Section I

the last announcement of Jesus that his death was at hand. the decision of the Sanhedrim. the appointment and the preparation of the Passover feast

(Mat 26:1-5; Mat 26:17-19; Mar 14:1-2; Mar 14:12-16; Luk 22:1-2; Luk 22:7-13)

We have seen how Jesus, in His character of prophet, departed from the temple of His people, when the authorities of the people, like dark demons of unbelief, opposed themselves to Him there. But in so doing He did not separate Himself from the people. With them He was still linked as an Israelite, although as a prophet He had been rejected by their leaders; and even although the temple had become for Him a desolate house and forsaken of God, the law of the Easter celebration had still the old meaning for Him. For this festival was older than the temple worship: it was linked with the innermost life of the nation; it was founded upon the original theocratic assumption, that every father of a family is a priest in his own house, and that he has to discharge therein the priestly office of atonement. Thus Christ was still bound to the celebration of the paschal feast, because He was still bound to His people, especially to His disciples; and because He still had the task of representing the priestly office, in the character of distributor of the paschal feast in their midst. It might also be said that the Easter festival, in its typical character, still had validity for Him; because the real Easter celebration, the offering up of His life, had not yet occurred. But it must moreover be noticed, that besides the spiritual and eternal motive of His sacrifice, He must have a legal motive to go again to Jerusalem, in order there to surrender His life for the salvation of the world. If this legal motive had been wanting to Him, it might be possible to regard His death as a wilfully incurred suffering,—a view which many possibly have taken. But this would contradict the idea of His sacrifice. His death could only be an act of pure surrender of self, in the case of its being brought about just as much by the law of God as by His own eternal decree, or just as much historically as ideally; by the harmony of the freest self-determination of Christ, with the necessity, with the inexorable claim of a definite historical sense of duty in His decision. And thus in fact it was: Christ knew that only His death on the cross in Jerusalem could and must save the world, and for this death He was in spirit prepared. But He knew, moreover, apart from the certainty of His death, that as a true Israelite and spiritual Father of His family, He must return to Jerusalem. This historical duty called Him back to the city for the feast.

Moreover, He was not for one moment in doubt on the subject. The Jews might have asked, Will He ever come again? when they saw Him depart from the temple mountain in so severe a mood. But in His heart it was no question whether He should soon return. And He did not leave His disciples long in doubt on the matter.

It was still on the same evening on which, with His disciples, He had departed from the temple, and had announced to them the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world, that He declared to them, in addition, that they knew that after two days would be the feast of the Passover—that then should the Son of man be betrayed, and by treachery be brought to the cross.

In His heart it was also entirely determined, that on the third day, reckoned from that evening, He would approach to Jerusalem with them; and it was plain before His eyes what awaited Him there. He indicated the leading features of His passion: the betrayal and the cross, He said, were before Him. He was to experience the betrayal from the Jews; the crucifixion by the hands of the heathens.

The Evangelists bring it out thoroughly, that it was just at this time that the Sanhedrim once again held a session to discuss further its plans against Jesus. We easily conceive what might induce the enemies of Jesus, thus late in the evening, to hold another meeting to consider the question of the day. Jesus had on that day humbled them in the temple; He had brought all their projects of ensnaring Him in a capital charge by His words—to disgrace. He had given them in the temple, before the eyes of the people, a signal defeat, whose result was unbearable to them. They appeared now to be made altogether helpless, unless they were willing to take extreme measures. Thus they could no longer lay themselves quietly down to sleep; they would and must, first of all, come to a decided determination.

