First, that Jesus was
condemned on the charge of blasphemy--condemned because He made Himself
equal with God. His own words, pronounced upon oath, administered in the
most solemn manner, were understood by the Sanhedrim to be an explicit
claim to be the Son of God in a sense in which no man could without
blasphemy claim to be so. He made no explanation of His words when He
saw how they were understood. And yet, were He not truly Divine, there
was no one who could have been more shocked than Himself by such a
claim. He understood, if any man did, the majesty of God; He knew better
than any other the difference between the Holy One and His sinful
creatures; His whole life was devoted to the purpose of revealing to men
the unseen God. What could have seemed to Him more monstrous, what could
more effectually have stultified the work and aim of His life, than that
He, being a man, should allow Himself to be taken for God? When Pilate
told Him that He was charged with claiming to be a king, He explained to
Pilate in what sense He did so, and removed from Pilate's mind the
erroneous supposition this claim had given birth to. Had the Sanhedrim
cherished an erroneous idea of what was involved in His claim to be the
Son of God, He must also have explained to them in what sense He made
it, and have removed from their minds the impression that He was
claiming to be properly Divine. He did not make any explanation; He
allowed them to suppose He claimed to be the Son of God in a sense which
would be blasphemous in a mere man. So that if any one gathers from this
that Jesus was Divine in a sense in which it were blasphemy for any
other man to claim to be, he gathers a legitimate, even a necessary,
inference.

Another reflection which is forced upon the reader of this narrative is,
that disaster waits upon stifled inquiry. The Jews honestly convicted
Christ as a blasphemer because they had dishonestly denied Him to be a
good man. The little spark which would have grown into a blazing light
they put their heel upon. Had they at the first candidly considered Him
as He went about doing good and making no claims, they would have become
attached to Him as His disciples did, and, like them, would have been
led on to a fuller knowledge of the meaning of His person and work. It
is these beginnings of conviction we are so apt to abuse. It seems so
much smaller a crime to kill an infant that has but once drawn breath
than to kill a man of lusty