Sermon: Caiaphas and Injustice

Caiaphas, the High Priest, and the Setting of Matthew 26

Open your Bibles to the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 26. Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 26. We are now in the scene in the historic record here of the Word of God, where Jesus has been taken before Caiaphas after the betrayal, and after the crowds come against him with swords and clubs to capture him as against a robber.

So, Matthew, chapter 26, we're starting in verse 57. Hear now the word of the living and the true God. Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and elders had gathered.

And Peter was following him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and going inside he sat with the guards to see the end. 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.

At last two came forward and said, this man said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days. And the high priest stood up and said, have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?

But Jesus remained silent, and the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said to him, you have said so, but I tell you from now on, you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.

Then the high priest tore his robes and said, he has uttered blasphemy, what further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy, what is your judgment? They answered, he deserves death. Then they spit in his face and struck him.

And some slapped him, saying, prophesy to us, you Messiah, who is it that struck you? Thus far is the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray together as God's people. God, we come before your word, your holy word, breathed out by you.

This is your gift to us. It is the foundation of our certainty. It's the foundation of our hope. It's what is the truth. Lord, let you be true and every man a liar. This is your holy word. We come to you as your people humbled at this gift.

We know, Lord, in this world where you're making all things new, there are still people who love you and know you that have no access to this word. And so, Lord, we thank you for that gift that we have access to hold this revelation that.

You've given.

And Lord, we ask today that, Lord, you get the teacher out of the way, that you would teach by your spirit, that you use your word to change us, to renew our minds. I do pray, Lord, especially for this message today, I pray help me to teach in a way that glorifies you and challenges each and every single one of us to live a life not like Caiaphas, to uphold your standards of wisdom and justice, to hate false accusations and false witness.

I do pray that, Lord, you'd grant to us the grace here at this church you've called together, Lord, to live in a way that's consistent with your law and your standards of justice and wisdom so that you'd be glorified in how we love one another by not bearing false witness and receiving false accusations.

Lord, allow everyone to forget my name and remember yours in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Synoptic Gospels, John, and the Trial Before Caiaphas

So here we are.

This is a powerful moment. If you read the Gospels together, we have, of course, the synoptic Gospels. Synoptic just means seeing together. You can read Matthew, Mark, and Luke together, the synoptics, and at times, you're running in the same course, in the same thread, in the same discussion, in the same historical event.

Oftentimes, you'll see Mark might shorten it a count. You'll see that Luke might give more details or change language that you see in Matthew that's very Jewish in nature. Maybe a Gentile won't really know what you're talking about.

And so the synoptics run together, and we have the history of Jesus. John, in particular, will run along the same threads, but at times gives us more information. John's actually my favorite Gospel because it is so undeniably intimate, and it just speaks so much to the love of God for his people.

And here we are in this section from Matthew, where Matthew gives us details of this kangaroo court, this mixed up, confused, convoluted trial done by the high priest Caiaphas. And in 26 .57, it says, Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered.

Now, we already know about Caiaphas from where we were before this. We learned, of course, about Peter taking the sword that Jesus told him to take and actually using it in a way that actually was displeasing to God, and cuts off the ear of the servant of the high priest.

And so there's some connection here. I wonder how much Caiaphas heard about that moment before he has Jesus before him. Like, were they talking about the fact, like, hey, Malchus, your ear is better. Maybe you should tell Caiaphas that he should take very careful words with the Lord Jesus, like handle him in a different way.

He just healed the servant's ear. I wonder what conversations were taking place. But I want to talk about Caiaphas just for a moment here. We're going to talk, of course, about the injustice of Caiaphas, the evil of Caiaphas, what took place here, and what he did to the actual true high priest that was before him,.

Jesus.

But Caiaphas, we've actually found his house. I'm not going to belabor this today, but you can go into the archaeological studies, and you can see a lot of the stuff that's been dug up regarding Caiaphas.

This is actually a well-known first century figure, Caiaphas. We know about him from the New Testament historical record, of course, but also from Josephus, Flavius Josephus. Josephus was a Jew, a Pharisee, who actually survived the Roman-Jewish war and the destruction of Jerusalem that Jesus predicted in Matthew 24.

So Josephus was a Pharisee who survived by hiding under dead bodies. They found him. And later, he was actually respected by a Roman leader, and he was chosen to actually write a history of the Jews. So if you read Flavius Josephus, if you read his works of antiquity, you can actually see some of the, at least his accounting of some of the history of the Jews, actually quite a bit of it.