They came together in this disposition, by Matthew’s account, in as large numbers as possible-the chief priests and the scribes, and the elders of the people. The sitting was probably a confidential one, and did not take place in the council-room on the temple mountain,¹ but in the hall of the high priest Caiaphas. At this discussion it was from the first agreed that they would kill Jesus; the question was, How? In reference to this question, at first they came together in a state of the greatest excitement, and in the first impulse of zeal they would probably have gladly decided to have Him seized on the spot. But by degrees the scruples with which many in their body were filled, suggested themselves in their full power. They knew the mind of the people. Probably, indeed, the victory which Jesus had gained on that day over them had, in an extraordinary degree, increased His consideration among the people, and, on the other hand, had proportionably damaged their own reputation among them. Under the influence of such events, they decided to avoid forcible and hasty measures; and accordingly to take Jesus prisoner with craft, and therefore secretly, in order to hand Him over to death most quickly. But with this intention they were compelled to wait for a more suitable opportunity. They must first allow the festal pilgrims to have departed again from Jerusalem before taking any step towards the carrying out of their intentions. ‘Not on the feast day.’ Thus negatively, in some degree, decided the fanatical council in their irresolution.

It is a marvellous concurrence of circumstances, that while the Sanhedrim was holding council upon the decision which was to put Jesus to death, He Himself was seated on the Mount of Olives in the circle of His disciples, and was announcing to them the doom which was to come upon Jerusalem as a prognostic of the future judgment of the world. The evening hours in which these events stand side by side with one another, belong to the most significant in the history of the world.

Moreover, we see in a second contrast the peculiar brilliancy with which the Prince of Light excels the children of darkness. The members of the Sanhedrim are found in the most manifest perplexity and insecurity with their schemes. They were not yet aware that Jesus, on the next paschal day, would die on the cross by their hands. They rather purpose that He should come to that result at a later period; yea, they actually come now to a decision, according to which the crucifixion was not to happen at the Passover at all. But they are ignorant that they have made themselves, by their resolve to kill Jesus, helpless tools of hell and of Satan, and that the powers of darkness will overthrow their determination. In hell it is said, ‘Yes, even at the feast;’ and this conclusion soon finds an echo in the soul of Judas. The fathers, grown grey in sin, did not anticipate that a traitor from the band of disciples would hurry them along in his demoniacal excitement to put the Lord to death at the feast. Still less could they anticipate that even the eternal wisdom of God had decreed, in a sense altogether opposed to that of hell, that the crucifixion was to take place at the feast.

Jesus, however, clearly beholds His destiny in the mirror of eternal wisdom. And while the darkened college, notwithstanding its decrees, and with all the glances of political sagacity, cannot see an inch before them, He can declare His fate to His disciples with the fullest certainty, that after two days He shall be betrayed and crucified at the Passover at Jerusalem.

To all appearance, we have no intelligence whatever of the Wednesday in Passion week. Thus this day forms a remarkably serious and calm pause in His life, assuredly filled with deep spiritual preparation for His end.

When the day of unleavened bread began,—the day of the preparation of the Passover feast,—Jesus had made no arrangement where and how He would celebrate it in Jerusalem. Possibly He delayed it intentionally, until the disciples, in their Israelitish notion of festal arrangements, thought now is the time to consider of the Easter feast, and till they expressed themselves about it to Him, asking, ‘Where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the Passover?’

According to the three first Evangelists, it is distinctly asserted that Christ kept the Passover at the same time as the rest of the Israelites; for the eating of the unleavened bread began with the day on which the paschal lamb was slain—on the 14th Nisan.² This day, on which the lamb is put to death,³ is the day immediately before the celebration of the Passover. Moreover, it is well to be considered that the Lord arranged and celebrated the Passover upon the suggestion of His disciples. It is scarcely to be supposed that the disciples would have proposed to Him any deviation from the custom.

Moreover, John agrees with the statement of the three first Evangelists, as was shown above,⁴ and has been lately in many ways confirmed. Jesus separated the two disciples Peter and John from the rest, with the commission to go into the city and to arrange the preparations for the feast.

The direction in detail sounds very mysterious, precisely in a similar manner to that with which a short time before He had sent forth two disciples from Bethany to bring Him an ass’s colt on which to ride. He did not indicate to them the man by name to whom they should address themselves in Jerusalem, that they might obtain a room at his house for the Passover. He rather made it manifest that He only wished to designate him obscurely. ‘Go into the city to such a man’ (πρὸς τὸν δεῖνα), it is said; then follows the sign: ‘Immediately at the entry into the city,’ He says, ‘there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water.’ Him they were to follow into the house into which he should enter. And they were to regard the master of that house as the unnamed one to whom He sends them. To him they were to deliver the message, ‘The Master saith unto you, Where is the guest-chamber where I shall eat the Passover with My disciples?’ The Lord added, ‘And he will show you a large upper room, furnished with cushions; there make ready for us the Passover.’

