son of David, for the price of blood, and their
thirty pieces of silver can find rest only on a cemetery designed for strangers.
Yes, their hands are tainted with blood, but not with the blood which soiled the
hands of David, for David’s had been dipped in the blood of Israel’s enemies,
whereas theirs are soiled with that of David’s own Son. The taint of this blood
Akeldama cannot wipe out in all eternity. In vain do the Jews write the betrayal
of their kingdom in the soil of a graveyard. Now that they betray their Kingdom,
that Kingdom knows of no stranger other than themselves and their life. But was
not the fact that in Jerusalem itself the blood of Christ accepted a memorial
for itself a triumph for God? A place for the blood of Jesus was reserved in the
vocabulary of the Aramaic vernacular when the official language of the temple
refused to put the blood of God’s sacrificial Lamb into the hymns of the temple.
God established a memorial for the blood of Jesus in the language of the tiny,
of the unitiated. Akeldama, Akeldama, field of blood, field of the great blood,
field of the unique blood, the blood of Jesus.

Thus God prepares for His Pentecostal blessing. Though the holy Hebrew language
of the temple was mute about the blood of God’s sacrificial Lamb, the
vernacular, the Aramaic dialect (as is really the sense of the word) preaches
the blood of Jesus aloud for all times, carries it into the market-place, and
creates a memorial for it in the daily conversation of the masses: Akeldama,
Akeldama.

Now this is not the defeat of revelation but its forward march. When the great
and the eminent refuse, the meek and the humble may come. When the lords of the
temple say that they will be silent about this blood, the vernacular carries the
memory of it farther. As the natives of the house enter the temple gates they
hear a voice saying: be silent about that blood; ignore it, cover it. But the
strangers, who are brought to Akeldama by their family or by a few poor
acquaintances, will pass under an arch which has the superscription “Jesus’
blood” written in the popular tongue.

This, if we wish it, is material for a beautiful allegory, for the nomenclature
of the speech-making congregation in the case of Akeldama corresponds to the
facts of the feast of Pentecost. In Akeldama, as a matter of fact, the feast of
Pentecost is already coming. God has already transferred the blood of Christ,
the great subject of the conversations of the whole world, from the Hebrew to
the Aramaic, from the language of the temple to the vernacular of the common
people, from the tongue of priests to the jargon of street-cleaners, from
official academic learning to officious popular mood, from Israel’s legal
bearers of glory to those who speak an alien tongue, the offspring of a mixed
race. God has preserved the sound and the voice of Jesus’ unique blood, and He
has crystalized it in the unwritten superscription over the graveyard of
Akeldama. The blood of Jesus is remembered by the dead and the living, by
Akeldama and by the Holy Supper.

Therefore Akeldama is a condemnation of carnal Jewry. We have observed before
that the people of Israel by rejecting the Messiah were following the course of
“the dead who buried the dead.” But this is even worse. Here the dead bury those
who are called unto life. Now that Israel proceeds to crucify its own Messiah,
the offer of salvation comes to the “strangers.” As God grants the privileges of
Zion to these “strangers” the Jews say: we must see to it that these strangers
remain very small, very humble, even in their death: Akeldama, Akeldama. And
then the voice of God pronounced a clear and ringing prophecy. The history of
Israel — and now we return to our point of departure — the history of Israel and
of its inheritance-rights began at a graveyard and ends at a graveyard. Remember
Abraham who for a high price bought a field from the “sons of Heth.” But a great
and a tragic difference separates that Abraham, who bought a small piece of
ground for his dead, from the Sanhedrin.

Abraham bought a place for his own who were among “strangers” but the Sanhedrin
buys a place for the strangers who are among their own. Abraham buys a grave
because, although Canaan is his according to the promise, he does not actually
possess it. The Sanhedrin buys a graveyard on the assumption, doubtless, that it
has a right to the land of the fathers and actually possesses it. But God has
declared that Israel’s right to Canaan and even to Akeldama — those few square
feet in an obscure corner — are no longer the property of the people now that
they crucify the Christ. At Akeldama the great robbery begins. From this point
on Jewry is dismissed; from now on the Jews will have to roam over the wide
world. When Abraham bought his cemetery he bought and paid for it honestly. But
when the Sanhedrin buys a field, it pays for it with the price of blood. The
money which Abraham set aside for the first piece of the promised land he was to
occupy had been given him by God Himself. But the money the Sanhedrin paid for a
graveyard for strangers was robbed from the temple, and was used to sell God
Himself in the person of His Son. When Abraham bought his grave, that which
separated him, his dead Sarah and his coming generation from the strangers until
the days of Christ was his faith, and God’s promise, and the messianic spirit.
Today the Sanhedrin buys a field for strangers; again it emphatically draws a
line of demarcation between itself and the stranger. The day of Abraham has been
fulfilled but they do not see it, and do not want to see it. Hence it is not
faith this time but unbelief, not the promise but a falsely interpreted law, not
the spirit of Christ but the flesh which puts its seal on this deed, a deed
signed in the year of Christ’s death. Abraham hoped against hope that he who for
the present had to buy a parcel of ground for his dead, would sometime through
blessing become the owner of the whole of that rich land. But the Sanhedrin
hopes against hope that it can still escape from the judgment, the very judgment
which guarantees the strangers the rights of Israel itself.

Thus we can say that Sarah, the princess, was buried among strangers by faith,
hope and love. But the princely Son of the queenly Sarah, the emancipating Son
of the emancipated mother is being buried today by unbelief, self-deterioration,
and terrible hatred. Had Akeldama existed when Jesus died, the Jews would not
even have deigned to bury this Son of Sarah there. He belonged to those who are
wholly accursed, to those who must be given a place with the wicked in death.
Akeldama is far too good for Him. Therefore Akeldama, which is an expression of
God’s judgment against Israel’s essential death, has come to us. We are
strangers. Akeldama tells us, Except you repent, you shall similarly perish. You
will also belong to those who as candidates for life point out the place of
interment for others beneath your rank, when, as a matter of fact, you have
yourself eternally lost your rank. The price of the blood of Jesus Christ —
thirty pieces — was set aside to buy Akeldama. But let us not proceed to build
the graves of the prophets, for the other side of this peculiarly Pharisaical
piece of work is to purchase an Akeldama. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that
stonest the prophets, that buildest the grave for the prophets away out beyond
Akeldama, but in the same city of Sodom and Egypt where our Lord was also
crucified, Jerusalem, Jerusalem — no, we refuse to look at your graves any
longer. We would look at the cross; we would follow Jesus who is on His way to
Pilate, and who will give His blood in order that it may accomplish miracles of
life in the dry field of the world for all those who are strangers by nature,
but would be heirs by grace.

We would tremble in the presence of the judgment of Akeldama. It is not for
nothing that to the right and to the left of the cities of men there are
cemeteries, cemeteries for strangers. These are the Akeldamas in which Jews are
buried. Those who were not Jews designated the place and said: “That corner; use
that for a Jew.”

Father of Abraham, grave of Sarah, chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!
Akeldama in Jerusalem — the end of Sarah’s grave, the beginning of those
wanderings of the wandering Jew. The curses of the Arab, the psalms of the
pentecostal congregation, and the steady gale of the day of Pentecost have
driven the outcast Jew from his unwhitened graves. For Christ is everywhere. He
walks among the graves of strangers also. His relatives are there; Sarah looks
to Akeldama for her many children, before long, in the last day. She knows very
well that her great Son has achieved this, her Wonder-Child whom she bore and
nursed with such great difficulty.


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  CHAPTER 19: 14. CHAPTER 14: CHRIST BEING THRUST OUTSIDE OF THE SPHERE OF MOSAIC LAW
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C H A P T E R F O U R T E E N Christ Being Thrust Outside of the Sphere of
Mosaic Law And they themselves went not into the judgment hall,lest they should
be defiled; but that they might eat the passover. —John 18:28 b.

THOSE who would appreciate the suffering of Christ and the curse that accrued to
Him, those who would taste of the dregs of that passion, must return again and
again to the thought that Christ is being thrust outside of the sphere of law.
The concept of Christ as outlaw has appeared several times in this second
volume. We noticed that in the presence of Annas Christ was placed outside of
the sphere of canonical law. The servant who struck the Master on the cheek did
so in violation of law. We can say that at this time Christ was put outside of
the circle of civil law. Thereupon, we observed that Christ was defied on the
mountain of prophecy. They beat and they buffeted Him. In other words, the
leaders of the people cast Him out of the domain of ethical law. Anything was
good enough for Jesus. They could do as they chose with Him. Laws had not been
written with Him in mind. Therefore we say that Christ was set outside of the
sphere of ethical law, that is, of the decalogue. On this occasion that which
happened to Him before Annas was confirmed. He was treated as one having no
civil rights. Thus they were not only, in that first preliminary session of the
Sanhedrin before Annas, reaching back to the defiance heaped upon Christ after
the sentence of the Sanhedrin, but they were also reaching ahead to what is to
come now as they thrust Him out of the sphere of the ceremonial and symbolical
law. Not until this last thing has also been done is the work complete. Not
until then is the profanation of Christ as outlaw, at least in so far as His
people are concerned, entirely exhausted. Now the whole of the sacrosanct law
which God gave Israel can be subsumed under these three classifications: the
civil, the ethical, and the ceremonial. These three together constitute the law
according to which God led His people along the messianic way; through these He
realized His will and His counsel in effecting the history of redemption. Now if
Christ, because of the curse resting upon Him for our sin, must be made Christ
the outlaw, He must be completely thrust outside of the law. Otherwise His
suffering and His curse are not yet complete. It is not enough that they take
away from Him the protection of civil and ethical law. This process of removing
Him from the domain of right had to reach a sharper crisis: they had to cast Him
out of the sphere of the Mosaic, the ceremonial, the symbolical law also. Only
then, as far as Israel was concerned, would the task be completed. Only then
would Moses and the Prophets, the law and the prescriptions, in short, the whole
legislative activity of the Old Testament, the whole inspiration of the Holy
Spirit as it had been poured out in the Old Testament up to this time — only
then would these all arise in judgment against Christ who was made sin because
He was accursed for our sake. Only after Jesus had been plunged into an
externally perceptible judgment also would He who was called the Nazarene be
completely excommunicated by the Old Testament. Only then would they, in the
name of the messianic image, have rejected Him whom the image bodied forth. Only
then would Moses who gave the symbolical law, and Elias, who had again
intensified the force of that law for the indolent priests, the ignorant
prophets, and the indifferent kings, be officially summoned into judgment by the
people of Israel to testify against the Nazarene. Then only would the Jewish
nation in its ignorance, of course, but also while being fully responsible, hang
up the picture which is diametrically opposed to the one of Christ on the mount
of transfiguration. At the beginning of the gospel of the passion, Moses and
Elias had come to the mountain as messengers of God to tell Jesus that He must
die in Jerusalem, but also that He would in that fulfill the life work of Elias
and Moses. They emphatically call Jesus into the sphere of law. Christ who is
the origin, the mediator, the purpose, and the sublime, evangelical mystery of
their legal work —He is expressly called into the domain of that law. But could
the Christ on His way to His suffering have tasted of heaven’s luxury
unmolested? That would have been too much for Him. No, He will have to
compensate for all His joy: God will convert all His feasting into mourning.

Now God must convert into mourning the festival of His meeting with Moses and
Elias, who drew their circle around Him, saying: Thou belongest inside it.
However, Moses and Elias must now emphatically keep Him out of it, saying: Our
laws reject Thee; they do not pertain to Thee; they have no bearing on Thee.
Naturally, Moses and Elias will not do this themselves. The Sanhedrin will do
it; but by means of the Sanhedrin, God Himself will be doing this work, the God
of Moses and Elias. Just as God Himself later delivers up Christ to the cross by
means of Pilate, so God Himself now makes Christ an outlaw by means of the
Sanhedrin. God Himself now has become Christ’s enemy, excluding Him from the
area of relevance of all of Israel’s laws. Judas has betrayed Him, has he, and
Simon denied Him? Yes, and to this end: Moses will not deny Jesus; through Moses
God will excommunicate Him. For is He not the Surety?

Now note this. Christ can be harassed perfectly by the sombre counter-design of
the dazzling brilliance on the mount of transfiguration only when the people of
Israel and the Sanhedrin summon Moses and Elias into judgment against the
Nazarene. Now these two, and this time according to the inevitable logic of the
flesh to which the Judge on high affixes His seal, will again have to tell Jesus
that He will die in Jerusalem. They have given Him this message before; now they
must repeat it. But it is not they who fill in the details of the message. He
must die in Jerusalem, yes, and outside of the city gates. They must tell Him
that their sphere of law can contain Him no longer. That like a pariah He is
being cast out of the communion of Israel’s ritual, that He apparently is not
the comforting, mysterious secret of the law, that He has been made sin, and,
accordingly, that He is reckoned with those unholy ones whose life is a
continual warfare against the law. Moses and Elias must regard Him as the great
stumbling-block which stands in the way of a breaking through of evangelical
grace, the grace for which Moses as well as Elias was reaching.

Only when this has happened, only when the sphere of ceremonial law, too, has
driven Jesus of Nazareth out, crying ‘‘unclean, unclean” against Him, will
everything written in the Old Testament and in the whole law of revelation — by
unbelief of course, but through these by God the Judge also — be summoned into
judgment against Jesus of Nazareth.

Just that much happened to Him today. Unclean, unclean! God sends Moses in
pursuit of Satan, who comes to mobilize all of Jaweh’s laws against Christ, and
to excommunicate Him. We know that excommunication means to deliver the rejected
one up into Satan’s hand. The Jews do not have that in mind, it is true (p.
186), but God does. It is just that which God achieves through them.

Such is the awful significance of what is told us in our narrative by the finely
discriminating evangelist, John. What we have in our text is not a little
particular which at best has only a chronological significance. It is just this
chronological significance, however, which has occupied at least ten writers. We
read that the whole Sanhedrin arose but took great pains not to go into the
judgment hall lest they be defied for eating the Passover. No, this is no
insignificant detail. It is a real, historical complement to everything that has
gone before. It is a dogmatic amplification of the sombre fact of the curse
which God by means of the unspiritual, Jewish exegesis of the Old Testament
opposes to the Saviour of the New. We, accordingly, shall not delay long in
considering the matter of chronology which has set so many pens in motion. The
nature of this book keeps us from doing that. Suffice it to indicate the
argument of some to the effect that the chronological facts which John puts into
our text are in contradiction to the accounts of the other evangelists. They
believe, on the basis of what the other evangelists say, that the Passover meal
had been eaten on the morning of the day on which Christ was delivered up to
Pilate. John, according to them, is referring to that part of the program of the
feast which is still to take place. Now John says that the Jews refuse to go
into the judgment hall. Why did they refuse? The answer is that for them to
enter the hall of a heathen in this way would, according to the ritual, be to
defile themselves for the Passover. This they would circumvent, lest they should
have to eat the Passover with an uneasy conscience.

Now if it is true that the phrase “to eat the Passover” refers only to actually
partaking of the Passover lamb, we would have to agree that John’s presentation
of the chronology of events conflicts with that of the other evangelists. Others
have, however, satisfactorily explained the apparent difficulty. These maintain
that the phrase “to eat the Passover” may be used in a narrower and a broader
sense. Even though the phrase originally referred to the actual partaking of the
feast, the center of which, naturally, was the eating of the lamb, it is still
possible to deduce from several sources that the same phrase was used for such
activities of the feast as followed upon the actual Passover meal. The
celebration was by no means completed after the lamb had been eaten. Moreover,
the regulations governing Levitical cleanness were binding for these later
activities also. Hence the person who wanted to celebrate the feast, and who
wanted to take part in each of its activities and to conclude it with the
others, had to preserve the ritualistic regulations of cleanliness punctiliously
throughout the day in the manner designated by the law and custom regulating
feast days.

There is, therefore, no conflict at all between the several accounts of the
evangelists; no one need dispute the unity of the narratives. Accordingly, our
thoughts take a different direction as we read of the scruples which caused the
Jews to halt at the steps of the court house. This event gives us a glimpse of
the tragic conflict that exists between the Jewish externalization
(formalization) of the law and the revelation, and the true, messianic,
spiritual fulfillment of it. How meager and yet how human the Jews prove
themselves, to be here. They fear that they will not be able to partake of the
Passover because of a defilement which might be theirs if they should enter a
heathen house. They do conduct Jesus to Pilate, but they do not enter the
praetorium themselves lest it hamper them in carrying out their share in the
remaining schedule of the celebration. A superficial treatment could very easily
work out various contrasts here between the extravagant sin which the Jews are
willing to undertake, on the one hand, and the punctiliousness with which they
keep their days “clean,” on the other. Here is reason indeed for recalling
Jesus’ utterance about those who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Yes, we
will even go farther and say that at no time was the pronounced contrast between
the gnat and the camel as conspicuous as it is at this moment. While being
mocked and defied, Christ is delivered up to death by a most atrocious
injustice, and at the same time the letter of the law, amplified by human
customs, is being fastidiously observed.

However, it would not be appropriate for us to work out these pronounced
contrasts in a superficial and cynical fashion: it would not do for us to shake
our heads superciliously at the stupidity of those who are responsible for them.
Jesus never follows that method. There is something more than mere “pettiness”
at work here. In this also Pharisaism is but following the course of its own
intrinsic logic.

What we have here first of all is an “externalization” of religion. Christ was
the form, the purpose of all the laws that God gave to Israel. No one ever had
the key that would disclose the meaning of law, save Him who saw it as a
particular moment, as a unique phase, of that history of redemption in which God
throughout all the preceding centuries had searched out and pointed to the
Christ. But the Jews have thrown away the key which God gave them to the law.
They externalized the law; they made it a purely formal thing by explaining it
in terms of itself, by not allowing the evangelical light to throw upon the
screen the image of the meek, the lowly, the gentle Messiah which was contained
in the law. Once they had explained the law without reference to Christ Jesus
who was to come by grace, they proceeded to cut the “symbols” loose from the
“body,” the types from Him they typified, the ceremonies from the Spirit, the
lamb of the Passover from the Christ, ritualistic cleanness from regeneration,
the priests from the Chief Priest, the covenant fellowship of Israel from the
covenant fellowship of the new dispensation, the flesh of Abraham (his natural
fatherhood) from his faith (his spiritual fatherhood). It is this distorted
logic of an erroneous apperception of the Scriptures which expresses itself in a
rejection of the Christ at the same time that a painfully fastidious insistence
on the letter of the law is maintained. Such conduct lets the children of sin go
on cherishing the illusion that they are doing God a service by staying outside
of a pagan court, a court in which leavened loaves are served on the day of
unleavened bread. In the second place, we have here the tragedy of
self-assertion, a self-assertion which, once it had misunderstood God’s laws,
proceeded to add to them by means of human regulations. Once a person has lost
his hold on the spiritual content of the law, and has no further need of
penetrating what was at first the transparent wall of external ceremony with an
eye enlightened by the spirit, it must necessarily follow that a misdirected
zeal will make that wall firmer, denser, and sturdier, so that it may not be
broken down in all eternity.

Thus did the Jews add their stipulations to the law of God. In other words, they
emasculated God’s law by means of their human regulations. After all, the
stipulation that a pagan house could be entered only at the cost of ritualistic
defilement was one which could be found nowhere in the laws.[1] True, the law
indicated in Deu 16:4 prescribed that during seven days of the Passover season
the Jews might have no leaven in their house. But that prohibition says nothing
about shunning a pagan palace because of the fact that there is leaven in it.
The stipulation which the Jews feared so anxiously is one which the Rabbis and
Scribes have added to the regulations found in the canonical books. Similar
additions were those humanly contrived ones which Christ expressly opposed in
His conflict with the Pharisees and the Scribes. These all were the
interpretations of the Scribes, as we know them from the mishna, for example, in
which a law such as the one involved here is given. Not the Author of the law
but the false interpreters, the Rabbis, were responsible for such legal
interpretation. In this matter also “the great God proves to be more merciful
than the churchistic Jew. The rabbis had unnecessarily accentuated the
separation which God had intended to be temporary. Never had the law absolutely
prohibited the Jews from making contacts with a heathen, or with a heathen
house. What God had forbidden was the fellowship or the making of covenants with
pagans. When the Jews refused to enter Pilate’s judgment hall ‘lest they be
defiled’ (John 18:28) they simply proved to be the pitiable slaves of a
tyrannical formalism.”[2] Who now would dare to dismiss these Jews as people who
strain at gnats; who would dareto think that by dismissing them in that way he
had completely characterized the whole of their sinful attitude? Throughout the
centuries the tragic tale has been the same: the moment the liturgical man no
longer sees through the wall of symbols and of visible things in the city of
God, he inevitably falls into the habit of merrily spinning out human laws and
regulations. And in this respect also the Jew who shuns the praetorium will
experience precisely what everyone experiences who has not seen the
Christological significance of the Scriptures.

[1] Strack-Billerbeck,Kommentaar zun N.T. aus Talmud und Midrasch,Volume 2,
Excurs zum Todenstag Jesu, D. 11, p. 838.

[2] Dr. B. Wielenga,Van Jerusalem naarRome, Volume 1, p. 456, Kampen, J. H. Kok.
A third significance may be seen in this tragic event also. Not only do the Jews
assert themselves externally as a Hebrew nation over against heathendom when
they shun the praetorium of the procurators, but they also assert themselves
internally, that is, within the sphere of the Jewish congregation itself. There,
too, the priests and the members of the Sanhedrin want to maintain their dignity
as a privileged caste on this beautiful feast day. For, even if they had entered
the house of the pagan, they would have had a chance for active participation in
such activity of the celebration as still remained on the schedule. All that
they would have lost is the dignity of their position. Now we know that
throughout the Passover great caution in the matter of Levitical cleanness was
emphatically enjoined upon everyone as an important requisite. Each day, for
instance, the streets were swept. And when they were actually sitting at the
festal meal the liturgically clean had to be kept carefully separated from the
liturgically unclean. If they were walking on the carefully swept street, the
ritualistically clean persons enjoyed the middle of the road; the unclean had to
stay on the side. Moreover, there was a separate, high-flung arch through which
those passed who in a legal sense were clean. Those who were not had to take the
humbler side-route.[3] [3] Gustaf Dalman.Orte und Wege Jesu,3rd
edition,Gutersloh, 1924, p. 299.

Naturally, the Jewish authorities remembered that as they were at present they
could take that middle course, and in passing through the gate could take the
high route of clean people. In this we see the delight in preeminence, that
characteristic of the Jewish caste-spirit, asserting itself to the limit on the
day of Christ’s death. The Jewish leaders will not forfeit at any price the
privilege of that dignified procession along the middle of the thoroughfare and
through the gate which must be raised for them as they pass through it. They
want to appear as though they especially are crowned of God. This, then, is the
bitter irony in terms of which the Bible outlines a conflict between flesh and
Spirit as that struggle is carried out on the day of Christ’s death. The judges
of Israel insist on their rights of passage through the middle of the street
with a painful insistence. Meanwhile Jesus, as He who is unclean, is regarded as
being good enough for the unclean house of the pagan procurator. The Jewish
judges, those epigones of Moses, Aaron, and Solomon, and of all the prophets,
took great pains not to lose the privilege of passing through the high-flung
gate along the highway of the clean. But they see to it that Christ is thrown
outside of the gate as one accursed. This, too, is His passion. His people
deliver Him at Pilate’s door, but keep their own hands clean in their dealings
with the heathen. This people— and they are His own people—now sanction a method
of interpretation of the law which is a contradiction of itself. Only a
caricature of that law remains. The Word is at bottom cut loose from its
Speaker, the symbol from the law, the letter from the spirit.

That, therefore, which pushes Christ over the borderline is a conscious
insistence upon the line of demarcation which separates the profane province of
heathendom from the holy province of Israel. No one given to removing landmarks
could ever grieve Him as severely as these spiritual rangers are doing here. All
the symbols of the law were calling for Him, but He is cast out in the name of
that very symbolical service. As a monster born of God’s fruitful people, He is
brutally thrown out of the fellowship of the temple.

Nevertheless, it is not becoming for us to begin criticizing the Jews now, for
all those who have shared in the threefold guilt of externalization, of a
distortion of the Scriptures, and of self-assertion are essentially one with
these Jews, even though in themselves they have not the power, like the Jews, to
demonstrate the perverse logic of their own sins.

No, there is but one thing for us to do. We must stretch our hands out to the
Surety of our souls. He allowed Himself to be accursed by all that is law in our
stead. By suffering the passion of that curse, fully aware of its intensest
implications, and in obedience to His heavenly, that is, to His perfectly
exacting Judge, He entered into the great self-concealment which permanently
keeps the messianic suffering from being mitigated or tempered. It is in
concealment, that He Himself in His strong love publicly makes His debut for the
faith. The visible wall of external shadows and signs, to which the Jews have
added more and more stays, again becomes transparent to him who believes, for
Christ’s great light shines through it from the inside. Jesus endures the
suffering when they throw Him behind the gate of the heathen court, even though
they themselves refuse even to pass through it. He endures being classified with
barbarians. For He has great plans in mind. Presently He will show Simon Peter a
vision from heaven. A great sheet will be lowered from heaven in which both
clean and unclean animals will be presented as food (Acts 10). That event will
prove that the Surety who endured being segregated with the “sect” of the
barbarians is transferring those barbarians, together with the believing Jews,
to a new communion, to the universal world-unity of the new messianic humanity,
which will make all fleshly partakers of the Passover Lamb a “sect.” At the same
time in which Christ is being pushed behind the curtains of a pagan house, He
earns the right to rend the veil in the temple. He achieves the right to break
down the middle wall of partition, and to give to the former barbarians, to the
unclean pariahs, and to the abandoned heathen the fellowship of the Messiah of
the Scriptures. Accordingly, the hour in which the laws of Moses cast out the
Christ was an hour of world-renovating significance. The primary cry no longer
is, “Separate yourselves from the palaces of pagans.” The call now is, “Separate
yourselves from the essence of sin.” This moment caused schisms, yes. The
lawyers of Moses segregate themselves from Christ. They thrust Him out of their
fellowship. Naturally, their fellowship failed to flourish then, and that is a
comfort to no one. But there is another comfort now. It is that God has achieved
this schism through the Jews. It is to their detriment, but to the good of those
who are of Christ, for these all can flourish now by virtue of their genuine
root. With His own hand God cast Christ outside of the sphere of law. God
Himself kept the Jews back at the threshold of Pilate’s judgment hall. For the
whole law must make its demands on Jesus, in order that the whole law presently
may harmonize with the gospel.

Whoever has read the letter to the Galatians will appreciate why the Jews
shunned the judgment hall into which they threw the Christ. In this way, room
could be made in the Bible for the statement: “Christ has redeemed us from the
curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” Thus, too, room could also be made
for those other statements: “When the fullness of the time was come, God sent
out His son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under
the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because we are sons,
God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba,
Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a Son; and if a Son then an
heir of God through Christ.” “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
“Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the
law; ye are fallen from grace. For we through the spirit wait for the hope of
righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth
anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.” “For in Christ
Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but a new
creature and as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them and mercy,
and upon the Israel of God.”

Let us keep the feast in the palace of a pagan then, in the praetorium of
Pilate, for there we were born. The place was good enough for God to use as the
place in which to regenerate us through Christ’s Spirit. Let us keep the feast
in the court of the pagan, for it was there also that the Passover was slain for
us, the Passover who is Christ Jesus. It was slain on this side of the
threshold; it segregates us from those who are seeking Abraham’s house of
bondage. O incomparable irony! The Jews seek the house of bondage, but they make
pretensions to cleanness by calling that house unclean, and by shunning it. Now
they can keep the feast no longer. The house without which they cannot live is
barred to them: who, then, can keep the feast? As for us, we are led out of the
house of bondage and into the house of the Father. Let us then keep the feast,
not in the old leaven, or in the leaven of evil and of wickedness, but in the
unleavened bread of integrity and truth. For the account of Christ’s
excommunication through the lawgivers of Moses also serves as the Form written
by God Himself for our acceptance by Jesus Christ our Lord. God Himself wrote
that Form, and our High Priest, who was called leprous and unclean, read it to
us Himself. He is the clean Priest of God; He stands in the inner
sanctuary—there where He brought the loot of barbarians. A very great host they
were, and Moses did not reject them.


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  CHAPTER 20: 15. CHAPTER 15: CHRIST BEING RAISED ABOVE THE SPHERE OF MOSAIC LAW
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C H A P T E R F I F T E E N Christ Being Raised Above the Sphere ofMosaicLaw

Pilate went out unto them, and said, What accusation bring ye against this man?
They answered and said unto him,If he were not a malefactor,we would not have
delivered him up unto thee.Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye him,and judge him
according to your law. The Jews therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us
to put any man to death:that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he
spake, signifying what death he should die. —John 18:29-32.

ALL the evil that men contrive in this crooked world, God turns into good. The
very announcement which was given the brothers of Joseph is given to His
brethren today by a Greater than Joseph: “Ye thought evil against me; but God
meant it unto good.” This is just one more reason for saying to those who do not
dare to come near Him because of their sins: “Fear not, for I am in the place of
God” (Compare Gen 50:19).

You sense the point we want to make. We want to point out the harmony, the unity
of thought, between the preceding chapter and this one. In that chapter we
noticed that they are placing Christ outside of the sphere of Mosaic law. That
narrow place is altogether too holy for the profanest of Nazarenes. Therefore:
Cast Him out, cast Him out. But while that is going on, God, through whom that
same Son is lifted above the far too narrow sphere of the law and of the
dispensation of Moses, achieves another accomplishment for His Son. The Jews
say, “He stands outside of the law.” God replies, “He transcends the law.” He
who casts out degrades; He who lifts up, transcends. Thus did God exalt His Son
in the hour of His humiliation. Yes, it is true that the shadow of humiliation
is already falling upon the Son of man; even as it does so, however, it appears
that He is the exalted One. He is exalted by the death on the cross, exalted
presently above the clouds, exalted in order that all who believe may not perish
but may have everlasting life in Him. This Nazarene, God announces, cannot be
kept within the narrow sphere of Moses. Just as Moses raised the serpent—in the
wilderness, it is true—so must the Son of man be raised, not in a wilderness in
which a small congregation is hidden away, but in full view of the world. He
must be raised on a cross, and lifted high above the highest heavens. He Himself
announced this, signifying what manner of death He should die (John 12:32-33;
John 3:14). This it is which God confirms now as He arranges and directs the
history of the coming together of the Jews and the Romans in such a way that the
saying of His Son is fulfilled, signifying what death He should die.

We need not reproduce the narrative of the event at great length. The fastidious
Jews came to deliver Jesus up to the judge. When they reached the front of
Pilate’s praetorium they came to a halt, not daring to enter. Pilate soon knew
what they wanted. He went out to meet them; the judge came out to meet the
accusers. He did not insist upon himself, did not haughtily demand that they
should come to him when they wanted something. No, as a good diplomat, as one
who knows his business, he follows the customs of Rome’s colonial policy which
instructed its representatives not to ignore unnecessarily the fine points in
the religion of its vanquished peoples, but to reckon with these carefully.
Hence Pilate is not above coming out of doors and asking what they want.

We must say however, that this was a pathetic beginning of the day. Pilate
overlooks Moses, and honors the specific kind of religion which is called
Judaism. Such is his diplomatic art. But he fails to inquire into the essence of
religion. After a while he will ask, “What is truth?” “Moses” may continue to
occupy his little corner of the world as long as he does not interfere with
Rome. But there is no room for Christ today, for Christ comes to reveal the
hidden significance of Moses. He has come to set the essence of the cult free
from its ancient “forms”—and it is this role which will cost Him His life today.

Yes, this is the pathetic beginning of Pilate’s gloomy day. He ignores all
religions but the religion. He honors all religions but fails to ask Him who is
the essence of religion any questions except the dubious, “What is truth?” But
before Pilate reaches the point of asking even this question, he squirms and
twists himself into many contortions in an effort to rid himself of the case of
Jesus. At first he is inclined to revert the question which has been appealed to
him, to the Jews themselves. Not that he feels unqualified to take care of the
matter. No, not that. But all of these issues which arise out of the Jewish
religion are really too trivial and mean for his attention. Hence he asks the
Jews just what the charge against the man is. Now this was not merely a formal
question designed to get the proceedings under way. It is plain that Pilate is
really eager to return the issue to the Jews themselves. This becomes obvious
even before they have told him what the charge against the Nazarene is. Plainly,
then, when Pilate asks for their formulation of the charge, he is, as becomes
apparent later, trying to rid himself of the whole matter. But the Jews refuse
to go in that direction. They have staked everything on the attempt to have
Jesus condemned as a traitor to the state. Surely, it is not for nothing that
they have held that early morning session with a view to formulating the charge.

We know that the morning session of the Sanhedrin (Mat 27:1; Mark 15:1 a; and
Luk 22:66) was designed to plan as exactly as possible how to have the sentence
imposed by the Sanhedren carried out by Roman authority. They had looked for the
most expedient way of inducing Pilate to condemn Jesus as a traitor to the
state. The Jews do not want Jesus’ incompatibility with the law of Moses or with
the theology of Judaism pushed to the fore as the sole casus belli. They know
very well that Pilate will not allow himself to be hitched to a wagon of the
Jewish theologians. And even if he could be constrained to deliver Jesus up for
purely theological reasons, the responsibility for His death then would remain
squarely on the shoulders of the Jewish authorities. And who could predict how
the people would react if the Nazarene should be delivered up solely upon the
authority of their spiritual leaders? Who can tell? Today or tomorrow the people
might say: Why did you do that? No, no one could predict what capricious turn
the temper of the people might suddenly take. Therefore the Jews feel that the
more cautious thing to do is to place the responsibility for the final decision
into Pilate’s hands. The conclusive argument, then, which they could use to
vindicate the death of the Nazarene to each and every eventual critic, would be
that of the Roman governor himself, the one which none other than he had
officially brought into the foreground. This gives us the reason at once for
which the Jews do not wish to tell Pilate precisely which final conclusion the
Sanhedrin had reached. Under the direction of Caiaphas that session had found
Jesus guilty of blasphemy. But blasphemy is a theological issue, and what does
Pilate care about theology? No, they must give matters a different turn, must
carefully lead Pilate into another direction. Jesus must be condemned not
because He has blasphemed God, but because He has subverted the state.

Mark their tactics. They do not give a straightforward answer to Pilate’s
question. They present no legal paper upon which Caiaphas’ sentence has been
tersely and effectively epitomized. Instead, they evade Pilate’s question for
the moment. They say in effect: If this man were not really a malefactor
(suggesting that He is one, even according to Roman law), we would not have
brought Him to you. Now this sounds very much as if they were telling Pilate: Go
ahead; investigate the matter thoroughly, and you will find that He is indeed a
transgressor of the law which you as the Roman authority are pledged to protect
and uphold. And now begins that bidding against each other which is to
characterize the activity of the whole day. Pilate who fears very much that he
will trap himself in the snares which are lying about abundantly, tells the Jews
that they may take Jesus and judge Him according to their own law. Understand
that this is not an ironical utterance by which the haughty Roman more or less
sarcastically wanted to mock those who were seething around him. He was not
trying to suggest to them that they could not do anything without him anyhow.
No, this is a serious gesture on his part; he wants to have done with the case.
He gives the Jews the authority to act according to their own findings, and then
to give him a record of their decision, a petition for a writ of capital
punishment— demanded in that case, of course by the Jewish law—for his
signature. Note that he is not yielding an inch of his authority—to do that
might prove very costly later. But he wants to leave the tedious proceedings
entirely in the hands of the Jews. According to its own findings the Sanhedrin
may on the basis of its own precedent draw up the charge and fix the penalty.
Pilate can see later, then, whether the sentence can eventually be sustained.[1]

[1] This interpretation removes the objections which some have against saying
that Pilate’s statement was seriously intended. It avoids the solution according
to which Pilate spoke sarcastically on this occasion, a solution very hard to
sustain, and also harmonizes with the data of the text concerning the manner of
Christ’s death. If the Jews had been compelled to sentence Jesus on their own
responsibility, stoning would have resulted, and Pilate would officially have
allowed that. Concerning this issue, read also the rest of the chapter. In short
Pilate gives them a free rein. But it is just this free rein which they do not
want now. For if they are to be allowed to take the law into their own hands,
the Roman authority resting satisfied meanwhile with a “fiat,” their whole
programme as drawn up in the morning assembly would be nullified not only, but
the plan on which they had deliberated for weeks could then be said to have
practically failed. Not since morning but since weeks ago, they have intended to
see to it that Jesus be brought into conflict with Roman law. This is very
apparent from Luk 20:19-20. What we read there proves beyond a doubt that the
Jewish leaders long ago understood that because of the people they would have to
proceed very care fully. The question about whether Jesus was of God or of Satan
might become an embarrassing one. Hence they “took note of Him then.” They kept
spies around Him in the secret hope that these would find reasons for delivering
Him up into the hands of the procurator and the rulers of the city. Now it seems
as if this carefully contrived programme is to be nullified in a moment by the
suggestion of the haughty Pilate. No, no, they do not want that. The “royal”
gesture of this Roman official is altogether too objectionable to these servile
natures. They do not want to cast Jesus out on their own authority; hence they
insist upon a formal, disciplinary investigation against Jesus. It is designed
by all means to put him to death under the Roman yoke. Hence they reply just as
formally as Pilate spoke, that they have not the authority to put anyone to
death. Very diplomatically they insist upon strictly legal procedure. A
comparison of their attitude at this time with the one they carry out against
Stephen, who was stoned by the Jews, proves beyond a doubt that they were not
morally sincere in this insistence.

Bidding against each other, turning and twisting about—surely, all this is a
very petty business, and yet in this, too, the wisdom, and counsel, and majesty
of God are apparent. For John adds to his account of the event: “And this took
place in order that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which He spake,
signifying what death He should die.”

What death . . . what manner of death. It is in reference to this that their
humanly contrived machination again touches on the solid bottom and carefully
arranged plan of divine prophecy. Right now, at this first contact between the
Jews and Pilate, the shadow of the cross falls upon the corridors of the
praetorium. And it is God Himself who puts the sun of prophecy, the passion of
Christ, and this madding of the Jews into such an integral relationship with
each other that the shadow of the cross must indeed fall upon this palace. For,
in the counsel of God, the issue in this matter is the manner of the death which
the Christ should die. Suppose for a moment that Jesus had actually been put to
death without a direct participation in the trial on the part of the Roman
authorities as represented in Pilate. Then Jesus would have been stoned but not
crucified.

Stoning, we know, was the Jewish method of execution; crucifixion was that of
the Romans. From God’s point of view, the question now is whether Jesus is to be
sent to His death by the bastard sons of Moses, or by the nails of the soldiers
of Rome, that typical Beast of the world. Is the death of Jesus to be carried
out solely within the narrow walls of the house of Moses, the house in which his
bastard sons are rising up against the faithful Interpreter and Fulfillment of
Moses? Or is the death of Christ, which is to include all heaven in its sweep,
also to perturb and move the whole earth, not excluding the heathen? Is the
brass serpent to be raised only in the restricted and degraded area of the
malicious Jews, or is that serpent, in the form of its counter-image in the Son
of man, to be raised on the horizon of all nations, and of all men? Is the death
of Christ to be the act of a sect—the Jews are just that at the very moment in
which they put their king-Messiah to death—or is it to be the sentence of the
whole world, the universal finding of Jews and barbarians together? Indeed, God
cannot do without the barbarians: all flesh must put the Son to death. Just at
this time, just when a combination is effected at the door of God’s house, God
intervenes and directs the wicked business which each is conducting to its own
ends for opportunistic reasons, to the end which He Himself has in mind.

Jesus is to die. Yes, but in the manner which God has appointed for Him. He must
be lifted up so that all may see Him. His cross must be raised, not in the gloom
of a Jewish temple, or of a rabbinical college, but under the full sun of the
world and of world economy. His cross must be raised at the crossroads of the
world where the nations meet and pass.

Just that is the meaning of our text which tells us that Jesus’ own statement
still had to be fulfilled, His saying, signifying what death He should die. Now
the concept of revelation which God gives us in this text will become meaningful
to us the moment we relate it to what we were told earlier in the Gospel. There
are several utterances of Christ which point in the same direction as this one
recorded by John. We all think in this connection, for instance, of John
13:14-15 : “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish,
but have everlasting life.’’ We also think of John 12:31 a, John 12:32-33, where
Jesus says: “Now is the judgment of this world; and I, if I be lifted from the
earth, will draw all men unto me; this He said signifying what (manner of) death
He should die.” Moreover, in this connection a light is also shed upon Mat
20:18-19 : “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be betrayed
unto the chief priests and unto the Scribes, and they shall condemn Him to
death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles, to mock, and to scourge, and to
crucify Him, and the third day He shall rise again” (See Mark 10:33-34; Luk
18:32-33).

Now if we put these scattered statements into relation with each other (as is
the duty of any exegesis that is faithful to the Scriptures), we see that the
manner of Christ’s death is not an accidental one; it is not a merely regional
or historical particular, hardly essential to the whole, but it responds fully
to the logic of God, and to the logic of the events as they are described here,
and are arranged and governed by the history of special revelation. Jesus might
not and could not be stoned within the limits of Mosaic law, for He wanted to be
lifted up. To be lifted up. In other words, He must be advertised; He would have
world-wide publicity. He would be a universal sign. The journal kept by a
decaying Sanhedrin is too trivial for Him; His name and the proceedings of His
trial must be taken down in the annals of the world. Men must be able to see Him
from all sides. In a time of world-crisis, He would “be lifted up from the
earth.” For He affects everyone. Therefore He must go to the heathen. He must be
raised on the cross, He must be “lifted up.” The phrase is rich in meaning. On
the one hand, it gives expression to the fact that one who is crucified is
raised from the earth, is put on display above the heads of the spectators, is
made a “spectacle” to those who would see it. In this sense, the phrase
represents a very concrete expression of the manner of Christ’s death, and
nothing more than that. In another sense, it transcends the scope of concrete
language. The idea of “being lifted up” must also be developed in a theological
sense. It may be true that the raising, the public manifestation, of the
crucified Jesus is an act of men, but it is also an exaltation on the part of
God, the God of the whole world. He and He first of all is the one who exhibits
the crucified Son to the whole world. Moses raised the brazen serpent on a rod
in order that a whole people, a whole community of those who were wrapped in
death’s folds, might see it. That serpent had to shine forth above the white
tents of those who had been summoned to die, and even over the curtains of the
temple behind which God dwelt, but dwelt in concealment. Just so Jesus must be
lifted up today, and publicly exhibited (Col 2:14-15). For Jesus is the sign of
redemption who affects everyone in His death. God points to Him as such a sign,
points to Him as He hangs suspended above the white tents of the children of
death, and above the wasted and abandoned temple. Therefore we can say that the
lifting up of Christ on the cross is indeed an indication of the world-wide
significance of the cross. God cannot be contained within a stone temple; nor is
there a temple court to which God can be restricted when He comes to die in His
human nature. The law of Moses rejects the Christ; that much we saw in our
preceding chapter. But the rejection was really His own doing. He did not wish
to die in solitary confinement, in a sectarian corner in which the company of
Moses—according to the flesh—was old, decadent, and about to fade away. No,
there is no esoteric sect, no part of the globe, within whose confines one can
limit Jesus, or within which He can be sent to an anonymous death.

Indeed He is cast outside of the sphere of Mosaic law, but it is precisely by
such rejection that He is glorified, for by means of it He reaches His own
destination. Above the narrow confines which the yardstick of God or of Satan
has marked out in the past Christ would be lifted up as a sign to the whole
world. This cycle of thought leads us even higher. We can work out the
phraseology of Christ’s being “lifted up” on the cross in still another
direction. The Bible passes from a consideration of the concept of world-wide
manifestation to the idea of Christ’s being exalted above the earth in heavenly
glory. In John 3:14 Christ demonstrated that His cross was a world-symbol. In
John 12:32 He presents it as the beginning of His permanent glorification. Via
crucis via lucis. Even in death the way of triumph over the world is also the
way of world-vanquishment unto life. And in John 3:14 Jesus presents Himself to
us as the sign of the brass serpent—but in fulfillment, of course. Now we know
that this consummated serpent has not been raised to the right or to the left of
a little alley, or of our own street, but that it stands highly exalted as a
world-symbol at the very extremity of our horizons. But that which stands at the
extreme end of our horizon merges with the heaven of God’s glory even as we
watch it. Everything which rises above the earth raises its crest into heaven.
Thus Jesus passes from John 3:14 to John 12:32. Therefore it is not only in an
eschatological sense that for him who looks at it in faith the cross of Christ
stands at the extremity of his horizon, but it is also true that in an axiomatic
sense it stretches out as a symbol of victory into the highest heaven. As such
the cross is indeed the beginning of the resurrection, the ascension, the being
raised to God’s right hand, the second coming, and the final judgment. Thus the
great God who confines the wise in their conceits directs this competitive
bidding of the anxious Jews and the cautious Romans to His own end. It is God
Himself who rescues Jesus from the far too narrow sphere of Moses. The Jews may
reject Him—as we saw in our preceding chapter. It could not be otherwise, for
Jesus Christ had long outgrown the narrow confines of Mosaic restriction. The
stream of redemption could not be restricted to the slender trickle of a private
fountain, to initiates in the holy corridors of Moses. Christ had to break
through the bonds of Moses; He had to stand at the extremity of the wide horizon
of Moses’ ancient jurisdiction. Every demagogue in Israel cries aloud: Cast Him
out, cast Him out! God says: He is beyond it already. And everything that these
excommunicants plan for His humiliation God turns to good. He makes it the
beginning of glorification. A heavenly light falls on the crooked transaction
going on between the Jews and the Romans. “Come to His glory, all ye people, and
worship it, O my soul.” The Jews are sealing their own fate. They thrust Jesus
out of the cabinet of Moses but in spite of themselves, they lead Him to the
place where He had to be. For He wished to be on the inclusive, world-wide
domain of Romans, Greeks, of the dwellers in Asia Minor, of Europeans, of
Batavians, and of those on the faraway isles. They bring Jesus to His own
destination, for His destination is the world. They drive Jesus out to His
profanum vulgus. Praise God for that, for now we are His concern, we are the
profanum vulgus, and we understand very well that He who was bound, governed
those who bound Him. The province over which Pilate has authority has placed
Jesus and the “common people” under one and the same sign, and has done so by
the will of the Lord. Wist ye not that He must be in the province of His
brethren? He had to be lifted up, and even those on the most distant shores
shall see Him and be satisfied.

AH this was God’s work. The calendar-wisdom taught us in the grammar school has
a way of beginning the story of our national history with the coming of the
Batavians to our shores, and of passing on then to the Roman invasion. But the
background even of this national history must be found in the realm of the
Spirit. No one can tell the truth about that history unless he has understood
John 18:29-32. There the Jews bring Jesus to the realm of the Romans — and of
the Batavians. Presently the praetorium of Pilate will become the crucial point
of the world empire as it is to reveal itself through the centuries, and as it
will grow in all the spheres of mundane culture and of wicked world unity.

Whoever has seen these things in this light—for this is the line of prophecy
which relates Rome to Babylon, the Caesar to the Antichrist, and the chair of
Pilate to that sea of nations mentioned in Revelation 13 — will understand that
the dignified Jews, those who bound my Lord Jesus, are themselves bound by the
ropes of God. They bring Jesus the Christ to the realm over which the Antichrist
will some day rule. He too will stand at the extremity of the world’s horizon.
He too will say: I am the Son of Man and must be lifted up; I must be exalted; I
must be ever exalted. And He will add: I shall do this directly—no cross, no
humiliation, and no ascension for me. I shall do it in my own strength.

Now we thank Thee, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst constrain the Jews
to bring Jesus to His own place. We thank Thee, Father of all nations, that Thou
didst base the feast of Pentecost on this unworthy human business. We thank Thee
for protecting missions by keeping the Jews from yielding to Pilate when He
wanted to rid himself of Jesus. Teach us to tremble before Thee, Father, for all
those who still cast Jesus out of the narrow confines of their own selves are
merely bringing Him to His own spacious destination. Jesus can be seen only as
one raised above every sphere—He falls, and sits, and hangs, and is enthroned
above the globe. The condemnation is not a private but a universal matter.
Therefore it becomes personal, as personal as life, and as God, and as — grace.
And we thank Thee for another thing. We thank Thee for light, for the light
which shines through the gloom of this sombre transaction. The rays of the
ascension of Jesus Christ and of His high exaltation are playing upon this night
of sins and sects. Jesus must be lifted up. The manner of His death, although it
is fully informed by the curse, must be such as to make a world symbol of that
death. And this is to mark Christ’s transcendence over the vicious circle of
temporal and earthly restrictions and is to make us know that the Saviour is
great in His eternal strength. He is being delivered up to profane heathendom
but even as this takes place, He as the Son of man annexes unto Himself the host
of God’s elect. He becomes the Kurios, the Lord. His thorn-crowned head touches
on heaven; it reaches the horizon. Now He draws all angels unto Himself. He
becomes the Kurios. He is raised to the Father’s right hand. Thence He places
His own hand on the great domain of the whole Cosmos, a cosmos which can be
governed only from the most exalted of thrones. He becomes the Kurios; buffeted,
cast out as He is, He will draw all men unto Him. He is rejected; He is cut
loose from Moses. He will draw all men, will be the magnetic center of His own
realm. Isaiah, Isaiah, they are barring Him from the Testimony, but He confirms
His instruction among His disciples. He draws them, calls them out of the snare.
For God so loved the world that He gave His Only-Begotten Son, so that all those
who are bitten by the snake, and therefore struggling with death now, might look
up to the cross of Jesus, and thus—not by a miraculous but by a true saving
faith—have eternal life in the exalted Christ.

There are these crucial points in the Bible which we may not ignore. The Jews
say to Pilate: We may not put Him to death. Do you decide His case on the basis
of your world authority. And it is just this decision which rescues the feast of
Pentecost, the missions of my church, the victory of the kingdom of heaven, the
triumph of the Spirit over the Beast, the universal significance of the struggle
of those last witnesses who will prophesy in the spiritual Sodom and Egypt, and
the return unto judgment. Just as the lightning cannot be kept within the domain
of Moses or within the sphere of any other man, but must shine from the East to
the West, lightening the whole sky, so shall the coming of the Son of man be.
Today He Himself has indicated and has had reported in the universe of God what
manner of death He should die. His death is not to be the act of a peculiar sect
any more than God’s lightning is that, and all who excommunicate Jesus, the
universal Son of man—surely all these are but a sect. But I believe the holy
catholic Christian Church. Why? For many reasons. But also for this one: He
suffered under Pontius Pilate. I hope to remember this at church next Sunday
night.


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  CHAPTER 21: 16. CHAPTER 16: CHRIST ACCUSED UPON THE ROYAL MOUNTAIN
========================================================================

C H A P T E R S I X T E E N Christ Accused Upon the Royal Mountain And they
began to accuse him saying, We found this fellow subverting the nations,and
forbidding to give tribute to Caesar,saying that he himself is Christ,a King.
—Luk 23:2.

WE know then that everything that took place had to lead to Christ’s being
lifted up on the cross. Now, however, the question arises: along what avenues,
by what channels, does God conduct Christ to this particular kind of death? Just
how does it come about that the cross does indeed become the culmination point?
The answer can be very briefly stated. In order to bring Christ Jesus to the
cross, God allowed Him to be accused upon the royal mountain. Christ is placed
over against Caesar. Caesar has wood and Caesar has nails. He protects his crown
and his cup by a series of crosses. In this way Satan goads Caesar on to build
his crucifixes. And thus the Lord also provokes Caesar to construct his crosses.
For of this circumstance it is also true that although human beings carry it
out, although human beings buffet Christ with the cudgel of the kingship He
boasts of, it is God Himself who realizes His will through those human beings,
and who through their agency directs things in such a way that they achieve His
purpose. That purpose, we know, was the cross. It was also the being lifted up,
the exaltation on that cross.

Let us note first how the people look upon this matter. Just what are the Jewish
authorities doing? Just what have they in mind? Now it is quite in accordance
with what went before that the Jews, in their accusation of Christ, bring the
element of the kingship into the foreground. When they were together in their
own assembly, they charged the Christ with blasphemy, and mocked and despised
Him as a prophet. But on this occasion they strike a different chord. From their
point of view, there were good reasons for the change. Just what, indeed, could
they hope to gain by talking of blasphemy to Pilate? Not that blasphemy is not a
serious breach of law. But as a charge against a prisoner in this case, it
certainly had its disadvantages, for blasphemy is a crime committed against the
name of Jaweh. And, unfortunate as it may be for them, the name of Jaweh was
written only upon the first table of Israel’s law. And the matters contained in
the first table of the law are such as the tolerance of rulers is perfectly
willing to countenance. What people, we might ask, have not a “first” and
“second” table of laws? The first table pertains “only” to religion. It is the
second which has a wider relevance and more practical implications. Such is the
argument of the world’s usurpers; such is also the argument of Rome. If the Jews
report that Jesus is sinning against the third commandment of the law of Jaweh,
Pilate can hardly be expected to listen to them. After all, that third
commandment concerns the name of Jaweh “merely.” Surely Pilate cannot be said to
have much concern about the name of the god of all Jews. That is simply a
question of theology, of Jewish theology, you understand. But what substitute
charge is there at hand? If the charge of blasphemy will prove ineffective, what
alternative is there? Prophecy, perhaps?

No, prophecy will not do. If they push Christ to the foreground as a prophet,
that is, as a prophet in His own estimation of Himself, and if they make that
the accusation against Him, Pilate will be as little impressed as if they use
the accusation of blasphemy. After all, prophets are perfectly harmless
creatures as long as they engage in their nebulous activity of draping the
clouds. They become dangerous only when they lay their hands upon the curtains
of king’s palaces and of worldly tribunals, in an attempt to arrange and fold
these, or to open and close them. No, the self-arrogated prophetic role of the
Nazarene, too, will not serve as a suitable accusation. If only these two
charges which the Sanhedrin finally have left, those of blasphemy and of
prophecy, are to be raised in the debate before Pilate, the action of the
Sanhedrin and the politics of the day are, if you will, foredoomed to fail.

No, no, they must draw up a more concrete charge than those. Somehow they will
have to pass from the first to the second table of the law. For just as easily
as Rome leaves the matters contained in the first table of the law to God and
the gods, just so punctiliously does mortal man insist upon the rights set down
in the second table as he sees and manipulates them for himself. Especially
insistent is he when the matter concerns the commandments of the second table as
they are when they are isolated from those of the first. Mortal men understand
very well that the case of Jesus must be presented to Pilate very differently
from the way in which it was presented to the Sanhedrin. That is why the fifth
commandment is substituted for the third, and is placed in the foreground by
these armor-bearers of the law of the Lord. The third commandment makes mention
of the name of the Lord and it is that name which Jesus is supposed to have
blasphemed. But to tell Pilate this would be to leave him quite unaffected. The
fifth commandment, however, deals with the concept of authority, and puts the
Son of man into a certain relationship over against the government. Now
“government” is a term to which Pilate can easily respond; especially so if the
first predication of the second table (the one pertaining to authority) is
isolated from the first table of the law. For Pilate regards himself as a ruler,
not by the grace of the Supreme Lawgiver of all Jews, nor of their God Jaweh,
who wrote the first table of the law of Moses and who allows no Caesar or
governor any authority except as it is derived from Him. No, Pilate would be
ruler by the grace of his own self-sufficient person, by the grace of Rome, and
of its theomorphic Caesar.

