Wednesday, April 26, 2017

PT-4 "The Interrogation" and "The Adjudication" (John 18:33-38)


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/26/2017 9:26 AM

My Worship Time                                Focus:  PT-4 “The Interrogation” and “The Adjudication”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 18:33-38

            Message of the verses:  “33 Therefore Pilate entered again into the Praetorium, and summoned Jesus and said to Him, "Are You the King of the Jews?" 34 Jesus answered, "Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?" 35 Pilate answered, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You to me; what have You done?" 36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm." 37 Therefore Pilate said to Him, "So You are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice." 38 Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?" And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, "I find no guilt in Him.”

            In our last SD I promised to give a quote from John MacArthur on this section about “What is truth,” and then look at the last half of verse 38 “The Adjudication.”

“Jesus’ words were an implied invitation to Pilate to hear and obey the truth about Him.  But they were lost on the governor, who abruptly ended his interrogation of Christ with the cynical, pessimistic remark “What is truth?”  Like skeptics of all ages, including contemporary postmodernists, Pilate despaired of finding universal truth.  This is the tragedy of fallen man’s rejection of God.  Without God, there cannot be any absolutes; without absolutes, there can be no objective, universal, normative truths.  Truth become subjective, relative, pragmatic; objectivity gives way to subjectivity; timeless universal principles become mere personal or cultural preferences.  All fallen mankind has accomplished forsaking God, ‘the foundation of living waters,’ is ‘to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water’ (Jer. 2:13).  Pilate’s flippant retort proved that he was not one of those given by the Father to the Son, who hear and obey Christ’s voice.”

“The Adjudication:”  “And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, ‘I find no guilt in Him’ (John 18:38b).”

            We have mentioned that the Jews took Jesus to Pilate because they could not inflict the death penalty on Him and so they had to bring some trumped up charges against Him so that the Romans would think that He was a threat to them and thus put Him to death.  Pilate, at this point would have none of this, and so he comes out and tells the Jews that he had not found any guilt in Him.  Jesus posed no threat to Roman rule. 

            MacArthur concludes “No valid indictment of Him at the beginning; no conviction of Him at the end.  The Lord of glory was maligned, hated, and falsely accused, but nevertheless found to be perfect, faultless, and innocent.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  God’s Word gives us what truth is and therefore it is my desire to continue to study the Word of God, in order to continue to learn truth from it.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to truth the Lord with my preparation for my Sunday school class as what I am teaching about this Sunday is probably the most important verse found in the 17th chapter of John’s gospel, and it is my desire to “that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak (Col. 4:4).”

Answer to yesterday’s Bible Question:  “Solomon” (1 Kings 11:1-3).

Today’s Bible question:  “There how many Pauline epistles?”

Answer in our next SD.

4/26/2017 9:55 AM

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