The Gospel of Luke 22:54-71 Arrested & tried before the Sanhedrin
Luke 22:54-71 · Vern Peterman · Sep 25, 2016
Gospel of Luke, No. 88
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926540123831

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We're going to be stepping our way through Luke 22, 54 through 71 here. And we're going to start by just kind of looking at these four Gospels and the Jewish trials that Jesus was put through. As we examine each of those accounts, we find that the accounts are very different from one to the next. And Dr. Lukes, we're going to describe that briefly here. There are differences among them, even differences in sequence as they're presented. What we're going to do is actually take Luke's sequence in order, and we'll explain why it goes the way it goes, and add insights from the other Gospels drawn in, especially from the Gospel of John. It appears as we read all the accounts, including John's, that Peter and John were actually there in the courtyard together. for much of this time. And so we'll take a look at that shortly. Looking at the differences between accounts, there are those who have criticized and even become skeptical of the New Testament accounts because of the differences. And this is one of those places where there are significant differences.

What I would present to you is G. Warner Wallace, sometimes known as Jim, was a cold case detective in Southern California. He recently retired. He frequently appears on 60 Minutes, Dateline, and some of these other investigative and detective shows where they go through a homicide or other serious crime. He has written a book called Cold Case Christianity, and we'll talk in a minute about why he would write it that way.

One of the things he said is reliable eyewitnesses never agree in every single detail. So one of the things as we look at differences between the accounts, he says they are reliable just the same, right? And that is one point to make. The other is reliable. Eyewitnesses raise questions. He says they're still reliable, but oftentimes, oh, wait a minute, this is given in a different sequence than the other, or some detail is described differently. He says that's just normal.

He's never seen, in all the years of being a detective, he's never seen a situation where everything meshes down to the finest detail among reliable witnesses. As he turns to the gospel accounts, what's interesting is he had been raised as an atheist. He was raised as an atheist and remained an atheist on into the first nine years of his time as a detective. But someone challenged him to take a look at the Gospels as a cold case.

And so that's exactly what he did. And what he found is that the Gospels, when I look at them as a cold case, present very good evidence for everything that's described there. And it matches up with the things that I find in the cold cases. And this guy is very good. At Dateline, they call him the evidence whisperer. This guy is very good at what he does, what he retired from anyway.

So anyway, as a nine years on the force as a detective, as an atheist looking at the Gospels, he became a believer after looking at the testimony of the Gospels. And what he says here at the last of what I've quoted, I now know that the Gospels actually exceed what I would require to consider them reliable. So if anyone ever challenges you on that, you can take the case of Jane Warner Wallace, who became a believer after looking at the Gospels as a cold case.

One of the things that we're going to see in this passage is things happen minute by minute and hour by hour, but there'll be monumental impacts in this passage and the passages right in front of us. They're going to last forever. Huge, huge changes, including to us, right? We've said in last week it was on kind of the beginning of our time We presented on the first page of the handout.

There is increasing evidence from multiple lines of logic and even science That says that Christ's crucifixion took place on Friday April 3rd 33 AD That that is from everything from the dating of the earthquake that took place during Christ's crucifixion, the darkness, the prophecies from Daniel, multiple lines of evidence pointing to April 3rd, 33 AD. Additionally, we've been saying that a great many people in Jerusalem will be rocked by the events that are taking place here and shortly thereafter over these next several days. One of the things we've pointed out is that the afternoon, starting at noon and on into the evening, The afternoon of April 3rd, 33 AD, the day in which Christ was crucified, is going to be a horrible, horrible day for the Sadducees. It's going to be the worst day of their lives, guaranteed. It's going to be an awful time for them, and we'll find out why. Many are going to be impacted greatly, but for all eternity, by the events of these few days, including you and me.

Here's Luke 2254, having arrested him, that is Jesus, they led him away and brought him to the house of the high priest, but Peter was following at a distance. So here we have Peter who had gone out and sliced off the right ear of the high priest's servant, Malchus. John identified the name. And after having Jesus reverse that, healing the man's ear, Peter says, oh, I guess that wasn't such a great thing to do. And he goes off and kind of falls at a distance and hides himself.

