Luke 22:66-71

Luke 22:66 (KJB)
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, saying,

The official sentence of death was pronounced on Jesus early in the morning by the Sanhedrin. The night meeting was the preliminary meeting to try and raise false witnesses and get as much false testimony for the morning meeting. It seems that the night meeting had lasted all night and the morning meeting had dovetailed that meeting. The Sanhedrin was in full session in the morning as they did not want anyone to claim that it was only a select few that sentenced Jesus. In the second set of proceedings, as it turned to dawn the verdict was reached on what had been discussed during the night and brought forward to the morning. The verdict was execution.

Luke 22:67 (KJB)
Art thou the Christ? tell us. And he said unto them, If I tell you, ye will not believe:

They had consistently asked Jesus if He was the Christ, that is, the prophesied Messiah? Jesus responds by telling them that if He tells them that He is, they will not believe Him. Their history of antagonizing Jesus and disbelieving Him, even in the sight of great miracles such as the raising of Lazarus, would have given Jesus the answer He could have expected if He told them He was the Messiah. They were not out to accept Jesus as their Messiah but they were out to kill Him. Even down to this day, when Jesus is preached as the Messiah, there is still much disbelief in this world.

Luke 22:68 (KJB)
And if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go.

Previously Jesus had asked His disciples “who do men say that I am?” To this He received a satisfactory answer that He was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. If Jesus was to ask the Sanhedrin who He was, He would get all sorts of derogatory and blasphemous statements from them. So He did not ask them because He knew that now that they had Him in their clutches, they would not answer Him nor let Him go because they had to work out a quick plan to get Rome to execute Him.

Luke 22:69 (KJB)
Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God.

(Mat 26:63-64 KJV) But Jesus held his peace. 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. {64} Jesus saith unto him, 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. Since the High Priest had adjured Jesus on this matter, these three words of Jesus was a declaration under oath. In other words, Jesus had given total approbation to the words of Caiaphas and confirmed that he spoke the truth that Jesus was the Messiah. Then Jesus continues the statement with the word “hereafter” stating that after all these events take place and He goes back to Heaven, He will be seated at the right hand of power, that is, He will take His rightful place at the right hand of God the Father and when the last one is saved on earth, on the last day, then He will return on the clouds of glory to take His church home. (1 Th 4:16-17 KJV) For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: {17} Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Luke 22:70 (KJB)
Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of God? And he said unto them, Ye say that I am.

Now not only did the High Priest ask the question as to whether Jesus was the Son of God, but they all had asked Him the same question. Jesus then responds to their question by stating that “Ye say that I am.” Jesus did not bluntly state that He was because that would have given them grounds for blasphemy, according to their way of thinking. This way they will be condemning Jesus on their own assumptions.

Luke 22:71 (KJB)
And they said, What need we any further witness? for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth.

Then he makes the determination that no more witnesses were needed because now they all heard Him speaking blasphemy. On one hand they ask Jesus if He was the Messiah and then when He tells them that He will sit on the right hand of God and then return on an appointed day, which is what the Messiah would do, they considered it blasphemy instead of another declaration of His Messiahship. This proves no matter what Jesus said, they would have turned His words around and called it blasphemy.

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