On Good Friday, Jesus was...

On Good Friday, Jesus was...

Condemned as a Blasphemer

The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death. But they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward... ...The high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” “You have said so,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?” “He is worthy of death,” they answered. ~Matthew 26:59-66

Did Jesus really live a sinless life? The religious leaders of Jesus' day were dedicated to finding some kind of character flaw in Him, but even with several witnesses accusing Jesus they were unable to make anything stick. That's incredible! It's a political smear job gone horribly wrong...until Jesus very clearly claimed to be God.

When anyone says that Jesus was merely “a good teacher,” I wonder if they think that Jesus' false claims of deity were good too. After all, if Jesus was not who He claimed to be, that would make Him crazy or disturbed at best and a liar at worst. Calling Jesus a “good teacher” really doesn't make sense if He was just a man. Our view of Jesus, then, hinges on a single question: is He really God's Son?

Beaten and Scourged Beyond Recognition

“But many were amazed when they saw him. His face was so disfigured he seemed hardly human, and from his appearance, one would scarcely know he was a man.” ~Isaiah 52:14

This description is much worse than anything found in movies or other art forms depicting the crucifixion of Jesus. Even the Passion of the Christ, a movie called “a mind-numbing gorefest” and “relentlessly violent” by some critics, didn't even come close to showing Jesus' suffering as it really happened. Not only was His face unrecognizable to His disciples, friends, and family – He almost appeared inhuman, like an animal or some kind of bloodied monster.

We know that Jesus looked like this because of the disciple's testimonies, that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:3)” So, it's reasonable to think they were including Isaiah's harrowing prophecy in that statement.

Buried in the Tomb of Joseph of Arimethea

The death and burial of Jesus has been called one of the best established facts about Jesus. Hundreds of people saw him being tortured and executed. Not only that, Joseph was a well known member of the Jewish Sanhedrein, who buried Him in his own tomb (Matthew 27:57, Mark 15:43, Luke 23:50-56). If the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (widely circulated during the lifetimes of witnesses to Jesus' death) falsely singled out Joseph as having buried Jesus, they would have been exposed right away as fraudulent documents.

Fearing a resurrection hoax, the Sanhedrein talked to Governor Pilate, who supplied a guard and sealed the tomb's entrance with heavy ropes and wax (Matthew 27:62-66).

If Jesus had stayed dead, Christianity would have died right then and there. The Jewish Sanhedrein would have had it that way. The Roman Empire would have had it that way. Even the disciples of Jesus could have avoided their horrible deaths (by being crucified, beheaded, stoned, flayed alive, and impaled with spears) if they had simply stayed quiet about Him.

What could possibly convince the same people who saw Jesus brutally disfigured, decisively killed, and publicly buried that He was anything other than dead? -Daniel