The Illegal Trial of Jesus and The Verdict of History

A presentation by Dr. Peter Hammond

The betrayal, arrest, trial and execution of Jesus of Nazareth was unique.
It was not His actions that were in question, but His identity.
Unique Identity

The charge laid against Christ by the Jewish Sanhedrin was blasphemy.
The testimony on which He was convicted was concerned with His
identity as the Messiah.

The interrogation by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, and the
inscription and proclamation placed on His Cross at the execution, dealt
with the identity of Christ as the Messiah, the Son of God, the King of
kings and Lord of lords.

The trial of Jesus of
Nazareth was
completely illegal.
At every point it broke
the laws of Israel
as well as the laws
of Rome.
It was illegal to conduct a
trial at night.
The Illegal Trial

It was also
against the law to
conduct a summary trial
without any warning,
or opportunity,
for the accused
to prepare a defense
or seek positive
character witnesses.

At any trial the accused was to be granted an opportunity to prepare a
defense and heralds were to be sent out into the area requiring anyone
who knew anything positive about the accused to come forward and
testify.

There was no opportunity granted for appeal. There was no delay
between the arrest and trial, between the trial and verdict, between the
verdict and sentencing, and between the sentencing and execution.

Within less than a 24 hour period, Jesus was arrested, tried,
condemned, sentenced to death and executed.
This blatantly violated all due process of law.

It was obvious that there was a conspiracy against the
accused. In the event of there being evidence of a conspiracy
the judges were obligated to release the accused.
Conspiracy and False Witnesses

In addition, the testimony of false witnesses, brought forward by the
accusers, contradicted one another.

The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, acquitted Christ three times:
"I find no fault in Him at all." John 18:38
Condemning the Innocent

“You have brought this Man to me as one who misleads the people. And
indeed, having examined Him in your presence, I have found no fault in
this Man concerning those things of which you accuse Him.

No, neither did Herod, for I sent you back to him and indeed nothing
deserving of death has been done by Him." Luke 23:14-15

"But they shouted saying, 'Crucify Him, crucify Him!' Then he said to
them the third time, 'Why, what evil has He done? I have found no
reason for death in Him.
Trial by Mob

I will therefore chastise Him and let Him go.'
But they were insistent, demanding with loud voices
that He be crucified."
Luke 23:21-23

The Lord Jesus Christ had also
evidently been severely beaten by
His captors (Luke 22:63-64).
Beaten Before
Being Tried

In the event of a prisoner
having being mistreated in this way,
the judge should have been obligated
to release the accused.

How could any judge allow someone to be executed
whom he had three times declared innocent?
Miscarriage of Justice

And what a meaningless gesture for the governor and
magistrate to wash his hands claiming that he was
innocent of the blood of a person who was clearly
the victim of a conspiracy and who, as a magistrate,
he should have protected from the mob.

"When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a
tumult was rising, he took water and washed his hands before the
multitude saying, 'I am innocent of the blood of this just person.
Cowardice and Compromise

You see to it.' And all the people answered and said, 'His blood be on us
and on our children.'" Matthew 27:24-25

The trial of Jesus was a travesty of justice. It is a terrifying thing to be
judged by the mob. Can you imagine being judged by your worst
enemies?
A Travesty of Justice

However, today, let us call forward some character witnesses to testify
of Jesus.
Character Witnesses

Of course, we could call forth millions of Christians throughout the ages
who would eagerly testify to the incomparable goodness and greatness
of our Lord and Saviour.

However, we will call forward only skeptics and many of them enemies
of Christ.

Thomas Paine,
who was an outspoken
opponent of Christianity,
still admitted in writing:
"Jesus Christ
was a virtuous and
amiable man.
Hostile
Witnesses
for Jesus

For the morality that He preached and practiced was of the most
benevolent kind;

and while those similar systems of morality had been preached by
Confucius, and by some of the Greek philosophers, many years before;

by the Quakers since,
and by many good men
of all ages,
it has not been exceeded
by any."

The first century Jewish historian,
Josephus Ben Mattathias,
the author of The Antiquities of the
Jews, wrote:
"Now there was about this time
Jesus, a wise man,
if it be lawful to call Him a man,
for He was a doer of wonderful
works, a Teacher of such men as
receive the truth with pleasure.
The Christ

He drew over to Him both
many of the Jews and many of
the Gentiles. He was the
Christ and when Pilate at the
suggestion of the principal
men among us,

had condemned
Him to the Cross,
those who loved
Him at the first, did
not forsake Him;

for He appeared to them alive again
the third day,
as the divine prophets had foretold
these and ten thousand wonderful
things concerning Him.
And the tribe of Christians,
so named from Him,
are not extinct to this day."
(Antiquities XVIII, 33)

William H. Lecky was one of the
leading historians
of the 19th century
and the author of
The History of
the Rise and Influence
of the Spirit of Rationalism
in Europe.
The
Greatest
Example
and Inspiration

Lecky spent his life
advancing the cause of
Rationalism, attacking
Christianity and the
supernatural.