Therefore, if Jesus of Nazareth and His cause is to affect Pilate at all, if
Pilate is to be moved to act against Jesus quickly, no better charge is
available than the one that Jesus is a rebel to the government, is a rebel to
the sovereignty of Rome and of all of her subjects. Once the case of the
Nazarene has been successfully transferred from the first to the second table of
the law, the charge against Him can be formulated quickly. “We found Him,” they
say, “forbidding to give tribute to Caesar. Why does He forbid it, you wonder?
Because He says that He Himself is ‘Christ, a King’.” This nicely formulated
charge fits into the framework of the deliberations of the Sanhedrin perfectly.
Once the case of Jesus has been transposed from the first to the second table of
the law, the Jews had to degenerate to this way of “interpreting” the concept of
the Messiah. You remember that when the issue of Jesus’ Messiahship had been
raised for discussion in the Sanhedrin, it had been explained in terms of these
two concepts: the name of God, and prophecy. But now that they have to make the
notion of the Messiah vivid and concrete to the mind of Pilate, that same
Sanhedrin explains the term as one which refers to those other two concepts: the
name of the king and the kingship. Thus did the Bearer of the loftiest
conceivable majesty suffer the accusation of having blasphemed majesty. He who
was sent out by the supreme authority of the world, and who was clothed in that
same authority, is delivered up as a rebel against authority; He is introduced
to the secular judge by His own people as a subverter of the nation. He is said
to be an enemy of the state and this is their interpretation of the Messiah,
mark you, not of Jesus of Nazareth, but of the Messiah as He was essentially.
“He says He is the Messiah” they say, and they add, “That implies that He thinks
of Himself as a King. Draw your own conclusions, representative of Rome and
friend of Caesar.”

We may not ignore this last element. Prompted by a hatred for Jesus of Nazareth,
Israel appeals to the sense of authority inherent in a Roman governor, and does
not hesitate in its conflict with this bearer of the messianic idea to deny that
very idea itself. By so doing, Israel forfeits its innocence; every last bit of
it. This proves that it was not an intellectual error but an ethical perversion
which delivered Jesus into pagan hands. These are not Sauls, breathing out
threatenings and slaughter against Jesus, while continuing to hold high the idea
of the Messiah, for these Jews are selling the Messiah without regard to any
other forms of revelation in which He might appear. It is plain: A Messiah wants
to be king—hence He is a threat to the state. Away with Him: take Him away. Can
we say that this is the work of zealots? No, it is that of politicians who know
what they are doing. Formally they adhere to their point of departure, yes. In
the official session of the Sanhedrin, Jesus had indeed been condemned as one
who arrogated the name of the Messiah to Himself. But now that they are in
Pilate’s presence, they explain the conclusion they have come to, not in their
own theological sense of it, but as it will make its best appeal to Pilate’s
political way of thinking.

Besides, they introduce evidence to prove their contention. Observe how they
proceed. They immediately strike the formal note. We found—those are their
words. After due investigation, they suggest, we are compelled to conclude that
this man is a traitor to the state. That is the sense of their charge. This
charge they proceed to substantiate by various subordinate arguments. The fact
that Jesus proclaimed Himself to be a king has had two effects, they allege. The
first is that He has provoked a tumult among the people (“subverts the nation”).
The second is that He has forbidden giving tribute to Caesar. They assert that
Jesus, because of His messianic pretensions, stands as an obstacle in the way of
the regular collection of taxes. It is worth remarking here that the sense of
their accusation is not that Jesus merely excites dissatisfaction among the Jews
in the matter of taxation, but that He actually is an obstacle to the collection
of taxes.

These were serious charges and are such as directly affect Pilate. Just how
cleverly the Jews set this trap appears from the fact that in their reference to
“subverting the nation” they use a word in which Israel is described not as a
spiritual, religious community, far exalted above other peoples, but simply as a
political unit such as those other nations over which the Roman scepter holds
sway.[1] They are glad to humiliate themselves before Pilate, to play the role
of a condescending province of Rome. They are only a political unit, one which
like others enjoys a place in the Roman scheme. They rest in that role gladly,
for, now that they deliver up the Christ “an sich,” they also sell themselves.
They come with the complaint that Jesus is stirring up the people and that He is
interfering with the orderly collection of the taxes. Can you not see, Caesar,
that the province is in danger?

[1] Compare Nebe,op. cit.,pp. 2, 37, 435.

Now he who sees things spiritually and has an eye for what is going on in the
Kingdom of heaven, knows that the passion of Christ in suffering these things
was a terrible one. His is a great suffering. Nevertheless God wished it. God’s
counsel was realizing itself in this crooked human transaction. We must note
that now.

We said that Christ was being accused upon His royal mountain. That is using
figurative language, which, as you have surmised, corresponds to that other
figurative description which induced us to point to Christ on the prophetic
mountain (chapter 9).

We are concerned here with Christ’s kingship, and also with His prophecy. He is
not the first king, but He is the pleromatic king of Israel. No, not the first.
From Christ’s point of view Israel has had many kings. But He is the pleromatic
king. The theocratic kingship was given its pleroma, its fulfillment, in the
Christ. He completely fulfilled the law of the office of the kingship in this
God-founded messianic state. Completely and genuinely He preserved the real
life, the pure essence of the kingly office by means of His messianic work.
Moreover, He gave an appropriate revelation to this latent essence. This He did
so faithfully and so fully, that He completely fulfills and expresses the law of
the kingship.

Therefore we say that Christ is standing on the mountain of Israel’s kingship.
He stands on its very peak. But that is something which no one will ever see
from a carnal point of view. It is a part of Christ’s passion and obedience that
the zenith, as the language of the angels would designate it, is a nadir in
human language, that is, in the language of unbelieving men.

We know that the person who can only see the tangible and obvious thinks of the
kingship as an office with a great deal of external glamour. To him the king is
one who can be seen from a great distance. One of the terms used to designate a
king in the Hebrew language gives expression to this external obviousness of the
king’s rank.[2] But in Israel, the people of revelation, God, the Sovereign of
kings, has said other things, sublimer things, things touching on redemption
about the king and his office. In the messianic, theocratic state the essence of
the kingship resides in precisely that which is not obvious to the eye. The
external glamour—a crown, a throne, a diadem, a palace, a great host of
people—is merely the shell, the husk. But the mystery of faith, the great,
messianic mystery, the message of revelation, which makes the king a type of the
Messiah—these all are the core, the kernel, the fruit contained within the
shell.

[2] Nagid, root n-g-d.

Therefore the history of Israel’s kingship, and of the house of David to a
certain extent, cannot be written as it should be unless these last
considerations are placed in the foreground. Observed from the viewpoint of the
flesh, the king is the chosen one, the gracious, the rich, the heavily armed.
But from the point of view of the theocratic word and programme the king is the
heavily laden one (he comes not to be served but to serve), the oppressed one
among the oppressed many, the meek and lowly and defenceless one of whom the
prophet Zechariah said such glorious things, that is, poor things.[3] When the
flesh essays to write an epic about the Highest King on the royal mountain you
will hear the strophes of war resounding in sonorous cadences. You will be
presented with a picture of a king at the head of his army, of one who counts
his soldiers by the thousands, of one who occupies the preeminent position in
the world. The “royal mountain” becomes a king of projection of human size and
scope. But when the Spirit sings its songs about the Highest King, as He stands
upon the mountain of all kings taken together, the great mystery is revealed.
Then it appears that the king of the consummated royal power can achieve His
theocratic zenith only if He can and will at the same time pass through His
nadir—His nadir as the world sees it. He must be poor, defenceless, servile,
heavy-laden. Not that this king will be unable to transcend these: for from now
on, from this nadir on, we shall see Him—familiar words[4] —in His power, a
power which will also have an external expression in the form of mighty and
irresistible works. But. He must experience the kingship first in the dark, deep
valley of annihilation—for it is there that victory begins for Him. That is His
nadir—that is the offence and foolishness.

[3]Christ in His Suffering,chapter 8, p. 127 f. and 136 f.

[4] This volume, p. 139 f. [Chapter 7, “Christ Vanquishing the Vicious Circle as
the Son of Man”] The important question therefore is whether His suffering, His
disrobing, His disarming, is recognized as being His pleroma. Whoever has
appreciated the law of revelation in this matter knows that the pleromatic
Prince of Israel will achieve His zenith in this way, even though the world says
that He has been cast into the pit of utmost limitation. He, however, who does
not understand that law reserves a place in the nadir of humility, in the deep
abyss of nakedness and ministration, only for the slaves. And He points the way
of such a servant to a grave diametrically opposed to those of the hero-princes
of the realm of David. Meanwhile, of course, he melts the iron for a chariot of
war and also the gold for the diadem of his chosen ruler.

These two lines have crossed each other throughout the centuries. From the time
of David to the time of his Son the one line looks for the peak of the
pleromatic David—there where the world seeks out and finds its zeniths. That is
the first line. The other seeks the zenith in the service, the surrender—for the
Spirit calls this nadir the true zenith. That is the second line. The first line
follows Saul in his desire to be autonomous; it drinks the blood of God’s
faithful priests; or it hurls its spear—perhaps its invectives—at the man chosen
by God and by the Word. And the same line, the line of the flesh, follows David
as he counts the people, as he compares his rank with the kings of the world, as
he measures himself with a worldly yardstick, and weighs himself in a worldly
scale—so many soldiers, so many wagons, so many arsenals, so many subjects. That
line also took the course of all those, either inside or outside of David’s
house who reckoned the worth of Israel’s crown in terms of its gold content, and
compared it with the other crowns of leading Asiatic powers of the day. All
these have defied Israel, the bride of God, with their eyes, and have degraded
the theocratic king. He had to be a friend of the bridegroom, a friend of the
Lord Himself. A friend rejoices in and is proud of the fact that the groom has
his bride and he himself can reverently recede. The friend comes to serve, not
to be served. But here the friend of the groom becomes his enemy: he steals the
bride for himself after he has defiled her (see John 3:29). But the second and
better line, the line of the Spirit and of the history of redemption, was
pursued by Samuel and the prophets. It was followed also by David when he sang
those psalms of the King of glory, who comes to the world in poverty, it is
true, but also full of grace. It pursues David as he weeps his tears on Ornan’s
threshing floor and as he refuses to sacrifice unless he himself ministers the
sacrifice. In this moment of the darkest gloom, then, these two lines bisect
each other. Jesus stands at the point of bisection. He must keep His course
unimpaired to the end. Commit Thy royal way to the Lord, O Christ, and do not
ask whether He shall bring it to pass (see Psa 37:5). Perhaps someone will say
that this has happened before. It has, and in this same passion week. The line
of the flesh and the line of the spirit have met in enmity before. We referred
to it then.[1] This first conflict took place at the time of the triumphal entry
into Jerusalem but that occasion and this one are not the same. Then it was
Christ who took the initiative and who, by means of a genuine preaching of the
true king of meekness, spread the gospel among His strayed and foolish people.

[1]Christ in His Suffering, Chapter 8. But now this study has reached its second
volume. In this one it is a bound Christ who stands over against the government.
His is no more the privilege of free speech. No, the occasions are not alike.
Then it was the Christ Himself who could and had to unravel the skein of the
thought of His “fleshly” people. If He had not done so, He would have had to
take the responsibility Himself for the heresy which is nailing Him to the
accursed tree.

Today the problem is a more complicated one for Christ. He sees the knot into
which the foolish thoughts of all these people have become complicated. He may
not leave it as it is. In Pilate’s presence, by means of his active obedience,
He must again trace the straight line in defining His kingship—that is, the
straight line of prophecy. And this must be done in a manner which not only
keeps Him caged in by that skein, but also in a manner which makes Him the
sacrifice in the clash between Spirit and flesh which ensues when each
represents the kingship in its own way.

Yes, Christ, it is very difficult climbing on this mountain of all the kings of
the theocratic realm. Thou hast been pushed very far into the valley of
humiliation. So far that now the privilege of taking the initiative — surely a
privilege peculiarly a king’s prerogative and glory — is no longer Thine. Dost
Thou still remember, O Christ, how blessed that experience was for Thee? To be
able to take the initiative, when Thou — it was but a very short time ago —
badest the sick to come to Thee and when Thou didst keep the royal feast, the
feast of a lowly and defenceless prince, with the miserable ones in
Jerusalem.[1] Dost Thou remember? But how forget? Thou thinkest all things, and
rememberest all. Therefore taste now, stop and taste now, O Jesus Christ, here
on the top of the mountain of Israel’s kings, how bitter are the dregs of this
subordination, of this utter restriction. The right of initiative is Thine no
longer. Thou canst no longer present Thy problem independently, O Evangelist of
Jerusalem.

[1]Christ in His Suffering:“Christ Relating Children’s Games to Universal
Prophecy,” p. 144. [9th paragraph from end of chapter]

Yes, all that is past now, all that is gone. Our second volume sees Christ in a
different legal relationship than our first saw Him. In these two lines there is
much source material for the church and for its dogmatics. Christ stands on the
royal mountain, but it is precisely there that He stands in statu servi, in the
form of a servant — nay, in the guise of a slave. To the law He is a slave. The
clash between the prophecy of His Spirit and the description of the
caricaturists of His true kingship sprang from Himself when He triumphantly
entered into Jerusalem. That is why we discussed so long and so eagerly the
“circumlocution” which He effected there.[2] Yes, He did the deed, Father in
heaven. The delight in the deed was His then. But now there is only suffering.
The deed, the right to do the deed rests with those who blaspheme God’s holy,
prophetic mountain. And now, my Lord and my God, they come to profane the kingly
mountain. Father, Father of princes, Thou who dost give kings their office, why
dost Thou forsake me? It is dark here, Father, on the top of David’s house, as
dark as in the deepest abyss. There is no sun here, save for the sun of truth
and of divine justice. Is this what Thou dost call the lamp of David? Are these
Thy rays, O Father of heroes?

[2]Christ in His Suffering, “Christ’s Necessary ‘Circumlocution’”

Thereupon a profound voice responded in Jesus. It said that all would be
provided on the mountain of the Lord, but that first of all everything must be
fulfilled on the mountain of the Lord’s kings. Stoop low, stoop very low. Thine
is not the right of initiative. There is nothing for Thee to look forward to
now, O Christ, save Thy degradation. That, afflicted Servant of servants, is the
only appropriate gift here on the top of Israel’s royal mountain. Didst Thou not
know that Thou hadst climbed the mountain where that word is fulfilled which
says that the king in the theocracy comes not to be served but to serve? Yes,
Thou knowest that. Accept it now. Accept the burden of the royal service. Art
Thou the prophet now? Then Thou canst only ask Why. Thou knowest naught Thyself,
and canst but ask, but ask. Art Thou the priest now? Then Thou Thyself must be
the sacrifice, the bruised one, the empty one. And art Thou the King? Then Thou
must be the slave. Thou hast no right of initiative in the world. In the
ministration of office every zenith is a nadir — or else God has created the
theocracy in vain.

Thy nadir, then. The royal mountain witnesses its most becoming gift: the gift
of degradation.

Thus we learn to tremble as we become aware of the perfected law of Christ on
the royal mountain. Thus He had to be returned from the first table of the law
to the second. This passion had to be His. This pain was a proper part of His
suffering. Thus the degradation became complete. The distance from the Sanhedrin
to Pilate was a short one. But much happened to Christ en route. When He was led
out of the hall of the Sanhedrin He was still regarded as a transgressor of the
first table of the law. An incomparable honor, that. He was worth so much
concern that the first table of the law accused Him. Blasphemy: the third
commandment: the name of the Lord. The charge read that He had sinned against
Jaweh. But when He appeared before Pilate — could He believe His own ears — He
had become much less worthy of concern. He had become that as He labored up His
exalted hill. He was counted now as a transgressor of the second table.
Disrespect for authority: the fifth commandment: the name of Caesar. He had
sinned against Caesar.

Know now that a person is most maligned when he is regarded as least valuable,
least worthy of concern. Hence my Saviour is being maligned terribly now. From
the defiance heaped upon Him on the prophetic mountain His accusers pass to
negation. Presently they will negate Him as He is in the absolute ministration
of the office in the kingdom of truth. On the way from defiance to negation,
degradation always has a place. The three constitute a gruesome harmony, a
mighty conception on the part of Satan, ever great as he is in invention. But we
do not want to conclude this discussion of the royal mountain of all kings by
pointing to Satan. God is here; the Anointer of kings is on His holy hill. This
too was God’s counsel. The fact that Christ gradually and imperceptibly was led
from the higher to the lower plane, from the first to the second table of the
law, was also God’s will. Only thus can Christ be disowned essentially and that
is precisely what must happen to a slave. Give God what is God’s, Caesar what is
Caesar’s, and slaves that which belongs to slaves. To slaves — plural? Yes, a
slave is not a single individual — he is but a fragment of this or that mass of
perdition. Only thus can Christ be essentially disowned. O church, bewail thy
many sins. The royal mountain has looked upon its slave. Only in this way could
the law of the great concealment be realized in Christ.

He who is the Author and Sustainer of the law is degraded in the name of the
law. And Caesar, it seems, is the last word of that law. For we hear a prayer
resounding through the atmosphere: O God, protect Caesar; we, the sons of
Abraham, do not want to harm him with the messianic hope. Just what was the
phrasing of that line again which said something about Christ as the end of the
law? The letter of the text seems very distant, very strange today.

Now, indeed, He is under the law of the great concealment. As they conduct Him
from the first to the second table of the law, classifying His “case” in that
way, the great truth that every commandment blesses and curses Him in turn is
concealed. The truth that He sustains both tables of the law and keeps them
together in Himself remains hidden. It is easier for them to rage and to jeer
against the Christ than to make Him of less importance, of less concern, than
this. But such things happen when one begins measuring and comparing matters in
His presence.

Christ before Pilate: this is a new phase. We look back again. When He stood
before the Sanhedrin they began with the first table of the law. The result:
defiance, the outlaw, Christ insulted on the prophetic mountain; the mocking
phrase, “Prophesy unto us, Christ, who was he that struck thee?”

Now He is in Pilate’s presence. Here they begin with the second table. The
result: defiance, the outlaw, Christ insulted on the royal mountain, a crown of
thorns, the gorgeous robe, the reed; the scornful greeting, “Hail, King of the
Jews.”

Again, therefore, Christ must climb the mountain of shame; again He must become
an outlaw.

He took account of Himself. He could do nothing else. He took account of Himself
and His people. He found that in a single hour He had been terribly degraded.
Much had happened since the cock had crowed. He had sunk to the rank of a rebel
against the state. A crowned head, somewhere yonder in Rome, had been raised
above Him. The man was Caesar. He was surrounded with flowers, and with many
women. He lay on cushions — watching a charming dancer. A vial of wine stood
beside him. He laughed — steeped in delight.

Oh, the cock’s crowing! Being a malefactor against God’s universe — what a
blessedness that is in comparison with being a malefactor to that man in Rome. O
Sanhedrin, how you have wounded Him, with your charge of crimen laesae
Majestatis, blasphemer of the majesty of the Lord. But here is Pilate with his
crimen laesae majestatis, blasphemer of kings. No capital letter here. Caesar
has been blasphemed. Degradation, sudden descent of the waters. But mark how He
thanks His Father because everything in the world has a capital letter when God
governs it. Blessed sermon on the mount. Caesar, too, represents authority.
Authority means: God. Foolish Jews! You will never remove Him from the first
table. He is Himself. He who spoke the sermon on the mount, He submit to
measurement and degradation? He stands on His exalted hills and remains Himself,
hallelujah, amen. Ave Caesar, moriturus te salutat, in the name of the Father
and of the uncreated Son and of the Holy Ghost. Caesar, you may keep your
capital letter. Jesus will accept it, for there is a crimen laesae Majestatis.
There is Authority. The fifth commandment is unthinkable without the first
table. The Scriptures cannot be broken. For this purpose He redeemed us. He
lifts the slaves up to His royal heights.


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  CHAPTER 22: 17. CHAPTER 17: CHRIST’S APOLOGY FOR HIS KINGSHIP
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C H A P T E R S E V E N T E E N Christ’s Apology For His Kingship

Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again,and called Jesus, and said unto
him, Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus answered him,Sayest thou this of
thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? Pilate answered,Am I a Jew? Thine own
nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?
Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world:if my kingdom were of this
world,then would my servants fight,that I should not be delivered to the
Jews:but now is my kingdom not from hence.Pilate therefore said unto him, Art
thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king.To this end was I
born,and for this cause came I into the world,that I should bear witness unto
the truth.Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. —John 18:33-38. IN
THIS manner, then, Christ was delivered into the hands of Pilate. He was the
“little shoot” on the “little horn;” for Pilate — as we have observed before
(see page 222, Chapter 11, “Christ Led Back to the House of Bondage”) — is a
representative of Rome, and Rome is not merely a geographically or politically
defined unit, but is the realm out of which the “little horn,” the Antichrist,
will spring. Accordingly, Rome is named in this connection not as a politically
circumscribed entity, but as an unspiritual world-empire. The prophecy of Daniel
(see page 140 f., Chapter 7, “Christ Vanquishing the Vicious Circle as the Son
of Man”) has a bearing on all of these matters. To go on now, Pilate attempted
to divest himself of responsibility in the case of the accused Nazarene but did
not succeed in this. He simply had to attend to the trial. He had to attend to
it because two charges which affected him had been filed against Jesus: first,
that He subverted the people; second, that He stood in the way of the collection
of taxes for Caesar. Naturally, both of these charges compelled the procurator
to give immediate attention to this matter which had been officially presented
for his consideration.

Now it is obvious, in the first place, that Caesar wished that there be as
little uprising among the people of the province as possible. And although, as
we know, the Roman government left as much self-jurisdiction in things religious
to the provinces which it had conquered as possible, it could not go so far as
to allow this or that sect or zealot to work the people up to a pitch of
excitement which might prove dangerous to the political equilibrium. Jesus, or
for that matter, anyone, could think as he pleased, and could see whatever
visions he chose to see, for — well, what was truth anyhow? But he could not
propagandize his ideas in such a way or give them such a turn that they would
endanger the political structure. In this respect, Rome simply brooked no
disturbance.

Then there was that second charge. According to the plaintiffs, Jesus’ active
opposition to the orderly collection of taxes was causing others to take part in
the same active opposition. This charge, too, Pilate simply cannot nonchalantly
ignore, for it is one which very definitely and directly affects the dignity and
prestige of the Roman authority. Yes, we know that when the Jews accuse Jesus of
withholding from the Romans what is their due they are misrepresenting the
facts. When, sometime before, as a result of a surreptitiously plotted,
Pharisaic action against Jesus, certain Herodians had approached Him, and,
acting as though the matter were a purely academic issue, had asked Him whether
the orthodox Israelite was allowed to pay taxes to Caesar, or whether he should,
following the example of “the pious Hezekiah,” refuse in the name of the Lord to
pay tribute to any of the Babylonian tyrants, Jesus had answered that the
question of what was Caesar’s due should not be determined until both head and
heart had attended to doing God justice. Whoever gave God what was His, Jesus
said in effect, would give Caesar his due also. In other words, Jesus had
immediately put the religious question in front of the incidental political one,
and had averred that all revolution against Caesar was indeed revolution if at
the center of its thought and activity it did not begin by acknowledging God.
The Jews know this very well, but in spite of that fact, they ask Pilate whether
he, too, does not feel that a person who presents himself as a king is doing
Caesar an injustice. Instead of placing the kingship of Christ, as He proclaimed
it in His messianic self-presentation, in the light of prophecy, and in the
light of Jesus’ own teaching and public activity, they place it in the light of
Pilate’s own predilection. They know that Jesus means something very different
by, and sees something quite different in, the kingship of the Messiah than will
be apparent to Pilate. They know that if they hold up Jesus’ proclamation under
the clouded spectacles of the Roman procurator, he, when he hears the word king
mentioned, will think, not of a theocracy, but of “his majesty, the Caesar, and
of his political world empire.” Hence, without attempting to remove Pilate’s
erroneous predilections, and without inquiring carefully into what Jesus meant
by His kingship, these Jews deliberately make it appear as if Jesus explains the
title of king in the same way that the Roman government does. They say to
Pilate: you must do your duty over against your patron in Rome. In this way, you
see, Pilate was virtually compelled to give Jesus a hearing. Especially so, if
he was inclined to give any thought to the past at all. For the question which
was being raised now had been publicly raised among the Jews before this time.
At the time when Jesus was still a lad, at about the time when He was first
allowed to accompany His parents in their pilgrimages to the temple, a great
tumult had arisen among the Jews. It had been caused by the appearance of a
certain “Judas the Galilean, the son of Ezechias.” This Judas, of whom we read
also in Acts 5:37, had become the leader of a rebellion caused by a refusal to
pay taxes at the time when Quirinius had taken over the registration in the
province of Judea in the interest of the Roman government. This Judas of Galilee
had put himself at the head of those rebelling against taxation, had recruited a
large company in the neighborhood of Sepphoris in Galilee, had armed his
followers with munitions taken from the royal arsenal, and had, in short, put
the whole of Galilee into a state of tumult. It was said, in fact, that he had
wanted to be made king. In this revolution a well-known Pharisee whose name was
Sadduk had been his accomplice. By an appeal to the religion of the forefathers
and to Israel’s immemorial messianic expectations, these two had preached the
revolution. True, their “success” had been a meager one. The movement was soon
smothered in blood. Nevertheless, their brief effort had left a deep impression
upon the people. Hence it was no wonder that Roman authority, after those
turbulent days, had kept an even sharper eye open for every religiously
motivated agitation which in its effect might prove to be a threat to the
government.[1] Indeed, there was good reason for caution in this matter. The
rebellion of the Galilean Judas had even served as an impetus to the formation
of a new party, a group which aligned itself with the Pharisees — the so-called
party of Zealots. These were committed to a program of abandoning the current
laissez-faire policy in favor of active rebellion against the despised Roman
authority.

[1] See Schurer,Geschichte des Judischen Volkes, 3rd and 4th edition, 1901,
Volume 1, p. 486. But think no longer about the Jews. Ignore the fact that they
themselves often argued about whether or not Israel was obliged to pay taxes.
Ignore also the fact that the Zealots among the Pharisees would have liked to do
precisely what, with much ado, they now name a capital offense in Jesus. Such
considerations, after all, lead us no farther, and awaken in us nothing except a
sense of regret because of this flagrant lack of integrity. We must keep our
eyes fastened upon Pilate. Naturally, when Jesus was placed before him as
heavily charged as he was, Pilate simply had to “sit up and take notice he
simply had to take an active interest in the case. The vivid recollection of the
affair of Judas the Galilean served to make restless now. There was no
gainsaying the fact that secret influences — working unobtrusively, of course —
were operative among these people. These underground forces might explode at any
moment. Moreover, there was a striking resemblance between the figure of the
Galilean Judas and this Jesus of Nazareth. Judas came from Galilee and had
conducted the revolt in Judea;[2] and, remarkably enough, this Jesus, too,
hailed from Galilee and had labored in Judea. Was the resemblance a mere
coincidence? Or — but no, that Pilate does not yet know. Still. Jesus’ name is
already being coupled with another. Judas-Jesus: that is the first pairing of
names in which Jesus is involved. A little later His name will appear on a
second ballot: Barabbas- Jesus. Those who name these persons as a pair are
casually saying that they regard the two as equal. Really, this is a difficult
situation for Pilate. That awkward affair of Judas the Galilean had, after all,
been officially registered. Time and again restlessness and revolution had
broken out among the Jews. Pilate cannot overlook that fact. Gradually, you see,
the question of Jesus’ kingship becomes an issue in the litigation against Him.
This consideration provides an ampler screen for us against which to view the
ensuing scenes: those, namely, in which Christ’s name is coupled with that of
Barabbas, in which the soldiers mock the tax-chiseler from Galilee, and in which
they put on a mock play in ridicule of the self-vaunted king hailing from
Nazareth. The same consideration gives a deeper insight also into the pathetic
culmination of the trial, as it is expressed in the superscription raised over
the crucified head: Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews.

[2] Schurer,op, cit., pp. 526-527.

If we remember these things, we will be able to appreciate better how Pilate
opens the hearing which he gives Jesus, and how Jesus responds to this judge.
Pilate enters the room and asks, “Art thou the king of the Jews?” Now note the
answer carefully. Jesus says, “Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others
tell it thee of me?” By means of this single question Jesus at once touches the
core of the issue; He puts His finger on the truth, and gives Pilate the
profound majesty of that truth to think about. This one question immediately
wrenches the issue out of the complication of subtleties in which the Jewish
accusers have involved it. Jesus charges Pilate to go for his explanation of the
concept “kingship” to the accused person himself. Thus Jesus suggests that if he
had really been a king in the sense in which the Jews suggest it, Pilate,
surely, would have heard of it long ago. If the Nazarene had really constituted
a threat to the state, if He had really instigated revolution, and if, in the
guise of a rebel, He had really placed Himself between the tax-paying citizens
and the tax-exacting Caesar — surely, then Pilate would long ago have heard of
Him. Then Pilate would long ago, and on his own initiative, have made it a point
to inquire what this Galilean Joshua meant by His “kingship.” Yes, the
procurator knows right well that his information is based on hearsay, that
others have “told him of Jesus.” Therefore, if he is to deal honestly now, he
must in determining whether Jesus’ kingship is or is not dangerous be guided not
by the subtly suggested words of the plaintiffs but by what Jesus Himself has to
say about that concept. This merciless realignment of the issues on the part of
the fearless Defendant touches the conscience of Pilate. Acrimoniously he
answered, “Am I a Jew?” By this statement, the proud Roman acknowledges that a
purely Jewish-religious problem lies at the basis of Jesus’ “kingship;” but he
prefers to say that Jesus’ own people, the chief priests, had delivered Jesus
into his hand, and that he is therefore compelled by virtue of his office to ask
what Jesus has done. And again we see Jesus as He is in His unique
self-revelation. He acknowledges the powers that be, also the authority of
Pilate. In other words, He gives Caesar what is Caesar’s. Meanwhile, however, He
gives God what is God’s; He professes the truth; He makes the confession of His
kingship before Pilate. He straightway indicates that the whole catalogue of
charges filed against Him by His accusers is beside the point. This He does by
that single and primary declaration: “My kingdom is not of this world.”

Yes, says Jesus, My kingdom does exist. Observe that He makes no effort to avoid
using the word “kingship” or to evade the term “kingdom.” On the contrary, He
assumes responsibility for a term which, to say the least, is very dangerous for
Him. On the other hand, Jesus also states that His kingship is not of this
world. The kingdom He alludes to is a kingdom of heaven. It does not intend to
make a revolutionary attack upon the existing political order. It has its own
peculiar essence, and expresses itself in its own peculiar form. It constitutes
a spiritual community consisting of the members of the family of God. And
although this kingdom of heaven enjoins a law upon its citizens which has
bearing upon the whole of human life, operating in and through all of it, its
essential essence is something other than a politically organized world empire.
Accordingly, this heavenly kingdom will never approach the matter of whether
taxes ought or ought not to be paid the Roman Caesar in an external way. Hence
also it can never be a threat to any existing political structure, can never
want to effect its purposes by a drastic revolution. The kingdom of Christ is
not of this world. The kingdom which was the objective of those Zealots to
which, you remember, we alluded previously, was a kingdom of this world. But
Christ’s kingdom comes in a spiritual way. It cannot possibly be called
Zionistic, or given any other name suitable for a political movement. Christ’s
kingdom wants to foster no rebellion against the state, but it does reform all
existing ordinances. It carries no sword of steel, but holds in its hand the
two-edged sword of the Spirit. By a striking reference to recent happenings,
Jesus points out that His statement is not a loose generality which to Pilate
might seem pernicious enough because in its consequences the idea of revolution
in a practical sense lay embedded in it. Can it be, Jesus suggests, that His
servants, those who went in and out with Him, those who lived with His thoughts
continually — can it be that these who obeyed His command in Gethsemane just a
few moments ago were engaged in open battle? Had they ever incited a rebellion?
Certainly not. Just a short time ago when one had attempted to “argue” with a
sword, Jesus Himself had reprimanded this wielder of the weapon, and had healed
the ear of the man injured by him. That surely is proof of the fact that
Christ’s kingship and kingdom do not want to establish themselves by means of
worldly methods or permit themselves to be classified with a purely worldly
scheme of things, but that, on the contrary, His kingdom is of the other world.
Of the other world, even though it operates in the existing world in order to
realize itself in it.

Pilate listens to Jesus and, although he does not understand everything, he does
remember that Jesus has called Himself a “king.” “Art thou a king, then?” he
asks. That question, put in that way, shows us immediately that it is Christ who
is in charge of the trial up to this time. The first time Pilate had approached
Jesus, he had asked in astonishment: “Art thou the king of the Jews?” Then it
had seemed to him a very strange circumstance that a person like the prisoner
standing bound before him should bear the title — king of the Jews. Accordingly,
the word which he emphasized in his question was the pronoun “thou.” But now,
after Pilate has understood that this king somehow or other does not want to be
defined — also inasmuch as His kingdom is concerned — according to external
standards of measurement, his question has the connotation of this one: “But you
are, nevertheless, in some sense or other a king?” This question takes us closer
to our purpose, for at its basis there is a latent acknowledgment that Jesus’
kingship, whatever it may mean, does signify something different from what is
usually understood by the terms king and kingship.

Pilate, you see, is coming closer to the real issue: Christ has constrained him.
At this point Christ rises to His full stature. He has compelled Pilate to
judge, not on the basis of what others say, but to look — as a judge should look
— at the issue objectively in accordance with Christ’s own definition of His
kingship. And Christ Himself will make a declaration. Note what He says: It is,
indeed, as you say: I am a king. But I am the king, not of a realm representing
mundane power or visible conquests of war, but of the kingdom of truth. My
kingdom is a community of truth; it is not one which is based on the right of
the strongest, but, on the contrary, it is one in which the strength of right
would reveal itself. It wants to see nothing realized which is not conformable
to the truth of God. It despises worldly force; it will never taint swords with
blood; it will never usurp authority nor accept taxes in the form of minted
silver and gold. Hence it cannot possibly give rise to the issue of taxation as
a purely political and national question. The only citizens it desires are those
who belong to the kingdom because they are in communion with the truth. The
Roman world empire which Pilate is representing here, is a usurping power.
Irrespective of whether one is motivated by its principles, it throws its net
around everyone who can possibly serve as its prey. It demands taxes; it demands
them also from those who are unwilling to pay. The threat of the mailed fist
supports the open hand which is asking for revenues. But if a person is to be a
citizen in the realm of Christ, his life must issue from the truth. Those whose
lives do issue from this truth hear Jesus’ voice, for in the innermost recesses
of their being they are assured of His eternal right to rule. Thus the kingdom
of Christ’s truth does realize itself, but its scheme is that of the other
world. Of that other world Pilate has never dreamed. Christ’s kingdom is coming
directly under Pilate’s eyes, but he does not recognize it. For Pilate’s life
does not issue from the truth.

Thus did Christ make the good confession concerning His kingship before Pilate.
In the presence of this secular court of justice, He follows the very same
procedure which He took a little earlier in the presence of the spiritual court.
When He is forbidden to speak by the law of His own kingdom, He is silent; but
when speaking is required of Him for God’s sake, He speaks. Thou sayest — that
is the confession inspired by His active obedience. By this confidence He gives
God what is God’s and Caesar what is Caesar’s due. Although He is the Lawgiver
in the realm of truth, He allows Himself to be placed under the law and
consequently under the power of secular authority. God so commanded Him; God has
Him bow before authority. True, the servants He has have not been allowed to
fight, but that is only a negative matter. Besides, they are only servants.
Today, however, the positive command comes to Christ, to Him who is the king
Himself in the realm of truth, not only to avoid conflict with those in
authority but consciously to acknowledge and maintain the dignity and status of
such authority, even, when it comes to cast Him down “into the dust of death.”
That single statement, Thou sayest, or It is as thou sayest is the assurance of
our salvation. He who speaks is the servant of the Lord. He obeys the laws of
His time, acknowledges the powers that be, and testifies to the truth. He does
not hesitate to pronounce the word which spells danger for Himself. In this way,
as the second Adam, He would be both servant and subject in the world as He
finds it, and so begins the ascent to the height of His kingdom. Only because of
this degradation for the sake of the truth will He achieve His triumph. And
again for the sake of the truth He will celebrate those triumphs over every form
of authority conceivable in the world.

Therefore this confession of Christ concerning His kingship brings us good
tidings. For, in making the confession that He is King in the Realm of Truth,
Christ is professing that He is the Messiah. That is the confession which He now
makes before Pilate, even as He made it a little earlier before the Sanhedrin.

No, this is not saying that He himself used the word “Messiah.” He did not. That
word had no place in the dictionary of the pagan Pilate. It is a word which
belonged to Israel peculiarly. However, Christ does condescend to explain things
to Pilate. He explains the great mystery of Israel to this Roman, and He does it
in his own language. Christ enters into Pilate’s own world of ideas, makes use
of his own ways of thinking; thus He presents to the pagan a paraphrase of the
Israelitish concept of the “Messiah,” by way of making Pilate sense the
significance of the word.

Farther than that Jesus cannot go at this time. The hour of the mission of
Pentecost has not yet come; and it is the Spirit of Pentecost who will explain
to heathendom the great works of God as they are in Christ. That Spirit will
explain fully, will do it in the language of heathendom, and will do it unto
conversion. The Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Pentecost, later, will knead the
language of the pagans, will so conquer it, and thus irresistibly proclaim the
Council of God.

We must know that Christ does not present this paraphrase of the term
“Messiah-King” to Pilate in an effort to convert him. To convert people, to
convert pagans — that is a work of God. Before Christ can do that, He must have
dedicated Himself to His people. Nevertheless, He wants to give Pilate, who is
His judge, the opportunity to judge Him. Therefore, He gives the name Messiah
the explanation which comes closest to the phraseology of the Roman political
economy. This He does in order that Pilate may determine whether that political
system demands death or not. Now this represents the acquiescence of Christ. If
He wants to, He can coerce Pilate by a glance of His eye, just as He once
constrained Simon Peter, He can charm Pilate with His eyes, can mesmerize him,
can cause him to retreat — who in this connection does not think of Gethsemane?
By means of the potency of His thoroughgoing humanity He can do all these things
if He wants to. Thus Christ, should He choose to, can be silent over against
Pilate, can leave him to Satan; by sheer force, by the puissance of His
humanity, He can rid Himself of this judge. He who can force Lazarus out of the
grave, can force Pilate back of the curtains — there to be advised by his wife:
“Have thou nothing to do with this man.” But Christ does not do this. He is
obedient. He does not mesmerize; He does not constrain: He does not struggle
with God for the conversion of Pilate, as though the hour had come to cast the
bread of the children — alas, such children! — before those “dogs,” the heathen.

Instead He addresses Himself to His judge and does him justice. Today He is not
speaking in parables or in riddles, for the riddle is appropriate only to that
sphere of special revelation in which revelation itself has pronounced its
unequivocal word. The maschil — we are referring to it repeatedly in this study
— can be pronounced in Israel only by order of the Sanhedrin. Among the heathen,
under Pilate’s roof, the maschil is unwarranted as yet, for up to this time the
heathen have not heard the Counsel of God unto salvation preached to them.
Hence, no maschil, no riddle. On the other hand, there is no silence here, no
secrecy designed to keep the heathen excluded from the mysteries of Israel. This
particular pagan is the judge; hence Christ must explain Himself to Pilate in
language which the judge can understand. From Christ’s point of view, His
explanation represents a looking into the commandment. It represents also a
“being blind”[1] to the future. For — and this is the other side of the matter —
even though Christ as He presents that paraphrase of the term “Messiah,”
condescends to come as close as possible to Pilate’s capacity for apperception,
Pilate will not succeed in appreciating exactly what Christ means or in being
quite certain that there is no conflict between this Jesus who is called Christ
and Rome’s great Caesar.

[1]Naturally “being blind” is used here in the sense of not trying to escape
from the consequences.

After all, the mind of the pagan will remain alien to the mysteries of the
Messiah of God as long as it is not conquered by the Spirit of Christ. Can
anyone suppose that an “explanation” of the concepts of revelation, an
explanation, we must know, which makes use of the words and thought patterns
which are current in heathendom can give anyone an appreciation of the Christ?
Surely such an appreciation is possible only as the result of a conquest of the
heart, and of a victory over the false thinking and the whole personality of man
by the Spirit of Christ. That is why Pilate can do more than to guess, to grope,
to conjecture. That is why the best he can get is a mere impression. For Pilate,
problems and riddles will remain. To his mind the word king must continue to be
to a certain extent interchangeable with such words as despot and usurper. For
the oriental man, the word king simply carried such connotation, irrespective of
who the king might happen to be. To the oriental mind king meant potentate,
autocrat, despot; that is, one who never serves but is always served.

It is true that much cause for anxiety seemed to be removed for Pilate by the
qualification that only those who are “of the truth” follow this shackled
“king.” Apparently the relationship in which this Nazarene wished to stand over
against His subjects was a religious relationship. But even that modification
could not avail to put Pilate quite at ease. Remember that it was precisely
during these days — and that not by accident — that Caesar, who was also called
king, was being honored as a god. The Caesar-kingship had the status of a
religious phenomenon; not only in Jerusalem but also in Rome the title of king
had a religious significance. In a certain sense, therefore, each “king,” each
“Caesar” could wish to repeat these words: Everyone who is of the truth heareth
my voice.

It was in precisely such a world that God revealed His Son and summoned Him to
justice. There is no such thing as chance, as accident in the world. If ever any
exegesis of the concept “king” could because of the complicated social
relationships, and because of the cast of the political and religious situation,
have confused anyone, that explanation would be one which was made in the days
of Pilate. It is true that his Caesar, Tiberius, had taken more vehement
exception to the deification of the living ruler than Augustus had, but it is
also true that “officially the cultus of the deceased and senatorially canonized
Caesar was being universally acknowledged . . . Such deification by the decision
of the Senate was . . . the result of the Roman custom of having all contact
with things supernatural take place according to officially determined
regulations.”[1] [1] Dr. J. de Zwaan,Jesus,Paulus en Rome,Amsterdam, 1927, p.
17.

How in such an intellectual climate could Pilate possibly get a true conception
of what this particular “king” had in mind? How could he get a true appreciation
of the bearing of His office? This is a king who wants to be a religious despot
... Yes, but just such a king resides in Rome also. It was precisely the
government of Tiberius, Pilate’s brutal and difficult patron, which laid down
the official regulations concerning the religious significance of the kingship .
. . Indeed, it was not easy for Pilate to apprehend Jesus’ meaning.

It is our duty in this matter to bow before the counsel of God. He had the Son
make the good confession concerning the messianic kingship at this peculiar
time. The royal title which Christ bore had to reach the thought patterns, the
political and religious mind set of the Roman and pagan world. It is good that
this was so. It is a fact that Christ reaches everything; He leaves nothing
untouched. In fact, He would object to putting it in that way.

Just because this is our view of this event, we are able to penetrate so much
more deeply into the love and the majesty of Christ. Christ knew that the name
king would carry the connotation of political threat in Pilate’s ears; He knew
that this would be so for Pilate, not because of direct pretensions on His part,
perhaps, but because of potential consequences of which Pilate had premonitions.
We can appreciate more profoundly the love and majesty of that Christ who knew
also that His putting the “religious” character of His kingship into the
foreground would aggravate rather than mitigate the severity of the conflict.
For we understand that Christ, by making the good confession before Pilate, was
being obedient. He did not compromise His claims nor conceal the universal,
world-conquering character of His dominion. In His self-confession He rendered
to God what was God’s and to Caesar what was Caesar’s. To God what was God’s —
for His exegesis was the true one. To Caesar what was Caesar’s — for He
presented that exegesis in Caesar’s own language. And when He had done so, He
knew that for Him this meant death. However, He had concealed nothing, had not
forcibly thrust the governor aside. To his pretensions to the throne of the
world and to the title of the absolute kingship, which precisely because it is
religious reaches through to the world — to these pretensions He laid full
claim. Had He Himself not so directed events that “in the fullness of time” — a
time which He as the Logos had Himself chosen — should proclaim to the very
Caesar to whom He had subjected Himself the religious and world-pervasive
character of His kingship? Having Himself selected that time, how could He take
exception to Himself now? How could He possibly classify Himself now with the
things that do not touch the Caesar of all nations? No, Christ’s kingdom did
not, by an appeal to its religious nature, slink away into the highways and
byways or into the hermitages and inner chambers of men, but, instead, asserted
itself as a kingship which, precisely by its religion, by its truth, reaches the
whole world. It touches all kingdoms. “Everyone that is of the truth,” — such is
international language.

Once, in the desert, Christ turned Satan away from Him when Satan showed Him
“all the kingdoms;” this Christ did, not because He did not long for every
kingdom, but because He did not want to acquire these in a way forbidden by God.
At this point, however, He returns His more essential answer to Satan. On the
one side, we see Tiberius; that is, Tiberius, the Caesar, Rome, the beast, the
“king” who has a religious title which represents a world-symbol. This Tiberius
arrogantly asserts: “Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice.” On the
other side, we see the Christ; that is, the Messiah, the Feast of Pentecost, the
Spirit, the “King” who has a religious title, and we hear His humble apologetic
and expository voice saying: “Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice.”
We thank Thee most gratefully, Lord Jesus. Thou didst take up Thy cross, but
didst also emphatically insist upon Thy world-inclusive claims. Thus, by taking
up Thy cross, Thou didst redeem Thy feast of Pentecost. Thy answer vindicates
and explains Thee over against this ancient trio of days. There will be flames
soon in Jerusalem, and tongues of fire, a whirlwind and a voice addressing
itself to the inmost heart. Yes, addressing itself to the innermost hearts, too,
later on, of the subjects of Tiberius. To them too the voice will be saying that
Thou art the King and that everyone who is of the truth heareth Thy voice. That
voice will be the voice of the irresistible Spirit of Pentecost.

We thank Thee. As the Son of man Thou didst not forget the Logos, for Thou didst
understand the meaning of “the fullness of time” and didst persevere through the
difficult course of the fulfilled time. This Thou didst do by telling Pilate
what was necessary for Thee to tell him, and by giving Thy exegesis of the
kingship in the language of Tiberius while preserving faithfully the
interpretation of God. Ah, Saviour, the sublimity of Thy exalted exposition is
quite transporting. It makes room in the acta Pilati for the Acts of the
Apostles; that is, for the Acts of the Holy Spirit. Satan, remember this: Christ
looked behind Pilate to Tiberius and saw all the kingdoms of the world. Surely
he will not leave Tiberius unperturbed, for what is more inclusive than the
truth? “Everyone that is born of the truth” — yes, that sounds personal, sounds
individual, suggests something narrow and exclusive. The prediction has the very
tang of Election itself in it. But, really, is any word more universal than
truth?

Pilate, beware. He has by no means said that He is not dangerous. For, what is
truth? In any case, it is a troublesome, dangerous thing, and certainly
international in scope. Have a care, Pilate. He is to enlist the whole world.
You have heard an ecumenical word pronounced — it dropped from His lips just
now, here in the praetorium.


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  CHAPTER 23: 18. CHAPTER 18: CHRIST BEING NEGATED UPON THE ROYAL AND PROPHETIC MOUNTAIN
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C H A P T E R E I G H T E E N Christ Being Negated Upon the Royal and Prophetic
Mountain Pilate saith unto Him, What is truth? —John 18:38 a.

CHRIST while upon the kingly and prophetic mountain is either being defied or
else — in the entirety of His official ministration — He is being negated. The
flesh is always wavering between these two: between insult and negation. That
this is true becomes plainly apparent also in Christ’s trial.

We have already noticed how Christ was being defied on His prophetic mountain
while He was in the presence of Caiaphas. Today, in the presence of Pilate, He
is to be negated while He is standing upon the mountain of all prophets and upon
the mountain of all the kings of Israel.

Defiance and negation, we said. But do not think that we want to fix an
antithesis between what Caiaphas, together with his insulting company, does and
what Pilate accomplished by his personal negation. Essentially the “flesh” is
always consistent. At bottom mockery and negation are one. Caiaphas had allowed
the Lord Jesus Christ to be insulted upon the mountain of the prophets, but
before the defiance took place there had been a complete ignoring and an
absolute negation of His position upon that highest of all prophetic heights. We
still remember, doubtless, that Caiaphas by demanding an oath of Christ seemed
to be sinning against Him by the sin of negation. At the basis of Caiaphas’
emphatic request that Jesus swear an oath lay the assumption, we observed, that
although He was fully informed of God and heavily laden, Jesus was standing
outside of the sphere of serious relevance, and outside of the pale of God’s
presence. In the case of Caiaphas also, therefore, the negation had preceded the
defiance. In Pilate the “flesh” takes this same course. We hear him asking:
“What is truth?” Such a statement is an instance of negation. In making it,
Pilate is placing Christ outside of the sphere of those who are to be taken
seriously. Obviously if truth cannot be known anyhow, if the true knowledge of
God is unattainable, then its chief “Prophet” is both the most amusing and the
most piteous idler attending the world’s vanity fair. That is negation. But from
negation Pilate and those with him pass on to defiance. The end of the matter is
that the question, What is truth? inspires the other inquiry, What is justice?
It is after Pilate has asked that second question that he gives Jesus up to
death. Everyone knows what happened after that: Insult, a defiance of Christ
upon the mountain of all kings. What follows is a mock-drama performed in
disdain of a presumptuous king: a purple robe, a crown of thorns, a sponge of
vinegar supported by a reed and manipulated by sneering soldiers. This
culmination, therefore, is just another confirmation of an immemorial truth. It
is part and parcel of the sound content of our faith that Christ must always be
condemned in advance by the “flesh,” that He must be rejected by those who are
born of the flesh and not of the Spirit. As Paul has told us there is that old
struggle between the “flesh” and the “Spirit.” Flesh cannot appropriate, is not
even susceptible to, that which belongs to the Spirit of God.

Because this general law of perpetual conflict between flesh and Spirit is true,
it must also assert itself definitely and emphatically in the trial of Christ.
For in the trial the line of demarcation between flesh and Spirit is delineated
as plainly as it is anywhere. It was not solely because of his fear of the Jews
that Pilate at the very beginning of this terrible process of law goes awry in
principle. No, it was not solely because of his fear of the Jews, nor because of
personal indifference, or indolence, nor because of his erroneous conclusions
about the nature and purpose of Christ’s kingship in the realm of truth—it was
not solely because of these that Pilate yielded Jesus to the arbitrary will of
the Jews. By the question, “What is truth?” he demonstrated that at bottom he
was alien to the life of Christ Jesus, and alien to His office and to His
spiritual life. He reached the point of negation, for the natural man cannot
appropriate, cannot even receive, the things of the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians
2). Our text tells us that Christ, while standing before Pilate, testified of
His kingdom. His was a kingdom of truth. In it power and truth cooperate. Each
moves in the direction of the other. By virtue of the power of His kingship,
Christ stands upon the mountain of the king. And by reason of His power in the
realm of truth, Christ stands upon the mountain of the prophet. Christ caused
the peaks of both mountains to come together as He spoke of His “kingdom” of
“truth.” This has been His last word. He said that He had come to testify of the
truth, and so to obtain subjects (those who “hear” his “voice”). As a king He
wants to do nothing which would be opposed to the will of a prophet, or which
would be taking place outside of either the will or the calling of a prophet. To
this definite uniting of the kingship and of the proclamation of truth, to this
merging of the mountain of the king and the mountain of the prophet, Pilate
responds with a shrug of the shoulders, and with his dubious, “What is truth?”

Much has been written about the meaning of these words of Pilate. In an effort
to trace the background out of which the question arose, one commentator says
this, another that. The one claims that Pilate appears here as a sincere seeker
for truth, as one who is eager to know what truth is and where it may be found,
as one who, although seeking, has not yet found, and therefore now gives
expression to his despair and to his repressed dissatisfaction. Others assert
that Pilate’s statement is by no means to be taken as being as serious as that.
He must be thought of, these aver, as the skeptic, as the indifferent and
impatient governor who puts the question with a sneer and with a shrug of the
shoulders. According to this view Pilate is nothing but a dispassionate,
indifferent and proud Roman who wants nothing to do with this bother on the part
of the Jews about what constitutes truth, and accordingly, nothing to do with
the Nazarene’s passion for truth. It simply is not worth the trouble, and is at
best very boring.

One observer, you see, looks for a profound philosophical background for
Pilate’s question, as though this Roman were a philosopher, one who had drunk
deep of every cup which the thinkers of his day had prepared. Another thinks
that Pilate’s query was not at all prompted by a philosophical interest, and
that he must be regarded simply as the haughty, practical, common-sense man of
affairs who laughs any seeking for truth out of court as a sheer waste of time.

We think it unnecessary to choose one of these interpretations as the correct
one. In order to make a just selection we should have to know more about Pilate
than we do know. True, we get the impression that we can hardly speak of a
profound ethical seriousness in connection with Pilate, be it in reference to
his struggle for truth, or in reference to his eventual (conscious) denial of
the possibility of finding the truth. Had he really been sincere in his seeking
or in his denial, he would hardly have broken off the discussion as abruptly as
he did, or as hastily have given the Jews his first impression. As a matter of
fact, then, we do not know just what the state of mind of Pilate is. Moreover,
it is not necessary that we be exactly informed about Pilate’s philosophical
background and about the nature of his intellectual conflicts. The question is
not whether we can test the spirit of Pilate. The question is whether we can see
Christ as He is being thrust into this sphere of absolute unbelief in which the
“flesh” at bottom refuses to respond to and appropriate the “Spirit.” From this
point of view we see that Pilate and his “What is truth?” plainly point us to
the severity of Christ’s suffering and to the absolute negation to which He is
subjected.

