Tag: Old Law

The Sanhedrin

Neal Pollard

Did they trace their origin to the time of the wilderness wandering, where God tells Moses to appoint 70 elders to help in a specific situation (Num. 11:16-25)? Throughout the Old Testament, we find elders in Israel gathered for specific purposes, but the formal body of administrators, civic and religious instructors, arbitrators, and rulers are not found until less than a century before the birth of Christ. Josephus records friction and hostility between Herod and the Sanhedrin (Antiq. 14:167-180; see more information in the Mishnah, Mishnah). They are a fully-formed authoritative body during the ministry of Jesus. Most English translations do not have the word “Sanhedrin,” but translate the word “Council” (the Greek word is SYNEDRION). 

After Jesus begins His public ministry, teaching and performing miracles and clashing with the religious rulers throughout the nation, they convene to determine how to handle His mounting influence and popularity. In John 11:47-53, they enumerate their concerns: (1) This man is performing many signs, (2) If we let Him go on, all men will believe in Him, and (3) the Romans will take away their place and their nation. Their solution was destined to be unjust, since their conclusion was that “from that day on they planned together to kill Him” (53). Sure enough, they arrest and try Jesus (Matthew 26:47,57-27:2), actively try to pin guilt on Him (Mark 14:55), and bring Him to Pilate (Luke 22:66). Their hands are stained with the guilt of His blood! Later, they will use their influence to try and stop His church from growing (Acts 4-5). They are kindred spirits with all the scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers, chief priests, and elders, and they certainly work together with a single purpose to try to discredit and destroy Jesus. Ironically, it was all in the name of pious religion.

While they were Jewish, practitioners of the Old Law, and first century contemporaries, human nature is not restricted to one race, religion, or realm. Their spirit lives on today. What lessons do they teach us? What warnings do they give us?

  • If you have to do wrong to “do right,” you have missed it somewhere. Whether it was false witnesses, deceitfulness, entrapment, lying, or any other sin, they broke their beloved law in their blind hatred of Jesus. 
  • Bible knowledge does not equate to true faithfulness. These men were considered experts, caretakers of God’s Word. Yet, Jesus lays out their wickedness in great detail (Matthew 23). 
  • Pride can blind us to the truth. Pride can’t be corrected, taught, reasoned with, open-minded, fair, or circumspect. All of these dispositions are necessary for the discovery of truth.
  • Religious position and status can become more important than honest character and humble study. The end of John 11 shows that their overriding concern was losing their influence and sway. This mindset was infectious (John 12:42-43). 
  • Never let your love of tradition outweigh your reverence for God and proper treatment of your brethren. Jesus’ answer about the greatest commandments, applauded even by one of their law experts (Mark 12:28-34), is contrasted with their own conduct and character. 
  • Envy yields ironic, yet destructive, results. Even a profane pagan like Pilate could see this (Matthew 27:18; Mark 15:10)
  • Don’t choose the superficial (appearances, men’s praise, etc.) over godly ethics and righteousness. Jesus warned against the shallow righteousness of these men (Matthew 5:18) and even illustrated it (Matthew 6:1-18) in teaching like the Sermon on the Mount. He will condemn it later, in Matthew 23. 
  • Do not begin with a desired outcome and look for evidence to support it. It is a tendency, in and out of the church, to arrive at a position and then hunt down, manipulate, twist, and dishonestly handle Scripture to defend it (cf. 2 Peter 3:16). That is not only backward; it is immoral!
  • We can back ourselves into a corner. How hardhearted were these men? They ignored Jesus’ teaching, His miracles, and the empty tomb. Despite overwhelming evidence, they tried to suppress incontrovertible evidence (Matthew 28:11-15). 

A Few Less Considered Benefits Of Baptism

Gary Pollard

According to Romans 5-6 and Galatians, baptism frees us from the standard of the old law. Without grace, which we receive at baptism, our only hope for eternal life is perfectly keeping every single command. No one can do that. The law existed to show us how sinful we are, according to Romans, and we become aware of our own inadequacy compared to God’s standard. Baptism releases us from that standard. We become part of a new and far more lenient system. And no person who has genuinely been convicted by their own guilt would see that as license to sin. But it does mean that God’s forgiveness is abundant and powerful. This is yet another benefit of baptism. 

In Colossians 2, baptism gives us access to the divine and to a perfect new body. John likely wrote I John at the end of the first or beginning of the second century, some decades after the church was established. Despite probably tens or hundreds of thousands of people who had divine insight through miraculous gifts, by John’s day the nature of this new body was still unknown (I John 3.1-3). That hasn’t changed. We can make inferences from how Jesus interacted with reality and with his disciples after his resurrection. There’re some interesting and compelling aspects to what Jesus could do with this new body, but that’s a study for another time. All we know is that baptism gives us access, through Christ, to a greatly expanded range of intellectual and physical motion after the death of this body. 

Equality is something of a loaded term in this era. For most people, it’s an activism word. But scripture presents a divine equality that has nothing to do what race or sex or culture a person is: I Corinthians 12.12-13, A person has only one body, but many parts. Yes, there are many parts, but all those parts are still just one body. Christ is like that, too. Some of us are Jews and some of us are not; some of us are slaves and some of us are free. But we were all baptized to become one body through one spirit, and we all drink from the same spirit. 

Activism has tried and repeatedly failed to “level the playing field” because humans are flawed. One extreme imposes draconian overreaction, the other extreme denies its value entirely. Only God offers true unity and equality. When we’re baptized, we join a body unified by the same power responsible for creating everything we see, and everything we can’t yet see. 

The End Of All Things

Gary Pollard

In I Pt 4.1-6, we’re reminded that “new life” means adopting a new lifestyle. Jesus was willing to suffer, so we should be too. For those who converted recently, their friends might think it’s rude that they don’t do the same things they used to. They might even be painted in a bad light around their old friends. It’s hard for anyone to lose their friends! 

But we’re reminded in 4.7 that the end is near. In the context of I Peter, that was the end of their lives. For them, it was the end of all things. Its double meaning is that the end of the world is near. But this was written 2000 years ago, so how was the end near? God doesn’t experience time the same way we do. But in light of world history, 2000 years isn’t that much time. The Patriarchal Age lasted 2500 years. The Old Law was in effect for 1500 years. Until about 500 years ago, the Bible was not accessible to most of the world. It’s not too much of a stretch to assume that God assigned a dual meaning to this passage. We have no idea when the end will be, so we need to “keep our minds clear and control ourselves.”

How does God expect us to live while we’re waiting for the end of all things? 4.8 tells us to love each other deeply. How? By opening our homes to each other and sharing the food we have without complaining (9). By remembering that God gives us so much grace, and we should use our talents to help each other (10). If we’re good at encouraging, we should pursue that with all our strength. The same goes for serving others (11). This section tells us that time is too unpredictable and limited for us to be messing around. Humanity is diving headfirst into chaos, but that isn’t our concern. Even if this is the end, God wants us to use our time to help each other.