SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/24/2024 10:07 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Attitude of the Lord”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
27:12b-14
Message of the verses: “He did not answer.
13 Then Pilate said to Him, "Do You not hear how many things they testify
against You?" 14 And He did not answer him with regard to even a single
charge, so the governor was quite amazed.”
What we see here is the second element that is in
this account and this demonstrates the perfection and the innocence of Christ,
and that was His attitude. This was no
doubt upsetting to Pilate as Jesus made no answer to this intensified
accusations of the chief priests and the elders.
Now
when these Jewish leaders brought Jesus to Pilate they had a predetermined
verdict of guilty, however Pilate found Jesus not guilty as he declared in John
18:38 “I find no guilt in Him.” Pilate
realized that the original charges against Jesus not only were religious rather
than political but were bogus and made out of envy. Pilate also knew that the charges they had
just made regarding insurrection, not paying taxes, and claiming to be a king
were manufactured solely for his benefit, in order to give a political basis
for judgment that was against Him.
It
is disturbing to me that the Jews did not know the truth but Pilate did know
the truth, and the Jews were opposing the truth. The truth is that the Jews had unjustly
convicted Jesus, however we know that this was all in the plan of God in order
to have His Son die in our place so that those who accept this will have
eternal life.
Pilate
was hoping that Jesus would come to His own defense and help expose the deceitful
Jewish leaders. Pilate said to Him,
"Do You not hear how many things they testify against You?" However again Jesus “did not answer him with
regard to even a single charge.” So
understandably, “the governor was quite amazed.” We can see that Pilate had confronted
hundreds of accused men, most of them who loudly protested their innocence and
were willing to say or do anything to save themselves, and so this probably was
what so amazing about Jesus who said nothing.
Many of the others who had come before him doubtlessly made
countercharges against their accusers or else passionately would plead for
mercy. A person who said nothing in his
own defense was unheard of and that was astounding. However Jesus’ innocence was so obvious that
it demanded no defense on His part.
MacArthur
writes “Where it the revolutionary who opposes Rome, the tax-dgdging protester,
and the rival to Caesar’s throne?’ Pilate must have mused. The Man who stood before him was calm,
serene, undefensive, and completely at peace. As Isaiah had predicted some seven centuries
earlier, although ‘He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open
His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is
silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth’ (Isa. 53:7).”
It
seems that Pilate was not only amazed, but was in a quandary. He was convinced of Jesus’ innocence and was
repulsed by the chicanery of the chief priests and the elders. The truth is
that Pilate did not dare offend them, because his own position with Rome was
not precarious due to the contemptuous misculations he had previously made
regarding Jewish religious convictions.
MacArthur
then goes on to explain some of the things that the Jewish leaders had on
Pilate, and I will only begin to quote these and will, Lord willing continue
them in the next SD.
“He
had governed Judea for some four or five years, but his rule had been marked by
several serious misjudgments that threatened his office and even his life. First, he had deliberately offended the Jews
by having his soldiers carry ensigns into Jerusalem that carried the likeness
of Caesar. Because the Jews considered
such images to be idolatrous, previous governors had carefully avoided
displaying the emblems in public, especially in the holy city of
Jerusalem. When a delegation of Jews persistently
asked Pilate to remove the ensigns, he herded them into an amphitheater and
threatened to have his soldiers cut off their heads if they did not
desist. When the group bared their necks
and threw themselves to the ground, defiantly asserting their willingness to
die, Pilate withdrew both his threat and the ensigns. He had been sent to Palestine to keep the
peace, not foment a revolution, which a massacre of those men would surely have
precipitated.”
As mentioned I will pick up this story from
MacArthur’s commentary in the next SD.
7/24/2024 10:43 AM
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