Even we actually have an account of the destruction of Jerusalem and the war between the Jews and the Romans in pretty vivid detail at points. But we know about Caiaphas from the New Testament record, as well as Josephus.

He was born, according to Josephus, 14 BC and died in 46 AD. He was the son of Annas. Annas, who was a high priest from 6 AD to 15 AD. Annas and Caiaphas, Annas and Caiaphas, are in the New Testament record.

We're going to talk about that. But Caiaphas was the son-in-law of Annas. Josephus claimed that Caiaphas was installed as the high priest by the Roman procurator Valerius Gratuson in 18 AD. Now, this is what we're going to do here.

We're going to try to get more context in terms of Caiaphas. Who was he? Where does he appear in the New Testament record? We can't do all of it, but there's actually more to this story. Before Caiaphas, this is important here, before Caiaphas gets Jesus before him in this moment, this isn't sort of his first time learning about Jesus.

This isn't his first conversation about Jesus. You're going to learn in a moment here that actually the Sanhedrin, the leadership in Jerusalem, they were plotting against Jesus. They were actually working to find false witnesses.

They're looking for liars.

They're looking for him.

Now, Caiaphas is the head of this whole charade at this moment, but this isn't the first time that ultimately he's talked about Jesus or wanted to have interaction with Jesus. If you go to your Bibles to John chapter 11, you'll see some more.

John chapter 11, everybody remembers we talked a lot about the raising of Lazarus and the trouble that that caused in Jerusalem. After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, there was even people who were thinking about killing Lazarus and Jesus, but in John chapter 11, verse 45, Jesus has now raised Lazarus.

From the dead.

Some people believed in Jesus and some disbelieved, which is shocking to me, demonstrates that miracles don't ultimately convert sinners. It takes a work of God. It takes regeneration. The Spirit of God opened the eyes of the blind and giving hearts of flesh where there were hearts of stone.

But people saw the miracles of Jesus and still left him, still didn't follow him. But in this particular event, this caused no small trouble in Jerusalem. So in John 11, verse 45, it says, many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him.

But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, what are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.

They're worried.

But one of them, Caiaphas, same Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, you know nothing at all, nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.

He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who were scattered abroad.

So from that day on, they made plans to put him to death. Jesus, therefore, no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there to the region near the wilderness to a town called Ephraim, and there he stayed with the disciples.

So here we have this moment after the raising of Lazarus. It caused trouble. It caused controversy. And think about what they're concerned about.

This is what's important.

Why are they so after Jesus?

He's feeding the poor.

He's giving people their legs back, for goodness sake. He's putting people's ears on. He's giving sight to the blind. He's raising a little dead girl. I mean, it takes Lazarus out of the tomb. You would think, like, what is wrong with these people?

Like, what are they opposed to? Why are they fighting against Jesus? And the answer is found in Jesus' indictment upon Jerusalem in Matthew chapter 23. He says, seven woes upon the scribes, the Pharisees, and the hypocrites in Jerusalem.

Seven woes.

That means a curse on you. If you want to see what his indictments were, go back and read Matthew 23. We did a sermon series on that. But Jesus indicted them because they were frauds. They were hypocrites.

They hid behind the Torah, the Tanakh. They hid behind the word of God. They hid behind the fact that they were technically the covenant people of God. But they were just wallowing in disobedience. They weren't obeying God's law.

If they had believed God's law, if they had believed his word, they would have believed.

Jesus.

And that was Jesus' claim to them. But what are they so troubled about? He raises Lazarus from the dead. And they go now and convene this council. Caiaphas is there. And what they're worried about is that this Jesus is claiming to be Mashiach.

Now, they know their Old Testament scriptures. They know the Messiah is going to rule the nations. All the nations are going to stream up to God's mountain. Salvation, redemption, and justice is going to fill the earth because of the Messiah.

They know the Messiah is going to be on the Davidic throne at the right hand of God. That he'll be ruling and reigning the kingdom of God. And here's Jesus. Christ means Mashiach, the Messiah. Wherever you see it, that's what it means.

Christ isn't his last name. It's Messiah. It's his title.

It's who he is.

He's God's anointed one. He is the sum of the entire story of scripture. The Messiah.

And they're worried.

Why?

They're worried because Rome didn't necessarily have a problem with the theology of the Jews. They don't care.

They're pagans.

You can worship anything you want in Rome.

They don't care what God you worship.

You can worship rocks and hay and gold and stubble and stone. It doesn't matter to them.

They don't care.

They got people going into temples to engage in all kinds of wicked things as acts of worship with other gods. They don't care. You've got Caligula in the first century that calls himself God. Tries to set up a statue of himself in the Jewish temple.