You have here a map of Jerusalem. All the events that took place from the Last Supper all the way into Christ's resurrection took place in or near Jerusalem here. In other words, on this map. the place that is most likely the upper room is over in the southwest corner of Jerusalem and that's located here you have the Garden of Gethsemane at the base of the Mount of Olives and across the Kidron Valley from the Temple Mount and so that's where Jesus is arrested from there they take Jesus to the house of Annas And we'll talk about that. There are actually a few different places that claim to be the house of Annas, the place where Jesus was taken. Most recently, it's been proposed that this palatial mansion located here, about in the middle of your map, is likely the place. And a lot of circumstantial evidence seems to confirm that. We'll talk about that in a little bit more shortly.

So Christ was arrested in order to be put on trial and crucified, but you know that had been agreed on from eternity past. Before God said, let there be light, there was an agreement between the Son and the Father, and it seems that the Holy Spirit was involved in this too, that Christ would in fact give His life and then be resurrected for us, for you and for me. We have all these passages that provide a number of prophecies about Christ's first coming. There is a handout as you exit this room on the right, on the cabinet on the right, that lists seven pages of prophecies and fulfillments about Christ's first coming, and feel free to take advantage of that. We will produce more if we need to.

One of the things that was predicted a thousand years approximately in advance was that Jesus would be crucified, a death by crucifixion. That's given in Psalm 22. The very first verse of Psalm 22 is, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus essentially quotes that from the cross. That Christ would be betrayed by a friend for 30 pieces of silver was told centuries before about this very night. And it was included in Psalms, included in Zechariah, so a thousand to five hundred years before Christ even came to the earth, these things were prophesied.

So Peter was following. He was following at a distance. What may come as a surprise to us, John was already at the house of the high priest when Peter came. Peter came to the gate, but they wouldn't let him in. John was already in and there. So John 18, 15, and 16 tells us that John, by his familiarity with the household of the high priest, that is, Annas in this case, was able to have Peter allowed into the house of the high priest, too, along with him.

Now, something we have to clarify. You will hear the name Annas, who was high priest first. There's actually technically only one high priest at a time. Annas had been the high priest first. Caiaphas, who was then officially the high priest, was the son-in-law of Annas, and Annas was successful after Caiaphas left the high priesthood to get five of his sons in as high priest. So a very influential fellow, and that's why they took Jesus first to the house of Annas.

So Luke 22.55, after they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter was sitting among them.

Later, we're going to find out that he also stood. So after various people said, hey, I recognize you, it's kind of squirming and getting up and moving and different things like that. But Peter sat among them initially. And these were the staff of the high priest. They were sitting around the fire that was in the middle of the courtyard. We'll talk about what was the likely courtyard configuration there.

It was not only a moonlit night. You see, Passover was timed based on the full moon, so this was right after the full moon. It was not only a moonlit night, the firelight being close, here's Peter sitting among them, and also being a moonlit night, and the fact that he had gone and sliced off Malchus' ear, who was a fellow staff member of the high priest, made him very identifiable, right? And also notorious. Since Peter is the one who lunged forward to cut off the ear, so he had gotten closer than all the other disciples to cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest, Malchus, by name, that would also make him very identifiable and notable. He got closest to the torches that they were carrying, right? So of any of the disciples, he would certainly be the one most memorable.

Here's Luke 22, 56 and 57, and a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the firelight and looking intently at him, said, This man was with him too. But he denied it, saying, Woman, I do not know him. So this servant girl there was of the high priest household.

He was the first to recognize Peter's face and to mention it. We also find out, looking at the other Gospels, she was also the one at the door. that John had let Peter in. The text says that she looked intently at Peter. In other words, she didn't just glance at him and say, hey, you're one of them, but she kind of studied his face. Hey, I know who you are, right? And then she said out loud, hey, you're one of them.

So we're not sure where the servant girl had seen Peter with Jesus, although it's quite likely that she was also among the crowd that came there to the Garden of Gethsemane. She did recognize Peter as being with Christ, and of course if she was there present and Peter comes closest in front of all the disciples and slices off Malchus' ear, that would make him very recognizable.

