Great Sanhedrin, Temple, Canon, Language

[00:00:00] John, chapter two, verse 13. [00:00:04] And the Passover of the Jews was at hand. And jesus went up to Jerusalem, and he found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changes of money sitting. And he made a scourge of cords and cast out all out of the temple both the sheep and and the oxen. And he poured out the changers money and overthrew their tables. And to them that sold the doves, he said, take these things hence. Make not my father's house a house of merchandise. [00:00:42] His disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for thy house shall eat me up. The Jews therefore answered and said unto him, what sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? [00:01:00] Jesus answered and said unto them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews therefore said, 46 years was this temple in building. [00:01:15] And wilt thou raise it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. [00:01:24] When therefore, he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he spake this. And they believed the scripture and the word which jesus had said. [00:01:39] Now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed on his name, beholding his signs, which he did. But jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men. And because he needed not that anyone should bear witness concerning men, for he himself knew what was in man. [00:02:13] Now, this evening we want to go on in a further one of our studies upon the jewish background of the New Testament. We are, as you know, dealing with the 400 years preceding the birth of Christ, these four centuries that were called the four silent centuries. But I think we're discovering that they were not quite so silent as some people have imagined. Last week, you will remember, we were talking about the homeland. We've already dealt with the dispersion, the Hellenists, the Jews that were scattered throughout the gentile world. And we were speaking about the Hebrews and the three main parties that we found. We find amongst them the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essidians. And then you will remember that last week we went on to talk about the scribes. And then we finished up talking about the synagogue and the simplicity of the synagogue and the way that they used to meet in the synagogue in the days of our Lord around the word for worship. Now, this evening, the first matter I want to take up is the. [00:03:45] Is the subject of what we find called the great Sanhedrin. In scripture it is called the council, most commonly the great council. The council, the great Sanhedrin. Now, we have already mentioned the Sanhedrin. You will remember that when we talked about the synagogue, we said that the body of elders in a larger community, 23 up to 23, and in a small village or small hamlet, at least a minimum of seven elders, was called a Sanhedrin. Every synagogue had a Sanhedrin, but there was the Sanhedrin, Jerusalem, which, as time went on, came to be looked upon as the supreme and highest court amongst Jews. Now, we need to say a little more about this particular Sanhedrin, the great Sanhedrin at Jerusalem. The great Sanhedrin was the highest and most authoritative court and assembly in the whole jury, both immediately before the coming of Christ and during his lifetime. [00:05:14] It comprised some 70 counsellors. There is dispute about this. Some say there were 71 and some say there were 72. 70 with the president of the council, it's generally thought was correct. But anyway, it was around 70 councilors that constituted the great Sanhedrin. And it is referred in the New Testament, it is referred to in the New Testament as the council. If you turn to Matthew, chapter 26 and verse 59. Matthew 26 and verse 59, we read now the chief priests and the whole council sought to sought false witness against Jesus, that they might put him to death. Now, this is the most commonly the most common term or name used for the great Sanhedrin, the council. You'll find it everywhere through the New Testament. Another term that we find in the New Testament used for the great Sanhedrin is the body of elders or the estate of elders, or the assembly of elders. This means exactly the same as the council. It's just another title for the council. You will find that in Luke, chapter 23, Luke 23 and verse 66. [00:06:56] I'm sorry, Luke 22 66. And as soon as it was day, the assembly of the elders of the people was gathered together, both chief priests and scribes. If you turn to acts 22, the 22nd chapter of acts, verse five, as also the high priest hath bear me witness and all the estate of the elders. Now you've got the assembly of elders. The estate of elders is exactly the same. [00:07:33] It can be referred to as the body of the elders or another term very rarely used. But we do find it in the scripture, in acts, chapter five, verse 21. [00:07:48] The Sanhedrin is there referred to as the senate. [00:07:53] Acts, chapter five, verse 21. And when they heard this, they entered into the temple about daybreak and talked. But the high priest came and they that were with him and called the council together and all the senate of the children of Israel, the senate of the children of Israel. Now, these three terms refer to the same body, the same assembly, the great Sanhedrin. According to tradition, the great Sanhedrin began, as all good jewish things do, with Moses. [00:08:36] It began with the 70 elders that we find in numbers 1116 and 17. If you turn to that, you will discover that because Moses found the work was getting a little bit too much. It says this. The Lord said unto Moses, gather unto me 70 men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them unto the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with thee, and I will come down and talk with thee there, and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, and that thou beare it not thyself alone. Now, jewish tradition says that was the beginning of the great Sanhedrin. It began with the appointment by God of the 70 elders to help Moses. Jewish tradition also tells us that it was Ezra who reorganized and reconstituted the great Sanhedrin in the way that they knew it in the New Testament after the return from the exile, however, we do not really know how the great Sanhedrin came into being. [00:09:58] The Persians certainly constituted under Cyrus some such body as the great Sanhedrin, which administered home rule in Judea. When the people were allowed to go back according to persian policy, all the deported peoples would return to their own countries and given home rule. Then some such body as this under the governor was constituted. Now, whether that's the beginning of the great Sanhedrin, we don't know. It may well have been so. We do know that in the greek period, a senate was permitted which was supposed to represent the whole nation. They were elders drawn from the aristocracy and nobility, who were to represent the whole nation at that time. [00:10:56] During the roman period, this became known as the Sanhedrin. So this senate did in fact become known in the greek period, became known as the Sanhedrin in the roman period, and the whole internal government of the land was in its hands, whilst Jews throughout the dispersion, throughout the whole Roman Empire and beyond, recognized the great Sanhedrin as the highest judicial body and assembly amongst Jews. [00:11:37] Originally, the Sanhedrin was comprised only of, of the sadduceean priestly nobility. Now, that needs a little bit of explanation. From Ezra's day onwards, civil and religious authority was in the hands of the high priest alone. [00:12:01] That means that the high priest not only governed the people spiritually, but politically under the occupying power or nation of that day. [00:12:19] So