Whether Pilate was a serious man or a light-hearted fool, a noble seeker after
wisdom or a wolf, whether he puts the question after many years of tantalizing
search, or as a disavowal of such seeking—all of these questions have no
importance for us inasmuch as we definitely know the really significant thing;
namely, that Christ was negated as He stood upon the mountain of His official
career, upon the mountain of His theocratic kingship and of His messianic
prophecy. Pilate negates the mountain and negates Him who is standing upon it.
Hence he laughs, or weeps — what matter to us which? — about every person who
claims to see a royal or a prophetic mountain, about everyone who undertakes to
climb such a mountain of the messianic office, about everyone who would say that
he had reached the top. Pilate and his question name any searching which
proceeds upon the basis of having already found, sheer vanity. By proclaiming
that, Pilate does injustice to a revelation which comes authoritatively from
above, and which relates all of our new questions to the answer which God once
gave. Irrespective of whether Pilate thinks of Christ as a flower growing in the
garden of Israel or as a detrimental weed flourishing in the nursery of the
world’s culture, it is perfectly plain that at bottom he is alien to the
official essence of Christ, the Prophet and the King of God. Pilate overlooks
Christ and overlooks even the idea of His office. According to Pilate, Christ’s
office does not exist; it is a presumption and a vanity. The conclusion is
obvious now. If there is no such reality as truth, or if Christ has not given
expression to it perfectly, Christ’s kingship in the realm of truth is a piece
of folly, a mere fiction. Christ related His prophecy to His kingship, and His
kingship to His prophecy. And that, according to Pilate, is His “bad luck.” A
kingship which had loosened its firm grip on truth might have met with Pilate’s
“tolerance,” especially in view of the “poor results” which that kingship had
been able to “show” up to this time. Or, had Pilate tolerated it, in that case
he might, because of the dangerous element which lurked or might lurk in it,
have opposed it for the sake of Caesar. But a kingdom which glories in the
maintenance of truth is so unreal to Pilate that it is no better than the
maintenance of truth itself. “What is truth?” he asks and his question does
injustice to our chief Prophet and eternal King. Hence it is inevitable that the
second question, What is justice? follow the first.

There is, accordingly, a pathetic correspondence between the depth of insult and
humiliation into which Christ is plunged by this secular judge and that other
depth into which He was thrust by Caiaphas, the spiritual judge, when Caiaphas
told Him: I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell me the truth. For,
irrespective of how greatly Caiaphas’ cry I adjure thee may differ from Pilate’s
shoulder-shrugging What is truth? the first represents to Christ the nadir of
His trial before his spiritual judge, and the second the depth of His trial
before the secular judge.

Now if we will but turn away from the “psychology” of Caiaphas and Pilate, and
turn to the theology of Christ, in other words, if we will but stop studying the
souls of Caiaphas and of Pilate and simply ask what Christ as our Surety and
Mediator is suffering at this time, we will have eyes to see the awful
parallelism logically constructed by God between the depth of Christ’s trial
before the spiritual and before the secular judge. When Caiaphas demanded that
Christ take an oath, he was denying Christ’s abiding presence with God. His
continuous tarrying, His unintermittent watching and praying upon the prophetic
mountain—that Caiaphas denied. In short, the act of Caiaphas was an act of
negation.

Now Pilate asks, What is truth? This question is also a denial of Christ’s
continuous presence with God, of Christ’s constant tarrying, and watching and
praying upon the mountain of the king and of the prophet. This again represents
negation.

Yes, Caiaphas and Pilate are separate individuals, are quite different from each
other. The one comes from the Orient, the other from the Occident. The first has
his seat upon the mountain of Jerusalem; the second upon the peaks of Rome. The
first wears the robe of a priest; the second a Roman toga. The one anoints his
head with ointment taken from the temple; the other anoints his with perfumes
taken from the palace. The first moves under the burden of learned folios; the
second whets his sword, and discriminates between his pearls and his golden
rings. The first simulates unusual earnestness, twists and bends himself into a
thousand convolutions in an effort to arrive eventually at the point of rest—the
point at which he can condemn Christ to death in terms of the most expedient
plan. The other begins with perfect calm and with unruffled poise, and only
later contorts himself into many convolutions, only later grows restive and
tense, aggravating the burden of his life even to the point of death.

How complete the contrast between these two types. How far apart each stands
from the other.

Nevertheless, in relation to Jesus Christ, both proceed from the principle of
negation. That is the element they have in common. In the last analysis, the
flesh is always the same, no matter where in the world it is found. Yes, the one
may resemble God’s thunderstorm in his vehement attack upon Jesus and in his
passion- fraught demand: Swear that Thou speakest the truth! And it may be that
the other mutters but half audibly: Alack, man, what is truth, anyhow? Do stop
talking. But both of these begin with negation, for the flesh is not susceptible
to the things of the Spirit of God.

Caiaphas, for instance, proceeds upon the assumption that the Christ knows
nothing about the consuming fire of truth. God and the consuming fire—these are
simply not to be found in Jesus. He must be forcibly conducted to the throne of
God in order to take a precious oath there. No, the consuming fire of truth
cannot be found with Jesus. And Pilate makes the same reply that Caiaphas makes
in response to the claim which Jesus makes to the effect that he lives next to a
consuming fire. Pilate asserts that there is no fire which consumes the world.
In other words, he says that the consuming fire cannot be found in Jesus.

Says Caiaphas: You are not the Messiah; you are just an ordinary Jew. By means
of the oath you must be “taught” that there is still something like an
atmosphere of eternity left in the world.

Says Pilate, proceeding to the same point, but beginning at the opposite pole:
You are not the Messiah, for it is folly to argue that there is such a thing as
an atmosphere of eternity in which we human beings could possibly move and have
our being; you are but an ordinary Jew; you are but one of these madding
thousands.

Caiaphas says to Jesus: You are but a man of the plains, not of the heights. And
Caiaphas confirms his statement by negating Christ’s revelation of Himself as
One who stands upon the mountain of all prophecy and of the one great community
of kings.

Caiaphas by demanding the oath asserts that Christ is standing outside of the
pale of truth, forced upon him, and he blames Christ for being outside of it.
Pilate declares that there is no such thing as the circle of the coercive truth
of God. Come to your senses, he seems to be saying: cease wearying yourselves
with what is beyond you and unreal to me. But both of these persons overlook the
Lord, both pass by Him on the other side. And, deep within His heart, the Lord
knew that this was so. His being concealed was not concealed from Him. All of
the profound depths of His suffering were known to Him; they were known to the
Logos from eternity. He is the Stranger upon the earth. Again negation was
emphatically proclaimed to His soul in order that He should obtain His reasons
for the great affirmation of God and of His elect brethren solely from God and
from Himself. In this way, then, Pilate also placed Christ inside of the
bootless struggle of human life, mechanical and purely utilitarian as it is.
Pilate supposes that this kind of placement is a just one. He could not believe
that Christ came to break the endless tedium of the vicious circle; Pilate
simply could not believe that. He passed by Jesus on the other side. In the very
year in which this book is being written—1929— a congress of Jewish jurists has
raised the question whether the time has not come to re-examine the trial of
Jesus of Nazareth and to acknowledge, finally, perhaps, that the Sanhedrin did
Him an injustice. The Jewish conscience, this group maintains, must pass In
review once more the “case” of the Nazarene, and must do it this time without
bias. And it is true that the same question might very well be raised by those
who study Roman jurisprudence.

However, even though at any time the Jewish people, or any Jewish organization
should openly acknowledge that Caiaphas had unnecessarily delivered up “Jesus,”
the historical person, and that Pilate had done the same for no coercive
reasons, even then Christ would continue to be regarded as an exile by this
crooked world. Those who allow “Jesus” to go where He pleases in this world
because He is not a dangerous character, or because He does the cause of truth
no harm, or because in the depths of His longing heart He did not defile the
oaths of Israel, pious and faithful to tradition as they were, but who, for the
rest, do not acknowledge Christ as standing at the very top of the prophetic and
royal mountain—those, we say, still deny Him. They deny and negate Him as He is
in essence. This is an issue which is not conditioned by ideas which our own
minds have worked out; it is a question of grasping the command which comes to
us along the avenues of the God of revelation—a command which is ever exhorting
us: Hear him, hear him. Christ does not want to argue with us about what truth
is, what life is, and what God is. He wants to lay upon us with a most palpable
authority His truth, and His life, and His God. The passionate qualities of the
questions which Caiaphas puts as well as the dispassionate character of those
which Pilate asks are irrelevant to the real essence of Christ inasmuch as they
do not touch the real meaning of Christ as He is in His office. He Himself
wishes to inform us fully by means of the significant content of His words, and
thus to implant in us the tension of the kingdom of heaven. For the kingdom of
heaven is one which does not allow itself to be put on a level with a kingdom
whose power and significance are mundane in character.

We shall leave Pilate to his haughty supercilious inquiries, just as we left
Caiaphas in his state of excitement. We shall go straight to Jesus and see how
severely He is being humiliated. Now that Pilate has negated His royal and
prophetic mountain in its entirety, the case of Jesus Christ cannot possibly be
conducted along proper lines. Now it is the “fate” of Christ Jesus, now it is
the necessity of our Surety and Saviour that He be appointed for death from the
very beginning. This He Himself felt. He felt it as deeply, as grievously, as is
conceivable. Jesus had ever known this. But now He experienced that when Pilate
put the question, What is truth? and turned his back to Him, everything was and
would remain essentially ruined. When He, a man of like passions with us,
grievously experienced that nothing could be expected from this judge, He still
confronted the severest task of all. He had to give Pilate every moment that was
due him, and had to give God everything after a while that was God’s due. This
was His sublime majesty: To see Pilate as one absolutely blind, as the plaything
of his own fears, and nevertheless to honor God as the Father of spirits, who
created the eye, and upon whom every eye must be directed; who sends out His
Spirit so that everyone called a servant may be filled with that Spirit, and may
constantly seek Him. This was a difficult seeking, this searching for God among
the conspirators against Him. This was a hard day, this day in which He had to
see His Father’s house of justice turned into a den of murderers, and to be
unable to fashion a whip with His fingers. For His were the hands which had once
fashioned a whip with which to sweep the temple clean.


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  CHAPTER 24: 19. CHAPTER 19: CHRIST BEING SILENT BEFORE PILATE
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C H A P T E R N I N E T E E N Christ Being Silent Before Pilate And when he had
said this,he went out again unto the Jews,and saith unto them, I find no fault
in this man. —John 18:38 b. And they were the more fierce,saying,He stirreth up
the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.
—Luk 23:5. And when he was accused of the chief priests and elders, he said
nothing. Then said Pilate unto him, Hearest thou not how many things they
witness against thee? And he answered him never a word; insomuch that the
governor marveled greatly. —Mat 27:12-14. OUR preceding chapter closed with the
remark that Christ, when He knew definitely that no justice could be expected
from Pilate, stood before the difficult task of having to turn away from this
judge, and to give His case into the hands of that God who judges justly, and
who nevertheless—or shall we say in the language of faith therefore—opposes
Jesus and proceeds to forsake Him.

Now, however, we must go on. This question forces itself upon us, and there is
no escaping it: In what manner did Christ, in view of these circumstances,
fulfill His calling over against His God? The answer to that question is as
follows: Christ held His peace. He held his peace before Caiaphas first; now He
stands mute before Pilate also. When Pilate learned from Christ that His was a
kingdom which aimed not at being a secular organization based upon force but at
being the dwelling and the working place of truth, He immediately concluded with
finality that this manacled Jew did not constitute an immediate threat to the
state. Even though it were true—we refer you here to the conclusion of Chapter
17—that the eventual effects of the principles—whichever they might be, which
this odd “king” was propagating might have a detrimental effect upon the state
in the future,—still, these represented no acute danger for the present. After
all, the millstones of “the truth” always do their grinding slowly. And Pilate
did not care to look far beyond the present. This whole “case” was troublesome
enough, and if he could be rid of it now, it would probably “wear off” in time.
As a matter of fact, the procurator of Rome, especially one such as Pilate was,
is a decadent manifestation; and living in a decadent time, Pilate troubled
himself very little about the future of the empire. Yes, the whole thing would
wear off in time. For the present this strange dreamer who always did His work
in the full light of day could not be an immediate danger. For that reason
Pilate, who had turned away brusquely as he asked, “What is truth?” now rather
impatiently turns to the Jews, and tells them his tentative conclusion: I find
no fault in him. By that Pilate did not mean to say with finality that he
regarded Jesus as an innocent man. No, Pilate is not as incautious as that. By
this reply he was merely stating that in his official investigation as a judge
he had not yet been able to confirm any guilt. Pilate stays in safe territory;
he makes only a negative declaration. He says that he has been unable to confirm
their allegation of guilt. In response to the official charge of the Jewish
plaintiffs which read “We have found,” Pilate postulates the equally formal
temporary report: “I find.” The discriminating ears of the tensely listening
Jewish authorities observe quickly enough that, irrespective of how formally the
tentative conclusion had been announced, it was merely an introductory opinion
and that it was purely negative. They grasp the situation at once. They know
that Pilate is unfavorably disposed towards their wishes, but they know also
that he has not yet barred the door against them.

Immediately the Jewish chief priests and scribes rush in to take advantage of
this definite position. They quickly thrust their foot into the opening of the
door still standing ajar. No, no, the matter cannot be dispatched as readily as
that. They mean to discuss it further with Pilate and begin that discussion at
once. In response to Pilate’s negative reply they submit a long list of
formidable and positively phrased charges against Jesus. What, they say to
Pilate, you say you are unable to confirm any guilt in Him. Can you actually
think that He is no more than a harmless dreamer who, because of His theological
approach to things, and because of His religious aspirations, and because of His
prophesying of the truth, is impervious to questions pertaining to the Roman
government and to the world empire? If so, we can inform you differently. And
they begin presenting the information. In the confident hope that they can make
this irresolute governor serve their own purposes, inasmuch as his policies had
proved variable on other occasions, they now proceed to make more vehement
accusations against Jesus than they had done at any time before this. Of course,
they persist in upholding their first charges, for they must continue to give
these a political color. Had they suddenly introduced a set of new charges into
the case, their evil design would have become obvious and they would have
damaged their ‘‘chances” immeasurably. Hence, although they insist on the counts
included in their first complaint, they now proceed to aggravate these charges
with redoubled vehemence. We read that they now testify “many things” against
Jesus. They bring in the “details”; they give the particulars. Perhaps they
carry into the discussion a report of the event which had happened to Jesus
about a week before when He had entered the city as a king. That they do
everything in their power to make the alleged breach of law on the part of the
Prophet of Nazarene as convincing as possible becomes apparent even from their
choice of words. Very carefully they let the impression prevail that not only is
there good reason for naming Jesus a threat to the state but that His movement
is being supported by a mass-psychology which has succeeded in getting the
people—as an Israelite, as a religious group—into its grip, and is threatening
to electrify it.[1] Moreover the charge, phrased in general terms at first, to
the effect that Jesus was leading the people astray is now intensified and made
to assert that He “stirred up” the people. In this way, then, Pilate is asked
anew to investigate the case. Surely, they advise, the safety of the state must
not be endangered by any personal leniency. As for Christ? When he is accused of
these many serious sins against the Roman state and of these many attacks upon
the peace of the citizenry, Pilate approaches Him and asks Him to explain
Himself further.

[1] We observed in Chapter 11 that they first used the wordethnosand not the
wordlaosin referring to “the people.” This time the wordlaosis indeed used. See
Nebe,op.cit.,p. 56. But Jesus said not a word.

It seems that Pilate conducted Jesus out of doors, placed Him before the mixed
company which had gathered in front of the praetorium, and asked Him to give
detailed answers to all of the charges in the presence of the plaintiffs. At
least he asks Jesus whether He does not now “hear how many things these witness
against Him.” But Jesus said not a word.

Why did He hold His peace? Many reply that Jesus maintained a silence because
speaking had not availed Him anything anyhow. The most elaborate defensive
speech would not have changed the attitude of the Jews at all or have affected
the conclusion of Pilate in the least. And inasmuch as, according to human
reckoning, no beneficial effect could possibly attend an apology, Jesus,
according to this interpretation, thought it better to say nothing.

However, it is better not to accept this explanation of Jesus’ silence. In fact,
the interpretation irritates us a little. Just what is implied in it? May we
suppose that such deliberate and casual thoughts were being pondered in the
heart of Jesus? Have we found it to be the rule for Christ that He does only
those things which, according to human standards, can net Him some benefit?
Surely, His whole life, all of His prophecy, everything he does and witnesses
and teaches, represents a continuous opposition to the main stream, represents
an endeavor, a striving after that which, humanly speaking, is impossible and
foolish. Would the Christ who uttered the sermon on the mount, who made the
demand that everything must be perfect as God in heaven is perfect binding for
the whole world, who always opposed what people think is beneficial to what God
thinks is necessary—would that Christ have ceased speaking because it would not
have been profitable for Him to speak? To put the question is to answer it.
Precisely because a more elaborate amplification of details could have meant
much and could have made the outcome of that Friday very different from what the
outcome proved to be—precisely because of that, Jesus holds His peace. His hour
has indeed come, the hour in which He is to die. Therefore He does not want to
be kept from the cross by any speech which would be inspired by something else
than His sense of office. Nor does He, now that His hour has come, want to
postpone or avoid that cross by any such speech. Who can deny that, viewed
precisely from a human standpoint, anything He might say at this point about
these new particulars would have achieved much for Christ and would have helped
Him a great deal in directing the case so that He would not have to make the
sacrifice, or at least not have to make it on this Friday?

Suppose we reflect upon it further. Let us suppose for a moment that Christ had
indeed more or less elaborately responded to all of the details of the argument
which was being vehemently brought against Him. What would have happened in that
case? At the very least Christ could have succeeded in embarrassing Pilate. He
could have forced His judge to make a more thorough, a more searching,
investigation. Had Pilate ordered such an investigation, the official
thoroughness of the reports telling of his jurisdiction over the case would
affect these very favorably. In any case, Christ by speaking at this time,
prompted by the abundance of the perfect knowledge which was His and by His
infinite passion for truth, could have postponed the sentence. True, he did not
have the right of a Roman citizen, and accordingly. He could not like Paul
appeal to a higher tribunal. Nevertheless, postponement was possible to Him in
any case. As a matter of fact, we can safely say that this represents a
temptation to Christ, a satanic temptation. A speech given according to human
standards would have “ benefited” Him greatly at this time. Not that it would
have altered the disposition of the Jewish accusers. But it certainly would have
induced Pilate, the judge, to exercise extreme caution.

We referred just now to a satanic temptation. We did it for good reasons. For,
had Jesus allowed Himself to be tempted into a response to the accusations
raised by the Jews, and had He done this fully conscious of the main issue which
He had Himself raised and which Pilate had neglected, He would thereby have
committed sin against the kingdom of truth, of which He Himself is the head, the
prince, the cornerstone, and of which He later is to be the sacrifice and
foundation.

Two possibilities of transgression were open to Him on this occasion. He would
have availed Himself of the first possibility to transgress if He had been
silent about the good confession which He had to proclaim. But the second Adam
did not fall into this sin, for He declared before Pilate that He was indeed the
king of the realm of truth.

Meanwhile, a second sin, humanly speaking, lay at the door. We have in mind the
possibility that Christ, even though He had named in so many words the main
issue concerned in the matter, would be silent about that issue now, and in this
way do injustice to its majesty by negating it, and by talking about side issues
in the meanwhile.

Thanks to the genuine working of His sinless soul, Christ escapes from this
second sin also. He who is accused of blaspheming majesty, did not blaspheme it;
He did not defile the majesty of Caesar, nor the majesty of Himself. He did no
evil thing to the world of secular authority; neither did He do injustice to His
own kingdom. Least of all does He do injustice to Himself. The truth which gives
being to His kingdom never wants to be negated. Christ may be in a condition of
slavery, He may walk about in bonds, but He nevertheless asserts Himself as a
king in His own realm of truth, refuses to be diverted to bypaths as long as the
thoroughfares upon which He in His previous confession has placed Pilate and
Himself are not being traversed but are being frivolously negated. What good
does it do us, what right have we, yes, what right has even Christ Himself, to
segregate any side issue from the main issue or any detail in the kingdom of
truth from the general truth? Who gives the Son the right to discuss or to
submit for discussion anything pertaining to His deeds, discourses, or
teachings, before honest deliberation has been given to the essential, basic
idea which underlies all those deeds, those discourses, and those teachings? Had
Christ approved of a situation in which the basic ideas of the kingdom of His
truth and of the truth of His kingdom had officially been negated, but in which
the details of these kingdoms had officially been studied, He would have
departed from the highway which God had appointed for Him. He would then have
pursued that zigzag course, that road of enmity, which at the prompting of a
private and perverse will, and by reason of stark blankness, wants to coerce Him
to take every bypath from which it can gain some profit for the flesh. No,
indeed; those who follow the desperado-diplomacy of the people who cannot
sustain life in their own strength may follow such a source, but the majesty of
the eternal King in the realm of truth is a different majesty. He wants to tell
Pilate the whole truth, and to tell the Jews the whole truth, but He will not do
this as long as these negate Him there. Besides, He cannot say anything except
what is purposeful for the kingdom of truth in the eyes of God, for such
purposiveness is the sole objective of the speaking Christ. No, He can say
nothing more. He cannot, for anything Jesus says cannot be seen in its proper
light until the light of revelation is shed upon it. And Pilate has no interest
in even looking for that light.

Hence it was because of obedience to God that Christ kept silence before Pilate
and now holds His peace before the Jews. His silence did not represent a failure
to act. It was not a reaction, and still less a negative attack upon or
revolution against anything, but it was sheer obedience. It was the fidelity of
the Prophet to the One who sent Him. For He who sent Him told Him that He might
not segregate a single spoken word or piece of work from the central word and
from the whole task for which He had been sent into the world. Our Chief Prophet
is so faithful not only to the content but also the method of His speaking and
witnessing that He will not exchange a word with people who are willing to talk
with Him about the objective “details” of His testimonies, teachings, and
manifestations but are willing to do that only while overlooking the single,
dominating, underlying idea of which all these details are an expression. Christ
will remain faithful to the method which God has instituted in the kingdom of
truth even though He must sacrifice His life for such fidelity.

Christ’s silence before Pilate, then, is a deed of extreme and powerful
obedience. The prophet and king labors, and sweats, and apportions His speaking
and His silence in such a way that the priest in Him can arrive at the definite
sacrifice, the evening- sacrifice to be offered upon Good Friday. He did not
avert His death by means of a cheap, a humanly “profitable” change in the
schedule of His witnessing, but He accepted the burden of the sacrifice before
His God by the very act of remaining faithful to the method of His prophetic
testimony. By doing this Christ threw off the tempter and preserved His kingdom
of truth. He would not give away to false appearances for a moment, not even in
respect to Himself.

Just suppose for a moment that Christ had not kept silence, but that He had
spoken, and that He had answered punctually each of the questions which the Jews
raised. Imagine besides that He by such an apology, which would indeed have been
very easy for Him to make, had escaped from the sentence which He could indeed
have averted by His words. What, then, would have been the status of Christ
throughout the days in which He was still to live upon earth? Understand, we are
speaking after a human fashion. But one answer is possible to this question. Had
Christ allowed Himself to be acquitted upon the basis of the fact that a
prophet-of-truth did not represent a threat to the Roman empire, at least not a
“threat” in Pilate’s and Caesar’s sense of that word, then Christ would have
tolerated the lie, and would have made use of it to lengthen His days.

Remember that Christ most certainly represents a “threat” to the Roman empire
and precisely in the sense in which Pilate and Caesar understand the word. He
spells the disintegration of that world-kingdom, that kingdom of anti-Christian
tendencies, that bestial kingdom in which the “Beast” of the Revelation of John
has already in idea been conceived and out of which—according to apocalyptic
prognosis—it will presently be born. True, Christ’s kingdom enters the world
having no physical form and He Himself enters Jerusalem as a “poor and
defenseless” king, but in His work and being lies a power which will cause Rome
to crumble. The integration effected by the Spirit of Christ introduces a
disintegration into the limbs of the Beast, that is, into the constitution of
the sinful world. The regeneration which Christ works, in souls first and
thereupon in the Church, in the ecumenical church, in the new world, has no
choice but to battle against everything which lives solely by virtue of natural
birth and which, besides, is permeated with sin and with human perversity. Even
though Christ does not oppose an external, physical force to the kingdoms of the
world, and even though He does not beat down the gate of a single world city, He
does do something, for He works from within outward. He works a new life in
human souls, an irresistible life. He weaves the pattern of a heavenly kingdom
in human hearts. That heavenly kingdom writes its mottoes “in the clouds” not
only, but in the hearts of men also. It takes its course throughout the whole
world. True, it comes from heaven, but it nevertheless works its way down to the
world and into the world in order to make all things in the world new. Indeed,
the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, as He Himself has told us, but it
nevertheless comes to this world.

You see, then, that Christ does represent a “threat” to Rome.

It is true that Christ’s kingdom is regarded by Pilate, practical or theoretical
skeptic that he is, as a paradoxical whim; it may be that Jesus—Pilate is not
sure—thinks of it as dangerous, but in any case it does not constitute a
practical threat to the empire. What, pray, can such an abstract, invisible,
Nazarene kingdom of truth avail against the actuality of Rome’s political
organization and of Pilate’s praetorship? Nothing, of course. But we who have
heard His words coming from Christ’s own lips have a different view of their
meaning.

We know that Christ’s kingdom, precisely because it comes to the world from
above, has, not by revolution but by reformation, not by mere cultural forces
but through regeneration by the Spirit of God, so altered the complexion of the
world that the flesh, and the Beast, and such culture as puts itself in the
service of sin, cannot have one moment of peace with it. The realm of Christ is
not an “innocent,” paradoxical whim which can be apperceived only by one
standing in the spiritual world and able to read the writing in the clouds. The
kingdom of Christ makes its protests against and lays its claims upon every
existing order which puts itself in the service of sin. The kingdom of Christ
seeks a different mankind among visible mankind, and it makes binding upon the
natural and historical order of the created world its own peculiar scheme of
things. And precisely because it does these things, the visible effectuation of
the kingdom of Christ will indeed eventually spell harm for any kingdom which is
of the word. “Harm” that is, according to the logic of all flesh.

Knowing this, Christ did not want to plead for acquittal over against the
charges of the Jews for one moment. Had Christ made such a plea, He would have
lied. The Jewish plaintiffs are telling lies themselves. They try to give Pilate
the impression that Christ is fostering revolution, that He makes use of force,
that is, of fire and the sword. For we must know that over against these
suggestive lies stands the great truth that Christ comes only with reformation
and with regeneration; that He comes with the Holy Ghost, and with the sword of
the heart-vanquishing Word. Moreover, these plaintiffs lie when they say that
Christ is opposed to Caesar; for, in the last analysis, He favors Caesar and
favors everyone who is willing- to confess and seek that which is for his real
good. And again, the Jews are telling a falsehood when they suggest to Pilate
that Christ sets up Himself as the final end and goal of His unremitting verbal
battle against the kingdom of the world. For the truth, we know, is that Christ
has constantly been having His work proceed from God and that He will ever cause
it to return to God.

Thus far then, the Jews have been making false statements about Christ.

Now Christ might have refuted all of these false charges. He might have made use
of this overwhelming rebuttal-material and for the rest have been silent about
the undeniable fact that in very truth He came to change the whole complexion of
the world and to interpose into the history of the world, as that history had
heretofore spent itself, a reign which should make all things new. But even if
He had done only that, Christ would have gone through the world without
interference on Rome’s part, it is true, but as a rejected exile of God. He
would in that case have received a writ of acquittal from Pilate, but He would
have been struck down by the lightning of God. Then He would not have become a
king of the world but a beggar who had succeeded in getting from the hand of
Rome a lease on a few more days of life, and one who had done this at the
expense of the right of His God. Then the chief Prophet of the kingdom of truth
would have stifled the prophecy of Daniel which had said that the stone of the
Messiah should destroy the kingdoms of the world and utterly annihilate the
titanic display of worldly power.

Now draw your own conclusion. Could Jesus have been a Saviour to us, and a King
of the realm of truth if we knew of Him that before the Sanhedrin He had
especially emphasized the prophecy of Daniel (recall His own statement about the
Son of man) but that before Pilate He had subtly buried that same prophecy by
His silence? No, our great Samson does not cut off His hair nor dally with His
secrets. His statements express obedience. Now His silence expresses the same.
His silence gives expression to a positive lordship; it is a sacrifice, it is an
obedience; it asserts the validity of the whole of prophecy inasmuch as it
refuses to accept every favor of Rome available to Him only at the expense of a
forthright acknowledgment of the axiom He Himself pronounced: My kingdom is a
kingdom of truth. My realm, He said, is a kingdom of truth. The accent on both
terms is equally pronounced. Jesus does not want to accentuate the word truth so
sharply that Pilate will forget to notice the word kingdom. My kingdom, says
Christ, is not of this world, it is true, but most certainly is in this world.
Whoever is of the truth hears my voice.

That, certainly, spells danger for the state. For it is quite in line with these
things that Constantine the Great caused an evil day to dawn upon the Roman
empire, an “evil day,” that is, according to the Beast of Rome. Some have
supposed that Christ wrote the command to rule upon the clouds for Constantine
to read but all believe that Christ wrote that command upon his heart. Writing
upon the clouds — that, Pilate, is a relatively harmless thing, but beware of
Him who can write upon the tables of the heart!

Hence it cannot be doubted by those who accept what is written above as the
truth that Christ both in what He said and in what He did not say does exactly
the same thing, builds the same edifice of truth, gives expression to the same
peculiar style before Pilate which He does and builds and expresses before
Caiaphas.

Those who take no pains in thinking through these matters regard it a
paradoxical thing that Christ should say first, “I came to bear witness to the
truth,” and a few moments later should say not one word in testimony to that
truth, but be silent and obstinately hold His peace.

We must not take exception only to that first group of people who — as we
observed above — want to explain Jesus’ silence by reference to such human
arguments as are designed to show that, after all, Christ failed to speak
because no human benefit could possibly issue from anything He might say anyhow.

We must also take exception to another group who read the Bible, to those, in
other words, who interpret Christ’s silence before Pilate as a departure from
the line which He at first had drawn when He named it His calling and the
purpose of His mission to bear witness to the truth.

Remember, it is not in spite of His calling but precisely because of that
calling that Christ maintains a silence before Pilate. True, we sometimes think
that “to bear witness” means simply to heap up words, and that “to give
testimony” represents a kind of nervous repartee being carried on among the
ready speakers and the silent ones of the world. But at bottom bearing witness
to the truth means forcing subsidiary issues back to the main issue and things
of the periphery back to the center. To refuse to say more may be a form of
bearing witness to the truth and is that when we are asked to say things at the
expense of the genuine method which God makes binding upon those who testify of
Him. To bear witness to the truth is not the same as to exhaust the truth. Nor
is it the same as to particularize the truth, and so to cut its garment into
pieces. To bear witness to the truth means to follow Christ who proclaims His
theme, which is all-inclusive, once and for all and who now forbids us to
segregate a single detail, a single feature of that broad and inclusive
preaching from the basic idea which lies contained within that theme.

Looking at the matter in this way, we too can ask — but in a sense quite
different from that of those to whom we alluded above: What good would it have
done Jesus to have spoken at this time? After all, His truth is not an
aggregation of gnostic sayings or epithets which can be distributed on separate
bits of paper, and so serve as a kind of daily almanac for those who choose to
read. His truth is a principle of life, it is a power, it is a unity. Either we
are inside of His truth or we are outside of it. We must be regenerated in
principle; an overwhelming absorption must take possession of our whole
personality; we must be completely filled with the theme which He has
proclaimed; a thoroughgoing, an essential and radical renewal of eye and heart
by the Spirit of truth Himself must take place in us. How, then, could it
benefit Christ to “explain” His entry into Jerusalem as an activity which could
hardly constitute a threat to Pilate’s status; how could it profit Him to lay
His finger upon those paragraphs of the Roman corpus juris or, for that matter,
even upon the text of Israel’s own prophets, in an effort to prove that He had
transgressed not as much as a single rule of law? For we can see His entry into
the city and all of His royal words and royal deeds in the proper light only if
we have internally, that is if we have by an “internal calling,” listened to the
one word of His absolute command and laid at His feet the summary call to the
beneficences of His kingdom. In this way, then, Christ did justice to His
Father. His Father is the God of truth. And to the truth Christ bore complete
witness, both by His speaking and His silence.

He did justice to Pilate also. For Pilate, too, may not stumble upon the Christ
unless the stumbling takes place because of his own fault. You remember that in
Chapters 4 and 5 we spoke of the maschil of Christ which He left unexplained in
His appearance before the Sanhedrin. If you remember that fact and also the
reasons which induced us to say that Christ by an untimely explanation of His
maschil would have caused the Sanhedrin to sin, and would have damaged His own
kingdom, you will be able to understand how, to a certain extent, the same
consideration holds in reference to the relationship in which Christ stands to
Pilate. Suppose Christ had explained to Pilate in detail that His kingdom could
become effectual only by means of death on the cross. Then Pilate could have
escaped from the annoying responsibility of this case. In that case Pilate would
virtually have been invited by Christ to appeal not to the revealed legal code
which God in His general grace had permitted Rome to retain but to the hidden
things of the Lord which God’s special grace had kept secret even from Israel.
Then Christ would have played the game of destruction with His kingdom which, as
we pointed out at the time, would have been the inevitable result of a premature
explanation of Jesus’ maschil about His prophecy.

It is true that Christ’s kingship must achieve victory only by means of death.
But that does not mean that Christ Himself is going to debase this kingship by
inviting Pilate — so to say — to “take a chance” with the imprisoned Galilean, a
chance, that is, designed to determine whether or not Jesus would actually arise
from the dead in His royal power. For Pilate, too, the truth holds that this
silent king has no room for experimentation in the closed circle of God’s holy
justice and strict truth.

We will conclude, therefore, by taking a glance at the terrible harmony which
obtains between the court-session of Caiaphas and that of Pilate. We stated in
the preceding chapter that there was a nadir in the litigation of Caiaphas which
corresponded to one in that of Pilate. It was the nadir in which both of the
judges sank out of sight at the very beginning of the legal proceeding. But to
point out that correspondence is not to complete the parallelism. Next to those
nadirs in which the human being on his part sinks from view stands a twofold
zenith on which Christ, by virtue of His own strength and sovereignty, stands
most gloriously. That zenith of the exalted Man of sorrows upon which He makes
the whole court of Caiaphas converge consists of the fact that the silent Christ
maintained His maschil and His parables.

He does the same thing in the court of Pilate. There, too, Jesus holds His
peace. Now inasmuch as this second silence on the part of Christ represents a
second silence over against the Jews, we need to say nothing more about it. We
all feel that Christ persisted in the attitude which He had once and for all
taken in reference to them, and that He still does not want to explain His
maschil. As for Pilate, over against him, too, Christ maintains the great
mystery of His being and of His work.

Such was the law of the transcendent revelation of the King in the realm of
truth. He comes from above, and — He proclaims that He does. He works
irresistibly into the life and being of what is found below, and — He proclaims
that. He gave basic and honest expression to the transcendence of His being and
of His work in all of His speaking. And He does the same in all of His silence.
He does not allow a single one of His transcendent miracles to be cut out of His
heart by letting as much as a single sliver or single shaving of the tree of
knowledge be cut off from that tree itself. And only by strictly insisting upon
His transcendence in the coming of revelation was He able to preserve the
immanence of the grace of revelation for us. The tree of life, that tree of
grace, must continue to throw out its roots before our eyes, and to fasten them
not in the soil of this earthly life, nor in the prepared field of our false
reason, nor in the circumscribed area of the world’s vicious circle, but in that
eternal soil which the infinite God of revelation has in His sovereign way
prepared for the flourishing of His conquering truth. So Christ prevented time
from imbibing death from the troubled fountains of human reason. This is a
manifestation of His immanent grace. Nevertheless He gave this world of the
vicious circle an opportunity to seek and to find in our world those fountains
of revealed truth which God has opened there, and an opportunity for it to drink
life from these. This, too, is an instance of the immanent grace of that
speaking and silent witness to revelation, Jesus Christ. We want to see Him,
both as He is in His speaking and as He is in His silence, entirely true to
Himself, to His God, and to His people. Speaking and silent, He is the one, the
unmoved, whose work endures into eternity. When Christ had kept silence, also
before Pilate, God in heaven wrote in the books that He would grant His Son the
complete judgment. The king of the realm of truth had not played with His crown
for a single second. Hence He could in perfect earnestness now permit that crown
to be wrenched from His head. A king who dallies with his crown will let it drop
to the ground without any conceivable profit but he who forgoes playing with the
crowns of kings, he who preserves sincerity both in speaking and in keeping
silence is able to lose infinitely and forever; the loss will never harm him,
for he has preserved himself in righteousness. The silent Christ refused to
accept the crown which was offered Him as a gift of worldly tolerance. When He
refused, the intolerance of all the worlds came and struck His crown from His
head. The blow was vehemently dealt, and God struck more vehemently than they
all.

There He stood. It was night. He was forsaken. His was an uncrowned head. But
such was the law of truth. Thus did He remain king in the realm of truth.
Whoever is of the truth hears His voice even though —· on this night — it sings
a lamentation about the uncrowned head.


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  CHAPTER 25: 20. CHAPTER 20: CHRIST BEFORE HEROD: ISRAEL BEFORE ESAU
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C H A P T E R T W E N T Y Christ Before Herod: Israel Before Esau When Pilate
heard of Galilee, he asked whether the man were a Galilean.And as soon as he
knew that he belonged unto Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod who
himself also was at Jerusalem at that time. —Luk 23:6-7.

JURISDICTION over Christ Jesus has already changed hands several times. He
passed from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate.

Today they will take Him farther — from Pilate to Herod. But even this does not
mark the end. The question arises: Is this recurring shift of jurisdiction
merely accidental?

It is not. It is an expression of the wise counsel of God, and also of God’s
exalted justice. We must know that all things in the world must co-operate in
pronouncing the death sentence upon Christ. Every manifestation of human, social
life, every classification of the life of the world, every modus vivendi must
say to the Christ: Do Thou go out and die. That is why it is necessary for Him
to appear before Annas and Caiaphas; that is, before the older and the younger
generation in Israel. That is why He must appear before Pilate, the
representative of Rome, the world empire. And that is also the reason for which
He must appear in the presence of Herod, the false brother. Herod, remember, is
an Idumean; we must think of him as belonging to the line of Edom, and must in
our thinking associate him with Esau.

Christ’s appearance before Herod, therefore, represents the appearance in
judgment of Jacob, who is called Israel, before Esau. Had Esau’s voice been
silent in that last chorus of all the great singers in the oratorio of death,
who, tearless, gnashing their teeth and mocking, take their places presently at
the grave of Jesus — had Esau’s voice been silent among those, the judgment of
the world and of the flesh against the elect of God would have been incomplete.

We all know the history of the situation. Pilate had heard that Christ had begun
His activity in Galilee; mention had been made of that fact by the accusing
voices of the Sanhedrin. A person who finds himself in an embarrassing situation
develops a keen sense of hearing, and Pilate, too, has a discriminating ear at
this time. For he finds himself in circumstances which are very annoying. Hence
he is heartily glad that the place of Jesus’ origin, namely Galilee, allows him
an opportunity according to the letter of the law to escape from the
responsibility of this case. He makes it a point to ask again and to ask
definitely whether it is really true that Jesus comes from Galilee, or whether
He at least belongs to the legal jurisdiction of that province. And when it
appears that the Nazarene by reason of his background and early activity, both
of which were centered in Galilee, could officially be regarded as a Galilean,
Pilate decides to call Herod into this strange case.

Now Herod, or more exactly, Herod Antipas, was a tetrarch, a governor of Galilee
and Perea, even though he bore the name of king officiously rather than
officially. As it happened, there was a regulation at the time which had it that
an accused person might be tried in any of three places: at the place of his
birth, at the place where he established his residence, or at the place in which
he had committed his crime. According to this regulation, more than one basis
could be named to justify calling the tetrarch of Galilee into the trial of
Jesus. Accordingly, Pilate, who is eager to take that course decides to have
Jesus appear before Herod. Now it happens that Herod is in Jerusalem at this
time. The Passover is about to be celebrated and Herod has expressed an
eagerness to celebrate it with the Jews. In this way Pilate, even if he cannot
escape from responsibility in the case altogether, can at least share it with
the other official.

Thus Jesus appears before Herod. Now, as we have stated already, we discover a
parallel in this meeting: Christ appears be fore Herod; in other words,
Jacob-Israel is ushered into the presence of Herod-Esau.

Christ-Jacob. Herod-Esau. Those are the contrasts, those the parallelisms. Have
they been arbitrarily contrasted? Many thinkers have spoken and written in the
sense of such parallels. Herod has often been associated with Esau, Christ with
Jacob-Israel. And there is good reason for such alignments. The name Herod is
not entirely strange to us. The Bible never uses that word without bordering it
with crepe. The Herods all belonged to a renowned family who were of an Idumean
origin. If we remember, now, that the term Idumean is identical in meaning with
the term Edomite, and if we recall also that the name Edom is identical with the
name Esau, it will not seem strange to us to learn that theologians long ago
associated Herod with Esau in their thinking, and that a parallelism was pointed
out between Jesus-Herod and Jacob-Esau.

We should, however, be doing truth an injustice if we failed to raise objections
against this method of thinking about the gospel of the passion and against the
habit of looking for parallelisms on the part of those who discover them too
facilely. There are people who cannot keep from smiling when they see these
efforts at relating the conflict between Jesus and Herod to the ancient dualism
between Jacob and Esau. How many centuries — so these proud observers like to
say — have not elapsed since Jacob and Esau quarrelled about their birthright?

Besides, they add, who can actually prove that Herod the Idumean, or if you
wish, the Edomite, was a descendant of Esau? Remember, they suggest, that the
Peoples of the Old Testament were dispersed over the whole world. Not only is
their genealogy uncertain, therefore, but many of those who belonged to one
country have mingled with the people of another. Hence no one can say definitely
that this or that people has sprung from a given ancestor. So goes the clever,
dispassionately scientific argument of these observers.

Counter contentions follow in quick succession. For instance, it is said that
Herod belongs to a generation which presumably came from Ashkelon. That would
mean that the Herods were descendants of the Philistines. And it would certainly
be difficult — so runs the argument of one commentator — to point out the
genealogical continuity between the Philistines and Esau. Comes another who
remarks very learnedly: As for those Edomites . . . yes, it may be that Esau was
called Edom for various reasons, but the Bible itself points out that by no
means all of the Edomites were genuine descendants of Esau, even though the
“sons of Esau” are subsumed under that head. A third critic calls our attention
to the fact that Amalek, for example, is also associated with Edom in certain
references of the Bible (This accounts for the fact that the conflict between
Amalek and Israel is regarded by many as an after-effect and continuation of the
old Esau- Jacob struggle), but — this critic goes on — in other references the
Bible proves to us that there were Amalekites who were in no way related to Esau
by ties of blood.

After all of these arguments have been presented to you in a scientifically
“objective” manner, you are asked whether you are not going too far afield when
you state that a parallelism exists between the meeting of Christ with Herod and
that ancient struggle between Jacob and Esau.

We feel inclined to reply that the Bible knows all that very well. The very fact
that the Bible itself presents the data raised in these arguments should make
all those who use such contentions against the traditional reference of Herod to
Esau very cautious, for if such reference of what is taking place here in this
unique moment between Jesus and Herod to the conflict of Jacob and Esau were the
product purely of human allegorizations or of the arbitrary habit of seeking out
“parallelisms,” we should indeed have to protest strongly against looking so far
back for the beginning of the threads of history. But it is obvious that the
Scriptures themselves, not only in this particular moment but throughout the
centuries, see in this conflict between Israel, on the one hand, and the
Edomites, or the Idumeans, on the other, a recurrence, or better, a continuation
and culmination of the old conflict between Jacob and Esau. This is no wonder,
surely. The Bible, in delineating the methods of revelation employed by the
Spirit, does not limit itself to ties of blood, as though the spheres of
revelation juxtapose precisely with those of the blood or permit themselves to
be bound by the limitations of the flesh. No, natural birth, flesh and blood, do
not circumscribe the domain of election and reprobation. The opposite is true.
The God who is present in that antithesis between election and reprobation,
faith and unbelief, spirit and flesh, the seed of the woman and the seed of the
serpent — that God circumscribes the boundaries of flesh and blood. He makes the
paths of the Spirit manifest in the meandering ways of natural life; He makes
the whole of nature the working-ground of the Spirit. All of the antitheses
named above may be discovered in nature, if only we explain nature in terms of
the spirit, and not the spirit in terms of nature. Because the clash between
Jacob and Esau has found an historical, a predestined sequel in each successive
age, therefore the record of that clash must run through all of their
generations. That is why in the evolution of tribes and nations, groups will
define themselves according to the same law of antithesis which operated in
Jacob, the chosen one, and in Esau, the reprobate.

Yet the Bible itself knows very well that the collective title Amalek includes
others besides the sons of Esau, and others besides the sons of Edom. The Bible
knows that there is such a thing as a spiritual communion which inheres in
successive generations, and that a choice must be made for good or for evil; the
Bible knows that there is an entering into fellowship with the seed of the woman
or a coming into communion with the seed of the serpent.

It is precisely because the prophetic Spirit is operative in history, and
because the Bible hears that Spirit testify in history, that the Bible does not
allow the blueprints for the building of the Spirit to be drawn up by a pen of
the blood, but, on the contrary, has it prepared by the Spirit Himself. Such —
in the language of men —·is the haughtiness of the Spirit of prophecy. The flesh
— to speak in the terms of evolution — does not govern the Spirit, but the
Spirit — to speak in the terms of revelation — rules over the flesh. That is why
the “gathering together of Esau” in the broadest sense of the phrase is opposing
itself to Israel. Under the name of Esau or of Edom the Bible groups together
all those who have in the course of history moved in Esau’s direction, have
intermarried with him, or have formed a coalition with him against the God of
Israel. And this grouping together of all those tribes and fragments of peoples
under the general title Esau is not a genealogical coincidence, but a prophetic
infallibility.

Hence, because of the Spirit, that was a true interpretation of the course of
events which Israel’s historiography gave when it named the conflict which God
had appointed between Jacob and Esau the one and thoroughgoing conflict of the
succeeding generations. Such it was designated to be, both in the apocryphal[1]
and in the canonical writings.

[1] In these, too, “remnants” of revealed truth are contained.

We should have to go too far afield if we were to point out every instance in
which that immemorial conflict between Jacob-Israel and Edom-Esau manifested
itself in these successive generations. It suffices here to call attention to
the struggle between Amalek and Israel; to the warfare conducted by the
Midianites, a people belonging to the classification of “Edom,” against Israel;
to the war carried on by Doeg against David; to the conflict waged by Hadad
against the throne of David; to many revolutions, constantly occurring, on the
part of Edom against David’s rule; to the prophecy of Isaiah in which an
oppressed voice from Seir, Esau’s hill country, asks when the night will cease
in which the prophet must tell the mountain dwellers of Edom that for them
morning has not yet dawned; and, finally, to that very remarkable struggle
between Haman and Mordecai. In reference to this last conflict, we must state
that in the book of Esther Haman is called an Agagite. Now Agag is also to be
associated with Edom. For a long time the Amalekites were subject to a royal
house whose members all officially bore the collective title of Agagites. Hence
the conflict between Haman the Agagite and Mordecai is a revival, and a sharply
accentuated one at that, of the old antithesis between Israel and Esau, a
conflict in which Israel, who properly belongs to the classification of Edom,
forms the historical connecting link. This fact is so obvious that in the
apocryphal as well as in the canonical books the fierce struggle between Haman
and Mordecai is set down in the light of that ancient and immemorial struggle.
In the apocryphal literature, the bitter hatred obtaining between the Agagite,
Haman, and the Jew, Mordecai, is depicted as a battle between dragons. In other
words, the struggle between those two is in that literature set down as having
gigantic proportions; it is transposed from the small domain of human malice and
jealousy to the broader spheres of the immemorial conflict between the primal
powers of the world. Can anyone say, moreover, that the Bible itself in the
canonical book of Esther does anything less than this? No, indeed. This book
opens up similar perspectives. In this small book Israel’s kingship is indeed
depicted as having degenerated and been destroyed according to the flesh; but
note that it tells us also, when the hewn-down stem of Israel’s kingship, of
Jacob’s beautiful inheritance, seems to be left alone, unfruitful, and twice
dead, God discovers the marvelous influences of His extraordinary providence.
The spirit of Esau-Agag-Haman may attempt to destroy Jacob but it cannot succeed
in the attempt. Mordecai who bears within himself the flesh of “Jacob” and the
spirit of “Israel” triumphs over Haman after a while. He triumphs over Esau.
Esau may demand Jacob’s birthright again and again, and it may be that this
birthright sometimes reverts to Esau entirely on this or that occasion, but by
way of faith and repentance, and by way of a spiritual struggle for the real
essence of the seed of the woman, that birthright will remain Jacob’s, Israel’s
into all eternity.

Yes, by way of the Messiah, the birthright will remain Israel’s.

Balaam once said something which is quite in harmony with these truths. When
Balaam had to prophesy for Balak, he saw and described the struggle in which
Israel was involved in the concrete embodiments which that struggle took in his
own time. His vision was authentic as the vision of prophets is, even of those
who are prophets against their own will. Amalek’s attack upon Israel’s
retreating camp had taken place but a short time before. Agag — taken now as the
collective title for all of the kings of Amalek — had taken up the sword against
Israel. In other words, and in a deeper sense, Esau had again attempted to get
his birthright back from Jacob. For “Esau” cannot reconcile himself to the fact
that he has given his birthright away. The transaction which took place between
Jacob and Esau, by which Jacob won the birthright, was ever lamented by Esau,
and the prophetic record of history never tires of showing how in the conflict
of Israel against “greater Edom” the old feud between Jacob and his brother is
revived again and again.

Just what are these two quarreling about? We have already indicated the answer:
The feud concerns the birthright. According to the good pleasure of God’s
sovereign election that birthright was Jacob’s due. But Esau cannot reconcile
himself to Jacob’s having it. When the Spirit of prophecy acting through
Balaam’s agency presently thunders, it announces that Israel’s kingship shall be
exalted above that of A gag.

That, surely, was a significant prophecy. Somewhere down in the valley there
might be found a little group of disordered Israelites. Nomads, exiles they
were, without any certain political affiliation, without a fixed dwelling place,
their property stolen. Nevertheless Balaam sees these robbed and roving people
develop into a nation having a well-ordered political system. He notices that
this people will receive a king, and he also sees that this kingship of Israel’s
future will far transcend the power of Agag, and greatly supersede the strength
of Amalek and of Edom. He obits prerogatives over against Esau.

Edom’s fires of wrath may flame Against the glory of God’s name, But God will
bow his head in shame; And Edom, all his boasting done, Will see the crowned
Jacob’s Son. In other words, the prophecy of Balaam may be interpreted in this
way: In the future the generation of Jacob — thanks to its eschatological
king—will possess the birthright and will exercise its prerogatives over against
Esau.

We have alluded to but a few instances of this age-old feud between Jacob and
Esau. No, this is not a game of allegory; nor is it a far-fetched “type” study.
It is the effect of the fact of election and reprobation. Whoever sees the
antithesis of election and reprobation going on between Jacob and Esau, he will
be the one to see the real meaning of that conflict. If we can detect in this
meeting of Esau and Jacob, of Herod and Jesus, only a chronological continuity,
we will not see half as much significance in it, as he who sees the shadow of
Jacob and Esau playing behind Jesus and Herod. But if we acknowledge according
to the rule of faith that the Logos and the Spirit use all that history brings
forth as a stage and sphere of operation for the law of election and
reprobation, we shall be guilty of gross ignorance, if we fail to find in this
meeting of Herod and Christ a fulfillment of the former meeting of Esau and
Jacob. What, pray, is Jacob’s role in the world, if God’s purpose for him is not
related to the appearing of the Christ? The womb of the seed of the woman gives
him birth solely in order that in and through him Christ may make His
appearance.

Thus it is that the Logos drives Jesus into Esau’s presence. Jacob’s great Son
stands in the presence of the epigone of Esau. He stands there bound and
fettered. The concealment of God in the man Christ Jesus, in the incarnation of
the Word, is now having its effects. It is expressing itself more specifically
in this concealment of Jacob’s birthright, of the birthright of the firstborn,
in the man Christ Jesus. God, and the seed of the woman, and the Spirit of
election, and the Word of God’s sovereign good pleasure, and the calling by the
free grace of God — all these are contained in the humanity of Jesus. The wind
blows under the canvases of the tent in which Jacob once dealt with Esau about
the birthright. The tent pins are being jerked away. Alas, Jacob stands
empty-handed under the naked sky. There is nothing which he can call his
inheritance.

Now something must happen to Jacob. Just as Jacob once trembled as he awaited
the coming of Esau after Jacob had squandered the birthright, and just as he
could regain that right only by a struggle with God at Peniel, so Christ stands
before Herod. He is bound; He bears the burdens of His father Jacob, and is able
to achieve His birthright only by a struggle with God. Come, Father, struggle
against Him: vent pugnator spiritus. Hurl Jacob to the ground, Father; He must
experience His Peniel. God must attack Him. O God of all history, wrench more
than His thigh out of joint; bruise His heels, for He is a Jacob having no
rights. Esau rules in Herod now. And Jacob in Christ Jesus is a poor, robbed,
manacled, and despised Man. Moreover this Christ-Jacob has no rights in the
world; He can make no claims. He stands in Edom’s presence, and can only wait.
Does Esau come in peace? Alas, he is heavily armed. But the Christ is the
outlaw. He stands in the presence of Esau: see, His cheeks are still burning. He
who is the Bearer of the birthright had to enter the world as one having no form
or comeliness, as a foolish and offensive one, as the butt of ridicule to the
Esau who has only carnal eyes with which to look upon the flesh. For Esau lives
in that vicious circle described by a life whose boundaries are drawn up in
terms of the flesh.

Today Jacob appears quite naked. Thou art very beautiful, Thou Man of sorrows,
Thou art very beautiful. For Thou art here to bear the burdens of Jacob.
Therefore Thou hast neither form today nor beauty. That face which has been spat
upon, that head which has been bent low, and that humiliated body is nothing but
the limping thigh of Jacob. But — O divine Grace — this is Jacob’s thigh removed
from the course of that vicious circle which bandied Father Jacob and his lost
generation to and fro for centuries in that interminable struggle with Esau,
Edom Amalek, Doeg, Haman, and Balaam. For it is evident, O great Son of Jacob,
that Thou must enter into an absolute death. The tedious round of the strife
between Jacob and Esau will be broken now. Whether it fail or succeed the attack
will be conclusive. Esau must see that God is punishing Thee today. Yes, he
himself may raise the sword against Thee, O Thou great Son of Israel.

Remember this: Esau must know that Jacob is not chosen for Jacob’s sake. Esau
must know that Jacob has been chosen because of the good pleasure of God, and he
must know that God punishes all of Jacob’s sins in Jesus Christ who is Jacob’s
Son and Lord. Yes, Esau must acknowledge that this is not merely a verbal truth,
must confess that election comes solely by reason of God’s good pleasure. And
this, of course, means that God can not find as much as one of His reasons for
choosing Jacob in Jacob himself. Therefore everything that is Jacob’s must enter
into an absolute death today. Heaven and earth must testify now that Jacob can
keep nothing because of the strength of his own hands, or in virtue of his own
powers. The limping thigh with which Jacob began his journey to the land of his
inheritance was the beginning of the history of the passion. For Jacob and
Christ are one. Hence that history of the passion must reach its culmination
today in the bruised heels with which Jacob in Christ Jesus will finish his
course.

