Jesus had been in total control from the start.
Whether it was in the Garden of Gethsemane or the trials before Annas and
Caiaphas, He was fully conscious of His mission. Even now as He faced Pilate,
He was still very much in control. In verse 28 we read, “Then they led Jesus
from Caiaphas into the Praetorium, and it was early; and they themselves did
not enter into the Praetorium so that they would not be defiled, but might eat
the Passover.” The Praetorium was the official residence of the governor located
within the palace that Herod had built.
Why did John include this verse? John was probably
referring to the Feast of Unleavened Bread that came together with the
Passover. The Jews were required to keep themselves from any leaven or
defilement at this time so that they could partake of the feast. For that
reason, the Jews didn’t want to enter the place of the Gentiles for fear of
being contaminated. Here John was pointing out the farcical attitude of the
Jews. They fussed over outward religious show of ceremonial defilement but
cared nothing over their moral guilt of delivering an innocent man over to
death.
Instead of having the Jews enter the Praetorium,
Pilate kindly came out to them. His question to them was, “What accusation do
you bring against this Man?” The reason they brought Jesus to Pilate was so
that the scripture that had predicted the kind of death the Messiah would have
to go through would be fulfilled. The Jewish method of putting a person to
death was by stoning. They brought Jesus to Pilate also because the Jewish
authority did not have the power to pronounce a death sentence. For that to
take place they needed the consent of Pilate the governor.
What the Jews wanted was Pilate’s support of their
decision and to affirm their sentence. They wanted to have Jesus executed
without any further hearing. But Pilate refused to play to their tune for he
never liked the Jews. So he exasperated them by telling them to deal with Him
according to their own law. They would have it their own way if God had not
already prescribed by what means Jesus should die. It had been predicted in the
Old Testament that the Messiah’s death would not be by the Jewish method of
stoning but by means of the Roman execution – the cross. John probably had
Psalm 22 in mind, where the death of the Messiah was detailed. This tells us
that while man may have the free will to make choices, God is still in control
of every event. In allowing Christ to go through death for us, God was working
His perfect will to bring about His perfect plan, to redeem mankind from
destruction.
Being the brutal man that Pilate was,
it would be of little consequence to him to put Jesus to death. Yet this was
not a simple matter because God was in control. Pilate was merely an instrument
in God’s hand to bring about the redemptive purpose of God. So it was not as
simple as it seemed. Here was a man torn between two worlds – the material and
the spiritual. Pilate was in a dilemma not knowing how to respond. What about
us? For like Pilate, we are also people striding between two worlds. Remember
that our spiritual world, where we are in touch with the real but unseen
Christ, must govern our decision in this physical world. We must learn to be
more discerning because spiritual things are spiritually discerned.
No comments:
Post a Comment