And so Peter's response, if you look at the order in the Greek, Greek unlike English, unless you speak like Yoda, where we rearrange things and say things awkwardly, Greek is one where you can rearrange the words and pull what you're emphasizing to the front. That's one way of making emphasis. So he starts off with not. is the first word that he has in his sentence there, in his denial. So he's emphatic using that not to respond to the servant girl statement that Peter was with Christ.

Luke 22.59, as we'll see shortly, will make clear Peter emphatically and repeatedly denied knowing Christ, doing so with a Galilean accent. A very identifiable accent. I don't know what a Galilean accent exactly sounds like.

I do remember, you know, pronunciation is often real different. I had a friend years ago who was from the area of Boston, and as I was talking to him one night, he said, I broke my jar. I said, what? You broke this glass container with a screw-on lid? No, no, that's my jaw. I broke my jar. So pronunciations like that would be very identifiable. They could tell he was a Galilean by the way he pronounced things, by the accent with which he spoke.

Here's Luke 22.58, but a little later another saw him and said, you're one of them too. But Peter said, man, I am not. So this man who was present there by the firelight also noticed Peter and recognized that Peter had been with Jesus and probably there at the Garden of Gethsemane.

As we've seen in our investigation of Dr. Luke's gospel here, Peter is always outspoken. He always has something to say, even if it's a little strange, even if it's awfully bold, maybe even a little bit foolish, but he always has something to say. You know, here's Jesus with Elijah and Moses up on the Mount of Transfiguration, and Peter says, hey, let's go camping, right? He wants to make tents. So here's Peter. He's always got something to say.

He's outspoken, bold, and so he's very noticeable among the disciples. And so people say, wait a minute, of all the disciples, you're the one who's identifiable. I can tell you've been with him. So John was recognized by the household of the high priest, interestingly enough, but they didn't seem to associate him with Jesus. I think John had figured out, here's how I can keep my high priestly connections and keep from being identified. Very likely, unlike Peter, who went lunging out with a sword to cut off the high priest's servants right here, John instead figured out, here's how I keep in the shadows and in the background and still keep all my connections here. Peter still says, man, I am not.

Here's Luke 22, 59 and 60. After about an hour passed, and this is unique to Luke, he keeps Peter's account all in one continuous passage. whereas the other accounts kind of spread it out. But the one thing this allows is that you get a certain amount of time. Another hour passes.

Another man began to insist, saying, Certainly this man also was with him, for he is a Galilean too. But Peter said, Man, I do not know what you are talking about, immediately while he was still speaking a rooster crowed. So this man was insistent that Peter was with Christ, He recognizes that they are Galileans because of their distinctive speech, right? Because this man is the last one to speak about Peter before the rooster crows, we can then line it up with the other Gospels, and as John makes note, this man, one of the men that speaks, the one right before the rooster crows, is a relative of Malchus. So John uniquely identifies, because he's familiar with the household of the high priest, this man whose ear Peter cut off is Malchus, and now this guy I recognize is a relative of Malchus. We're not sure what that relative means, cousin, brother, whatever, but a relative of Malchus. And so John, who is present, recognizes that. In John's gospel, that last man to speak, and the one who saw Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane just a short time before, that's this guy.

Now, let's talk about crowing roosters. Often we think of roosters crowing in the early dawn hours and with the sun rising. That's our typical thought about roosters. However, I can tell you as an old farm boy, roosters can crow at various times of the night.

So it doesn't necessarily mean that this was dawn. So roosters can crow at various times of the night, and they especially do that If it's at or near a full moon, and that was this time, right? So this doesn't mean that it's dawn. It means that it's sometime during the night. Now we used to have a very special name for roosters who crowed at night. You know what that term was? Chicken soup! Right? Okay, so the rooster crowing in this account does not automatically mean that it's early dawn or sunrise, okay?

