Luke 22:66-71

(3.) Luke 22:66-71. The Morning Sitting.

It is impossible to determine to what extent the Sanhedrim required to repeat in their morning sitting what had passed in the night one. But we are justified in allowing that some details of the one were applied to the other by tradition and by our evangelists. There was nothing in itself blasphemous in one calling himself the Christ. This claim, even if it was false, was not an outrage on the honour of God. If the assertions of Jesus regarding His person appeared in the judgment of the Jews to be blasphemy, it was because in His mouth the title Son of God always signified something else and something more than that of Messiah, and because the latter was in His lips only a corollary from the former. In proportion to the care with which Jesus in His ministry had avoided making His Messiahship the subject of His public declarations, He had pointedly designated Himself as the Son of God. Hence, in the sitting described by Matthew and Mark, the high priest, when putting to Him the question: “Art thou the Christ? ” takes care to add: “ the Son of God? ” well knowing that the first assertion cannot be the foundation of a capital charge, unless it be again completed and explained as it had always been in the teaching of Jesus by the second. The question of Luke 22:67, in Luke, was simply, on the part of the high priest, the introduction to the examination (comp. Luke 22:70). But Jesus, wishing to hasten a decision which He knew to be already taken, boldly and spontaneously passes in His answer beyond the strict contents of the question, and declares Himself not only the Messiah, but at the same time the Son of man sharing the divine glory. The particle εἰ (Luke 22:67) may be taken interrogatively: “ Art thou the Christ? Tell us so in that case.” But it is more natural to make it directly dependent on εἶπε : “Tell us if thou art...”

De Wette has criticised the answer here ascribed to Jesus (Luke 22:67-68). The second alternative: If I ask you, appears to him out of place in the mouth of an accused person. It is not so. Here is the position, as brought out by the answer of Jesus: “I cannot address you either as judges whom I am seeking to convince, for you are already determined to put no faith in my declarations, nor as disciples whom I am endeavouring to instruct, for you would not enter into a fair discussion with me.” Had he not questioned them once and again previously on the origin of John's baptism, and on the meaning of Psalms 110? And they had steadily maintained a prudent silence! Jesus foresees the same result, if He should now enter into discussion with them.

The last words: ἢ ἀπολύσητε, nor let me go, are perplexing, because, while grammatically connected with the second alternative, they refer in sense to both. Either, with the Alex., they must be rejected, or they must be taken as a climax: “Nor far less still will ye let me go.”

Ver. 69. Jesus Himself thus furnishes the Jews with the hold which they seek. The name Son of man, which He uses as most directly connected with that of Christ (Luke 22:67), is qualified by a description implying that He who bears this title participates in the divine state.

Thereby the trial became singularly shortened. There was no occasion searchingly to examine the right of Jesus to the title of Christ. The claim to divine glory contained in this assertion of Jesus is immediately formulated by the tribunal in the title Son of God. It only remains to have the blasphemy articulately stated by the culprit Himself. Hence the collective question, Luke 22:70.

The form: ye say that I am, thou sayest it, is not used in Greek; but it is frequently used in Rabbinical language. By such an answer the party accepts, as His own affirmation, the whole contents of the question put to Him.

So far, therefore, from this question proving, as is persistently affirmed, that the name Son of God is equivalent in the view of the Jews, or in that of Jesus, to the name Christ, the evident progress from the question of Luke 22:67 to that of Luke 22:70, brought about by the decided answer of Jesus, Luke 22:69, clearly proves the difference between the two terms. As to the difference between the night sitting and that of the morning, it was not considerable. In the second, the steps were only more summary, and led more quickly to the end. All that was necessary was to ratify officially what had been done during the night. As Keim says, “the Sanhedrim had not to discuss; they had merely to approve and confirm the decision come to overnight.”

In the opinion of those who allege that Jesus was crucified on the afternoon of the 15th, and not of the 14th, the arrest of Jesus, and the three judicial sessions which followed, took place in the night between the 14th and 15th, and so on the sabbatic holy day. Is that admissible? Langen remarks that on the 15th Nisan food might be prepared, which was forbidden on a Sabbath (Exo 12:16). But there is no proof that this exception extended to other acts of ordinary life (arrests, judgments, punishments, etc.). He seeks, further, to prove that what was forbidden on a sabbatic day was not to pronounce a sentence, but merely to write and execute it. Now, he says, there is no proof that the sentence of Jesus was written; and it was Roman soldiers, not subject to the law, by whom it was executed. These replies are ingenious; but after all, the objection taken from the general sabbatic character of the 15th Nisan remains in all its force.