Spiritual Bias: Luke 22:66-71

Moving from the night of Jesus’ arrest and to the morning Jesus was ultimately crucified, we arrive at Jesus’ trial before the religious leaders. In order to condemn Jesus to death, the religious leaders needed to find something Jesus was guilty of.

While many of the gospels share different details about what happened during the twelve hours between the garden and the cross, the way Luke’s gospel frames Jesus’ trial is fascinating. Let’s read what happened.

Our passage is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 22, and we will read from the New Living Translation. Starting in verse 66, Luke tells us:

⁶⁶ At daybreak all the elders of the people assembled, including the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. Jesus was led before this high council, ⁶⁷ and they said, “Tell us, are you the Messiah?”

But he replied, “If I tell you, you won’t believe me. ⁶⁸ And if I ask you a question, you won’t answer. ⁶⁹ But from now on the Son of Man will be seated in the place of power at God’s right hand.”

⁷⁰ They all shouted, “So, are you claiming to be the Son of God?”

And he replied, “You say that I am.”

⁷¹ “Why do we need other witnesses?” they said. “We ourselves heard him say it.”

In Luke’s version of Jesus’ trial, I am amazed at what the religious leaders actually latch on to as a condemnation of Jesus. While other gospel writers share this event differently, if we were to take and focus on Luke’s gospel alone, nothing in Jesus’ response sounds worthy of death in my mind.

Oddly enough, according to what we just read in Luke’s gospel, Jesus doesn’t really even claim to be the Son of God.

In case this didn’t stand out for you, let me read this passage again and pay close attention. Reading again from verse 66:

⁶⁶ At daybreak all the elders of the people assembled, including the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. Jesus was led before this high council, ⁶⁷ and they said, “Tell us, are you the Messiah?”

But he replied, “If I tell you, you won’t believe me. ⁶⁸ And if I ask you a question, you won’t answer. ⁶⁹ But from now on the Son of Man will be seated in the place of power at God’s right hand.”

⁷⁰ They all shouted, “So, are you claiming to be the Son of God?”

And he replied, “You say that I am.”

⁷¹ “Why do we need other witnesses?” they said. “We ourselves heard him say it.”

In this passage, all that these religious leaders actually hear is Jesus predicting that God would honor Him, which might not be acceptable in their minds, but it certainly isn’t worthy of death in my mind.

The only other thing Jesus says is that the religious leaders themselves are pressing the specific title onto Him. Jesus calls Himself the Son of Man, while the religious leaders are claiming Jesus’ title is the Son of God.

However, is there something happening behind the scenes in this passage that the religious leaders understand but we might not fully grasp living in a different culture and thousands of years removed from the first century world?

I suspect the answer is a yes.

While the conclusion of this trial was a clear setup according to Luke, because Jesus never really says what they claim to “hear” Him say, perhaps there is something lost in translation, or perhaps this was really the only sliver of an opening these leaders had to condemn Jesus.

The something I suspect that gets lost on us living so far removed from this event is that it appears as though Jesus references back to the unanswerable question He asked the Pharisees just a few days earlier. In Luke, chapter 20, verses 42 and 43, Jesus quotes David from the Old Testament who said: “The Lord said to my Lord, sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies, making them a footstool under your feet.”

While this passage also doesn’t sound that significant, it is believed that David was quoting this conversation as being from God the Father to God the Son. With God the Son being the one to be honored at God’s right hand, we now have a solid context for why these religious leaders were upset with Jesus’ claim.

David has predicted that God’s Son would be the one to sit at God’s right hand, and Jesus has just stepped into claiming that position for Himself from that point forward.

When reading this passage, I am continually amazed at the religious leaders. I am very confident that these leaders understood Jesus’ reference to the position He would be given as equal to Jesus claiming to be God’s Son – even if nothing Jesus directly says claims this title. The religious leaders were smart enough to connect the dots when they wanted to find Jesus guilty of something.

However, the religious leaders were not smart enough to keep connecting the dots to realize that the Messiah God was sending to them would be rejected and killed by them. They didn’t realize that they would ultimately reject the Messiah that they were desperately longing would arrive.

It is the same with us today. Too often, we get so focused on one way of thinking that we stop being able to think there are other options, or other ways of interpreting the facts. Like these religious leaders, we know lots of information, but we have overlaid this information with a thick layer of bias that we cannot begin to see that the same information could really be telling other stories. It is this way when two people with different worldviews look at the same fossil record, or when two different people who are both very opinionated on opposite sides of the political spectrum describe the same political event.

The lenses we have on our eyes called our biases filter our lives through our beliefs. These biases lead to the religious leaders in the first century ultimately killing the Messiah God sent to them because Jesus didn’t fit their biased picture of who the Messiah would be.

Our biases today can just as easily cause us to miss out on signs God is sending or on amazing things He is doing in the world around us. Because our biases and beliefs filter the world around us, we must be extra diligent about what we use to form our biases and our beliefs. If left unchecked, our biases will stop us from truly learning anything new, and these same biases will trap us into missing out on seeing God.

The best way to combat bias in your life is to open up the Bible and read it for yourself. The amazing thing about the Bible is that it challenges every single bias we might have. The Bible challenges every area of science, every angle of politics, every angle of service, every angle of business, and every area of human interaction. The only thing the Bible doesn’t really cover is technology. The only way for you to know whether what I just said is actually true or not is to pick up the Bible and read it for yourself.

With that said, let’s wrap up this podcast with some direct challenges related to this big truth:

As I always begin by challenging you, intentionally seek God first in your life and intentionally place your faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus. Ask God to help remove any unhealthy biases from your life and ask Him to help you better reflect His love and His character to the world around you!

Also, always pray and study the Bible for yourself. Everyone has an opinion of the Bible, and it can be easy to simply take someone else’s opinion about what the Bible says and agree with it. However, with eternity on the line, accepting someone else’s opinion about the Bible is the worst thing you could do. It is like having a beautifully wrapped present in front of you and a stranger telling you it is just an empty box. If you believe the stranger and never open the gift, you will never truly know what was inside the box!

It’s the same way with the Bible. Don’t let someone else trick you out of discovering God’s gift to you through the pages of His Word.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or fall away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!