The evangelist Luke did not tell us all the details of the three trials of Jesus Christ before the religious authorities. The first one took place in the evening in the house of Annas, the former high priest (John 18:19-24). The second one took place at night before Caiaphas and the prominent people of the council (Matthew 26:59-68). And the third one took place in the morning before the whole council including all the members of the Sanhedrin. Luke concentrates on this main last meeting, which formally confirmed the sentence that was already passed (Matthew 27:1).
After the second meeting, the guards began to mock at the bound Jesus. Caiaphas and all the representatives also mocked at Jesus and stroke him angrily. The guards smote his back with leather whips, and blasphemed against him who had known every word that proceeded from the mouth of man until that night. He had even foretold the rooster’s crow to wake the denying Peter. The soldiers tried this Omniscient that he might prove to them that he was a prophet. They slapped him repeatedly on his kind face. They were not aware that they had slapped God himself repeatedly on his face. Christ said not one word, but suffered because of the aggression of men whom he loved and will always love even to the end, knowing that the hour had not come yet to reveal all harm and iniquities of men who obeyed the power of darkness as slaves. Thus he prayed for those who cursed him.
Early in the morning, the members of the Jewish high council, composed of seventy members, were called by Caiaphas from Jerusalem and its surroundings to meet soon. Those members of the Sanhedrin included notable men of the powerful chief priests, theological experts, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, proud Pharisees, liberal Sadducees, representatives of all respectable families, and those highly regarded by the people. They all raced to see and judge the popular Teacher, miraculous Physician, and Galilean countryman. The session did not begin with preliminary questions, but they opened their meeting immediately with the main complaint against Jesus, which Caiaphas clarified at night and Jesus confessed. They asked him smiling: "Are you the expected Christ?" He stood before them, bound, beaten, whipped, spat on, helpless, without any army, diplomas, or powerful clan. He was a poor image. So they did not argue with him, for they did not consider him as important, but were willing to hear his testimony immediately from his own mouth that he was the Christ so that they might be able to pass their sentence against him as soon as possible.
But Jesus condemned their unbelief, and asked them to trust his words, knowing that the hearers did not seek the truth, but had already decided to destroy him, while they hypocritically pretended preservation of justice. Christ could easily ask them about their knowledge in the Holy Bible, and prove to them from the Torah that he was the true Christ. But all that was of no avail to them, for they were determined to kill him, and not to leave him.
Then Jesus got up, and pierced them with his eyes. He looked through the empty faces, beyond his death on the cross, at a more advanced point in heaven, where he saw his Father and the throne prepared for him at the right hand of his Father; and then he testified this holy truth before the representatives of Israel. All those present knew from the Book of Daniel (Chapter 13) that the name "the Son of Man" signifies the Son of God himself to whom all authority had been given in heaven and on earth to practice judgment on everyone. Those scholars also knew what was mentioned in (Psalms 110:1) where the Lord says to the Lord: "Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool." Jesus unified those two verses in his defense as a complaint against his judges, and asked the representatives of his people for the last time to believe in him, worship to him, and submit themselves to him lest his testimony should mean their condemnation, and destruction.
The seventy representatives flamed up with rage against the countryman, bound before them, who dared to utter such words, but they controlled themselves with spiteful eyes, and asked him angrily and spitefully one cunning question to lead him to confess that he was the Son of God that they might be able to condemn him: "Are you the Son of God?" The Jews usually did not use the word "God" in their conversation by way of respect to his majesty the Holy One, but they fabricated their question mentioning the name of God with specific and deceitful intentions, which if answered in the affirmative could have been interpreted as double blasphemy.
Christ looked at them, and gave them a decisive answer. As if he were saying to them, "I am telling the truth, but you do not believe in me. I said that I am the Son of God. This being is true and beyond doubt and research from everlasting. My prerogative is that I became the Son of Man, and humbled myself to men’ level. Yes! I am the Son of God in the form of the Son of Man. God from God. Light from light. True God from the true God, Begotten, not created, in one essence with the Father. The almighty is my Father. You are but mortals, submitting to another father that is the cursed Satan.
Then the multitude flared up angrily. Now they became certain that he who stood before them was an insane, deceitful blasphemer, and that their condemnation against him was the only way which would save them from God’s wrath. So they stopped all their questioning and witnessing, for the whole multitude had heard enough blasphemy from his own mouth: that God had a son. They were blind, hardhearted, and foolish, though they were the godliest, most cultured, and richest cream of the nation. They did not recognize Christ’s condemnation on them at all.