Yes, Esau must see and must acknowledge today that to be chosen means to be
heavily laden. That is why Esau may put the great Son of Jacob to death. For it
was this Son with whom God was concerned long ago in the tent in which Jacob
prepared the mess of pottage and in which Esau consumed it. For Esau has too
long forgotten that God calls His Jacob — to be blessed, yes, but also to serve.
The elect — that is a title of honor. But that honorable name has this synonym
also: the heavily laden one. And this is the translation, the all too faithful
one, which occupied the mind of Jacob too little, which was never understood by
Esau, and which is neither appreciated nor understood by Jacob’s carnal
posterity today. Does not every Jew cry aloud: We are the chosen people? And do
you hear any voice which adds the conclusion: Therefore we are the heavily
burdened people? Nevertheless, election means calling, privilege implies task,
“to may” is “to must,” or, as the Germans say, Gabe ist Aufgabe. But Jacob in
the persons of his Christ-accusing sons is still priding himself in the flesh.
But of all those children of Jacob there is that one who does understand that
election involves service, obligation, and the burden of the Lord. That One is
the Christ, the great Son of Jacob.

Accordingly, He must wrestle with God. He must experience His Peniel. And
remember that Peniel is the place of the spiritual wrestling for the gifts of
the sovereign election.

What we are witnessing today, therefore, is the entrance of Peniel into Herod’s
house. The mystery of Peniel re-enacts itself in the courtroom of Herod. There
it reaches its denouement; there it comes to rest. When Peniel still had its
place near the Jabbok, God did indeed struggle against Jacob, but Esau stood at
a distance. That was an instance of the grace of God which allowed Jacob to have
done with God before entering into judgment with Esau. But here in the place of
Herod Antipas, Esau stands directly in front of Jacob. Again God struggles with
Jacob in Christ, inasmuch as He has been made the curse because of Jacob’s sin.
But today the law of Peniel becomes even more difficult to understand than it
was long ago at the side of the Jabbok. In this hour of Christ’s presence before
Herod-Esau, God does not begin to punish and to bruise, for God on this occasion
is terrible in His silence. Esau scolds and gnashes his teeth; he grimly gnashes
his teeth, and he will not put up the sword of his tongue.

Now the great task of Christ as the absolute Son of father Jacob is that in His
spirit He will be so perfectly occupied with God, will so see things from a
theocentric point of view and so live them, that He will see Himself standing
behind Herod, will hear God’s own voice speaking in Herod’s verdict, and will
feel the hand of God in the blows of Esau which are wounding His thigh and
bruising His heel.

Peniel, O incomparable grace. Here I see Jacob quailing and Jesus trembling. Oh,
blows of God! O matchless grace! It is better for Thee, Jacob’s Son, to fall
into God’s hands than into the hands of men. In Peniel, God struck thee, O
Jacob, and it was a magnanimous grace. It is better to be beaten by God than by
Esau, is it not, father Jacob? But today God conceals Himself and lets Herod
persist in the beating, and God tells Thee Thou Son of Jacob, that Thou must be
silent in the presence of Thy judge, inasmuch as He who is beating Thee through
the agency of Herod-Esau is none other than Thy God. In this resplendent palace
in which the reeking stench of sin and uprighteousness is striking Thee full in
the face, Thou must experience Thy Peniel, and must say to Thy God: I will be
silent, I will not open my mouth. But I shall not let Thee go until Thou bless
me. I shall not let Thee go until Thou prepare the room of the Passover for me,
and a first-born from the dead. . . . The allegory is a striking one, is it not?
Still, we have not plumbed its deepest, deepest depths. The deepest depth of
Christ’s suffering in its absolute mystery is that God is not beating Himself,
is punishing and warring against Himself. And that same mystery we witness here
now.

Just who, after all, was it that wrenched Jacob’s thigh out of place at Peniel
and struggled with Him until dawn? Who else but the Logos, the Eternal Word, The
Son, as He made His appearance and worked His influence among the children of
special revelation before His appearance in the flesh? Yes, it was the second
person of the holy Trinity that wounded Jacob in the dark hour of Peniel. He
struck Jacob’s flesh in order to emancipate the Spirit of Israel from Jacob. But
now the Son must bear His own burden. Taking Jacob’s place today He must
approach Esau and say to him: Beat me, I pray, beat me. In Herod-Esau He must
see the God who is legally punishing Him. Hence He must inflict blows upon
Himself—God is punishing God. No, that is not too far-fetched, for these matters
lie ready at hand in the suffering Christ. Just as the priest and the sacrifice
become one in Jesus Christ, so the smiting Judge and smitten flesh become one in
Him. Just as in Christ He who offers, offers Himself, so the night of Peniel is
being fulfilled there where the Son inflicts the blows upon Himself which once
He inflicted upon Jacob. This is the great joy, and this is the great grief.
This is the exalted mystery, by which God assigns to Himself the blows which He
inflicted upon the flesh of Jacob. For Jacob was called into being and was
beaten solely because he bore the Christ in his loins. The sprained thigh, the
bruised heel, Jacob, Christ, Esau and Jacob, Herod and the great God, the
eternal absolute good pleasure and the full round of life—these all can be
grouped together, for the Word was made flesh, and the incarnation of the Word
is the only interpretive principle of all the mystery of this world.

Bow low, bow very low, O son of man, before the mystery of redemption which is
in Christ Jesus. God is in hiding; zenith and nadir, the climbing of official
heights and the bending low in the vale of the martyrs are one and the same
thing. Do you yourselves say now whether such nonsense to the unregenerate mind
is not an expression of the vision of God? Can it astonish you, then, that the
kingship of Israel is exalted above that of Agag in the very moment in which
that kingship was humiliated before it? Ah, Mordecai must be sent to the
gallows: I mean that Mordecai’s Mediator must be nailed to the tree of disgrace.
Only then will Haman who also is Esau walk before Christ’s white horse. Only
then will the red horse of Esau’s vaunt of war lead in the victory march of
Christ’s white horse of triumph. Who would miss Herod’s intermezzo? For all the
threads of history come together in it.


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  CHAPTER 26: 21. CHAPTER 21: CHRIST BEING SILENT BEFORE HEROD AND BEING MOCKED IN THE VALE OF MARTYRS
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C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - O N E Christ Being Silent Before Herod and Being
Mocked in the Vale of Martyrs And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad:
for he was desirous to see him of a long season, because he had heard many
things of him; and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him. Then he
questioned with him in many words; but he answered him nothing. And the chief
priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused him. And Herod with his men of
war set him at naught, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and
sent him again to Pilate. And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends
together: for before they were at enmity between themselves. —Luk 23:8-12.

WE concluded in the preceding chapter that for Christ zeniths are nadirs. When
He stands at the very top of the royal and prophetic mountain, He stands at the
very zenith of His glory; and that zenith corresponds perfectly to the nadir of
His humiliation. This correspondence manifests itself also in Christ’s meeting
with Herod. He stands upon the heights, upon the mountain of Jacob’s blessing of
the first-born. That, then, according to the logic of the incarnation of the
Word means that Christ is entering into the vale of martyrs, laden as it is with
mockery and disdain. Only in this way can He achieve glory for the faith.
Consequently we shall not speak in the interests of that faith in terms of
parables at this place either.

Yes, when Christ is being conducted before Herod, He is entering the vale of
martyrdom. Herod Antipas, the Edomite, feared for a long time—and to this fact
we will allude again later—that Jesus was none other than the murdered Baptist,
who, he supposed, had arisen from the dead. To his wondering anxiety, therefore,
Jesus is a resurrected martyr. In fact, the Baptist is the greatest martyr of
the Old Testament: “Among them that are born of women there has not arisen a
greater than he.” Those are the words Christ Himself used when, taking full
cognizance of the wide circle of great men referred to in the Old Testament, He
ascribed that high place to John the Baptist. Hence, when Herod sees the figure
of the murdered Baptist who was put to death at the very end of Israel’s wall of
mourning, still playing before his eyes—decadent kings very often labor under
the burden of such a diseased imagination—he sees Christ approaching Him as one
coming from those who have witnessed with their blood. Is it he, or is it not
he? Herod cannot be sure, but in any case Jesus is enveloped in the cloud of all
martyred witnesses, is enfolded within the reeking vapor of their shed blood. As
Jesus enters Herod’s palace, that judge reckons with the possibility that the
spirit of the Baptist resides in Him, that this spirit is looking for a new
outlet in the world, some very secret channel, perhaps, but in any case bent
upon Herod’s destruction.

Now the thing that moves us, and the thing that causes Christ to suffer is this:
Herod has assigned to Christ a place in the dark vale of martyrs. Seeing Jesus,
Herod saw blood; he detected the vapor of the souls of martyred men in Him.
Nevertheless, even in that greatly dreaded vale of martyrs, Christ is being
despised by Herod. Christ enters Herod’s palace as an “eventual”, martyr, but He
is ushered out of it a little later wearing the garment of mockery.[1] In other
words, Christ is entering into mockery and disdain in the company of all His
martyrs and blood-witnesses, that is, in the company of the whole of the
martyred seed of the woman.

[1] This is the strongest possible evidence thus far for the fact that, even
though someone should arise from the dead—and Herod thinks John has so arisen—a
person cannot be converted without the Word and the Spirit. Stronger evidence
for this follows inMat 27:53. My God, what hast Thou done to Him?

There is still one opportunity for Jesus to gain some renown in the eyes of “the
world”; He can obtain the martyr’s crown. That crown is as becoming to those who
with Pilate ask what truth is, as it is to those who with the Sanhedrin say: He
is, speaking theoretically, worthy of death. Obviously, if Jesus is purely a
martyr, He still has a reasonably good chance in this world. But if even the
crown of the martyrs cannot protect His head from slime and venom, surely then
His last chance in this world is taken away from Him.

No, even that cloud of reeking martyrs’ blood will not serve to protect Jesus.
Christ may enter any given house in the world which is filled with sin and lying
as a Mountain Climber who has scaled peaks higher than any prophets or kings
before Him have, or Pie can enter as a Dweller-in-the-valley who, in the company
of the martyrs, is laid away in the dust of the grave. It does not matter how or
where He goes. What matters is that He has ever entered these houses and will
never be able to escape from the roundelay of death.

We have already observed in what manner Christ was conducted into Herod’s
presence. This new feature of the process of His passion represents a remarkable
moment in His suffering. When He was before the Sanhedrin, Jesus had to battle
against the false and carnal exegesis which the unregenerated heart gave of the
Messiah. In the presence of Pilate, He stands over against the fact of unbelief.
Today, as He stands in the presence of Herod, it is superstition which casts its
dull reflections upon Him. As for this superstition, the Bible mentions the fact
that Herod Antipas,[1] who now sees the Saviour standing before him, had for a
long time been struggling with the question as to who Jesus, the Nazarene,
really was.

[] In the preceding chapter we regard Herod as a typical representative of Esau.
But there is room, too, — and that is why this separate chapter is devoted to it
— for the consideration which Herod as apersondevotes to Christ. A long history
of suffering lies behind this question which is agitating the king. Time was
when this same ruler had had John the Baptist killed. That murder had in part
been the result of a false sense of shame owing to the fact that Herod had not
had the courage to refuse the “favor” which his daughter Salome had asked of
him. We remember that he had promised to give her whatever she should ask, when
she danced before him at the celebration of his birthday. Spurred on by her
mother, Salome had on that occasion asked for the head of the Baptist. In part
this murder, the plan of which had been carefully worked out in the mind of
Salome’s mother, Herodias, had had a political significance. We know this from
the fact that the Baptist had been imprisoned for a while before his death.
John, then, was beheaded in his cell, and the ball in celebration of the king’s
birthday was brought to a conclusion by this atrocious act.

After that day, however, Herod had never again felt at rest. This is not
surprising. We must know that before the Baptist was beheaded, Herod had had a
good deal to do with him. In secret, you see, he acknowledged that the Baptist,
even though he had been imprisoned, was guilty of no misconduct, but was, on the
contrary, a holy and righteous man, a prophet whose credentials were
indisputable. That is why Herod, during the time in which the Baptist was being
held captive, secretly visited him more than once, in order to talk with him.
These lone conversations between the weak prince with his troubled conscience
and the quiet witness-bearer of God had made a deep impression upon the soul of
Herod. How eagerly he would have refused to grant the request of the frivolous
dancer when she required the head of that much-hated man. But to refuse he dared
not. He dared not because of the people who were standing by and who noticed
that he had given Salome an indefinite promise. Is it any wonder then that the
restiveness which had consumed his troubled conscience before the gruesome
murder continued to tantalize him afterwards? No, that can readily be
understood. Accordingly we read that after this time Herod Antipas could not rid
himself of thoughts about John the Baptist. A tantalized conscience, a smothered
voice of conscience, a superstitious obsession, a suppressed anxiety, and a
rather vague notion about what becomes of the dead after their departure from
this life (the question of the state of the soul was a much mooted issue among
several factions in those days)—these all combined to greatly disturb Herod’s
peace of mind. Secretly he feared that the Baptist might return some day.

Then Jesus of Nazareth went through the country doing wonders and preaching a
message which in all of its earnestness greatlyresembled that call to repentance
which the Baptist had sounded. Moreover, when Jesus, just as John before him,
showed no respect of persons, the king felt intuitively that the line of the
Baptist had not been cut off in the sombre cells of the prison where his head
had fallen to the ground, but that this line of his prophetic work was being
continued by Jesus of Nazareth. This thought never left Herod: a troubled
conscience cannot easily be put to rest. That is why, then, Herod again and
again imagines that he recognizes the beheaded Baptist in the miracle-working
Jesus. Sometimes he rejects the thought as unworthy of acceptance (Luk 9:9), but
on other occasions he simply cannot escape from the depressing possibility (Mat
14:1-2, Mark 6:14-16). Hence Jesus existed as a vaguely understood mystery in
the mind of Herod Antipas. Moreover, Herod was not the only one who, in a vague
sort of way, felt that the murdered Baptist had returned to the world in one
form or another, be it in the guise of the prophet of Nazareth or in some other
form (Luk 9:7). Hence Jesus was regarded by many as a hidden mystery, as an
unexplained visitor from the other world, possibly an angel of wrath. Jesus’
good works and preaching were regarded as sombre threats by the king and the
court. But especially alarmed was Herod himself,—poor Herod, against whom a
wreaking judgment should unexpectedly be released later.

However, even this does not tell the whole story. We read that when Jesus
returned to Galilee somewhat later, certain Pharisees warned Him in a
quasi-friendly way that Herod wanted to put Him to death; and they added the
advice that the best thing He could do was to remove Himself from the province
of that king.

It becomes apparent from the very peculiar reply which Jesus gave to these
“friendly” advisers that the Pharisees had mingled truth with falsehood. It was
true that they were eager to have Jesus remove Himself from Herod’s province. It
was not true that Herod wanted to put Jesus to death. He would not have dared to
do that. The king feared the influence of Jesus. The threatening storm cloud was
approaching ever nearer, and the king did not know what he had to think of it.
It is obvious, accordingly, that he had arranged with these Pharisees that they
should make use of these means of intimidation in an effort to get rid of Jesus.
This arrangement was just another manifestation in Herod of that mingling of
hope and fear which had long possessed his soul, and which was stirred up as
often as he thought of Jesus in connection with John the Baptist. Quietly but
persistently the longing grew in his soul to see the remarkable Jesus face to
face. On the one hand, he shied away from any such need; no one could tell when
the storm might break loose, when the spirit of the murdered Baptist might leap
forth from the body of the Nazarene, when John’s hand might reach out to grasp
Herod’s throat. . . . But, on the other hand, the king wanted to have as much
certainty as was at all possible. He had to rid himself of his anxiousness; he
simply could not go on living with this tantalizing conscience.

Hence it is easy to see why Herod is as happy as a child to know that today
Pilate has referred Jesus to him. The opportunity for meeting Jesus has
unexpectedly come at last. That which the king had not dared to coerce was
suddenly achieved for him through an agency with which he himself had had
nothing to do. The question to which he himself could give no reply—should he
engage Jesus in conversation or shun Him?—was suddenly answered for him.

Besides, the manner in which Jesus was presented to the king immediately
alleviated much of his anxiety. For Jesus made His appearance in bonds. He was
quite defenceless. No, that does not mean to say that Herod supposes no danger
at all remains now; superstition is not put to rest as easily as that. But at
least the first threat of danger seemed to be allayed for the time being. As
long as the Nazarene stands before him bound, the arrow of death will very
likely not leap at the king’s throat. Accordingly, Herod was very glad when he
saw Jesus.

We can appreciate his feelings in the matter even better if we remember that the
last word which Jesus spoke to him had never ceased to trouble him. We refer to
the answer which Jesus had given those Pharisees to whom we alluded a moment
ago. In response to their friendly warning, advising Him to leave Herod’s
province, Jesus had replied: “Go ye and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out
devils, and I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be
perfected. Nevertheless I must walk today, and tomorrow, and the day following:
for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.” With this message
Jesus had dispatched His advisers. But the sublime irony contained in that
statement had long continued to make the king’s life difficult for him. The
statement gave expression to a spiritual superiority which offered the king a
good deal to think about. It was plain that the Nazarene was not afraid. That in
the first place. And this besides: Just what did the statement mean? It seemed
to be a kind of riddle. Yes, to a considerable extent it represented a kind of
international conundrum, the kind in fact to which we have had occasion to refer
frequently in this book. What did Jesus mean when He said: ‘On the third day I
shall be perfected?” Did He mean to say that He would have completed His work
after a few days? Or could it be that this statement contained a hidden allusion
to His death? And, in case this last meaning were the real intent of the
utterance, could it be that Jesus wanted to mock the king by telling him in
effect that he could kill Him, but that the death would in no sense harm Him;
that He will complete His own work in His own way in spite of the murder; that
His death would represent a perfecting? And that other idea, too, implying that
Jesus wanted to complete His schedule of activities in His own manner first, and
that then, if the king chose, he might take Him, perhaps in . . . Jerusalem—what
could that possibly mean? It just does not happen, it is quite impossible, said
Jesus, that a prophet is killed outside of Jerusalem, and is He giving
expression to the fact that He knows such a death will be the culmination of
everything? Can it be that Jesus is telling Herod that He, as the very crown of
the prophets, standing upon the prophetic mountain, wants also to assume the
fate of those prophets who in a general way were never understood by the people
and, consequently, were each in turn, be it literally or figuratively, put to
death? When Jesus says that He is going to Jerusalem, the city whose privilege
it has been to murder prophets, He seems to be relying on the fact that He will
have a place in the vale of martyrs. In any case, however, this statement, which
might then be fairly called a cynical one, is an instance of haughtiness on the
part of a citizen of Nazareth against his majesty, the king.

Now it was certainly a most difficult thing to know what Jesus’ statement might
mean. We say this seriously. We do not hesitate to say that we notice a kind of
maschil in this ironical speech of Jesus. We do not mean to say that it was a
general riddle such as accompanied Jesus’ usual prophesying, but do mean that it
was a conundrum directed to a specific address. The more we think about it, the
more delicate and the more devastating the irony of Christ seems to us to have
been. For Herod on his own part has already feared that Jesus has taken his
place heretofore in the valley of martyrs—recall the Baptist again. Mark now:
Jesus, He who tried human hearts, seems to fall in line with those peculiar,
restless thoughts of the king who is the prey of folly, and by means of His
well-chosen and pointed words He seems to join in with the trend of those
thoughts. He appears to be quietly playing with the secret anxieties of Herod.
Can it be that He actually is the Baptist? And does that man know everything?

Ah yes, this was indeed an instance of sublime majesty. On the one hand, Jesus
did not repudiate the truth of what the king feared, but couched His meaning in
such phrases as would give the king’s anxieties new stuff to feed on. But, on
the other hand, Jesus also showed very plainly that He goes His own way quite
independently, and that He, when He is ready to enter the city which kills the
prophets, will make His entry not as an embarrassed and shy candidate for the
privilege of martyrdom but as a king who follows His own schedule, and who will
not be diverted from it by this old fox.

Hence you need not ask what impression this last message which Christ had
conveyed to Herod made upon the king. He must have felt a sense of defeat. The
sublime irony of the Christ was simply too much for him. His spiritual
superiority weighed down very oppressively upon Herod.

Nevertheless, the matter was not one of spiritual superiority solely. Christ was
standing over against Herod not merely as a human being but as a prophet, as a
revealer of God, and Herod had been caught in the snares of Jesus Christ, the
Christ who bears witness to revelation. Christ had taken the king captive in His
maschil, in His intentional conundrum, in His riddle directed to “that fox”.

We refer to a maschil, and do so with good reason, we believe. Remember that a
maschil is characterized by two elements: first, it represents a concealment of
the truth; and, second, a thoroughgoing penetration in the direction of the
truth. Both of these elements characterize Jesus’ reply to “that fox”. On the
one hand Christ had purposely couched His meaning in the form of a conundrum. To
that we referred above, and hence we will not discuss it here. On the other
hand, however, Christ had also constrained Herod; in fact, had constrained him
to a seeking of the truth which had hitherto remained a mystery to him in the
matter of the Nazarene. By naming Jerusalem the official city for the murdering
of prophets and by declaring outright that Herod, if he indeed wanted to rid
himself of the Nazarene in whom the Baptist possibly was hidden had better wait
until both of them were in Jerusalem, Christ had given the king a very definite
hint. He had clearly indicated to him that for the present the Nazarene did not
expect any persecution on the part of Herod. But He had indicated also that He
nevertheless expected an outburst of enmity against His own life work. Christ
had not tried to conceal the fact that a persecution of life and death was not
only a natural consequence of Herod’s own life but would also serve as the very
crown of the tribulation of martyrs, which had accrued to all the prophets of
God throughout the centuries. By naming Jerusalem as the place of the murder of
prophets, and by awaiting Herod in Jerusalem, Jesus had included Himself in the
company of all the martyrs. He proved that He thoroughly understood Herod, that
He knew him to be a dyed-in-the-wool Edomite, an enemy of the true seed of
Jacob-Israel. This, too, was a painful reprimand for Herod, the more so because
he was doing his best to be acknowledged among the Jews as a pious prince, one
who was being faithful to all the traditions. That he had been eagerly active in
attaining this purpose becomes obvious from his restorations of the temple,
later from his battle against Pilate’s religious plunderings, and now from his
presence in Jerusalem for the purpose of attending the Passover together with
all orthodox Jews.

You see that the man was eager to be popular when such popularity was expedient
for him. In this way, then, Christ had caught Herod in the net of His
revelation.

Thereupon Herod came to the city at once with a heavy heart. What can he do? His
superstition gives him no answer. On the contrary, superstition always makes one
lose one’s way. In fact, a superstitious person cannot even read such directions
as point out the road to take. Yes, what can Herod do in the city? Conform
himself to its manner of life? Join with the others in singing the feast-day
songs, and so drown out the groanings of the murdered prophets in this
“official” vale of martyrs? Or should he proclaim judgment to the city? Had not
the Nazarene truly said that the murdering of prophets had grown to be the habit
here? And at the feast itself: What must the king do there? The whole city is
talking about the Nazarene. Naturally Herod, too, has heard the rumors about his
triumphal entry. Hence they are both in the same neighborhood, Herod and the
Nazarene miracle- worker, Herod and the man who has been an irksome problem in
his mind these last years, Herod and the man who has been writing on the wall of
his festal ball-room. Secret writing indeed and bearing a message which seemed
to say mene, mene, tekel. . . Ah, yes, what must Herod do at this feast? Shall
he carefully avoid any conflict with the Nazarene and move about at the feast as
unobtrusively as is possible for a king? Or shall he try to lay hands on the
Nazarene and prove that the lofty utterances of the ruler of Galilee and Iturea
are not a bluff? The Pharisees had not forgotten the agreement: they would be
there to see whether he “could hold his own” over against the Nazarene, now that
He had dared to come to the city in which prophets were murdered.

Yes, Herod’s is a very difficult situation. Too many eyes are kept upon him to
allow him a sense of ease. The eyes of the Pharisees, and more particularly—the
eyes of John the Baptist. But mark now: God suddenly removes Herod’s
perplexities. All of a sudden the Nazarene is placed before him. This is a
pleasant surprise—a surprise inasmuch as the detention of Jesus had occurred in
secret and inasmuch as the events had followed each other in astonishingly rapid
succession. Can we wonder at the fact that Herod is surprised? And pleasantly
surprised. Some say that Herod was glad solely because Pilate granted him the
honor of a share in the procedure. Others maintain that Herod’s joy was as
exuberant as it was because the situation gave him an opportunity to put Jesus
to death. A third group contends that Herod’s tantalized conscience felt much
better now because of the fact that the formidable, depressing uncertainty which
had made life so difficult for him these many years would give way at last to
certainty about whether this man were really the Baptist or simply an ordinary
man of flesh and blood.

You see that there are three interpretations. Must we choose one of the three?
We believe that is not necessary. The one cannot possibly be separated from the
other two. Psychological conflicts are always complicated. On the one hand Herod
must have leaped for joy at the thought that his unformulated problem— after
all, a person always feels ashamed of his superstition—was suddenly removed in
an unanticipated manner. At least, he thinks that it will be removed. On the
other hand, it must have been particularly pleasant for Herod, inasmuch as he
was always pathetically wanting in self-assurance—and the man standing before
him there was to a large extent “responsible” for that—to know that some
official attention was given him at Pilate’s behest. And, finally, he can
positively rejoice at the fact that the man whom he feared so much is dependent
upon him now.

Nevertheless, uncertainty dominates the situation. A feeling of abiding
uncertainty claims dominance over the rising sense of exuberant gladness. The
question mark remains; the secret writing remains, its letters almost standing
out as large now as Herod himself. Yes, the question mark and the writing on the
wall both have been introduced into the court.

Hereupon Herod reveals himself as he truly is. He asks for a sign. That is
revealing himself as he is, his asking for a sign. It may be that faith first
asks for the Word, but superstition would rather have a sign. Hence Herod
demands one of Jesus. He wants a sign, he wants a miracle to be performed. He
wants something miraculous to happen. From the Nazarene’s answer to the question
whether or not he can perform a miracle it will appear whether he is the
much-feared Baptist or not. The king asks for a sign. He hopes that this will
give him some assurance as to the identity of this mysterious person.

Quick as lightning he makes the request: Perform a miracle.[1] Naturally this
question greatly increases the tenseness of the atmosphere in the court.
Visualize the situation. Here is Herod. He vehemently demands that a wonder be
performed. The conflict he has suffered during the past months gives his request
an impassioned violence. There, on the other side, are Jesus’ accusers, the high
priests and the scribes. These, for their own part, want no such sign to be
displayed. Suppose the Nazarene should comply with the request—that would be
merely a waste of time. Besides it would weaken their “chances,” for the
Nazarene would get more prominence because of it. As long as Jesus’ signs simply
provide the stuff for folk-tales to feed upon, they have no objections. After
all, such tales, . . . well, they are merely the gossip of the masses. But it
will be a harder thing to erase from the public mind the impression which would
be created by a sign given in this court. Had they not when they were in the
presence of the Sanhedrin carefully avoided every inquiry about miracles?

[1] True, this is not stated in so many words in the Biblical account, but it is
evident from that account that much was said on this occasion; and the eager
desire of the king must naturally have arisen to the surface.

Yes, the atmosphere is growing tense in the court.

Herod and the Jewish authorities stand there over against each other. The one is
eager to see a sign, the others want to do everything in their power to prevent
one. The one makes his wishes known by expressing them aloud; the others make
violent and persistent accusations their forte. By the clamor of their vitriolic
accusations they would hinder Herod from asking and Jesus from demanding
attention for an impressive sign.

What of Jesus Himself? What does He do? We can put it this way: He sees the
temptation, but He conquers it.

Yes, this was a temptation for Christ. This is the third time during the process
of law affecting Him that a temptation has come to Him. Had Jesus explained His
maschil to the Sanhedrin He would have placed the meeting in great embarrassment
and have been able to postpone the day of His death. But He would have done that
independent of God’s justice and truth.[1] That was the first temptation.

[1] Compare Chapter 5 of this volume, especially pp. 115 f.

Moreover, if He, just a moment ago, had disclosed His official and personal
secret to Pilate, in spite of the fact that Pilate had brazenly overlooked the
all-important question as to what the essence of Christ was (that is, when he
asked: What is truth?), Christ would also have embarrassed Pilate greatly, would
have forced the suit at law, and would have postponed the day of His death. But
that too, He would have to do, then, independent of God’s justice and truth.
That was the second temptation.[2] [2] Compare this volume, p. 356, Chapter 19,
“Christ Being Silent Before Pilate” In the presence of the Sanhedrin Christ
conquered the first temptation: He held His peace. In the presence of Pilate
Christ conquered the second temptation: He held His peace there a second time.
In the presence of Herod Christ conquered the third temptation: He stood mute a
third time.

Yes, this occasion was indeed a temptation for Him. You can arrive at that
conclusion yourself. How easy, how very easy,— we talk after the manner of
men—it would have been for Christ by means of some suggestive hint or by means
of busy argument to escape from His own fate, which is the fate His Father
assigned to Him, or at least to postpone the decision to a later time. In the
first place, Christ could have made use of the principle employed by tyrants:
Keep factions alive, and rule. A perfect opportunity was given Him to drive a
wedge between Herod and the scribes. The one wanted a sign, and the others did
not. Besides, Herod, who had so often catered to the Jews and was doing so even
now by attending the Passover, had also on occasion bitterly provoked and
offended the Jews. Everyone knew that such was the fact, and Christ was the
first to know it. What could be easier, therefore, than to play off Herod
against the scribes? Life is so good, and He was a man of like passions with us!
In the second place, the opportunity was an especially favorable one for Jesus,
because the soul of Herod was particularly impressionable. If ever anyone—and
again we speak after the fashion of men—was susceptible to receiving a good
“impression” which nevertheless would involve him in difficulties, that man was
Herod. A psychological conflict which lasts months and years suffices to make
the human personality very pliable. It might be that Jesus was the Baptist in
very fact. But Herod himself knew very well that the Baptist was a “holy and
righteous” man. Hence, as long as he reckons with the possibility that the
Baptist has returned in the form of Jesus, so long he must necessarily think of
the Christ who is standing before him as one who is “holy and righteous”. And it
is not true that a single dazzling sign would have strengthened that thought in
Herod immeasurably. Was the Nazarene a messenger from heaven? An angel of wrath?
Or a token of God’s utmost long-suffering? A messenger from heaven, in other
words, whose coming was ushered in with peace? One who showed a stern
countenance, but nevertheless had no will to condemn? This wandering
mystery—might something still be expected of him? If so, O Jesus, Jesus, help
Herod then. He will be grateful to Thee if Thou canst heal his sickness. He will
move about much easier then, there in his position above the tombstone of the
accursed Baptist, that good and holy, but very troublesome man. He will do
everything in his power then to change Pilate’s point of view. He will be glad
to bear the discomfort of a break between him and the scribes if he may know
that the weight of the burden resting upon his conscience will be lifted today.
O Christ, do show a sign! But Jesus held His peace.

Again in this matter we worship Christ’s passive obedience, an obedience which
rests in His Father’s good pleasure. We must worship Christ’s active obedience
as He manifests it in the silence which He maintains before Herod quite as much
as His passive obedience. Jesus recognizes that the temptation is here, but in
all of His responses to what confronts Him in this world he acts purely and
genuinely, and He does so also in His response to this situation.

Yes, He knows very well that a sign, humanly speaking, will save His life. O
Christ, Christ, Thou hast saved others by Thy miracles: canst Thou not save
Thyself? By Thy signs and miracles Thou didst give much to many. Mayest Thou not
in this Thy dire need give Thyself anything? Christ, Thou crown of Moses, Thou
prince of Aaron, convert Thy staff into a serpent, put Thy hand—have it loosened
a moment—into Thy bosom so that it may become leprous and then well again, have
Thy almond reed burst into bloom, perform a wonder for Thy own benefit in order
that Thy enemies may in their wrath and much to their regret, observe how God
comforts and delivers Thee. But Jesus held His peace. He did not reply to a
single word. He performed no miracle, precisely because He is more than Moses.
Yes, “more than Moses”; there are two ways in which that phrase can be
explained. Satan has his own exposition. He tells Jesus: If you really are more
than Moses show a greater sign than Moses ever revealed. But God has an
explanation too. His exegesis of the messianic appeal, “being more than Moses,”
is a different one. God says: Because Thou art more than Moses, perform no
miracle on this occasion. For Moses performed his wonders in order to escape
from the house of bondage. In the company of his people, of course, but also in
order that he himself might escape. But Christ is a greater than Moses. And He
performs no miracle, He shows no sign, on this occasion, for the specific reason
that His people will emerge from the house of bondage at the very place at which
he, Christ Himself, must all alone enter into that house of bondage and be
swallowed up by it. That is what “being more than Moses” means. It means to
refuse to show a sign, whenever the demonstration of it would benefit only
Himself; to refuse to understand, in order that He might show those signs which
will convey some of the gifts of the peace of God and the power of salvation to
the others, to the oppressed and heavily laden.

No, Christ knows very well that if He were to show a sign, here in the presence
of this man at this specific moment, He would be sinning. For Christ, that is,
the man Christ, is not the chief Lord of wonders, even though He demonstrated
His signs time and again. His task is to be the servant of the Lord. Now a
servant may never play with the signs and with the powers of the kingdom of his
Sender. Had Christ in this moment demonstrated a sign which had not been
commanded Him He would have been playing with the powers of the world to come.
The signs which Christ demonstrates must find their purpose in His God and not
in Himself, for He is a servant. The sign He demonstrates must reveal the power
of redemption, not as that power pertains to Himself but as it pertains to the
people to whom He has been sent. Obviously, then, if Christ had showed a sign,
the only purpose of which had been to glory in the presence of Herod, or to
redeem Himself from this maelstrom of death and curse, He would Himself have
taken the central position; He would have thrust God out of that position. Then
He would have placed Himself at the very end of His course in an effort to save
Himself from death, and to throw the responsibility for our illnesses off His
shoulders; He would have thrust His people aside.

That, then, is why He shows no sign. Had He done so the Christ of God would have
fallen into sin. He will not stretch out His hand to the tree of life, before
God’s time has come. He will not eat a fruit which God has refused Him, in all
eternity He will not. This is so perfectly true that, to go on, we can safely
say that Christ was unable to perform a wonder. In order to perform a miracle,
faith is necessary, faith in the fellowship with God in this specific hour and
for this specific purpose. As often as in any given instance this faith is not
present in Him, He cannot show a sign. That faith is not present in Him here.
Christ has no faith in the fact that it is possible for Him to perform a wonder
here. He has no faith in it because He knows that any wonder which He might
perform now could profit only Himself. But He knows that He may not be the end
and purpose of the powers which God sends into the world. That is why Christ was
unable to show a sign on this occasion. To say that He did not want to is to
tell the truth. And to say that He could not do it is to present the other side
of that perfect truth.

Hence the moment in which Christ refuses to perform a wonder for Herod is just
as momentous as the one which came to Him in the wilderness at the very
beginning of His official ministry. In one sense this whole episode resembles a
kind of intermezzo; in one sense Christ’s hearing before Herod seems hardly more
important than the sudden flash which induced Pilate, who was eager to have done
with the matter, to give the case into the hands of another. Nevertheless,
Christ’s stay in Herod’s house is a perfect counterpart to His temptation in the
wilderness. At the beginning, in the wilderness, and at the end, here in Herod’s
court, Satan tried to tempt Christ to perform an extra-official wonder. The
parallelisms in these two events are not hard to discover. When Satan invited
Christ to show a sign in the wilderness, the question at issue was whether or
not Christ would be willing to show a sign within a “closed circle,” that is, in
the wilderness with none there to see except Satan and Jesus Christ. By this
sign, then, Christ would have served Himself the miracle-bread, apart from the
favor and outside of the fellowship of God. For it was God who had caused Him to
hunger. The same implications hold for the temptation which followed, in which
Satan advised Christ that He leap down from the pinnacles of the temple. Even
though this last sign would not have been as conspicuously limited to a closed
circle (for the temple was a public place), Christ by this sign, too, would have
been serving Himself. He would have been curtailing the tedious road which He
must take in revealing Himself as the Messiah, by personally deciding to forego
the suffering. This dispossessing sign would not have served His God nor God’s
people, but would have remained a service of self. In this way, according to the
Satanic prediction, the way of the Servant of the Lord would have taken a direct
route to world conquest: “I will give thee all the kingdoms.” This same evil
prompting of satanic temptation returns at this time. Would Christ not be
willing, just for one moment, to show a sign in an exclusive society? If need
be, Herod and Jesus can step into the king’s apartment for a moment,—the two can
be quite alone there. Or, if the secretiveness need not be as far- reaching as
that, would Jesus not be willing to show the sign in the somewhat larger but
still limited circle of Herod and the scribes and the chief priests? He must
remember, of course, that in both events the sign which He shows will be
demonstrated for the benefit of the accused Himself; it will help Him greatly in
obtaining His freedom. True, this demonstration of a wonder will not this time
be directly referred to God, nor to God’s people, and it will not be done with a
strictly evangelical purpose, nor be full of blessing for the poor and the
miserable—but, after all, Christ has blessed these so very often before. This
time it concerns Himself. Yes, indeed, have Him perform a miracle; perhaps the
wonder will not lead to world conquest, but it will at least insure a longer
life. It may be that the cross will recede. . . .. The offer sounds attractive,
does it not, Lord Jesus? But Jesus held His peace.

He will perform no miracles in an exclusive circle, but will show His signs only
along the ways traversed by God’s church- forming redemption. The Christ will
perform no miracles in a secluded corner, but only along the public way which
has been made smooth and traversable for God, only along the highway by which
God seeks His people in love. The servant never makes himself the purpose of his
actions. Hence Christ refuses to show the requested sign.

How now, Christ, do you really want to make that choice? You have come to appear
before Esau today; a new Jacob stands before a new Esau. What has become of your
birthright, Christ? Is it not true that to show signs, to master the forces of
nature, to manipulate the forces of the kingdom of heaven as you will, are some
of the highest prerogatives which belong to the birthright of the estate of
God’s covenant of grace? Come, Christ, appropriate Thy birthright, work it out,
cause it to shine in splendor. But Christ held His peace. For He is not Jacob,
but Israel. He is paying the penalty for Jacob’s sins. When he robbed Esau of
his birthright — we return to this matter once more — he reached for the
promise, but he overreached himself in reference to the commandments. He
separated the blessing of the birthright from the duty of the birthright and
made himself, instead of God, the purpose of God’s promises. He refused to take
the roundabout way of suffering in his journey to glory. In that moment Jacob,
who had been called a prince, became a beggar; he had to beg for his life — from
Esau. He fled from the spot and later purchased Esau’s favor at the cost of half
of his capital; he had already closed the deal in his soul before that.

Now see the Christ standing before Esau. He makes God, and not Himself, the
purpose of life and of work. He does not beg Esau for a day of life. He does no
dickering in the house of God. If there is anyone who thinks such language
irreverent, we ask him to remember that prophecy itself reaches one of its high
points when it is able to say: “There shall be no more the Canaanite (that is,
the bargainer, the dickerer) in the house of the Lord of Hosts” (Zec 14:21).
This statement has the sound of music in the ears of the prophets. For the
history of Israel began by a “dickering.” Think of the wiles of Jacob, of how
Esau sold his birthright, and of many instances besides. Spiritual goods have
very frequently been offered for sale in the markets of the unworthy.[1] But
today that spirit of Esau and that deceit on Jacob’s part will be entirely wiped
out and atoned for by Christ. The Christ who refused to perform a miracle, earns
His birthright by remaining faithful to the commandments. By His refusal He not
only persisted in the purification of the temple which He began when He threw
the “dickerers” out of the house of God, but He also earned His right to the
feast of the Passover and related to Himself the powers of the world to come. By
refusing to abuse the forces of nature for an arbitrary personal wonder, He
earned for Himself the mastery of the forces of all natural life. He earned His
reward; presently He will be given all power in heaven and on earth. In Him the
power of the blessing of the birthright will be perfectly conjoined with the
prerogatives which that birthright gives. O Jacob, here only will you be able to
find rest.

[1] Compare this volume, p. 79, Chapter 4, “The Vicious Circle Condemns Christ”
On this occasion, then, the steadfastness of the manner of Christ’s perfect
justice becomes manifest. This third instance of His silence is again an
assertion of the maschil, of the greatest mystery. Again the desire to conceal,
apparent here and now, points to the manifest character of His revelation.[2]

[2] Compare this volume, p. 87 f, Chapter 4, “The Vicious Circle Condemns
Christ”. In order to circumvent too much repetition we simply allude in passing
to what was treated in greater detail in connection with Christ’s first
assertion of the maschil.

We remember that the last word which Christ had conveyed to the king before this
time was the marvelous message: “I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third
day I shall be perfected.” Now this maschil was even richer than the first which
Christ pronounced to the Jews in the vicinity of the temple. You remember it; He
spoke of breaking down the temple and rebuilding it in three days. But this
second maschil, directed to Herod, refers unmistakably to His humiliation, to
His death. Prophets are put to death only in Jerusalem, and the Christ numbers
Himself among them. In this way, then, Herod saw Christ consciously entering
into the vale of martyrs. But the problem remained. In the statement directed to
Herod, Christ had put two truths in juxtaposition with each other. He had
referred to the persecution, to the fact that He was awaiting the fate of
prophets (“I shall not perish outside of Jerusalem”). Next to that He had put
the truth that He would complete His own work in His own way and would brook no
interference on the part of anyone (“I shall be perfected”). Now by placing
these two truths next to each other Christ had given Herod a difficult problem
to solve. And He had done more. He had constrained Herod — precisely as in the
previous instance He had constrained the Jews — to come out into the open, to
lay bare his feelings. What will Herod do? Abuse the maschil by riding over it
roughshod, by brutally and indifferently ignoring it? Or will he take refuge in
the Word, shamefacedly and with embarrassment? Will He mock Jesus, or will he
precisely because he cannot explain the maschil, inquire into the secret of His
mission?

Yes, Herod too, has been caught in the snares of the messenger of God who speaks
in riddles. Now Herod’s position must be made public.

It was made public. It appears later that Herod has no will to inquire; that
again he deftly steps over the stumbling-block of the maschil. It becomes
apparent that he does ask for a sign, for the unknown, but only in order to
escape from the Word, from the known.

Thereupon Christ asserted His maschil over against him also. Everything we have
said about that maschil heretofore[1] applies in this instance also. For Christ
did Herod justice, He did Himself justice, and above all He did justice to God
the Lord. The key to the explanation of the maschil (which called the death of
prophets the perfecting of prophets) lay in the knowledge that Jesus’
perfecting, Jesus’ complete florescence, was contained in the martyr’s crown, in
His going down to death as one of the many belonging to the martyred seed of the
woman. However, Christ did not give Herod the key. The maschil remained
unexposed. Herod was simply directed to the Word of God and to the birthright of
Jacob-Israel, and that was enough for him. Note how austerely strict the style
of Jesus is. Three times He holds His peace. He is always perfectly consistent
with Himself.

[1] Chapter 5: “Christ Being Silent Before the Sanhedrin.”

We must say more. Christ asserts His maschil not only, but also His irony. He
not only remains true to His style, but in using it He always remains beautiful,
the most beautiful among the children of men.

We have said already that Christ’s statement to “that fox” was an ironical one.
Moreover, we have previously made the point that irony in Christ represents the
fact that His thoughts have reached a point of rest.[2] This holds true also of
the poignant, ironical utterance with which He caused Herod to reflect upon His
status. The statement gave expression to the fact that Christ had reached a
point of rest in His heavily laden life.

[2] CompareChrist in His Suffering,p. 383 ff, 391-392, Chapter 22, “Christ’s
Sorrows Have Their Own Peculiar End”

If anyone should ask whether Christ, who was very man, after He had been abused
by three judges, could still maintain His poise, we would reply: Yes! Christ has
appeared before Caiaphas, before Pilate and before Herod and, even though the
tension for Him was never as oppressive as it was in Herod’s presence, inasmuch
as — humanly speaking — the chances for living were His for the taking, He even
there perfectly retained His equilibrium. He even maintained it over against the
tantalized conscience of Herod which He thoroughly penetrated.

Such is a crushing majesty, for none of us can avoid thinking of the fact that
Jesus can maintain an equal poise over against our own tantalizing conscience.
He who thinks of this is wise. But it is also a saving majesty. Remember that
Christ has now reached the end of His hearing at the court. After this time He
will not be heard further, not even by Pilate.[3] It was His own will that it
should be so. And the fact that He retains the irony with which He had addressed
Herod and upon which He now lets him continue to brood, proves to us that His
will to sacrifice is extremely great. We can say that He has already prepared
the wood for that sacrifice Himself, has done it even now. When, after a while.
He is conducted out of Herod’s palace — never in all eternity to be given
another hearing, for it is so that He thinks of it — His soul calmly says to
God: Father, the wood has been laid ready; I think everything has been prepared.
In Herod’s presence I gave Satan no chance to lay His hands upon me; Father, it
was still possible for me to see Thee. I thank thee, Father.

[3]The question “Whence art Thou?” which we will discusslater, does notrepresent
a legal hearing. As for ourselves, all that we can do is to worship Him. One who
after three hearings before as many judges is still able to express His irony is
able also to make the state of equilibrium which He achieves on the prophetic
mountain correspond to the nadir of the vale of martyrs. By means of His irony,
that is, by the superiority of His soul, Christ preserved a state of equilibrium
in the presence of Herod. In doing this, Christ, by reaching backward,
maintained the sense of the sublime statement which He had made in Gethsemane:
Sleep on now and rest.[4] In .addition, by reaching ahead, He achieved for
Himself the prerogative to say to weeping children later: Weep not for me, but
for yourselves, and for your children.

[4] SeeChrist in His Sufferingsp. 379 f.,Chapter 22, “Christ’s Sorrows Have
Their Own Peculiar End” In the meantime, however, the irony of prophets when
asserted over against kings meets with the penalty of death. Hence Christ will
not be able to escape from His punishment. In fact, we can say that He has let
“His last chance” escape. His last chance had been to cling fast to Herod’s
restlessness and to the disparity between him and the scribes. When Jesus failed
to take advantage of this opportunity, the decision against Him was quickly
made.

Herod feels provoked and humiliated. The question mark in his mind refuses to
become an explanation point. The wandering mystery he had yearned to know
refused to disclose itself. What is more, that accursed “Jacob” simply persists
in refusing to beg from “Esau.” But now Herod succeeds in getting past his “dead
center.” He “gets a grip on himself.” He succeeds in mastering his doubt;
succeeds because of the law for all sinners: his mind has not reached clarity,
not a single question has been answered for him, but he acts nevertheless as
though he knew the answer, he acts as though he knew everything about it, and
goes on to try to suppress his fears by arranging a mock comedy. The kings of
his day understood the art of arranging these. They lived close to theactors of
their time, especially when they kept up close contact with Rome. Herod Antipas,
for instance, retained in his splendid palace such luxuries as a theatre gave.
Now, accompanied by his whole court, by his entire retinue — for that is the
implication of the word used in the original—he begins to flay and to mock
Jesus. Jesus had entered the hall as an eventual martyr in Herod’s own eyes; He
had announced Himself to Herod as a probable martyr beforehand. But Herod, who
takes the fact of Christ’s candidacy for martyrdom from His own lips, does not
want to let Him leave as a martyr. Sin is always changing its own ways of
regarding things. Hence he refuses to wound Jesus and does not condemn Him. As a
matter of fact, he does not even talk threateningly to Him, nor sign a death
warrant against Him. He simply proceeds to mock Him. When he did that, Christ —
this was His fate — took the lowest place in the vale of martyrs. He became a
lesser one than all others who had been beaten down in it.

After all, the martyr was struck down in the name of the law, but we have
observed repeatedly that the outlaw is thrust outside of the pale of the law.
Hence Herod unites with the Sanhedrin in making Christ an outlawed Christ, one,
that is, who stands outside of the scope of the law. He arranges a mock comedy
which in its devilish purport and brutal sarcasm is by no means second to that
arranged by the Sanhedrin. He and his courtiers jeeringly move to and fro around
the Christ. Thereupon they put a gorgeous robe on Him. Some think that the word
gorgeous tells us nothing about the color of the robe, which, they maintain,
might have been red or white or any other hue. But others, and these very likely
upon a sound basis, believe that what is indicated is a white garment, a
glistening white robe.

What is the significance of this gorgeous robe?

Many have felt that Herod put it on Christ as a kind of caricature of the
so-called toga candida in which according to the Roman custom those persons were
dressed who presented themselves as candidates for this or that official office.
If this interpretation is correct, Herod would have been mocking Christ by
ludicrously making Him a candidate for the kingship. Naturally the motivation
for such conduct would have to be found in the charge of the high priest that
Christ had wanted to regard himself as a king. At the same time it must be said,
however, that it is highly unlikely that Herod thought of this Roman usage on
the spur of the moment, or that he chose to make use of this device here in this
particular vicinity. In Jerusalem the togaCandida was not used for such
purposes. Accordingly, the Jews would not have understood the satire conveyed by
the scheme. Hence, the interpretation that Herod wanted to mock Jesus as a
pretender to the crown must remain an unlikely one. Herod did not want to mock
Christ as a pretender to the king’s crown but as the caricature of a king. The
robe in which he decked Jesus was a princely garment. This phenomenon teaches us
the nature of sin and simultaneously conveys to us the meaning of Christ’s
suffering as the Surety.

Yes, this manifestation reveals the nature of sin to us. When Jesus first came,
Herod began by giving his own problems first consideration but he concluded by
joining in with the others and by agreeing with the charges and formulae of
complaint drawn up by the priest’s party and by the scribes. When Jesus first
entered, Herod began his inquiry by asking whether or not Jesus was a mysterious
prophet. Now, as the session is dismissed he acts as if he is certain that Jesus
is a self-vaunted king.

You see that in a single moment Herod has abandoned all of his own problems. He
has completely bared himself, and revealed the pathetic nakedness of his blinded
understanding and perverse will. When Jesus first came to him, he thought: You
are perhaps a mystery; I do not understand you yet. Now that he dismisses Jesus
he shouts after Him: In your own eyes you are a sun, but I call you darkness. As
Jesus entered the court, he thought: This may be a messenger from heaven. Now
that he sends Him away, he says: You are called the messenger of heaven, but
that is impossible. At the beginning he thought he recognized in Christ a
mystery; but at the conclusion he denies in Him the mystery. Herod began by
acknowledging the possibility that Christ was a reincarnation of a human being,
in this case, of the Baptist. But at the close of the session he haughtily
ignores the preaching that Christ truly was the incarnation of the living
God.[1] And although Herod had at first suspected that Christ was an angel of
wrath,now he resorts to mocking Him in order to escape from the message that
Christ is the angel, of love certainly, and of grace, but also of God’s perfect
wrath.

[1]The many and violent charges which the priest sounded doubtless included what
Christ had professed in the presence of the Sanhedrin: I am the Son of the
living God.

Such is man, of course. I like to think at present that the Holy Spirit, who
thinks of all things, also thought of Herod Antipas when He had the evangelist
write that men would not repent even though one should return from the dead. For
Herod troubled himself about that issue — God knows how long. But this moment
suddenly marked the end of his meditation, of his thinking, and of his anxious
temptation.

Such is man: he would see a sign, so that he might have certainty, and closed
his eyes to those possibilities which he feared had begun to become realities.

Herod still lives and lifts the sword Of mockery against his Lord. (Guido
Gezelle) But what good does it do us to regard Herod’s sin? It is our sin also.
Hence we must turn our eyes aside from Herod and ourselves and search out our
Surety.

He is here. Our Surety and Mediator is here. He is in the vale of His martyrdom.
He suffers the reproach of mockery, and is humiliated as the Christ who stands
outside the pale of law. Observe Him now as He sinks beneath the plane of all
martyrs; observe Him as He enters upon a fate which is a thousand times worse
than that of John the Baptist.

Yes, worse. For it was at least the Baptist’s privilege to be put to death by
the sword, and to be put in prison as a dangerous character. In fact, he was
taken seriously by the king, who visited him repeatedly in order to talk with
him.

Christ is not taken as seriously as this. He gets only mockery and disdain. They
belittle Him. He sinks beneath the plane of the Baptist. Certainly a prison, and
a vindictive woman, and an embarrassed ruler are better than the mockery of an
entire court. This all constituted His suffering. Never before was the fact so
unmistakably proclaimed to Him that even the very idea of the Messiah was
thought of as perfectly despicable. Here was the man who, of all those concerned
in the legal process, appeared to be the most susceptible to the teaching of the
Great Mystery. But this man also washes his hands of the Christ as soon as the
messianic message reaches his conscience. For Christ this means that even the
crown of the martyrs which Herod had seen resting upon His head when Jesus
entered, does not serve as a recommendation to the world for Him, as long as the
spirit does not intervene to vanquish the heart by His irresistible power. The
spirit only can conquer the heart and make it susceptible to the truth that
Christ is not a martyr, even though He is mocked in the vale of the martyrs, for
when He was in the depth of that valley, He bore them all within Him; He was no
longer one of them, but became their surety, the Lord and Head of them all. In
all this we honor God’s plan. Herod mocked and despised the Christ, but he went
no farther than the mockery and disdain. He was not allowed to write the death
sentence. He was not allowed to, because God gave him no permission. The same
God who first prevented Christ’s being limited to and being put to death by the
narrow circle of Moses’ last Jews[1] also prevented Jesus’ being put to death
now within the restricted area of Galilee, the province over which Antipas
swayed the sceptre. Herod was not allowed to dismiss the case of Jesus once and
for all. Christ must go to Rome, to the empire which circumscribed the whole
world. Pilate, and Rome, and Caesar, in short, the world, will not succeed in
getting rid of Christ. Christ must be made a sign before the broad gates of Rome
and of the world-tribunal, and not merely inside of the narrow enclosure of
Galilee, nor before the narrower door of Esau-Herod. The brazen serpent must be
raised to a height where every eye may see.[2] For Christ will continue to
affect the world. The same God who exalted and raised Him above the circle of
Moses-Jacob, also lifted Him above the plane of Esau.

[1] See this volume, pp. 297-298, Chapter 15, “Christ Being Raised Above the
Sphere of Mosaic Law”

[2] See this volume, p. 298 f., Chapter 15, “Christ Being Raised Above the
Sphere of Mosaic Law”

Accordingly, Herod had to send Christ back to Pilate.

