Deut. 19:15-19; 17:6-7, The Illegal Trial of Jesus (1)

Again, there is a matter related to Acts 2:23 that I want to consider today.  To the men of Israel Peter said, you have taken (Christ) by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death. It is the matter of “lawless hands.”  One way to look at this is to consider the numerous illegalities committed against Christ in the trials before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin.  We are not considering the illegalities perpetrated by Pilate, who declared Jesus innocent and yet delivered Him up to be crucified.  That is for another time.  We are limiting ourselves to those addressed by Peter.

The word “lawless” (Greek anomos) means to be without or against the law; departing from the law.  In other words, it deals with the law and law-breakers.  It is interesting to note: 1) the antichrist is called the lawless one (2 Th. 2:8); and 2)  Jesus was numbered with the “transgressors” (same Greek word).  Those who crucified Him with lawless hands sided with Satan at his worst.  And Jesus died for the very ones with lawless hands who crucified Him.

There were three basic rights granted to the accused: a public trial, defense counsel, and conviction only on the testimony of at least two reliable witnesses.  You can see this is rooted in Deuteronomy.  But the Sanhedrin operated with other “statutes and judgments” meant to flesh out these general rights.  This leads to a much longer list of illegalities committed by the Sanhedrin, against their own rules.

There is a somewhat “popular” list of these illegalities.  Popular in that you can find it on numerous web pages.  It comes from a book entitled The Testimony of the Evangelists (Jersey City, NJ: Frederick P. Linn, 1881, pp. 581-584) by Simon Greenleaf of Harvard.  He contains a section written by a lawyer, Joseph Salvador.  The lawyer explains the proper trial procedure used by the Sanhedrin.  I have taken this from a web page (jerusalembaptist.com).  After the list I will have a short comment.  Because of the length we will share this in two posts.

·       Because a defendant was protected against self-incrimination, his confession, no matter how convincing, was not sufficient in itself for conviction.

·       On the day of the trial the court officers would require all evidence against the accused person to be read in the full hearing of open court.

·       Each witness against him would be required to affirm that his testimony was true to the best of his knowledge and was based on his own direct experience and not on hearsay or presumption.

·       Witnesses also had to identify the precise month, day, hour, and location of the event about which they testified.

·       A council itself could not initiate charges against a person but could only consider charges brought before it by an outside party.

·       A woman was not allowed to testify because she was considered to lack the courage to give the first blow if the accused were convicted and sentenced to death.

·       Children could not testify because of their immaturity, nor could a slave, a person of bad character, or a person who was considered mentally incompetent.

·       There was always to be presumption of innocence, and great latitude was given the accused in presenting his defense.  (To be continued.)