To the untrained eye, it reads like fiction. It’s a story of temptation, betrayal, weakness, wickedness, cruelty, and injustice, climaxing in a dramatic courtroom scene. On one side, scheming, bloodthirsty crowds. On the other, a wrongfully accused, innocent victim, abandoned by friends to face His accusers alone.

Yet the trial of Jesus and the events leading to His crucifixion were real. What’s more, they weren’t random acts of human wickedness. When you examine the details Scripture provides, you begin to see how God’s eternal plan of salvation was unfolding—and how Christ was revealing His mission, His character, and a pattern for us to follow when we face inevitable trials and persecution.

Go on the scene of history’s worst miscarriage of justice, as John MacArthur unpacks the vivid details of Matthew 26, where you find Jesus on Trial.