Wednesday, July 24, 2024

PT-1 "The Attitude of the Lord" (Matt. 27:12b-14)

 

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   

 

 

 

No comments:

Post a Comment