When the rooster crows, Peter has denied the Lord now three times, and it's at that point, whenever this rooster crows, that he exits, okay? Whatever time, and probably in the middle of the night sometime is the case here. So here's Luke 22, 61 and 62, and the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Peter remembered the word of the Lord how he had told him and this is this was at the Last Supper Before rooster crows today, you will deny me three times and he went out and wept bitterly So Luke actually is the only one of the Gospels that records that Jesus turned and looked at Peter Can you imagine what that was like at that moment for Peter?

You put yourself in Peter's sandals, right? And just imagine what that would be like. It was, oh. Here the Lord is beginning his sufferings, right? And Peter's trying to avoid suffering. And he does it by denying that he even knows the Lord at those moments. We don't know what facial expression Jesus had. But it's my personal thought that Peter knew that the Lord loved him when he looked at him. Even at that very moment, this man loves me, and I denied knowing him. Only hours before, Jesus had washed Peter's feet. And only hours later, Jesus died for him.

And John was there through this. John had gotten to the house of Annas before Peter. That's clear from John's gospel. And because John was known to the household staff of the high priest, including even knowing the names of, you know, here's Malchus, who had his ear cut off, got Peter in. You have that quote there in the top of your bulletin on the left side. John, who was also likely stationed in the same courtyard with Peter, was most likely witnessing both the trial of Jesus before Annas and Peter's denials, and he also likely witnessed the trial before Caiaphas along with Peter's denials. John witnessing not only what Peter's doing and writing about that, but he's also hearing what's going on in the trial. So he's actually in a better spot to see everything that's happening. Peter's a little bit distracted, I'm sure.

We mentioned last week, this is a picture of Dr. Bryant G. Wood and Dr. Leigh Ann Rittmeyer. They're both of them Bible believers. Bryant Wood spoke in this room 14 years ago. Dr. Rittmeyer is an archeological architect, specialty of his. He has proposed that this palatial mansion, which you have on the map, is the house of Annas, and so that's his identification. If that is the case, and I think there's probably the various places where there's evidence, it would have Peter about here. in the courtyard and John would be similarly in that courtyard there's a window into the large room below 33 feet in one direction and 21 feet in another direction where Jesus is located down below and you can see from up above here in the open courtyard down into that room and that would be where Jesus would turn and look at Peter directly up in the courtyard Here are the remains of the palatial mansion inside the Wohl Archaeological Museum. Dr. Rittmeyer has been responsible for a lot of the reconstruction that's been done in there. That upper courtyard area that you see there is where Peter and John would have been. Dr. Rittmeier's daughter-in-law, Claire, in standing in the exact same spot where Dr. Rittmeier believes that Peter stood when Jesus turned to look at Peter from that lower large room.

The remains of the palatial mansion there are such that you can look at those places and everything seems to fit. It's circumstantial evidence, but the indication is, yep, this is actually the place. The palace, the palatial mansion, sometimes called the Herodian Mansion, is over 10,000 square feet of floor space. It is very large. It's even been suggested that both Annas and Caiaphas lived in this mansion.

And so there wouldn't be a relocation needed even, except to relocate Christ to have individual interrogations. So let's learn from Peter here. Peter's been through a really tough time. Just one of the principles to bring out, God is not surprised by anything. Jesus told him in advance what would happen. Nothing that we do, nothing that happens to us is surprising God. There is nothing that Satan can do that God has not allowed. We have the sin nature, the flesh, constantly to deal with. We have the world around us constantly to deal with.

But Satan isn't everywhere. He's not omniscient. He's not all-powerful. He is opposed to God, but not equal to Him. Satan does not camp out at your doorstep. And so it's important, as we recall these things, to think, yeah, Satan's an evil dude, and he'll pay for it forever. But we need not fear him. We need not fear him, and we need not go around blaming everything we don't like on him either.

Another recognition from this. God may be doing something very different from what we think He's doing. Here's Peter. I'll stop you from being arrested. I'll go and take on 600 soldiers who are all armed. And we've got two swords among us. The twelve of us. Right? Here is Peter. He thinks, I'm going to save the day. No. No, Peter. That's not what's going to happen. Put the sword back in its sheath. Jesus heals Malchus' ear. Now we're doing something very different. And so Peter just stunned, has no idea what's going on.

