We have endeavored to study the members of the Sanhedrim that sat at the trial of Christ from two points of view — in their individual character, and in their acts.  After a minute and conscientious study of the subject, we find first, as to its membership, that this court of justice consists of a body of men, the majority of whom are unworthy of their function, possessing neither piety, uprightness, nor moral integrity.  Historians of their own nation have not hesitated to so describe them.

As to their acts — that is to say, their manner of conducting the trial — we have summed up twenty-seven irregularities, a single one of which would have sufficed to annul the sentence.  The number of irregularities which we have noticed as direct violations of the laws then in force among the Hebrews would be largely increased were the trial of Christ to be analyzed and judged according to the more perfect system of jurisprudence of the present day.  Can any one honestly and sincerely reflect upon these things without being convinced of the utter lack of moral character in the judges, and the shameful injustice of their proceedings against Christ?  And now, we ask, is not every Israelite bound by the highest principles of honor and justice to withhold his ratification of the sentence pronounced against Christ by the Sanhedrim until he has thoroughly studied the question, “Who was Jesus Christ?”

Surely He could not have been an ordinary man.  Not only do His character and works show it, but also the conduct of His enemies toward Him.  The detection of some irregularity on the part of the judges conducting a trial does not necessarily imply the innocence of the accused, but what can we say of a trial abounding from beginning to end with the gravest infractions of law and decorum?  The fact of such scandalous proceedings having been permitted by the body of men composing the highest tribunal of the land, proves beyond a doubt that they recognized in Jesus an extraordinary personage with an influence that threatened ruin to their ambitious prospects.

Who, then, was this wonderful person?

On the day when Jesus made His triumphant entry into Jerusalem (that was five days before His trial), the Jews from all quarters, far and near — “Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, in Phyrgia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome” — all gathered together to celebrate the Feast of the Passover, on seeing the joyful enthusiasm with which the people greeted Him, wonderingly asked themselves, each in his own tongue, “Who is this?” Matthew 21:10.

And if, in the hour of His triumph, this question should have forced itself upon the astonished minds of the Jews of His own time, how much more should the story of His humiliation and unjust sufferings provoke the same question from His brethren after the flesh of the present day!

Who is this, to secure whose downfall all forms of law had been wantonly violated?

Who is this, who met the insolence of His accuses with meekness and serenity?

Who is this, who drank of the bitter waters of Kedron like David, and was sold like Joseph?

Nineteen hundred years have passed.  The tumultuous passions of Christ’s enemies have subsided.  Yet this question continues to resound with a resistless clamor in the ears of those of whom He once said, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.”

As for ourselves, your own brethren after the flesh, we solved the question twenty years ago; and it is never without profound emotion that we turn to a certain page of God’s Holy Word to which we desire to call your special attention.  Meditate upon it.  It will show you who the condemned one of the Sanhedrim was; it will also show you how the Jewish people, by repentance and faith in Him, shall enter with their tribes and families into the promised land of Christ’s Church on earth in glorious anticipation of the heavenly Canaan.

The passages to which we refer are found in the prophecies of Zechariah:

“In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David, and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them.

“And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him as one is in bitterness for his firstborn.

“And the land shall mourn, every family apart;

“The family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart;

“The family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart;

“The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart;

“The family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart;

“All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.

“And one shall say unto Him, What are these wounds in Thine hands?  And He shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of My friends.

“They shall call on My name and I will hear them: I will say, It is My people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God,” Zechariah 12, 13.

By this description, by this dialogue, by these wounds in the hands and feet, how can you fail, O Israelites, to recognize the God-man, the Lord, the promised Messiah?  Our fathers, it is true, have not known Him, but their sons shall know Him, and every one shall say unto Him, “The Lord is my God.”

Acknowledging Him as their Saviour, they will, in contemplating the wounds in His hands and His feet, shed bitter tears of repentance.  At such a sight the whole earth will be moved; and all the families that remain shall join in their lamentations, “every family apart, and their wives apart.”

We who have written these pages will not live to see the glorious day of Israel’s redemption; but from heaven, where we trust God will have graciously received us, we shall contemplate with joy unspeakable the gathering in of our people to the fold of Christ.