Yet, he admitted: "It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world
an ideal character, which through all the changes of 18 centuries has
inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love,

has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments,
and conditions, and has been not only the highest pattern of virtue, but
also the strongest incentive to its practice,

and has exercised so deep an
influence that it may truly be said
that the simple record of three
short years of active life has done
more to regenerate and soften
mankind than all of the
dispositions of philosophers and
exhortations of moralists."

John Stewart Mill was perhaps the most influential and respected
economist of the 18th century.
Pre-Eminent

He often spoke out against
Christianity,
yet he had to acknowledge:
"Christ is still left
- a unique figure,
- not more unlike all of His
percusses than all his
followers.

Even those who had the direct
benefit of His personal teaching.
It is of no use to say that Christ,
as exhibited in the Gospel,
is not historical in that we know not
how much of what is admirable
has been added
by the tradition of His followers

…who among His disciples, or among their proselytes, was capable of
inventing the sayings attributed to Jesus, or of imagining the life and
character revealed in the Gospels? Certainly not the fisherman of
Galilee.

…When this
pre-eminent genius
is combined with the
qualities of probably the
greatest moral Reformer
and Martyr
to that mission who has
ever existed on earth,

religion cannot be said to
have made a bad choice
in pitching on this Man
as the ideal
representative
and guide of humanity;
nor even now would it be
easy,
even for an unbeliever,

to find a better translation of the
rule of virtue from the abstract into
the concrete then to endeavour
to so live that Christ
would approve our life."

Even as determined an enemy of Christianity as Charles Darwin who
popularized the theory of evolution had to concede, in an article written
for a newspaper in London:
Recognising Reality

"They forget, or will not remember,
those who minimize the work of
missionaries in pagan countries.
They forget, or will not remember,
that human sacrifices and the power
of an idolatrous priesthood;

a system of profligacy
unparalleled in another
part of the world;
infanticide,
a consequence
of that system;
bloody wars where
conquerors spared neither
women nor children
- that all of these have
been abolished in these
savage islands.

And that dishonesty and
intemperance and licentiousness
have been greatly reduced by
Christianity.
In a voyager, to forget these
things is base ingratitude.

For should he chance to be at the point of shipwreck on some unknown
coast, he will most devoutly pray that the lesson of the missionary may
have reached thus far!"

On another occasion,
Darwin wrote:
"The lesson of the missionary
is the enchanter's wand.
The house has been built,
the windows framed,
the fields ploughed
and even the trees grafted
by the New Zealander.
Civilising

The march of improvement, consequent on the introduction of
Christianity throughout the seas probably stands by itself in the records
of history."

Another hostile witness that could be brought to testify of the
uniqueness of Christ was Darwin's bulldog, Thomas Huxley.
Irreplaceable

It was Huxley who first coined the
word agnostic,
which is what he claimed to be.
Huxley did more than any other
to popularize
the theories of Darwinism.

Huxley was steadfastly
opposed to almost every
aspect of Christianity.
Yet, in 1870, he wrote for
The Contemporary Review:
"I have always been strongly
in favour of secular education,
in the sense of education
without theology.

But, I must confess that I have been
no less seriously perplexed to know
by what practical measures the
religious feeling,
which is the essential
basis of conduct,
was to be kept up in the presently
utterly chaotic state of opinion
on these matters
- without the use of the Bible.

The pagan moralists lack life and colour.
Take the Bible as a whole, make the severest deductions
which criticisms can dictate and there still remains
a vast residuum of moral beauty and grandeur.

By the study of what other book could children be so much humanized
and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical procession fills,
like themselves,

but a momentary space and interval between two eternities and earns
the blessings, or curses, of all time, according to its efforts to do good
and evil?"

When a fellow agnostic philosopher debunked the Bible, Huxley
rebuked the man for putting on display his "conceited ignorance."
Conceited Ignorance

Huxley even had to go further in admitting: "The Bible has been the
Magna Carta of the poor and the oppressed down to modern times.
Indispensable

No state has had a constitution in which the interests of the people are
so largely taken into account, in which the duties so much more than the
privileges of rulers are insisted upon, as that drawn up for Israel.

Nowhere is the fundamental truth that the welfare of the state, in the
long run, depends upon the uprightness of the citizen so strongly laid
down.

I do not believe that the human
race is yet,
and possibly never will be,
in a position to dispense
with the Bible."