And we may find ourselves in that place where God's actually doing something very different from what we anticipate. And we need to be open to that. God may be doing something that I don't quite see the surface of right now. Our determination or our promises to do or not do something in the spiritual realm are basically useless or worse.

God is the promise keeper, not me. Not you. God is the one who keeps promises. It's not up to me to make promises to Him. Here's Peter who said, I will defend you to prison and death if need be. And that's when the Lord says, tonight you're going to Deny me three times. Our determination, our promises to do or not do something in the spiritual realm is not what God's looking for.

He's not looking for promise keepers. He's the promise keeper. And that's why the next one, our faith and dependence upon the Lord is the only thing that is spiritually useful and rewardable. I can't do something of my own that is spiritually useful and rewardable. It doesn't matter if it's on the list of good things to do.

Let's learn some more from Peter, because I think there's more to learn from him. The Lord in the last hours of having a human body like ours turned to look at Peter briefly. That was when he was in a human body like ours. And of course, that's all it took for Peter to just get pierced to the heart, realizing that he had carried out this predicted failure. But Peter got it. Peter later understood. It took a few decades, but he got it, right?

And so he wrote this in 1 Peter 2, 24 and 25, and I've taken the New American Standard and done some translation changes here to bring some things out. He himself, that is Christ, bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to these sins, die in relationship to those sins, and live to the righteousness. For by his wounds you were healed. This is out of Isaiah 53, right? For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls."

Christ glanced briefly at Peter in a human body like ours. He's not glancing briefly at you and me. He's not glancing briefly at you and me. One of the points that we've been making, and it is very relevant and important for us to get, is you have God's undivided attention. God is not overwhelmed looking down at His watch and saying, look Vern, you've got two seconds to tell me because otherwise I've got to move on. God is an infinite being and whatever time you want to take to tell Him anything, you have His undivided attention. He has a personal relationship with you forever. Always. including now. He's not glancing at you. Here's Luke 22, 63 through 65. Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking him and beating him. They blindfolded him and were asking him, saying, prophesy, who is the one who hit you?

And they were saying many other things against him, blaspheming. So these were likely Jewish temple guards. The Jews under the Romans had a temple guard that they could use to enforce things having to do with their religious system. And these temple guards mocking and beating Jesus, it was actually only the beginning of abuse and the abuse that the Romans would eventually bring about would be far worse. The Romans actually had two beatings yet to come.

So this was just the start. They may have heard that Jesus was going to die anyway, so it's like, you know, hey, let's just have some fun, right? And because Jesus was going to die because that was the plan, right? No matter how it came about, that was the plan.

Part of the mocking and beating was to put a blindfold. That was, I think, just an example of one of the things they did. and then demand that he prophesy by saying who it was who hit him. Do you think he complied? Nah, this was just mocking. He wasn't saying, hey, I really am the Son of God, you know, and in fact, that's you, and that's you, and then start naming people. He could have done that, couldn't he? And in fact, he could have prevented this whole thing. But he didn't. He was going to subject himself to it.

These men were blaspheming. Of course, they didn't know they were blaspheming. They thought they were dealing with a man who was soon to be crucified as a criminal, so they just treated him accordingly. They didn't realize what they were doing. They didn't realize who he was. They may have even thought that Jesus was a false prophet.

In Deuteronomy 13 and 18, it tells about, here's how to recognize a false prophet, and here's what you do with a false prophet, and it is the death penalty. So they didn't understand a lot of things, but what they didn't understand included that they were abusing the Creator of the universe. They didn't understand that He loved them so much that He was dying for their sins within hours. They didn't understand that He loved them so much that He would pay the price for them, even the sins they were committing at that moment, blaspheming against Him. He loved them that much. Here's Luke 22, 66 through 68.

When it was day, the council of the elders and the people assembled, both chief priests and scribes, and they led him away to their council chamber, saying, If you're the Christ, tell us. But he said to them, If I tell you, you will not believe. And if I ask a question, you will not answer. So here they have the council assembled.

