Luke 22:66-71 66 And as the day came, the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribes, and they led him away to their council, 67“saying, “If you are the Christ, tell us.” But he said to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe; 68and if I ask you, you will not answer. 69But from now on the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power of God.’” 70And they all said, “Then are you ‘the Son of God?” And he said to them, “You say that I am.” 71Then they said, “What further testimony do we need? For we have heard it ourselves from his own mouth.”
Luke’s version of Jesus’ trial before the Jewish leaders is shorter than Matthew’s and Mark’s. Luke’s focus is more on who Jesus is. He gets right to the point in the trial of Christology. The next major event in Jesus’ suffering and journey to the cross took place at dawn. Jesus had been up all night, beginning with the tearful prayer to his heavenly Father, followed by the march to the high priest’s house, being interrogated by the high priest, and finally being beaten by the guards. It took some time to gather all the Jewish leaders who were part of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of Jews. Luke’s summary is brief about the gathering. This council was made up of elders, chief priests, and scribes. Many of these people heard Jesus teaching in the temple and had grown to oppose him. Some of them were part of the conspiracy to get rid of him. The Sanhedrin had the highest authority among the Jews. The Romans gave the council full control of all internal matters. To gather all these leaders the morning after the Passover was a big deal, and the members were likely not elated at the early morning arousal.
Luke gets right to their accusation and the heart of the issue in verse 67. He leaves out the testimony of false witness and questions about destroying the temple and raising it again in three days. The Jews wanted to hear from Jesus’ lips if he was the Messiah. That was the most critical issue at stake. If Jesus were the Messiah, then they were all in trouble with God himself. If Jesus was not the Messiah, then the council needed to get rid of him so that they could maintain peace with the Romans. Their question is in the form of a conditional statement beginning with if.
Jesus’ responds in two ways. The first is by giving his own conditional statement beginning with if in the same form as the Jews’ accusation. The leaders had already made up their mind, so no matter what Jesus said, they already had the verdict. They were bent on destroying him, but to satisfy their own laws and procedures, they needed a trial. Two issues were at stake. One is the truth, which they would not accept even with it clearly before them with evidence they had witnessed themselves. The other is their lack of faith in Jesus. Their hearts were hardened to God’s revelation though Jesus.
Jesus’ second response uses his veiled self description of Son of Man. Jesus was about to be exalted to the highest place of honor a the right hand of God’s throne in fulfillment of Psalm 110. Jesus’ exaltation to this position became one of the key early Christian claims as indicated by the nine times this Psalm is quoted in the New Testament and other references to Jesus’ exaltation. The unstated question is if the Jews made the connection between Jesus, the title Son of Man, and the longed-for Messiah. Their response in verse 70 in the form of a question implies that they made some connection but still would not believe. Instead of Jesus being condemned, the Jews turn the trial upon themselves for their failure to acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God. They knew their Old Testament Scripture and knew the connection between these descriptions. Jesus puts the responsibility back on them with his response that they knew and said the truth.
Verse 71 indicates further that they had made up their minds already and just needed something to justify what they had planned to do. Jesus had not clearly answered their question but had turned their words around on them and showed that they had spoken the truth. They interpreted this to be a form of self-condemnation. They would have interpreted Jesus’ response to claiming to be the Son of God as blasphemy because he would thus be claiming to be divine. Their monotheistic beliefs would not allow this interpretation although the Old Testament predicted the Messiah to be a divine messenger. What part of the trial that actually led to Jesus’ condemnation is not clear. It seems that the Jewish leaders were looking for any excuse to get rid of Jesus. Two obvious outcomes of the trial were 1) they did not believe and 2) Jesus’ identity shines forth.
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