We shall understand it best, if we begin with what happened at His crucifixion; for it was only at the end of His life that He made perfectly clear to the whole world what His claims were. People often wondered whether He were not THE CHRIST, i.e., The Messiah, the Anointed One, the great national deliverer whom the Jews were so earnestly expecting and praying for;[[196]] but during the three years of His public life He seldom openly made the claim.[[197]] When, however, He went to Jerusalem for the last time, He made a royal entry into the sacred city,[[198]] cleansed the Temple from the desecration of its cattle-market,[[199]] and began to teach in the Temple courts,[[200]] thus by both word and act publicly claiming recognition as the Christ.
The Jewish leaders had been often bitterly incensed by His teaching and His actions before. His bold seizure of authority now decided them: they resolved on His death.[[201]] He was apprehended[[202]] and brought before the Sanhedrin,[[203]] i.e., the High Court of Judæa. Evidence was led against Him, but it proved very unsubstantial;[[204]] so the High Priest, the president of the court, formally asked Him, “Art thou the Christ, the Son of God?” and He answered in the affirmative.[[205]] Since they did not believe His claim, they could only come to the conclusion that He was an irreligious impostor, impiously arrogating divine authority to Himself. Consequently they declared that He ought to be put to death for blasphemy against God.[[206]]
But the Sanhedrin could not put anyone to death; the sanction of the Roman Governor was necessary.[[207]] He was therefore dragged before Pilate. Here they did not charge Him with blasphemy, but with rebellion against the Roman Emperor. ‘The King of the Jews’ was a synonym for ‘the Christ’; so they argued that Jesus, in claiming to be the Christ, claimed the sovereignty of the Jews, and was therefore guilty of rebellion against Tiberius.[[208]] Pilate knew perfectly well that the Jewish leaders were jealous of Jesus, and that the charge was a mere pretence;[[209]] his Roman sense of justice revolted against the execution of an innocent man; and he wished to save Him; but they played upon his fears, and finally succeeded in wringing a condemnation from him.[[210]] It was because the Roman soldiers were struck with the extreme absurdity of the idea of Jesus being a rival of Tiberius, that they got up their pitiable comedy of a court, and did Him mock homage as King of the Jews.
So He was led away to Calvary and crucified, and above His head on the cross was written, in three languages (Hebrew, Greek and Latin), the charge against Him,—
JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
Thus Jesus took good care that there should be no doubt as to what He claimed to be: He did not write a book, nor cut an inscription on a rock, but He let Himself be crucified, that all men to the end of time might know that He claimed to be the Christ.[[211]]
Now let us see what He meant when He called Himself the Christ. To get to understand this fully would be to learn the complete meaning of His teaching; for it is such a perfect organism that every member of it is closely related to every other member; yet we may gain sufficient insight for our purpose from a broad survey.
The subject of the whole teaching of Jesus was the Kingdom of God. He held that God had been working from the very beginning for the winning of man to Himself, and that especially among His own people Israel He had shown His hand. They had not only come to know Him as the God of righteousness whose law was holiness; they had enjoyed His love; they had experienced His mercy and His power to redeem. But with the coming of Jesus Himself a new era of the world had opened:[[212]] God was now drawing near to all men, in a new relationship of love and mercy, with the purpose of saving them.[[213]] This was the coming of the Kingdom of God.[[214]] The history of Israel had been a long discipline in preparation for this.[[215]] On the ground cleared in Israel, and on the basis of the revelation already made to them, God would now reveal Himself to all men. The destiny of Israel—“I will give thee for a light to the Gentiles”[[216]]—would now be fulfilled.[[217]]
God, then, was about to enter into a new relationship with the whole human race. That new relationship would be, like the old one with Israel, characterized not only by His righteousness, but by His redeeming love. His eternal purpose, which had been in contemplation all through the centuries of Israel’s training, would now be unfolded. The childhood of the world was over: its first simple lessons had been learned; the real business of Time could now be begun. The partial unveiling of God’s face which it had been Israel’s privilege to behold would now become a full revelation in the sight of the nations. The King of Israel would be seen to be the Father of men. Further, as Israel had learned her lessons through Jehovah’s redemptive acts at the Red Sea, on Zion, and in Babylon, so mankind would learn the Father’s love through the great redemptive acts involved in the coming of the Kingdom.