The True Witness: Mark 14:53-65

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The last words that Jesus spoke to His disciples before His ascension into heaven include what we refer to as “The Great Commission.” These words are recorded for us in Acts 1:8, where Jesus says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be My witnesses ….” That word translated “witness” comes from a Greek root that means “to testify.” When we think of witnesses and testimonies, we tend to think of a courtroom, where witnesses are summoned to testify to what they have seen and heard, and what they know to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And this is what Jesus has commissioned His followers to do in the world: to be witnesses, to testify to what they have seen and heard about Him, and to what they know to be the whole truth about who He is and what He has done.

This same word for “witness” that is used by Jesus in the Great Commission is found throughout this passage. Here we have Jesus on trial, and there are witnesses present and testimonies given in order to produce a verdict. Now, this is hardly what we would call a “fair trial.” The Council was not seeking to find testimonies about Jesus that would enable them to decide if He was guilty or innocent. Rather, v55 tells us that “they kept trying to obtain testimony against Jesus.” Jesus is not afforded the status of innocent until proven guilty. They had already determined the verdict and the sentence. They wanted Him to die, and they were looking for some charge, and some testimony to validate that charge which would justify them putting Him to death. And though v56 tells us that they found many willing to testify, their testimonies were false and inconsistent. Now, in this case, they would have been happy to have a false testimony, but the Jewish law demanded that two or three witnesses must agree to confirm a matter. And the inconsistency of these false witnesses prevented the Council from arriving at their predetermined verdict.

We find ourselves living 2,000 years roughly after the events we read of in this passage. And today, Jesus is still on trial in the court of this world’s opinion. All around us, there are those who are trying to make up their mind about Him, and those who think they have already figured out who He is, and excluded Him from their lives altogether. But we are His witnesses. He does not ask us to consider being His witnesses, He commands us to be His witnesses. And He promises us that we will be His witnesses. The question is whether our lives and our words will present a true or false testimony about Him to the world around us. And who better could we learn from about being a true witness for Christ than Christ Himself? He says of Himself in Revelation 3:14 that He is the faithful and true Witness. So as we seek to be faithful and true witnesses for Him, what can we learn from Him that would help us in that task? There are at least three aspects of the true witness that we see in Jesus here, and which we can emulate as we testify for Him in the world.

I. The True Witness Bases His Testimony on the Word of God (vv60-61)

After trying unsuccessfully to secure sufficient testimony from the throng of false witnesses, the High Priest finally turns his attention to Jesus Himself. Verse 60 says that he came forward and “questioned Jesus.” He had had enough of the inconsistent and distorted opinions of others, and sought the very words of Jesus now. The false witnesses were abundant, but they were just that – false. That was apparent in the fact that they could not even agree among themselves about their testimonies. We have to be careful when we resort to lies, for everyone involved has to make sure they tell the same lies the same way. When testimonies don’t agree, they can’t both be true, and then it comes down to “he said/she said,” and no one can determine who is telling the truth. Contrary testimonies are useless.

In addition to the inconsistency of their testimonies, they were also distorted. Some of them said, “We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.’” One problem – Jesus never said this. He said something like it, but not exactly. He did say in Mark 13:2 that not one stone of the temple buildings would be left upon another which will not be torn down. But He neither said that He would destroy the temple, nor that He would rebuild the temple. In that statement, He was speaking prophetically of the destruction of the temple that would occur at the hands of the Romans in 70 AD. More closely related to the charge presented here are His words in John 2:19. There, when the Jews asked Him for a sign that would prove His claims to them, He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” But notice, first of all, that He did not say that He would destroy the temple. Secondly, John explains to us that He was not talking about the temple of Jerusalem, but “He was speaking of the temple of His body.” The sign would be that when they destroyed His body in His death, He would raise it up again in three days in His resurrection. However they obviously misunderstood this, and now are distorting His words to incriminate Him. But even in this, they couldn’t even agree among themselves what He had actually said. So the High Priest turned to Jesus for answers. Though we have little in this text which is commendable about the attitude and actions of the High Priest, we can say that he did at least one thing right – he sought to hear directly from Jesus about the matter.

