But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God. Splendid as would the recompense be to the faithful and the loyal, equally shameful would be the guerdon meted out to the cowardly and faint-hearted.
Before the same glorious throng would the King detail the failure, through slavish fear, of those whom he had chosen for so royal a service. Such an announcement as this proclamation of glory and of shame before the holy angels, in which stupendous scene he, the poor Galilaean Rabbi, was to play the part of the Almighty Judge, could only have been made in the last weeks preceding his Passion.
All reticence was then laid aside. Before friend and foe, in public and in private, in these last solemn weeks Jesus tore away the veil of reticence with which he had been pleased hitherto in great mea- sure to shroud his lofty claims, and the Master now declared before all that he was the King of kings, the Lord alike of angels and of men.
In the face of such an announcement, his prosecution by the priests and the Pharisee party for blasphemy naturally follows. He was either a daring impostor or In the latter ease, to the poor Galilee Rabbi belonged the Name of names which no Jew dared to pronounce.