Caesar worship is a thing. They don't care. As a matter of fact, what's interesting here is that Jesus actually indicts them before this in Matthew chapter 26. Remember the betrayals happening? Who do you have coming?

Remember that scene? Who do you have coming to Jesus that night in the darkness? You have Judas the betrayer. You also have the temple police. And what do they have?

Clubs.

They weren't allowed to have swords. And you had the Romans who were carrying swords. So you have Roman guards and you have temple police.

Strange.

Because the Romans are only concerned with violations of law like robbery, murder, rape, things like that. The temple police are there ultimately to enforce against theological crimes. What are they doing together?

What are they doing together? This is convoluted. It doesn't make any sense. It's deceptive. And Jesus indicts them for it. Why are you coming out here against me with swords and clubs like a robber? I was with you in the temple, Jesus taught him.

I was with you in the temple.

If you ultimately, what he's saying is this, if you wanted to indict me for some theological crime, you had your chance.

I mean, think about it.

Jesus is in there cleansing the temple, flipping tables over. He's preaching against them. They were there and they even taught, they even tried to trip them up in theological games. And that's Jesus' point.

What's all this about? Swords and clubs? You had your chance to indict me for a theological crime. You didn't do it. So what are they worried about? They're worried Jesus is claiming to be the Messiah.

If everyone thinks he's the Messiah, maybe everyone follows him. And the one thing Rome cares about is this. If they say this is the Messiah, the King of Israel, he has all the authority in the world, even over Rome.

That is something that Rome will not abide by. They won't allow it. So what they're fearful of is that if Jesus truly is the Messiah, or if people think that he is, then Rome will come in and take away their place.

They're worried about their own authority. They don't care what the truth is. They're worried about their plans.

They're moving forward.

They're worried about their authority being stripped away. And that's how this starts with them. They plot against Jesus. So that's what you see here in this moment with Caiaphas. He's already had conversations about Jesus.

He already knows how the crowd feels about Jesus. He already knows what's going on with Jesus. People want Jesus dead. And now Jesus and Matthew's gospel is being brought before Caiaphas, the high priest.

Now think about for a moment the high priest, what that entails. You're the high priest.

You're the high priest.

You're supposed to know the law of God. Amen?

Yes?

You're supposed to know God's wisdom. You're supposed to know God's standards of justice. For goodness sake, you're the high priest. Top position. And we're going to learn more about Caiaphas here in a moment.

After the betrayal, he was taken actually in John's gospel to Annas, Caiaphas's father, father-in-law, in John 18. So go to John chapter 18 to see that scene. In Matthew's gospel, Matthew doesn't talk about this scene.

But in John chapter 18, we actually see that when Jesus is captured by this crowd, they actually bring him first because he was probably closer to Annas. Remember Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas?

He was high priest in Jerusalem before Caiaphas. So he is a man of reputation. People respect him. They saw him as the high priest. And the first place the crowds take Jesus is to Annas's house. And in John chapter 18, verse 12, we learn about this scene.

So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him. First, they led him to Annas, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.

It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that he would be expedient, that one man should die for the people. Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest.

But Peter stood outside at the door, so the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door and brought Peter in. The servant girl at the door said to Peter, you also are not one of this man's disciples, are you?

He said, I am not. Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire because it was cold. And they were standing and warming themselves. Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself with the crowd.

The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. Jesus answered him, I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in the synagogues and in the temple where all Jews come together.

I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them. You know what I said. When he had said these things, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand saying, is that how you answer the high priest?

Jesus answered him, if what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong. But if what I said is right, why do you strike me? Annas then sent him bound to Caiaphas, the high priest. So there's the scene.

Jesus is betrayed by Judas. His disciples flee, clubs and swords. They grab Jesus. They first take him to Annas. This scene happens. Jesus is already getting hit. He's confronting even how they're handling this injustice.

And now they take him to Caiaphas. Now, in verse 58 of 26, it says, and Peter was following him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the high priest. And going inside, he sat with the guards to see the ends.

Peter followed at a distance.

Don't let that miss you.

It's not just an accident of the text, just sort of describing where Peter happened to be. You remember that Peter is emboldened by Jesus knocking down the crowd with a declaration that he is ego eimi, I am.

They hear the words of their creator. The crowd falls. Peter is emboldened. And he does something that is ultimately sinful because Jesus says, this is what I've come for. And Jesus heals Malchus's ear, gives him his ear back.