The marvel of this fact is, first of all, plainly manifested in the certainty of the spiritual glance of Christ, by which He can predict to the disciples that at the appointed time, and in the appointed place, that man shall meet them whom He would give to them for a sign.

As far as concerns the owner of the house that was thus visited, it must be supposed that the Lord had probably been on friendly and confidential terms with him, as with the unnamed friend in Bethphage.⁵ Still an absolute agreement previously is not to be assumed here any more than in the former case. But the Lord had read into the soul of this man, and was certain of his disposition in this case and for this event. This certainly is the second matter of marvel in this place; it subsists even although it is supposed that there had been previous intercourse between Jesus and the man, to which intercourse the present message of Jesus referred.

But here also there must needs be alleged some definite reason for which Christ chose this mysterious form, as He had done at Bethphage, when He sent for the ass’s colt. And this much is plain, if He had closely indicated the feast-chamber in the presence of Judas, Judas would have been able to leave His company earlier, and to betray Him to His enemies at an unseasonable time. Although he betrayed the Lord later in Gethsemane, yet he came thither by his own conjecture, and Jesus had not co-operated with him for that purpose. But if at this time Jesus had let fall a hint which could have made it possible for him to surprise Him in the Passover-chamber, He would have rendered the treacherous work more easy through a want of caution. This was not to be: thus Jesus availed Himself at once of the security of His wonderful foreknowledge, and of the carefulness of the most accurate foresight. Moreover, at the same time again appears the childlike, almost playful, serenity and condescension wherewith He supplies the earthly necessity in the moment of need. The disciples might perchance have thought that it was already much too late to find a good place of shelter for the celebration of the Passover; it could hardly be anticipated that they would still succeed in such a purpose, in any degree as they would wish. But He gives them the promise, that immediately on their entrance into the city they should find a lodging—that at a word from Him it should all be at once arranged to their liking—that a handsome guest-chamber, a large cushioned upper room, should stand prepared for their reception.

The disciples, thus commissioned, went forth and found as the Lord had said. They thus prepared the feast in the usual manner—procuring, slaying, and cleaning the paschal lamb, and providing the other materials of the festival. The banquet room they had already found prepared.

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Notes

1. It is not a very well founded conclusion drawn by Neander (418) from the decision of the Sanhedrim not to apprehend Christ at the feast, that consequently He had been taken prisoner before the Passover—that thus, finally, He did not celebrate the Passover with the Jews. The objection which Neander himself alleges seems to weaken the observation. ‘We might suppose that the Sanhedrim were led, by the opportunity afforded them by one of the disciples, to seize Jesus quietly by night, abandoning their original design.’ But besides, the Evangelists most evidently wish to bring out the contrast between the clear foresight of Christ and the gloomy uncertainty of the Sanhedrim. Moreover, it is to be considered that the motive, ‘lest there be an uproar among the people,’ would have been sufficient to exclude the day before the feast, just as much as the actual day of the feast.