there grew up a priestly nobility. [00:12:24] They were the elite of the nation, the priestly nobility, the high priestly families, they were the aristocracy. And of course, from this came the Sadducees, the sadduceean party, which we spoke about last week. They were people that were a closed shop. Unless you actually belonged to the aristocracy, unless you came from one of these noble families, you couldn't become a Sadducee. So originally, the Sanhedrin was completely sadducean noble people. [00:13:01] During the first century before Christ, the Pharisees and the scribes were both admitted and given seats in the Sanhedrin. In the great Sanhedrin. In earlier days, it was mainly sadducean, but under Herod, Herod the Great, the Pharisees became more and more powerful and influential and the Sadducees were restricted more and more. The great didn't like the Sadducees and so he played off the Pharisees against the Sadducees. And it was at this point that the Pharisees became a powerful group in the great Sanhedrin. And of course, when we come to the New Testament, we find that the Pharisees are a very powerful group in the Sanhedrin. Indeed, the Sadducees are still in control of the actual government, but they have to take very real note of the Pharisees and there's a sense in which they've got to, as it were, somehow compromise with them to get anything properly done. By New Testament times, the Sanhedrin was made up of three groups. Now, we find these three groups quite clearly defined in mark, chapter 15 and verse one. Mark 15, one. [00:14:35] The chief priests, the elders, the scribes. [00:14:40] Here are the three groups that comprised the Sanhedrin. Three groups. The chief priests, the elders, the scribes. Now the chief priests. It's an interesting word. It doesn't mean high priests. Now get that clear. It does not mean high priest. It includes the high priest. By the word chief priest, we mean the high priest, the acting high priest, the high priest who may be alive, who acted the year before and the year before and the year before that, the high priest only had one year's office. So consequently you may have had two or three high priests in amongst this group, called the chief priests. And also it included in the term chief priest the members of the priestly nobility from whom the high priest was drawn. Now that again is important. That's the first group, the chief priests. The second group were the elders, now, the elders were the tribal and elite family heads. So you had the heads of the tribes, they were the elders, and then you had the elite family heads. Not every family head, of course, but big families, the sort of more special families through the country. Now they also had seats in the Sanhedrin. That was the next great group in the Sanhedrin, the elders. The last group were the scribes. And I don't think I had to say too much about the scribes as we talked about last week. They were the legal experts of their day. All three groups, this is important. All three groups belonged to either the Pharisees or the SAdducEes. Now, in the main, the chief priests were nearly completely Sadducees, and in the main the scribes were nearly completely Pharisees. [00:16:51] And the elders were divided more or less between the Sadducees and the Pharisees, depending upon what kind of blood you got in your veins. Generally speaking, if you were upper crust, you were sad, you see, if you were lower crust, you were Pharisee. Of course, the Essenes had no part at all in it. They not only thought that the temple was a completely polluted, defiled and compromised affair, wouldn't go into it, wouldn't have any part in its worship or service, but they felt the whole priesthood was defiled and therefore they looked upon the Sanhedrin as a farce. So you didn't find any Essenes. They believed that the only thing to do was to withdraw from public life, both temple and Sanhedrin altogether, and live together in communities, exclusive and self supporting communities. [00:17:52] Now, the Sanhedrin had two main areas of responsibility. [00:17:58] The first was administrative and judicial. That means they had in their hands the administering of all kinds of ordinary matters, just like our local council, looking after all kinds of things to do with the welfare of the community, and also judicial. That is, they looked at, they were the custodians and guardians of the law. They were there to see that the law was carried out and that people kept the law. So that's the first thing that the Sanhedrin did. It was administrative and judicial. [00:18:32] It could administer nearly all forms of punishment. You remember we talked about that last week. But when it in the matter of capital punishment, that is, the death sentence, they needed the assent of the roman procurator. [00:18:51] The second area of responsibility of the Sanhedrin was religious. That is, they maintained, defended and saw that the religious life of the people was functioning. They ordered everything that was their job. [00:19:13] It had either the sole right of judgment upon especially important matters or the great Sanhedrin was appealed to by local Sanhedrins who couldn't come to decision. Therefore, you see, is, let's, for example, think that in Capernaum, in the synagogue at Capernaum, in the Sanhedrin, there they had a particularly difficult case and they just didn't know what to do. And the, shall we say, there were 20 elders comprising the Sanhedrin. There they discussed and debated and discussed and debated. They brought in the scribes to try and help them, and no one could solve the problem. So finally they appealed to the great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem to solve their thorny problem, and the whole case was referred to a higher, the highest court. [00:20:13] When in session, the great Sanhedrin sat in a semicircle, rather like we are deceiving, in order that they might see one another when debating. A very good point, actually, so that they could see each other. When a person stands up, they wanted to see him. So they sat in a semicircle so that everyone could more or less see and hear everyone else. [00:20:39] There were no sessions. Now listen, although it may sound very dry and theoretical to you, there'll come a day when, if it sinks in, it'll mean a lot to you. [00:20:52] There were no sessions on sabbaths, and there were no sessions on holy days. No sessions on sabbaths, no sessions on holy days. That may have some bearing later on. On the trial of the Lord Jesus, two clerks sat before them in front of the semicircle. One clerk counted the noes and the other clerk counted the yeas. Another one. One was the one who counted the votes for condemnation, and the other counted the votes for acquittal. The clerk who counted the noes never counted the yeas, and the clerk who counted the yeas never counted. The nos. [00:21:32] 23 members was decorum for a session. Now, again, this has bearing upon the New Testament because you will remember that the session, the Sanhedrin that was called to judge the Lord Jesus was very speedily called, and it was not held in the normal. A Sanhedrin hall in the temple. It was called hastily in the high priest's home. Now, it has been argued ever since as to whether there was a miscarriage of justice in the trial of Jesus Christ, whether, in fact, from the basis of jewish law alone, the whole thing was absolutely wrong. Well, maybe we'll look at that when we come to it. [00:22:22] For a sentence of condemnation, there had to be a majority of two. [00:22:31] But for a sentence of acquittal, there had to be only a majority of one. [00:22:40] And there are some very interesting things connected with that which we won't go into. Anyway, capital charges were not heard on the day before a Sabbath or a holy day. Now that has again, very great bearing upon the trial of the Lord Jesus, because his trial was held on the day before a holy day. [00:23:01] Very interesting. Normally, capital charges were not, they were not permitted to here such a case on the day before Sabbath or a holy day. And also, another very interesting thing is this, when capital sentence was passed upon someone, it had to be passed. If it was a capital sentence, that's the death sentence. It had to be passed on the day after the trial and not on the same day. [00:23:38] Now, thats all we can say this evening about the great Sanhedrin. We shall meet it again and again and again and again in our studies in the gospels and the book of acts. I hope that you will remember a little of what we have said this evening about the great Sanhedrin. Then I want to pass on to the next subject this evening, which is the temple. [00:24:04] The temple. Now, the temple of Christ's time was in fact neither Solomon's temple nor Zerubbabel's temple. [00:24:14] And it would be well for us to trace the history of the temple during these 400 years before the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, going right back to the tabernacle and representing the eternal purpose of God, to dwell in the midst of his own people. [00:24:40] The temple was not only the focal point of the life of the people of God, but it was the focal point of their salvation. [00:24:55] For it was there alone within the tabernacle or within the temple, that the sacrificial animal could be offered and the blood could cleanse away sin. There could be salvation. Therefore, we have to recognize this, that the temple, in fact, is the greatest single factor next to the word of God in the Old Testament. [00:25:23] For it was the focal point of the salvation of the people of God. It was the focal point of their life, and it was the focal point of their blessing and increase. [00:25:34] Solomon, at the great dedication of the temple, said this. He said, remember, Lord, when thy people have sinned, when there is the plague, when there is war, when there is desolation, when there is famine, where all these other things, if thy people confess their sin and turn towards this house and pray towards thee in thy house, then Lord, remember and forgive, and cleanse, and restore. Now, the history of the people of God under the old covenant is a history of their attitude to the temple. When their attitude to the temple was wrong, there was always decrease, division, war, strife, famine, and every kind of pestilence. But when they turned towards the Lord and honored the Lord and gave him his rights, the rights that he had as dwelling in their midst, then there was blessing and increase and multiplication. Now, I have said that the temple, going right back to the tabernacle, was the focal point of the salvation of the people of God, of the life of the people of God, of the blessing and increase of the people of God. But it is also the focal point of the conflict. And if, dear child of God, you have discovered that the church is the focal point of the conflict, you have sadly missed the point. [00:27:15] The church is the thing that is the focal point of the conflict of the ages. And that's why you and I are in such a battle, even in our day. This is the thing that has been, as it were, the great controversy that's raged backwards and forwards in the unseen. [00:27:33] This eternal purpose of God, to have a dwelling place made up of living stones, the objective of God, we call it sometimes the bride of Christ. Christ bride. Now it is all this is represented in the temple. [00:27:56] Well, now, we have three temples in the Old Testament. The first is Solomon's temple. We not going to say very much about that tonight, because Solomon's temple does not actually have anything to do with the 400 years that we are talking about. But we've got to mention it. Solomon's temple was the magnificence structure, a copy of the tabernacle. [00:28:24] Only the dimensions were doubled, provided for by David and built by Solomon. It was destroyed after about 400 years by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BC. And the furniture and the holy vessels were removed, Babylon by him and placed in a heathen temple. And that's all we will say about Solomon's temple. But the second temple we must say a little bit more about, because it comes very much into the 400 years we are considering. It is the rubble's temple. In the year 536 BC, Cyrus not only allowed the people of God to return to the promised land, but he sent back with them the holy vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple. And he sent them back with money for the rebuilding, the reconstruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Now, there's one very important point. There was one article of furniture that was never restored. And this, the Essenes made a lot of it, was the ark. [00:29:41] The ark, which was the symbol, the ark of the covenant, which was the symbol of the presence of God amongst his people, was lost forever in the exile and was never replaced. [00:29:53] So when Zerubbabel's temple was rebuilt. The ark of the covenant and the mercy seat in the holiest place of all were not there. [00:30:04] They'd been lost. That's a very interesting thing, that the Jews never felt able to make a copy of it or to reconstruct it. They felt they had to let it go altogether, which they did. [00:30:19] This new temple of Zerubbabels was not built on the grand scale of Solomon's. Nevertheless, it was no small feat. And it was day of tremendous rejoicing in 516, when, after much battle, backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards, the temple was completed. It was this temple, temple that Haggai and Zechariah ministered to the people over. If you turn to Haggai and chapter one and verse two and three, we read this. Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying this. People say, it's not the time for us to come, the time for the Lord's house to be built. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, is it a time? Time for you yourselves to dwell in your sealed houses while this house lieth waste? And then we've got Zechariah, a sample of Zechariah's ministry in chapter four of Zechariah and verse six. [00:31:22] Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, this is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the lord of hosts, who art thou, o great mountain? Before Zerubbabel, thou shalt become a plain. And he shall bring forth the top stone, top stone of this temple with shoutings of grace, grace unto it. Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house. His hand shall also finish it. And thou shalt know that the lord of hosts hath sent me unto you. For who hath despised the day of small things, for these seven shall rejoice and listen and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel. These are the eyes of the Lord which run to and fro throughout the whole earth. Now, of course, we've even got Malachi ministering about this temple. If you turn over to Malachi in chapter three, verse one, we read this. Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord, whom, yeah, Sikh, will suddenly come to his temple. Now, you've got three prophets whose ministry is all centered in this temple. That's why it was so important to get it built. Haggai urged them on. Zechariah encouraged them with great visions of the coming Messiah. And Malachi said to them, the messiah is going to come into this temple. Suddenly, suddenly, out of the blue, the messiah will come into this temple one day. Well, they didn't know they'd got 400 years to wait. Nor did they know that that temple was going to be considerably changed by another gentleman who wasn't even a child of God. [00:33:16] So we'll come to that. [00:33:18] In 168 bc, the gentleman we've talked about so much, Antiochus epiphanes, robbed and desecrated this temple. He took away the brazen vessels and he erected what Daniel had called the abomination of desolation. [00:33:41] He erected upon the altar of burnt offering, a statue and an altar to Jupiter. [00:33:50] This is what Daniel prophesied of and said would be the abomination of desolation. And the Lord referred to it again as having significance for us in the last days of this dispensation. Now, it was in that temple that the great and glorious year of the Maccabees was fought out. When after Antiochus Epiphanes came in and desecrated the temple and plundered it, Judas Maccabeus rose up at the head of the Jews. He had a great guerrilla army in the hills and he led them down. And finally, three years after that, in 165 BC, he retook Jerusalem and cleansed and rededicated the temple and the Jews to this day deity, the feast of Purim, in commemoration of that great event when Judas Maccabeus retook the temple and rededicated it. [00:34:52] Now we shall talk a little more about Antiochus Epiphany. So don't be discouraged another evening. But I'm just mentioning him once again to you all. In 63 BC, Pompey, the great roman general, conquered Jerusalem for Rome, but did not rob the temple, though he desecrated it by going right through into the holiest place of all and standing beyond the veil. That was Pompey. [00:35:28] Nine years after Pompey, a gentleman called Crassus took away many of the more valuable things. Now, if we believe Josephus, he took away something like in our money in sterling, he took away 2 million pounds worth of valuables from the temple. Now, that may well be an exaggeration, but Crassus certainly took away a fortune from the temple, whatever he did. [00:35:58] BC now we're right near to the birth of the Lord Jesus. Now, in 37 BC, Herod, later called the great, stormed the temple and burnt some of its walls. [00:36:14] Now, that is the history of the second temple, the temple of Zerubbabel. Now, how was it that the Lord said that in this temple he would suddenly appear, when in actual fact, the temple that stood in the the Lord's day wasn't the rabbabul's temple. It was Herod's temple. Well, now, that comes to the third temple, what we call Herod's temple. Herod the great, in the 18th year of his reign, that is, about 19 years before Christ was born, due to his conscience over storming the temple and burning its walls and a desire to reconcile the Jews to himself. He was an Edomite, an idumean. He was an Edomite, that is, a descendant of Esau and no good jew like the Edomites, for what they had done through the centuries to the people of God, in order to reconcile the Jews to himself as an Edomite, and as with all great dictators, to raise up a lasting memorial to himself for all generations to come, he began the rebuilding of the temple. Now, what he did was this. The temple was never destroyed. What he did is he took it down in sections and rebuilt it in sections. [00:37:36] The building work actually stretched over years. In John, chapter two, verse 20, the passage that we read together, the Jews said, it has been in building. Now, they didn't say it was completed, but they said it has been in building for 46 years. Verse 20. The Jews therefore said 46 years. Was this temple in building. It reminds me a little of Halford House. [00:38:07] It was 46 years in building without being completed and was not, in fact, finished for many, many years. In fact, the actual sanctuary took only nine years with the courts. That is, this here the actual sanctuary. And these courts took, in fact, these courts took, in fact, only nine years to completely rebuild. [00:38:41] But all the additions and extensions and renovations and glorifications were not completed until the year 64 AD. [00:38:57] That is, two years before Paul was executed. It was only completed then, and it was completed after all those years, only six years before it was forever destroyed. [00:39:13] That's what God thought of Herod's temple. It was destroyed completely and forever in the year 70 AD. This temple was exceedingly impressive. Now, I have myself been surprised. I've said I always thought the temple of the Lord's day was something that was grand, but I had no idea that its glory in some ways outshone even the glory of Solomon's temple. This temple was exceedingly impressive. The eastern front of the sanctuary, that is. Here's a small map. I don't know whether everyone can see it. But the eastern front of the sanctuary, that is here, this here, this is east. This part here was plated completely with gold, with pure gold. [00:40:09] And it was plated in such a way that the sun, when it rose each morning, caught the whole side of the temple. And for miles it could be seen by people. [00:40:21] The sun on the gold reflecting. There's one or two other things I'll mention about that in just a moment. [00:40:32] Also, the stone used was white marble. This had never been used before. And the whiteness of the marble with the sun was brilliant. Now, I don't know if you've seen white marble. I know when I was in Washington, I never thought I'd ever be impressed by anything on the other side of the Atlantic, but I was tremendously impressed by Washington only because it was white marble. I was amazed at the beauty of the buildings. So pristine, so brilliant. Even in January, they were so extraordinarily beautiful. And the temple was built. The actual sanctuary itself was built of white marble. And a large part of the side walls of the sanctuary were also covered with sheet gold. [00:41:33] The whole temple area covered twice the space that Zerubbabel's temple covered. [00:41:42] And in order to do this, a very large part of the area had to be especially filled in with rubble. Underground caverns were built and so on in order to give the area on a level, to make a level building site for the whole of the temple courtyard. [00:42:06] The whole temple was surrounded by massive walls. Walls right the way around here. The whole outer courtyard of massive blocks of stone, which have continued to this day. [00:42:24] The average size was four foot high by 15 foot long. And that wall was a battlemented wall. Now, I've only got this. There are others. I didn't have time to look at them. But in this atlas, afterwards, you can come and look at the walls. You've all heard of the weeping, the wailing wall of Jerusalem, the wall that the Jews. For years and years, until, strangely enough, the creation of the state of Israel, when it became Jordan. For years and years, from time immemorial, the Jews went to this wall to weep. Those are the actual original stones, this gray battlemented wall that completely enclosed the temple area, the inner court. Now, this is called the outer court. The inner court was this. The inner court and sanctuary were surrounded by this large outer court, which was called the court of the Gentiles. [00:43:28] And gentiles were actually permitted to come into this court, but they were not permitted to go into the inner court. This court of the Gentiles was surrounded on the inside of these great walls on three sides by two rows of columns of pillars. You see them here, just dotted right, marvelous pillars right there. And on this fourth side it was three rows of pillars. Now, this is Solomon's porch. You've all heard in the scripture of Solomon's porch. This here on the east side was Solomon's porch. And this was called the royal porch. On where the three rose, these columns held up a roof of wood. From the wall down and under these porticos and cloisters, the scribes had all their pupils. They had their schools and they had their debates. So whenever you hear of the Lord Jesus teaching in the temple, whenever you hear of Paul or John or Peter teaching in the temple, they always took a position somewhere under in these cloisters or