Matthew 26:64

Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, {d} Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting {e} on the right hand of power, and coming in the {f} clouds of heaven. (d) This word distinguishes his first coming from the latter. (e) Sitting with God in like and equal honour at the right hand of his power, that is, in greatest power: for the right hand signifies among the Hebrews that which is mighty and of great power. (f) Clouds of heaven; see above in Mt 24:30.

Matthew 26:64 . σὺ εἶπας : in current phrase = I am. Was Jesus morally bound to answer? Why not continue silent? First, the whole ministry of Jesus had made the question inevitable. Second, the high priest was the proper person to ask it. Third, it was an important opportunity for giving expression to His Messianic self-consciousness. Fourth, silence would, in the cirumstances, have amounted to denial.— πλὴν not = “nevertheless,” but rather = nay more: I have something more startling to tell you. What follows describes the future of the Son of Man in apocalyptic terms, and is meant to suggest the thought: “the time is coming when you and I shall change places; I then the Judge, you the prisoners at the bar”.

(64) Thou hast said. —The silence was broken as they expected. He was indeed what the words they had uttered implied. More than this, He was also the Son of Man of Daniel’s vision ( Daniel 7:13 ), the Head of an everlasting kingdom. No words in the whole Gospel records are more decisive against the views of those who would fain see in our Lord only a great moral teacher, like Socrates or Cakya Mouni. At the very crisis of His history, when denial would have saved His life. He asserts His claim to be much more than this, to be all that the most devout Christians have ever believed Him to be. At such a moment, when men stand face to face with seeming failure and with death, dreams and delusive claims for the most part melt away. Here claims that men have presumed to think of as delusive were strengthened and intensified, and reproduced as in the calmness of assured conviction. The right hand of power.—The Greek article here can hardly be reproduced in English, but it is well to remember that our Lord speaks of “the power,” that which belonged pre-eminently to the Eternal.

Matthew 26:64 . Σὺ εἶπας , Thou hast said ) “With regard to the question of Caiaphas, our Lord declares that He is the Christ, as though it were affirmed in the words of the interrogator. Nor is this form of speech uncommon in ordinary Greek discourse. In the Hyppolytus of Euripides, we find, σοῦ τάδʼ οὐκ ἐμοῦ κλύεις ,[1160] Thou hearest those things from thyself, not from me . And in the third book of Xenophon’s Memorabilia, αὐτὸς , ἔφη , τοῦτο λέγεις , ὦ Σώκρατες , Thou thyself, said he, sayest this, O Socrates ,”—CAMERARIUS.— πλὴν , nevertheless ) although ye do not believe it.— πλὴν as well as ἈΛΛᾺ is frequently used epitatically.[1161]— ἀπʼ ἄρτι , κ . τ . λ ., From this time forward , etc.[1162]) From this time forward, it shall come to pass that ye shall see and know, by visible proofs, that I am HE who shall sit on the right hand of power, and come in the clouds of heaven. A pregnant mode of expression ( sermo complexus) . Henceforward YE SHALL SEE me sitting and COMING.[1163] The return to judgment is combined with the sitting on the right hand: and after the Lord’s Passion they believed (see John 8:28 ), that which hereafter they shall see. They did not believe in the past; therefore Jesus (as He frequently did) appeals to the future. In the glory of Jesus this is the first thing, that He is the Son of God: that He will come to judgment is the last . The former is the foundation of the latter; the latter the most glorious proof of the former.

In the most adverse circumstances, it always especially consoles the sons of God to contemplate the consummation of all things: cf. Gnomon on 2 Corinthians 11:15 .— τὸν Υἱὸν τοῦ Ἀνθρώπου , the Son of Man ) He speaks in the third person, modestly but openly.— καθήμενον , sitting ) Jesus was then standing . On His ascension, He sat down at the right hand of God.— ἐκ δεξιῶν , κ . τ . λ ., on the right hand , etc.) A manifestation of the deity of Christ.— δεξιῶν , the rigid hand ) The neuter plural, τὰ δεξιὰ , is used in this sense.— Τῆς ΔΥΝΆΜΕΩς , of power ) that is of God. The Hebrews often call God הגבורה [ Power ]. Power is manifested most widely and openly in all the works of God. [1160] Ed. Dindorf, line 352.—(I. B.) [1161] See explanation of technical terms in voc. Epitasis .—(I. B.) [1162] In the original a modo , which is found in the Vulgate. In his German Version Bengel renders it, Von nun an , i.e. from this moment, henceforth . E. V. renders it, hereafter .—(I. B.) [1163] Ye shall soon after this present time believe in my being the Son of God, and in this sense, by faith shall see me sitting ; and thereby shall perceive also that I am coming as Judge.—ED.

