Was Jesus Actually Born Yesterday?

I had planned to see The Passion a couple weeks ago but something came up. I know, I promised. It closes in our neighborhood movie house Tuesday night, so I WILL be going tonight. My business partner saw it last weekend and had some bad things to say (but he's a jerk anyway). I just forwarded yours to him. I will send you his answers that will probably be idiotic, but they might give you a good laugh.

Nice post.

My friend didn’t like most of what you said (surprise surprise) but his main bone of contention is the people who sentenced Jesus to death had every right to because he was blaspheming when he said he would destroy the temple and then rebuild it in 3 days---and blasphemy was a reason for crucifiction. Is he all wet?

Art,

Your friend is right when he says that speaking against the temple was considered a capital offense (see Jeremiah 26:1-19), and therefore grounds for crucifixion. But when Christ previously, prophetically, told His followers that He would destroy the temple, and then rebuild it in three days, He was not referring to the Temple of Jerusalem. He was referring to His own body (the body is often referred to as a temple in scripture, and in many of Christ’s own teachings). John 2:21 reads, ‘But the temple He has spoken of was His body’ (and the three days to which He referred was the amount of time between His death and resurrection ... thus the allusion to ‘rebuilding in three days’).

But Christ did actually commit another capital offense -- a form of blasphemy (at least according to the Sanhedrin’s broad definition), in his answer to a question that was posed by Caiaphas during the actual ‘trial’ itself -- and, in doing so, He sealed His own death. During the trial, when Caiaphas asked Him, ‘Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?’ (Mark 14:61), Christ responded, ‘I am ...’ (Mark 14:62).

It was in that statement alone that Jesus condemned Himself to crucifixion. Up until that point in His brutal interrogation, He had been asked to respond to countless half-truths, and untruths, regarding His ministry. And He had also been accused of all manner of manufactured crimes, none of which would have been punishable by crucifixion. He remained consistently silent before all of those accusations (as it was prophesied in Isaiah that He would ... as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth). But He could not remain silent when asked, ‘Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?’ because silence, in this case, would have been taken as a denial of His divine birthright and His divine commission.

What all of His accusers failed to do with their false accusations, Christ Himself did in His answer to that one question. His claim to be the Son of God was considered blasphemous in that (what the high priests viewed as) a mere man would equate Himself in any way with God. So, by answering that single question, Christ willingly sealed His fate, and His death, as also prophesied so many centuries earlier by Isaiah.

If your friend would be willing to register here, I would be willing to continue to discuss this with him via private reply. He does not appear to understand the different forces that were at work in this trial, and the aftermath – all of which (both the self-interested, corrupt, power-based, dishonest ones, and the passive, providential ones) worked together to lead to the inevitable Passion ... and the Resurrection.

~ joanie

Thank you, Joanie. Very interesting. I will forward all of this to him but don't count on him wanting to talk to you about this. He's the kind who doesn't ever like to admit he knows less than somebody else on any topic. But you'll probably educate him with this even though he'll never admit it. :-)