The council wanted Jesus to say plainly, in their hearing, that He was the Christ. "The Christ" means the Messiah, the Anointed One; Gill explains it as the one "promised and prophesied of by Moses, and all the prophets." He reads "tell us" as tell us frankly and plainly, as the Jews had demanded before in John 10:24. But this was not an open question. Luke has already shown these leaders watching Jesus so "that they might take hold of his words" and deliver Him to the governor (Luke 20:20). A plain claim to be the Christ would give them what they needed, and they used it as soon as they brought Him to Pilate (Luke 23:1-2).

Jesus first named their unbelief: "If I tell you, ye will not believe: And if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go" (Luke 22:67-68). Then He spoke of His exaltation: "Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God" (Luke 22:69). Then they all pressed further: "Art thou then the Son of God?" To this Jesus answered, "Ye say that I am" (Luke 22:70).

Matthew and Mark describe a hearing before the high priest during the night, with false witnesses whose testimony "agreed not together" (Mark 14:55-56). Luke tells it from the gathering "as soon as it was day" (Luke 22:66).

To sit at someone's "right hand" was a picture of honor and power. Barnes, on the parallel in Matthew 26:64, explains it denotes "dignity and majesty; for to sit at the right hand of a prince was the chief place of honor," and that "power" there refers to God. Matthew Henry connects Jesus' words about the Son of man with Daniel's vision of "one like the Son of man" coming to the Ancient of days (Daniel 7:13).

Jesus would not hand His questioners a sound bite, but He did not hide the truth either. He told them why a simple answer would not help them: they had already decided not to believe. Gill says their unbelief was "wilful, obstinate, and invincible." Luke has already shown what Jesus meant by "if I also ask you, ye will not answer me." When Jesus asked these same leaders about John's baptism, they reasoned among themselves and answered "that they could not tell" (Luke 20:4-7).

So Jesus pointed them past this courtroom to the day when the Son of man sits at God's right hand. Matthew Henry writes, "He referred them to his second coming, for the full proof of his being the Christ, to their confusion, since they would not admit the proof of it to their conviction."