The Superscription (John 19:19-22)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/14/2017 7:03 AM

My Worship Time                                                                                  Focus:  The Superscription

My Worship Time                                                                              Reference:  John 19:19-22

            Message of the verses:  “19 Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It was written, "JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS." 20 Therefore many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Latin and in Greek. 21 So the chief priests of the Jews were saying to Pilate, "Do not write, ’The King of the Jews’; but that He said, ’I am King of the Jews.’" 22 Pilate answered, "What I have written I have written."”

            I have learned that when a crucifixion took place during the times when the Roman empire was around that many times a person would hold a placard, walking in front of the condemned man with his crimes written on it.  Since Jesus did no crime Pilate took one last shot at the Jewish leaders by writing on a placard “Jesus The Nazarene, The King Of The Jews.”  Since executions took place in a public place to help detour crime many of the Jews saw what was written as it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.

            Pilate’s plan of upsetting the Jewish leaders worked as “the chief priests of the Jews were” infuriated as they were being openly mocked and so they came to Pilate and told him to write something else “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews’; but that He said, ‘I am King of the Jews.’”  This offended them because the chief priests vehemently rejected Jesus as their King, and another thing was they did not like anyone named a Nazarene which was an insult to them. 

            Pilate would have none of this as he no doubt was relishing their discomfiture and so he bluntly refused.  He dismissed them stating that what he had written he had written.

            John MacArthur concludes “Here again is an example of God using sinful men to accomplish His sovereign purposes.  Neither Pilate nor the Jewish leaders believed that Jesus was the king of Israel.  Yet the animosity between them ensured that the governor would write an inscription proclaiming that Jesus was Israel’s King—as in fact He is.  He is the ‘King of kings, and Lord of lords’ (Rev. 19:16), and ‘at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and…every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father’ (Phil. 2:10-11).”

Answer to our last Bible question:  “Tablets of stone” (Exodus 34:4).

Today’s Bible question:  “Whom does God resist and to whom does He give grace?”

Answer in our next SD.

5/14/2017 7:25 AM