Here's a second question: why did they arrest him? He asked them: "Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me?" (v. 55). Why did they seize him? Who did they think he was?

The religious authorities arrested him as a blasphemer, a heretic, one who claimed that he was God. He would soon confirm their charges: "The high priest said to him, 'I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.' 'Yes, it is as you say,' Jesus replied" (Matthew 26:63-64).

The civil authorities executed him as a rebel, a traitor to Rome. Pilate made his crime clear: "Above his head they placed the written charge against him: This is Jesus, the king of the Jews" (Matthew 27:37). And there could be no king but Caesar.

Note what didn't happen.

No one thought to claim that he didn't exist. It is instructive that even his strongest enemies never considered such an attack. No one in all the literature of the period suggested that Jesus never lived. Not the Jewish responses, nor the Roman. Not the most hateful critic and opponent. We know too much from Tacitus, Suetonius, Mara bar Serapion, Josephus, and Pliny the Younger to dismiss his existence.

No one thought to claim that he was simply a religious teacher or leader, as The DaVinci Code and other modern critics claim. The Romans didn't crucify Sunday school teachers or denominational officials. The authorities executed him because they understood who he claimed to be: the Son of God, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Nothing else. Nothing less.