What was it that infuriated them so?
It appears that Jesus knew from the very beginning that his enemies would try to kill him because of the things that he would do and teach, according to the New Testament. But what was it that actually infuriated them so to the point that they tried to trap him and searched for reasons good enough to have him put to death? And who was it that was really behind it all?
Don’t get me wrong I’m not a anti-Semite. But at that time the priesthood used the law in a way that was very advantageous to them, in the sense that it gave them great control over the people. It’s just like in any religion of any age that it’s leadership has always used religion to control and manipulate the masses. This isn’t limited to just religion, it’s politics and marketing propaganda too. If they can get people to believe in some falsehood that gives them the advantage over the masses, they do it.
And it’s always about wealth and power. The Jews were no different at that time. Christianity, through the ages, became worse. There are horrendous stories of the persecution and murder of Jews at the hands of the church. But that’s another story.
For the purpose of this article the focus is on the disbelieving Jews mainly and the Romans who were also responsible for the murder of Jesus. I don’t go for that opinion that some have where they say that we are all guilty of the death of Christ because of our sins.
Some claim that God sacrificed his son for our sins and if it hadn’t been for our sins Christ wouldn’t have had to come and die. Well, that may be true in a certain way if you want to symbolize the whole thing, but what this article is all about is the actual reason that lead them to want to have him killed. Jesus wasn’t guilty of anything.
If the scriptures are correct, Pilate didn’t even want to have him put to death since he didn’t see anything that Jesus was guilty for that was worthy of a death sentence, nor did Herod. Pilate wasn’t a Jew so it made no difference to him if he spoke blasphemy. He was accused of being the king of the Jews, but this hardly stuck since Pilate saw no evidence of sedition in Jesus. In fact, Pilate even half jokingly said, “you want me to execute your king?”
If he had been serious they wouldn’t have thought twice about executing him. Jesus wasn’t setting himself up as a king over the Jews or stirring up the people against the Roman government (according to the gospels). Just to satisfy the Jewish people Pilate wanted to scourge Jesus and let him go.
But the priests stirred up the people to have the Romans crucify him. Obviously, the Romans didn’t want an uprising and they knew the priests had power over the people’s minds. The priests were cooperative with the Roman government and that is just what they wanted — control over the people.
What ended up happening was the Romans, in order to placate the priests and the people so that they wouldn’t have an uprising on their hands, scourged Jesus and had him crucified. To the Romans this was no big thing since they were killing people all the time in the name of the Roman empire.
The priests wanted him dead, so they trumped up a false charge against him with false witnesses (according to the New Testament). They stirred up the people to get them to persuade the Romans to do the deed, and the Romans just carried out the desire of the priests and murdered him.
But it wasn’t only the Romans who were responsible, it was the priests and the scribes that had the greatest responsibility for his murder, indirectly — they instigated the whole thing. (Like I say, according to the Gospels.)
So what was their motive for wanting to kill him?
That brings us to the motive. Why did the priests and the scribes want him dead? Was it for blasphemy or sedition? No. These were the trumped up accusations. Since they didn’t have any justifiable reason to condemn him to death, they had to invent one or maybe even several. Plus since they had to have witnesses they raised up false witnesses against him.
Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death; (Mat 26:59)
It’s been said that because Jesus said he was the son of God this was the reason they had to accuse him of blasphemy. Do you think they really cared about this? Do you really think this was what made them angry enough to want to have him put to death? Remember they had been following Jesus around for a long time trying to find something that they could use to trap him in his words.
And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things: (Luk 11:53)
Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him. (Luk 11:54)
When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death: (Mat 27:1)
Was it because he claimed to be God?
Actually there were many things that Jesus did and said that put them against him enough to make them want him dead. But claiming that he was God isn’t one of them. He did call himself the son of God and he was called the son of God by others just as the angel in the story said. But Adam was also called the son of God:
Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God. (Luk 3:38)
Moses was called the son of God; the angels were called sons of God; the fallen angels were called sons of God. Jesus himself said that the scripture called them all gods.
Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? (Jn 10:34)
If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; (Jn 10:35)
Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? (Jn 10:36)
So this is a false accusation that they invented to have something to pin on him. They really didn’t think that he was blaspheming because he was saying he was God. He wasn’t saying he was God nor even inferring it. It’s not blasphemy to say you are a son of God. According to John, anyone who receives Jesus is a son of God:
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: (Jn 1:12)
Jesus never, ever claimed that he was God.
Even the fact that he was called the son of God didn’t make him God. We are all sons of God and Jesus calling himself this only meant that God was his Father, not that he was God.
Was it because he was the king of the Jews?
What was the other trumped up charge they accused him with? They must have accused him of being a king since the governor asked Jesus if he was a king.
Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. (Jn 18:37)
Jesus didn’t deny nor affirm this question. Pilate didn’t believe the accusation anyway, but his enemies needed some kind of reason for killing him and sedition was the only one that he could be put to death for.
Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. (Jn 19:21)
So the murder was not because he claimed to be God, nor that he, claimed to be the king of the Jews. But for making himself a king was enough of an excuse for the Romans to have him put to death.
So what WAS the reason the religious establishment wanted him dead?
One of the main things the scribes and the Pharisees didn’t like was that he criticized their law and exposed it to the people as words that God did not say. Another was that he called the scribes and the Pharisees hypocrites and pronounced many woes upon them for their wickedness. What’s more he called them children of the devil. They certainly didn’t like that.
