Jesus' reasons for not speaking in His trial

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Mark1970

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I have an interesting (to me at least!) question/observation, I was wondering if anybody could throw some light on this.

When I went to Mass on Sunday, a few of us were having a conversation about talking to non-Christians, particularly with a view to evangelisation. Somehow the subject came round to Jesus and His trial, when He was silent before Herod and the Sanhedrin. I expressed a view I’ve heard on several occasions - that Jesus remained silent particularly before Herod because He knew that Herod was so confirmed in his lifestyle that He would be wasting His time saying anything that may convert Herod. This is in contrast with the many occasions when Jesus talked to non-Jews or Jews that were in bad standing such as tax-collectors, who may have been open to conversion.

The people I was talking to contradicted my observations, saying that He didn’t talk to Herod because Herod was an excommunicated Jew, he was excommunicated because he married his brother’s wife and beheaded John the Baptist, breaking the Commandments in a major way. In other words, He didn’t speak to Herod because He was forbidden by Jewish law from doing so. I can’t imagine Jesus refusing to speak to Herod for this reason considering the number of times He was criticised by the Jewish authorities for associating with the people they regarded as “sinners”. I’ve also heard that Herod may not have been 100% Jewish to start off with and so wasn’t fully accepted by the Jewish community anyway - I’ve heard that his father Herod the Great was responsible for building the Temple but couldn’t go into in because he wasn’t fully Jewish.

Can anybody throw some light on these comments. Was Herod an “excommunicated” Jew that Jesus wouldn’t speak to because He wouldn’t/couldn’t? Or was there some other reason, such as the reason I was given - that Jesus perhaps felt He would be wasting His time when He needed to stay strong for His Passion?
 
Jesus did not speak because neither the court nor Herod had power over him. It is the same principle we see in modern politics, when the presidents refuse to respond to various state court efforts to subpeona documents or compel testimony. To have addressed them would have comprimised his authority. At judgment, the sanhedrin and Herod will face the same Lord to be judged, and then he will speak.

Cheers!
 
I really think youre putting to much thought into this,Jesus remained silent because He knew that this trial had to pass that all righteousness would be fullfilled through His perfect sacrifice
 
Consider the Messianic prophecy of Isaiah 53, which is a short chapter. Pay particular attention to verse 7 and 8: “Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth; Like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearers, he was silent and opened not his mouth. Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away, and who would have thought any more of his destiny? When he was cut off from the land of the living, and smitten for the sin of his people,.”

So, the Messiah, when put to trial, would not speak in his own defense, even though he was innocent of wrongdoing, as we see in Isaiah 53:9 “A grave was assigned him among the wicked and a burial place with evildoers, Though he had done no wrong nor spoken any falsehood.”

After centuries of domination, occupation and oppression, all of Israel waited and hoped for the promised Messiah. When John the Baptist appeared, they even asked him if he was the One (John 1:19-27). We see in these verses how John almost by name refers to Jesus as the One Who is to come - Who indeed was already among them. For the Messiah to be true, He would have to be the fulfillment of prophecy. We know that this prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus, and how the Lord pointed this out to those who desired knowledge of Him. Yet, Jesus, the True Messiah, had been rejected and put to death. Thus, many no longer believed in Him.

After the Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4), the Apostles were Spirit-filled, launching their mission to reveal Jesus as Messiah to the entire world (Matthew 28:19). Now, have a look at Acts 8:26-40, in which the Ethiopian eunuch is reading these exact messianic verses Isaiah 53:7-8 and is seeking to understand them. Philip is sent to him and explains that the fulfillment of that prophecy is Christ. The eunuch accepts the Gospel of Christ, then asks for, and receives Baptism.

Jesus remained silent so that the prophecy of Isaiah might be fulfilled.
 
Being a neophyte, I wouldn’t lend much credibility to my theories, but I thought about the issue posed. I would say, having read Scripture, that it goes back to the Old Testament. If we are to accept that Jesus is Lord, which I do, than we must look to the fact that God the Father and Son are One, and would therefore share simmilar traits, which I have. If we read the Book of Job we find that God does not answer the questions of Job, instead He puts forth questions of His own designed to elucidate upon the position of submission Job’s lot in life carries. I think the same principle can be applied to Yeshua in the New Testament as it can be applied to Yahweh in the Old. For Christ to submit to the questioning of Herod or Pilate would be God submitting to human authority. It was, to my understanding, the purpose of the Passion for God to allow for the redemption of our sins, but submission to earthly power would not have accomplished the end, so it did not become a goal. Just my two cents.

God bless,
 
Mark1970 said:
I have an interesting (to me at least!) question/observation, I was wondering if anybody could throw some light on this.