It may be that these two will become good friends today. If so, the friendship
will only prove that hatred against Christ and against the birthright of
Jacob-Israel, serves to unite the false brother (Esau) with Sodom and Egypt,
that is, with Rome and the world-empire (see Revelation 11). Herod and Pilate
become friends, and that is a good thing. For it proves that Herod’s friendship
with the Jews and with Moses, whose Passover he has been eager to celebrate, is
broken because of Jesus of Nazareth. He celebrates the feast of the Jews, but he
thanks the pagan for the pleasant time he has had at the feast. By this fact,
then, the great, unique, all-inclusive schism of the world proves to be
conditioned and circumscribed by the antithesis between the seed of the woman
and the seed of the church, between election and reprobation, between Christ and
Antichrist, between faith and unbelief. By that antithesis the great schism is
determined, and not by the fluctuations of natural birth, by cultural problems
and their various fortunes, or by any force which can be explained in terms of
purely mundane phenomena.

Presently Christ leaves Herod’s palace wearing his gorgeous robe. God has laid
His king’s crown and His martyr’s crown in a place above all prophets and kings,
and in a place below the deepest catacombs of all the martyrs. The seed of the
woman, adorned with that double crown, is now being led for the last time
through the broad gates of the empire of the world by God Himself.

O Thou King of the gorgeous robe, Thou wearest the garment of mockery in front
of the eyes of all the powers of the world. It is good that this is so. Thus it
will be possible for Thee to wear the white robe, which God will give Thee, in
the presence of all people. If a king’s crown and a martyr’s crown are identical
to Thee, then the white robe of Thy perfected mockery will also be the white
robe of Thy perfected glory. Thou wilt return. On Patmos Thou wilt return.
Patmos belongs to Rome’s domain. There Thou shalt wear the white robe, and in it
dominate the world. I hear Herod saying: “There goes the king with the white
robe.” I hear the angels singing: “We see Him already crowned with glory and
honor.” And all of the martyrs are awaiting their white robe and their summons
to the great rest (Rev 6:11; also Rev 1:13-14). They await the hour of Patmos in
which John will see Thee in Thy shining white robe as the Son of man. Here, O
church, is the Son of man as John saw Him and described Him: His robe was long,
His waist encircled quite With golden belt. As white as wool, as snow His
flowing hair; His glance a flaming fire; Like dazzling bronze in burning oven
bleached, So were His feet; His voice the voice Of many waters. . . His left
hand Held seven stars aloft; and from His mouth Issued a sharp, a two-edged
sword. Like Dazzling sun, haloed in mid-day splendor. His face . . . [1] [1]
Louis Couperus:Fragmenten Uit Johannes’Apocalyps(Williswinde). But first it will
be necessary for Thee, Saviour, to pay God a price. Thou wilt be required to
look upon Thy gorgeous robe of mockery, and to recall Thy dazzling form upon the
mountain of metamorphosis.[2] It will be necessary for Thee to see both of these
two white robes around Thine own body at once. Then, Lord, Thou wilt Thyself
confess that it seems as if the Lord God up there — upon the mountain — has had
Thy shining raiment trampled upon by the angels or the satyrs. Does it matter
much in this world which?

[2] SeeChrist in His Suffering,p. 83 f., Chapter 4, “The Vicious Circle Condemns
Christ”

I ask no further questions: I see His eye fixed upon me, as though He wanted to
say: Behind me, Satan.

I believe it, Lord. I believe that Thou understandest heaven and its strange
mode of doing things. I believe that Thou wilt be able presently to watch
soldiers raffling off Thy robes. Lord, I believe that no raffling is going on
between heaven and earth in the whole world. Help Thou my unbelief.

He will go on His way. But all the souls beneath the altar will have to confess
that He did not leave John the Baptist in the lurch. He did not forget the
deceased friend of the bridegroom; the bridegroom confessed this friend before
Herod and the Father. That is a great thing: there are some who name the
remembrance of a departed one the greatest act possible to love (Kierkegaard).
He placed no sign upon the Baptist’s grave in order to release Herod from
painful memories of John, and thus to shake Himself loose from the fingers of
death which were reaching for Him. What? No sign? No matter, soon Thou wilt be
with the Baptist; such is law in the vale of martyrs — surely, it would not be
proper for a prophet to die outside of Jerusalem.

Finally, this:

Herod still lives and lifts the sword Of mockery against his Lord. Up
Christians, rise, hear duty call, Proclaim Christ’s glory unto all. Christ Jesus
Completely Outlawed


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  CHAPTER 27: 22. CHAPTER 22: CHRIST JESUS COMPLETELY OUTLAWED
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C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - T W O Christ Jesus Completely Outlawed And Pilate,
when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people,
said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the
people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in
this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: No, nor yet Herod: for I
sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I will
therefore chastise him, and release him. —Luk 23:13-16.

CHRIST, still wearing His gorgeous robe, was sent back from Herod to Pilate.
Herod did not complete the consideration of the charges which were named against
Him.

True, he did say to God — think of the mock comedy which he staged — that he
would have nothing more to do with this man, but he carefully avoided telling
Pilate as much. He undertook to deal brutally with Jesus in the world of
spiritual things, a world seen by angels and similar powers, but he did not dare
to set down his conclusion on official state papers. State papers, after all,
will be read by man; and men are more dangerous than angels. And Herod did not
dare to write on such a document the verdict “He is guilty” nor the verdict “He
is not guilty.” His conclusion in the presence of the people amounts to a simple
non liquet: I do not know. It is easier to reach a conclusion about Christ in
the presence of God than in the presence of the people. Had Herod given his
conclusions in terms of secular law, or in terms of the rules of government as
they functioned at that time, he would have had to draw up a written formulation
which would have reached the public eye. That he did not want to do. He
succeeded in dismissing Jesus from his own conscience but not from the “popular
conscience.” Hence he sent Jesus back unaccompanied by a writ of advice, be it
in the direction of an acquittal or of condemnation. He did not make use of his
right to handle and to despatch this “case” from Galilee.

Thus it is that Christ appears before Pilate a second time. What will happen
now? The verdict cannot be withheld much longer. The answer to this question
comes quickly. It is this: Jesus is made Christ the outlaw.[1] He had been that
before. Now he becomes that completely.

[1] Used here and throughout this work not in the sense of a “rebel,” but as
“one having no rights.”

Things happened in this way. In the earlier stages of this trial, Pilate had
already made an important mistake. He had already officially declared that he
could find no fault in Jesus, but he went on, nevertheless, to actions which
were incompatible with this declaration. That mistake comes back with a
vengeance now. He has involved Herod in the case, but his conduct in this
respect does not have the desired result. Hence he must reach his own
conclusion, and the case is now more difficult than before. If he releases
Jesus, he may be blamed for having taken upon himself the prerogative of
engaging in the preliminary hearing. Just suppose for a moment that those
troublesome Jews decide to appeal the case to a higher court. That would weaken
Pilate’s position immeasurably. However, if without any further formality, he
condemns Christ to death, he is inconsistent, for his formal official
declaration stated that he had not yet found legal grounds for such action. Add
to this the fact that his own conscience does not quite allow him to take this
drastic step.

Moreover, it may be that a kind of indefinite fear of the people constitutes a
third difficulty in his present consideration of the case. Pilate knew that
there were many among the people who esteemed the Nazarene very highly and
lauded Him unstintedly. The Pharisees had themselves openly declared that Christ
was indeed exercising a great influence upon the people. Besides, the reports of
Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem a few days before were evidence enough to
confirm the fact that He was very palpably affecting the mass mind. Now a death
sentence based upon superficial reasons in such circumstances might very well
get Pilate into difficulty with the people. If he issued a death sentence he
might continue to live in harmony with the leaders, but would do so at the
expense of the favor of the masses themselves. Not that Pilate dreaded this
greatly — many a time he had provoked and annoyed the people — but, in the last
analysis, what does one do when one wants, above all things, to have peace? What
must a Pilate do who is unable to follow the profound discussions as to the
nature of truth? One who asks “What is truth?” must, as we have said before,
also ask that other question: “What is justice?” That second question raises
itself at once. In his confusion, Pilate calls the whole assembly together
again. Yes, he wants to talk with the leaders once more, for these after all
were the original accusers; but he also wants to call the people into this
troublesome case. Our text tells us plainly that he brought the people, the
masses, whose curiosity had induced them to gather in one place in order to
await the final decision, into his second hearing. We remember that once before
this Pilate had personally conducted Christ out of the praetorium, in order to
question Him there in the presence of the people who were with Him. Pilate does
not neglect to make use of the same means now. He appeals in particular to that
moment in the preceding hearing, in which the case had been dealt with publicly.
He recapitulates the course of the proceedings, and emphatically states that
even if he should put the accusation in its acutest form, its untenability would
be obvious. At least — this was a milder and more cautious way of putting it —
he had to deny that a clear presentation of evidence had accompanied the
charges. You have presented this man to me, he tells the masses, as one who
perverts the people. Note, in this connection, that Pilate puts the charge which
is stated mildly in Luk 23:2 in more acute form. The sense of the word used in
the second verse of the chapter is that He merely made the people restless, that
He excited their emotions, and that He raised problems, which in the long run
might prove dangerous for the peace of mind of the people. The sense of the word
used in Luk 23:23 has a sharper directness. It says that Jesus perverts the
people. That is the equivalent of saying that Jesus is teaching revolution and
that He has already an incipient revolutionary movement under way. Naturally
Pilate bases his choice of this word upon the various debates which gradually
amplified the original charge. In the course of the discussions that original
accusation had taken on ever severer connotations. Hence the thrust of Pilate’s
statement now is this: Even though I accept your accusation at its worst, I
cannot prove His guilt. I have heard nothing of the fact that He has stirred up
a revolution. Moreover, Herod, he adds, is of the same mind as I. I have had
Herod consider the case.[1] He, too, has not advised condemnation. He has not
told me expressly that I may justly sentence Him, to say nothing of sentencing
Him to death. And Pilate goes on: Is not that fact significant? Personally I
know only about what has happened in Jerusalem and in the neighboring vicinity
of Judea. As a matter of fact, it might have been possible that the accused man
conducted Himself differently in Galilee where Herod has jurisdiction than in
this capital or in this neighborhood. But Herod, too, has not regarded Him as
worthy of death. Now if it were true that the defendant had disturbed the people
in Galilee or begun revolutionary movements there, Herod could not have ignored
that fact. Hence, my conclusion is that He has done nothing wrong; surely
nothing worthy of the death penalty.

[1] There is some difference of opinion about howLuk 23:15should be read. Our
official state translation has it: I have sent you to him. But other manuscripts
have a different version; for example: I have sent Him (Jesus) to him (Herod);
and: He (Herod) has sent Him (Jesus) to us. Which of these versions is the
original one is a question that has no bearing upon our argument, however, and
with this we drop the matter.

Now if Pilate had been a ruler who was aware of the implications of his office,
and had lived up to the demands it made upon him, this, as far as Jesus was
concerned, would have been the irrevocable conclusion of the matter. Christ
would have been set free for no other reason than a lack of evidence against
Him. But the terrible truth is that Pilate does not stop at this. He goes on. In
his attempt to satisfy all parties concerned, he says: I will chastise Him, and
set Him free.

Observe that by the statement “I will chastise Him,” Pilate is saying nothing
about the nature of the chastisement which he has in mind for Jesus. It is not
necessary to suppose that this has reference to the scourging which was
inflicted upon Jesus later. The word which Pilate uses and which has been
translated “chastises” is in the original a very general term. It may designate
a light chastisement or a severe one. Pilate does not state which he means to
inflict. The only thing which is definite is that he wishes to give Jesus a
lesson which He will remember. Moreover, it will be a painful lesson, and will
be given in such a way that Jesus’ life as a leader of the people will in the
future be impossible. That, then, must be the last to be heard of the case.

Those who wish to marvel at the cleverness, at the craftiness to which an
embarrassed man can sometimes resort will find abundant matter here. Moreover,
remember that the device to which Pilate resorted was “from his point of view” a
desirable one. By chastising Jesus, Pilate hoped to save the prestige of the
leaders of the people. These members of Israel’s highest tribunal would thus be
spared the reproach which would have been theirs as the result of a futile
appeal to Pilate. Moreover, Jesus’ influence among the people would by the same
act be given a serious blow. On the other hand, those among them who were kindly
disposed towards Jesus would be unable to blame Pilate for having sentenced a
righteous man to death. In spite of those considerations, however, his idea of
compromise places Jesus officially and definitely outside of the province of the
law. Even if the chastisement were to consist of a single stroke of the whip, or
of a mere public reprimand, even so slight an act of discipline would be taking
place outside of what was officially legal, and would be inflicted upon Jesus
only for the sake of Pilate and the Jews. They must vindicate themselves, and
assert themselves; and Jesus by foul means or fair must be made to serve this
purpose. That is why this occasion marks a new stage in the history of Christ’s
passion.

Now we know that the idea of the Christ, of the outlaw, has demanded our
attention again and again. The first time was when the servant, in the presence
of Annas and with his consent, struck Christ. Later we observed that Christ was
made an outlaw in the presence of the Sanhedrin which mocked Him. Thereupon
Herod, too, insulted the Christ as an outlaw by mocking Him and by giving Him
the “gorgeous robe” to wear. Now, however, the torture of this suffering becomes
a perfect torture. Now Christ is being named an outlaw by Pilate also, by Roman
justice, by the government of the official world empire. Publicly declared to be
such? No, not that exactly, but amounting to that just the same. Proclamations,
after all, cost the price of the paper on which they are written, and the name
of an outlaw does not appear on paper. The only ones to write about such a man
will eventually prove to be the Spirit of God and a few fisher-folk, and,
possibly, a disciple of Gamaliel.

However, we look upon the Christ as the Surety. Hence we recognize in the
concept of Christ the outlaw not merely the vindictiveness of men but also the
penalty which God’s own justice inflicted upon Him as the Mediator. Therefore we
particularly may not overlook this event. We must give it adequate attention,
for, irrespective of what Pilate may plan or perform in the future, as long as
he fails to rescind the statement he has made, Christ’s status officially
remains that of one placed outside of the province of law. And Pilate did not
rescind his statement.

Therefore our Saviour was thrust outside of the reach of all laws, and was by
the whole world declared to be an outlaw.

He is the outlaw to the Jews, that is to Abraham and to Moses.

He is the outlaw to Esau, that is to the false brother.

He is, in the last analysis, the outlaw to Rome, to the corpus juris of the
world empire, to godless culture, to the power and the realm of the Beast.

Therefore summon every law to testify against Jesus, summon existing laws and
conceivable laws, profane laws and holy laws, religious and cultural laws,
utilitarian and divine laws, consilia evangelica and humana, summon the fas of
divine justice and the jus of human justice,—summon these all, and you will find
that not a single law in the whole world will fail to testify against Christ by
saying: I do not know Thee, whence Thou art; I never knew Thee; depart, and be
as one who is accursed. For even the last, the most inclusive pale of law into
which Christ was finally coerced (the law of Rome) has now definitely declared:
Law has nothing further to say of that man; He stands outside of the scope of
law. On this occasion Christ is an outlaw not only as the Christ, as the
Messiah, as He declared Himself to be in the presence of the Sanhedrin, but also
as Jesus, as the historical personage, as a citizen of Rome, as one enrolled in
the registers of the world. What we see here, then, is Jesus Christ officially
and definitively named an exile to the domain of law. In God’s dictionary such a
status is named a curse. It is a curse to the extent at least to which human
beings can express and develop one. And the curse of God against His Son is
involved in this curse of men.[1]

[1]Concerning the relationship of God’s justiceandthat of men in reference to
Christ the outlaw we shall say something in the next volume of this work.

Pilate’s godless proposal therefore represents a most bitter experience of
spiritual suffering to the Christ. The scourgings which are to follow will
surely be unable to injure Him as much as this compromise of Pilate which, as
the last and most inclusive legal jurisdiction, names Him an outlaw. Yes, Christ
knew this was coming before this happened. We repeat,[2] however, that although
He knew it beforehand, He first experiences it now. It is this experience of the
curse which constitutes a new suffering for the Man of sorrows. The severest
part of that suffering does not consist’ of the formal surrender of Christ to
death, as that surrender follows later, but consists of this official placement
of Christ outside of the law. The rest is a logical outcome of this.

[2]Wementioned it also in Chapter 10, p. 201 f.

Those of us who read this story of Jesus’ suffering with fear and trembling can
only feel a profound sense of shame on this occasion. For Christ who as the
Surety was excommunicated by all known laws proved by this to be the second
Adam. His excommunication pictures our own. Here all authority, all conceivable
authority including the authority of God, stands over against us with an
unsheathed sword and says to the lost sinner: Depart, for you there is no room
left anywhere. The writing of laws happens quite without reference to your being
lost. The unsheathed sword — the first Adam knew of that when he was driven from
Paradise. But today the curse, the suffering, is even more severe. For when the
first man was driven from Paradise, he was still lighted on his way by the sun
of God’s mercy. He entered into the wide world, but before him lay the expansive
history of many centuries, in which he would, of course, have to suffer the
curse of sin, but in which common grace[3] would temper that curse, and would
give him a life which would be made bearable by law and order. The first Adam,
although driven out of his Paradise, can still proceed under the protection of
an evangelical power, of a divine love which is ever seeking the Messiah, and
which ever and again mitigates the curse by the power and the will of the God of
all grace. Hence Adam receives a great gift in his lost country: the gift of a
natural law and order and of a preservative jurisprudence.

[3] See page 152 f., Chapter 7, “Christ Vanquishing the Vicious Circle as the
Son of Man” But the institution of this general history, which by means of
common grace still gives our human life the possibility of existence and of
development, has been awaiting this terrible hour in which the second Adam
should be made the outlaw completely. When Cain was given the “sign” assuring
him that no lawlessness would be allowed to destroy him, and that he should
never find himself out of the province of law, even he was already tasting of
the fruits of this hour in Christ’s suffering. And Cain did not even desire this
life which issues from the Christ of God.

Hence we should be on guard. Those living in the world today should be wary. The
question is not whether the sign of Cain will protect us, but whether or not we
are truly redeemed by Christ the outlaw, and are born into that circle of law
whose boundaries are circumscribed by grace. Christ the outlaw shows us plainly
what will one day become of the man who has not chosen Him as his Saviour. Just
behind the gate of the other life the devil stands ready to make the man who was
satisfied to let Christ remain an outlaw realize what the nature of his corrupt
choice has been.

Now we know, of course, that the status of the outlaw will not obtain in hell
(see page 184) (for God asserts himself there also as a Maintainer of law), but
it is true, nevertheless that those in hell feel that they are outlaws both to
themselves and to others. The order of laws which human beings on earth know
will be irrelevant to them there. And inasmuch as sin on earth has seized upon
human law in an effort to escape from divine law, the bane of the thoughts of
those in hell will consist of the fact that God will give them no other law to
manipulate save that law of God which lost man eternally despises.

Viewed from God’s side, therefore, the status of the outlaw does not exist in
hell, but from the human point of view it most certainly does exist. Man’s own
laws will betray him there; that precisely will be his suffering: his own laws
will mock him. That will be Satan’s way of eternally vexing those whom he has
destroyed. In the abyss of sin and death God does not really recognize the
status of the outlaw, but Satan will continue gloating over the concept of the
outlaw. In hell man is outlaw to himself and the mockery and insult of that,
Satan will always be hurling into the faces of his victims.

It was not for nothing that Pilate, the last speaker for all earthly tribunals,
degraded Christ to the level of an outlaw. The second Adam, was, by the bastard
sons of the first Adam, deprived of the privileges which even Cain was allowed
to retain. This fact the Supreme Assize of heaven will not forget in all
eternity. Tremble, son of man, for the Supreme Assize and the Judge conclude
alike inasmuch as they are one. In the last day verdict and charge will coincide
and will support each other eternally.

Chastisement to God is a blessing, and a fruit of the “release” pleaded for by
Christ, or else it is a chastisement of penalty for unrighteousness. The Court
can pronounce one of two sentences in judging us: The sentence of acquittal, “I
will chastise you because I have released you,” saith the Lord; or the sentence
of condemnation, “Hence I will chastise you and never again release you,” saith
the Lord Almighty. In the one case the chastisement comes according to the law
of grace and in the other according to the law of the curse and of death.

Christ the outlaw is identical with a world turned upside down. Say not in thine
heart: who shall ascend into God’s domain of law? (that is, to bring Christ up
from below and rescue Him from the hands of Pilate, see Rom 10:6)

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith my God. Near you is the law; the law is
in your mouth and in your heart. The law has been brought you in the gospel of
Christ the outlaw. Hear ye this . . . for this is the Word which is preached
among us.


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  CHAPTER 28: 23. CHAPTER 23: CHRIST THE OUTLAW AND HIS FORGOTTEN CHAPTER
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C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - T H R E E Christ the Outlaw and His Forgotten
Chapter For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast. —Luk 23:17.
But ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the passover: will
ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews? —John 18:39.

SATAN knows very well which moments are the strategic ones for him. He chooses
them painstakingly. Do not, therefore admire him without first and primarily
glorifying God. For Satan owes his ability to choose his times and circumstances
strategically solely to the fact that he has dwelt with God. He has been endowed
by his creator with great gifts, and has remembered so much of the sublime
manner of heaven that even his own Satanic work is still characterized by the
style which is excellent, amazing, austerely patterned. Again: Do not admire
Satan’s style, but marvel at God’s style, and then tremble before the gruesome
regularity of whatever is satanic in its being. After all, Satan is able to
achieve an artistic manner in his work because he bases it upon the work of God.
God puts His sublime, His divine style into His exalted work, and Satan is ever
bound to that. This will become apparent to us as we probe further into the
story of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the preceding chapter we
observed that Christ who was previously made an exile to the law now becomes the
complete outlaw. At this point we might ask the question: why should that
perfect rejection from the pale of law take place just now? Why should the
complete and definitive realization of the concept of Christ the outlaw occur at
this particular time? The answer which the assumption of faith gives to this
question can be outlined as follows: A. One chapter in the litigation against
Christ at this time had been forgotten. That chapter is entitled “The priestly
office of Christ.,, B. That “forgotten chapter” now makes itself seen; just for
a moment, for a very short moment—but it makes itself seen. C. But even before
the concept of Christ’s being a priest is taken up for discussion, He has
already completely been made an outlaw. His priesthood, His sacrifice,
everything in Him which urges Him to make atonement, was discussed and
dispatched, even as far as the concept was concerned, outside of the sphere of
law. D. By this we were humbled, the world judged, and the Man of sorrows, the
High Priest of our confession, deeply humiliated.

Let us consider what can be said of this. Remember that assumptions have the
right of way here; but who, wishing to believe, is ashamed of an assumption?

A. In amplification of that first thought this can be said: The prophetic office
and the kingly office have come up for discussion, but up to this time not a
single word has been devoted to the priestly office. The office of the priest is
not raised in discussion by the Sanhedrin, by Pilate, or by Herod, and it is not
made a part of the superscription over the cross. But the whole Scripture does
call Christ’s priestly office an essential part of His official messianic task.
Besides, throughout the course of the Old Testament the priesthood is
continually presented as being messianic in its essence and implications.
Nevertheless, here in the litigation against Christ, this office remains in the
background. It has been completely ignored by everyone. There was good reason
for this. God willed that it should be so; and men also willed that it should be
so.

Yes, the people also wished it, and that is a discomforting thought. They were
guilty of completely negating the priesthood of Christ during the process of the
litigation against Him. Was this the result of an oversight? Was it due to
ignorance? Is it being too facilely and undeservedly censorious to criticize the
murderers of the Saviour now, so many centuries later, by saying that this was a
serious omission?

We think not. These same Jews who were so eager to be called scholars of the
Scriptures might have troubled themselves to become acquainted with those
Scriptures. They might well have made themselves familiar with the prophecies to
which Christ pointed again and again—as has become evident repeatedly in this
book—during the last week of the life of humiliation which He lived upon earth.
They might have taken pains to know that prophecy, and to earn it by the
struggle of their thoughts. They might have followed that prophecy most
punctiliously, placing their finger upon the very letter of the law, just as
they boasted of doing in other instances, and just as they had done, for
example, when the Magi of the Orient had inquired at the court of Herod where
the Messiah had to be born according to the prediction of prophecy. Now if the
Jews had actually done all this, which after all was quite in their line of
activity, they would have been unable, and that simply upon the basis of
ordinary human honesty, to have segregated the priesthood of Christ from the
kingship of Christ in the course of their trial of the Saviour.

It is important that we remember certain things. The first is this that they
knew that Jesus called Himself a king. And the second is that they knew that He
derived His kingship from His Messiahship. Knowing that, they should also have
known, and pondered, and proclaimed that according to their sacred Scriptures
the messianic king was most intimately connected with the messianic priest.

Surely, they should have been convinced of that intimate relationship. Had not
the prophet Zechariah—to limit ourselves to but one prophet—openly declared that
a close relationship, a covenant of peace, an official unity would obtain
between the eschatological messianic kingship and the similarly eschatological
messianic priesthood? Read Chapter 6 of Zechariah. You will notice that Israel’s
hope for the future is outlined here. God presents that hope by giving a
concrete picture of it. Joshua, the high-priest, you will notice, is given a
crown, the ornament which a king wears upon his head.

Now note this distinction. Joshua is presented as a priest wearing the crown of
a king. He is not presented as a king wearing the cowl of a priest. It is that
last picture, a king’s head adorned with a priest’s cowl, which is the ideal of
the heathendom of the day. Such a thing Pilate, too, can appreciate. We have had
occasion to point out repeatedly that such was precisely the direction in which
the Rome of Pilate’s time wished to go. The priestship was subject to the
secular authority of Rome. Caesar, by virtue of his office, was also regarded as
pontifex maximus. He figured prominently on occasion in the temple-service. He
was the chief authority in things religious as well as in things secular.

Now Israel’s expectation for the future was diametrically opposed to this. The
ideal which beckoned to them from the blue distance was that of a priest wearing
the king’s crown. Surely, the royal office would remain in Israel Authority
guarantees liberty when the authority is just and merciful. Hence authority will
not be wanting in the messianic state. But the king’s crown there will rest on a
priest’s head, and that priestly head will carry out its commands with a
priest’s hand—united with a priest’s heart. What the prophet simply wants to say
is that the authority in the messianic state will not be tyrannical or despotic
in character, but will rule in the spirit of love and in a service which is the
product of a glad surrender.

Now this priestly authority, this close relationship between the office of the
king and the office of the priest, incipiently figured forth in Joshua, will
appear, perfectly developed, in the coming of the Messiah. In that Messiah the
kingship of David will be retained. But in that period of messianic florescence
there will be no jealousy, no animosity, no rivalry between the king (secular
authority) and the priest (spiritual authority). Peace will obtain between those
two; peace will unite them into one. Priest and king, grace and culture, the
service of love and the lordship of authority, the service of atonement and the
service of protection, communion with God and orientation on earth,—those are
the things which in the messianic period are to exist side by side.

We remarked that because of this relationship, David and his kingship would be
retained. Remember that from Zechariah’s point of view David was no longer
extant. Zechariah does his prophesying after the captivity. Hence he stands
beside the ruins of David.

David has no longer anything to say in the world. David’s house no longer has
any right to demand service of the people. He will no longer do great things.
The last king of the house of David has entered into captivity, a blind
weakling, dethroned once and for all. His princes have been put to death in his
presence. That was the last thing his eyes were permitted to see; thereupon the
enemy thrust them through. Hence David is no longer being served. All that he
can do now is to serve, always and only to serve. That is why the sublime sweep
of Zechariah’s prophecy is so particularly eschatological. When David’s house
had degenerated so far that in the future it could only serve, David no longer
existed in the minds of men. But the kingdom of God and the word of God still
had a task for David. The priest must be intimately united with the king. In
that way the one who serves becomes closely related to the one who is served.
Love, condescending love, becomes wedded with authority. Hence not only the
grace of truth (the prophet) is gladly greeted, but peace, too, is also met with
the kiss of a king’s authority. Hence David has after all been served. Serving
is not a strange but an entirely natural thing for the perfect messianic King.
Just as a priest is poor and defenseless among poor and defenseless people, so
the king, too, has become one with the priest of the messianic era.

It is in this way, then, that the prophecy of Zechariah directly related the
messianic kingship to the messianic priesthood. Remember that this prophecy was
not written in vain; since this prophecy has been written, no one may say of Him
who announces Himself as the Messiah that He is a king, without for the sake of
the Scriptures also saying of Him: If you are a king in the messianic sense, you
are also a priest.

Hence if the Jews take their knowledge of the Scriptures seriously today, they
may not in the litigation against Jesus, inasmuch as the kingship has not proved
to be a forgotten chapter, regard the priesthood as a forgotten chapter. If the
scribes search prophecy just as painstakingly now as they did in the time when
Herod was visited by the Magi of the Orient they must, if they are to be
consistent, dare Him to bring the issue of His priesthood to the fore.

They have already insulted the prophet in Christ. This they did in connection
with Christ’s self-proclamation: I am the Messiah. They have also seen the king
in Christ being defied, have, in fact, shared in the defiance just a few moments
ago in the presence of Herod. This, too, they did in connection with Christ’s
self-proclamation: I am the Messiah. As a matter of fact, it was while defying
Him on this count that they presented Him to Pilate.

Come now, scribes, come, you scholars of the Scriptures, what of the office of
the priest? Come, people at large, you all who have gathered here, what are you
doing with the priest? The whole subject has not been raised yet. Who will be
the first to raise that point? But there is not a single one present there who
is willing to begin that discussion. They all ignore the subject. To a certain
extent this is due to enmity. We have had occasion previously to refer to the
fact that the Jewish nation was not disposed to accept the prophecies of
Zechariah. When Christ, poor and defenseless, triumphantly entered the city of
David, the Jews did not understand Him. But they did not want to understand Him.
Their perversity taught them to live without the Scriptures, because the evil
heart of man wrests the Scriptures into whatever shape it will, and accepts only
those truths which are compatible with its thinking. But to a certain extent—and
now we are thinking particularly of the crowd—this neglect is also owing in part
to abysmal ignorance, to absurd misunderstanding. The prophecy of Zechariah
stood miles away from what Jewish pride, from what the theology of Judas, from
what the chauvinism of the Jewish spirit expected, —and learned from its
leaders.

It is in this sense and to this extent that we can speak of the “forgotten
chapter.” The priesthood was that forgotten chapter. The leaders of the people
had first neglected it, had reasoned it out of existence at the prompting of the
evil choice of the heart. Those leaders did not want a king who was quite
defenseless and as poor as a priest. The result was that the neglected chapter
became a forgotten chapter.

Consequently this was an oppressive hour for the Christ. His great soul, ever
alert to the sense of the prophet, is as heavily oppressed now as it was when He
triumphantly entered into Jerusalem. At that time the madding thousands of the
people also segregated the priest from the king. They wanted to regard Him as a
militant general, as one who is being served, and not as one who related
authority to humility and to a defenseless and unremunerative priesthood. The
same thing happens here. True,—viewed from the outside —there is a great
difference between this moment and the one which marked Christ’s entry into
Jerusalem. Then there was a milling crowd, the plaudit of the masses, the kiss
of the sun; now there are bonds, silence, quietude, and a sultriness in the
atmosphere. But again the king is separated from the priest. Again the curse is
proclaimed against a king who is humble. In the last analysis the attitude
expressed now is therefore the same as the one voiced then.

Christ feels that His official life has been torn apart. His “bowels” feel the
pang, for it is in His “bowels” that He bears the law and the prophets. For He
Himself experiences the unity, the fusion of priest and king in this very
moment. Once Joshua, the ancient Joshua, had lived. Now Joshua reappears. That
is His name,—Jesus, Joshua. This Joshua knows that He follows in the line of
Zechariah. That is precisely the reason for which He kept silence so essentially
as He did in the presence of the Sanhedrin, and of Pilate and of Herod. He did
not want to be segregated from the priesthood when He was being maligned for His
awareness of being a prophet and for His pretentions to being a king.

He knows clearly and profoundly, however, that the masses must make a selection.
Yes, you say—for you know the story almost by heart — yes, they must choose
between Barabbas and Jesus. However, do not forget this: that choice which will
take place presently, that pairing of names, simply makes manifest what in
principle is obvious already. But even if there had been no Barabbas available
in that vicinity, the people would still have had to make a selection. They
would have had to choose between the official priests who are accusing Jesus
today, on the one hand, and Jesus, on the other. They would have had to choose
between the Priest-King in the realm of the Spirit and the Caesar-priest in the
realm of the Beast. To the extent that King Jesus has related his kingship to
the priestly concept of love and tender service—even to the point of
self-sacrifice, — those priests who are standing there shrieking their
accusations against Him, have sold their priestly soul to the king’s crown of
the Caesar who dwells in Rome, to the usurper who will come now to tread upon
the neck of the Jews, and—upon their sacred scroll. Yes, he will tread upon the
book which tells the story of the priest-king.

What did the chief priests care about David? Zechariah’s abstract prediction —
prophets can be so annoyingly abstract, such arch-dreamers!—could send the
priest of the future into captivity behind David, if it wished to, but the
priests of Pilate’s day will not hear of that. They have deaf ears for anything
referring to captivity. They simply cannot understand how anything can be
expected from a trunk which has been hewn down, much less how something
resembling the double effect of a priesthood and kingship in one can be expected
of it. They have cut loose the future of the priesthood from the fate of David.
They have said farewell to that disinherited ruler. After all, one cannot keep
on writing epitaphs forever. Today they prefer to bow in obeisance to Caesar.
Caesar is not a priest wearing a king’s emblem. He is a king wearing the emblem
of a priest. That which Saul had been, against which Samuel had stormed, and for
which Jaweh had deposed Saul, substituting David for Him—to that they now make
obeisance. It was so long ago that Saul had been deposed; that had long been
history. And who can believe that history can prophesy?

Thus it was, then, that the priests of Jaweh in Israel had refused to humble
themselves with David, and in that humility to wait for the coming
Messiah-of-lowliness. Accordingly, they sell their souls today to the despot of
Rome. “Learn of him,” they say, “for he is neither meek nor lowly.” In this way
their priestly service has become a willing tool in the hands of the secular
power. They prefer to bow in obeisance to Rome’s power for a time rather than
always to unite the crown with a priest who had to remain in captivity with
David because the barrier of His body supposedly was the condition for the
resurrection of His spirit. Once and for all they had refused to enter the grave
with David; in other words, they had once and for all segregated themselves from
David’s house. They displayed themselves to the world ostentatiously and
expressed themselves as willing to work under the auspices of any king, or any
usurper, who would allow them to live an easy life, while still retaining the
knife of sacrifice. The priesthood had become the willing tool of the secular
authority. The spiritual messianic struggle of the office in Israel, an office
which in its tripartite implication (king, prophet, and priest) had to conduct
the battle of spirit against flesh, and of the preservation of its hidden sense
against the temptation of an outward show,—that struggle had been given up once
and for all.

How, now, can they be expected to deal differently with David’s Son at this time
than they dealt with David in times gone by? They have no choice but to negate a
priestship which seeks David’s grave and which gives the crown to a defenseless
Joshua. The forgotten chapter!

Accordingly, it is inevitable that Jesus Christ be denied and by His own
scribes. For He is the Joshua of Zechariah’s prophecy. He will maintain His
priesthood today, not only by offering a sacrifice but by being that sacrifice
Himself. Such a thought is gross folly and an intolerable offense to all priests
who can no longer tolerate the idea of a David who is a trunk which has been
hewn down. For a priest to become the sacrifice himself is in the absolute sense
of the word a complete departure on the part of priesthood from the law of the
flesh, which would always make its appearance an external one. The priest who
himself becomes the sacrifice enters completely into the sombre law of the
hewn-down trunk. No, the priests of Israel cannot bear the thought that Jesus is
called a “priest.” The idea of a priestly law which makes the priest identical
with the sacrifice has never occurred to them. Therefore they separate the
concept of priest and king. They have seen Jesus the Nazarene make His
appearance in the visible world, and as a prophet and king take exception to the
existing order of things, but they have not the vaguest suspicion of what His
priesthood may mean. That the death of the Nazarene must be the fulfillment of
His priestly deed, that He must be the sacrifice and not merely the one who
sacrifices, is a thought which they have never pondered.

Now it must be said further that not only the logic of the people kept the
priesthood of Christ concealed but that Christ’s own will would have it remain a
great mystery. The mystery of His true priesthood will not allow itself to be
profaned for a moment any more than will His prophetic or His kingly office. In
all of His official work Christ is a mystery. To Pilate He is a prophet who
cannot come with an “outward appearance,” for in response to Pilate’s question,
What is truth?

He does not give a logically argued refutation based upon human wisdom; and when
the Sanhedrin mocked Him upon the prophetic mountain He chose to be silent. His
prophecy is not of this world. That prophecy, too, just as He Himself, is
obedient to the law of the hewn-down trunk. The same holds true of Christ’s
kingship. My kingdom, Jesus is compelled to say, is not of this world. My
servants, He says, do not employ physical force; in other words, they do not
come with outward appearance. My kingship maintains, just as I myself maintain,
the law of the hewn-down trunk.

Hence when Christ as a prophet and king enters into the dire stress of David,
His degenerated father, and with him enters into captivity, Christ must also as
a priest fulfill His priesthood according to that same law of florescence out of
the hewn-down trunk. As a priest, too, He enters into hiding, into humiliation.
Why should He raise the forgotten chapter for discussion here? The other
chapters have been denied; and who could possibly gain anything from a fragment
taken from the book of Christ’s offices? In this way, then, Christ’s priestship
remained entirely concealed during the very period of time in which satisfaction
and atonement were achieved by His ample priestly suffering. The people who were
seated in darkness and who knew no priests except those who were the willing
servants of false prophets and usurping kings, were unable to do as much as
raise a question about Melchizedek’s priesthood. Christ as the high priest
according to the order of Melchizedek continued to be the great unknown. He
takes His position there as the unknown quantity. Thus He stands between the
satellites of Rome who in the name of Aaron induce Caesar to put David’s king to
death. Dispossessed souls these are who invite Pontius Pilate, who as the denier
of all the fathers’ prophecies asks, “What is truth?” to put the prophet of
David’s messianic psalms to death. It was impossible for Him to be anything but
the great Unknown to them. Did He wish one day to be the well-known and the
well-beloved of His people He must now in His priesthood completely fulfill the
law of sacrifice. Accordingly, that priesthood must be kept quite concealed,
just at midday, the moment when God’s justice is burning at its hottest. This
too was sacrifice. This also was self-annihilation. This terrible silence also
was the acceptance of the trunk which was hewn down.

Christ, then, at midday of the Lord’s great day was completely ignored as
priest. ... As priest He was completely neglected. . . . But that—that is God’s
holy programme for this moment. The Sanhedrin mentioned His prophecy; but Jesus
held His peace. Pilate was troubled about Christ’s kingship; but Jesus held His
peace. Everyone is silent on the issue of His priesthood. But Jesus held His
peace, for flesh did not see Him, and blood did not know Him. God, revealed in
the flesh, must first be seen only by the angels; and only thereupon He will be
believed on in the world (1Ti 3:16). This, to be an ignored, neglected,
overlooked priest, is an offense which was spared Aaron. Yes, Aaron was spared
the offense; but He who is here belongs to another order: He is the priest
according to the manner of Melchizedek.

Now Melchizedek never parades publicly in the world. His lot is one of
isolation. Prophets of falsehood sometimes make up a stately, martial company;
they sometimes incorporate themselves within the retinue of honor who parade
ostentatiously in the company of the celebrities making up the kingship of the
world (for which reason Isaiah calls them prophets of the tail). The priests of
Aaron, or of his ilk, may organize a parade by reason of the fact that they can
confer their office upon their posterity, a worldly king may sometimes go
storming over David’s grave on his way to the distant future of the promiscuity
of Babel, Rome, Jerusalem and Athens. But among these all there is the unique
Melchizedek. Without father. Without mother. Without heirs. Without a son to
inherit his priestly clothes after his death. He is Melchizedek, the solitary
one.

What we wanted simply to say therefore, was that Christ’s priesthood was ignored
by the spiritual and secular courts because He had to bear the griefs of
Melchizedek, that great and solitary figure in the busy, multiform world. For
Melchizedek is very poor. He would have been forgotten long ago, if he had not
once met a certain Abraham, or better, a certain Levi, who was still contained
in Abraham’s loins. Except for that, he would have been quite forgotten.

Jesus Christ shares his fate. The crowd is growing in size, but each new visitor
who makes his appearance upon the square aggravates Christ’s crucial solitude.
Besides, Jesus - Melchizedek knows that many others who are also forgetting Him
are still contained in the loins of that crowd. His forgotten chapter lies
exposed before Him: if only someone would begin criticizing that chapter. But
they do not. They are silent on the matter. They talk about the head (the
attractive king and Caesar) and about the tail (the prophet who teaches
falsehood), but that which lies between is overlooked altogether.

B. We made reference to a second thought: namely, that the forgotten chapter of
Christ’s gospel of suffering does, nevertheless, make its appearance for a
moment. This was owing to a certain Barabbas. The priesthood of which we spoke
sustains the service of mercy in Israel. It is the office in which God gives
abiding “service” to love and to atonement. The service of atonement finds
expression particularly in the sacrifices. However, we would be very superficial
if we observed the functioning of the priesthood only in the offer which was
presented each day, at a stipulated time, and according to fixed rules. For the
priestly service of love, the office of the shedding abroad of the mercy of God,
had permeated the whole of Israel’s life. The Love of God did not limit itself
to raising its song of praise above the groans of the animals of sacrifice in
the temple, but also loudly sang its song at the corners and in the squares of
the city. Its incense permeated all of natural life, too. The main theme of the
priesthood, the redeeming love of the atoning God, is given expression also in
the institution of the year of jubilee, concerning which we had occasion to say
something before.[1] This year is a part of the cycle of Israel’s holy festivals
as much as is the feast of the Passover, of the Great Day of Atonement, and
others. The love manifested in the atonement, the answered prayers of the
priests for peace, these are reflected in all of the laws of the theocratic
people. It is also reflected in the laws of the citizens, in the governmental
laws which, we know, cannot for a moment be segregated from, though they can be
differentiated from, the laws of Israel’s religious life and the laws of its
ceremonial service. Now this idea of the irresistible love and mercy of God,
which spoke to Israel through all the usages and institutions mentioned above,
was manifested also in the custom, to which the text refers,—that of granting
the people the privilege of releasing a prisoner on the feast day.

[1] SeeChrist in His Suffering, pp. 404, 418, and 429, Chapter 24, “Christ’s
Last Wonder in the State of Humiliation: The Liberator of Slaves in the Form of
a Slave” The text tells us that Pilate, according to an established custom,
could regard himself as being obligated more or less to set free a prisoner on
the feast of the Passover. We must know that this custom did not hold true for
every feast day, but for the Pass over in particular. Apparently the people were
very insistent on this privilege. It is obvious that the custom was of
reasonably long standing, and was highly valued by the people. It must not be
thought that this was a special Roman custom introduced by the Romans without
regard at all to the Jewish mind. Such a notion would not be compatible with
Pilate’s statement: Ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the
Passover. From that statement it appears that this usage is one which had its
origin in Israel’s own life, was sustained by uniquely Jewish thought and in
which a deeply rooted longing and firmly established conviction of the Jewish
people itself came to expression. Now it is remarkable that when we read the
writings of rabbis in the Talmud or in related books, we observe that no mention
is made of such a practice.[1] This fact shows that we are dealing with one of
those many “institutions” under which, according to Christ’s own statement, the
Pharisees had buried God’s commandment, but one which had its roots in Israel’s
peculiar religious consciousness. Many suppose that this practice arose in the
time of the Maccabees, a time in which Israel had to fight for its
spiritual-religious freedom. However this may be, it is very likely that this
practice of an annual amnesty gave expression to the Biblical proclamation which
announces generally the coming of freedom for the oppressed in Israel. The
message of the law in which God includes all of His elect people had cast an
evangelical light upon the condition of the slaves, and, in general, upon all
oppressed and unfortunate ones among Abraham’s children. The institution of the
year of jubilee is a strong confirmation of this fact, but there are many other
less prominent features of Israel’s community life which serve as reminders of
that love of God which sheds its rays upon all the bondmen of Israel. All of
these features—too numerous to mention—are so many signs pointing to the fact
that the practice of releasing a prisoner on the Passover is reminiscent of the
actual Passover event itself.[2] In this connection we must recall the statement
made in Chapter 5 of Deuteronomy in which an explanation is made of the
Sabbath-keeping commandment (In Chapter 20 of Exodus the institution of the day
of rest is founded upon God’s own rest on the seventh day after creation).
Deuteronomy 5 points out the relationship between Israel’s day of rest, which
provided a respite from the hard labor of the days of the week, and the general
redemption of the people from the slavery of Egypt. Besides, the law commanded
that Israel had to release the slaves again after a while. This custom served to
remind the people that they themselves had once been slaves in Egypt and had
been set free. The light of grace played upon the whole domain of natural and
community life. Even the threshing oxen were regarded by Israel as standing
under the sun of grace (Deu 25:4; see 1Co 9:9).

[1] Strack-Billerbeck, in his well-known commentary, tries to illuminate the New
Testament by means of the Talmud and Midrasch, and says, in agreement with
Schurer, that the custom according to which the procurator of Israel released a
prisoner to the people on the Passover naturally had to be based upon a special
enactment of Caesar. But he adds that no additional historical evidence or
explanatory notice of this custom can be found in the Jewish literature. This
fact is particularly significant for us, — the more so because this particular
commentator finds analogies and parallel passages for almost every text of the
New Testament in all the possible corners and crevices of the rabbinical
literature.

[2] Nebe,op. cit.p. 84, calls our attention to the story which is told us in1Sa
14:24f. It is possible that such an analogy can be found: the people ask Saul
not to spoil the glad day of Israel’s redemption by punishing Jonathan. In any
case, however, this can be but a weak analogy.

If we keep all this in mind, we may indicate a connection between the main idea
of the Passover—the redemption of the people from the tyranny of Egypt and the
atonement of the people by the blood of the Passover lamb, on the one hand, and
the release of the prisoner on the Passover day, on the other hand. Was not
prophecy—think of Isaiah, and of Jesus’ first sermon—quite permeated by the
thought that the messianic day, to which all of Israel was looking forward,
should also set free all prisoners? And ever and again Israel’s dreams had gone
back to that departure out of the house of bondage in Egypt, had they not? Was
not the exodus out of the Egyptian prison the beginning of Israel’s whole
expectation for the future? Hence the particular manner in which the custom of
setting a prisoner free on the Passover obtained its legalization does not
concern us much. The thing that is important for us is that Israel’s national
sense and the passion for freedom which ever recurring tyranny whetted in it had
to place this custom, once it existed, in the light of its own ideal of freedom.
That ideal was the ideal of a fulfilled Passover sometime in the form of
Israel’s perfect liberty.

Accordingly, the prisoner who was set free upon the Passover naturally became
the popular hero, a prominent figure of the Jewish Chiliasm. This one man who
was annually released on the feast of the Passover was thought of as a kind of
epitome of a longing people who, like him, would sometime regain a former
freedom. This one man became the symbol of Israel’s whole future. In the active
imaginations of the crowd this one act of amnesty was sublimated into the festal
gift of the advent of a messianic era which would sometime lead all of God’s
captives out of the house of bondage. An ardent Passover fire of reconciliation
and of freedom illuminated his path between the prison and the temple. And is it
not true now, as we said a moment ago, that in this manner, at the very moment
in which the matter of the annual amnesty is being raised in the Passover
programme, the priestly element looks around the corner?

We know that is rather a mild statement of the fact But we put it so advisedly,
for we would be guilty of making false inferences, and of arbitrarily distorting
the historical data which we have and which are very meager, if we accepted as
absolute certainty the fact that the people attached the whole Passover concept
and the whole Passover reality to the custom of releasing a prisoner on the
feast day. We may say no more than we can be sure of. Besides, we ought to take
time to ponder how very seldom the masses related the forms of their festivals
to the original idea which gave birth to them. This surging mob who come with a
great deal of bluster to demand the release of a prisoner do not represent a
group of upright keepers of the Passover. Not all of them are wont to wrestle
with Israel’s theology and eschatology. Their cry for freedom, their demand that
the prison doors be flung wide, their summoning of the Passover hero is a trifle
bold. The angels sensed that their cry had a raw and rasping sound. But what of
that, in the last analysis? What does it matter to us whether the people
understood very little of the original Pass- over concept expressed in the
ceremony of the Passover amnesty? Whether the people understood little or none
of it does not affect the issue. The great question is: How much did Christ
understand of that concept? The important matter is what thoughts the annual
release of a prisoner upon the feast day called forth in Him.

Now we can be perfectly sure that Christ who always lived by the Scriptures
always did and now also establishes a relationship between the joyous event of
the day and the whole of the preaching of freedom contained in the Old
Testament. Christ preached His official sermon to His people upon the basis of
Isa 6:1, in which the opening of prisons is referred to as the great festal
climax of the messianic day. Hence, He must very consciously have established a
relationship between this element of the Passover programme, and the entire
service of the love of God as it was shadowed forth among Israel by the law, and
was preached by the word. Is it plausible to suppose that He would forget His
first sermon now that, at the close of His career, He is condemned to silence?
No, indeed, all of His sermons become part and parcel of His inner experience.
All the longings of Isaiah, all of the lyrics written by the poets of God and of
Israel, and the whole of the profound concept of eventual victory, of eventual
freedom, for God’s troubled people, also become an integral part of His personal
experience. Jesus kept His silence, but He is listening, is listening
profoundly. He listens in on the body of the prophets. In the sensitive
awareness of Christ the priestly idea of reconciliation and of peace does not
merely come “looking around the corner” as it does for the people, but rejoices
aloud in His translucent spirit.

Just what course things took in that crowd is not yet entirely plain to us.
There are two possibilities. The first is that Pilate himself hit upon the idea
that he might profit from the aforementioned Passover custom, and that he
thereupon decided to present Jesus as the candidate for freedom. This is not
implausible possibility. We remember that Pilate was suffering embarrassment. It
is just possible that in the reasonably long interval during which Jesus was in
Herod’s hearing, he made use of his time to ponder upon what attitude he should
take over against the matter in case Herod should refuse to condemn Jesus or to
acquit Him. During that time Pilate might have concluded to make the people the
offer of severely chastising Jesus and to suggest to them that thereafter they
should no longer molest Him. Such a proposal would be much more acceptable in
the event that Pilate could relate Jesus’ eventual release to the annual custom
alluded to above. Much could be said in favor of such a “solution,” and would
probably satisfy His enemies. If Jesus were publicly chastised first, and
released afterwards, His activity would prove quite harmless in the future.
Never in His life would He be able to shake off the odium of having once
deserved punishment and of having escaped from the judge and from the death
sentence only by a most fortuitous circumstance. Such a solution would give
everyone his way, and Pilate would be rid of the troublesome matter.

If this was indeed the course which Pilate’s thoughts took, then he at his own
prompting hit upon the plan of relating Jesus’ chastisement and subsequent
release to the customary amnesty accompanying the day of the Passover. But there
is a second possibility. It may be that Pilate rather accidentally took the
course he did take. We get the impression that, while Pilate is busy with the
process of the trial, a mob suddenly makes its appearance upon the scene and
informs Pilate by means of a delegate that it wishes the annual amnesty to be
granted it at once.[1] Some add to this possibility the fact that the crowd
which appeared immediately suggested the name of Barabbas; but this addendum is
not necessary to the possibility. It is more than likely that among that crowd
there were many who wanted to give Jesus this happy opportunity, those many, in
other words, who continued to honor Jesus as a popular hero or as a beloved
prophet.[2] Now it is quite possible that Pilate, being suddenly reminded of the
amnesty, at once concluded to profit from the circumstances by suggesting that
Jesus be the candidate.

[1] This construction of the facts is based upon a very plausible interpretation
of the text given inMark 15:8. The King James version has it that the crowd was
“crying aloud.” But the original can also be translated: “and the crowd drew
near.” Naturally, this rendering of the text supports the interpretation that
the people suddenly make their appearance.

[2] Dr. J. A. C. Van Leeuwen(Het Evangelie Naar Markus, Korte Verklaring van de
Heilige Schrift, Kampen, J. H. Kok, p. 195) thinks it likely that the crowd
immediately and unanimously hit upon the name of Barabbas. However, we feel that
there is not enough evidence for this opinion, and that according to our
rendering of the text (see the immediately preceding note), it is not necessary
to accept this interpretation. Had the crowd been unanimously in favor of the
release of Barabbas, it would not have been necessary for the leaders of the
people to influence it to choose against Jesus and in favor of Barabbas. It is
likely that some came to demand the amnesty without having a particular person
in mind, that others wanted to suggest the name of Barabbas, and still others
that of the Nazarene. Be that as it may, the crowd is making a demand. They want
their Passover hero. You may as well say it in a whisper: the idea of the
priesthood, the idea of freedom and reconciliation, just manages to look around
the corner. For Christ in this same hour the whole of the Scriptures are an open
book. See the thousand-headed mob which is demanding its hero. How many are
there among those who relate this Passover tradition to the whole of prophecy,
How many of them will hesitate when asked to decide whose release they wish?
Besides, how many of those who wish to grant Christ the favor, want to do it
because they see the priest in Him, the supreme Bearer of God’s mercy, by which
He seeks His longing people?

It is certain that these will be few. And even those few will be making a
mistake. For this is the day of the strange, paradoxical meeting of appearance
and reality.

Suppose for a moment that Christ had been released on the feast day, that as the
bearer of God’s love, as the priest of reconciliation, He had been set free? In
that case an injustice would have been done to His priesthood. Christ may not
receive the great amnesty as a gift on this day; He must earn it as a right for
others. He may not be the object of amnesty; He must be the cause which deserves
it. This very day is the end and purpose of all of Israel’s forward-looking
laws. This day must provide the legal basis for Israel’s regulations affecting
freedom. Hence only by yielding Christ up to death and by denying Him the
amnesty can this mark the deliverance of Abraham’s bondmen.

Yes, Christ, this is Thy forgotten chapter: Thy priestly ministration. Thy
beautiful office of honor, which Thou wilt fulfill on this day by Thy descent
into hell, and by Thy complete sacrifice, is being entirely ignored. It is true
that Thou art standing upon the mountain of all kings, of all prophets and also
of all priests. But all those who pronounce judgment upon Thee, and all those
who come to plead for Thee have quite forgotten Thy priestly office. Thou wast
mocked as a king, despised as a prophet, negated as a king and prophet, but
there is another grief which has been reserved for Thy exalted spirit. The
priesthood, forgotten chapter as it is, although it has been very active in Thy
soul throughout the day, will make a brief and slight appearance now. Very brief
and very slight. The faint outline of its image will appear, no more. But even
in full cognizance of that fact, Thou Thyself must confess that this crowd, even
in making its loud petition, is deaf and blind to Thy priestly ministration.
Thou Thyself must confess that they are overlooking Thee, precisely as Thou art
in Thy reconciling sacrifice. Jesus, dost Thou sense that? The priestly sun is
rising; — in response a myriad-headed crowd stintedly turn up the wick in its
lamp. Should the light be extinguished, all would be gone. Is this not a
negation of the priest! The office of the priest is giving its greatest gift
today; it is giving the true Passover bread. But Israel is quarrelling about one
crumb which the dogs—the heathen!—have left behind under the table of the
children.

