Our study of Matthew brings us to Matthew chapter 26 and verses 57 to 68. So turn there in your Bibles, Matthew 26, 57 to 68. Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered. And Peter was following him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the high priest. And going inside, he sat with the guards to see the end. Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death. But they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last, two came forward and said, This man said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days. And the high priest stood up and said, Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you? But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God. Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said to him, you have said so, but I tell you from now on, you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest tore his robes and said, he has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment? They answered, he deserves death. And they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, saying, prophesy to us, you Christ, who is it that struck you? The word of the Lord. To blaspheme, in the most general sense of the meaning of that word, is to revile or to abuse with words or to speak with irreverence. And blasphemy then is slanderous or abusive speech or reviling judgment. And we find both those words used in the Greek New Testament of our text and both are found in verse 65. To blaspheme, the verbal form is found in verse 65 when the high priest tears his robes and says, He has uttered blasphemy. It's one word in Greek. It's he has blasphemed. That's a cognate. The Greek word is blasphemia. It sounds like the same English word that we used. It's presented here for linguists in the aorist active indicative third person singular. It's a charge. He blasphemed. He reviled. He uttered a rash or abusive word. And then he uses the noun form, blasphemion. You have heard his blasphemy. Now, in the general sense of that word, to blaspheme that verb, anyone can be blasphemed, but in the New Testament, those Greek words are used exclusively of words spoken about or against God. In the New Testament, it's God alone who is blaspheming, though again, these words can be used, and other Greek literature are used, of reviling or abusive speech between people and amongst themselves. But effectively here, the high priest is accusing Jesus of reviling or abusing God by his words. He's charging Jesus with the most heinous and the grossest kind of disrespect. And the charge comes as a result of what Jesus said. He has maintained silence through most of this Inquisition. But when he is asked, are you the Christ, the Son of God? Jesus answered and said, you have said so. He's basically saying, yes, and then he goes on, I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Now if that weren't true, If what Jesus says there was a false statement, he would indeed be a blasphemer, claiming divinity, and he would indeed be deserving of a judgment of death. But before any judgment could be rendered, there would need to be a careful investigation to discover the truth. He's accused of blasphemy, of reviling God, but what we read in this text is a reviling of God, not by Jesus, but by Caiaphas, the high priest, and the whole ruling council. There's no concern for justice in this text. There's no real investigation. Instead, there is a rush to reach a predetermined outcome. We can find in scripture the beginning of the plot against Jesus' life all the way back to the time a little earlier when Jesus had called Lazarus out of a grave. It had caused quite a stir. We don't find that recorded in Matthew's gospel, but we do find it recorded by John. And it's really fascinating to turn to John chapter 11. And this again is after the resurrection. If you've turned in your Bibles to John 11, go to verse 45. Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him. The resurrection caused a stir. It brought more attention to Jesus. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council. This is the same council that we're reading is meeting at the home of Caiaphas on the night of Jesus' betrayal. They gathered the council and said, what are we to do? For this man performs many signs. Now notice the nature of their questioning. They're not asking, who is this? He raised a dead man? Could he be the Messiah? That's not the question. The question they're asking is, what are we going to do? He's doing all these signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him. And the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. You hear their concern. Their concern is not to find out the truth of Jesus. Their concern is to maintain their position and their power. And perhaps their thought is that Jesus may be some sort of revolutionary figure or character who's going to lead an upsurising to convince the crowd by great signs and miracles that they can defeat the Romans and then the Romans will come in and wipe out the Jews. But the concern is not to know the truth of Jesus, it's to preserve themselves and their position. Now here's the really interesting thing in John's Gospel. Now again, this is before, not too long before, but before the week of Passover, one of them, Caiaphas, you just heard his name, he's the high priest. Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year, said to them, you know nothing at all, nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish. Now notice John's commentary. He did not say this of his own accord, but being the high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. It's a prophetic statement that Caiaphas makes, and he's not even aware of the significance of what he says. But verse 53, so from that day on, they made plans to put him to death. They were already plotting for this, a predetermined outcome, not an investigation, not a just trial, but a predetermined outcome. And in fact, even before Jesus' triumphal entry, if you skip ahead to chapter 12 there in John's gospel, we read that when the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, He had come to Bethany, he was there near Jerusalem. They came not only on account of him, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. The word was spreading. Jesus' fame was growing. And so the chief priest made plans to put Lazarus to death as well. This is a murderous plot. And then we enter into the week of Passover. We've already read early on. In Matthew chapter 26, after Jesus had taught in the temple of the plot taking shape, verses 3 to 5 in this chapter we're in, Matthew 26, the chief priest, elders of the people gathered into the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. But they said, not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people. Now that timeline changes, and it's during the feast still that Jesus is betrayed and arrested and now in the courtyard of Caiaphas, but that changed because of the treachery of Judas. Again, in chapter 26, verses 14 to 16, then one of the 12, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, what will you give me if I deliver him over to you? And they paid him 30 pieces of silver. From that moment on, he sought an opportunity to betray him. So the point I'm making here is that there is no real trial that is a search for truth. There is no real investigation when Jesus makes his claim that he is the son of God and that he will come on the clouds of heaven. There is only a rush to judgment. And that's blasphemy. Jesus is charged with blasphemy. The religious leaders charging Him, entrusted with the law of God, entrusted to judge righteously, are themselves blaspheming, reviling, abusing God in their misuse of His law. Now we hear that, first of all, in our text with their seeking false testimony. They need something, a charge that will stick. And in fact, we will find that they need a charge that will not only satisfy their rage against Jesus, they need a charge that will satisfy Roman legal requirements so that Jesus can be put to death. There was a certain measure of authority given to the Jewish ruling council to make judgments and decisions regarding religious matters, but they were not given by Rome the authority to execute capital judgments. They couldn't put anyone to death without causing a stir. And so we read that those who had seized Jesus there in the garden led him to Caiaphas the high priest, the third text in which we've heard his name. And there the scribes and elders had gathered and Peter was following him at a distance. We'll hear more of Peter next week as we continue in our text. as far as the courtyard of the high priest. And going inside, he sat with the guards to see the end. Now, the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony about Jesus, that they might put him to death. But they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. Now, if you compare this with Mark's gospel account, it's interesting. The point is made, there were many false witnesses, but they couldn't get their story straight. They couldn't get corroboration with two false witnesses telling the same story. And those who do investigatory work now in police know that's the first thing you do when there's a crime committed and there are several potential perpetrators. You separate them, right? You separate them so that you can get the story from each of them. They don't have the chance to get their story together. Well, here come these false witnesses. There are many false witnesses, but they don't agree. And so they're not satisfying this requirement that there be two. who can come with a charge. But the point is, they're intentionally seeking false witness. I want to mention that in John's outline of the events of this night, he actually presents a stage in this judicial process that's informal, that Matthew doesn't include, Mark doesn't include, but it seems that upon arrest, The Lord Jesus was taken by this armed guard first to Annas who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas And that's recorded in John chapter 18 verse 13 now Annas had been the high priest And he had been removed by the Roman authority so that Caiaphas became high priest in his stead. But Annas was still viewed by many Jews as the rightful high priest. And so there's this informal stage of going to Annas and perhaps there is some scheming that's happening there, some procedural organization that's being put together. Meetings before meetings happen all the time in political settings, but also in church settings. Meetings to set up. Meetings happen. But it's after this meeting with Annas that then he is led to Caiaphas' home. And perhaps that first meeting was to arrange for the witnesses to appear. These false witnesses. And I'll say again, that's blasphemy. Because the ninth commandment says explicitly, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. And here the judicial authorities are seeking, intentionally seeking false witness. It was their job, we heard from Deuteronomy chapter 19, to require two witnesses, but also, also to ferret out malicious witnesses. and to bring upon false witnesses the judgment they sought for