porticos. And there they talked, sitting down with their pupils all around them. So it was always in this outer court of the Gentiles. That's very interesting because it meant gentiles could hear as well. [00:45:02] So you hear again and again of the Lord Jesus standing up in the temple on a great feast day and saying something. Well, generally speaking, it was here in the outer court of the Gentiles. You will also remember that when the Lord Jesus was twelve years of age, at the feast he gave his mother and father the slip. They went home, gone a day's journey, and found that he wasn't with them. They thought he was with relatives in the company. But on the way back to Galilee, he couldn't be found anywhere. And when they came back, they found him debating and discussing with the doctors of the law. Now where was he? Well, he was probably in Solomon's porch. There he was amongst pupils with some of the great doctors of the law, listening to them and asking questions. And they were amazed at his wisdom and his knowledge, says the scripture. [00:46:03] Also within this area, called the court of the gentiles, was where the merchants had their stalls. They had all their stalls round here as well. The sheep, the oxen, the doves were all there ready to be sold. The money lenders and money changers had their stalls. Now, when the lord made that scourge of cords of that whip and drove them out, turned over their tables, it was again in the outer court of the temple. It wasn't right inside the sanctuary, but out here in the outer court where all these people had, it was almost like a market. They'd made, as he said, his father's house, a house of merchandise. The whole thing was like market day. Oxen bellowing, doves cooing sheep buying money, printing and changing hands. And the whole thing was one ghastly profit making machine. [00:47:07] In those days, it had got to such a state that blemished animals were being passed through. And priests bribed to let them through. And there were high prices were being charged of simple, provincial country people. [00:47:21] It was one huge profit making machine. Now, it was in the outer court of the gentiles that the Lord became so angry and overthrew the tables and drove out the ox. It must have been a terrific sight, all the sheep and the oxen being driven out of one of the gates. The money everywhere. And, you know, I'm quite sure that they were scrabbling around trying to get the money up again. If I know them, not willing to lose one single mite. [00:47:49] Well, it was all there from the court of the gentiles. One passed. I wish everyone could see this. [00:48:01] From the court of the gentiles. One passed through this door, which some people believe may have been the gate. Beautiful. Into the court of the women. Now, why was it called the court of the women? Did it mean it was some kind of place of where men were not allowed? Certainly not. Men were found as much in the court of the women as the women. [00:48:23] It was called the court of the women because no woman was allowed to go beyond there. That's why. [00:48:30] That was the furthest extent any lady was allowed to go in the temple. Now, on these walls, around this inner court were great carved notices prominently displayed, which were written in Greek and Latin. And they said, if anyone, any gentile passes beyond this point, he does so his own life. [00:48:58] He is responsible for his own death. [00:49:01] In other words, if anyone went beyond there, the Jews might take it into their own hands to murder him. [00:49:10] This was the holy place. This was the court of jail. Now that explains why in Paul's day there was that terrific rumpus when some of he and some of the others went into the inner court. And you remember there was a great cry raised. He has wrought in unclean, uncircumcised gentiles. They, in fact, were not. They were proselytes. So there was a great, you remember, a tremendous mob at that time. And he was arrested, taken by the roman guard for his own safety. Well, now, that's another little point. Now, when you come into the women's court, I don't know why, but in the women's court were the chests where gifts of money were made. And that again explains why the Lord, sitting one day in the court of the women, saw a little widow come. He watched people throwing in their money. Great rich people came by and flung in money and so on. He watched them all coming and going and coming and going. I don't know where he was sitting. Perhaps he was sitting somewhere on the side here. And then suddenly a little widow came. And perhaps she hesitated. I don't know. She was just wondering, should she give what she got? She'd only got two months. But she flung in everything she had. And out of that came the story that the Lord Jesus told us. About the little widow who had given all that she had to the Lord. [00:50:41] From the by the way this whole court was raised. [00:50:46] So first you came into the court of gentiles. Then a little higher was this whole court. Then when you went through the court of the women. You came to the court of the Israelites. Sometimes called the men's court. Now, this was the last place ordinary israelite men could go. They could go through this gate into this court here. They weren't allowed to go. Just beside the altar. In order to lay their hands on the animal that was being sacrificed. But beyond that, they were not allowed to go. So this was called the court of the Israelites. And that was higher than the women's court. Then you came into the court of the priests. Where the brazen altar was. And that was higher than the court of the Israelites. And finally you had the sanctuary itself, which was higher still. Now, that's why from outside of Jerusalem. You could see the whole of the temple area raised slowly on top. Until finally you had this glorious gold plated front. [00:51:44] And the door, the great, that went into the holy place. Not the most holy place that had a veil only, no door. But the most holy place was a door also of gold. And on the top of that door was a huge and most amazingly worked vine of pure gold. With great bunches of grapes in pure gold. Now, both Josephus and others have mentioned the existence of this amazing feature in the inheritance temple. They all spoke of this. I think Josephus puts it like this. This sight, incredible to behold of a vine high on the door with all the grapes hanging down. Now, it was this that some people have said used to catch the rays of the rising sun. [00:52:41] And throw back the rays of the sun. Now you see, dear child of God, when the Lord Jesus said, I am the true vine. [00:52:53] Don't you think suddenly it all falls into perspective when you realize that. That there every jewish man who came to offer a sacrifice. As he stood by the altar and looked up, he could see over the actual wall of the porch. He could see over it and he could see that great vine that spread right out over the whole doorway. [00:53:18] And when the Lord Jesus said, I am the true vine, what was he saying? He was really saying, I am the temple. I am the temple. Destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days. He is the church. He is the true dwelling place of God. And we are in him and he is in us. And that's the whole teaching of the parable of the vine in John 15. Abide in me and I in you. There you've got it. The essential meaning of the temple. Go back home and read the 15th chapter of John the first verses of the 15th chapter of John and you've got the secret of God's eternal purpose. There it is. He, we in him, he in us. Jesus said, I am the true temple. That's how we could put it. I am the true dwelling place of God. You could almost say, I am the true people of God. [00:54:22] Well, now, that's all very interesting, isn't it, really? I don't know whether I've missed anything that