Negation of the priest! The Priest’s love is pouring the vessels full of wine,
but in response the children of Abraham cry out to Pilate, to Caesar, to moisten
the tip of their tongue with a drop of water. Negation of the priest! Even for
the best of those in the crowd who still retain an inkling of the relationship
of the Pass- over amnesty to the true concept of the theocratic-messianic
priest- ship, only two possibilities are open. If they persevere in keeping
their Scriptural ideas unimpaired, they cannot beg the favor this day for Thee,
Saviour, for the very institution of the priestship would be stranded on the
amnesty of Christ Jesus. And if they, motivated by their love for “Jesus,” beg
for Thy release from Thy bonds, then their love has succeeded in honoring Thee
according to Thy historical manifestation, but not according to Thy office.
Then, although loving “Jesus,” they will be negating “Christ.” In other words,
they will be tearing Thy life apart, for “Jesus” does not want to be segregated
from “Christ.”

How ironical this day is! How painful it is for Thee.

Moreover, it is difficult, O Christ, for all those who hear Thee and love Thee.
For all these this day is difficult. It is hard for them to keep from stumbling
as they follow the course of love. When their love prompts them to ask that
their Jesus be released, that He be made a symbol of Israel’s future day of
redemption, they negate Thee as Thou art on Thy priestly mountain, and do just
what Pilate did. On the contrary, if they do not implore the judge to grant Thee
the day’s favor, they will be voting for Barabbas, or for some other person; in
that case they will be voting against Thee, and will be certainly driving Thee
to Thy death. Thou, my Saviour, art in a terrible dilemma: not to vote for Thee
means to vote against Thee, and to vote for Thee means to deny Thee. Yes, even
Pilate discovered the dilemma; he could not regard the situation from the
vantage point of the law and, consequently from the vantage point of the gospel.
We cannot escape from this dilemma, Lord, unless Thou dost remove all the
ballots from the table, and dost tell us: Blessed is he whom Thou hast chosen. .
. .

We cannot escape from it. That is certain.

C. And why not? Why are we unable to escape from making the wrong choice?

Certainly, it is a terrible thing to have to make the discovery that even the
simplest concept of the priestship, as that concept finds its fulfillment in the
Christ but its foreshadowing in the Passover amnesty, can be introduced into the
discussion by Pilate only after Christ has been completely made an outlaw. When
we think of that, we know that the important question is not how much or how
little the people understand of the priestly element in the custom of releasing
a prisoner on the feast day. Then we know, too, that the important question is
not how much the love for Jesus which obtained in the crowd is able to
understand of the concept of Christ the true High Priest. For it is plain now
that every view of the priesthood, inasmuch as it pertains to Christ, to
Barabbas, or to any other acquitted prisoner, is arrived at quite outside of the
procedure and the justice of law.

Christ is the outlaw; irrespective, therefore, of whether His priestship is
thoroughly fathomed or but slightly noticed, nothing more can be done. Pilate
has declared Him to be irrelevant to law, and the forgotten chapter of Christ’s
priestly love will never regain its position. Irrespective of whether He enters
into His death or continues to live, of whether He is named together with
another as a candidate for amnesty or whether He is overlooked for that favor,
He will have to fulfill His priestly ministration from now on quite alone. He
will be supported by nothing, sustained by no one. Even if He should be released
presently on the basis of the usage customary to the feast day, even if it could
be said of Him that He represented an embodied image of the promise of priestly
reconciliation and redemption in Israel, He would gain nothing. He cannot
present Himself as the symbol, to say nothing of the fulfillment of the symbol.
He is the outlaw even before His name is coupled with that of Barabbas.
Moreover, He is that to the whole world (see pages 419-420). He stands outside
of the pale of law even before He can become a priestly emblem as the one who
was set free on the feast day. What, indeed, can that priest possibly do on
earth? It is precisely in terms of His office, and in terms of the office of
priest that He has been thrust into extreme isolation. The very idea of the
priesthood, if realized in Him in its weakest form —as an emancipated
delinquent—will never get the acknowledgment which even human laws are willing
to contribute. He is the outlaw, the completely outlawed one. He is rejected,
excommunicated by every ordinance. From your and my point of view God’s love is
impotent over against this. The love of His people can do nothing for Him. The
best which they could demand of the judge in His favor would only serve to
malign Him, for the request would be granted only upon the condition that Christ
is being regarded as the outlaw. Whoever would grant Him His life upon that
condition, would be maligning, would be negating Him while He stands upon His
own priestly mountain. And whoever allows no harm to come to Jesus’ soul on this
day would be allowing harm to accrue to his own soul. This is an agonizing irony
in which God has involved us.

Consequently, only one possibility is left us if we are not to offend Christ
with our “love.” We can be silent, just as He was silent. We can concern
ourselves with Christ, not according to any human law, not within the circle
circumscribed by any human ordinance, but by including Him and ourselves solely
and purely within the fellowship and within the province of the law of God. That
law is the law of eternal justice, and of a self-revealing love which comes from
above. Lord, there is no room for Him in me. Even my frailest images are of no
relevance to Him according to my point of view and in terms of my law. Lord God,
I see no way in which I can assign a place to Him and His symbols. . . . Lord,
He is the outlaw, and unless Thou dost Thyself fulfill the symbol, all the
temples of the world will hold their peace.

D. Naturally, the significance of all these considerations should serve to
humble us. Human love and human “sympathy” proved unable to do anything for
Jesus on this occasion. We see that to vote for “Jesus” at this time is to vote
against “Christ.” Whoever chooses to vote in this way wishes to impart life to
the Chief Priest, the most generous of givers, in patronizing generosity, and to
forget the sacrifice entirely. Has this any significance for us?

Indeed, it has. The chapter of Christ’s priesthood which was forgotten at this
time is frequently forgotten by us also. To give attention to the prophet and to
the king in Jesus, but to ignore the priest is a fault which is not peculiar to
the judges who promoted the litigation against Jesus. It is our error also.
There are many to whom the priestly service of Christ amounts to a forgotten
chapter. They are willing to accept Him as a prophet and a king, but they reject
Him as a priest. They reject Him and His symbols. Their thoughts, their actions,
and the choices and laws of their life never give any attention to the priest in
Christ. In response I hear someone say that those who so neglect the priesthood
of Christ are the liberals; that we are the orthodox; that we devote full
attention to the Suretyship and sacrifice of Christ; that among us His
priestship is not a forgotten chapter.

I am not convinced that such is the case. I am not sure that you assign a
rightful place to the priest in Christ. For why do you, orthodox man, often say,
sometimes with a kind of unctuousness in your voice, that “the world” refuses to
acknowledge the priest of your confession because the priest humiliates it,
because salvation by grace, by perfect satisfaction, humiliates it. Do you mean
by that, that as a prophet and a king Christ does not humiliate the world and
us? Do you mean that in these two offices He does not crucify us, and does not
put us to death?

Surely, if you fix such an antithesis as this between the offices of the Christ,
you are wrenching Him apart! Then you become like the world as it is represented
here before Pilate. For Pilate also thinks that he can talk about the king and
the prophet without any reference at all to the priesthood, as though the three
offices could be separated from each other. No, no. He represents humiliation
and exaltation in all His offices; in each of His offices He is an outlaw
according to the flesh, one who determines His own laws for Himself! The very
humiliation which Christ places upon us as a priest is the same which
annihilates us in His prophetic and kingly activities. As a prophet He must have
banished falsehood from us, must have called us liars, before He can communicate
a single word of truth to us. As a king He must first reduce us to the plane of
slaves and rebels, before He can let a single drop of myrrh fall upon us from
His royal hand. Yes, even in our own thoughts, it is a great error to suppose
that the humiliating element accrues to us only from Christ’s priesthood.
Nevertheless, the truth is that in each of His offices He can exalt us only by
first humiliating us. Not only as priest, but also as prophet and as king Christ
is foolishness and an offence to us. Any theology which recognizes humiliation
in Christ’s priesthood alone may call itself ever so orthodox, but as a matter
of fact it stands on the same plane as Pilate, and the Sanhedrin, and the whole
of this poor Jewish people. For these three, too, have completely overlooked
Christ’s priesthood. Why, you ask? Because they nurtured the foolish illusion
that Jesus of Nazareth does affect prophecy, does have bearing upon the
kingship, but that His priesthood can be ignored. The Jews first gave Christ as
a prophet a hearing. Only after the hearing did they pronounce Him as a king an
outlaw. But the whole of this gathering of tyrants did not once give Christ as a
priest a hearing. As a priest they immediately pronounced Him an outlaw. The
Fulfiller, the Intercessor of all the prayers of all the priests had been placed
outside of the pale of the law at the time when the last children of Abraham
came to present their poorest beggar-prayers, at the time when these came to the
“dog,” Pilate, to beg for one small Passover loaf which they might give to one
of Abraham’s misformed children, be it to Barabbas or to Jesus.

O Lord, how Thou didst humiliate me,—for I also was among them—when Thou didst
open my eyes to this fact. I did not want to be humiliated. And that is why I
ignored the priest, supposing that I could obtain the full benefit of the king
and of the prophet without Him.

Save my church and save me from this basic heresy. Prevent me from supposing
that Christ humiliates me less as prophet and as king, as the preacher of truth
and the guide of my life, than He does as priest. Lord, only when the entire
Christ completely crushes me will the judgment of the flesh against Christ be
completely repudiated by Thee in the courtroom of my conscience. Not until then
will the transaction which took place before Pilate seem as foolish to me as a
world turned upside down. For the orthodox church, too, there is reason for
being humble. Not always is it able to escape from the error of Pilate and of
the Jews.[1] To go on, however. The world, too, is being judged and condemned on
this day. The whole world is being condemned. By negating Christ as a priest,
and by busying itself with His other offices, it maligned Him greatly. It tore
Him as the Messiah into pieces. In this respect Rome, as well as Israel and
Esau, becomes subject to judgment. The world declared Him to be an outlaw before
He was able to say: I am the lamb of the Passover. It declared Him to be an
outlaw before He could ask: May I repeat my first sermon, here at the close; may
I repeat my first sermon about the amnesty which will accrue to the prisoners of
God?[2] Satan could not contain his laughter when that happened, when the mercy
of God which opens the prison gates of Israel was not even given a hearing, when
Christ stood before Pilate and wanted to be a priest. As for Israel, it wanted
to be led out of the house of bondage, of course, and demanded that a prisoner
be released who should serve as a greatly desired symbol of Israel’s dream of
freedom. But before Israel made that request, it had led its own redeemer back
to the house of bondage. We have mentioned that already.[3] This foolish people
discussed the burning question of whether Jesus Christ was the object or the
author of Israel’s liberties without referring the question to His own laws and
to the teachings of the Scriptures. When this people did that, it was doomed.
Barabbas—regarded as a type now—was also doomed. They thought of him too late.
Who trembles in the presence of this doom? Who trembles in the presence of this
annihilating judgment? Surely he will tremble who lets the priestly love of
Christ Jesus be proclaimed to him by the law of God and by it alone.

[1] Partly because it has been more concerned with the structure than with the
content of its thinking.

[2] See p. 442, Chapter 23.

[3] See Chapter 11. For the Man of sorrows the humiliation of this forgotten
chapter was very severe. At the very hour in which He was earning and fulfilling
Israel’s priestly privileges (for which He was giving His blood on this day) His
priestly love could not say one word in defence of His priesthood or of Israel’s
privileges. This was a deep humiliation for Him. He was being wrenched apart.
Only in the pain of the dismemberment is He able to find Himself again. His
priestly heart suffers grievously. But the prophet in Him suffers no less. O
God, is this the result of my first sermon? Moreover, the king is being
humiliated also: Barabbas, the rebel, is more than I, for Barabbas has not been
thrust outside of the province of law. His prison is at least a place in which
men embody serious intent. . . . O Christ, who wearest the crown of thorns,—we
see the thorn enveloping Thee already. We notice that the whole world has not
developed a single system of thought or form of doctrine which systematically
raises the issue of the priestly shedding of Thy blood into its discussion. Thy
forgotten chapter can be spoken of only outside of the law of Cain, and of Esau,
of Moses and of Augustus.

Whence may I know my misery?

Out of the law of God. Not out of my own laws?

No, for they silenced Him completely. That is the greatest sorrow and there is
none that will take it to heart. Christ the outlaw, the Suretyship, is explained
by no earthly laws. Thou wast forgotten, Saviour, The shedding of Thy blood was
separated beforehand from the feasts of Barabbas, from the law of Moses, and
from the forum of Rome. That is the bitter bread which was given Thee to eat on
this day. Thy blood is pouring from Thee and no single earthly book of law makes
any note of it. The justice of God alone observes it.

Later the Spirit of Christ calls this: Being in the form of a servant. The
servant is the outlaw; if He is that no longer He bears a different name. In
other words, the name of Christ’s situation here is slavery. This is His
humiliation, His offence, His foolishness.

Early in the morning Pilate respected Moses (page 292). At noon he still
respected him (page 544 f., Chapter 29). He respected the symbols, and had no
eye for the embodiment. We cannot say too much about it. It is terribly
difficult to see such things in a world which is held together by a superfluity
of laws.


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  CHAPTER 29: 24. CHAPTER 24: CHRIST - OR - BARABBAS
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C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - F O U R Christ - or - Barabbas And they had then a
notable prisoner,called Barabbas.Therefore when they were gathered
together,Pilate said unto them,Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas,or
Jesus which is called Christ? For he knew that for envy they had delivered him.
—Mat 27:16-18.

SIN always betrays its real character after a while. It cannot avoid doing that.
Sin is consummate folly. Hence it is that the praise of folly is sounded again
and again in the drama of sin. This holds particularly true of the litigation
conducted against God’s own Son by the world. Logic and justice are absent in
this litigation. Not only is the process of law an atrocity of injustice on the
part of the people, but it is also a piece of folly. Hence what we say now will
be less a counterpart than a fulfillment of what was said at the beginning of
the preceding chapter. We stated there that Satan knows which particular periods
of time are strategic for him, that he makes good use of those periods, and that
in all of his sombre activities he knows how to attain to an awful and horrible
mode of procedure. And this holds especially true in his sombre work of
condemning Jesus Christ.

We persist in saying that this is true. We may not subtract an iota from this
truth, for, as has been said already, satanic whims and impulses are constantly
forced to fit into the scheme of God’s ordained plan. He who wrecks the
palace—that is, he who wants to wreck it—simply is unable to work in disregard
of the plans followed by its builders.

Accordingly, if we keep our eyes fixed on the confusion of the litigation of
Jesus, if we examine the structure, the scheme of the activity going on in it at
the prompting of the invisible world, be it that of divine justice or of
devilish injustice, we cannot fail to discover that an awesome logic, a sublime
display of inevitable sequence, an integrally interrelated system of death and
curse and of basic perdition is delineated in it.

However, heaven and hell, although invisible forces, take their course straight
through the visible world. Now that visible world is populated by crooked
people, foolish putterers, triflers, and dickerers surging around the chair of
God, and the wooden throne on which the prince of darkness is pluming himself.
And these people are not capable of an artistically authentic mode of procedure,
of an austere and integrally interrelated style of activity. Their sin is
incapable of reaching the level of Satan’s artistic form. It represents an
uncertain drifting, a failure to keep to the course on the lakes planted between
the mountains which limit their horizons and which hide the awful abysses. They
are merely dallying on these lakes quite purposelessly. There is no system in
their work, and consequently they do not comprehend the satanic scheme and
satanic system. Why not, you ask? Because they do not know of God. Did they know
God in faith, they would be able to understand a little of Satan’s sublime mode
of procedure. For Satan adapts himself to the style and to the system of God to
the extent he knows these or to the extent that he can recollect them from his
observation. But they do not know God; and Satan himself, of course, does not
reveal his thoughts to them. He does not teach his disciples the way he plans to
go. Is it not written that he comes as an angel of light? And is his parousia
not an ap-ousia, and his manifestation not a concealment of his essential
intent? Indeed, no one will ever learn Satan’s ways from Satan. Only in the
school of God is that psalm taught which says:

He who bows before His throne, To him shall all His ways be known.

It is impossible, consequently, for people who are willing tools in Satan’s hand
not to know that in their very follies a scheme, a plan, conducted by both hell
and heaven, is realizing itself. Hence, too, it is quite possible for them to be
inconsistent in their actions. It is possible for them to drift about
purposelessly on the deep lakes between the mountain cliffs delimiting their
horizons. Purposelessly drifting, yes, until a treacherous squall rushes down
from the cliffs and destroys them.

Such was the case of Pilate on this occasion. We have observed that his proposal
to chastise Christ first and to set Him free then, caused Christ to become an
outlaw. Now if Pilate had drawn this atrocious evil to its logical conclusion,
he would never have coupled Christ’s name with that of Barabbas and have
submitted both to the people for a selection. Had he followed his intent to its
logical conclusion he would have coupled Christ’s name with no other name, and
certainly not with that of Barabbas, of whom we have spoken in the preceding
chapter. For it is logical, surely, to say that an outlaw must be an exception
in the world. He is one who is cast outside of the province of law, and who
consequently becomes the prey of the arbitrary will of one and all. Obviously,
if Pilate’s action is to make sense at all, and if it is to become apparent that
its sense is clear to the man who performs it, then that man must be willing to
pursue his conduct to its logical conclusions. And one of those logical
conclusions naturally must be that the man who is named an outlaw—whoever he may
be—can in no sense be placed on a par with another person not thrust outside of
the province of law. The two simply do not brook comparison. But Pilate coupled
the names. He presents a pair of names and adds the announcement: whom will you
have, Barabbas or Jesus who is called Messiah?

Now if this pairing of names had taken place before Christ had been declared an
outlaw, it would, from Pilate’s point of view, have been a less serious and
offensive piece of conduct than it is now. Barabbas, we must know, had not yet
been placed outside of the sphere of law. On the contrary, he had just been
treated and punished according to the regulations of law. Now if Jesus had not
yet been thrust outside of the rules and the governance of law, this pairing of
names, humanly speaking, would have made sense. But that is not the course
Pilate pursues. Barabbas has been treated according to the law. He was a rebel;
Peter afterwards calls him a murderer. The law of authority condemns him; the
law keeps him prisoner; and when he passes through the gates of the prison to
his freedom today, even that will take place in accordance with the law. Think,
for instance, of what the preceding chapter stressed in this connection. But
Jesus has become an outlaw; and it is after He has become this, that His name is
paired with that of Barabbas. This, surely, is an instance of Pilate’s
inconsistency. It sounds the praise of folly. From Pilate’s own point of view
the names of two individuals, each of whose case is quite different from that of
the other, are named together as though they were of the same rank. The fact is
that we are not afraid to say that even according to human law, and according to
Pilate’s own preliminary declaration, the juxtaposing, the coordinating of the
names of Barabbas and of the Nazarene represents a humiliation for Barabbas.

Take note of this last-named particular, shocking as it may sound. What we
usually say is this: How Jesus is being humiliated by this event! In fact, there
are those who would be disposed to congratulate Barabbas upon his promotion
supposing that he has been singularly raised from the gutter. There have even
been serious commentators who have gone beyond their proper limits in an
unworthy play of allegory which ever since ancient times—conceivably for want of
ideas—has presented Barabbas as a symbol of the sinner who is granted his
freedom by Christ’s mediatorial work. And this allegorical conclusion is
thereupon amplified by many an edifying rationale. Often it is presented thus:
Jesus is going to His death; Barabbas is recalled to life; and we must all
become Barabbases who by reason of Jesus’ entrance into death can ourselves
escape from death. Thus we all can be gloriously ushered into life
again,—hallelujah, so be it.

Such allegorization, certainly, is incompatible with the Bible. In the first
place, Barabbas was not released because Christ served as his Surety. The
complete holiness of Christ protested against this emancipation. When Christ
presently sees Barabbas entering into his freedom, He does not plead with God
for the man, or later give His blood for him. In saying this we are, naturally,
speaking of Barabbas as he is revealed to us in history; for the rest the hidden
things belong to the Lord. In the second place, we may not transfer that which
Pilate approves in opposition to all regulations of law to the conclusion of
God’s good pleasure, which is pleased to justify the ungodly for Christ’s sake.
Therefore we are justified in saying that from Pilate’s point of view, and even
from a general, human point of view, the pairing of the name of Barabbas with
that of Jesus constitutes a humiliation for Barabbas. In the estimation of men,
Barabbas was not an outlaw, and Christ was. In other words, a person who is
unworthy in the sight of human law is placed next to a person who is very
worthy; a man having no rights is placed next to a man having rights, and a
figure who is no longer taken seriously is placed next to a figure whose case
has been and is being given close scrutiny by the law. This most strange and
most shocking of all pairings would have lost its humiliating features for
Barabbas only if Pilate had first retracted his ungodly proposal to chastise a
guiltless Christ first and to “let Him go” then. In other words, Barabbas would
not have been disconcerted by this coupling of names if Pilate had rebuilt the
litigation from the very bottom, and if in the rebuilding he had followed the
established plan of his own human sense of justice. Inasmuch as Pilate did not
so rebuild the case, this pairing of names is a shameful humiliation for
Barabbas.

We have pointed out earlier in this study (see page 346) that not long ago
certain noble leaders of the Jewish people suggested that the litigation against
Jesus be re-examined and that, should the investigation warrant it, Jesus be
rescued from the odium which his people placed upon Him. Well, in all
seriousness we wish to state that if this committee for reconstructing that
ancient case of law should want to do its work adequately and well, it would
also have to reinvestigate the litigation against Barabbas. For he, too, may lay
claim to vindication. The issue in his case is not what God thinks about Jesus.
This issue is contained in the question: According to which human ordinances of
law is Jesus being released? Now these ordinances of law were so humiliating for
Jesus that Barabbas, had he had a fine ethical sense, would have refused to be
regarded as belonging to the same class as that to which Jesus belonged.

You ask why we introduce this matter? Naturally we do so in order to point to
the state of Christ’s humiliation. It is only when we devote special attention
to these plain but frequently neglected matters that we get a true insight into
the overwhelming logic of heaven and of hell. Only then do we realize how
atrociously and profoundly Christ was humiliated. He who stands before the world
as an outlaw now becomes a shame and a byword to all. To this, Isaiah had
reference when he said: He is without form and comeliness. This is what Isaiah
on another occasion called: being the rejected of men. This is the beginning of
the descent into hell. The servant of the Lord was made the least among men, and
an example of shame to all. Abel becomes a shame even before Cain. Indeed, this
is an oppressive, a sublimely oppressive burden of logical truth. This is also
the great concealment. God passes into hiding: Jesus, as outlaw too, is the Son
of God. Our throats become constricted as we think the thought that we might
have been Barabbas; that our names might have been paired with that of . . .
Jesus; and that we, accordingly, from a purely human point of view and on the
basis of human ordinances of law, might then have said: Spare me such
humiliation. He who feels no lump in his throat at this does not know himself.
The man who reflects upon these matters in the obedience of faith will confess
to his God that sin is the greatest nonsense of the world, that it turns the
world topsy-turvy, that it turns even me upside down, although — alas — never
inside out. Such a person will confess to God: Father, they must prefer me to
Jesus: help me, Father, lest I perish because of this honor. Barabbas shares the
bread of the Passover with me; he urges me to take it, saying: Take, for this is
food for you also. But for me to eat his Passover bread is to invite my death.
Give me manna, Lord. He who has seen these things right will beseech his God
that he may despise this foolish, this human, this altogether too human pairing
of names in its very essence, and that he may see the Christ solely as the One
who mocks all comparisons and who can be compared with no one.

Only then will he hear a voice sounding from above: To whom then will ye liken
God? or what likeness will ye compare unto Him? So say God and Satan. Only after
hearing that will we sense that the great concealment of the essence and of the
honor of God — a concealment which drew its references from the law of the
incarnation of the Word — proves to be just as foolish and offensive and
unreasonable to the flesh as does the entire Gospel. A premium was placed upon
folly not only when Barabbas left the prison in the evening as a free man, while
Jesus was faltering under the weight of the cross, but when the two names,
Jesus-or-Barabbas, were placed in juxtaposition. What do you think of such
language? Just pass out the ballots. What do you think of such language, free
people; what do you think of it, children of Abraham?

We have advisedly put these matters as we did. In our opinion we have placed the
emphasis upon the right thing. Naturally, we do not mean to say that the further
particulars have no significance. But these additional details can be given
their proper place only if the other matters have been properly assigned to
their places first. Bearing that in mind, we can say that the additional
particulars which demand attention are numerous. In the first place the figure
of Pilate attracts attention. This man by pursuing his characteristically
wavering policies of state, by choosing the way of escape which we have just
seen him enter, attempted a last time to rid himself of Jesus, but in the very
moment of his doing it he became completely captive to the might of the Jews.
From this time on it will be impossible for him to recede. In the second place,
the person of Barabbas is a mysterious figure. All that we know of him is that
he had committed a murder, and that he had done this on the occasion of a
revolution in the city. Some think it may be safely supposed that Barabbas
played no role in the periodically recurring displays of animosity on the part
of the Jews against the Roman people. These argue that it would certainly have
been difficult for Pilate to present as a candidate for freedom a man who had
openly taken part in a revolution against Rome.

However, we want to say that this contention is not a properly argued one. In
the first place Pilate was not one who was strictly dutiful in acquitting
himself of his responsibility. In the second place, Jesus Himself was one who
was being accused of fostering rebellion against the state. That tells us
enough. The pairing of Jesus (after this accusation) with Barabbas makes it very
likely that Barabbas had also been sentenced by the Roman authority for being a
rebel. Now the situation is that Pilate wants to do everything in his power to
remain friendly with the Jews. You see the connection. Placing Jesus’ name next
to that of Barabbas would prove a better instance of catering to the popular
wishes, and to the roaring lion of Jewish chauvinism, would serve, indeed, as a
stop-gap for the time being, if Barabbas too had been involved in an anti-Roman
movement just as it was said Jesus had been.

However, we have no absolute certainty about this. Nor need we have. For
Barabbas became a kind of popular hero the moment he was incarcerated. The
reputations of heroes are as cheap as popularity is, and as far as Barabbas was
concerned, a revolution of any kind, irrespective of how it arose, would always
be a revolution against Roman authority. Those nameless ones who were involved
in such revolutions would always to a certain extent have an opportunity to cool
their hatred against the despicable empire of Rome by pondering this incident of
Barabbas. Add to this the fact that in any case everyone hated the Roman and
that any imprisonment of a son of Abraham at the hands of Rome caused the
children of Abraham to feel their subservience very keenly. In connection with
this think of the Passover custom which will presently give the man who is to be
released from prison an ovation in the form of the sacrifices of Israel’s self
worship. You can easily understand that Barabbas, irrespective of his
antecedents, and irrespective of who he may be as a person, does certainly in
this moment elicit the sympathy of the people as a symbol by virtue of his
candidacy for deliverance. To this we must add another thought. His name is:
Bar-abbas.. Literally this means: son of his father. It is almost self-evident
that this was not a common family name inasmuch as every human being is a son of
his father. There is reason for supposing, as some have maintained, that the
“abbas” alluded to was a rabbi. In that case Barabbas was one who sprang from a
family of rabbis. Now a rabbi, a teacher of the people, was officially addressed
by the name, father. If this supposition represents the truth Barabbas was a man
of noble descent. In that case, too, his being taken captive affected a
prominent rabbinical family. His case, then, was not merely a penalty applied to
this or that street rebel. His was an action against Rome in which rabbinical
pride, Jewish theology, and ancestral tradition might be found. In this
connection we think of judas Iscariot who had also given his heart and hand to
the rabbis and who for that reason could no longer endure Jesus.[1] Even if
Barabbas had been taken captive for a reason which had no conceivable connection
with Jewish patriotism, he would have become a hero on this day the moment he
was named for the amnesty. We read that he was “notable.” We need not doubt for
a moment that he became a popular hero. All we have to do is to follow the
crooked line of the popular rationale and the whimsical ways of the popular
favor to be convinced of this, even though not as much as a single particular
about Barabbas’ criminal past is historically verifiable.

[1] SeeChrist in His Suffering, Chapter 9, p. 168. For all of these reasons,
then, we are quite right in saying that the pairing of names in question here
represents an antithesis of the false freedom which Israel sought to the true
freedom which Christ promised. Can you suppose that Judas is the only one who
betrayed Jesus, and that the thirty pieces of silver changed hands between him
and the chief priests only? That cannot be. Such would have been a humiliation
too meager for Christ the outlaw. When Judas betrayed him, we notice that one of
His twelve left Him.[2] Now one of twelve can hardly be said to amount to much.
But on this day Christ experiences something which, numerically considered, is
far worse. We all will betray Him. The protest which Judas filed against Jesus
takes tangible form in this pairing of names. On this day the name of Barabbas
becomes a motto, a party slogan. To the heated phantasy of the people he becomes
the bearer of the typical and genuinely Jewish ideal. Hence he immediately wins
from Jesus of Nazareth in the ensuing election. Barabbas fights for a freedom
which is immediate. Jesus of Nazareth, . . . ah, He is the pioneer of a freedom
which is ever looking to the future, to the morrow. As for that morrow, . . .
well, it never comes. Barabbas represents the emancipation of Israel from the
bonds of Rome, and that is a far more practical thing than the work of Jesus who
is always talking about emancipation from the slavery of sin. Barabbas, even
though he himself may be unaware of it, is being appropriated by the Jews’
illusion of freedom and he allows himself to be appropriated in this fashion,
especially perhaps because he is still safely seated behind the gate of the
prison. There Barabbas is pliable as is every bearer of an ideal — every bearer,
that is, who has no mouth with which to affirm or to protest. But Jesus was ever
antagonizing people. Nothing pleased Him. At one time He deliberately refused to
accept the king’s crown. Barabbas represents revolution; Jesus, the Gospel.
Barabbas is carnal; Jesus spiritual. Barabbas belongs to the line of
Lamech-Cain; Jesus to that of Seth-Abel. Barabbas wants to subjugate; Jesus to
deserve. Barabbas will not let his sword rest unburnished; but Jesus has no work
for a sword to do. Barabbas is a hero; Jesus a worm on which we must necessarily
walk, though we tread ever so lightly. Of Jesus we feel like saying: Ecce homo.
Not so of Barabbas.

[2] SeeChrist in His Suffering,Chapter 23, p. 407 f.

Perhaps there is another particular which deserves attention here. There are
many manuscripts, by no means unfaithful witnesses, which give Barabbas the name
Jesus. We shall devote no attention to that question in textual criticism which
busies itself with which of these manuscripts deserves preference, that which
includes or those which exclude the name of Jesus. Suffice it to say that there
is much to be said in favor of the opinion that Barabbas was also called Jesus,
or Joshua.

If this interpretation is a correct one, we have here two Joshuas, two people
who go by the name of Jesus. Their names are placed on a single ballot:
Joshua-Barabbas and Joshua of Nazareth. And was this juxtaposing of names not a
revelation of God rather than an accident of chance? The people who are called
Jesus: in that statement is contained the whole problem of the incarnation of
the Word. What we have in mind is this. The incarnation of the Word represents a
concealment of God, and of God’s majesty. It represents a hiding behind the
meager humanity of Christ. In the incarnation the Logos is lost to view behind
the veil of a humiliating human nature. Now this incarnation of the Word
followed its divine style to its logical conclusion, even to the point of the
name which Christ accepted. For His name is called Jesus, or Joshua. And the
remarkable thing about the name Joshua, Jesus, is that it is in no sense
unusual. In those days there were thousands who bore the same name. There still
are. Many a Joshua, many a Jesus, can be found in the markets of any great city,
and among the hucksters and cattle buyers of many a smudgy village. You see that
it is a very common name.

Now it is a very ordinary name which suits the incarnate Word. If it had been
necessary for Jesus to take a name (supposing this could be done) which would
give perfect and adequate expression to His essence and being, God would not
have made the selection from a human register. For Jesus is unique. Accordingly,
a name which would have given complete expression to His being or which would
have approximated such adequacy of expression most nearly, would have been
understood by no one and would have left us God’s incarnate Son without a means
by which we could appropriate Him. Therefore the incarnate Word had to bear a
name which fitted His mission and His purpose. It had to be a name which the
people could sense, a name in which revelation appeared demonstrably. The name
of Jesus Christ simply had to be an ordinary, oft-recurring name. Christ, too,
is like us in all things, sin excepted. Hence He does not come to us bearing a
more than aristocratic name which no one beside Him could ever have in the
world. Instead He is presented to us with the name which a man of the street
might also bear. This is part and parcel of His humiliation, of His commonness.
In this respect, too, God’s thoughts differ from those of men. Jewish writers
had a way of creating dazzlingly unique names[1] for the Messiah, but God gave
Him the common name of Joshua, a name as usual as John or Peter is in our own
language. But the choice of this name had its bearing upon salvation and
judgment. We know that the name Joshua means: the Lord saves. The rich
significance of this name might escape the attention of the countless Joshuas
who were making the markets unsafe places to be, but in Jesus of Nazareth the
name was fulfilled perfectly. Evaluate Him in terms of His name and you will
discover that it fits Him appropriately, that it fits Him only, and that it fits
Him completely. Thus it was that the name which Jesus bore was itself a means of
revelation. True, this revelation, too, was not adequate, but it was genuine.
Whoever believed and whoever struggled with the name of Joshua would eventually
discover in Jesus of Nazareth the fulfillment of the truth revealed by that name
(the truth that Jaweh saves). And this is a fulfillment which can be discovered
in no one else; and he who does not believe is one who “hearing doth not hear.”

[1] A few of these Jewish fictions created the following names for the Messiah:
Sjalom (peace); Risjon (the first); Jinnon (because he exists from eternity or
because he has the dead arise again); Chanina (“grace”); Menachem ben Chisqijja
(comforter, son of Hezekiah); Chiwwara debe Rabbi (the white one, i.e., the
leprous one, of the house of the Rabbi—seeIsa 53:4); Jahweh; Tsemach (sprout or
shoot); Natrona or Netirutha (the watcher or the watching one); Menachem
(comforter); Bar-Naphle (son of a degenerate one—seeAmo 9:11); Nehora (light):
Anani (he who comes with the cloud); Ephraim (perhaps to be explained by
reference toJer 31:9;Jer 31:20); Menachem ben Ammiel (comforter, son of Ammiel).
Inasmuch as these names which the Jews ascribed to the Messiah are not names
currently known and used at the time, they are characteristic to the extent that
they differ from the Biblical revelation of the matter, according to which Jesus
had a common name which was quite in accordance with His humiliation and its
effects. For a discussion of these names themselves, see
Strack-BillerbeckKommentaar op Mattheus, pp. 64-67. To return now to Pilate’s
ballot of two names. If it is true that Barabbas also bore the name Joshua, the
naming of him as well as the naming of the Son of Mary and of David takes on a
particular significance which is not discovered until this moment in the
presence of Pilate. The one name of Joshua is now developed into two different
directions through these two “candidates.” Jesus of Nazareth redeems from sin,
does the redeeming by means of justice, and by earning that justice in a
strenuous struggle with God; and Jesus-Barabbas redeems from worldly tyranny,
does the redeeming by means of imposed force (rebellion), and without once
thinking about earning redemption in a struggle with God or of the requisite of
satisfying God. Jesus of Nazareth first effects a spiritual redemption, and only
after that has taken place does His renewing power realize itself in the visible
world; but the “redemption” of Barabbas is a purely pragmatic incident which
takes place according to the law of the flesh. This pairing of the two names
represents the great concealment of the Word of God: One can distinguish the
true from the false Jesus only by faith and according to the Word.
Joshua-Barabbas and Joshua of Nazareth are listed together. These names
constitute a ballot in which self-redemption by means of one’s own power and
redemption through grace are placed next to each other. Salvation without
humiliation and salvation by way of humiliation are placed in juxtaposition.
Barabbas sacrifices others; the Nazarene sacrifices Himself. The one acts in the
visible world; the other in the invisible. The first stands for revolution; the
second for satisfaction. The former pleases the heart; the latter offends it.
All this the heart of Pilate and of whatever is human puts together upon a
single ballot.

You ask whom they will choose after a while? Ah, man, that makes no difference:
His own did not accept Him; even though they vote for Him, even though each and
all choose in His favor, they will have denied Him already. The fault inheres in
the ballot itself. Do not burst into tears, then, when after a while the popular
vote proves to go against Him. For the ballot itself is a cursing of the
Messiah. Instead, greet and worship the Surety of your soul for the labor which
He bore for you. He was dumb in His response to this pairing of names, His
silence represents a singular greatness. For that screaming mob out of doors the
name Joshua-Jesus may have lost every feature of its specific content. But Jesus
of Nazareth has detected the voice of His God behind His name. The several
letters of His name, even as He read them upon the ballot, bore down upon Him
with the weight of eternity. He pondered the content of His name in the presence
of Barabbas and of His heavenly Father. That caricature — Barabbas — did not
cause Him to lose hold of Himself.

Seeing the ballot, Joshua of Nazareth thought to Himself: They must do what they
will; my calling is to be Joshua: let them draw up their lists.

They drew them up. When Jesus saw that the logic of sin had put itself in the
service of the choice of the flesh against the spirit, he understood all. At the
beginning the case had read: Jesus superior to Barabbas; I find no fault in Him.
At the conclusion the situation declared: Jesus beside Barabbas; the two are a
pair. And the result of that was: Jesus beneath Barabbas; crucify Him and give
us Barabbas. Yes, He had understood it all, and He did not move from His place.
He found that His task was as simple as His name, used as it was a thousand
times, for He had previously sensed that His name was as hard to bear as was His
task in this terrible hour.

Jesus’ name was coupled with that of Barabbas. Who does not shudder at the
thought that he is no better than Barabbas, and that therefore the whole world
as well as his own flesh would vote against Jesus and in favor of himself? Who
does not shudder at the thought that he, just as Barabbas, is named on the
ballot of “the flesh” next to God Himself? Whoever ponders this deeply will
pray: Lord help me, for I shall go mad unless Thou dost reveal to me the true
sense of the first chapter of John, unless Thou dost teach me the real meaning
of the statement: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. And 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.

Pilate’s ballot: Moriae encomium, the praise of folly.

But: the flight from that ballot; refuge in Jesus’ arms, the praise of
godliness.

Come, ye angels, raise a hymn of praise for Him. It may be that He will not hear
it today, but sing it anyhow to yourselves: to whom then shall ye liken Him, or
what likeness will ye compare unto Him? saith the Almighty.

Angels, keep your countenance firm over against Him. For God is about to forsake
Him. God has already left Him. God left Him when that evil ballot was drawn up.
The clouds were not rent, heaven did not break through, the sun was not
darkened. But God forsook Him. Jesus, my Surety, why didst Thou endure the
ordinary name which is borne by the Jew at the market and by me? Lord, help me,
for I am sure that I, too, would not have voted for Thee. Be quiet, He tells me
in return. That is just the point. You must not “select” me. I and the Father
must have selected your name at the time of election, by sovereign choice and
unto salvation. A ballot consisting of two names, He tells me further, once
existed in the presence of God. The one name included upon it was the old man of
sin, the son of perdition, existing in reality. The other name was that of the
new man of election, genuine and pure in principle, in idea. The Father and the
Son chose the second and greatly desired him; they were governed by their good
pleasure in the choosing . . . That is why I can live; that is why I shall not
perish. That is why I pass out of the prison house of sin and of Satan by means
of Him, by means of Him alone, for the sake of God’s sovereign pleasure.
Barabbas passes out of the prison, but he leaves the prison standing. Jesus,
however, enters into hell but for Him the very prison becomes His loot. O Lord,
Thou seest

Thy struggle crowned with gifts for the comfort of men in order that Thy
obstinate dear ones might ever dwell with Thee.

He endured the choice of the earth in order to vindicate the choice of God’s
good pleasure in His death, in His concealment, in His perfect perdition. That
is what I read in the Holy Gospel. What must I do?

“What must I do, Lord; tell me, what?”

* * * “Give me my cross, Thy cross, Thy heart, Thy love, Thy sorrow, and then go
The way of grief to Golgotha.”[1] [1] John H. De Groot, Sprongen.


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  CHAPTER 30: 25. CHAPTER 25: CHRIST IS PLEADED FOR AND TRAVESTIED
========================================================================

C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - F I V E Christ Is Pleaded for and Travestied When he
was set down on the judgment seat,his wife sent unto him,saying, Have thou
nothing to do with that just man:for I have suffered many things this day in a
dream because of him. —Mat 27:19. THE LIFE of the Son of man, ever alert to God
as it was, is on all sides bounded by dreams. We find the dream at the beginning
of His life, and we find it again at its close. Joseph, the husband of the woman
who introduces Him into life, has a dream; the wife of the man who leads Him out
of life also has a dream. Even before Jesus had been laid in the manger an angel
tells Joseph in a dream: adopt Him for He shall be righteous. And as He is about
to be led to the cross, the spirits say to the wife of Pilate, and God says to
her again in a dream: Release Him, for He is a just man. Thus is the life of
Christ bounded by dreams. Conscious and unconscious life, day and night, waking
and dreaming — each and all of these must testify to Christ, must point to Him
as the Just One with whom the world is certainly bound up even though it will
not admit it. The dream of Pilate’s wife certainly constitutes a peculiar
intermezzo. We hardly know what to make of the frail voice of a woman coming to
us through all the clamor of the streets and the excitement of the trial. But
Pilate’s wife hardly makes her appearance at all; in fact, she does not let
herself be seen; she merely sends a messenger.

Nevertheless there is something distinctive about this woman. The message which
she has sent to Pilate arrives in the middle of the clamor which broke loose
when the ballot, bearing the names of Barabbas and Jesus of Nazareth, had been
presented. This, then, is the time which must be given to deliberating upon the
choice which ought to be made. The people are being influenced from all sides;
each new voice adds to the effect. A very inconvenient hour this is for a woman
who wants the attention of her husband for a moment. But it is precisely in this
moment that the message of the woman has a tremendous effect upon Pilate’s
emotion. She throws an obstacle in front of the wheel of the coach in which
Pilate is riding to his doom. She tells him that he must have nothing to do with
that just man. Why not? Well, last evening she has had a most depressing dream.
She has dreamed about “that just man.” And that dream is a sufficient motivation
for her to say to her husband: “Keep your hands off; do not touch Him. I fear
the consequences.”

Pilate’s wife has gradually become famous in history. She attracted people’s
attention very early. In fact the records of the transition definitely give her
a name. She was called Claudia Procula, sometimes abbreviated to read Procla.
This woman whom hereafter we shall call Claudia — without thereby committing
ourselves to the historical faithfulness of those transitional records in the
matter of this name, a matter which must necessarily remain more or less
legendary — this woman, we say, has left an indelible impression upon history.
As a matter of fact, the Greek church canonized her; the 27th of October is a
day on which the Greek calendar of saints is dedicated to her. Others — the
apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus, for instance — tell us that she became a
proselyte to Christianity, and that she later took a prominent and honorable
position among those who confessed the Christ. So effectively has she charmed
the attention of people that she has been made the subject of a whole book.[1]
In The Netherlands Frederik van Eeden has written a book on Pilate and his wife.
But he himself says that he has done it in the same manner as Anna Catherine
Emmerich had. Van Eeden, too, has Claudia become converted to Jesus, and even
has Jesus appear in the family to effect a reconciliation between Pilate and his
wife.[2] [1] G. P. Kits van Heyningen,Claudia Procula.

[2] Frederik van Eeden,Uit Jezus’Openbaar Leven, Chapter 98, p. 194. H. Padberg,
S. J:Frederik van Eeden,1925, p. 220 (you will find an inaccurate reference of
literary fact there).

Perhaps it will always be difficult to differentiate between fancy and truth.
Hence we shall not make an effort at achieving that. We cannot go much further
than that which has been officially confirmed. And the little that has been is
limited for the most part to the information that Claudia was not unfavorably
disposed to the Jews, that she interested herself, for instance, in the building
of schools. For the rest, we shall let her figure remain hidden in the twilight
in which the Spirit left her. The question for us is not who Claudia is, nor
just what she saw in her dreaming,[1] but what place Claudia’s dream had in the
story of Christ’s suffering. We do not need to know all of the details of the
life of Claudia, but are seeking the relationship of her dream to the passion of
the Man of sorrows.

[1] For a discussion of Gustave Dore’s presentation of the content of the dream,
see Dr. J. C. de Moor,Genade voor Genade,Kampen, J. H. Kok. This discussion is a
sermon on Claudia.

Now one of the first questions which raises itself in this connection is whether
Claudia’s dream can be “explained” in natural ways, or whether that dream must
be regarded as a supernatural one sent by God.

Just as is frequently the case, interpretations differ in this matter.

Some maintain that Claudia’s dream can be wholly explained in a perfectly
natural way. Who can contradict this contention? Jesus was generally known;
during these last days many had been talking about Him. He Himself had appealed
to the imagination, especially to the imagination of the women. The romantically
colored account of His entry into Jerusalem undoubtedly reached Claudia’s ears.
Besides, Pilate knew (according to the immediately preceding verse) that for
some time a conflict had obtained between the Jews and Jesus, a conflict which
could be explained as far as the Jews were concerned by reference’ to their
envy. Add to these facts that the trial of Jesus had called Pilate from his bed
early in the morning, and that the restlessness which had arisen on the street
in the matter of the Nazarene had therefore penetrated through to the bedroom of
Pilate. Think, in addition, of the stir, the clamor, the going to and fro of the
mob between Pilate’s and Herod’s house and you will indeed have matter enough
for claiming that the dream of Pilate’s wife can easily be explained in a
natural way.

Therefore, when others maintain that they must ascribe the responsibility for
this dream to the devil, and to him only, we think they are making a too
audacious assertion. In the first place, the devil is not a deus ex machina; to
cite his name is not to explain the first cause of an event. Besides, this
method of explanation can very easily degenerate into a seeking for allegory or
unreal parallelisms. One commentator will say: Just as the devil in Paradise
first addressed the woman in order to use her for introducing death into the
world, so the devil now first addresses himself to a woman in order to put an
obstacle in the way of the death of Christ; that is, to stand in the way of
redemption, and to put an obstacle in the way of life. According to these
interpretations Claudia’s act is looked upon solely from the dark side: it makes
Claudia an obstacle, a hindrance in the way of the redemption contained in the
death of Christ. How wildly arbitrary such explanations are becomes apparent
from the fact that there are others again who read in this apology of the woman,
Claudia Procula, a kind of compensation for what the woman in Paradise had
spoiled. For, these argue, in Paradise a woman bore evil testimony over against
the first Adam, and now, in the hour of the second Adam, a woman makes
recompense by means of a good testimony. She registers her protest against all
the evil statements made by all the wicked men. In giving this testimony she,
too, is the first.

Naturally, we feel that there is a hitch somewhere. Our recompense is that we
must not immediately blame the devil for everything which we cannot readily
understand, as if that were a satisfactory conclusion. We know that the devil,
too, is bound by the forces which make themselves felt in natural life.

However, there is still a third interpretation. It ascribes Claudia’s dream to a
direct influence of God. According to these interpreters, Claudia’s dream is a
kind of dream-revelation,[1] a “warning which God directs to Pilate.” Those who
hold to this view believe that God intentionally influenced Claudia’s soul in
order that it might admonish Pilate, or in some other way by means of that dream
have a specific effect upon the suffering of Christ.

[1] Grosheide,Kommentaar op Mattheus,p. 344.

What must we say of these various views? Must we choose one of the several
interpretations? As in so many other instances, so in this one it is quite
unnecessary to align ourselves with one or the other of these commentaries. To
do so would be to suggest that any one of them completely excludes the
possibility of any other. But is not the whole of world history and especially
the entire trial of Christ a confluence of three factors; i.e., a divine, a
devilish, and a purely natural one (to the extent that we have erroneously
allowed ourselves to name it that). But why should the one interpretation
necessarily exclude the others? God often made use of natural factors. Whenever
He did, however, it has been true of them that they did not explain His work,
but, on the contrary, that they were themselves explained in terms of His plan.
As for Satan? We know that he is everywhere and immediately present in order to
turn towards evil what God is directing towards good, if by any means he is able
to do so. The dream of Pilate’s wife cannot be explained solely in reference to
heaven, and even less in reference solely to purely psychological complexes.
Hell also had a responsibility in the matter. Whoever could wish to keep the
several interpretations of this event quite separate from each other would have
to construct the whole problem of the providence of God, and of the manner of
His government, in fact the whole of dogmatics in a way quite different from
that which the Church up to this time has done.

Accordingly we endorse the opinions of those who do not abstract this remarkable
intermezzo—for so it seems to be—from the pleasure of the evil one. But we also
refuse to accept the proposition that this noteworthy dream simply and suddenly
impinged upon the situation as a remarkable wonder which in no sense could be
explained by natural phenomena. Above all, however, we may certainly not for one
moment place this “incident” outside of the structure of God’s determinate
counsel and providence.

If we cling to these views we can let Claudia retain her position on the plane
which she, together with all other people, occupies. Her dream is not typical of
her life. She does not become a proselyte by reason of it, and no distinctive
nobility of soul can be ascribed to her on the basis of it. Those who would like
to explain this unique dream phenomenon in any specific way could much more
easily find ground for blaming Claudia for her superstition than for praising
her for her faith. We will point out presently that Claudia’s dream, in the
matter of which God certainly has a sacred purpose in mind, is soon explained by
her in such a way that the rankest conceivable egoism is compatible with her
interpretation and with the “application” which she infers from it. So much for
the natural causes; so much for the “human factor” in her dream. And this for
Satan’s share in the matter: certainly we cannot exclude him. We, too, believe
that in the sinister play of his hellish wickedness this dream has a part. It is
true that Satan avidly longs for the blood and death of the second Adam. But it
is also true that hell would derive a kind of satisfaction from the fact that
Christ would be released in the world as a result of mere superstition (fear of
a dream), and by reason of pragmatic considerations (fear of the evil
consequences which might attend the condemnation of the guiltless Jesus). If
Christ were set free by Pilate as a result of the bizarre logic or vague
intuition of Claudia to the effect that this “just man”[1] if put to death might
be avenged by God or by the gods—but not by Himself,—then He will in the future
no longer be proclaimed as the Messiah. Had Pilate in this particular set of
circumstances, now that Christ had been proclaimed an outlaw anyhow, followed
Claudia’s advice and eventually given Jesus His freedom, Christ would not have
escaped from the odium attaching to Him in the eyes of His people. In this
connection we involuntarily think of that slave woman in Philippi who—later—gave
the messengers of Christ a diploma of honor by announcing them as people having
a good message, as preachers of a noble name. Satan exerted an influence upon
that incident also. That slave also called out: Make no mistake about this Jesus
Christ, for in my dreams I suffer much on account of that just man.
Nevertheless, Paul detects a diabolical influence in her hysterical cries. The
thrust of that influence is this: if Jesus gets the right of free passage in
Philippi on the authority of this man, He will be entering Philippi not as the
one and only Messiah who thrusts all the other gods of Greek phantasy out of the
way, and who takes all the people and all who minister in the temples of
Philippi captive, but as one among many who, reckoning by human standards, all
know how to speak “good and acceptable words.” Just so, if Jesus by reason of
Claudia’s apology had gained His freedom at the hands of Pilate and of those
ugly Jews, He would have secured the privilege of free passage into Jerusalem
indeed, but then He would have been damaged and dethroned for all time. Claudia
can do but one thing: she can give the Gospel only evil services. Just suppose
for a moment that Satan has no hand in this affair. Do we know everything about
his sinister activity? Is it not compatible with the passion of his sin-steeped
being that every “interpretation” of the significance and place of the Nazarene
in the world which does injustice to Christ is pleasing to Satan? We hold that
the influence is present in this instance also in order immediately to effect
this particular movement in the spiritual world. For Satan wants to exert
effective influence upon every wave which God dispatches into the world of
invisible things. If he cannot succeed in this, he at least tries to set up his
loud-speakers in the neighborhood of God’s waves in order that he may falsely
reproduce the pure sounds intrinsic to them. So much for the devil’s influence.
We may call this the diabolical factor in the dream.

[1] The qualification which names Jesus as a just man must not be stressed too
strongly. Its meaning goes no further than to allege that Jesus is not as bad as
His accusers say He is. Strack-Billerbeek,Kommentaar op Mattheus, p. 1032,
presents an analogy. To go on, however. Above all, we are convinced of the fact
that God Himself, from the vantage point of His spiritual world, intervened in
the trial of Jesus by means of Claudia’s dream. Moreover, we believe that He did
this with a specific intention. Now anyone who is surprised by the thought that
God uses a heathen woman for purposes of revealing His intentions in a dream
will certainly have to admit that his Bible contains many another such
instrument of revelation. We need only to name Abimelech, Pharaoh, and
Nebuchadnezzar among others to indicate that God more than once addressed
Himself to heathen in the form of a dream, in order to give expression to a
specific working of revelation. Claudia’s name must be added to these. Nothing
in the trial of Jesus is independent of the influence of God and everything in
that trial has its specific significance.

God’s intent is, however, so intricately complicated[1] that no one has the
right to force it into any one direction. Now the fact that God wanted to
admonish Pilate and to do so in Pilate’s own language is certainly an element
which helps us to understand God’s purpose in the dream of Claudia. It would not
wholly account for God’s intent, but it cannot be properly ignored. There was
very little that Pilate could still do; he had already sold himself to the Jews.
But perhaps it will be possible for him to be diverted by a dream. True, Pilate
has asked, What is truth? but the man who has lost his faith soon tried to
sustain himself by superstition and when that is the case, how many a man has
not listened to the charming voice of emotional woman? We are all familiar with
the somewhat sinister saying: Cherchez la femme. Now the fact that this saying
does not suffice on this occasion to explain everything to Pilate certainly
cannot be ascribed to the governor himself. Had the Jews not annoyed him so
much—and in this respect we notice Satan’s presence in this matter—Jesus would
have been set free. But all Jews and all historians, and indifferent you and I,
might have smiled mockingly and said: Yes, He is free, but after all,—cherchez
la femme. In short, the dream of Pilate’s wife is an admonition. God is speaking
to Pilate in Pilate’s own language. That God does so need not surprise us, for
He is the same God who once admonished Saul in Saul’s own language—the time, you
remember, when in the night at Endor God had Samuel speak to him. This is the
same God who, during the very moment in which Pilate’s wife is dreaming her
dream, is prepared to send souls down from heaven to the earth, souls who,
later, when Christ has yielded up the spirit, will enter into the body in order
that after His resurrection they may appear to many in the holy city. No, those
who have become used to the atmosphere of miracles—to the extent it is possible
to become used to that—will not be surprised to find that God makes use of
Pilate’s own language to arouse his sense of responsibility. On the contrary,
such a person will remember that God by means of this woman, and by means of her
dream, greatly enhanced Pilate’s sense of responsibility. A dream never gives
respite from the task of being responsible. As quickly as the dream has passed
the question arises: What did it mean; what is the explanation of it? That
throws everyone back upon his own resources again. Everyone must explain his own
dreams himself; and each man seeks the solution in terms of his own life and
temperament. Instead, then, of providing relief from responsibility, a dream
intensifies the sense of it. A dream gives the human mind a new task. The task
is one which the consciousness of waking hours has tried to escape from, or has
neglected. Hence we can truly say that God intensified Pilate’s sense of
responsibility to the highest degree by means of this dream. For this dream we
thank Him; it will be the reason for which Pilate will be found without excuse
in the last day when Jesus will be the judge instead of the accused, and
consequently will be the judge of Pilate also. Because of the dream, Pilate will
be unable to say: I did not know; or: You did not talk to me in my own language.

