Expository Thoughts On Mark – Mark 14:53-65 - John Charles Ryle

Solomon tells us in the book of Ecclesiastes, that one evil he has seen under the sun, is when “folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place.” (Eccles. 10:6.) We can imagine no more complete illustration of his words than the state of things we have recorded in the passage before us. We see the Son of God, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” arraigned as a malefactor before “the chief priests, and elders, and scribes.” We see the heads of the Jewish nation combining together to kill their own Messiah, and judging Him who will one day come in glory to judge them and all mankind. These things sound marvelous, but they are true.

Let us observe in these verses, how foolishly Christians sometimes thrust themselves into temptation. We are told that when our Lord was led away prisoner, “Peter followed Him afar off, even into the palace of the high priest–and he sat with the servants, and warmed himself at the fire.” There was no wisdom in this act. Having once forsaken his Master and fled, he ought to have remembered his own weakness, and not to have ventured into danger again. It was an act of rashness and presumption. It brought on him fresh trials of faith, for which he was utterly unprepared. It threw him into bad company, where he was not likely to get good, but harm. It paved the way for his last and greatest transgression–his thrice-repeated denial of his Master.

But it is an experimental truth that ought never to be overlooked, that when a believer has once begun to back-slide and leave his first faith, he seldom stops short at his first mistake. He seldom makes only one stumble. He seldom commits only one fault. A blindness seems to come over his understanding. He appears to cast over-board his common sense and discretion. Like a stone rolling down-hill, the further he goes on in sinning, the faster and more decided is his course. Like David, he may begin with idleness, and end with committing every possible crime. Like Peter, he may begin with cowardice–go on to foolish trifling with temptation, and then end with denying Christ.

If we know any thing of true saving religion, let us ever beware of the beginnings of backsliding. It is like the letting out of water, first a drop and then a torrent. Once out of the way of holiness, there is no saying to what we may come. Once giving way to petty inconsistencies, we may find ourselves one day committing every sort of wickedness. Let us keep far from the brink of evil. Let us not play with fire. Let us never fear being too particular, too strict, and too precise. No petition in the Lord’s prayer is more important than the last but one, “Lead us not into temptation.

Let us observe, in the second place, in these verses, how much our Lord Jesus Christ had to endure from lying lips, when tried before the chief priests. We are told that “many bore false witness against Him; but their witness agreed not together.”

We can easily conceive that this was not the least heavy part of our blessed Savior’s passion. To be seized unjustly as a malefactor, and put on trial as a criminal, when innocent, is a severe affliction. But to hear men inventing false charges against us and coining slanders–to listen to all the malignant virulence of unscrupulous tongues let loose against our character, and know that it is all untrue–this is a cross indeed! “The words of a talebearer,” says Solomon, “are as wounds.” (Prov. 18:8.) “Deliver my soul,” says David, “from lying lips and a deceitful tongue.” (Psalm 120:2.) All this was a part of the cup which Jesus drank for our sakes. Great indeed was the price at which our souls were redeemed!

Let it never surprise true Christians if they are slandered and misrepresented in this world. They must not expect to fare better than their Lord. Let them rather look forward to it as a matter of course, and see in it a part of the cross which all must bear after conversion. Lies and false reports are among Satan’s choicest weapons. When he cannot deter men from serving Christ, he labors to harass them and make Christ’s service uncomfortable. Let us bear it patiently, and not count it a strange thing. The words of the Lord Jesus should often come to our minds–“Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you.” “Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.” (Luke 6:26. Matt. 5:11.)

Let us observe, lastly, in these verses, what distinct testimony our Lord bore to His own Messiahship, and second advent in glory. The high priest asks Him the solemn question, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” He receives at once the emphatic reply, “I am–and you shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

These words of our Lord ought always to be had in remembrance. The Jews could never say after these words, that they were not clearly told that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ of God. Before the great councils of their priests and elders, He declared, “I am the Christ.” The Jews could never say after these words, that He was so lowly and poor a person, that He was not worthy to be believed. He warned them plainly that His glory and greatness was all yet to come. They were only deferred and postponed until His second advent. They would yet see Him in royal power and majesty, “sitting on the right hand of power,” coming in the clouds of heaven, a Judge, a Conqueror, and a King. If Israel was unbelieving, it was not because Israel was not told what to believe.

Let us leave the passage with a deep sense of the reality and certainty of our Lord Jesus Christ’s second coming. Once more at the very end of His ministry, and in the face of His deadly enemies, we find Him asserting the mighty truth that He will come again to judge the world. Let it be one of the leading truths in our own personal Christianity. Let us live in the daily recollection that our Savior is one day coming back to this world. Let the Christ in whom we believe, be not only the Christ who died for us and rose again–the Christ who lives for us and intercedes–but the Christ who will one day return in glory, to gather together and reward His people, and to punish fearfully all His enemies.

John Charles Ryle