1 ¶ Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and
scourged him. 2 And the soldiers platted
a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe,
3 And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and
they smote him with their hands. 4
Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring
him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. 5 Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of
thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man! 6 When the chief priests therefore and officers
saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto
them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him. 7 The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by
our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. 8 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was
the more afraid; 9 And went again into
the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no
answer. 10 Then saith Pilate unto him,
Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee,
and have power to release thee? 11 Jesus
answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given
thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.
12 And from thenceforth Pilate sought to
release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art
not Caesar’s friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.
13 When Pilate therefore heard that
saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place
that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. 14 And it was the preparation of the passover,
and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! 15 But they cried out, Away with him, away with
him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests
answered, We have no king but Caesar.
Scourging was a particularly brutal whipping which tended to
tear the flesh off the victim. There is no need to go over the details here as
many sermons have been preached on the absolute agony and degradation that
Jesus endured. The danger of that is to start to think that the scourging was
so brutal it led to His quicker death, as Pilate was amazed Jesus didn’t linger
and suffer longer as some did (Mark 15:44). But, Jesus died at the time
appointed not because of the whipping but remember that He had the power to lay
down His life as He had the power to take it up again.
John 10:18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down
of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This
commandment have I received of my Father.
Pilate then exposes this bloody mess of a man, our Lord, to
the crowd and insists again that he finds no fault with Him, saying the great
words, “Behold the man!” Perhaps this means that he hoped that the torture
would be sufficient to satisfy the bloodlust of the mob. It wasn’t. Pilate even
argued when the chief priests screamed to have Jesus crucified. Again, he says
that he finds no fault with Christ.
The Jews respond that Christ must die because He declared
Himself the Son of God, which is to say, that Jesus had made it clear that He
was God in the flesh.
Luke 1:35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The
Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow
thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be
called the Son of God.
This frightened Pilate who goes back to Jesus and asks Him
where He is from. This indicates that Pilate has some stirring of concern about
Jesus’ true identity. Perhaps he was becoming convicted as his wife had already
told him that she had a nightmare about Jesus in Matthew 27:19. Jesus would not
answer him.
An upset Pilate cannot believe that Jesus will not answer
him. After all, he says, I have the power to execute you and the power to
release you. The word power, in
certain contexts, means authority.
Luke 4:36 And they were all amazed, and spake among
themselves, saying, What a word is this! for with authority and power he
commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out.
Luke 9:1 Then he called his twelve disciples together,
and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases.
Luke 20:20 And they watched him, and sent forth spies,
which should feign themselves just men, that they might take hold of his words,
that so they might deliver him unto the power and authority of the governor.
1Corinthians
15:24 Then cometh the end, when he shall
have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put
down all rule and all authority and power.
Revelation 13:2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a
leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of
a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
This authority is given by commandment, whether it be from
God the Father;
John 10:18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of
myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This
commandment have I received of my Father.
…or, as in the case of Pilate, a human authority, and see in
the following the connection between the commandment and the ability to rule
over someone or have power…
Esther 9:1 Now in the twelfth month, that is, the month
Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king’s commandment and his
decree drew near to be put in execution, in the day that the enemies of the
Jews hoped to have power over them, (though it was turned to the contrary, that
the Jews had rule over them that hated them;)
Jesus then declares to Pilate that Pilate’s power comes from
God Himself because without God’s permissive will Pilate would have no power
over Him at all. This is something we forget. God’s hand in the leadership of
oppressive authority, for a purpose, is something that the modern Christian
cannot begin to understand.
