hing?
what is it which these witness against thee?" There was nothing to
answer. No consistent or valid testimony had been presented against Him;
therefore He stood in dignified silence. Then Caiaphas, in violation of
the legal proscription against requiring any person to testify in his
own case except voluntarily and on his own initiative, not only demanded
an answer from the Prisoner, but exercized the potent prerogative of the
high-priestly office, to put the accused under oath, as a witness before
the sacerdotal court. "And the high priest answered and said unto him, I
adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the
Christ, the Son of God."[1260] The fact of a distinct specification of
"the Christ" and "the Son of God" is significant, in that it implies the
Jewish expectation of a Messiah, but does not acknowledge that He was to
be distinctively of divine origin. Nothing that had gone before can be
construed as a proper foundation for this inquiry. The charge of
sedition was about to be superseded by one of greater enormity--that of
blasphemy.[1261]

To the utterly unjust yet official adjuration of the high priest, Jesus
answered: "Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you: Hereafter shall
ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in
the clouds of heaven." This expression "Thou hast said" was equivalent
to--I am what thou hast said.[1262] It was an unqualified avowal of
divine parentage, and inherent Godship. "Then the high priest rent his
clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of
witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They
answered and said, He is guilty of death."[1263]

Thus the judges in Israel, comprizing the high priest, the chief
priests, the scribes and elders of the people, the Great Sanhedrin,
unlawfully assembled, decreed that the Son of God was deserving of
death, on no evidence save that of His own acknowledgment. By express
provision the Jewish code forbade the conviction, specifically on a
capital charge, of any person on his own confession, unless that was
amply supported by the testimony of trustworthy witnesses. As in the
Garden of Gethsemane Jesus had voluntarily surrendered Himself, so
before the judges did He personally and voluntarily furnish the evidence
upon which they unrighteously declared Him deserving of death. There
could be no crime in the claim of Messiahship or divine Sonship,