2. Neander also, in the fourth edition of his work, has continued to adopt the view of Ideler, Lücke, Sieffert, De Wette, and Bleek, according to which Christ must have kept the feast with the disciples, not on the 14th, but on the 13th Nisan; wherein, moreover, he assumes a difference between John, who is made to maintain this view, and the Synoptists who represent the Lord as keeping the proper Passover. Most of the reasons alleged by Neander have already been discussed; but when it is put forward as remarkable, that the Jews should have purposed an execution on the first day of the feast, we may surely explain this by a simple reference to the immense pressure of circumstances, or rather to their slavish fanaticism in correspondence with the circumstances. And in this point of view it is rightly regarded. How often the passion of fanaticism overthrows the institutions of fanaticism! The passage referred to further in Luk 23:54, does not make the day on which Jesus died appear such a one ‘on which there could be no scruples about undertaking any kind of business.’ For although the day had been even indicated as the eve of the Sabbath, or the Friday (ἡμέρα παρασκευῆς), and although of the Sabbath it had been said that the women remained at rest on that day, according to the commandment, it would not follow that they worked on the Friday. They did not in their state of mind consider it as a profanation of the festival to prepare spices in the rest time, even on Friday evening. It may perhaps be supposed that this preparation lasted even into the evening (and thus even on to the Sabbath itself), since the Sabbath was already breaking when they returned from the grave of Jesus. And if, nevertheless, they abstained on the following day from anointing their Lord—in this mind—it was not consideration for the religious, but for the social, aspect of the Sabbath institution, that hindered them; and thus for the Sabbath institution in the feeling of the people. That Apollinaris of Hierapolis has referred to the Gospel of John to prove that the last supper of Jesus was no proper Passover feast, only serves to show that already in his time, as well as now, it was possible for people to believe that they found the interpretation in question in the Gospel. Finally, as to the expression of Polycrates of Ephesus (Euseb. v. 24), it must be well established, that in the controversy about Easter there was no question at all about the day of the death of Christ (of which, according to Neander, Polycrates must be speaking), but about the celebration of the paschal feast. But it must still further be brought out here: 1st, That according to the Synoptists it was the disciples who reminded the Lord of the celebration of the Passover. Such an observation cannot have been made without reason. But could the disciples have urged the Lord to a premature celebration? 2dly, It is to be considered that a matter of legal importance must have been in question, to have induced the Lord to return to Jerusalem to the Passover, under the circumstances that were then prevailing, after He had solemnly forsaken the temple. This argument has perhaps a very great weight for him who takes into due account the theocratic and Christologic relations of the evangelic history.

3. Seyffart, in his pamphlet ‘Theologia Sacra,’ 128, supposes that Christ died on the cross on Thursday, the 14th Nisan, and rose again from the dead on the Sunday. But still it is plainly made out that the Gospels only place one day between the evening of the burial of Jesus and the morning of His resurrection. Compare Luk 23:55-56; Luk 24:1. And if the tradition in the Talmud be maintained, that Christ was crucified on the evening of the Passover, could the evening of the Passover be the evening of the 14th Nisan, as Seyffart supposes? The Israelite knows a twofold evening, namely, the natural one and the chronologic one. The chronologic evening is the decline of the day, the natural one is the nightfall; in a certain sense, the morning of the chronological day then beginning. When it was thus decreed that the paschal lamb must be put to death between the evenings, it was probably meant between the chronological evening, or the decline of day of the 14th Nisan, and the natural evening, or the nightfall of the 15th Nisan. Consequently, in a chronologic sense, the evening of the Passover would thus be the afternoon of the 15th Nisan, or of the Passover feast. [The expression ‘between the evenings’ has received a variety of interpretations, even by the Jewish writers themselves. Their opinions are cited in their own words by Bynæus (De Morte Christi, i. 518-21). He himself adopts the view of the Pharisees in the time of Josephus (Bell. Jud. vi. 9, 3), that the first evening began when the sun declined, the second when it set; that the period referred to was therefore from three to five or six p.m. Kurtz (Hist. of Old Cov. ii. 301) adopts the view of the Karaites and Samaritans, referring the expression to the period from sunset to dark. Jarchi and Kimchi think that the time meant is from a little before to a little after sunset, or the afternoon and evening.—ED.]

1) Upon this council chamber, the Conclave-Gazith, see Friedlieb, 8.

2) Ἐν ᾗ ἔδει θύεσθαι τὸ πάσχα. (Luke xxii. 7.)

3) Friedlieb, Archœologie, 44. With the beginning of the 14th Nisan (thus on the evening after the 13th) began the removing of the leavened bread. Still even to the fourth hour of this day leavened bread might be made use of. Compare Wieseler, Chronolog. Synops., 345.

4) See above, p. 18, and vol. i. p. 162.

5) ['This supposition seems justified by the peculiar use of the words specified by all the three synoptical Evangelists, ὀ διδάσκαλος λέγει, and still more by the peculiar and confidential terms of the message.' Ellicott, 321, note.—ED.]