When the era, unfortunately called The Enlightenment, came
in Western history our way of viewing God changed first until the intellectual
elite abandoned the idea of God altogether. Edwin Burtt, in the book The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern
Science, published in 1954 (from earlier editions in 1924 and 1932),
pointed out that what modern scientific thought did, and I’m paraphrasing from
numerous points he made throughout, was to change our idea of God from an
active agent in every facet of reality to simply the First Cause. So, we now view
God, not as He Himself declared in Job as bringing the prey to the predator,
creating dirt clods out of dust, and making events happen in the furthest
heavens or rain to fall in places on earth where no man is, but as the Creator
who wound up the clock and watches it run.(34)
Face it, you have been brainwashed to view God as an
absentee landlord to whom you complain when the plumbing leaks or a big brother
you run to when the Devil roughs you up on the playground and not the God who
made the plumbing leak and gave the Devil permission to go so far against you
and no further. We have reduced God to a simpering, milquetoast who cannot even
keep you saved, who has no power to preserve the Bible He wants us to have, and
who is facing an almost equal, Satan, in a non-existent war for our souls.
But, the oppressive dictatorship of Rome was, at the very
least, allowed by God and such governments will not end until Christ returns.
Read Romans 13. On the other hand, government can do something other than for
which it was ordained, which, according to Romans 13 is to avenge evildoing,
and then it becomes an evildoer itself.
Pilate is about to execute an innocent man because of
political realities and God is going to let him do it because it is part of
God’s plan. But, Pilate is still guilty.
Matthew 18:7 Woe unto the world because of offences! for
it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence
cometh!
Luke 17:1 Then said he unto the disciples, It is
impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they
come!
We are enabled to resist human government when it goes
against God, specifically, when we are forbidden to preach Jesus.
Acts 5:29 Then Peter and the other apostles answered
and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
Jesus does not give Pilate a pass for his cowardly avoidance
of justice in wavering about whether or not to free an innocent man but says
that the Jews who delivered Him have the greater sin.
Pilate tries again to release Jesus but the Jews accuse him
of treason against Caesar. In spite of that, Pilate presents Jesus as the King
of the Jews. The crowd, consisting also of the leadership of the Jews, then
proclaims that they have no king but Caesar.
Before you gloat over the Jews choosing a human king over
God’s authority examine yourself. Peter said, “We ought to obey God rather than men.”
The Jews had rejected God’s authority over them in favor of
a human king previous to this.
1Samuel 8:4 ¶ Then all the elders of Israel gathered
themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, 5 And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and
thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the
nations. 6 But the thing displeased
Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the
LORD. 7 And the LORD said unto Samuel,
Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they
have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over
them.
Matthew added this statement in 27:25 Then
answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.
And so, it appears from history that they suffered mightily
for nearly two thousand years. Paul noted that the Thessalonians suffered from
the pagan Greek culture around them as the Jewish churches suffered from the
Jews and that God’s wrath came upon them.
1Thessalonians
2:14 For ye, brethren, became followers
of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have
suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:
15 Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and
their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are
contrary to all men: 16 Forbidding us to
speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway:
for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.
Again, before an American Christian gloats over the Jews
choice, though, he should examine his own placement of the state, meaning the
government, in front of his worship of Christ. For many years of our history
our worship of Christ was filtered through our patriotic devotion to the god of
the state. Our ancestors and many of us only saw Christ dimly by looking
through the flag. For many conservative Christians, at least in regard to
unlawful wars and unconstitutional military interventions, though not in regard
to helping our own citizens who needed help, the state has had a divine right
in place of God to be God’s agent on earth. It was believed and is still
believed by many that we send our military, not on a mission to support some
ill-conceived foreign policy mandate or some secret, veiled business interest,
but almost as a messianic crusade of good (us) versus evil (them). Everything
the government does in regard to war is then couched in terms of good and evil
and defending our freedom as if some goatherder in a cave in Afghanistan was
more of a threat than our own government and if you don’t wholeheartedly
support what the government of either party declares is its intention on the
surface you are not supporting your sons and daughters in arms that you have
gladly delivered into the arms of Molech.
Be aware. God is able to take your nation away from you as
He took the Jews’ nation from them. Repent of your worship of the state before
it is too late.
(34) Edwin A. Burtt, The
Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (1954, repr., Dover Publications,
2003), Kindle Edition.
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