When I went to Mass on Sunday, a few of us were having a conversation about talking to non-Christians, particularly with a view to evangelisation. Somehow the subject came round to Jesus and His trial, when He was silent before Herod and the Sanhedrin. I expressed a view I’ve heard on several occasions - that Jesus remained silent particularly before Herod because He knew that Herod was so confirmed in his lifestyle that He would be wasting His time saying anything that may convert Herod. This is in contrast with the many occasions when Jesus talked to non-Jews or Jews that were in bad standing such as tax-collectors, who may have been open to conversion.

The people I was talking to contradicted my observations, saying that He didn’t talk to Herod because Herod was an excommunicated Jew, he was excommunicated because he married his brother’s wife and beheaded John the Baptist, breaking the Commandments in a major way. In other words, He didn’t speak to Herod because He was forbidden by Jewish law from doing so. I can’t imagine Jesus refusing to speak to Herod for this reason considering the number of times He was criticised by the Jewish authorities for associating with the people they regarded as “sinners”. I’ve also heard that Herod may not have been 100% Jewish to start off with and so wasn’t fully accepted by the Jewish community anyway - I’ve heard that his father Herod the Great was responsible for building the Temple but couldn’t go into in because he wasn’t fully Jewish.

Can anybody throw some light on these comments. Was Herod an “excommunicated” Jew that Jesus wouldn’t speak to because He wouldn’t/couldn’t? Or was there some other reason, such as the reason I was given - that Jesus perhaps felt He would be wasting His time when He needed to stay strong for His Passion?
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Jesus was in a kangoroo court. Before they brought Him in, He was already found guilty.
They just needed to make it look official before they did away with Him. They dug up witnesses that contradicted one another. When Jesus did answer He was slapped in the face by the guard. This was a done deal and finished before they even started. No defense was possible.

When they found Him guilty of making himself God, they didn’t have authority to kill Him because they were under Roman Law. So they had to send him to Pilate for that.
 
Well, IMHO, Jesus’ silence could be interpreted as Him forsaking any last vestiges of self-defense that He could have employed. He is willing to put up with any faulty reasonings and (false!) sentences that the legal proceedings might lead; the hour has, after all, come. His silence is His acceptance of the Passion as the Father’s will.
 
Great points.

I think too, concerning Herrod and Pilate, that a time comes when a man has so hardened himself against God that God simply has nothing left to say to him. You see this for example in the Books of Isaiah, Ezekiel and Amos where God tells Israel that their religion is a stench and he will not accept them or hear their prayers. Also Paul tells us that because of persistent impenitent sin God gives us over to our debased minds and in so doing seals us so that we cannot repent. The same is also said in 2Cor (?) I think where the Apostle says that God will add a hardening to the people so that they cannot repent.

Well what is this hardening?

I think if you look at Pharaoh God hardens him by simply removing the strictures of common grace on him and allowing his wicked heart to have full sway over his mind, thus Pharaoh destroys his own country and household because he refuses to repent.

History tells us that Pilate killed himself a few years after the fact and Herod is dead by the time Paul stands in front of Festus so maybe this was the last time they ever had to repent and instead mocked Jesus and were puzzled by his silence.
 
bogeydogg said:
History tells us that Pilate killed himself a few years after the fact and Herod is dead by the time Paul stands in front of Festus so maybe this was the last time they ever had to repent and instead mocked Jesus and were puzzled by his silence.
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Actually, the whole story about Pilate committing suicide is only related by Eusebius in his Church History (2.7), who claims his source as"those who record the Olympiads of the Greeks with the annals of events." However, no extant records, Greek or otherwise, confirm this statement, and Eusebius itself calls it tradition. Indeed, in his other work, Chronicon he cites “the Roman historians” rather than the Greek as his source for the same statement, indicating that he had trouble documenting Pilate’s presumed suicide.

In fact, when the philosopher and anti-Christian writer Celsus wrote his The True Word around AD 177, one of his arguments against Christianity was that Pilate suffered nothing despite having sentenced to death alleged divinity, unlike King Pentheus of legend. Origen, who wrote a reply to Celsus, gave the answer that it was the Jews, not Pilate, who are guilty. “And yet he does not know that it was not so much Pilate that condemned Him (who knew that for envy the Jews had delivered Him), as the Jewish nation, which has been condemned by God, and rent in pieces, and dispersed over the whole earth, in a degree far beyond what happened to Pentheus.” He however does not mention anything about Pilate’s end, which might show that there was no tradition of Pilate’s death in the 2nd or 3rd centuries.

