religious system while, at the same time, opposing
and condemning the Redeemer of Israel.
The Western Wall more commonly known as the “Wailing wall”,
is the only remaining part of Jerusalem’s temple.
remove all the protective ambiguity and space
for diverse interpretations that the title possessed.
But the title clearly isn’t a protective cloak. It brings
together Jesus’ humanity, messiahship, prophethood,
death and resurrection, ascension into heaven, his
receiving “all authority”, his giving the kingdom to his
followers, his authority to save, to forgive and to judge
the nations, his place of honour at the Father’s right
hand and his close association with the Father as
the divine Son of God.
Fulfilling the prophecy of Daniel chapter 7
When Jesus stood in front of the High Priest, he
defined publicly exactly what kind of Messiah he
claimed to be. The High Priest was asking whether
he claimed to be the Messiah. In owning that title,
Jesus gave him a “full confession”. The High Priest
must have felt like a prosecutor cross-examining
someone on theft charges and the accused
confessing to an unsolved murder!
But the reality was much more significant. The High
Priest was God’s representative of the whole Temple
system and head of the Old Covenant. He must have
felt fully justified in forcing Jesus to speak out, and
finding him guilty of blasphemy. Now the High Priest
could dispense with Jesus as a minor inconvenience
whose name would be soon forgotten. After all, the
Temple system had stood for hundreds of years and
outlasted all sorts of heretics.
The man in front of him was the head of the
New Covenant, about to bring down the old, failed
covenant, pronouncing judgement over the corrupt
High Priest, the defunct sacrificial regulations, the
Temple, Jerusalem and the whole nation of Israel.
Jesus was the new Temple of God, signifying that
Yahweh had fulfilled his promise to return in person
to his people, the Jews.
When Jesus responded to the High Priest,
he effectively claimed to be the fulfilment of the
prophecy in Daniel 7:13-14, “I was watching in the
night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man,
coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the
Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before
him. Then to him was given dominion and glory and
a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting
dominion, which shall not pass away, and his
kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed.”
Identifying himself with this glorious, heavenly
Son of Man was enough for Jesus to be condemned
for blasphemy. It would take less than 40 years
before Jerusalem and its Temple system would be
destroyed. This was evidence that the Son of Man
had been given the kingdom, the glory and the power
to rule. Jesus prophesied that the High Priest would
be alive to see that day. The whole Temple system
of the Old Covenant was removed as an act of the
judgment of God upon the nation of Israel.
Jesus was condemned by that Temple system,
but rather than being soon forgotten, he gave birth
to the greatest movement that the world has ever
seen. In words of the centurion who witnessed Jesus’
crucifixion: “Truly this was the Son of God!” He was
and is the Son of God, the Messiah, but he also
is the Son of Man. ❖
But from God’s perspective, the High Priest was also
the head of a now-corrupt, defunct and compromised
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