Dr. Luke doesn't give any account of the interrogation before Annas and Caiaphas, although he mentions their name early, both their names, early in Luke chapter 3. The other Gospels give those accounts. Luke decided to pass on that detail. Keeps the denials of Peter all in one account, different from the other Gospels. This is kind of an editing decision that Dr. Luke made.

The council, also known as the Sanhedrin, are assembled for final interrogation and ruling on Jesus following the interrogation by Annas and Caiaphas. Basically what they were doing through the middle of the night was saying, okay, what can we get this guy on, right? And so they were fishing for something that they could turn him over to the Romans for. It's all a sham, of course, because no matter what happens, they all know the decision is going to be death, right? They're going to vote for death, but they're going to have to turn it over to the Romans because they're afraid of the people. Because Jesus, oh, the Romans have to pull this off. Jesus is too popular with the people, and we don't want to mess with that.

So Caiaphas had earlier asked, and that's recorded in Matthew, if Jesus was the Christ, that is the Messiah in the Hebrew, anglicized Hebrew term, the Anointed One, both of those mean the Anointed One, and at the same time the Son of God. Here in Dr. Luke's account, they ask those questions separately. Are you the Messiah and are you the Son of God? Now, the Pharisees are going to assume that the claim of Christ to be the Messiah is a false one.

And why? Because the Pharisees thought when the Messiah comes, he's just going to love us. We're just the best of the best. Right? So since Jesus doesn't love us and sits there and condemns us and woe Pharisees and all that, well, he must not be the Messiah. The chief priests, however, are all Sadducees. They don't even believe in a Messiah or a resurrection. But this question is asked assuming that it's true because they want Jesus to say that He's the Messiah. You are the Messiah, right?

That's the way the question was asked of Jesus. So here is expanded and explained for Luke 22, 67. CD is the last half of that verse, and 68. But He said to them, that is Jesus, if I tell you, and I may or may not, there's not the slightest chance that you will believe. That's the full expansion of what he said. And if I ask a question, and I may or may not, there is not the slightest chance that you will answer. It doesn't matter what I say, because you guys won't believe, you guys won't answer truthfully, you guys are here to put me to death. That's it.

Luke 22, 69, but from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God. This is a reference to Psalm 110, verse 1, which by the way is the most commonly quoted or referenced verse out of the Old Testament in all of the New Testament. Psalm 110, verse 1, the Lord, and that's using God's personal name, says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

So this is Psalm 10.1, and Jesus is making a reference to it, not a quote of it. When we went through the book of Hebrews, we found almost a half dozen places where this particular psalm was either quoted or referenced. And we mentioned in our elective this morning that the right hand is where Christ is seated, that right hand of the Father. So Jesus says, from now on, Jesus tells them about Him being seated at the right hand of the Father, and that's going to be true when He ascends, which, as we've been pointing out, will be on May 14th, 33 AD, that day, from the Mount of Olives. And as we'll see in Luke, it's actually from the backside of the Mount of Olives, just over away from where the Temple Mount is.

But what won't be revealed for another 28 years Isn't that amazing? Another 28 years is that you and I and every one of those trembling disciples are seated with Him there in the heavenlies. What's really amazing, we're going to be going through the book of Acts starting next year, and what's really astounding is to realize how many times the disciples were having aha moments, moments of discovery and realization. Even when the Apostle Paul wrote the book of Romans in the middle 50s AD, when he wrote the book of Romans, he did not reveal and didn't seem to have revealed to himself that we're seated with Christ in the heavenlies. That was a later revelation shown in Ephesians at the end of and just after the time of the book of Acts. So isn't that amazing? Peter has no idea how marvelous a thing is about to happen that he tried to prevent, right?

That he tried to prevent. here's a loop 2270 and they all said are you the son of God then and he said to them yes I am so some have doubted that the leaders of the Jews were asking if Jesus was divine First of all, even the Pharisees who believed in a Messiah did not believe that the Messiah was divine or deity.

