Christ before Pilate. No. 2.
The other evangelists tell us of Pilate's first and fatal mistake, in offering, while convinced of his Prisoner's innocence, to chastise him and let him go. He showed the Jews he was afraid of them; and from this point onwards we see him tossed between his own convictions and his fears—a type of all who in their own souls have convictions about Christ and their duty to him, which they do not act out lest they thereby incur loss or abuse. Apparently, before the Jews have time to do more than utter a murmur of discontent at his proposal, another plan suggests itself, by which he may possibly extricate himself. The governors were in the habit of releasing some well known prisoner at the Feast of the Passover, and he offers to release Jesus. No sooner had he done so than his attention is called away by the extraordinary message from his wife. Nothing is more remarkable in the Roman history of the period than the strength of character developed by the women, their keen interest in public affairs, and the prominent part they play in them. A law forbidding the wives of the governors to accompany their husbands to the provinces had lately been repealed, and Claudia Procula was not only with Pilate, but apparently keenly interested in his work and tenderly solicitous for his honour and safety. And still God often thus speaks to men; and some woman's anxious look or word, or some child's innocent question, will give the conscience new strength or arm it with new weapons. The moments given to ponder this message are not neglected by the leaders. They wind through the crowd, and prompt the people to ask for Barabbas. By offering them the alternative between a Man whom both he and they knew to be innocent of sedition, and a man notoriously guilty of it, he put them into the very difficulty they sought to fix him in. But they have already seen that he has a deeper conviction than the innocence of Jesus, namely, a fear of them, and this they use. Pilate, therefore, having done, as he persuaded himself, all he could to save Jesus, gives him up to the scourging—a barbarous punishment, under which many died. He may have interfered to prevent the full amount being inflicted. He did not interfere when the soldiers proceeded to mock their victim. In this mockery we have a concrete and visible representation of the manner in which Christ is continually used. We salute him as King; but what is the sceptre we put in his hands? Is it not in many cases a mere reed, in hands that are bound? Is it not as real a mockery for us to profess allegiance to him, and use the strongest language we can command to express our adoration, and then go and show that he has not the slightest control over our lives? In this would-be equitable Roman governor coming to the people and saying, "What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?" we see:
1. The predicament of many among ourselves who would gladly be rid of the question. But it cannot be. There is this judgment to pronounce. Even if there were no blessedness in following Christ, the fact remains that he is presented to you, and that it is your duty to accept him.
2. We see how futile was the attempt of Pilate to transfer the guilt of this action to the Jews. They were willing to take the blood of Christ on their heads; but, though history shows how terrible has been their share in the vengeance they ignorantly invoked, Pilate was not necessarily exempt. Men frequently mistake the point at which their own power, and therefore their own responsibility, ends. They consent to iniquity, and say they were forced to it. How were you forced? Would every man in your circumstances do as you are doing? Or, men invite you to share their sin, persuading you that the guilt is theirs, if there is any; you will find that they cannot bear your share, and that you vainly seek to lay the guilt on them. The very fate Pilate feared, and to avoid which he sacrificed the life of our Lord, came upon him. Six years later he was deposed from his office, and died by his own hand. We are apt to say of him that he was weak rather than wicked, forgetting that moral weakness is that which makes a man capable of any wickedness. And who is the weak man but the one who is not single-minded, who attempts to gratify both his conscience and his evil or weak feelings, to secure his own selfish ends as well as the great ends of justice and righteousness? Such a man will often be in as great a perplexity as Pilate, and will come to as ruinous, if not so appalling, an end.—D.
Verse 62-ch. 28:15
The Resurrection.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not merely the greatest event of history, it is the hinge on which all history turns. If Christ died and lies still in his grave like other men, then the whole preaching of the apostles falls to the ground. It is plain he can afford us no help of the kind we especially need—he cannot hear our prayer, he cannot guide our life. His own word has failed, for he said he would rise. The whole revelation of God he made, all the information about things unseen and future, has doubt cast upon it. It is the resurrection of Jesus that establishes a clear and close connection between this world and the unseen and spiritual world. If he rose from the dead, then the world into which he is gone is real, and his invitation to us to join him there is one we may confidently trust to. It becomes us, therefore, to consider with candour and seriousness whatever difficulties men have felt in accepting as true this stupendous fact. May not some mistaken and ill-advised person have surreptitiously conveyed away the body and have given out that a resurrection had taken place? The authorities took the most effectual means they could think of to prevent this. So beyond doubt was it that the grave was emptied by an actual resurrection, that when Peter stood before the Sanhedrin and affirmed it, they could not deny it. This ides, therefore, may be dismissed. It is agreed, by those who deny the Resurrection as much as by those who affirm it, that the disciples had a bona fide belief that Jesus had risen from the dead and was alive.
The question is—How was this belief produced? There are three answers.
I. It is the chief proof that Jesus was not mistaken regarding his own Person, his own work, his relation to the Father, and the prospects of himself and his people. It is also the Father's attestation to the sufficiency of his work.
II. If our Lord's work be viewed as a revelation of the Father, the Resurrection will equally be seen to be necessary. Were there no resurrection, we should be obliged to seek our highest ideas of God in the tomb, not in the Divine condescension and love which are visible on the cross, but in a being overcome and defeated by the same ills that overwhelm us all.
III. In the risen Lord we find the source of all spiritual strength. Any one who passes through death uninjured, who conquers that which conquers all other men without exception, shows that he has some command over nature which does not belong to other men. And he who shows this superiority in virtue of a moral superiority, and uses it in the furtherance of the highest moral ends, shows a command over the whole affairs of men which makes it easy to believe he can guide us into a condition like his own. Especially does the Resurrection enable us to believe that our Lord can communicate the Holy Spirit. Salvation is reduced to very small limits indeed, and the Christian religion becomes a mere system of morality, if there be not now a living Christ able to bestow a living Spirit.
IV. In the risen Lord we see the character of the life to which we are called in fellowship with him, and also the destiny that awaits us in him. As he passed to God, and lives with him, so must we now live wholly to God, letting this great gulf of death stand between us and our past life of self-pleasing and worldliness. In him risen, with a human body and not a bare spirit, we see what we ourselves are to be in that future life. The Divine Spirit is the source both of holiness and of immortality; if we now have the one evidence of his indwelling, we shall one day have the other.—D.
HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD