It is recorded (in Matthew's gospel) that the chief priests and Pharisees had greater faith in Jesus than his own disciples did. The day after they had Jesus murdered, they appeared before Pontius Pilate, (whom they had compelled to murder Christ) "Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first." (Matthew 27:63 & 64)
Considering that the chief priests and Pharisees professed concern about the deceitfulness of the disciples; and not, rather, faith in "that deceiver": one might be disposed to think there's a mistake made in assuming the chief priests and Pharisees believed Jesus. Perhaps I've simply read the scriptures too many times to believe it's possible for a Jew to tell the truth on purpose. However, if body- thieves were their true concern in appearing before Pilate in regards to this matter: why bring the Romans into the affair at all? Why not simply set their own watch on the sepulchre? It's not like there were security guards shoo- ing creeps out of cemeteries at night, in those days. Notice, also: the guard detail was only requested "until the third day," though the contested word was, "After three days I will rise again." Four days is after three days, as is five days, six days, seven days, and so on. Why not a perpetual watch? What were they really worried about? My answer, in a word, is: authority.
As many times as the Jews tried to murder Jesus, they were unable to-- until they had constrained the Romans to do their dirty, priestly work for them: then Jesus died. Many are wont to say that Christ's resurrected body was rather glorious in comparison of his physiognomy pre- exsanguination at Calvary, inasmuch as he was able to move unhindered through solid walls and appear and disappear at his own discretion upon resurrection: things they claim he couldn't do before Calvary-- this even though they all readily allow he walked on water before Calvary. But those who tried to kill him at Nazareth before he was ready to die know better. There, "he passing through the midst of them [while they were pushing him over a promontory] went his way." (Luke 4:30) This was at the beginning of his public ministry, and was followed by numerous other futile attempts.
When the Jews roped the Romans into their conspiracy, however, they were finally able to get their own way with Jesus. Now, it stands to reason that, if anyone can keep a man in the grave whom no one is able to kill: it's the one who does at last kill him. Thus, it's at least as reasonable to assume that: only if the chief priests and Pharisees believed Jesus would the Romans be required to stand a watch at the tomb; the which the Jews could otherwise cover themselves, and that without bringing more international attention to an already too- scandalous affair. Consider also that the resurrection of the dead was not so incomprehensible as the scholars represent it to have been. Jesus, like Elijah and Elisha before him, had himself raised the dead numerous times.
Indeed, though "John [the Baptist] did no miracle:" (John 10:41) still Herod had greater faith in Johnny B than the disciples had in Christ. For when, after having beheaded Johnny B, Herod heard of Jesus: he mistook Jesus for JB, saying "This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him." (Matthew 14:2) Yet Jesus' disciples didn't believe in Jesus: though he did innumerable mighty works; and that before his resurrection.
Matthew's gospel also informs us of a general resurrection which occurred at the time of Christ's expiration at Calvary, wherein "the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." (Matthew 27:52 & 53) The next day, the chief priests and Pharisees went to Pilate demanding a watch on the sepulchre. To be sure, the scholars make use of the terminology "after his resurrection" in the above citation to claim these dead saints were resurrected later than Jesus. However, Matthew uses this term to indictate how they came up; not when. Like in fashion as to how God made man "after our likeness:" (Genesis 1:26) so these dead saints resurrected in the same manner as Christ (which is to say "after his resurrection") on the day-- indeed at the time-- of his passing: before his burial; much less later than his resurrection. Yet the disciples didn't believe Jesus would rise.
The apostle Mark records that, after Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene post- resurrection: she went to the disciples with the news, "And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not." (Mark 16:11) When two others had seen Jesus, whom the disciples reckoned to be dead without remedy, "they went and told it unto the [disciples]: neither believed they them." (Mark 16:13) Why did they not believe? Why would they forsake their own lifestyles and occupations to company with a man they held in less esteem than that with which his murderers esteemed him? Whom did they believe in? What did they believe in?
My guess is: Jesus' disciples-- like Herod the tetrarch-- believed in John Baptist; and therefore Jesus was, to their way of thinking, the Lamb of God-- not the Son of God. It was none other than JB who, in referring to Christ, said no less than twice: "Behold the Lamb of God," after all. Every Jew who lives, or ever did, knows what a lamb is for, and when Johnny Beelzebub adds the qualifier, "which taketh away the sin of the world," (John 1:29) all shadow of doubt about the purpose of this Lamb dissipates into thin air. This is a lamb marked for slaughter, and that by the man whom "all men counted... that he was a prophet indeed." (Mark 11:32) According to this criterion, you may be assured it was JB, not Judas, of whom Christ said, "good were it for that man if he had never been born." (Mark 14:21)
According to Moses' law, no fewer than 1,074 lambs, 113 bullocks, 37 rams, and 30 kids of the goats were to be holocausted each year by the theocratic institution he founded to administrate the national interests of the children of Israel. These are institutional holocausts only. These don't include the various holocausts offered up by individual citizens at their own discretion.
These institutional holocausts were of a more generalized nature than were the holocausts demanded of the individual under Moses' law. If a man vowed a vow, a sacrifice of holocaust was required. If a woman gave birth, a holocaust was required. If a soul sinned, a holocaust was required. Just about everything that happened in the life of a man or a woman or a family or a tribe or the nation required blood on the altar, according to Moses' law. Probably the only thing bloodier than Moses' law is abortion.
To be sure, once this "last error... worse than the first" was committed, it was only a matter of time until classical Jewish positive thinking took over: turning error into righteousness and inspired brilliance, as it always has. The masterwork of this alchemical wizardry of delusion is the book of Hebrews.
The writer of Hebrews tells us the cold- blooded murder of Christ by crucifixion was necessary to cleanse God's heavenly abode. In the twenty- third verse of chapter nine, we read, "It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these ["the blood of calves and of goats," verse 19]; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices [the blood of Jesus, verse 25] than these." What, if not "a murderer from the beginning," (John 8:44) does this make of God? To put it another way: If one were to "clean" your house by murdering your son and soaking your house with his blood, the only way this could be just and right-- much less necessary-- is if you were a perpetually cold- blooded murderer who raised a perpetually cold- blooded murderer (your dearly beloved son) and needed to be taught how it feels to lose someone you love dearly in like manner to the way you were wont to deprive them of their loved ones: isn't it?
Mind you: the writer of Hebrews is expounding on Moses' law in explaining why it was necessary to murder Jesus, and this is instructive. In chapter ten, for instance, he tells us twice how futile, and even wasteful, the perdition practiced as holocausts under Moses' law was. In verse four, he writes, "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." Again, in verse 11, he writes, "And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins." If killing (lambs) doesn't take away sins: how is murdering (the Lamb) supposed to?
The truth of the matter is, wrestling with Moses' law in an attempt to understand or explain Christ's crucifixion is gratuitous-- though academic-- entertainment, in light of God's law. It does, however, inform as to the nature of those who murdered him, and is therefore not altogether a waste of time. But, to cut to the chase: God said, "Thou shalt not kill." (Exodus 20:13 & Leviticus 5:17) Does this imply murderers, sodomites, child molesters, bestiality practitioners, adulterers, etcetera, should not be killed? Is it right to pervert justice for righteousness' sake? If you swat a fly, have you broken one of God's commandments? Did David transgress when he slew the lion and the bear that were killing his sheep? Of course not.
What, then, does this word, "Thou shalt not kill." mean? To put it bluntly, this means, No blood on my altar. "For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:" ( Jeremiah 7:22) means, No blood on the door, either. God is not bloodthirsty. God is not a murderer, and he doesn't desire children who are. Obviously, Christ wasn't whistling 'Dixie' when he told his murderers, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." (John 8:44)
David, the "sweet" psalmist and true "King of the Jews" wrote, "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required." (Psalms 40:6) Yet, nowhere is it recorded that he ever stopped sacrificing: much less that he commanded his people to stop sacrificing. Why continue to shove anything down God's throat which he "didst not desire"? What kind of morons do such things? Oh, that's right: the children of the devil.
All of this begs one simple question: If murdering Jesus was the "last error," what was the "first" error alluded to by the chief priests and Pharisees at their audience with Pilate? I think the answer is to be found in the bloodthirsty masterwork of delusion referred to as the book of Hebrews, wherein the alchemical high wizard of blood magic writes, "But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." (Hebrews 12:22- 24) Notice: here, the wizard speaks not of the blood of calves, goats, and bulls but rather of the blood of the first murder victim recorded in scripture-- Abel.
"He was a murderer from the beginning."