They thought that the Messiah, when he comes, is a descendant of David, but not divine and not deity. Jesus, however, claimed to be both the Messiah and deity. And so I think what these Jews were doing is not based on their own belief. I think what they wanted to do is to get Jesus to say out loud what he had been telling people, that he is deity.

And he answered in the affirmative. The response in the next verse, and we see also in passages like Matthew 26 and John chapter 10, says that they were asking if he claimed deity. Do you claim to be the Messiah? Yes. Do you claim deity? Yes. Jesus' response was literally, you are saying that I am and the way he says I am is the same way that he says I am the bread of life, I am the good shepherd. It is a claim to deity. I am the way, the truth and the life. It says I being in fact God. and the way, the truth, and the life. So the Jews, as we see, did take that as a yes answer. Did you hear that? I'll take that as a yes. Well, they did. He was indeed claiming deity, and then that, to them, said, ah, that's blasphemy, because of course you're not God.

Here's Luke 22.71, and they said, what further need do we have of testimony? For we have heard it ourselves from his own mouth." Jesus said, if I say something, you won't believe it. Jesus said, and if I ask a question, you won't answer it.

But what you guys want me to do is to claim to be the Messiah and to claim deity. So here you go. So here you go. You're going to get exactly what you want. Among the Jews living under the Law of Moses, committing blasphemy calls for stoning the person to death, and of course the Jews are limited in their ability to do that.

They do it in rare instances, as they did with Stephen, but they try to do it in such a way the Romans aren't watching, because they're not supposed to carry out death penalty and circumvent the Romans. Since these Jews knew, that Jesus was not the long-promised Messiah nor was he deity, this called for the death penalty. They could all vote for the death penalty and then to turn this over to the Romans. So now the only thing is to take Jesus before Pontius Pilate and have Pontius Pilate sentence Christ to crucifixion within a couple hours. That's exactly what they're going to do.

Now let's ask this question. Could Christ have just not answered Could he have just been silent? I'm not going to give you guys what you want. He actually could have done that, at least hypothetically. That's not what he did. They'd have to come up with something else. And of course, the way they were doing things, they would even invent something if they had to. They tried really, really hard to come up with something.

But finally, Jesus just gave it to them. Yes, I am the Messiah and I am deity. Christ gave them what they want by telling them the truth. Now, so Christ was there soon to be crucified on that cross. Why would he go through that? There's actually multiple reasons why he went up to the cross.

One of those is to pay the bride price for you and me. We in the body of Christ are the bride of Christ. That starts Actually in John chapter 14 I go to prepare a place for you to take you into myself that where I am you may be also Those were words of a groom to a bride Just after they became betrothed So here's Ephesians 1 3 & 4 blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ and just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. The Jewish father would select a bride for his son, and the intent was that this bride would be holy and blameless before his son.

And so here When did that happen with us? That happened before God said, let there be light, before the foundation of the world. He chose you and me. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. Why in Him? Because that's the only way we're choosable. It's the only way we're choosable. It wasn't because, oh man, Vern's so good. No. It's in Him we're choosable.

And here's Ephesians 5, which interestingly ends with the same set of words. Ephesians 5, 25 and 27. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. So the Father chose the bride and also established this is what you are to pay as the bride price.

You know what the bride price was for you and for me? Christ paid that price on the cross. He paid the bride price on the cross. That was the price that the Father set to purchase you and me. Just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. Same words. The Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. He established the price of the bride, Christ's death on the cross. And for the joy set before Him, He paid the bride price with the intent that we'd be holy and blameless before Him.

Isn't that a great thing? It is just one of the many ways of expressing that He loves us so very, very much. And He's looking with joy as He goes to the cross. He's looking with joy to what's beyond. Fellowship and relationship forever with you and with me. Let's pray.

Lord, as we look at this passage, we see Peter just went through a horrible time. But a great deal of that is because he just didn't understand. Thank you that you work with Peter. You worked with Peter for him to indeed come to understand. And we pray that you'd work with us, that we would come to understand. But for what we don't understand, that we would trust you. And we bring these things before you in Jesus' name. Amen.