Chapter 6. The Honorable Counsellor.
NO DOUBT you all remember the name of one honorable counsellor, spoken of, also, as “a good man and a just.” In each of the four gospels we read of Joseph of Arimathea, who came with Nicodemus, and begging the body of the Lord Jesus from Pilate, the Roman Governor, wrapped it in linen clothes, with spices, and laid it in his own new tomb; hewn out of a rock. Now both Joseph and Nicodemus, belonged to the great Council of the Jews, known as the Sanhedrim. It consisted of seventy-one members, and was closely connected with the synagogue of Jerusalem. There were also smaller councils in other towns with twenty-three members in each. The ruler of the synagogue, of whom we spoke the other day, must always belong to the Sanhedrim; the members were also called elders or rulers. The great council in Jerusalem consisted of the chief priests, scribes and elders, the high priest being at the head of it.
It was before this council the Lord Jesus was brought after spending the night in the high priest’s palace, mocked df the men who held Him, blindfolded, and struck upon the face, and yet in His infinite grace, having thought for Peter, and giving him that look which broke his heart.
We read, “And as soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and the scribes came together, and led Him into their council.” (Luke 22:6666And as soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and the scribes came together, and led him into their council, saying, (Luke 22:66).) Before this council, which had to judge religious matters almost entirely, they accused Him of laying claim to being the Christ, the long looked-for Messiah, “Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” they ask, and Jesus answers simply, “I am.” Then the high priest rent his clothes, and said, “Ye have heard the blasphemy,” and they all (that is all the council), condemned Him to be worthy of death. (Mark, 14:61.) But according to the Jewish law, they had not power to put any man to death, as we read in John, 18:31, so they led Him away to Pilate, the Roman governor, and here, knowing that Pilate would care nothing about religious questions, they bring against that patient, gracious Man, Son of God, as well as Son of man, accusations of quite a different kind: “We found this fellow perverting the nation and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that He Himself is Christ, a King.” But I need not follow the story although; you know it well, and how the Jewish rulers, the members of that council, which should have given justice to all, persuaded the people to ask for the liberty of a robber, that the Holy, spotless, Son of God, might be condemned to death by the heathen governor. And so He died, giving Himself up freely to all this indignity, the mocking, the cruel scourging, the spitting, the buffeting, the terrible suffering upon the cross, the agony of which we can never understand, for there in those three hours of darkness, He, the sinless One, was bearing the load of sin, and the wrath of God. Do you believe this? Do you believe that He bore the punishment of your sin on that cross? If you do, the Scripture tells you, that eternal life is yours.
ML 08/18/1912