I ought to have told you. The gates of these courts. There were gates out of these courts here were all. Were nearly all. Not completely. One of them was wonderful bronze corinthian pillow work. But the others were nearly all, for the most part, silver and gold overlaid. They were a most amazing sight. [00:54:53] On the northwest corner of the outer court was the fortress of Antonia. And the fortress of Antonia was, in fact, nothing to do with the Jews at all. It was the barracks of the roman garrison and they had actually put it right in to the outer court of the Gentiles. And in big feast days, roman soldiers used to walk along these walls and on the roof here in order to watch the crowds because they knew how hot blooded the Jews were and they knew that immediately any row came or riot came or anything else that was jumping straight away. So you had often roman soldiers going around here. This was also where the roman procurator stayed when he was in Jerusalem. Man like Pontius Pilate, he used to stay here, actually at the corner of the temple when he was in Jerusalem. Now, this was the temple Christ came to and fulfilled. It's a wonderful thing. It is a remarkable thing that in the end, in the year 70 AD this temple was destroyed in the siege of Jerusalem. Although the roman emperor had expressly said that he didn't want the temple at Jerusalem which was known all over the world he did not want it to be destroyed. A rather fanatical and overzealous soldier threw a flaming torch into the sanctuary and it caught fire and the whole thing went up. [00:56:37] And from that day to this, the temple has never been rebuilt. Instead, today there is a muslim mosque built upon it, which of course, the old Christians used to think was the abomination of desolation that the Lord talked about upon the altar. Well, now, that's the next thing. Can we pass on to our next subject from the temple? [00:57:04] The canon. I want to speak just a little bit about the canon of the Old Testament and other jewish literature. During these 400 years before Christ, we discover three main streams of literary activity amongst the jewish people. The first is the canon of the old Testament. Now, we use the term canon to distinguish from other writings what is divinely inspired and absolutely authoritative. Canon means measure, and canon is the thing that is measured. The canon of scripture is that which is marked off as divinely inspired from other helpful and good writings which are not actually divinely inspired. Now, by the time of Christ, the Old Testament scriptures were fully recognized in their threefold jewish arrangement. If you turn to Luke, chapter 24, and verse 44, we read, which are written in the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms. [00:58:31] The law of Moses, the prophets of the psalms, the threefold jewish arrangement. If you turn back to Luke, chapter eleven and verse 51, we read this from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yea, I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation. Now that's interesting, because in the jewish arrangement, instead of Esther coming last, the very last book in the jewish arrangement was second chronicles. And the last person mentioned as being martyred in the last chapters of the second book of Chronicles is this man here, Zechariah. So the Lord was really saying, from the first abel to the last Zechariah. In other words, he knew the arrangement of scriptures, which has come down to us. So evidently there was some kind of recognition of the old Testament as we know it now. No council at any time canonized these scriptures. They only recognized what was universally accepted as divinely inspired. [00:59:48] From the beginning, the law of Moses, that is, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers and Deuteronomy were accepted by all as divinely inspired by Ezra's day. The prophets. Now that's the major part of the Old Testament, not what we call the prophets, but what the jewish people called the prophets, were accepted by. For the most part, by the second century, they were fully accepted. All, that is, except Ezekiel. Ezekiel continued to be a point of discussion right up to the days of our Lord Jesus, because his description of the new temple in Ezekiel 40 to 48 was different to what God had said in the law. So some jews said there must be something wrong somewhere here. They felt that Ezekiel was talking of a literal temple that was to be rebuilt. So there was some question about Ezekiel. But finally, Ezekiel was accepted fully as well as it was the writings. The last section of the Old Testament, Jewish, Old Testament, which was the most difficulty, it seems reasonably certain that they had been given full recognition by Christ's day. As late as 70 ad, at the destruction of Jerusalem, there was heated discussion amongst the rabbis over Esther, ecclesiastes, song of Solomon and proverbs. [01:01:34] But the very discussion over them infers that they were widely accepted. [01:01:43] Their point was, should they be accepted just because they are so widely and universally accepted? Should they be? Now, the reason was this. First the rabbi said, esther is a gentile book. It doesn't even mention the name of God. Should it therefore be in the Old Testament canon? Ecclesiastes is a terribly unorthodox book. They said, should that be in the canon? After all, does it sound like the voice of God? Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. The third thing is, they said, the song of Solomon. Well, they said, really and truthfully, they thought that was terrible, because Solomon was such a terrible man, and he fell away right from the Lord. How could we possibly have his song in the canon? And they felt the same about the book of proverbs. They felt, even if he was a wise old man, there were many other features about him which weren't very nice. And therefore, they questioned whether we should have the book of proverbs in the canon. The interesting fact is this. The result of these discussions was the absolute acceptance of these four books as canonical. [01:02:54] So during these years, these 400 years, the Old Testament as we know it came to be fully recognized. Now, you can call them 400 silent years, but, you know, that's one of the most tremendous things that could have happened, that the scriptures as we know it, came to the arrangement, the essential form that we have it now. [01:03:18] Now, the second stream of literary activity during these 400 years was what we call apocryphal literature. Now, do you know what apocryphal literature is? Strictly speaking, the apocrypha, the word means hidden, obscure or hidden. The apocrypha is a varied assortment of jewish literature from 300 BC to 100 AD, not included in the Hebrew Old Testament, nor recognized by the scribes or the later rabbis in the Septuagint. The apocrypha was included. And this was one more source of friction between Hellenist and Hebrew. The Hebrew thought it was disgraceful that they could have brought these books into the canon of the Old Testament. But the Hellenist felt much freer about the whole thing. [01:04:19] We have got to say that in spite of the fact that the Septuagint brought them in to the scriptures, that whilst the canonical books have had absolutely universal recognition, the Apocrypha has never at any time been universally accepted. [01:04:43] For instance, the Roman Catholic Church includes the apocrypha more or less in its scriptures. The reformers took them out and put them off the scriptures in between the Old Testament and the New Testament, with a little note that these were not divinely inspired, but were helpful in personal reading and so on. And there's been backwards and forwards over the apocrypha for many, many years. Much of it was written by hellenists under the assumed names of Old