Another vocal sceptic who can be
called upon to testify of Christ was
George Romanes.
He wrote many articles against
Christianity during his lifetime.
Immeasurably
in Advance

Yet, in his book
Thoughts on Religion,
Romanes observed:
"Not only is Christianity thus so
immeasurably in advance
of all other religions,
it is no less so of every other system
of thought that has ever
been promulgated in regard
to all that is moral and spiritual.

Whether it be true or false, it is
certain that neither philosophy,
science, nor poetry has ever
produced results in thought,
conduct or beauty in any degree
to be compared with it.

It is the greatest exhibition of the beautiful, the sublime, and all else that
appeals to our spiritual nature which has ever been known upon our
earth.

What has all the science, or all the philosophy of the world, done for the
thought of mankind to be compared to this one Doctrine - God is Love?"

H.G. Wells who wrote Outlines of History is best known for his science
fiction and film making. However, by profession he was an historian.
The Dominant Figure in History

Despite being a very outspoken critic of Christianity, H.G. Wells wrote:
"Jesus of Nazareth is easily the dominant figure in history.
I am speaking of Him, of course, as a man.

For I can see that the historian must treat Him as a man,
just as the painter must paint Him as a man.

To assume that He never lived and that the accounts of His life are
inventions is more difficult and raises more problems in the path of the
historian than to accept the essential elements of the Gospel stories as
fact.

Of course, you and I live in countries where to millions
of men and women Jesus is more than a man.
But the historian must disregard that fact.
He must adhere to the evidence which would pass unchallenged if His
book were to be read in every nation under the sun.

Now, it is interesting and significant, isn't it, that an historian setting
forth in that spirit, without any theological bias whatsoever,

should find that he simply cannot portray the progress of humanity
honestly without giving the foremost place to a penniless teacher from
Nazareth."

The final hostile witness
which I would like to call to
testify of Christ is the brilliant
and volatile journalist and
writer H.L. Mencken.
Mencken dipped his pen
in acid whenever it came to
writing on Christianity.
Unparalleled

Mencken was the journalist who transformed the evolutionist's legal
defeat in the courtroom at the Scopes trial to a victory in the court of
public opinion.

In his work: Treaties on the gods, Mencken declared:
"This historicity of Jesus is no longer questioned seriously by anyone,
whether Christian or unbeliever.

The main facts about Him seem to be beyond dispute …it is
not easy to account for His singular and stupendous success.

How did it
come about
that one who
in His life had
only the bitter
cup of
contumely to
drink should
have lifted
Himself in
death to such
vast esteem
and
circumstance,
such
incomparable
and world
shaking power
and renown?

…It seems to be certain
that many persons saw
Him after His supposed
death on the Cross,
including not a few who
were violently
disinclined to believe in
His Resurrection.

Upon that theory, the most civilized sections of the
human race have erected a structure and practices so
vast in scope and so powerful in effect that the whole
range of history shows nothing parallel."

So, here we have testimonies of some famous skeptics, some of them
Christ's enemies, over almost 2000 years, including: rationalist
philosophers, a Jewish historian, some famous evolutionists,
A Unanimous Verdict

a secular humanist journalist, a world renowned economist, a religious
sceptic and a famous science fiction writer and Hollywood director.
None of them were Christians. They all rejected Christianity.

Yet, they all had to acknowledge that Jesus Christ was the greatest
Person to ever walk on earth. His impact on history and
the Bible's contribution to life and civilization are incomparable.

The verdict of these skeptics is unanimous. This One who was born in
obscurity, who lived in poverty, who died in agony, became the most
important and positive influence in the history of the world. No one has
influenced the world for the good more than Jesus Christ.

The chief priests in the Sanhedrin conspired against and condemned
Christ.
Condemning the Eternal Judge

The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, acquitted Christ three
times, declaring Him not guilty and yet he ordered Him to be
whipped and crucified to appease the mob in the streets.

Pilate then had the audacity to wash his hands in public declaring that
he was innocent of this just man's blood.

Today many presume to sit in judgement upon Christ. But the day will
come when each one of them, and each one of us, will stand before the
judgment throne of Jesus Christ to give an account of our lives to Him.
The Day of Judgement Will Come

"It is appointed unto men once to die
and after that the judgement."
Hebrews 9:27

The question is not so much what you think of Christ
– but what does He think of you?
Jesus Will Judge You and I

The question is not so much what will you do with Christ – but what will
He do with you?

On the Day of Judgment will you hear: "Well done! Good and faithful
servant?" Or will you hear "Depart from Me ye cursed, into the lake of
fire prepared for the devil and his angels?"

"For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ, that each
one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has
done, whether good or bad." 2 Corinthians 5:10

Frontline Fellowship
PO Box 74
Newlands
7725
Cape Town
South Africa
E-mail: admin@frontline.org.za
Web: www.frontline.org.za

The Illegal Trial of Jesus and The Verdict of History

The Illegal Trial of Jesus and The Verdict of History

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