But probably the thing that infuriated them the most was the fact that he took away what made them rich and powerful and that was their control over the people. Jesus was trying put an end to the daily sacrificing of animals and the oblation.
There were actually people in the temple selling animals to use in their rituals of sacrifice and Jesus went in there and created a big scene, getting angry and overturning their tables. I think it even says he took a whip after them! Jesus was very much against cruelty to animals and the fact that the people were made to think that they had to confess their sins to the priests and bring a sacrifice offering for their sins to be forgiven.
Jesus wanted to do away with animal sacrifices
Jesus showed the people that they no longer needed the priests to confess to, they got their forgiveness directly from God or the person that was offended.
The priests were no longer needed
Now they could go straight past the middle-man. He and his disciples even baptized with water for the remission of sins instead of sacrificing innocent animals. According to the Old Testament prophets, it always was mercy that God wanted and never the sacrifice of animals.
But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (Mat 9:13)
But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. (Mat 12:7)
The sacrificing of animals was never commanded by God, it was a heathen practice that the Jews picked up from idolatrous religions. This goes all the way back to the times when the Israelites were in Egypt. Even then God hated it!
The people were deceived into believing that sacrificing animals was pleasing to God and would get them forgiveness of sins, but from what it sounds, it is considered that they were actually worshiping other gods — idolatry.
And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.
Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness?
Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon. (Act 7:41-43)
They made a lot of money off of the sale of animals and Jesus put an end to their lucrative practices
Jesus threw out those that made commerce in the temple. The scribes and Pharisees made a lot of money off of the sale of animals and Jesus put an end to their lucrative practices. No wonder they wanted him dead! Did you ever wonder why the daily sacrifices ended after Jesus came?
He also said, I am come to end the sacrifices and feasts of blood, and if ye cease not offering and eating of flesh and blood, the wrath of God shall not cease from you (21:8)
Ye believe that Moses indeed commanded such creatures to be slain and offered in sacrifice and eaten, and so do ye in the Temple (28:3)
“…for the hour cometh when your sacrifices and feasts of blood shall cease...” (28:4)
“And they said, Who art thou that seekest to do away with the sacrifices, and despiseth the seed of Abraham? From the Greeks and the Egyptians hast thou learnt this blasphemy?” (49:11) (Gospel of the Nazirenes)
The writers of the NT didn’t like the part where Jesus puts an end to animal sacrifice
The Holy Bible doesn’t say anything about the fact that Jesus came to put an end to animal sacrifice, but Jesus certainly DID say it, since this fact is found quoted from writings of the day in the works of several church fathers. This means that all of the references to this were intentionally left out when they were copying from original manuscripts.
Now after having left out or taken out the part about Jesus putting an end to animal sacrifices, it changed the meaning radically. So, obviously, what they had to do was invent parts to insert into places with doctrinal holes so that the story would run smoother and be very convincing to the reader.
What is most shocking about this though is that the doctrines they had to invent to cover up their enormous holes were damnable lies.
Jesus becomes the animal sacrifice!
To replace the animal sacrifice, Jesus became the sacrificial “lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world”. They make it look like Jesus expected them to crucify him and that he had to do this to take away the sins of the world. The authors of these lies, most likely Greeks, pull passages out of the Old Testament, out of context or misinterpreted to make it look like Jesus is fulfilling OT prophecy.
More modifications to the original story
To make it worse yet, in order to be saved, one has to believe that Jesus rose from the dead — as a requirement to be saved! Furthermore, as the story goes, Jesus is seen ascending, alive, in his resurrection body” to return to his Father in heaven.
And more: Jesus is dead in the grave for 3 days and 3 nights which is supposedly fulfilling an OT “prophecy” of Jonah being 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the big fish. The problem is that this prophecy isn’t really fulfilled since Jonah was alive inside the fish and Jesus was (supposedly) dead inside of the grave — unlike Jonah (who according to the story was actually alive!). There is so much more story had to be made up to cover up the big hole that was made when they modified the real story.
At any rate, the new church that became the official religion of the empire bought the story and it became the story of salvation that the church could use to their advantage or controlling and manipulating the masses.
They borrow from the Egyptians
Well, since the authors have come this far, they might as well embellish the story even more. Jesus was made into a god-man, who was born of a virgin, a story they apparently borrowed from the Egyptians that the Greeks brought forward some 400 years about a three-in-one god called Serapis Chrestus.
This is very likely to have been where they got the word Christ and tagged it on to Jesus, making it his last name. As a result the new Greek disciples were first called Christians in a Greek city called Antioch. What is really bizarre is that the bishops of the cult of Serapis Chrestus were called Christians as we are told by history.
The Jewish believers of the early church must surely have not liked this. Paul got into big trouble with the Jewish believers of the early church and they rejected him as an apostate of the law. Unfortunately, the early church (gradually, over several centuries) absorbed all of these new “improved” truths and were all sucked into mainstream Christianity.
Conclusion:
So what was the motive that made them irate enough at Jesus to want to have him murdered? Two things: wealth and power. When Jesus put an end to the cruel practice of animal sacrifice, he put an end to their lucrative business.
When he taught the people the Truth and exposed the scribes, Pharisees and Jewish leaders to their hypocrisy, they lost their control and influence over the people. They got jealous because multitudes of people would come to hear Jesus teach and the temples got empty, much of the people no longer needed the “man in the middle”, so-to-speak, to reach God and obtain forgiveness.
Next: Who Was Jesus Part 1 | Mary Magdalene: Companion of Jesus Part 1