Testament characters. What they did was this. They found that there was something missing somewhere. They found, for instance, that someone had written a letter, and we haven't got an account of the letter in the Old Testament, and they thereupon set about putting it right by giving us an account of the letter that is mentioned in the Old Testament. So we have quite a number of different things mentioned. The apocrypha consists of of 14 books. [01:05:47] Twelve. Sorry, twelve books. [01:05:51] There they are, one and two. Esdras tobit Judith, the wisdom of Solomon, the prophecy of Baruch. Now, you see, someone decided that Baruch, who helped, was the scribe to Jeremiah, ought to be given a prophecy of his own. So they went for him. And then there were additions to esther, there were additions to Daniel, and the additions to Daniel were the song of the three children. Folk felt that the three people in the fiery furnace ought to. We ought to know a little bit more about them. And so we had the song of the three holy children. We have the history of Susannah, a most remarkable lady, I might add. [01:06:33] Belle and the dragon. Sounds tricky. [01:06:37] Dragon in babylon. And I'm not a real dragon, but you read it as well. Ecclesiasticus, which is the longest, almost as long as Jeremiah. The prayer of Manasseh, which again goes back into scripture. And the epistle of Jeremiah. Someone found out that it says somewhere that Jeremiah sat down and wrote a letter. So we haven't got it. They have given us the letter. And finally, Maccabees, which is very interesting. There are either the two books which are generally accepted by all, and there are third and fourth book of maccabees. Which cover the history of the Maccabean period. That is roughly the period of these 400 years we are talking about. Now. Beyond the APOCrYpHA, there is an abundance of apocryphal writing, not even accepted, because at that time the HellenistS went wild simply writing things in GreeK with a sort of greek philosophy, with a jewish background, and all kinds of things were turned out. [01:07:46] We have the Ethiopic enoch, the Slavonic enoch, the assumption of Moses. This is the story of how moses rose from the dead, the psalms of SolOMON, the Book of jubilees. Now, you know, in the GENesIS it speaks of the book of jubilees. Well, someone felt that that ought to be corrected, that we, as we hadn't got it somewhere, we should at least have it. And so they wrote the book of jubilees for us. Then we have the ascension of Isaiah. He's supposed to have ascended. And so we have the ascension of Isaiah after he was sawn in half by the wicked king Manasseh, which is probably true, the sore in half side of it. And then we had the histories of Adam and Eve. Now, this is mentioned in, literally the second book of Genesis, where it says, these are the history of Adam and Eve. So someone says, we must add a little bit more. Now, this is the kind of thing you've got. You've got the sibylline oracles. And if you want to, we don't normally let them out of the library. They're too valuable. But there are at least about 20 volumes upstairs of all these apocryphal writings. Not in the apocrypha in the library, all kinds of things. And it will not take you long just reading them superficially to notice that they are far, far later than the times they mention. They are most obvious in the greek era. Now, this is what we call apocryphal writing. All this literature from 300 BC to 100 AD, the last stream in literature in the jewish world of literature was the tradition of the elders. Now, if you turn to mark chapter seven, mark chapter seven, verse three. [01:09:51] We read this for the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they wash their hands diligently, eat, not holding the tradition of the elders. Verse five. The Pharisees and scribes ask him, why walk not thy disciples accordingly to the tradition of the elders? Now, we've spoken about the canon of the Old Testament, that is, what was divinely inspired by God. We have spoken of the apocrypha and apocryphal literature, some of it which is helpful and good, some of it which isn't quite so helpful or good. [01:10:27] The third thing is the traditional of the elders. Now, I do not doubt that if we had asked most of us here what is the tradition of the elders, very few of us would really have been able to give an intelligent answer to it. We would have said, oh, well, isn't it something that must have been passed down on people before? Which is perfectly true, but it's much more than that. [01:10:55] This was the teaching handed down from master to disciple. But it's very important to understand which masters and which disciples. You see, between the testaments, there was very much explanation. Between the Old Testament and the New Testament, there was very much explanation and elaboration upon the Old Testament, especially the law. [01:11:24] In fact, sometimes the explanation was elaboration. [01:11:29] And jewish tradition says that, again, it was the elders of Moses Day that started the ball rolling, as it were, and the scribes developed it. And the tradition of the elders, they say, goes back to the 70 elders of Moses day, who explained to the people the law that God gave to Moses. [01:11:54] Now, as time went on, this literature called the tradition, this ar law, as it was called, or the tradition of the elders, became so voluminous, so enormous, and so contradictory that it became infected by New Testament times more than a headache. [01:12:19] That's why we had to have this great army of scribes to interpret the law by the tradition of the elders. They were the only people who could possibly do it. [01:12:30] And it's why the LORD Jesus said, ye have set the word of God at naught by the of the elders. They actually finally contradicted the word of God and nullified it. [01:12:49] The tradition of the elders has become now what we know as the Talmud. So if any of you ever hear of the talmud, you will know what the Talmud is. The Talmud is the original tradition of the elders of our Lord's day. Now it's called the Talbot. Well, now, I really think perhaps we ought to end there. Perhaps I just ought to say something about language, because it goes in with this literary side, and we'll finish there. We'll leave the matter of Samaritans to another evening, although really, I don't really want to take up Samaritans, because it won't take us a whole evening. But the Samaritans and the Galileans, I want to talk about. But I'll just end on this point this evening. What were the languages used? [01:13:39] What were the languages used? The Bible is written in three languages. It is written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. [01:13:52] Most of the Old Testament is in Hebrew, some small passages are in Aramaic, and the whole of the New Testament is in Greek, although there may have been for certain parts, an Aramaic original. [01:14:09] During the 400 years before Christ, Aramaic became the language of God's people instead of Hebrew, and Greek became the universal language of the civilized world. [01:14:26] Aramaic is not derived from Hebrew. In other words, it wasn't a modern form of ancient Hebrew as many people imagine. Aramaic, in all probability, was older than Hebrew. In actual fact, it may have been, in fact, the language that Abraham himself spoke. [01:14:51] Aramaic is not derived from Hebrew, but it belongs to the same family as Hebrew and is very close to it, using exactly the same script as Hebrew. It seems that it was the diplomatic language of the assyrian empire and continued right through the persian empire till its overthrow and end in 331 BC. After the exile, Aramaic gradually superseded Hebrew as the spoken language of the Hebrews. The Hebrews spoke Aramaic in Palestine until in the New Testament time, it was the