Near-contemporary sources, such as Philo, Tacitus, and Josephus, also do not make mention of what happened to him. What we know for certain is:

In AD 36, A large group of Samaritans had been persuaded by an unnamed man to go to Mount Gerizim in order to see sacred artifacts allegedly buried by Moses there. But at a village named Tirathana, before the crowd could ascend the mountain, Pilate sent in “a detachment of cavalry and heavily armed infantry, who in an encounter with the first comers in the village slew some in a pitched battle and put the others to flight. Many prisoners were taken, of whom Pilate put to death the principal leaders and those who were most influential among the fugitives.” The Samaritans then complained to Vitellius, the governor of Syria, of the excess on Pilate’s part. Vitellius had Pilate recalled from his position as prefect and sent him to Rome to explain his actions regarding this incident to Tiberius. However, by the time Pilate got to Rome, Tiberius had died. What happened to Pilate after this is merely pure speculation.
 
Jesus did actually speak at his “trial”, saying words to the effect that he was preaching in the temple every day and why did they have to arrest him at night. Actually, that might have been just before the trial.

But Jesus had his supporters within the Sanhedrin and they did not chose to convict him. Likely, because of the conflicting witnesses, they wanted to hold him over and get more evidence against him. Something Caiaphas did not want to do. Jesus had to die yesterday! And so Jesus was transferred over to Pilate, with Caiaphas basically ordering Pilate to execute him, which Pilate, though feigning reluctance, had no choice but to do.

FWIW, the book of John doesn’t even mention a trial in front of the Sanhedrin, or any Jewish council. And John was supposedly written by an eyewitness, and possibly a renegade Temple Priest.

Jesus did speak- famously-in front of Pilate. And probably did say a few words to Herod when Pilate tried to get Herod to take Jesus off his hands. It is interesting to note that it is likely that Herodias was with Herod when Jesus was brought before them. Herodias, of course, indirectly asked for the head of John the baptist a little more than a year before.

While the common people hated the illegal marriage of Herod Antipas to his brother’s wife, the temple high Priesthood, though in secret agreement with the common people, would not dare move against the powerful Herod Antipas, who was a personal friend of Emperor Tiberius. Both the Priests and Herod were servants of Rome, after all.

Herod Antipas was half Jewish, with his mother Malthace being a full-blooded Samaritan Jewess. His father Herod the Great was by blood almost pure Arab. His mother was an Arabian princess, and his father was Jewish, but only a couple generations before that side of the family was Arabic and was forced to convert under threat of banishment or worse by John Hyrcanus I, the Asamonean king of the independent Jewish nation.

All of this is covered in Hagan’s outstanding books “Year of the Passover” and “Fires of Rome.”
 
I tend to side with the previous post about Isaiah 53, why Jesus was silent, or perhaps I should say that makes most sense to me.

There might be some more relevance in the Torah rules about imposing the death penalty. Generally, the Jews were always looking for a way out, to not execute an accused person, because they did not want to violate the commandment about murdering a person.

The midnight trial itself may have some symbolism, beyond the obvious presence of darkness.

When we go into scripture, we should do with with faith and prayer, to find the answers to these questions that obsess us at times.

At one time Jesus taught, “resist not evil.” (didn’t he?) He would naturally be the very one to follow such of his own teaching.
 
Luke 23:8 When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard about him, and he was **hoping to see some sign **done by him.

Perhaps the above verse contains a part of the answer also. Herod wasn’t interested in Jesus because of what He had to say. He was just curious to see Jesus perform some sort of a miracle. Some people just have an attraction, often unhealthy, to the supernatural. (Imagine being hauled into court before a judge that wasn’t really interested in anything you had to say – but wanted to see you tap dance because he’d heard you were a fantastic dancer.)
 
Ive found that these type of answers are “both are correct and more”. Isaiah prophecy is correct, but also, remember that Herod was a “Client King” of Judea placed by the Romans. Romans did this like many empires do, which is to leave a local governing. Even Hitler did it. In fact, they even used Jews (Matthew) to collect taxes. Herod was a Jew and this is why he was publicly rebuked more so than Pilate. John 3:19.

Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich also explains in her visions that Jesus didnt even look at Herod because he was excommunicated. You can google her visions and read The Trial of Jesus.

God bless you all.
 
jabaez02 said:
Ive found that these type of answers are “both are correct and more”. Isaiah prophecy is correct, but also, remember that Herod was a “Client King” of Judea placed by the Romans. Romans did this like many empires do, which is to leave a local governing. Even Hitler did it. In fact, they even used Jews (Matthew) to collect taxes. Herod was a Jew and this is why he was publicly rebuked more so than Pilate. John 3:19.

Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich also explains in her visions that Jesus didnt even look at Herod because he was excommunicated. You can google her visions and read The Trial of Jesus.

God bless you all.
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:hmmm:
 
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