Judas now comes into the Garden with his mob. They take Jesus and bring Him to the high priest’s house, who was Caiphas. As one studies the various trials through which Jesus went and does so in light of the laws of the land, one quickly comes to the conclusion that the trials were a mockery of justice and highly irregular, if not illegal.
Wayne Jackson, in a two-part article entitled “The Theological Implications of the Trial of Jesus,” has gone into great detail about the violations of Jewish and Roman law that took place during the trials of Jesus. In the second installment of this series of articles br. Jackson listed twelve violations that took place and wrote that other authors have suggest there were as many as twenty-seven violations that occurred. We will just note a few that br. Jackson mentioned in his article which can be found at www.christiancourier.com. It is interesting that there were no formal charges brought against Jesus. There was no type written warrant for the arrest of Jesus as was mandatory under Jewish law. In fact, the Bible says a “great multitude”came to arrest Jesus. The word “multitude” means “a casual collection of people” (#3793, Online Bible Greek Lexicon). This was a mob action not a judicial action.
The assembly at the high priest’s house was led by Annas, a deposed high priest and father-in- law to the true high priest, Caiphas. This assembly was also at night which was against Jewish law.
The one that jumps out at everyone who reads the inspired record is that of the false witnesses being used to testify against Jesus (Matthew 26:59-61). Notice that verse fifty-nine indicates that the Sanhedrin had sought out liars to use to testify against Jesus. It is also interesting to note that these false witnesses contradicted each other (Mark 14:56, 59). Notice this statement from br. Jackson, “The trial should have been terminated then and there. But it was not, because justice was not the goal.”
While this mockery of justice was going on, our Lord was being slapped, spit upon and verbally abused. Truly the inspired words of Isaiah were fulfilled: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth” (53:7).