universal language spoken, the universally spoken language of the Hebrews. Thus, Christ's mother tongue was not Hebrew, but Aramaic, and the mother tongue of the apostles was not Hebrew, but Aramaic. Now, this is quite important. Hebrew remained the sacred language of the people, rather like Roman Catholic Latin. [01:16:06] You know, all the services were in Hebrew, but it was all in Hebrew, just like Latin. Most Roman Catholics don't understand a word of Latin, but they just listen to this language. It's the sacred language because it was spoken in Constantine's day, it's been spoken ever since. And all. Until just recently, all the services and everything else were in Latin. Hebrew was exactly the same. It was used by the scribes when they used to have their schools in the porticos of the outer court, the court of the Gentiles. It was Hebrew that they were teaching and they held their debates and discussions in Hebrew. It was considered to be the sacred language of the people. That meant that in all synagogues, there had to be an interpreter, so that as the Hebrew scriptures were written, the interpreters sat by and translated it into Aramaic so that the people could understand or some other language, Greek or some other language if it was necessary. [01:17:09] Greek was the other great language of the Bible and of New Testament times. From 331 BC, Greek gradually became the common language of the empire. Until a New Testament time, it was the universal language. [01:17:31] This Greek was not classical Greek, and nor was it what we now know as modern Greek. It is often called hellenistic Greek. It was in between most of the dispersion, the Hellenists, as they were called, spoke Greek. [01:17:47] And it was into this Greek that they translated the Old Testament. Here it is, the, what we call, call the septuagint, the oldest translation of the Bible, into another language, into Greek. In the second century BC, that translation was carried out, as you know, in Alexandria by the Hellenists. [01:18:11] Later, all the writings that were to form the New Testament were written in Greece. [01:18:20] So those were the languages that were used. Of course, one has to remember that there were many other languages. The Jews did not only speak Aramaic and Greek, there were those who spoke Latin, and there were many other languages throughout the world that where the Jews were settled, they had learnt and spoke thus in the synagogues of the dispersion, right throughout the whole empire. The Hellenists normally, and the dispersion, they used this version, in other words, the greek version of the Old Testament. But even then there were people who perhaps spoke Latin, couldn't understand Greek, so they had to have a latin translation, or there were others who spoke parthian or something else, so that they again had had to have a translation. [01:19:13] It's very interesting, the fact of language, the ways of God, are remarkable, really, when you think of it. [01:19:24] Well, now we've covered another great section this evening. I don't know how much you'll be able to hold in your memories and minds of all that. It's all background to the New Testament and it all happened in the 400 years before Christ, those tremendous years when so much happened. And, dear child of God, it's so possible for you and me to think that with the end of the canon of the New Testament, until now, very little has happened that somehow the voice of the prophet is silent. Somehow or other great things that belong to that era, we don't see them in the same way today. We'd love to see these things again, but, you know, make no mistake about it, these are not silent years, just as those 400 years were not silent years. These are not silent years. [01:20:22] The stage, the scenery on the stage is being shifted. You may not even know that it happening, but it's happening. And the stage is being set for the final, last great drama of humanity. [01:20:40] I'm not so sure that it will be so long before we see those last great figures appearing upon the stage of human history. When we shall find world government. [01:20:57] Seems impossible, but I think things are building up to it. We find a world church. Ten years ago, that was a dream, an imaginative fantasy. Now it's a terrible possibility. [01:21:14] And there are so many other things, this abomination of desolation sitting in the temple of God and giving himself out to be God. I've got a feeling it's going to be connected with that system somehow or other. All these things are happening in front of our eyes. [01:21:34] The boundaries of the world are changing. Thrones are vanishing. Other forms of government are arising. Everything's happening. It seems silent to us, the silent year. [01:21:50] But are they silent? I am not so sure. They are so silent. I think that in the end, one day when we're all in the glory by the grace of God and we look back, we shall say silent years. However, were we so blind that we could not see these things happening before our very eyes, these great movements of history, sort of like an iceberg, two thirds of it under the surface. Suddenly, only a little break in the surface. You just see it. It's just the token of so much else that is hidden, but has happened. [01:22:32] And you see the end. If I understand the book of revelation right, the end is a continuation, the consummation of something that has been going on for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Just as John the apostle said, dear brethren, the spirit of Antichrist is in the world already. [01:22:59] So at the end, the continuation of the working and the energy of that spirit of Antichrist will issue in the actual incarnation of Antichrist, and he will appear upon the world scene at the end. But we have no need to fear. Just as Antiochus Epiphanes appeared a little before Christ, so this Antichrist will appear before the final coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. So take. Take courage. [01:23:32] Take courage. Don't be downcast. The fact is, just because it may seem to us that we're in the silent years. Oh, dear, dear child of God, don't believe it. [01:23:45] Right at the very end, the whole thing will burst into life. Suddenly, the old prophetic ministry will be revived, and we shall hear the word of God as we have not heard it preached through all these years. I believe that at the endot in what some people consider just now, but at the very end of this dispensation, there will be a unique revival of prophetic ministry. A great instrument, maybe a corporate instrument, maybe two men, I don't know, maybe one. But there will be a great prophetic ministry at the very end of this dispensation in the spirit of Elijah, just like John the Baptist ushering in the coming of the Messiah. Well, take courage, then. We're in silent years, but we're not really. [01:24:45] It's all happening. And the rumblings you hear now and again are just the scenery being shoved around and put into place. And suddenly when it happens you see one piece come in here and you think what's that? And you see another piece coming in. You say what a queer idea ever's this. And a piece of table's put there and something else is put there. And then suddenly the curtain drops, the curtain rises and the actors come on and say oh, I understand it all. Oh, I see it all now. It all makes sense. [01:25:15] It's happened. The preparation is over. The actual drama has started. So it will be at the end of this dispensation. Shall we pray now? Lord, thou knowest there's been so much this night of facts and figures but we do pray that thou wouldst somehow write these things upon our hearts hearts and make them the source. Very much instruction and training for us all. O, may we be wise in these things understanding Lord Jesus, we commit ourselves to thee in thy name. Amen.