[1]So it seems to our defective thinking. On the other hand, however, from God’s
side, His unity also fully informs the decree. From His point of view, the
designation “complicated” is sheer foolishness.

Nevertheless, it would be a complete denial of the entire, conscious
predilection which is governing the content of this book, if we should drop the
discussion at this point. That conscious predilection is that every detail of
the gospel of the passion has a definite significance for Christ Himself.
Everything has an influence upon the soul of Christ, and each new thing thrusts
Him farther into the abyss. For this is now His hour, and the power of darkness.
As it is, God simply gives His Son no respite from suffering on this day.

Now as we look for the significance which Claudia’s dream, as well as her report
of it and the application which she gave of it has for the soul of Christ, we
discover several things.

We can put its significance in this way: In the whole of Christ’s trial,
Claudia’s effort to reach out her hand to the Nazarene in an attempt to “rescue”
Him is a very noble gesture. Nevertheless, that noblest of gestures also serves
to deny, to mock, to misconstrue Christ, and serves only to harm Him. In the
first place, we pause to consider that application of Claudia’s dream which
reads: Have thou nothing to do with that just man. Dost Thou hear that, Jesus?
In the very hour in which all the angels and all the devils, in which God
Himself and Thy own Spirit adjure the whole world saying: Have everything to do
with Christ Jesus, release Him, for His is the only voice which still has a good
word to sound in this world, comes the dictum: Have nothing to do with Him; give
Him His freedom, rid yourself of Him. Does that not cause Thee incomparable
pain, Thou Prophet of God? Alas, if only this statement came from the strident
throats of excited Jews or if only it were the conclusion of the refined
diplomacy of the Roman governor, it would not be as bad as it is. But the
statement comes from a person who, not without the influence of God, has just
returned from the invisible world. Jesus’ own text had just echoed in His own
soul: I must be raised on the cross,[1] for I affect the whole world; everybody
has everything to do with me. Now comes this message from the unseen world: Have
nothing to do with this man. Is this not humiliation! And negation again! First
from Pilate, and now from his wife!

[1] See Chapter 15, pp. 292 and 297.

Yes, the “noble gesture” on Claudia’s part can only serve to harm Jesus. She in
her manner says precisely what Gamaliel will say later in the council of the
Jews: Simply ignore that Nazarene incident; if you consider it, you may burn
your fingers. But it is necessary to burn one’s fingers on the Christ. Did He
not come to bring fire upon the earth? Nevertheless, Claudia says: Stay out of
the neighborhood. In this, you see, the Saviour is again being isolated. And
this is accomplished through the person who made the noblest gesture in the
whole of this ungodly trial. Yes, Claudia, you have insulted Him. It is true
that you protested against your husband, but at bottom you are one with him.
You, too, declare that this Just Man is an outlaw. Surely if this Nazarene has
any rights according to law, Pilate must have a great deal to do with Him.

Who, pray, can still dare to speak of a noble gesture? Can you not detect a note
of selfishness here? Just who is it that Claudia would save? The Nazarene? No,
indeed, but she would save Pilate. What she fears is that vengeance will one day
accrue to him . . . Does not this pain Thee, Jesus? Thy life is being protected,
but in a way that takes no cognizance of Thee as God’s active avenger; it takes
cognizance of Thee only as the outlaw whom men dare not touch because they fear
the Nemesis of which Pilate’s wife has heard at times. One can never know how
much of truth there is in those old sayings! ... I think of Enoch. He once
declared to Noah’s contemporaries: The Lord will come, and when He does His
coming will be an offensive approach; He will bring myriads of saints with Him
and many thousands of angels of vengeance. Now, in this hour of Christ’s death,
the Lord has indeed made His offensive appearance. Today He comes; the Holy One
comes, bringing myriads behind Him. Beware. On this very day someone says: The
gods of Greece and Rome, the fates and the furies, may possibly make their
approach with a sting of death and with an angel of destruction. Negation this!
Again negation! Christ has come to drive all gods out of Greece and Rome. He
comes to sweep them all from Olympus by means of the winds of Pentecost. Yet it
was only by a hair’s-breadth that Jesus escaped from becoming the protégé of the
gods of Greece, the very gods He came to destroy, and for whose defeat He had
already thanked the Father (John 12:21; John 12:23). This also represented
suffering. And temptation. His way of coming into life was not a matter of
indifference to the Son, and He is equally concerned how He passed through it
and out of it. Why should a doxology sung by angels mean more to Him than the
proposal of Pilate’s wife? He does not “figure” the way we do. He is “true” man.
Yes, His soul yearns for light and life, but it is compelled to protest against
this “noble” gesture, the only thing which would still comfort Him as He stands
before the bench. Among all those people there is not one who raises his voice
for Him, save this one woman . . . But His whole soul must implore, and cry
aloud: Do not listen to her.

Why not, you ask? Had He been set free by reason of this advocate, the Chief
Priest of Israel would have lived by virtue of the grace of the anachronous gods
of Greece. Then the Highest Wisdom would have passed through the gates of
freedom by the grace of superstition: that is, by the grace of the most utter
folly. Then every rising of the sun after this would have raised a hymn in
praise of folly because of this bizarre phenomenon; a Highest Wisdom living by
the grace of sheerest folly, and a Passover recollection (the amnesty)
manipulated in the name of the remnants of the Greek Olympus to which Claudia
attributed the dream. Even Maccabeans would have protested against such a
Passover memory; how much more, then, Jesus Christ!

Indeed, this is humiliating. The highest revelation which God has given the
world now runs the danger of letting its own notion of its ways and means be
circumscribed by the erroneous notion of the lowest form of revelation of which
God makes use in the world: namely the dream[1] True it is that God spoke
genuinely to Claudia, but pagan superstition gave the message a wrong
interpretation. “God, who aforetime spake through the prophets, has now
fulfilled that saying in the Son.” But the life and the right of prophecy of
that Son—woe to Him, if He should desire it thus— is sustained by a silken
thread which was spun by the diseased imagination of a born egoist who has
scented something of the sulfur and brimstone which has been ignited on the top
of Mt. Olympus. In this connection we think of the Baptist. Just before his
death we witnessed the enmity of a woman, Herodias, and the weakness of a man,
Herod. Together they struck off John’s head. Here, again, we have the whim of a
woman and the weakness of a man, but on this day these two are inclined to spare
Jesus’ head. But to spare Him thus for the day is to humiliate Him forever. Then
the Baptist would have served his purpose and attained his end, but Jesus would
have been basically defeated. Understand, we are talking from a human point of
view. For the author of the sermon on the mount it is a terrible lot to hear it
said: Have nothing to do with Him. For the hairs of His head, as well as those
of Pilate’s head, are all numbered. Jesus senses that this is true. In
concluding we can hardly interest ourselves in what became of Claudia, in the
conflicts of her soul, or in the manner in which God in the future allowed
Pilate to suffer for the sake of the Nazarene. It is said that Pilate died in
darkness; it is certain that his life after this time came to be a restless one.
Doubtless, he often recalled what his wife had once told him. But what point can
there possibly be in considering such things? The only thing that can be
important for us is the terrible humiliation which struck Christ as the bearer
of God’s highest revelation, which caused Him to feel as keenly as death that
His life was made to depend upon the superstition of a pagan woman. The bearer
of God’s highest revelation must hold His peace now. And the recipient of God’s
lowest mode of revelation flutters by: the dream, which is hardly set forth
distinctly in a vague nebulosity, is permitted to speak. Meanwhile Jesus Christ
must simply bide His time in order to learn what the content and the effect of
this dream of revelation are. When Claudia told of the fact that she had met
God, Jesus also felt Himself forsaken of God. Over against Him all the heavens
were silent.

How great Christ is in His perfect obedience! In spite of His intense yearning
for life, He refuses to accept it on these terms. He wavered neither to the
right nor to the left. It may hurt Him to think that the dreams of Abimelech and
of Pharaoh and of Nebuchadnezzar gained more for Abraham, Isaac, and Daniel
respectively, than Claudia’s dream gains for Him—for Pilate at its behest did
not change his mind—but again in this matter Pie gives Himself up willingly to
the counsel of God, holds His peace, and sees that justice is done. And He does
this without clinging to the lifeline which superstition threw to the Man of
sorrows when He became the victim of the overwhelming stream of God’s justice
and curse. True, He sighed: All thy waves and all Thy billows go over me. At
that moment Satan threw Him the lifeline saying: Grasp it. But from this
temptation, too, Christ escaped. Even after Claudia’s intervention,[1] and in
spite of the fact that as a human being her speech -seemed to invite a response,
Christ permitted his dark sayings to go unexplained over against Pilate and did
not defile or profane His own great mystery by an avid appropriation of
Claudia’s mysteries. He did not mingle the waters disturbed by Claudia with the
pure springs of our delights. He preserved the fountains of God pure and
undefiled. Thou art great, Lord, and greatly to be praised. Thou maintainest all
the holinesses of God’s revelation and dost do it also in spite of the slight
breath of hope and life which, as it seemed, for Thy benefit, briefly blew over
Thy head from the atmosphere of paganism.

[1] The phrase is repeated again: Jesus answered not a word—not even after this
intervening episode.

We praise Thee, O God, for Thy name is very dear. Thy wonders are proclaimed
even though a decadent daughter of Zeus attempts to cover them with a garment of
the Greek gods. O Saviour, Thou didst not quail, neither when the naked Satan
confronted Thee in the wilderness, nor when he tempted Thee here by means of a
dream. For the truth is that Satan tempted Thee, and that Thou wast proved by
God. However, now that Thou hast confessed the name of Thy God over against the
nebulous dream-reflexes of an uncertain pagan woman, Thou hast wrought for
Thyself the privilege of having Thy disciples see visions and to dream Thy own
old dreams. Thy spirit of Pentecost has mounted his highest peaks, O Christ,
Thou hast kept the dreams, uncontaminated by the filthy, dirt-laden streams of
heathendom. The revelation of Thy God which proceeds from Thy spirit pure and
undefiled almost became smothered in the sand and mire of pagan superstition and
of late-Roman defeatism.

If Christ had imbedded Himself in these simply to preserve His life then God’s
dream of revelation would first have been diverted and thereupon been smothered
in paganism and superstition with Christ’s approval. That which was at stake
here was the Word, the Word, the revelation of the New Testament, and the whole
of Scripture. For a Christ who could permit the revelation of God to become
contaminated by clinging, not to God’s purely spoken word, but to Claudia’s
impure superstition, could not possibly have remained our Chief Prophet. The
Word is at stake here. Christ must see to it that the ways of revelation are
kept straight, and may not permit them to digress into the direction of the
paganism of Claudia. The very fact that God was present in her dream spelled
incomparable temptation for Christ. The slightest of God’s actions, and those
realized in people separated from Him farthest, demand a complete, a genuine,
and a well-rounded response from the Bearer of God’s highest revelation.
Scrutinize Him closely now. The act of God’s revelation inhering in this dream,
which proceeded from Him genuine and pure at first but which was contaminated
when received by the pagan woman, is now again received into His own soul in its
pure and genuine condition. He introduced no breach into the words which the
Spirit had sent out into the spiritual world. He did not interpose a falsetto
note into those pure sounds, and inasmuch as He had to serve as God’s
loudspeaker, He reproduced flawlessly the voice of His God.

Come, Thou spirit of Pentecost, permit the Lord’s people to dream His own dream,
and let the people wait upon Him night and day. Come, Thou spirit of Pentecost,
enter in, and force. the stream of revelation into its own river bed. To that it
has a right, inasmuch as even this dream did His soul no damage nor caused it to
quail in this hour of extreme temptation. And Thou, my Saviour, have patience
and bide Thy time, for Thou hast almost arrived at Patmos, the province of
Rome’s Caesar, Pilate’s lord. There Thou wilt permit John to dream his dreams.

There Thou wilt permit him to dream ever and again of Thy might. Even the last
dream of revelation which Thou wilt evoke in the spirit of John as recorded in
his Revelation, Thou wilt be dreaming Thy “ancient” dreams, Thou wilt be
fulfilling the Scriptures, Thou wilt be giving the Bible its concluding
testimony, and wilt by Thy voice as expressed in his dreams be saying to the
whole world: Have much, have everything, to do with me, that Just Man, who
suffered Himself, not in a dream, but in complete reality.

Such is the triumph of Christ over Nemesis; of the Word over the false concept,
of Christ over Claudia. For God has in these last times spoken through His Son.
The dreams which He evokes in the prepared spirit of His people are bitter
dreams, a thousand times more bitter, in fact, than was Claudia’s dream, but
they are also very sweet for they point out the tendencies of the Gospel. God
approached from Teman, the Word mounted to its heights, and Christ was
humiliated and exalted also in the land of dreams. Hence my soul shall wait upon
Him night and day; even in the night time He instructs my reins. This He does,
not because of Claudia’s troubled dream, but because of His pure response to
that dream. For when, pray, is He not the Saviour? He rejoices because of the
fact that the spirits of dreams are subject to Him. Now He is assured that many
names are written in the heavens because of the watch which He kept.


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  CHAPTER 31: 26. CHAPTER 26: CHRIST’S BLOOD ESTEEMED LESS THAN THAT OF ABEL
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C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - S I X Christ’s Blood Esteemed Less Than That of Abel
The governor answered and said unto them,What shall I do then with Jesus which
is called Christ? They all say unto him,Let him be crucified.And the governor
said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more,saying,Let him be
crucified. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing,but that rather a
tumult was made,he took water,and washed his hands before the multitude,
saying,I am innocent of the blood of this just person:see ye to it. Then
released he Barabbas unto them. —Mat 27:21-26 a.

JESUS-BARABBAS and Jesus-Christ—those are the two names which we have seen drawn
up and heard proclaimed as constituting a single ballot. The one was a
descendant of Cain; the other of Abel. The first of Cain, yes. He is the
murderer, the blood-thirsty one, the usurper of the flesh. The other of Abel. He
is the seed of the woman. He gives his blood as a ransom. He has been in the
deep valley of the martyred.

You can draw the line farther yourself. Whoever puts the names of Cain and Abel
on one and the same ballot must conclude by murdering Abel. He robs Abel of the
right to exist. Abel may live in the world only if he is the seed of the woman,
and consequently brooks no comparison with Cain. Must Christ then not sink below
the level of Abel?

Alas, nothing else is possible. His blood must be negated. It is thus that he
sinks beneath the plane of Abel. Hence Pilate arises and says: This blood has no
voice crying out against me and rising up to heaven. Hence the Jews rise to say:
This blood has no voice crying out evil against us. That which Cain did not
believe about Abel’s blood—for he still believed that it could cry out to heaven
against him—that “Cain” in his generation does not believe about the Greater
than Abel. Now, inasmuch as Christ is He who is greater than Abel, He must also
become a lesser than he. It was not for nothing that we observed how nadirs are
zeniths, and zeniths, nadirs for Him. It is in this connection that the Bible
tells us how it came about that Christ’s blood was esteemed less than that of
Abel. Mark the account well. In the preceding chapter we listened to the voice
of woman. She wanted to touch the heart of her husband and by an appeal to fear
wanted to restrain him from a terrible murder. However, the voice of the woman
was lost in the howling storm which blew over Pilate’s house and over David’s
roofs on the day of Christ’s death. The disaster could not be averted. Who,
indeed, can check sin in its coming? It is as irresistible in its descent as is
a waterfall.

Accordingly, we can say that Pilate no longer has the rudder in his hand. He has
listened to what his wife had to say to him. But he says to himself—official
people do occasionally like to say it to themselves—: It is easy for her to
talk; but meanwhile I am confronting the difficulty. The clash between his
desire to release Christ and his fear of rowing against the stream compels him
to reach one of his many desperate solutions.

He goes out to face the crowd again. This time he asks them emphatically which
of the two they want. When he finds that their choice invariably favors Barabbas
he puts them squarely before the question about what then must happen to Jesus
who is also called the Messiah. The fact that he adds the designation Messiah
probably was not intended as an insult but as an accentuation of the importance
of the case of Jesus, also as evaluated in terms of the logic of the Jews. In
effect, Pilate means to say that there must be many a man among the Jews who
esteems this person to be greater than a mere human being, who detects something
sublime, something issuing from heaven in him. As a judge, Pilate means to say,
I must officially reckon with the possibility that there is a hardly
insignificant group among your own people who find in this man a kind of
satisfaction for their religious longings and a fulfillment of your own Jewish,
religious expectations. How else can you account for the fact that the man bears
the name Messiah?

Tell me what I must do with Him. Release Barabbas, you say. Yes, that is easily
done. But to dispatch the case of this other man, that is more difficult,
especially since He seems to be the problem of your own people ... You see that
Pilate, by placing the title of Messiah into the foreground, wants to convince
the Jews that he is a humane person who truly wants to take cognizance of all
factions of the national life. It may be, he suggests, that Jesus’ party is not
officially represented on this occasion—at least no one of His disciples is
rising to His defense,—but that does not mean that no such party exists. And
these are they who see in Jesus of Nazareth a revelation of heavenly forces. Now
just what must a man as humane as Pilate is, do? No one can deny that there is
such a thing as equitable representation, and that there is such a thing as
beneficent neutrality.

However, without any hesitation at all, the whole crowd of people persist in the
response: Let Him be crucified.

Some commentators have maintained that Pilate had in mind not only to release
Barabbas alone but Jesus also. This Passover festival, then, could have been
celebrated as one which marked a double amnesty. Absolute certainty is
impossible in this matter. In fact, it is even unlikely that Pilate had a
carefully rounded plan in mind. As for the Jews, however, these know very well
into what direction they wish to steer. They want the cross for Jesus. The
demand that Jesus be crucified need not, as some believe, be regarded as an
attempt on the part of the crowed to prevent Pilate from saying that they had
better put him to death by stoning in the usual Jewish manner. The dilemma with
which Pilate confronts them is not that of crucifying or stoning but of
condemning or setting free. If Jesus was to be condemned to death, death by
crucifixion would under the circumstances and after repudiation of Pilate’s own
proposal (see page Chapter 15, 296), be the natural method. Now we know that the
Jewish leaders of the people had already concluded in private caucus that they
would not put Jesus to death according to the Jewish custom of stoning. They,
too, reckoned with that rather important element among the people which actually
honored Jesus as the Messiah or at least left room for the possibility that he
was the Messiah. Accordingly, they influenced the people to demand death by
crucifixion. This action was quite in line with the course things were taking.
Barabbas, too, was in danger of death on the cross. Were he to be released now,
Jesus could suitably take his place. By moving the masses into this direction
therefore, these leaders of the people carried out the tactics they had agreed
to pursue somewhat earlier (page 293). And the people, without understanding
everything involved in the matter, put themselves in the service of the leaders.

However, even though the people did not consciously place the possibility of
stoning over against that of crucifying, they did emphatically demand that death
on the cross be appointed for Jesus. And that is the new element which this
event introduces into the gospel of the passion. What was the nature of this new
element, you ask? As we see it, it is this: The affair of Christ is now made the
affair of the whole people.

Yes, in a sense it had been that all the while. The Sanhedrin up to this time
had been dealing in a way which was quite compatible with the sense of this
blinded people. But now there is an external demonstration of the fact that the
masses are agreeing with the intent of the Sanhedrin. “They all say unto Pilate:
Let him be crucified.” All is an inclusive word. It refers to the chief priests
not only, but to the people also; not only to the Pharisees, but also to the man
in the street. Not only to the vengeful enemies, but also to the timid
spectators. The fire of hell spreads over the whole crowd, and a mad cry
vibrates over the square: He must be sent to the cross.

However, Pilate still attempts by means of a formal question to save the
situation. He asks the crowd to state what evil Jesus has done. In other words,
the judge wants them to progress from generally protested accusations to a
specific and concrete charge. He demands that they name facts, facts which can
be officially substantiated. But the question goes unanswered. The voice of this
weakling blows away. The leaders fan the flames which are sweeping over the
masses into a fiercer conflagration. Hoarse throats give utterance to more
violent cries: He must be sent to the cross; this thing has lasted long enough.
Then Pilate understood that nothing more could be done with this people. Then he
knew that he was occupying a position between this people and his “gods.” It
might be that he did not believe them, but—there was that report his wife had
just brought him, Now it is most embarrassing to be In a position between gods
and people, if each of these parties wants to go in a different direction.
Whoever in such a case chooses against the supernatural world and in favor of
the natural has to do something to hide his confusion. Accordingly, Pilate has a
basin of water brought in, and washes his hands in the presence of the people.
This was a symbolic piece of conduct by which he wished to give expression to
his guiltlessness in the matter. He is a man who by the pressure of a fate which
he cannot circumvent has arrived at an impasse from which he cannot escape.
Circumstances compel him to a deed of which he himself cannot approve. In the
presence of the people, and looking out upon the open heavens, Pilate officially
asks that they take note of his innocence. He cannot do anything about it, he
says. Was Pilate, when he made use of this ceremony of washing his hands,
following a Roman custom? Some say that he was. Others suggest that he made use
of a custom which was well known in Israel. Fortunately, it is not necessary to
place these two interpretations over against each other. It is apparent that the
Jews understood the meaning of this symbolic conduct. Had that not been the
case, Pilate’s gesture in this instance would have been futile. As for the
Roman, he too seemed to be familiar with the usage. The ceremony, therefore,
must have been in official use outside of the province of the Jews also. Be that
as it may, Pilate by employing this ceremony in this moment at this place
appropriated a custom which in Israel was actually circumscribed in the law. The
several commentators quite correctly point to Deu 21:6-9 in this connection.
There the rule is stipulated that the eldest of a city near the place in which a
murdered person has been found, in case the murderer is not known and no
evidence about who it might be is available, must wash their hands. Thus, by
making use of a certain ceremony of sacrifice they can testify over against the
Lord and the people that they are innocent of the shed blood. Psa 26:6, seems to
make a reference to this ceremony in the words: I will wash mine hands in
innocency: so will I compass thine altar, O Lord. And in Psa 73:13, we read:
Verily I have cleansed mine heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency.

Pilate, therefore, by making this ceremony his own, and by doing so in the
presence of the Jewish people thereby wishes to indicate—and the Jews by acting
upon this gesture agree to accept the invitation—that he declares himself to be
guiltless of the blood of Jesus, that he cannot do anything in the matter, that
fate makes his conduct in the case binding for him. This blood, he says, cannot
cry out to heaven against him. “Claudia,” he assures his wife, “you need have no
fears.” In this way, you see, Pilate, who up to this time has been characterized
by weakness rather than by outright duplicity, does sink to the level of making
a hypocritical gesture. He is not guiltless in this matter. Think of the many
swords and staves which are protecting his head. And, even if he had been
compelled to take a stand alone, he may not betray his office as he does.

We must add, meanwhile, that Pilate’s symbolic deed is accompanied by a
statement. He speaks to the people, and says: See ye to it. Divesting himself of
the responsibility, he places the burden of it upon the shoulders of the Jews.
In this connection we are compelled to recall what was said in Mat 27:4. When
Judas no longer wished to be responsible for the shedding of Jesus’ blood, and
when he returned the traitor’s fee to the chief priests, these stated: See thou
to that. These same chief priests now hear that very statement addressed to them
by Pilate. Thus does the one party transfer the responsibility in the case to
the other. But the case cannot be left in its present condition. Accordingly, we
notice that the crowd crosses the bridge. We have observed, to employ another
figure, that this people very often cuts those knots into pieces which it cannot
succeed in untying. It accepts the burden of responsibility. It is always very
easy for a crowd to do that. A crowd is a mere aggregation, a mere gathering
together of anonymous entities. It has hit upon the pragmatic fiction of divided
responsibility for evil, and attempts to make use of that means to avoid
personal responsibility. The crowd, therefore, can easily and does frequently,
say: We, we! We will see to it! In this instance, too, the crowd arrogantly
shouts: “His blood be upon us and upon our children” This passionate cry has a
threefold implication, Inasmuch as the judge himself is concerned, it represents
a taking over on the part of the people of Pilate’s symbolic gesture. It
represents a taking over of that gesture inasmuch as the Jews are concerned
also. Finally, it represents, in both instances, a denial of the entire Christ
as He is in reality as well as He is in idea.

We can say this about the first implication. Pilate washed his hands in
innocence. Israel accepts that implication. Israel itself has coerced that judge
to surrender the Nazarene into its hands. Therefore Israel regards Pilate as one
who is exempt from any penalty accruing from the other world.

We noticed in the second place, that the Jews also take Pilate’s gesture upon
themselves. They, too, say of themselves: We are guiltless; this blood will not
cry out against us in the other world. Now it is not surprising that the Jews
announce their guiltlessness in another form from that in which Pilate announced
his. They have a deeply seated theological instinct. Their theology teaches them
that, generally speaking, all blood has a voice. Such blood makes itself heard
whenever it is shed at the cost of justice and reason. As a matter of fact, that
ceremony of the washing of hands as it is circumscribed in Deuteronomy 21
proceeds upon the assumption that the voice of innocently shed blood can never
be stilled in the world. Blood is forever crying out. Just as the first blood
which was shed in the world, just as the blood of Abel cried aloud to heaven and
could not be still, so all blood has a voice which calls aloud and which cannot
be quieted. In the language of Job, such blood has “no place” (Job 16:18). The
voice which demands acknowledgment of the rights of a hearing before the law is
inherent in the blood.[1] Hence it is that all human blood demands
acknowledgment and that such blood cannot rest when once it has been poured out.
Its restlessness is so strong, and its voice so penetrating, that even those who
have no share in shedding it cannot escape from its call. Think again of the
eldest of the city to whom we alluded a moment ago.

[1] SeeChrist in His Suffering,Chapter 19,p. 351-352. The Jews, consequently,
acknowledge that if the blood of the Nazarene were innocent, it would never
cease crying out in the world. Then it would be “upon” everyone responsible for
shedding it. But the Jews comfort themselves with the thought that this blood is
not innocent. They argue that it has not the right to cry out against those who
take it on this day. The spilling of this blood cannot be regarded as a sin
against heaven. We are not afraid. His blood be upon us and upon our children!
In this way the messianic people declared themselves exempt from the accusing
cry of Jesus’ blood. Or, as a matter of fact, they did not even take the trouble
to declare themselves exempt. They were perfectly willing to take responsibility
for the death of Christ. In this decision the whole people were in accord. That
means, according to the original text, that the covenant-community agreed to
accept responsibility for Christ’s death. In this moment, you see, Israel
publicly cut itself loose from its Messiah. The words of the people expressed in
that passionate outburst were recorded in heaven. Later, in the apology which
the Spirit of Pentecost will write, these words will again be read and placed in
the foreground. You ask why the Spirit will write such an apology? The answer
is: Because the Spirit of Pentecost will present the Messiah to the heathen. But
before He does that God calls heaven and earth to witness that all Israel had
first rejected the Messiah. This rejection from His own inheritance and from His
own house constitutes grievous suffering for the Christ. To see in Christ’s
blood no potentiality for penalty is to deny Him as the Messiah, even in idea.
“We are not afraid of him, we are not afraid of his blood,” they say. God is
permitting Him to sink beneath the plane of Job, who cried out: O earth, cover
not thou my blood, and let my cry have no place.” Job cried aloud for a
vindication of the status of his individuality before the law and he was heard.
But what would this Nazarene be? His blood neither has nor receives any
vindicating testimony from heaven. God Himself does not trouble Himself about
Him. God sees His blood seeping away, and makes no move to vindicate it. This
blood shall be like “water which, having been spilt on the earth, cannot be
gathered up again.” Could the blood of that outlaw possibly work evil in the
world? It is counted as worthless in heaven. God, the Patron even of the
simple-minded, regarded it as a bagatelle. And all the people say: This blood be
upon us! In this way, then, Christ was negated by His people even according to
the idea of His threefold office. This negation came to Him as Prophet. It was
as a prophet that He preached sin and proclaimed that the righteousness of God
resides in all things. The burden of His sermon on the mount was that all blood
which can be found in the world has the implications of eternity inhering in it.
All blood, not His own solely, but also the blood of a slave, and of Barabbas
and of everyone living in the world (see the next chapter). Not a single drop of
blood is outside of the province of eternal justice. We must remember that God
in Christ is maintained as God in the world. Accordingly, there are no such
things as “trivialities.” The concept “triviality,” the notion “insignificant
detail,” is a pragmatic fiction of sin. Against that Christ stormed in His
sermon on the mount. He proclaimed God as very God. But the Author of the sermon
on the mount, who placed a ban upon the very notion of bagatelle, is Himself
declared to be such. Do not forget that His people failed to answer that
searching question: What evil hath he done? Thereupon they cried out “the more”:
Let him be crucified. Hence even while they officially protested that this
myriad-headed mob dared not swear with an oath that God is driving out Jesus’
blood by force of justice, they can, nevertheless, be described as having ridden
rough-shod over the question of guilt and as having called down upon themselves
and upon their posterity the vengeance of this blood. Their gesture is one which
was borne on by the thought that God saw nothing in this blood but vanity. As a
Prophet, Christ Himself protested that, owing to the progressive character of
the light of revelation, the sphere of so-called “indifferent things” (those
things concerning which no specific command has been given ) gradually becomes
smaller and smaller until it finally disappears. Now this same Christ, together
with His own blood, His life, with the cry of His soul, with the right of His
personality, is proclaimed to be the outstanding example of an “indifferent
thing.” In this way the entire people negated the very idea of His prophecy.
Moreover, it denied the axioms of that prophecy as well.

Christ is also the King. His kingship is in idea also being denied by all of His
people. A good king elicits respect, a bad king causes confusion upon the earth.
Corruptio optimi pessima: a king even if he is guilty of death, nevertheless
serves as an awful sign. Who is it that would dare to sentence him in a slovenly
fashion? But Israel in its litigation against its king is guilty of pronounced
slovenliness; the marshalling of evidence is fragmentary; the case is full of
holes. It does not even take the trouble to give a definite answer to the
question as to just what evil He has done, and calls His death a bagatelle. Thus
is Christ’s kingship being negated in its idea. When David’s despotism over the
people called the judgment of pestilence down upon it, he still remained the
king. He was still great. But the great Son. of David amounts to nothing. His
people simply does believe that pestilence will break out because of anything
which is, or is not, done to the Nazarene.

“For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot
bear,”—but this man certainly is not the fifth of these!

Finally, as a Priest, too, Christ is being negated by His persecutors, and is
being ignored even in terms of the very idea of the priestship. They acknowledge
that there is a relationship between themselves and their children and they go
on to say that if the blood of the Nazarene could conceivably have any
after-effect they will gladly have their children suffer for it as well as the
fathers here present. That is as far as they go; they can conceive of no other
alternative. The only possibility worth reckoning with in their estimation is
that the blood might demand satisfaction in the form of vengeance. All this
blood could possibly do would be to avenge itself. In this way, then, Israel
acknowledges the idea and the law of satisfaction, but it cuts the element of
grace out of that satisfaction, even according to its idea. Thus Israel
maintains that, generally speaking, there is no atonement without satisfaction.
But if the right of this shed blood should ever demand satisfaction, Israel
itself wants to provide it, and to achieve atonement by its own merits. In this
we see that Israel is opposing its self-righteousness to righteousness by faith,
its own strength to the strength of Jesus’ blood. The blood of Israel and of its
children is regarded as an effective avenger of the eventual sin. Its own blood
is regarded as having expiatory properties. Its position is a perfect negation
of Christ’s priestly conflict in the direction of satisfaction and atonement,
but His people say: If that blood should come upon us, it would come only to
exercise vengeance upon us and upon our children. The very idea of priestly
mercy is shoved aside by this conduct. We have alluded to a forgotten chapter.
The situation here is worse than that: the very concept, the very idea is
forgotten.

Whenever the situation is such, no one can check the course of sin. Only a
moment later Barabbas will be released. Then the candidate of the flesh is
desired in preference to Him who fully realizes and fulfills the spirit.

Now there are always those writers and speakers who must always be setting off
this panorama before the imaginations of their readers and auditors by
delimiting it with a circle of crosses. With quivering voices they tell of the
crosses on which the Jews were hanged when Jerusalem was devastated. Thus, they
add, you see, that the self-accepted curse accrued to them, that His blood came
upon them and their children. But is that the note we should strike in closing?
True, very true it is that quantities of crosses encircled Jerusalem later, and
that the children of these various people were indeed crucified upon them. Yes,
yes indeed, the Jew is a roamer, a nomad. But is it fitting for us to delimit
the place on which the praetorium rests with the crosses of Jews? And is it
proper to enhance the treatment of the curse accepted by the people by means of
a vignette dedicated to the rags, and worn out sandals, and the crooked cane of
the wandering Jew?

Suppose we give our attention to a better thing. Here is the Christ. He has
already been nailed to the cross, He has already been negated according to the
idea. Do you know who they are that are assisting in the deed? Do you know who
also are calling down His blood upon them and upon their children? Do you know
upon whom that blood will come? Those are they who would escape from the
implications of the sermon on the mount, those who confuse themselves by
inventing the notion of an “insignificant detail,” those who comfort themselves
by tracing out an “indifferent thing.” May these all beware, for these all are
paying to God: His blood be upon me and upon my children. May these all read the
sermon on the mount, and stand in awe of the Prophet, who, in order to maintain
His sermon on the mount and to make it fruitful, was willing as a priest to give
His life for that purpose. May they understand that Christ’s blood ever is upon
the world. It comes—yes, at this point someone again arises to a point of order.
I hear him saying: That blood comes upon the world in the form of the crosses of
those detestable jews at the destruction of Jerusalem. But we can stay nearer
home than that. That blood comes upon the man and woman who may have fainted at
the spectacle on Gabbatha, or at least at Golgotha, but who thereupon, in a
characteristically human way, negated the Christ as He is even in the idea. Such
a person trivializes the Christ. And in making Christ a trifle, he makes God
that. He rebels against heaven. In this chapter we called attention briefly
(page 497) to that study in our first volume in which we saw Christ in
Gethsemane as He was being strengthened by an angel. He had seen the angel
there, and He understood that heaven was not regarding His blood as a trifle. In
thought He remained far above such minimizations; His blood would disquiet the
whole world. God was maintaining the sermon on the mount in reference to its
Author. He was a worm. Accordingly someone (Nietzsche) said that He was a mere
trifle. He who makes himself a worm must not become angry if someone steps on
him. But God addressed Christ and by means of that angel said to Him: Even
though Thou art a worm, Thou and Thy shed blood affect the whole world. Thy
blood can never be regarded as the blood of an outlaw. The whole law is manifest
in every drop of it.

I think of that angel and I say: these people are contradicting him. Now can
they ever say to the angel: I have made a mistake, and that is all (Ecc 5:5)?
Plainly, they contradict the angel. Who contradicts him? Jerusalem’s future
candidates for crucifixion? Man, be still. It is you; it is I.

O Jesus, if Thy blood must ever come upon us, let it come in grace, and—in order
that it may be preserved—in vengeance also. We praise Thee, O Lord, because Thy
blood is very near. People are silent about the wonders it has wrought. No, we
would not pray to have Thy speaking blood diverted from us, but would pray that
it come upon us. Cain, be not a fool, do not stumble over the protective symbols
and say: I no longer hear Abel’s blood crying aloud; thanks be to God, its voice
is silent; it has finally grown dumb. The blood of Abel-Christ still cries
aloud. Mark it, Cain. It speaks of justice and of grace. It speaks of the last
children to come. It takes a “Christly” vengeance. It avenges itself by giving
itself away in love, and by destroying those who cannot bear that love. Listen
well, ye lost children of the Jews. No one will be hounded to death by the blood
simply because it has been poured out, but only because in the last analysis it
was not allowed to come upon thee and upon thy children for their peace.

Mark this, Cain. You received the sign on your forehead, not in order that you
might forget the blood of Abel but in order that you might still call down upon
you for your salvation the blood which speaks better things than that of Abel.
Over against that “greater than Abel” you must definitely decide whether you
want to commit the murder again or listen to the voice of the blood calling your
peace unto you. The earth drank blood one day and called for vengeance, And
Abel’s blood four thousand years could not erase. The earth drank blood again
and called for vengeance But Christ’s blood was and still remains: pure
grace.[1] [1] From Guido Gezelle.

Listen. He ever lives in order to pray for us. It is thus that His blood comes
upon us and our children provided that we do not “lift up” the name of the Lord
and the blood of the Lord “unto vanity.”

Christ’s Blood Being Shed by Human Agency the First Time


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  CHAPTER 32: 27. CHAPTER 27: CHRIST’S BLOOD BEING SHED BY HUMAN AGENCY THE FIRST TIME
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C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - S E V E N Christ’s Blood Being Shed By Human Agency
the First Time Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. And when he
had scourged Jesus,he delivered himup to be crucified. John 19:1; Mat 27:26 b.

WE have now arrived at the shedding of blood, without which, according to
Biblical testimony, no forgiveness is possible. The story of Christ’s suffering
in the presence of the judge is hastening to its conclusion. Thereupon will
follow the third volume of this study, which is devoted to a consideration of
His blood as it flows away into the ground. But even before the subject matter
of this third volume is reached, Christ’s blood is being driven from Him. It is
being driven from Him by men. This is significant.

You have discovered that this study divides the suffering of Christ into three
volumes. The first volume presents Christ as He enters upon His suffering. In
that volume we observed Him when He was still unbound, and when He went to and
fro among men at the behest of His own will, when He had not yet been delivered
into the hands of His judges. This second volume considers Him as He passes
through His suffering, while standing over against the court. In this study we
are devoting our attention to the bound Christ upon whose suffering the human
will, the will of justice as maintained by the authorities, must make a
decision. The third volume will presently deal with Christ as He is at the
conclusion of His suffering. It will study Him as He takes upon Himself the
results of the sentence pronounced upon Him, and as He drinks the cup of passion
to the dregs of death.

Now the remarkable thing is that in each of these three divisions the blood of
Jesus Christ was forced out of Him. In the first section we observed that He
sweated blood in Gethsemane. In this second section we observe that His blood is
pressed out by the scourging, and, as we shall see presently, by the crown of
thorns which was used to mock Him. Later, in the third volume, we shall note
that His blood is driven from Him when it flows out of His hands and feet, out
of the wounds inflicted upon Him, and out of His side when the spear is thrust
into it. Obviously, we need not argue for the fact that this does not represent
an accident, or the byplay of fate. Accordingly, we shall try to comprehend the
meaning of these three moments in the shedding of the blood of Christ.

Before we take up this task, however, we must outline the course which things
took in the presence of Pilate. We know from what has been said already that
Pilate released Barabbas, and that in this matter he therefore satisfied the
wishes of the Jews. Christ’s name—to use a phrase which is absurd but
nevertheless painfully accurate—was removed from the ballot which had been drawn
up and announced. Christ was formally returned to His position at dead center.
We noted previously that Pilate resorted to the custom of amnesty in his effort
to escape from his uncertainty. He had constantly attempted to rescue himself
from the choking grip of the hate and envy of the Jews. Inasmuch as this method
did not meet with success he was forced to return to the plan he had originally
had in mind, namely that of chastising Jesus first and releasing Him then. As a
matter of fact, that too had not been a plan but merely a suggestion. From the
cry of the throng which had brutally demanded that the Nazarene be crucified,
Pilate became aware of the fact that, unless he added to it, the proposal to
chastise Jesus and then release Him would not meet with the approval of the
crowd. Accordingly, he does not put the question in the nice form of a dilemma,
for he knows that his auditors will be indisposed to listen to that. Anyhow,
dilemmas are dangerous on the tongue of spineless people. Nevertheless he
proposes to make one more attempt. He issues the command that Jesus be scourged.

Now one difficulty which arises when we try to arrange the several data which
the Bible affords in this matter is that we cannot be sure just which
chronological order is intended by the narrative as it is related in Matthew,
for example. Matthew reports that after Pilate had scourged Jesus he delivered
Him up to be crucified; in other words, Matthew relates the scourging and the
sentence of death on the cross to each other. The question arises whether this
was the formal condemnation which definitely determined that Jesus should die on
the cross. If Pilate intended it to be such, we are confronted by the
peculiarity that John in the 19th chapter of his account of the gospel plainly
indicates that Pilate after he had scourged Christ made another effort to set
the Saviour free. According to John, then, a deliberate discussion took place
between Pilate and the Jews after the scourging had been inflicted. This
variation in the accounts seems to indicate that the surrender of Christ to
death on the cross as it is recorded by Matthew at this point is not to be
regarded as the definitive, legally formulated, and official sentencing of Jesus
but as a preliminary penalty which, should crucifixion prove to be inevitable
for Him. would be a beginning of the infliction of that penalty and would at the
same time leave room for substituting a more lenient treatment later.

Hence, in agreement with the opinion of many others, we also interpret the data
of the Bible to mean that Pilate was acting more or less officially when, after
Barabbas’ release, he sentenced Jesus to death by crucifixion. The scourging
constituted a suitable part of such a program, for the Romans adhered to the
practice of scourging a prisoner before nailing him to a cross. This bloody
introduction to the crucifixion is called by one writer: praeparatio ad crucem
and also medea mors, or medium supplicium.[1] Interpreted, these phrases mean
the formal preparation for the cross sentence and the transitional phase in a
process designed to culminate in death. At the same time, we may think it very
likely that the judge who hoped by means of this scourging to quiet the excited
emotions of the mob, secretly hoped also that he would be able presently to
return to the proposal he had suggested at first, and after the severe
“chastisement”—which had not been supplanted by this scourging—to set Jesus
free. At least, this would account for the fact that when Jesus stands before
him later in abject misery, suffering grievously because of the scourging,
Pilate accompanies the pathetic figure out of doors and attempts to stir the
feelings of the crowd by his well known: Behold the man. Only when that last
appeal to humanity failed to elicit sympathy did the formal, definitive, and
officially registered surrender to death on the cross ensue. Whoever pictures
the historical sequence of the several events which took place here to his mind
in this relationship will find in them an uncoerced alignment of the Biblical
data.

[1] Titus Livius 33, 36. Referred to by Groenen,op.cit.,p. 372. In this way,
then, the scourging was inflicted upon Jesus. We must know that this scourging
in itself constituted terrible suffering. The Romans had named this the proper
punishment for numerous breaches of law, but found the punishment so gruesome
that they permitted it to accrue to Roman citizens only in the most
extraordinary cases. The manner in which this punishment was inflicted is not
known well enough. We may accept the fact, it is true, that Jesus was not
scourged in the Jewish manner (in which case the person being punished lay face
forward upon the ground, Deu 25:2,) but in the Roman way. According to the
descriptions given in numerous books, the scourged person was stripped down to
the loins and was bound fast to a post or pillar in such a way that he had to
stand with bent back and with his head bowed toward the ground. “In that way the
first stroke had to succeed in drawing blood. Accordingly, we can easily
understand that in some descriptions of scourgings which took place, we read
that the strokes of the whip sometimes tore the flesh so badly that the human
skeleton became visible as a result. . . . In order to aggravate the pain even
more, barbs, pieces of bone, or knots were woven into the scourge, and in later
periods, during the time of the persecution of the Christians, for instance,
leaden bullets were fastened to the thongs.”[2] We do not know to what extent
these particulars held true of the scourging which was inflicted upon the
Saviour. Scripture speaks very soberly of these things. It is not by means of an
enhancement of the details of Jesus’ physical suffering, but by an accentuation
of the majesty, the love, the will to sacrifice on the part of the Christ of God
that the Bible tries to delineate the Christ to us. By these means the
Scriptures conduct us from the external things which are seen to the spiritual
things which arenot seen. Spiritually considered, the feature which needs to be
accentuated at this time is that now the blood of Christ was for the first time
being driven out of Him by men. God had demanded that blood in Gethsemane. Now
it is the people who cause it to flow.

[2] Groenen,op. cit.,p. 375.

Inasmuch as we are speaking about the blood of Christ at this time, it may not
be out of place to say a thing or two here about the manner in which the blood
of Christ is frequently raised for discussion in the church.

There are those who usually speak of the blood of Jesus Christ in a way which
gives us the impression that for these the shedding of blood constitutes the
whole of the suffering of Christ. For the spiritual conflict, for the life-long
ministration of Christ’s offices, for the struggle of His soul, for the tension
of His active and passive obedience in such instances as these, which do Him no
physical harm, these observers have no eye whatever. Always and again they are
talking about the blood, about the dear and precious blood. Those other things
they regard as merely being aids to the memory jotted down upon the blueprints
of Christian dogmatics. But their mystical musing, their meditation and their
temptation have no bearing on this.

Such is, however, a gruesome shortcoming. It can be explained in part by that
general spiritual apathy which has a keener eye for the visible than for the
invisible, and in part by the profound aftereffects which the Roman Catholic
leaven still exercised in the post-Reformation period. Nor has the epoch in
which we live made good the defect. For while, on the one hand, the church has
become lax in its dogmatic thinking, on the other hand, a group of “mystical”
poets and artists—first by permission, later by request —are placing their
esthetic loaves of shewbread upon the table of dedication in those many temples
which an extra-ecclesiastical religion has established. In each of these groups
a certain, so-called spiritual eroticism resides which prefers to accentuate the
blood of Jesus rather than His soul, His soul rather than His spirit, and the
humanity of Jesus as it is in its suffering rather than the hidden powers which
inhere in Him as the Christ. That this is a disease in fact, we should not
hesitate to say a sin, and that this represents a decadence in thinking needs no
argument.[1] Hence, when we in this connection point emphatically to the blood
of Jesus Christ we are not, we hope, thereby committing ourselves to the course
pursued by the one-sided observers to which we have just referred. Surely, if we
had wanted to go in that direction, we should have been denying the very trend
of thought which has governed the content of this book. We would continue to
insist on the fact then that the labor of the blood of Christ means nothing more
than the labor of His soul. In the Bible those two terms are not separated from
each other. If we acknowledge that Christ’s passive and active obedience are of
equal worth we must be willing to take upon our lips a statement which may sound
rather blunt but which should seem very actually true to every Christian among
us: namely, that a sermon of Jesus is of no less worth than an impaled hand of
Jesus, and that a miracle of healing is as potent a messianic act of redemption
as is the sweating and shedding of blood in Gethsemane and at Golgotha
respectively. Or, to limit ourselves to the trial: the silence which Jesus
maintained no less than three times is not a less influential act of redemption
or a less productive act of mediatorship than is His experience of this terrible
punishment of scourging. We may not put that asunder which God has joined
together. Faith and eroticism may not for one moment be joined together.

[1] See my essay “Eros of Christus,” which is included inChristelijk
letterkundige Studien,Volume 2, U-M. Amsterdam.

Accordingly, when we in spite of these considerations ask that emphatic
attention be given to the moment in which Christ’s blood was first forcibly
driven out of Him, we do so for a good reason and in obedience to the demands of
the Scriptures.

We know that we may never segregate Christ from the place, and the time, and the
stage of the history of revelation in which He appeared as our Mediator. God did
not send Christ into the world at an arbitrarily determined time, but at the
time chosen beforehand. Accordingly, God had all epochs issue in Jesus, and had
all preceding eras serve as preparatory epochs for the coming of Christ. Just so
God did not send Jesus to an arbitrarily determined place in the world, but
revealed Him in Israel. And that people, too, was introduced in the world by God
so that its life and its land might serve as a stage for messianic wonders,
andin order that Christ might become manifest among that people and outside of
it.

Observe from this point of view, Israel’s entire service of worship is a
shadow-service. Israel’s religion had to point to Christ. That is why so much is
said of the sacrifice. For the idea of sacrifice, the idea of shedding blood, is
a separate moment in Israel’s liturgy, and as such is strongly accentuated. We
cannot for one moment understand the sense and meaning of that dark stream of
blood which for centuries painted the road along which Israel traveled a deep
red, and which drenched with gore the very ground on which this people had to
walk, if we do not acknowledge that all this blood was pointing to Christ. His
blood had to be shed, for without the shedding of blood, say the Scriptures,
there can be no forgiveness. His blood had to be shed, for, say the Scriptures,
the soul is in the blood. The blood of the second Adam had to flow, for the
blood of the first Adam, say the Scriptures, began to flow the moment the soul
entered into the clay-formed human body of the first. When the human body had
been created on the sixth day, and God had breathed the soul into it, the blood
began to course through its veins at the very moment in which life entered the
dust. And just as the blood begins coursing in the human body at birth in a way
quite different from the circulation which was present before, so in Genesis 1
the last act of the creation of God was the beginning of the circulation of the
blood of humanity. God breathed life into the first Adam, and he thereby became
“a living soul.”

Nevertheless blood cannot continue flowing forever. The circulation of the blood
began in Paradise, but must sometime have an end. This is an immutable decree.
If the person who was created in Paradise is to keep his ways uncontaminated by
sin, he must attain to a different form of life. At the end of God’s way there
is a human being who according to body and spirit is mature. He is the heavenly
man, the perfect man, who is no longer in process of becoming, but who is. This
heavenly man must sometime exist without the earthly, circular movement of his
created and pulsing blood. He is the man of the future. And this future man,
this man of things perfected and completed, will no longer marry nor eat food.
His entire form of life, his whole law of existence will differ from that which
he has in time. Hence the circulation of blood will not take place in heaven.
Such circulation is properly a part of the beginning of man, but not of his
perfection.

Hence, if man had remained in the state of obedience, the circulation of blood
would, according to modes of development which God has not revealed to us and
concerning which we consequently will make no guesses, have ceased. Then, in a
manner known only to God, the circulation of the blood would gradually have
stopped, and man would have risen to that consummate form of life in which
neither the sexual urge, nor the sense of hunger, nor the pulse-beat of the
blood would have been the driving motives of life. The pulse-beat and the
heart-beat are appropriate only in a world of time.

God’s ideal, then, is a bloodless human being. Until this world has reached its
consummation, of course, bloodless man will remain the poor pale human being who
has sunk beneath the plane of ordinary life. But the bloodless man who has
transcended the need for blood is the full, the rich, the perfect, the healthy
man. Had man remained in the state of obedience, God would have visited him in a
fatherly way, would have come at His own time to quiet the feverish course of
the blood, and to effect the transition of man to a state of immutable being.
Circulation would then be unnecessary to a man’s body, inasmuch as that body
would have transcended the need of it.

But—man fell into sin. Hence the stopping of that circulation of the blood which
would otherwise have been normal was withheld. The sin which entered man’s being
kept him from developing into that bloodless condition of perpetual youth.

Accordingly, sin avenges itself very severely upon the human blood. When man had
sinned God told him that he should surely die. In other words, God announced
that separation would come between the soul and the body. Thus bodily death was
instituted. Even in this, however, God’s evangelical will unto grace was
operative, for God introduced physical death into humanity: that is, God
interposed physical death between the first sin and the punishment accruing to
that sin, in order that in this way He might make room for a history lasting
many epochs, a history consisting of cyclical movements, of the vacillations of
life, of the circular course of blood and of those who bleed. And from the very
beginning that history was directed to the Christ. That is to say that it was
directed to Christ’s blood and spirit. For Christ must now make His appearance
in history in order that, on the one hand, He may die “in the blood,” and on the
other, that He may emerge triumphant over that blood. To suffer the penalty in
the blood and at the same time to transcend the blood represents positive
victory. Christ had to become the bloodless one in the sense that He had to
become the absolutely poverty-stricken one. lie had to suffer the dire stress of
the blood to an infinite extent. But on the other hand He had also to become the
bloodless one in that other sense, in that rich sense of the word, in which it
refers to a second Adam who no longer is a “living soul,” but who becomes a
“life-giving spirit.” The Biblical sense of that phrase is in the main that He,
the second Adam, will completely subject the bodily, earthly, temporal, and all
that is moving, feverishly active, and in process of becoming, by force of the
strong will of His perfect spirit.

You see, therefore, that the institution of physical death after the fall is a
mighty act on the part of God. For by that act the stream of blood, and its
continuous circulation, which originally should have been quieted in the
blood-transcendent state of the blessedness of creation according to the
covenant of works, is now being diverted to a different direction and is
constrained to move toward death. It was God’s gracious will that the blood of
Adam and Eve should not immediately be parched by the firebrand of the
punishment of hell, but that it should be limited to that circular course, to
that “vicious circle’’ concerning which Ecclesiastes very grievously complained
and concerning which we have spoken so often. Accordingly we must apply
everything that was said about that vicious circle in the preceding chapters of
this book to the pulse-beat of the blood inherent in man and in mankind.

