Now the chief priests and elders, and all the council, sought false witnesses against Jesus, to put Him to death. Matthew 26:59
During one of the many murder trials that I covered while a reporter in Saint John, the evidence was very strong against the man accused of the crime. Several witnesses placed him near the scene of the crime at the time the victim was killed. As the trial was drawing to a close, the defense lawyer introduced into evidence a receipt for an alternator for a car, purchased from a store on the opposite side of the city, and dated at almost exactly the time of the murder. He claimed the accused man had bought the alternator, and therefore could not have been at the scene of the murder. When asked why the receipt had not been brought before earlier, the accused testified that the receipt had been lost behind the refrigerator, and someone had just discovered it. Unfortunately for him, the prosecutors were able to prove that somebody else had actually bought the alternator, leaving the accused man without his false alibi. Like the Jewish leaders who sought to condemn the Lord Jesus, his false evidence worked against him.
The chief priests and elders had no real evidence against the Lord Jesus, so they looked for credible liars. In doing so, they fulfilled prophecy contained in Psalm 35:11 – False witnesses did rise up; they laid to my charge things that I knew not. False witnesses and false evidence were necessary to their case, because the One Who stood before them was free of all misdeeds. He had never spoken any lies nor made any false claims nor had he ever misrepresented anything concerning God His Father. He did and said no wrong because as the Son of God, He could never speak anything but truth. Only by misrepresenting the truth could the chief priests sand elders find anything against Him. Their condemnation of Him was a mockery of the truth that they claimed to seek and uphold.
That the chief priests and elders must resort to false witnesses to dispose of Christ is to their everlasting shame and condemnation. These men, just as we did before we were saved, had no interest in accepting the Lord Jesus for Who He was. Acknowledging His deity and lordship would have meant an end to their little plans and an unveiling of their sinfulness. Before we came to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, we were just the same. And sadly, we see many around us who continue to reject Him, preferring to accept the testimony of false witnesses.
What a reproach to sinful man that we would use false witnesses to condemn to death the only One Who could never be false! -Jim MacIntosh