those they accused. And here we're told that there were many witnesses, but none were found who could agree. You see, if this were a true investigation, the shift, the focus would have turned very quickly from Jesus to those who had come with their false testimony. But this is not a trial. This is blasphemy against God, a misuse of the provisions of his law. The Lord Jesus here is the one who is being reviled. Psalm 27 has the anguished cry of David in which we hear the Lord Jesus anguish. Give me not up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me and they breathe out violence. But then finally there was some agreement by some of those who had come. At last two came forward and said, This man said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days. That rings familiar, doesn't it? But it's not what Jesus said. It's more blasphemy. It's a distorting of what Jesus said. In John chapter 2, there was another occasion there in Jerusalem. where the Jews were upset with the Lord Jesus. He had cleansed the temple at an earlier time recorded by John. And the Jews said to him, what sign do you show us for doing these things? And Jesus answered them, destroy this temple. Notice what he didn't say. I will destroy this temple. No, he said, destroy this temple. In three days, I will raise it up. The Jews then said, it has taken 46 years to build this temple, and will you raise it in three days? But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When, therefore, he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had spoken this, and they believed the scriptures and the words that Jesus had spoken. He never made any claim that he was going to destroy the temple, but he was the living temple. the presence of God on the earth. But these malicious witnesses distort his words. It's blasphemous to seek false witness. It is blasphemous for a witness to twist words, to misrepresent words. And so there is blasphemy, but it's not Jesus. And then there's another matter of blasphemy here. It would be assigned to the high priest. Jesus remained silent. when those two witnesses agreed to something that he had not said. And so that's when the high priest stood up and said, have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you? Jesus remained silent and the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God. Tell us if you were the Christ. The son of God. He's calling for an oath. He's calling for an oath made in the name of God. But this is the high priest who has no interest in knowing the truth from God. He's calling for a vain or a false oath. And this is, again, to accomplish a predetermined outcome with no real investigation. This is again violation of the law of God and the second commandment. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain for He will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. It was for this kind of distortion of truth, it was for this misuse of the name of God and miscarriage of justice that God had removed His people from Jerusalem and brought about the destruction of the temple. In the post-exilic prophet Zechariah, Zechariah ministering to those who have returned from exile to rebuild Jerusalem, the walls and the temple The Lord gives this word to urge these people not to go back to their faithless ways that led to his judgment. He said, as I purposed to bring disaster to you when your fathers provoked me to wrath and I did not relent, says the Lord of hosts, so again have I purposed in these days to bring good to Jerusalem, to the house of Judah. Fear not. And he begins to tell them how they're to live if they want to know his blessing in Jerusalem. He says, these things you shall do. Speak the truth to one another. Render in your gates judgments that are true, and make for peace. Do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath. For all these things I hate, declares the Lord. You see Caiaphas is doing something here that God hates. He's reviling the Lord in this call for an oath when he's already decided the outcome. He's appealing to Christ, adjuring him by the living God, but he's blaspheming that God. James 512 in the New Testament reminds us that we're not to swear either by heaven or earth or any other oath, but we're to let our yes be yes and our no be no, that we will not fall under condemnation. Caiaphas here is seeking condemnation. Is it obvious that all of this is blasphemous? Every bit of it's blasphemous. This kangaroo court that is being held, there's no regard for truth. There's only a determination to reach a predetermined judgment. There's no regard for process. In fact, Bible scholars point to a series of violations of missionaic law that would have probably been the custom in Jesus' day. The Sanhedrin was not supposed to meet at night. And here they are meeting even to the wee hours of the morning. They're intentionally seeking false witness in violation of the commands of God. Capital cases were not to be deliberated by the ruling council in the midst of the Sabbath or in a festal time. This is Passover, one of the high feasts of Israel. And a verdict of death could not be declared on the same day as the trial. They're violating every bit of tradition and law from God that they had received. And so all of this is blasphemous. And yet we come to the ultimate blasphemy. Because Jesus answers the question now. Are you the Christ, the Son of God? You have said so. That is true. And Jesus goes on to say, I tell you from now on, you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. That's a profound statement of authority. That's a profound