And then what takes place? All the disciples flee. Like I said before, we got to give some grace and some mercy to Peter because we'd probably be in the same position. They flee. They leave Jesus. However, in fleeing Jesus, now the crowds are taking Jesus away.

And where's Peter?

He's following.

Why?

Can we be honest here and fair to Peter? Because he loves Jesus. Because he loves him. He does. He's a true believer. And he fails miserably. How do we learn from his failure? Well, first, we see in the text that Peter's following Jesus from a distance.

He could have stood as a witness for Jesus easily. He could have stood as a witness for Jesus. He could have been a witness against those witnesses when they, in a moment here we're going to see, where they distort what Jesus said about the temple.

Peter could have raised his hands and said, I'm a witness. I know what Jesus actually said about the destruction of the temple. He wasn't talking about what you're talking about.

You're lying.

Peter could have been a witness. Jesus had a right to remain silent. That comes from the law of God. He didn't have to help his accusers. That's where we get it from in our law, from the word of God. So if you like your fifth amendment, thank Moses.

Jesus didn't have any obligation to help his accusers. But Peter, for goodness sakes, he could have said something.

I'm a witness.

I'm his disciple. I know what he actually teaches. I've heard him teach this over and over again.

You're all lying on him.

You're false witnesses. But Peter doesn't do that. Peter follows where? At a distance. I think, and again, this is me trying to consider the life of Peter. Who he is and the fact that he's truly a believer.

He loved Jesus.

He's afraid.

He's afraid.

Like many of us would be afraid when the crowds are surrounding the center of righteousness. And they're mocking him and vilifying him. Sometimes it's much easier to hide in the crowd. It's easier to hide in the crowd.

He felt safer, obviously, with the crowd. Because he's now at least with an earshot of what's going on with Jesus. I mean, this is nighttime, by the way. One of the things Albert Moeller talked about when he talked about this particular text.

He said, look, it wasn't like today. When it was nighttime in this time, it's expensive to have fire and light.

Why?

It takes oil and lamps and all those things. So ultimately, Moeller points out, at nighttime, people went to bed.

Right?

They went to bed. They didn't have their screens to stay on at night. Just to stay up for no reason at all for hours and hours and hours.

Right?

They didn't have any of that. Wasting time or just, you know, drowning out in front of blue light. They didn't have the lights in the house to flip on. Wherever there was light, Moeller points out, that's where the people were.

And that's where something important was going on. And this is, under the cover of night, a deceptive move against the Son of God. And Jesus goes to be punished and to be accused. And Peter follows at a distance.

And now he's in the courtyard as far as away from the high priest. And where? He's with who?

The guards.

He felt safer with the crowd. He was trying to blend in. Sometimes the throngs or crowds surround the righteousness of the day. And we feel safer sitting silent in the crowd. We deceive ourselves. We think, if I just don't say anything, I'm still on the side of righteousness.

I'm not denying it. I'm just safer here. This was the beginning of Peter's fall. Besides, of course, running away from Jesus. But note that not only is he at a distance from Jesus, where he could have potentially helped Jesus as a witness, but he's actually staying with the crowds, with the guards.

Peter's with the guards. But, so we don't get in trouble when we get to heaven. And Peter's like, I heard that message you preached, right? There's more to the story. There is more to the story, brothers and sisters.

We know about, of course, Peter. Jesus comes and he reconciles with Peter. Peter, do you love me? Yes, feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me? Yes, feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me?

Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.

Feed my sheep. He's restored by Jesus, but something happened in the life of Peter. Something happened. He goes from somebody who is ultimately sticking his foot in his mouth a lot, and he's afraid, and he's hiding with the crowds.

He's not saying anything where the crowds are surrounding righteousness. Peter actually changes dramatically after the resurrection of Jesus. After he sees Jesus alive from the dead. He saw the brutality against Jesus.

He saw the crucifixion. He saw Jesus dying, bleeding, and suffering. And then he actually touched Jesus.

He ate with Jesus.

And the Holy Spirit is poured out in the book of Acts. And something happened with Peter. And if you want to see it, watch. In this scene in Matthew 26, you have Annas, who was the high priest, father-in-law of Caiaphas.

Jesus goes from Annas' place to Caiaphas. Peter is now standing in a distance with the crowds, trying to play it safe, trying to keep cool, trying to stay quiet. But Annas and Caiaphas are a part of this story.

Peter's hiding because he's fearful, ultimately, of what Caiaphas can do to him. But something happened after the resurrection of the Son of Man. After the Holy Spirit was poured out, Peter's life changed forever.