Yes, we may bring the whole of the teaching of that vicious circle to bear upon
this discussion of human blood. The circulation of the blood contains all the
sorrow of the vicious circle. It represents a postponement of perpetual youth
and perfect blessedness. But it also contains the joy and grace of the vicious
circle. It represents the removal of perfect death and of existence in hell.
Hence we can safely say that the law of the blood which governs and serves as a
motive force to the life of all physical existence upon earth, is
Christological, messianic, and subject to the law of the Gospel which Christ
would send out into the world. From this time on all movement of blood is
directed to Christ. He is the first expositor of such movement. Accordingly,
also, all shedding of blood from this time on is directed to Christ. Again He is
the first expositor of this pouring out of the blood. And the whole of the long
way of blood is the highway of my Lord Christ coming into the world. When God
instituted physical death into the world (the returning to dust, understand, and
not the triumphant transcending together with the dust to the perfectly blessed
life such as was promised in the covenant of works), His act was an act of
punishment —for it was the result of sin—but it was an act of grace also. It was
done for Christ’s sake. The separation of soul and body— and this constituted
the punishment—came in the place of that which had been promised at first:
namely, the metamorphosis of soul and body, the glorification, the regeneration
and renewing of both soul and body by the Spirit. But this again contains the
element of grace: God fixes that returning to the dust as an inexorable law for
many ages in order that in this way He might make room in the world for Christ.
Why room for Christ, you ask? Because this Christ, later, would suffer the whole
of death in His blood; because He would let the way of blood be figured forth in
His own being, first through the law of punishment, and afterwards in order that
as Prince of the Passover, as the second Adam, He with the “blood’’ (regarded
now as the driving force of our physical life) might rise to victory and thus
become the bloodless man of everlasting youth, of infinite power and of sound
humanity. Thus would He become the blood-transcendent man of salvation. That is
why the blood of Christ is of such great significance. The course of death and
life is perfectly described in the shedding of His blood and in its sacrifice.
We cannot put the matter in a way which suggests that Christ’s suffering
consists of “two parts”: a bodily—bloody—part, and spiritual-bloodless-part. The
course of Christ’s “blood” is perfectly governed by the will of His “spirit.”
“Bloody” and “bloodless” are opposite sides of the same thing. The soul is in
the blood—that is the way the figurative language of the Old Testament expresses
it in connection with the law of sacrifice. The Spirit is active in the
blood—that is the statement which expresses the perfection of Christ as He
fulfills the law of sacrifice in Himself and as He, by His blood, puts to rest
the service of shadows. The corollary of this promise naturally is that Christ’s
blood, therefore, must be seen in relationship to the statements of the Old
Testament and in harmony with the language of all those bloody sacrifices which
the old covenant demanded. But this premise also protests that Christ’s blood
speaks a language which far transcends the signs represented by those ancient
sacrifices. Christ’s reality goes higher and farther than the shadow of the Old
Testament. Shadows are always more meager than the realities they symbolize. For
this reason, then Christ as Mediator had to give His blood, and had to give it
personally, consciously, and spiritually as Mediator. In this respect, too, He
must completely work out the task assigned to Him as the second Adam. That task
was to again subject the coursing of the blood-stream to the will of God in
order that, together with God’s people—now included in the second Adam—He might
attain to everlasting youth by the power and satisfaction of the sacrifice of
Jesus Christ. Thus we can regard the restlessness of the blood of Christ as a
separate element in His suffering, provided that we understand its direct
relation to the labor of His spirit.

Blood and spirit. Both of them. It is in the blood that Jesus must fulfill the
whole of the law of sacrifices. The circulation of the blood must in Him issue
in death, be smothered in the bottomless depths of absolute death. He must
descend into hell, and He must do that with the blood. To this extent the
shedding of His blood represents passiveness, sacrifice, and the payment of
penalty. But because His eternal spirit must also exert its power in His
shedding of blood, the dogma of His passive obedience in this matter must again
remain united with the doctrine of His active obedience. True, His blood was
taken; but it is also true that He Himself gave it, shed it, forced it out. He
did this by the strength of His will, His personal, conscious will. Together
with His blood, with the blood of the second Adam, with the blood of His whole
church, with all the movement in the life of all His own, He labors in the
direction of eternal youth, of eternal power, and of a blood-transcendent
heaven. That also is the sense Paul would convey by his significant expression:
the second Adam is the life-giving spirit. Hence we would not present the moment
of Christ’s first shedding of blood by reason of the scourging of Pilate, that
worldly judge, in a false light. Pilate does the scourging, yes, but God also
does it. Pilate draws the blood, but God also by means of Pilate draws Jesus’
blood. God demands the blood of the second Adam. As the first drops of blood
stream from the bruised and furrowed back of my Lord Jesus, time is striving
towards eternity. The life of the Passover is already pushing its way through
the narrow gates of death, is raging through Jesus’ swollen veins. Add to this
the fact that Jesus sees approaching Him the terrible reality of that suffering
which marks Him not only as sacrifice, not only as priest, but also as temple.
For, according to the significant and well-conceived designation of one
writer,[1] the law of sacrifice and its idea is comprised perfectly in Him. The
concept of sacrifice is so perfectly comprised in Him because Christ is not
merely the sacrifice, not merely the one who sacrifices, and not merely the
temple in which the sacrifice is brought and in which the offer and the one who
offers it come together, but because He is all three of these simultaneously. He
is the sacrifice, for His blood must enter into death. He is the one who
sacrifices, for He Himself must force His blood into the state of death. He is
the temple, for His is not a partial possession of the spirit and consequently
He, as the Bible itself tells us must through the eternal spirit offer Himself
up to God blameless.

[1] Dr. Abraham Kuyper,Van de Voleinding, Volume 1, p. 47. By revealing to us
that Christ is also the temple, the Scriptures teach us the truth of what was
said above when we stated that the issue of the blood of Christ may not be
separated from the labor of His soul but that the whole struggle of His spirit
is contained in His blood. Now there are two ways in which the sacred temple may
be defiled. We have alluded to the first already. That is the way of those who
speak only of Christ’s blood and who never or who at least never consciously
speak of the spirit which labors in and through the blood. But we ourselves
would be guilty of taking the second way to the profanation of the temple if we
in our stress upon Christ’s spiritual struggle—think of the outlaw, of the
negation, of the mockery on the official mountain, of the vicious circle and its
breaking, of the maschil, of His repeated silence—should refuse to see His blood
streaming from Him. True, we must not take Christ’s spirit out of His blood; but
it is just as true that we should not take Christ’s blood out of His spirit. We
must give both elements full consideration. To return now to the beginning. We
pointed to the fact that in each of the three periods of Christ’s suffering (the
entering upon it, the passing through it, the conclusion of it), the subject of
His blood comes to the foreground. And is there a difference? Yes, there is a
difference, and a good reason for it in each instance. The reason is that in no
single deed of Christ’s suffering may the elements of spiritual labor and of the
shedding of blood be silent. As long as Christ is not bound and therefore may
move around freely among God’s people, in God’s world, and in David’s city, He
must fulfill His passion in spirit and in blood. That is why in the first
division, the entire struggle of His passion simply had to be both spiritual and
bloody. For it is God, and God alone[1] who drives that blood out of the Christ.
Now Christ is bound and is brought before the judge. Again His blood is taken,
and again a spiritual struggle has been fulfilled before that blood is shed.
After awhile He will be crucified. That cross, too,—think, for instance, of His
seven words, of the great stress which soul and spirit undergo because of His
being forsaken— represents a spiritual conflict which issues afterwards in the
sacrifice of His blood. The harmony, you see, is perfect; spirit and blood,
invisible and visible sacrifice—the whole Christ.

[1] SeeChrist in His Suffering,Chapter 21,p. 370.

Now we can say this besides, about that difference between these three instances
of the shedding of His blood. In Gethsemane Christ offers His blood only because
He confronts the possibility of the cross. Upon Golgotha He offers it because of
the bitter actuality of the cross. Between these two[2] comes the scourging: a
situation in which the death on the cross seems to hover over the confines of
possibility and actuality. For we observed, you remember, that Pilate seemed to
be making a beginning of the execution of the death sentence, but that he also,
both at the time of the first proposal[3] and the later one wanted to use the
scourging as a means of averting the crucifixion. The cross, accordingly,
remained a mere possibility. But Christ’s blood—and well He knows it—on this
occasion falls upon the boundary line between life and death, between a return
to life and a movement in the direction of death.

[2] That is why Golgotha also was placed over against Gethsemane inChrist in His
Suffering, Chapter 21, p. 369.

[3] To chastise Jesus first and release Him then, Chatper 24, p. 418-19.

We see, then, that Christ strove to the point of shedding blood for this reason
too: namely, that He might, while standing upon the border line between the two,
make the good choice, the choice of obedience to God, and of faithful love to
His people.

How sublimely great this matter! To make the good choice when He knew that no
other was possible—that is difficult, but it is not the most difficult thing.
That had been the situation in Gethsemane. There He had seen God’s might, and He
had been bruised by it. He was compelled to do so. He simply had to. That would
be the situation at Golgotha. There He would see the force of rams and bullocks,
a very great host of them, and would be bruised. He would have to, simply have
to choose death. But now, in the presence of these soldiers, it is possible for
Him to turn back. He has read the uncertainty written in Pilate’s eyes. He knows
it is possible for Him to soften the heart of the man. Meanwhile, He can now
feel, keenly, what it means to give one’s blood to man, to dogs. Christ, wouldst
Thou turn back still? The necessity of the crucifixion and the possibility of
escape lie side by side; wouldst Thou still persuade Pilate to release Thee
Christ, O Man, this hour can gratify Thee. Once Thou didst say that the
scourging was most certainly the beginning of the crucifixion (Mat 20:19), but
it seems now that the scourging may prove to be postponement first, and complete
escape from the cross next. Is this not a pleasant surprise, O Christ? What of
one unfulfilled prophecy! That is quickly forgotten, and life is very sweet. You
have read the message gleaming in Pilate’s eye. Just notice—he is perfectly
willing to risk another attempt to save Thee. He will tell the Jews: mark now,
there is a law which says: pars pro toto.[4] Look, here is a part of His blood;
see, it is gushing down His back—suppose we let this suffice; take the part for
the whole: ecce homo—let Him go now—make Him a present of the rest of His blood.
Pilate is still hesitating, Jesus. But He—nay, not He but God— wishes to keep
Thee on that boundary line between necessity and possibility of escape. One
word, a single impression upon Pilate’s soul, and—the world will go on as
before!

[4] A part instead of the whole.

Then the whip screamed through the air. The body quivered: thereupon blood, more
blood, and excruciatingly tortured flesh.

Christ stood on the boundary line between the land of freedom and the land of
necessity, on the dividing line between the possibility of return and the
necessity of laboring on to the point of blood. But, even as He stood here He
fought the fight according to the Spirit. He said yea, to His God, and yea to
the souls of the sheep. He confronted alternatives, and alternatives are always
tantalizing to the human mind. But even as He stands over against those
alternatives He makes the one good choice. He makes that choice while He is
consciously expunging His blood, His own blood, the blood of all who believe. In
this He is great and wonderful. Out of possibilities He creates God’s realities.
To accept God’s will and to preserve God’s justice as He makes this choice is to
be perfectly obedient as man. To change possibilities into God’s actualities,
what is that but to be the Son of God, the ever-creating Word? How strangely
warm it is becoming here in this public square. The air grows oppressive. I know
that I am standing very near my Lord and God. I hear the crash of thunder; an
act of creation is taking place. He speaks and it is done. He commands and it
stands fast. Think! Suddenly a cross appears. The possibility of His cross which
from eternity He has been conceiving, He now makes an actuality. The first word
of the Bible has been superseded. What, pray, can a stroke of the whip do to Him
now? He makes His angels flaming fires. On flying horses they sail high over the
scourging. Protect me from the awfulness of this—a creative act is going on
here. Hell is posting theses on its gates about possibility, and about Pontius
Pilate, cunctator.[5] God be feared: neither the gates nor the ideas of hell
have ever prevailed against Him. Not even the ideas, for He found that these
weighed as heavily as gates. If I conceive it well, that also was present in my
God when He created the world. Ideas were as concrete and as real as gates. One
idea cannot outwit the Christ; a possibility cannot divert Him from an
actuality. In His spirit He united possibility and actuality, for as Creator He
first separated these two from each other. How troublesome He is to you, Pilate.
Your wife is possessed of the devil, or is it of a demon? You feel a draft in
your palace. A wind is blowing; I say it is the wind of the first day. Unless I
put it that way, I cannot believe that I have any faith, any faith. . . . But go
now, Pilate, and go, Claudia, and too, all ye devils. In His creative power He
is perfect as God is perfect. He is that also in the art of living, of realizing
the God He is in His humanity. Perfect in the art of living—and in the art of
dying. His dying will presently become a creative act. The world revolves in its
cyclical course. But the Logos was made flesh. Saint Augustine and the host of
prophets and a small catechism and theology—offense and folly, power and wisdom.

[5] Play upon the phrase “Fabrius cunctator” — Fabius, the hesitant one who does
not know which way to turn. Be quiet now. Neither the gates nor the ideas of
heaven have ever failed to prevail against Him. He has apprehended by Himself
and by His own ideas. That is why He persists so obstinately: the Son of man
must be delivered to the Gentiles, must be scourged, and then crucified.1 Make
no further attempts, Pilate; you have not a chance against God. That which you
have in your hands today is not a living soul but a life-giving spirit. The art
of living! Yes, that is the power of the Creator! The power of the Creator,
indeed. The Creator clings to His ideas. He will not yield His honor to another,
nor His praise to graven images, for these are but so many pieces of fiction
departing from His ideas. I think I know now what a paradox is. If this Christ
is God, is Creator, is one who realizes His own ideas, then the statement, “I
shall give my honor to no other” is now literally translated into the sense: “I
shall give my shame to no other, nor my cross to Claudia’s graven images.” I
think I can understand now why He is so determined: I have seen the Will in
action. In the beginning this Will created heaven and earth. The day is void and
without form, but something will appear presently. The story has not yet ended.


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  CHAPTER 33: 28. CHAPTER 28: CHRIST CARICATURED BY THE WORLD
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C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - E I G H T Christ Caricatured By the World

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall,and gathered
unto him the whole hand of soldiers. And they stripped him,and put on him a
scarlet robe.And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his
head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and
mocked him, saying Hail, King of the Jews! And they spit upon him, and took the
reed,and smote him on the head. —Mat 27:27-30.

WE concluded our previous chapter with a reference to Christ as one who
faithfully works out His own ideas. Even to say this is a very serious matter.
For Christ to feel it was far more serious still, for it required scourging and
called across into being. Very serious, yes. And that is why it is so severely
profaned by the brutal mockery conveyed by the statement: Christ is being
caricatured. Do not shun that word—an admonishment I would give myself also as I
pronounce it. The incarnation of the Word, the concealment of God—those are
things accompanied by the most extreme consequences conceivable. To name the
word caricature is to be reminded of cartoons, of libelous pamphlets, and, as we
think of these we do indeed feel like saying: Do not introduce that word into
this discussion. However, you must not forget that the age of Augustus and of
Tiberius was an age in which caricaturists— and very good ones they
were—abounded. Moreover, even if this had not been the case, the age in which
Christ was born knew how to make use of its own devices for mocking and
ridiculing Him.

Whoever wants to appreciate the meaning of that mockery is compelled,
accordingly, to translate the forms which the soldiers employed to give
expression to their enmity against Jesus into the language of his own times.
Hence, when I think of those soldiers of Pilate who are busying themselves
around the Saviour I think of my own world, of its presses, of its cartoonists,
and of its jesters. For one who speaks of the Eternal One-in-Hiding, the
scientific repudiation of an “anachronism” is anything but scientific. In the
modes of expression of our own day, the game which the soldiers played over
against Jesus would have been carried on in the press, on the stage, and in the
revue.

Yes, He who realizes, who works out, His own ideas is being caricatured. This
must have constituted the severest conceivable suffering for His spirit, for the
caricature which is conceived and executed at the prompting of enmity always
represents a working out of false ideas, and, in this case, a distortion of the
ideas of its suffering victim. In the preceding chapter, we saw the majesty of
Christ Jesus subjected to the tyranny of the rod. Now that majesty recedes
behind cartoons. This, too, represents the Suretyship; in this also the Word
battles against the false word, and God’s expressed Image is buried under the
symbols of caricature. There is not a single form which life can assume in which
the labor of the Surety does not operate.

I hear someone say that this is not the first time Jesus was caricatured. That
is true. He was caricatured in the Sanhedrin. There Christ as a prophet was
subjected to caricature. But the Sanhedrin is after all only a regional
institution; it has no international ramifications. The Sanhedrin was even less
than regional in character; on this day we should have to say that it became
definitely regionalistic in its insistence upon peculiarly local emphases. Hence
Christ cannot be brought into world-caricature before the Sanhedrin. But, says
someone, how about Herod-Esau? Yes, he also caricatured Christ. However, Esau,
no more than the Sanhedrin, bestrides the world. His gorgeous robes will never
be shown at the world’s fair, unless . . . Not unless Rome sends it on—to the
world’s stage. For Rome is the world empire. We have discussed that before, see
pp. 222 (Chapter 11), 298 (Chapter 15), and 419 (Chapter 22). And that is
exactly what is about to happen. Christ is being robed in the garments of
caricature by the soldiers of Pontius Pilate. It is possible that they have
taken over Herod’s robe. If they did not actually use his, they certainly
imitated it. Hence when Christ is being mocked in this way inside of the private
chamber of the official representative of the world-empire and of the
world-might, He is being inducted into the world-caricature. Naturally, this
does not make sense to a person who says: But a soldier, after all, is only a
soldier. However, he who sees that prophecy is active in the passion of Christ
will never say that. The Saviour is inducted into world-caricature. Rome
represents the world. And this happens to Him in the moment of perfect
seriousness. In respect to that seriousness, this: the blood of Christ has been
forced out of Him. First in Gethsemane, now here. In the garden of Gethsemane
God exacted the blood of Jesus in perfect seriousness, in the terrible tension
of awful judgment. At that time the angels held their peace, and covered their
faces. Such was the holy seriousness of the matter! Now, however, Christ’s blood
is being taken and driven from Him by human beings. This was the sequel to what
had begun in the garden. And now we hear the laughter of mockery. It is
diabolical laughter, it is the brutal ridicule of soldiers, and it is mocking
the perfect outlaw. The blood of Christ was first placed under the pressure of
God; now it is being laid on the table of Satan. The guests at that table are
toasting each other in it. Meanwhile He, who is called Adam, approaches His
cross on which He will offer up His blood to God and to people, and on which He
will lay it before Satan’s eyes in the scales of God. The Bible tells us what
happened after the scourging. When Pilate had surrendered Christ for that
scourging, and when these “penalties” had been inflicted, the soldiers decided
to have some further fun with this prisoner, Why not make a joke out of the
event of the day? You can read from their faces the disdain they have for all
Jews in general and for this Jew in particular. They arrange a scene in which
their eagerness to mock this self-vaunted king can be satisfied. They call
together “the whole band of soldiers.” This means that they call together all
those who happened in that moment to be present in the neighborhood. They are an
ingenious lot. Why not caricature that self-arrogated king? Caricatures are
cheap. The soldiers hit upon the idea of dressing the Nazarene pretender to the
crown in the garb of a king. Why in that of a king, you ask? Well, the trial had
repeatedly raised that point. Pilate’s interview, the accusation on the part of
the Jews, and Christ’s own apology all tended to accentuate the office of king
in reference to the Christ. A pretty incident, indeed. A prisoner who had wanted
to be king. Look! he is a ridiculously pathetic figure. They know all about it.

Just notice. Over there someone is already fetching Him a scarlet robe, a
soldier’s robe. The garment is not a “new, freshly dyed cloak”[1] but very
probably a “worn-out, badly faded and dirty one” whose color—purple or a kind of
crimson—could no longer be recognized.[2] Yes, this coarse soldier’s uniform
makes a rather good imitation of a king’s robes. With the help of a little
imagination it might very well be regarded as the cloak which a king wears.

[1] Groenen,op.cit„p. 382.

[2] Groenen,op.cit„p. 382.

Come to think of it, though, a king must have a crown too. Where get the crown?
No difficulty about that at all. The neighborhood afforded reeds having barbs on
them which would serve the purpose beautifully. It is not unlikely that they
made use of “a low, densely thistled reed, which resembles heather, and which
grows so rank on the uncultivated bottomland of Palestine that it is used now
and was used long ago as fuel. This helps us to understand how the soldiers had
those thorns on hand for their purpose.[3] From these reeds one of those
present—be careful, man, you might hurt your finger!—begins weaving a crown. It
is put on Jesus’ head. The idea, in the first place, is not to “cause Jesus
pain, but to mock Him by this gift of a king’s crown.”[4] [3] Groenen,op.cit.,p.
383.

[4] Grosheide,op.cit.,p. 347. He refers to Dalman,Orte und Wege,p. 210. But the
king is not yet fitted out completely. He has to have a sceptre, too. Otherwise
the resemblance is not complete. Accordingly, they give Him an imitation of a
sceptre; they put a reed into Jesus’ hand; a very neat sceptre it is! Some think
that this reed by its very pliability perfected the mockery. After all, a true
sceptre always retained its firmness and rigidity. But others suppose that a
kind of sea-reed was employed which, in contrast to the reed that grows in
swamps such as we know it, is pronouncedly rigid. The fact that the soldiers
later used this reed to beat Him makes the second supposition more tenable.

Thus the matter of the caricatured king is quickly “dispatched.” The rest of the
fun is up to the soldiers. Look, they are already standing at attention; they go
through their paces before Jesus; they bow their heads as they pass Him; give
Him the military salute. And with a mock display of respect in their voice they
shout: “Hail, king of the Jews!”

Notice, Jews, that in the first place this is a defeat for you. You have hardly
“won” your game before your joy in the victory returns as a boomerang to strike
you. True, these soldiers are mocking the Nazarene, but in Him they are mocking
your people. You have rejected Him, but they continue to count Him as one of
you. As for Christ, how does He find it possible to locate His Father among all
these murderers? How can His hand find the altar, when His head is being wounded
by thorns, and when a reed is being pressed into His hand? It has been said that
Christ did not keep the reed in His hand, inasmuch “as Matthew alone tells us
that the reed was put into Jesus’ hand as a sceptre, Mark speaking only of a
reed which was used to strike the Lord. In this respect again we need look for
no significant difference between the two presentations. It may be that they
attempted to put the reed into the Lord’s hand, but He certainly did not want to
keep hold on it, inasmuch as in no single respect could He take an active part
in the mockery directed against Him. . . . Hence we may suppose that the Lord’s
refusal to hold the reed in His hand is what induced the soldiers to strike Him
on the head with it.”[1] This interpretation has its appealing features
especially because it shows us how Christ’s active obedience immediately leads
Him to His passive compliance. For if He does not keep the reed in His hand, He
is beaten with it.

[1] Groenen,op. cit.

Now each of the several threads involved in the trial meets at a point in this
induction of Christ into world-caricature. Herod is here again. The soldiers
have conducted their sport in imitation of Herod. Naturally, a few of the
soldiers went along on the visit to Herod, and they told all about it to their
fellows. Besides, Herod permitted Jesus to go when the garment of mockery was
still hanging over His shoulders. In other words, these Roman soldiers simply
take over Herod’s method of mocking. That is why this mockery represents a
collaboration of Esau with the enemy against Jacob. In the second place, the
idea of Christ, the outlaw, after it has first been officially worked out by the
judge, as we noticed before, is now taken over by the soldiers. Pilate should
never have allowed this to take place. His discipline should have kept the men
from doing it. But Christ has once and for all been placed outside of the law,
and the soldiers cannot be expected to deal differently with Him than the
others. The trial of Christ begins with the mockery of a servant of Annas, who
strikes Him on the cheek. At the conclusion of the trial that one servant has
become multiplied. And so have the blows. In the third place, we have here
another instance of the forgotten chapter to which we alluded. The only thing
the soldiers can think of ridiculing is Christ’s kingship. Matters concerning
kings are more in their line than are matters involving prophets or priests.
They are attracted to what is immediately before their eyes. Hence Christ
appeals to them solely as an ill-fated king. That is all they can understand
about Him. Again, you see, only the kingship of Christ’s threefold office is
given any attention. The Sanhedrin’s way of putting the issue, of talking about
the messianic question in a purely political sense, has its logical conclusions,
for of Christ’s three offices only that of the king is now being preserved. And
this means that He is being torn asunder, that His soul is being scourged. In
connection with this third point, we should name a fourth. By means of the
mockery on the part of the soldiers the universal Christ is being driven into a
sectarian corner. Just who is it that is receiving these blows? A second Jacob?
A second David? A second Melchizedek? A second Joshua? No, He is the second
Adam. Nothing could be more universal, and nothing more cosmical. He wants to be
the second Adam, the founder of the new mankind; He wants to be the king, not of
a provincial group, not of a sect, not of a closed club, but of the world. He
would be king of that new mankind. But all this does not take away the truth
that in the world-caricature He appears solely as the king of the Jews. In this
feature, you see, Christ’s ambition to a universal kingdom is made ridiculous by
those who degrade Him to the plane of an ill-fated potentate over a handful of
Jews who had already for some time counted for little in the world. Oh, the
wonder of clinging to the feast of Pentecost under such circumstances, the
wonder of His farewell addresses in all of their cosmopolitan sweep! In the
fifth place, we have in this instance the phenomenon of Christ’s first shedding
of blood. In our preceding chapter we called this instance of the shedding of
the blood of Christ the beginning of that divine deed which will reverse the
course of the blood and point the way from death back to life. Now the blood of
the Lamb begins to flow. This is the meeting place of all epochs, the turning
point of the ages. But in this meeting place of the centuries, and at this
crossroad of all times in reference to both nature and spirit, Christ finds the
company of Psalms 35 in the society of drunkards and scoffers. When this blood
began to flow, wise men were present, and shepherds, and a star. Now there are
only devils around Him; they grin maliciously; and the God of the stars holds
His peace. Pray, where is Thy God? It has been said that “the scourging which
was inflicted upon Jesus dishonored Him, drove Him out of the society of human
beings. Involuntarily we think of the angel which drove Adam and Eve out of
Paradise.”[1] But if Adam had been here, He would have said to the second Adam:
It is better to fall into the hands of God than into those of men. When Adam was
driven out of Paradise by the angel, no one was there to mock. The hush of awful
seriousness lay on the face of heaven and of earth; the clouds penned a piece of
secret writing: mene, tekel, upharsin: weighed, numbered, and found wanting. The
breach, the break had come but today while the second Adam is being driven out
of Paradise, and even out of the wilderness, now that He is shown the door even
in the house of common grace, and now that He accordingly is being humiliated
far worse than the first Adam was—now heaven makes no threat, and the clouds
write nothing. No, the sun shines at its brightest, is eager to make its
circuit. Besides, this is the day of the Passover. The seriousness with which
the first Adam was sent out far outweighs that which overhangs this byplay of
mockery with which the second Adam is accompanied on His journey to a dry and
arid death. Yes, that whip is but an extension of the drawn sword which defended
the gate of Paradise. But this appendage has been dipped in the poison of Satan
and of Cain. Jesus must discern the sword of God in that whip. Here, in this
inner room into which they have conducted Him, He must confess that He is the
great Samson, battling against the angels and the drawn sword, and laying His
hand on the gate of Paradise. Here in this inner room, the tree of life must
beckon Him; He must go there as the second Adam to eat and to give of His fruit.

[1]Grosheide,op. citp.346. That is why faith is necessary for Christ when, as
the second Adam, He confesses that He is the Mediator. He must have that faith
now. The Baptist is not here to say: I dare not baptise. Christ is not in the
wilderness where Satan tells Him: Come now, let us have a serious talk together.
The angels and the animals do not come to Him now to serve Him. Simon Peter does
not pose his satanic objections. Moses and Elias are not here as they were upon
the mountain. And, hence, to believe under those circumstances, that He is the
second Adam, the central man, the world symbol, the greater-than-Abel and the
pleroma of all that was real in the ages gone by—that was very difficult. To
believe that when there is nothing but caricature around Him and when all
prophetic, priestly, and kingly mountains and all accursed and withered fig
trees recede from His sight—yes, that is infinitely difficult. It was grievously
hard labor for Jesus Christ to unravel His faith in His own importance and in
the sublime power of the cross from these clever caricaturists. This represented
a marvelous active obedience governed by passive obedience. But He believed,
nevertheless. Therefore we say of this Surety and Mediator: ecce deus. For even
as He stood in that inner court, and even while He was being mocked by the
soldiers, He saw God, the angels, Paradise, the vistas of open fields and the
mountains and valleys of Genesis 1, 3. I cannot prove that: fortunately not. I
can only believe it. For He both speaks and holds His peace about that which He
has seen and heard. He is my God (John 3). Moreover, I can only believe that He
saw Himself also in the state of His spiritual nakedness. He believed Himself to
be God when He was being made a lesser one than Abel by the soldiers of Pilate.
Had it not been told Him long ago that His blood would be counted as less than
Abel’s blood? He knew that, and He nodded imperceptibly with His head. Now He
had become inferior to Abel. God still takes some pains about the blood of Abel;
a theophany can issue from that. Glorious Abel, favored of God, beautiful in
death. Abel—an appropriate burial, a funeral oration delivered from heaven, and
sublime seriousness. But for Jesus? Quiet everywhere, and devoted attention to
the caricaturists. My God, my God, why dost Thou forsake me? Nay, do not answer
yet: “My mouth shall I not open, while the ungodly is over against me; but a
fire is kindled within me; my grief is increased.”

Thereupon the Christ took courage, the courage of the Surety’s heart. I cannot
prove that, fortunately not. I can only believe it. He confronted His people so
that He might see them. He knew that only upon the condition that this hour
should sometime come, had common grace spread out a tolerable bed for Adam to
lie upon instead of a bed of thorns. Of this He was very sure. Hence He bore the
thorns and kept an awful silence. He would put a judicial basis under the
structure of common grace and would kindle the fire of grace under the floor of
the common judgment. He bore it all. There He stood in that poor inner court
upon which the sun beat down. There He stood, greatly forsaken. Thereupon He in
His spirit strode through the whole world and in His spirit saw the great
separation. In His vast dream the thorns were being plucked out of every
rosebed. Only roses remained. And even the corn poppies were being plucked out
of the stubble fields on the other side of the world’s area. There only the
thorns remained. With a grim earnestness Christ drew His schism through all the
worlds. He did it with His will and with His word. Of the mingled sphere of
common grace—tough, persisting interplay of thorns and roses as it was—He made a
hell and also a heaven, an unmixed hell and also an unmixed heaven, places
giving rise solely to thistles and places giving birth only to roses.

Thereupon He was in great haste to reach His cross. To Pilate He had nothing
more to say. He felt Himself to be very strong. For He had seen His own. He knew
that they were scoffers, foolhardy rebels against God, Satan’s objects of
caricature. With His eye fixed upon them He said:

You caused me all this pain; Know well it was your deed, The insult, mockery,
disdain, The crown of thorns, the reed!

It is true. I have been the one who caused this. For my sake He was mocked. He
endured our caricaturing.

Now love, and faith, and hope also proceed to write upon the clouds the sign of
the Son of man, and the sign is this: the very head which now wears the crown of
thorns, and the very hand which now holds a reed, will some day wear a golden
crown and carry a sharp sickle (Revelation 14). Hence we would remember Him
long, Him and His crown of thorns. We would weep and would laugh. For His being
mocked earns for us the crown of honor. Christ, we will remember Thy crown of
thorns, and Thy being caricatured, when we sing

We raise our heads in confidence For we shall wear a crown of glory For Thy
Name’s sake, 0 Lord, for Thy Name’s sake alone.

We would laugh, not in consonance with the soldiers, but in harmony with the
believing Abraham.[1]

[1] The author concludes the chapter with a sonnet of Heiman Dullaart in which
the poet presents the spectacle of the caricatured Christ in Herod’s court. The
authentic art of the poem defies a faithful translation—The Translator.


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  CHAPTER 34: 29. CHAPTER 29: CHRIST CONDEMNED
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C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - N I N E Christ Condemned

Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them,Behold,I bring him forth
to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. Then came Jesus
forth,wearing the crown of thorns,and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto
them, Behold the man! When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him,they
cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them,Take ye him
and crucify him: for I find no fault in him.The Jews answered him, We have a
law, and by our law he ought to die because he made himself the Son of God.When
Pilate therefore heard that saying,he was the more afraid.And went again into
the judgment hall,and saith unto Jesus,Whence are thou? But Jesus gave him no
answer. Then saith Pilate unto him,Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not
that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus
answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me,except it were given
thee from above:therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater
sin.And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him:but the Jews cried out,
saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar’s friend:whosoever maketh
himself a king speaketh against Caesar.When Pilate therefore heard that saying,
he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is
called the Pavement,but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. And it was the preparation of
the passover, and about the sixth hour:and he saith unto the Jews. Behold your
King! But they cried out,Away with him,away with him,crucify him. Pilate saith
unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no
king but Caesar. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified.
—John 19:4-16 a. THE drama is moving to its conclusion. Our second volume has
almost been written. The last step in the action which cursed the Lamb of Cod as
being impure, and that in the very hour in which the passover lambs were being
brought into the temple of God, is now approaching. In the preceding chapter we
observed that the mockery on the part of the soldiers but repeated all the
leading ideas which had governed the trial of Jesus. The same holds true now.
Again there is a recapitulation, a summary of the things which have held our
attention throughout. That summary was drawn up for the soldiers in the first
instance; for the judge in this last one.

Yes, a recapitulation was presented by the judge. This is a grievous thing. The
judge, in his last official action again passes in review the entire, tedious
course of the passion, accentuating each feature sharply and clearly. To Christ
this constitutes a temptation. He is exhausted; His blood has been taken from
Him; His soul is groping for something on which to rest—and can find that
resting point only in God who withholds Himself from Him. In spite of this,
however, He must experience it all again. We can say that everything is being
done once more. Who would dare to say that Satan, the tempter, is not active in
this? And God, He who proves all things? They have their reasons for tempting
and proving the Christ. One can always find people in the world who are able to
withstand a first temptation of Satan and to sustain the first trial of God, but
who invariably succumb when the affliction is repeated. He who would subdue a
strong man must make repeated attacks, he must persevere; he must follow the
first round by a second, and the second by a third. Had the Christ been a man
having finite strength, He would, even though He had withstood the first attack
of hell and Satan, certainly have quailed before this recapitulation. But we
shall see that He remained unmoved up to the very end. God’s repetitions and
Satan’s recapitulation harm Him not at all.

Pilate had withdrawn into his palace and had in the meantime surrendered Jesus
to the sport of the soldiers. But did he have peace of mind? It may be that his
wife discussed the matter of that dream with him further. Certainly his
conscience troubled him. Besides—as we suggested before—it is possible that he
was deliberating the plan of making a last attempt to release the Nazarene after
the scourging which had been given.

Accordingly he returns after a while and seizes his last opportunity. The Jews
have remained on hand to see the outcome of the affair. As yet they have no
definite assurance and they refuse to believe that their attempt has succeeded
until their eyes tell them as much. And, as a matter of fact, things were
pointing in the wrong direction the moment Pilate made his appearance. For, as a
general rule, a person who had been scourged was immediately taken to the cross
and led away. Apparently that is not the course which events are to take in this
instance. The Nazarene is being led out of doors again. Pilate, then, has not
yet concluded to surrender Him to the brutes who want Him.

What can the man have in mind? Well, they did not have to wonder long. He has
not yet wholly weakened. He accompanies Jesus out of doors in order to make a
display of His misery. He lets Jesus keep the clothes which the soldiers have
put on Him; in other words, in the very condition in which Pilate found Him. he
takes the Saviour with him outside.

See, the Saviour comes. He comes in the robe of mockery; the crown of thorns
rests on His head; He is bowed down beneath the force of the scourging. You ask
why Pilate did not first have this robe removed from Him, inasmuch as it loudly
protested that in this hall of justice the grossest arbitrariness of the
soldiers was being officially condoned. The answer is that Pilate hopes to
profit by presenting the pathetic spectacle of this miserable man to the eyes of
the crowd. He wants to present Jesus in all His nakedness, and accordingly he
says to the Jews: Ecce homo, behold, there is the man. Why does Pilate say this,
you ask? One interpretation is that he wants to excite sympathy. He thinks that
a public exhibition of the pathetic figure of the man will amount to pouring oil
upon the waves. Others think less favorably of Pilate. These suppose that Pilate
is making a public exhibition of Christ solely to assure the Jews that in any
event they will never again be troubled by this man. A man who has been
decorated in this fashion—such is Pilate’s terminology—and a man who is in a
condition as pathetic as this man is will never in all his life succeed in
making an impression. Now, what more do they want? Surely, this had better be
the end of the matter.

Again, we need not choose one of these alternative interpretations. The two are
not mutually exclusive. Pilate’s whole desire is to be rid of the case, to
escape its consequences, hence, any means which furthers that end is welcome to
him.

But, to go on. Is Pilate “successful”? Does his ecce homo help him?

Over against those who think that Pilate erred in his choice of approaches and
that he said the wrong thing at this time, we would reply that at first his
words did succeed in achieving the expected results. Remember that John 19:6
indicates precisely who those were that immediately rebelled against Pilate’s
plea for sympathy. They were the high priests and the counselors. This specific
reference is not the same as that given in John 18:40. There an emphatic
reference has it: Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but
Barabbas.[1] Accordingly, in that instance it was the people who together with
their leaders lifted their voices against Jesus. Now, however, the people seemed
to be silent; they seemed somewhat hesitant. Hence the leaders are just so much
more eager to have their say. The people have suggested that they are inclined
to give way; here and there a wave of sympathy moves over the crowd; a change of
attitude can be seen in their faces. Now the leaders, who fear such a shift in
popular opinion, immediately react. More vehemently than before they raise the
cry, Crucify him, crucify him.[2] But Pilate refuses to let his chance slip away
from him as easily as that. Not without pathos—for the people are present here,
and whoever would move the people to this or that end gets a long way by means
of pathos and sentiment—he once more declares emphatically that he finds no
fault in Jesus. Why this concerted demand for a death sentence? Let the leaders
take care of the matter themselves. If they want to, why, let them proceed to
crucify Jesus. Naturally, Pilate does not mean to say by this that the Jews must
or may crucify Jesus upon their own authority (crucifixion was not a Jewish form
of punishment), but he means to say that he does not want to shoulder the
responsibility which they themselvesrefuse to accept. To this the Jewish priests
and Sanhedrin immediately reply that they are perfectly willing to accept the
responsibility. Even though we may not crucify him, they say in effect, it is
true that he has done something which according to our law deserves the death
penalty; he has made himself the Son of God.

[1] We agree with those who suppose that the wordallinJohn 18:40which is
included in certain manuscripts properly belongs there. For arguments in support
of this, see among others Zahn,Das Ev.des Joh., 3, 4, 1912, p. 636.

[2] SeeJohn 18:15in which the high priest and not the people has the last word.
In this instance truth scores a victory. While studying the outset of the
transactions between the Jews and Pilate, we observed that the Jews said nothing
about the charge of blasphemy which in the Sanhedrin had been arrived at as the
important accusation. Instead, the Jews immediately gave a political color to
the matter in Pilate’s presence. In other words, they transposed the Messiahship
of Jesus from the first to the second table of the law. They degraded the
Saviour (See page 315). But now that Pilate is making a last effort to release
Him, they take recourse to their last word; they shoot their last arrow. Now
they give expression to the official charge: Well, yes, according to our law, He
is guilty of blasphemy, and among us that is a capital crime. This is indeed a
victory for truth. Before Jesus is condemned by the government, He is again
transferred from the second table of the law to the first. Before Pilate’s
tribunal also, acknowledgment is finally made of the fact that Jesus of Nazareth
is not concerned in matters affecting Caesar, but that He is concerned in the
cause of the honor and revelation of the living God. Undoubtedly, this
acknowledgment gladdened the Christ, even though the gladness came with
trembling. For it is this very acknowledgment which drives Him immediately to
death. That it does so appears very soon. For when Pilate heard this word, he
was the more afraid. Why afraid? Because of superstition? Is he somewhat bound
still to the notions of Roman paganism which continued to honor gods and a son
of the gods? Does Pilate have something in common with the centurion who says of
Jesus a little later: Truly this man was the son of God? [3] Or is it that
Pilate fears only the results, knowing that as soon as this element becomes a
factor in the situation, the fanaticism of the Jews will become quite
uncontrollable.

We dare not make a choice between these possibilities. Pilate’s soul has thrown
no light upon its inner recesses, and again we need not choose one or the other
of the alternatives; again they do not exclude each other.

[3] SeeMark 15:39, andMat 27:54. The translation “a son of the gods” is more
faithful to the original than the rendering “the son of God.” We shall discuss
this in the next volume of this work.

Instead, we can better attend to the results which followed upon Pilate’s
increased concern and aggravated fear. He approaches Jesus and says to Him:
Whence art thou? That question is not to be regarded as springing from a sincere
interest, and even less as an attempt on Pilate’s part to personally understand
and accept Jesus. Pilate’s intent is simply to try to get an understanding of
the background to the conflict which obtains between Jesus and the Jews. They
call Him the Son of God; He calls Himself that also. It is about that that
Pilate wishes to inquire. In effect, his question amounts to this: On what basis
can the man’s influence be explained? What is the secret of his success? But
Jesus makes no reply. It is precisely because of Jesus’ silence that we can know
that Pilate’s question was not born iron: a heart which was yearning for
salvation, for such a question never reaches God too late. Pilate’s question was
simply another request for information about the nature of the conflict existing
between Jesus and the Jews. But that question comes toolate. A judge who has
first allowed Jesus to be scourged, and has made Him an outlaw, has no business
asking a question afterwards. Who, pray, makes the investigation after
punishment has been meted out?

Accordingly, the Saviour makes no reply.

Now Pilate, all the while marvelling at His silence, advises Jesus that it is
dangerous not to reply inasmuch as the judge has the authority to restore His
freedom to Him or to assign Him to death. Thereupon Jesus pronounces His last
word. Observe that this last word which Jesus pronounces in the course of His
trial is a reference to the powers that are above. “Thou couldest have no power
at all against me, except it were given thee from above.” Christ is by this
statement indicating that God stands higher than the authority Pilate
represents. He assigns to the authority of the government the place of a servant
of God. He sees the first cause operative and by means of the second cause. And
He accepts the consequences of this vision of faith which is fixed upon God.
That is why this last word of Christ which was spoken during His trial, this
final word before His condemnation, is of great and redeeming significance. This
statement about God is the very pillar upon which the trembling thoughts of
Christ, the Scourged One,[1] are leaning. His whole soul and spirit are exposed
in this reference to the power which is above. This concluding word which Christ
speaks is the great torch, the great light of righteousness which shines in this
dark night of sin.

[1] Not because of Caesar but by the grace of God.

Again we see a beautiful harmony in all that Christ does, even at the time when
all that men do represents the grossest conceivable discord. In our first
volume—Gethsemane—we saw Christ struggling to keep His vision fixed upon God. As
soon in Gethsemane as He had been able to see His God rather than men, He had a
sense of well-being, He acquiesced and found that upon which as a man He could
lean.[2] This had been the equivalent of His saying: Father, into Thy hands I
commend my spirit as I enter into my passion.

[2] SeeChrist in His Suffering, p. 323 (Chapter 17) and pp. 387 ff (Chapter 21).

Now, in this second volume—the trial—we see Christ again struggling to keep His
vision fixed upon God. After the meandering course from Annas to Caiaphas, from
Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, from Herod to Pilate, and from Pilate
to the people, from the people back to Pilate, from Pilate to the soldiers, from
the soldiers back to Pilate, from Pilate back to the people, and from the people
who are outside to Pilate who is within—you are not becoming impatient, are you,
for this is your bridegroom?—after all these meandering ways, I say, Christ
concludes the whole trial, and proclaims His patience, His speaking, and His
being silent to us in this last word which again turns His attention from the
people and fixes it upon His God. Now all is well; now He can rest again; now as
a human being He finds His resting place in His God. This is the equivalent of
saying: Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit, now during the process of My
passion. Presently the third volume—the cross—will follow. In it again we will
observe Christ struggling, suffering, seeking; we will see His head bowed in the
conflict against the dark night of utter forsakenness and judgment. But then,
too, He will finally find his resting place in His God, and will exclaim with a
loudvoice: Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit, now as I pass out of My
passion, for “it is finished.” Oh incomparable grace, Christ’s style ever
remains with Him. The temple of holiness and justice stands spiritually erected,
a building which cuts its way straight through the crooked dealings of the
world.

Thus did Pilate see Christ standing over against Him calmly: God was preaching
to Him. Jesus’ quietude troubles him. Pilate’s ecce homo affected the mob but
Jesus’ ecce deus affected Pilate. Hence Pilate—and this is the last time—tries
once more to release Jesus. But he cannot do so now. As soon as the Jews notice
his hesitant attitude, they raise their last and best argument and openly
exclaim: If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar’s friend. The friend of
Caesar. In those days that was a customary title. The Jews are in effect saying
this: If you release this man who not only bears the name of our God but also
that of your imperial god you are by such conduct indicating that you are no
longer a real friend of the emperor, but are indifferent to the Caesar of all
Romans. Figure it out for yourself: consequences are sure to follow.

Pilate, in other words, is formally threatened. Pilate succumbs to the threat.
Fearing an official investigation—he had done so much which was of a dubious
character—he concludes to make this one Galilean the price of his own future and
hopes for promotion. Clenching his teeth, he finally concludes to put an end to
the matter.

Now it will take place, people, Jesus, world, God. Now it will happen. The
judge, the authority, Rome, the world, God, now definitely, once and for all,
over against time and eternity, say: I condemn Jesus Christ. Now it is to take
place, angels; the judge. God—these curse Him. My justification is about to be
pronounced. It is to take place, apostles, patriarchs, and all singers of the Te
Deum, it is to happen now: the just one will be treated and condemned as the
unjust, in order that the unjust and wholly lost may again appear before the
tribunal of God as a free and redeemed man, against whom the law can make
demands no longer.

It is to take place now. With great dignity Pilate goes to his judgment chair,
to his tribunal, and has it carried out of doors. Moses, Moses, you are still
regarded as a responsible person in the world. Pilate wishes to show the Jews a
favor and therefore has his judgment seat brought outside, inasmuch as the Jews
because of Moses’ feasts were not allowed to enter the house of a heathen.
Moses, you are being respected, but Jesus Christ is not. You need not move your
chair, Moses, up there in heaven, for so it was meet for you to fulfill all
righteousness. Is this not exactly what you told him on the mountain of the
transfiguration? Besides, the hymn of Moses must be followed, or rather
continued, today by the hymn of the Lamb. Hence, Moses, bear the unbearable
preferment which is being accorded you. We do not want to sing the hymn of Moses
and of the lion (lest you take offence at the occasion on which Pilate for your
sake has his chair brought out-of-doors and from it, out of respect for you,
proceeds to condemn Jesus). But we want to sing the hymn of Moses and the Lamb.
After all, can it be that the Lamb should not be slain? No, no, the Lamb may not
find grace in the world. There is a place for Moses, but for the Lamb there is
no place other than the place reserved for it: namely, the altar of death. At
this point John’s style achieves a certain dignity. This is the great hour. The
man who at the time carefully noted the exact hour in which Jesus first met a
couple of embarrassed souls,[1] now notes the place and the hour in which the
Saviour was sentenced to death. This occurred at the official place which in the
Greek language was called Lithostrotos—probably because of a pavement laid as a
mosaic in front of the palace—which in the Aramaic was called Gabbatha—a word
which, according to some means “the high place” and according to others
something else. There it was that the Saviour surrendered to death. At about
noon on a given day—some say that it was the 18th of March in the year 29
A.D.—and if that is true the year in which this book is being written (1929) is
removed precisely nineteen hundred years from the time Christ was condemned. But
no one called for a few moments of silence. Fortunately God did not call for
them either. He demands “only” a life-long silence. There, at Lithostrotos,
Pilate, although he had definitely concluded to put Jesus to death, addressed
the Jews for the last time. His humiliated pride, His senseof defeat, his pent
up anger, the deep disdain with which he in the last analysis condemned the Jews
and their Messiah, all these are concealed in his: Behold your king. He replies
to the renewed excitement of the Jews with a question: Do you really expect me
to crucify your own king? Thereupon the high priests—for God gives them the
terrible privilege of having the last say—officially bow before Caesar and
thereby actualize Zechariah’s vision of the priest-king. Then Pilate goes away.
A nonchalant gesture—an official decision: the Saviour is given up to be
crucified.

[1] “For it was about the tenth hour.”John 1:39.

Come near now. And pray. Have you noticed the clear distinction which the
smitten Saviour is still able to make? In the presence of a whole college of
judges, none of them disposed to make clear distinctions, He discriminated
fastidiously and distinguished well. He had said to Pilate: I do indeed hold you
responsible, but those who delivered me into your hands are guilty of the
greater sin. He makes a sharp distinction: God be praised, A judge must be able
to discriminate, but if he fails to do so, one must take recourse to the priest.
Inasmuch now as Christ, the Priest-King, is surrounded by the furies, after
whose name I myself also am called, His perfect gift for discrimination comforts
me. He places Pilate’s responsibility over against the Jews in the proper light.
Not for one moment may He obscure the distinction between the spheres of general
and of special grace. He is very terrible. The most gruesome evil does not make
Him lose His penetrating gift of discrimination. Lord, Thou searchest me, and
Thou knowest my heart, and Thou knowest that what I think is not to Thy honor. I
need Thee, Lord, cleanse me, me in particular, with hyssop. Thou knowest with
what penetration the sun’s rays have beat upon me.

He makes distinctions.

Thus He takes upon Himself at last the perfecting of the vicious circle, of
Annas, of Caiaphas, of Pilate, and now also of the people called by the name I
bear. Pilate wanted to excite their sympathy. Ah me, he wanted to compensate for
the suffering which takes its position at the very central point of world
history by means of sympathy which, he supposed, could succeed in obliterating
the line which describes the course of that vicious circle. He said ecce homo,
for he again wished to cleanse the time by means of time, the visible by means
of the visible, the heart by means of the heart. Ecce homo—Saviour, Master,
forgive him for he knew not what he said. Lord, I mean forgive me, for I do not
know what I am saying. Ecce homo—if that is proclaimed from above it is the very
essence of truth; but if it is proclaimed from below it is the very essence of
insult. Then it casts Thee into the vicious circle, the very circle which Thou
hadst already conquered by means of the Word (see chapter 7). Didst Thou hear
it, Saviour? A satyr just pronounced the words: ecce homo. And this was his
commentary of it: Do not fear him. Hereafter thou shalt see the lost son of man
descend in the weakness of His flesh down to the very pit of hell in which the
living damned abide. By means of the ecce homo, they tried to excite pity for
Thee, Jesus. Alas, that was turning the gospel topsy-turvy. Thou dost not want
to be the object of my pity, but it is Thy will to be afflicted in my
affliction. The angel of my countenance may not comfort Thee. That is why the
offensive ecce homo represents a negation of Thy priesthood. Yet when Pilate
pronounced these words, Thou didst reply: What thou doest do quickly, for I see
God standing in this place. And that reply, my Saviour, is my redemption. Thou
didst place Thy blood in the Father’s sacrificial basin.

Keep my tongue in check, I pray, lest it too quickly and too bravely proceed to
sing psalms out of a book. I should be very eager to sing songs about Thy golden
crown, and about Thy sharp sickle, and I should be very eager to put into rhyme
the songs of Paul who taught me that on the Friday of the Passover feast Satan
did indeed make a public exhibition of Jesus, but that on the same day Jesus
also publicly made a spectacle of Satan and his whole tribe (Col 2:15). Master,
hold my tongue in check, for I must first confess that I have publicly made a
spectacle of Thee, that I am Pilate, that I am the high-priest, and court
servant, the scum of the people, and Barabbas also. I have said concerning Thee:
I dare to condemn Him. I am no better than Pilate, Lord. He sacrificed Thee to
protect himself. On this very day my flesh would do the same.

Lord, my God, it is impossible for Thee to be tempted now; the pity of the
people which to this day is aroused by Pilate and his aesthetic family, can not
tempt Thee any more. But forbid that I should do Thee injustice. What a terrible
day. I may not even sympathize with Jesus. Sympathy He calls negation; He calls
it saying ecce homo, and saying it from below. He calls it saying ecce homo with
Pilate’s inflection. To say it thus is to ignore Him in His triumph of justice.
It represents opposing Him even as He is in the idea. Hence, I must keep silence
before the people and must raise a hymn of praise and must excite love in my
heart in the power of the Lord. The power of the Lord—those are great words—but
it requires omnipotence to teach me how to sing a hymn of praise here. I hear
good tidings. A voice comes to me from Dordrecht, which answers me as I stand
here at Gabbatha unable to sing but summoned to sing. The voice comforts me:
Omnipotence is operative; there is such a thing as regeneration, an almighty, an
irresistible deed of Christ’s Holy Spirit. Veni, Creator Spiritus, and teach me
His hymn now. It seems to me that He needs me, He needs a comforting hymn. But I
see Him ever shaking His head. He would also be forsaken of me; He needs no
comfort now after the temptation He has just withstood.

Nevertheless, I want to say what I see in Him as He limps to the cross, and I
want to say it before my eyes are dimmed with tears. I want to tell Him that I
see Him as great here as He was in the wilderness. In the wilderness He was
first tempted, tempted by Satan. Satan wanted Him to shun the way of suffering,
wanted Him to accept His glory without taking this terrible digression which He
is taking today. Today He—be quiet, people; in the name of peace just look—today
He is being tempted again. In the last moment He is being tempted, terribly
tempted. He is being tempted in the moment of the general repetition, of the
painful recapitulation to which we alluded above. When Pilate’s tender voice
very movingly pronounced the ecce homo, and when a few women nodded approvingly,
and when a few people began to blush in shame, and when the crowd was at the
point of reconsidering, then Satan whispered into Jesus’ ear the temptation:
Take advantage of this hour, and all will yet be well. Pilate was giving Him the
floor and Jesus might have spoken. Even Pilate would have been moved to tears by
a perturbing story. But Jesus held His peace.

He did not answer. He did not profit from the occasion. He was only profited by,
He was made sin. His last pronouncement was: Isee God standing. Jesus, now I
know that Thou didst withstand the temptation even in the last moment in which
it was possible for Thee to do something.

They are all going on their way, Saviour. It will take place, it is sure to
happen, they are telling each other that it will happen this very day. I stand
alone on this court square, and Thou dost not even look at me. Perhaps Thou
thinkest that he would not have a good word for me unless it were given him from
above. And where would Simon be? I see him nowhere near here to help me; I mean
only that he is not helping Thee, that he is leaving Thee alone. I think that
Simon is just like me: he does not dare to express any sympathy; he is ashamed,
and he is afraid of Thy eyes, I think; I have seen those eyes, seen them when
the ecce homo was spoken. But I am wandering from the subject: I simply wanted
to say, Master, that when Thou wast tempted in the wilderness the angels came to
succor Thee, the beasts to greet Thee, and there was a Paradise, be it a very
small one, in the form of a great promise. Now Thou art being tempted again, and
now Thou hast triumphed anew. But there are no angels here; the wild animals
could not possibly come here—their eyes are too faithful to be tolerated by the
people and not to shun Thee. As for Paradise, what shall we say of that? Why
bring that beautiful word into this discussion? The cross is coming.

Jesus, Thou goest Thy way alone. Would I dare to accompany Thee? But what shall
I do now? Can it be that I am the substitute for angels or for beasts? Why
should I follow Thee? The wild beasts have faithful eyes but I have just now
condemned Thee. Lord, save Him, for He perisheth. Lord, save me, for I perish.
Lord, my God, Thou hast spoken to me today. And the burden of Thy message was
this: He that justifies the wicked and condemns the just, even they both are an
abomination to the Lord. He knows that text already. Oh, wonderful thing. He
quoted the text, and sought me with His eyes. His eyes were tender. I cannot
withstand. I am going outside . . . outside . . . The sun kept on shining. It
was very warm. A Jew hurried past, muttering a curse between his teeth. It was
hot at high noon. He was sweating freely. The soldiers found the way rather
heavy. How long it was, they said to each other, how long it was and how far.


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/schilder-klaas-vol-2-christ-on-trial/
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