SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/30/2024 9:12 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Acquiescence of the Governor”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
27:24-26
Message of the verses: “24 When Pilate saw
that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather that a riot was starting, he took
water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, "I am innocent
of this Man’s blood; see to that yourselves." 25 And all the people
said, "His blood shall be on us and on our children!" 26 Then he
released Barabbas for them; but after having Jesus scourged, he handed Him over
to be crucified.”
Today we begin to look at the fourth element in this
account that demonstrates Jesus’ perfection and innocence was acquiescence
(compliance) of the Roman governor to the will of the multitude, which had been
incited against Christ by the Satan-led religious leaders. No doubt that this was Satan-led which is how
he works as seen here, one of many times Satan uses “religious leaders” to get
done what he desires to get done. I did
not matter to them, as all they wanted was the blood of Christ, that is for Him
to die, and the truth is that it did not matter to them that there was not a
single accusation against Him which had stood before Annas, before Caiaphas,
before the entire Sanhedrin, before Herod, or before Pilate. Again the truth is that in their willful
spiritual blindness they had no concern for truth, for justice, or even for
righteousness. They rather pursued
unfounded and irrational vengeance on an innocent man who not only had never
done them harm but who had healed their diseases and offered them eternal life,
but of course as we can see they did not want the eternal life that He offered
them.
Therefore,
when Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather that a riot was
starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying,
"I am innocent of this Man’s blood; see to that yourselves." Pilate finally realized that no amount of
reasoning or evidence would prevail with this obsessed mob, he made public
testimony that he did not concur with their decision and that he disavowed any
complicity in it, which is seen by him washing his hands.
In
an earlier SD we talked about how the Jewish people knew things that were
against Pilate and if there would be another riot under his rule in Jerusalem
that he could have been sent back to Rome and possibly killed by Roman
authorities. He saw this mob was totally
out of control, and it was clear that their only pacification would be Jesus’
crucifixion. Life was very cheap at this
time and killing one Person to stop a riot was no problem to the governor, he
thought, but in the end it would haunt him to the point of suicide.
MacArthur
writes “Pilate was never known for mercy or diplomacy. Herod Agrippa I is reported to have said that
Pilate was ‘naturally inflexible—a blend of self-will and relentlessness’
(Philo of Alexandria in the Legatio ad
Gaium [38]. It was his previous
cruel indifference to the people under his jurisdiction that had gotten him
into so much trouble.”
It
can be seen here that Pilate did have a sense of justice, for had he been able
to discover the least amount of evidence against Christ that would have shown
him that Christ was guilty of a capital crime, then he would have been greatly
relieved and more than willing to grant His execution, but as stated there was
none, and there was none because Jesus Christ is God and it was impossible for
Him to do anything wrong. If Pilate
thought He was guilty then it would have been much easier on him to have Him crucified. MacArthur adds “But the fact that he
unwaveringly maintained Jesus’ innocence, rendering at least five five public
verdicts of not guilty, testifies to his inability to find any guilt in
Him. He therefore repeatedly appealed to
the Jewish leaders and to the multitudes to relinquish their demand for Jesus’
death. But he was not courageous enough
to risk his own welfare to protect Christ’s life.”
7/30/2024 9:40 AM
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