As we witness for Christ today, we can point our friends directly to the source as well by sharing with them the very Word of God found in the pages of Scripture. There are plenty of opinions circulating about Jesus in our culture. The airwaves and bookshelves are filled with people’s ideas about who He is and what He has done. But like the witnesses in Caiphas’ courtyard, these testimonies are distorted and inconsistent and amount to a cumulative force of worthless false testimony. Jesus simply cannot be what everyone in the world thinks or wants Him to be. If people are left to figure Jesus out based on popular books or the talk radio and TV shows, they will be more confused than ever about Him. But we do not have to rely on these speculative conjectures. We have the sure Word of God that we can share with people. We can share with them the very words which Jesus spoke about Himself, words which God declared about Himself to His people, and words which the eyewitnesses of Christ’s life and ministry have left us about Him. No one needs more opinion, more speculation, more distortions and inconsistent theories. People today need truth! And they need it most importantly when it comes to knowing Jesus. And the only source of truth about Him is the Bible. We must open the Scriptures and let Jesus Himself speak through His word to their hearts. God has made a radical promise about His Word. He said in Isaiah 55:11 that when His word goes out, it will not return to Him empty without accomplishing His desired purposes. We can believe that promise, and speak His word carefully and confidently, knowing that as we do, we are putting people into direct contact with the liberating truth that can save them. The true witness bases His testimony on the Word of God.


II. The True Witness Centers His Testimony on the Person of Jesus (vv61-62)

You notice that the High Priest asks Jesus two sets of questions. First, he asks, “Do You not answer? What is it that these men are testifying against You?” And secondly he asks, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” By using the title Blessed One, the priest was using a common Jewish expression of replacing the name of God with an equivalent title in a display of pseudo-piety and reverence for the sacred Name. It means, “Are you the Christ (or Messiah), the Son of God?” And Jesus answers the latter, but not the former. In doing so, He demonstrates His infinite wisdom. Jesus knew that anything He said in response to the first matter would only be further distorted and turned back against Him, so He kept His silence. In Isaiah 53:7, the prophet spoke of the Messiah saying, “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.” But then there are questions which bear directly upon who He is which must be answered. Jesus could not let this question go unanswered. He must declare openly before the Council that indeed, He is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. And, using Scripture from the Psalms and from Daniel, He explains the implications of His identity. He refers to Psalm 110:1 as He says, “You shall see THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF POWER,” and to Daniel 7:13 as He says, “AND COMING WITH THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN.”

Jesus centers His testimony on who He is and what He has come to do for humanity. In response the question, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”, Jesus said, “I am.” In affirming that He is the Son of God, He is making a direct claim about His divine nature. The title “Son of God” is easily misunderstood, for people often assume that He is God’s son in the same or similar way that all humanity or particularly all Christians can be spoken of as sons and daughters of God. Also, the title often leads people to believe that, as God’s Son, Jesus is something less than God. I once conducted a survey of long time members of a Baptist church in which I asked them, “Is Jesus God?” and provided them two check-boxes to choose from: “Yes” and “No.” Several of them wrote in a third option: “He is the Son of God.” But when Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, He was claiming to be coequal, of the same divine nature, as God. While it is possible that when Jesus said, “I AM,” here that He was taking upon Himself the divine covenant name of God by which He revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush, “Son of God” was certainly a title that indicated that He was God in human form. This one title expresses succinctly and accurately that He is fully God and fully man. Not half-and-half, not 60/40 or 90/10, but all-and-all; fully God, fully man. And the people of Jesus’ day understood this. For instance, here the High Priest declares that Jesus has committed blasphemy. The only way this charge could be maintained was that if Jesus had cursed God’s name (which He had not done), or ascribed God’s honor to Himself or equated Himself with God (which He had done). Only here, it is actually not blasphemy, contrary to Caiphas’ judgment, because it just so happens to be true. So Jesus makes a very clear statement about His divine nature and His human nature.

He also makes a clear statement about His mission. In affirming that He is the Christ, the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew concept of Messiah, He was declaring that He had come to fulfill God’s promises and accomplish God’s purposes of salvation. While many misunderstood what kind of Messiah they should expect, the Scriptures had foretold that He would come and save humanity from sin through His own suffering. Had they understood the Old Testament, the people would have recognized the Messianic mission of Jesus. As it stood, though, they did not believe He was the Messiah because He did not do what they thought the Messiah would do – namely, vanquish their earthly oppressors, the power of Rome. But Jesus had come to deliver all of humanity from an even greater oppressor: sin and Satan. And He would do it through His won sufferings in humanity’s place, and would be vindicated by His Father through His resurrection and ascension. As Peter indicates in 1 Peter 1:10-11, the Prophets knew about the salvation that was to come, as well as the sufferings and the glory that the Messiah would experience. The sufferings were under way in the events leading up to the cross. The glory was yet to come. But come it would as He conquered death through His resurrection and ascended bodily into heaven where He was seated at the right hand of the Father (as Psalm 110 indicated), and that glory will be made manifest once more when He comes again, coming with the clouds of Heaven (as Daniel 7:13 indicated), to consummate His eternal Kingdom.

