But Jesus immediately admitted it, and strengthened the admission by an allusion to His Parousia in the near future as Son of Man.
The betrayal and the trial can only be rightly understood when it is realised that the public knew nothing whatever of the secret of the Messiahship. [1]
It is the same in regard to the scene in the presence of Pilate. The people on that morning knew nothing of the trial of Jesus, but came to Pilate with the sole object of asking the release of a prisoner, as was the custom at the feast (Mark xv. 6-8). The idea then occurs to Pilate, who was just about to hand over, willingly enough, this troublesome fellow and prophet to the priestly faction, to play off the people against the priests and work on the multitude to petition for the release of Jesus. In this way he would have secured himself on both sides. He would have condemned Jesus to please the priests, and after condemning Him would have released Him to please the people. The priests are greatly embarrassed by the presence of the multitude. They had done everything so quickly and quietly that they might well have hoped to get Jesus crucified before any one knew what was happening or had had time to wonder at His non-appearance in the Temple.
The priests therefore go among the people and induce them not to agree to the Procurator's proposal. How? By telling them why He was condemned, by revealing to them the Messianic secret. That makes Him at once from a prophet worthy of honour into a deluded enthusiast and blasphemer. That was the explanation of the "fickleness" of the Jeru- salem mob which is always so eloquently described, without any evidence for it except this single inexplicable case.
At midday of the same day-it was the 14th Nisan, and in the evening the Paschal lamb would be eaten-Jesus cried aloud and expired. He had chosen to remain fully conscious to the last.
- ↑ When it is assumed that the Messianic claims of Jesus were generally known during those last days at Jerusalem there is a temptation to explain the absence of witnesses in regard to them by supposing that they were too much a matter of common knowledge to require evidence. But in that case why should the High Priest not have fulfilled the prescribed formalities? Why make such efforts first to establish a different charge? Thus the obscure and unintelligible procedure at the trial of Jesus becomes in the end the clearest proof that the public knew nothing of the Messiahship of Jesus.