Matthew 26:64 . Σὺ εἶπας ] see on Matthew 26:25 . Mark 14:62 : ἐγώ εἰμι . A distinguished confession on the part of the Son in presence of the Father, and before the highest tribunal of the theocratic nation. πλήν ] not profecto (Olshausen), nor quin (Kuinoel), but: however , i.e. (comp. Klotz, ad Devar . p. 725) apart from what I have just affirmed, ye shall henceforward have reason to be satisfied, from actual observation, that I am the Messiah who was seen by Daniel in his vision ( Daniel 7:13 ). ἀπάρτι ] is not to be taken with λέγω ὑμῖν (Schulz in 3d ed. of Griesbach), but—since in any other connection it would lose its force—with ὄψεσθε ; nor is it to be understood in any other sense than that of henceforth, i.e. from the time of my impending death, through which I am to enter into my δόξα .

But seeing that ἀπάρτι forbids us to understand ὄψεσθε as denoting only a single momentary glance (comp. on the contrary, John 1:51 ), we are bound to suppose that Jesus used it somewhat loosely to express the idea of coming to perceive in the course of experience (as in the passage of John just referred to) the fact of His being seated at the right hand of God (in allusion to Psalm 110:1 ), and that He did not intend ἐρχόμενον , κ . τ . λ . to refer to the second advent, but (Beza, Neander, Holtzmann, Schenkel, Gess, Weissenbach) to a coming in the figurative sense of the word, namely, in the shape of those mighty influences which, from His place in heaven, He will shed upon the earth ,—manifestations, all of them, of His sovereign sway. We are shut up to this view by the fact that the sitting cannot possibly be regarded as an object of actual sight, and that ἀπάρτι ὄψεσθε can only be said of something that, beginning now, is continued henceforth. τῆς δυνάμ .] The Mighty One is conceived of as power (the abstract for the concrete ). Similarly in the Talmud הַגְּבוּרָה , Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. p. 385. Such abstract terms (as for instance our: majesty) have somewhat of an imposing character. Comp. 2 Peter 1:17 .

Mark saith, Mark 14:62 , And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see, &c. Luke saith, Luke 22:67-69 , And he said unto them, If I tell you, ye will not believe: and if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go. Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God. What all the evangelists say put together, makes up our Saviour’s perfect answer. To what purpose (saith Christ) should I answer you? This is now but a captious question, not propounded by you to that end that you might be satisfied as to the truth, but only to ensnare me, for if I should tell you I am, you would not believe it. If I should argue the matter with you, you would give me no answer. I have given you proof enough, but yet, Caiaphas, thou hast said the truth, I am the Christ, the Son of the ever living, blessed God; and, to confirm you further, hereafter you shall see me, whom you think to be no more than the Son of man, sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven. There is a time for a man to speak, and a time for him to hold his peace; in the matter of confession of truth. The seasons for silence, or speech, are to be judged from the honour and glory of God; when we cannot be silent without betraying the truth, we are bound to speak. Our Lord therefore, being so solemnly adjured in the name of God to tell them what was the truth, now confesseth, and denieth not, that he was the Son of God, and tells them, hereafter they should see it.

Whether the term hereafter refers to the time soon following, (as ap’ arti, in this evangelist, and ’ Apo tou nun, in Luke, seem to signify), and be to be understood of Christ’s resurrection, his ascension into heaven, the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the carrying of the gospel to all nations, or to the day of judgment (which the New Testament often speaks of as a thing at hand, and that phrase, coming in the clouds of heaven, seems rather to signify); or (as others think) to both, referring the sitting on the right hand of power to the former, and the coming in the clouds to the latter; is hard to determine.