And the high priest standing up said to him, Answerest thou nothing? What do these witness against thee?
A court that had spent the night hunting for evidence found none, and the prisoner would not help them. The high priest stands up and demands an answer, and gets only silence — why would the Son of God refuse to defend Himself?
By this point the case had already fallen apart. The court had recruited witnesses, and they contradicted each other. The high priest's question tries to rescue a case that has collapsed.
They looked for witnesses for a purpose already fixed in their hearts... How little they can quote without misquoting. It was they who even now were seeking to destroy the temple of God, just as His words had implied they would. No one else could replace it, but He would raise it up again. Still there was no agreement. So the high priest turns to Jesus, to make Him answer what needed no answer, and so make something out of nothing. He is therefore silent.
The men asking the question were the judges. What they did first shows what this trial really was.
We are not told that someone misled them into accepting false evidence. We are not told that someone pushed it on them and tempted them. No, it says they "sought false witness against Jesus, to put Him to death." They SOUGHT it. Has there ever, we wonder, been another trial on earth where the judges began by hunting for liars to condemn the accused? So it was here; and faced with it Jesus held His peace.
His silence was not total. There was one question He would answer.
Finally the high priest has to appeal to Christ Himself. Faced with all this hatred and malice the Lord "held His peace, and answered nothing." Peter watched these solemn scenes, and years later he tells us that "when he was reviled, he did not revile in return." "Like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth" (Isa. 53:7). To the accusations of malice He had nothing to say. But when they challenged the glory of His Person, He witnesses to the truth, whatever it costs. This is the perfect example for all His servants. Having failed to carry out their wicked purpose with malicious lies, they now seek to condemn the Lord for witnessing to the truth. All the devil achieved was to bring to light the truth about the glory of the Person of Christ and to expose the utter wickedness of religious flesh.
Caiaphas fails here and changes his method. He puts Jesus on oath, and the silence ends at once. The law itself required a witness under oath to speak.
The high priest, angry at the Lord's silence, demands that He answer such charges; but there was nothing to answer: He remains silent. Caiaphas knew that no charge of evil could stand against Him. So he changed his tactics and charged Him by the living God to declare whether He is the Son of God. Could He be silent then? No. Leviticus 5:1 is clear: a witness who knows a fact and is put under oath must say what he knows or be guilty.
The silence also matched what He had come to do.
But to man's testimony against Him the Lord gives no answer. Defending Himself was not His object, and He was not teaching now. He stood as the willing Victim, the Lamb for the slaughter.
He was not powerless in that room.
Not a word did He speak. Why was this? Answer me that. These small creatures of His own hand insulted their Creator. He could have thrown them out of existence with a single word. Why then did He keep silence?... The love of His heart for sinners brought Him to this.
The Lord's silence became a pattern for His people.
Paul brings before the Corinthians the meekness of Christ. He never asserted His rights or defended Himself. When people reviled Him, He did not revile in return. The chief priests may slander Him, but "Jesus held His peace." They bring false charges against Him before Pilate, but "he gave him no answer." Herod mocks Him, but "he made no answer." It would be good for us if, when we face slander and insult, we caught something of the Lord's spirit and show the meekness that refuses to assert our rights, stand on our dignity, or defend ourselves.
- Nothing to answer — the witnesses contradicted each other, so the high priest was trying to make something out of nothing.
- Nothing to defend — He was not there to clear His name but to stand as the willing Victim, the Lamb led to slaughter.
- Nothing withheld — silence under malice, but full confession the moment they put Him on oath about who He is.
- Nothing forced — He could have destroyed His accusers with a word; love for sinners kept Him quiet.
- Nothing lost — false evidence could never convict Him. They condemned Him for telling the truth, and that is the example He left His followers.
But Jesus was silent. And the high priest answering said to him, I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us if *thou* art the Christ the Son of God.
The high priest has run out of witnesses. So he changes tactics. Instead of hunting for evidence against Jesus, he puts Him under oath and asks Him who He is.
Up to this moment Jesus has said nothing at all, and the silence runs right through His trial. One writer traces it across every court He stood in and gives the reason for it:
In the presence of all His accusers His resource was in God. He committed Himself to Him who judges righteously. The Jewish council accused Him falsely, and He "remained silent." Before Pilate, He "gave no answer" to the Jews' accusations, and not a word to Pilate himself. The mocking Herod questioned Him in many words, "but He answered him nothing" (Luke 23:9). He was silent before men because He had a resource in God.
The silence was not stubbornness, and it was not absolute. Under Israel's law, a witness put under oath in God's name had to speak. That law explains why the Lord answered this question and no other:
The Lord's silence angers the high priest, who demands that He answer such charges. But there was nothing to answer, so He remains silent. Caiaphas knew that no charge of evil could stand against Him. So he changed his tactics and put Him under oath by the living God to say whether He is the Son of God. Could He be silent then? No. Leviticus 5:1 is clear: if someone witnesses a fact and hears the voice of the oath, he must tell what he knows or be guilty.
Another writer weighs what that oath meant to an Israelite, and what honouring it cost the Lord:
An oath was all the more solemn for an Israelite, because Jehovah lived among them to judge... Our Lord was silent before man's deep hypocrisy and false witness. Yet even in a day of utter ruin, in proceedings that mocked all righteousness, we hear Him answer the wicked high priest at once when he put Him under oath. He knew it would seal His condemnation to death.
Caiaphas does not ask a vague question. He uses the full Messiah-title as Israel knew it from their own Scriptures:
The high priest turns and puts Him under oath to answer whether He is the Christ, the Son of God. That matches, as we have seen, His title in Psalm 2 — His true, full Messiah-title among the Jews. To this the Lord at once answered that He was. For now it was His own testimony, and He must give the whole truth.
Why did Caiaphas not ask this at the start? One writer finds a reason in the order of events:
Just one thing remained: to put a question to Him — a question He could not refuse to answer. Why did they not do this at once? First He had to appear as the Holy One, the Lamb of God, without spot or blemish... The high priest knew he would succeed if he put that question about His Sonship to Him. But little did he know what he was doing; the blessed One could not be condemned by false witnesses. Only His own confession of who He was — the confession of the truth — could bring about His condemnation.
The move also broke Israel's own rules of justice. One writer cites a senior judge's study of the trial:
Further, the law of the Jews was, "Our law condemns no one to death upon his own confession." It was "a basic principle with us that no one can damage himself by what he says in judgment." So Caiaphas "putting the question to the accused," and founding a condemnation on the answer, "was the last violation of formal justice."
One writer defines confession by what the Lord did here, and by what it cost Him:
Confession stands by the truth of God against the lie of man, and stands by it at the risk of everything. Our Jesus made this confession... The high priest put Him under oath to say whether He was the Christ, the Son of the Blessed. He stood by the confession of the truth and of His glory, saying, "You have said so." But this cost Him everything. At once they began to spit on Him, to strike Him, to cover His face shamelessly, and to lead Him off as their prey.
- Silent — He answered no accusation. There was nothing to answer, and His resource was in God.
- Sworn — the law said a witness under oath must speak. The oath, not the pressure, opened His mouth.
- Spotless — the false witnesses had to fail first, so the Lamb stood without spot or blemish before any charge stuck.
- Spoken — man's false testimony could not condemn Him. His own true word did, and He gave it knowing it meant death.
- Standing — true confession stands by the truth of God at the cost of everything.