He ultimately lost his own life because of his faith in Jesus Christ. But you want to see what happened, you go to Acts chapter 4. Acts chapter 4. Go there to the right of Matthew. Acts chapter 4. And look at this moment of redemption, this moment of transformation.

Here it is. Acts 4 .1. And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed, because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men who came to about five thousand.

That is what happens when you are a spirit-filled believer proclaiming the truth in the public.

Square.

As a church body, there's not much to us. We know God, we love God, we preach the gospel, but we bring the gospel into the public square because that's what the leadership did in the first century, and they turned the world upside down.

But notice something, Peter goes from hiding in the crowd with the guards, following at a distance, afraid, staying silent, to what? Now he's in the public square, proclaiming Christ, calling people to repent and believe, and now he's brought before Annas and Caiaphas, both of them.

On the next day, their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high priestly family. He got them all there.

And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, by what power or by what name do you do this? Then Peter, here it is, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, that healed a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, in your face, Caiaphas.

Did Peter change?

Yeah.

He goes from warming himself with the guards who kidnapped Jesus at a distance, to now he is in front of the same people that he was fearful of before, and what's he say?

You killed him.

You killed the Messiah. It's in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God has raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders which has become the cornerstone, and there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Remember the accusation that's coming in Matthew 26, we're going to get to in a minute, what's the false accusation against Jesus? That he said he was going to destroy what? Their temple, that physical temple, that's not what Jesus was saying, although that physical temple was destroyed ultimately by the judgment of God, but here is actually Peter before Caiaphas and Annas, who had a hand in the betrayal and the murder of Jesus, he's saying you crucified Jesus, and he's saying, and neither is there salvation in anyone else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.

Brothers and sisters, I've said this before, have you heard me say this before, that what Peter is doing there is he's taking the actual statement in Rome about Caesar, and he switched it and he made it about Jesus.

They would put things, after a town had submitted to Caesar and the Pax Romana and the Peace of Rome, they would put things outside of that town as like a symbol, like neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby you must be saved, Caesar Augustus.

Now Peter is standing before Caiaphas and Annas, who murdered Jesus, took part in the murder of Jesus, and he is so direct, he says you killed him, and let me tell you something, there is no salvation in any other, there's no other name under heaven given among men whereby you must be saved, Jesus.

He's coming against the religious establishment and Rome. You can't say this without being killed. Do you understand that he's saying that Jesus has authority over Caesar? You do not do that, or you die.

The first century Christians weren't killed for their faith because they worshiped Jesus. Nobody in Rome cares what you worship, they are pagans. They do care if you say that this Jesus has all authority even over Rome.

And that's what Peter's doing here. He changed. Something happened with Peter. He was transformed by the resurrection and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God, which was promised by Jesus to the apostles in John chapter 14 through 16.

Now go back to Matthew chapter 26. I wanted to do that because I feel like we owe Peter some respect. Things changed a bit after the resurrection. So Matthew chapter 26, go to verse 59 now. It says, now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony.

Don't get lost with that one. The who? Chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, but they found none. They can't get it to work. It's not happening.

Though many false witnesses came forward. I think we forget sometimes that this world is filled with sinners. It's a fallen world. And we forget sometimes that even people that we respect as quote-unquote believers or people that we think we can trust can lie and deceive.

And oftentimes people plot because they're angry, because they are bitter, because they're prideful against other human beings. What preserves us from falling into those traps? What preserves us from going along with people that give false accusations or distort stories and try to accuse people?

It's the Word of God. God's Word is the standard. And in 59 through 60, we see that they were plotting, that false witnesses were mustered against Jesus, that the chief priest and the council, everybody was working against Jesus to try to have people present fraudulent testimony.

And what's wrong here? Think about this for a moment. These are Jewish people.

They're Jews.

What do they have? They have access to God's law. What did God say when he gave his law to his people? Of course, over sinners, there's aspects to the law of God that are condemning aspects. We're not under that.

We're not condemned by the law. We have Christ. We have his righteousness. But the law itself isn't a curse.

It's good.

It's righteous. It's just. And God even says to his people, when he gives his law to them, he says, this is supposed to be your wisdom in the sight of the peoples, Deuteronomy chapter 4. That all the nations are supposed to look in at the laws and the statutes of Yahweh, of Israel, and they were going to say, what kind of God is this?

He's so near to his people and has statutes as righteous as this law. The law of God was supposed to be light to the nations, justice, righteousness,.

Love for God, love for neighbor.

And now we have Jewish people with God incarnate in front of them. You have a high priest, but the true high priest right there in front. You're the people who said they were longing for Mashiach. And here he is placed in front of them.