Like Jesus, we must use wisdom in responding to the questions that come our way. We do not have to feel compelled to answer every question that others ask or address every subject of human curiousity. We cannot let our witness be diverted away from its central focus on the person of Jesus Christ. It is OK to say to people, “I don’t know,” or “That is off the subject,” or even in some cases to not respond at all, just as Jesus did with the first set of questions the High Priest asked Him here. But when the subject turns to who Jesus is and what He has done and will do in the future, we cannot be silent. If we would be true witnesses for Him, then from His own example we learn to keep the discussion centered on His divine and human nature, His messianic mission of salvation from sin in His death on the cross, and His glorious resurrection and second coming. I had a professor say once that the closer we stay to the trunk of the tree, the less our chances of getting out on a limb. And the further away we get from the nature and mission of Jesus in our witness, the further out on a limb we are. The true witness keeps it centered right there – on the person and work of Jesus Christ.

III. The True Witness Speaks the Truth at All Costs (vv63-65)

Jesus Christ answered Caiphas’ question knowing what the outcome would be. He knew that declaring Himself to be the Messianic Son of God would lead to His death. He knew that their hard hearts would not turn. In saying, “I am,” Jesus willingly embraces the verdict of blasphemy and the sentence of death. He was falsely condemned, publicly shamed, spit upon, beaten, slapped, and ultimately killed. And He opens Himself to the mockery and the torture, but the One who calls Himself the faithful and true witness testifies to the truth, knowing what will come, and knowing ultimately that God is in control of what comes.

You put any other individual in human history in His place there, and the story could easily have a different outcome. Anyone else there may continue to hold his tongue, may refuse to answer, or may offer some delicately worded political response that was less than forthright, but would keep him out of trouble. Most Americans would want to plead the Fifth Amendment, which protects us from self-incrimination. But Jesus was not afforded that right, and if He had been, He would have forfeited it in exchange for speaking the truth. As you and I are faced with opportunities to testify for Jesus, we will also face temptation to tell people what we think they want to hear, or soft-sell the gospel in more humanly acceptable terms. But that temptation must be resisted with all fortitude! We have no right to tinker with the message or to seek to persuade people with half-truths. The full truth may be – NO, it WILL BE – offensive to many. The Bible promises us that. But we must speak the full truth anyway. The truth will cost us relationships, it will bring us hardships, it will force us to make hard choices. In some parts of the world today it will cost Christ’s followers their lives. This doesn’t mean that we proclaim the truth in insensitive ways, that we intentionally seek to offend people, or that we foolishly look to start trouble. We are following Jesus’ example, and Jesus was not a jerk about the truth. Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:15 that we are to speak the truth in love. We aren’t looking for a fight or seeking martyrdom, but we know that the truth will often spark controversy. No one will ever face what Jesus faced. Yet, even knowing what would transpire when He spoke the truth, He spoke it anyway and entrusted Himself to His Father with the outcome. Like Him, the true witness speaks the truth at all costs, knowing that ultimately God is in control and will accomplish His purposes when the truth is declared.

Here in the greatest travesty of justice in human history, the God of the universe incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ was tried, convicted, sentenced and tortured. But we know the rest of the story. We know that He who humbled Himself to death on the cross was vindicated in His resurrection, having accomplished in His death the redemption of humanity from sin. The sufferings He endured did not prevent God’s purposes from being secured, but in fact produced the fulfillment of those purposes. And in the eyes of many in the world today, Jesus is still on trial. The evidence is being weighed in their hearts and minds as they consider what they will do with this One who is called Jesus. And you and I have been called into the dock to bear testimony as witnesses. We have been commissioned by Jesus to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help us God. And He has promised His help in the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Only one question remains: Will we be found as true witnesses? Will we base our testimony on the authority of God’s Word, or will we entertain half-truths, distortions, opinions and speculations? Will we center our conversation on the Person of Jesus, or will we be distracted by meaningless and baseless arguments about insignificant matters? Will we speak the truth in love at all costs, or will we alter the message in hopes of making the message more socially acceptable? May the One who calls Himself the faithful and true Witness find us following in His own example as truthful witnesses to Him.