458
The Desire of Ages
after the resurrection of Lazarus they decided that only by His death
could His fearless denunciations against them be stopped.
The Pharisees believed in the resurrection, and they could not but
see that this miracle was an evidence that the Messiah was among them.
But they had ever opposed Christ’s work. From the first they had hated
Him because He had exposed their hypocritical pretensions. He had
torn aside the cloak of rigorous rites under which their moral deformity
was hidden. The pure religion that He taught had condemned their
hollow professions of piety. They thirsted to be revenged upon Him
for His pointed rebukes. They had tried to provoke Him to say or do
something that would give them occasion to condemn Him. Several
times they had attempted to stone Him, but He had quietly withdrawn,
and they had lost sight of Him.
The miracles He performed on the Sabbath were all for the relief
of the afflicted, but the Pharisees had sought to condemn Him as a
Sabbathbreaker. They had tried to arouse the Herodians against Him.
They represented that He was seeking to set up a rival kingdom, and
consulted with them how to destroy Him. To excite the Romans against
Him, they had represented Him as trying to subvert their authority.
They had tried every pretext to cut Him off from influencing the peo-
ple. But so far their attempts had been foiled. The multitudes who
witnessed His works of mercy and heard His pure and holy teachings
knew that these were not the deeds and words of a Sabbathbreaker
or blasphemer. Even the officers sent by the Pharisees had been so
influenced by His words that they could not lay hands on Him. In
desperation the Jews had finally passed an edict that any man who
professed faith in Jesus should be cast out of the synagogue.
So, as the priests, the rulers, and the elders gathered for consul-
tation, it was their fixed determination to silence Him who did such
marvelous works that all men wondered. Pharisees and Sadducees
[539]
were more nearly united than ever before. Divided hitherto, they be-
came one in their opposition to Christ. Nicodemus and Joseph had,
in former councils, prevented the condemnation of Jesus, and for this
reason they were not now summoned. There were present at the coun-
cil other influential men who believed on Jesus, but their influence
prevailed nothing against that of the malignant Pharisees.
Yet the members of the council were not all agreed. The Sanhedrin
was not at this time a legal assembly. It existed only by tolerance.