Moment of Meditation: No False Testimony (Matthew 26:59-60)

''Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward (Matthew 26:59-60).''

The chief priests called the entire Sanhedrin together so that they might deal with this misguided, itinerate rabbi Jesus. They knew that there wasn't anything based in truth that they could accuse Him of. They had tried it. The Pharisees wanted to tangle Jesus in His words about Church and State (Matthew 22:15-22). The Sadducees then came to call Him a blasphemer for His teaching on the resurrection of the dead (22:23-33). Then the Pharisees came back with the question about the greatest and most important commandment (22:34-40).

The entire Jewish aristocracy was in an uproar against this one man. Somehow Jesus had found Himself in the midst of the religious civil war between the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

Somehow? Really? Like Jesus hadn't known exactly what He was doing. The two sides of the civil war had broken away from Jesus' Word in the Scriptures. In the civil war, it wasn't the Pharisees vs the Sadducees as the main event. The civil war was, is and will be until Jesus returns, sinners vs. the Savior. We sinfully seek to discredit Jesus because we think we can justify ourselves.

But the whole of Scriptures shows us that we cannot justify ourselves. That's the false testimony of the devil. The true testimony of Scripture shows our desperate need for Jesus as our Savior. The one perfect sacrifice for the sins of every man, woman and child who has ever lived and ever will live. The Savior in whom no false testimony could be found. Amen.