declaration of deity. But the high priest immediately tore his robes in a pretense of grief. He's actually probably thrilled now. He thinks he's got a charge. He says he has uttered blasphemy. He has blasphemed. He has reviled God. What further witnesses do we need? You have heard his blasphemy. You have heard his irreverent speech reviling God. What is your judgment? And the answer came forth quickly. He deserves death. The answer had been determined after the resurrection of Lazarus. And then the abuse began. They spit in his face and struck him. They reviled him, slapping him and saying, prophesy to us, you Christ, who is it that struck you? The blasphemy here is really what we saw in Matthew chapter 12 called the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The unforgivable sin of assigning to the evil one the powerful work of God. You see, there's no question regarding whether or not Jesus may be telling the truth, whether He could be telling the truth. There was no review of the evidence. And in fact, the Lord Jesus, in His Word and works, had repeatedly given the clear evidence, which you have believed if you're in Christ, which I have believed, that He is, in fact, the Son of God. At an earlier feast, This is recorded in John's Gospel in John chapter 10, the Feast of Dedication. Jesus had made just this point to those who refused to believe what they were seeing and what they were hearing. I'll read beginning at verse 22 of John 10. At that time, the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, how long will you keep us in suspense? If you're the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. Let's stop and think now. What works had Jesus done? He healed the sick. He fed multitudes. He cast out demons. He raised the dead. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand. I and the father are one. The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of them are you going to stone me? Jews answered him, it is not for a good work that we're going to stone you, but for blasphemy. Because you, being a man, make yourself God. Now if he were not God, he would deserve to die. They would be right. But Jesus answered them, it is not written in your law. I said, you are gods. If he called them gods to whom the word of God came and scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him who the father consecrated and sent into the world, you are blaspheming? Because I said, I am the son of God. If I'm not doing the works of my father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and understand that the father is in me and I am in the father. At that time, they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands. You see, his words and his works had borne witness and clear testimony to his divinity. And so the Lord Jesus hears this question, are you the Christ, the Son of the living God? He answers with prophetic confidence. He knows who He is. He knows His authority. He knows that He will come with the clouds of heaven, seated at the right hand of power. It's the promise His Father had made to Him long before. In Psalm 110, the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament, The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord is at your right hand. He will shatter kings on the day of His wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses. He will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. He will drink from the brook by the way. Therefore, He will lift up His head. Jesus is declaring that triumph here to Caiaphas in the ruling council. He speaks with the prophetic confidence of what we read in Isaiah 50 verses 6 and 7. I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. That's what happens here. But the Lord God helps me. Therefore I have not been disgraced. Therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. That's the confidence the Lord Jesus had as he faced these false witnesses, as he heard this charge of blasphemy by blasphemers who refused to believe him, who closed their eyes to his works, who closed their ears to his word. But what he's promising in his statement is there is this coming day when they would see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. It's what we hear. In Revelation chapter one. The message given to John. The message that comes from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of kings of the earth. This is Revelation 1 verses 4 to 7. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom priest to his God and father. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds. And every eye will see Him, even those who pierce Him, and all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him." This is the promise of the coming day of resurrection. Are you Sunday school class today? We were in the Westminster Shorter Catechism, question number 38. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection? And the answer is beautiful. At the resurrection, believers being raised up in glory will be made perfect in holiness, will be made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity. That's the day of his return that he's promising But it's not just a day of glory For those who have believed the good news for those who have reviled him who have refused him who have blasphemed him It will be a day of wrath It will be the beginning of eternal torment body and soul Because that's what blasphemy deserves and reviling God, rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ, dishonoring Him with irreverent speech. It brings the judgment of death. That is blasphemy. The irony is that Jesus is being called blasphemous by blasphemers. But the day is coming when every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him. The day is coming when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. And every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father. But the bowing of those knees, the confessing of those tongues will be found in two camps. in the camp of those who have believed on His name and received His truth with faith. They bow their knees and confess with their tongues to eternal delight and glory. But those who have refused Him, who have blasphemed Him, they bow their knees and confess with their tongues to their eternal torment. And the question to be considered by each of us this morning is whether or not we are blasphemers of God this day. I proclaim to you the good news of a Savior who has come from heaven. to redeem sinners by His blood and righteousness, who comes as the sinless Son of God, likened to a spotless Lamb in Scripture, so that He, without sin, can suffer death and the pains of hell, the wrath of His Father for the sin that you and I all bear. And in bearing that sin in judgment, He removes from those who come to Him in faith guilt and shame, as far as the east is distant from the west. But He doesn't just take away our guilt and shame. He doesn't just bear away the wrath of the Father. Because we owe God perfect obedience. He offers in our behalf the record of His obedience to His Father. And it is accounted to all who come to Him in faith. And so on proclaiming this Gospel, I declare to you that it is to blaspheme Him, to revile Him, to refuse this message of the Gospel. And so ask, are you a blasphemer? Have you refused to confess Christ before men? from your heart to cry out to Him for forgiveness and righteousness and life, and to confess Him before a watching world. If He is convicting you this morning that you must own Him as your Savior and your Lord, that for your sin you must come to Him and confess Him publicly, then hear and heed that call. That's the power of God at work when He brings conviction for sin and draws us irresistibly to Christ. But we actually can make empty professions, can't we? And we can revile or blaspheme Christ through viewing Him through the eyes of a bare formality of religion. That's what the high priest is doing. He puts up every pretense of honoring the Lord, of being concerned for what is right. But his concern is only for himself and his own ideas of righteousness. And so let me ask, are you blasphemous? Because your engagement with the Lord is not the engagement of your heart in grieving your sin and crying out to Him. But you have been satisfied simply to go through motions of formality. To offer a kind of perfunctory obedience to the Lord. Hear this call to repent of that sin of blasphemy. That is to revile the Lord, to proclaim His name and yet to have no part in Him, in the affection of your heart, in the desire to be set free from the guilt of your sin, from its bondage and its wage which is death. Turn from bare formality and the blasphemy of reviling Him, lifting up His name to emptiness, to confess Him as Savior. But then finally, I also think of how All of us at times will revile His name. When we hear and believe this truth, and yet in moment or season of weakness begin to cherish sin more than we cherish Him, patterns of life, behaviors, attitudes of the mind, withholding the worship that is His due, avoiding time with Him, neglecting His Word which is the fountain of life from which He nourishes our souls. Isn't a kind of reviling of Him when we who know Him and love Him, who have tasted and seen that He is good, determined that at least for a while we prefer to taste something else instead of Him, something we know that He would not have us take up. If that's the case for you now, if you even now are under the weight of conviction because you have given yourself over to a pattern of sin, even to enslavement or addiction to some behavior, some habit, some substance, If you've given yourself over to a relationship that is impure, if you have given yourself over to negligence in intimately seeking the Lord in His Word, in prayer, in faithful worship, then hear this call to turn from such blasphemy. To cry out to the One who has redeemed you. and to plead with Him as David pled with the Lord after his great sin with Bathsheba, that He would restore you to the joy of salvation, renewing in you a right heart, bringing you back into communion with Him. Because when we grieve our sin, however great it may seem in our minds, However offensive before the Lord and even other people, when we grieve our sin and turn from it to the Lord Jesus, we can be sure of his embrace. We can be sure of his forgiveness. Indeed, the grief we feel itself is a mark of the love of God through the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. May this be a day in which I, in which we, turned from blasphemous attitudes of mind, blasphemous speech, blasphemous behaviors, to embrace afresh the Savior who bore not only these accusations unjustly, but who on behalf of sinners, whom He has loved for eternity, has borne the wrath of God, even the pains of hell, that we may have life and eternal. If the Lord is addressing you even in a painful way this morning, don't leave here, I say it every Lord's Day almost, don't leave here without speaking to me or one of our elders because we would love to pray with you, to encourage you, to share with you more of the good news of restoring grace that comes in the power of the gospel. Let us pray.