Pontius Pilate's encounter with Jesus reveals a man of insight and discernment who ultimately succumbed to cowardice. The sermon details Pilate's background as a Roman procurator, highlighting his administrative and judicial responsibilities, and his initial admiration for Jesus, evidenced by his great marveling at Jesus' silence and his wife's dream. Despite recognizing Jesus' innocence and the envy driving the accusations, Pilate yielded to the crowd's demand for Barabbas and Jesus' crucifixion, washing his hands symbolically to disclaim responsibility. The sermon concludes by emphasizing the profound and lasting consequences of the crowd's cry, "His blood be on us and on our children," illustrating how the sins of parents can tragically affect future generations.
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a little matter for prayer. Some of our most important slides for Thursday night have still not arrived. It's more than two weeks and we're a little concerned about them so maybe you'll pray about them and I in meantime will try to contact Kodak in Rochester you know abroad you can still buy films with the processing included but they won't process them right on the spot you have to send them after Kodak so somewhere between here and Rochester there's been a hitch and we need those slides so please play about them with me will you let's turn to Matthew chapter twenty seven Both Mr.
MacDonald and Mr. Gilbert assumed that tonight we would be staying with Elijah. But we are not. Instead we are going to look at another man in great contrast to Elijah. Matthew twenty seven verse one. When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. And when they had bound him, they led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the governor.
Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? Save thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. and the chief priest took the silver pieces and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury because it is the price of blood.
And they took counsel and bought with them the potter's field to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called the field of blood unto this day. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value, and gave them for the potters field, as the Lord appointed me. And Jesus stood before the governor. And the governor asked him, saying, Aren't thou the king of the Jews?
And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest. And when he was accused of the chief priest and elders, he answered nothing. Then said, Pilate unto him, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee? And he answered him to never a word, in so much that the governor marveled greatly. Now at that feast the governor was wont to release unto the people a prisoner, whom they would. and they had then a notable prisoner called Barabbas. Therefore, when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you, Barabbas, or Jesus, which is called Christ.
For he knew that for envy they had delivered him. When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, have thou nothing to do with that just man? For I have suffered many things this day in a dream, because of him. But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you, they said, Barabbas, Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ?
They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said, Why? What evil have he done? But they cried out the Moor, saying, Let him be crucified. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person, see ye to it. Then answered all the people and said, His blood be on us and on our children.
Then released he barabbas unto them. And when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. Again, let's pray together, shall we? Our Father, we realize that in these verses in the Scripture there must be many, many lessons for us to learn. There must be many things that the Spirit of God would teach us. We pray that in the short time that we spend together tonight thinking about what is entailed in the chapter. We ask that our heart shall be spoken to in Jesus' name.
Amen. Then answered all the people and said, His blood be on us and on our children. Now I read about two men that I could contrast with Elijah. One, of course, was Judas Iscariot. The other, Pontius Pilate. And I have been thinking quite a lot about Pontius Pilate. The reason being that there isn't very much that we know about him.
As far as history is concerned, Pontius Pilate... is a very elusive man. So much so that until up until about ten years ago there were secular historians who said that Pontius Pilate never existed and that all of this was part of the Christian myth. And then suddenly, fairly recently, During archaeological diggings, a stone came to light linking the name of Pontius Pilate with that of the Emperor, and the mouths of these secular historians were closed.
But it is still true that there is not very much said about Pontius Pilate. I suppose that finding out that he really lived was a great blow to some of these men because they had had grist for their mill while they could say, oh yes, in the Bible there's plenty about Pontius Pilate. In other religious writings, to Jewish historians particularly, there is plenty about him. But there is only one mention in secular history about Pontius Pilate.
A historian from an early century was telling in history about the evil persecutions of Christians And he mentioned Christ was put to death when Tiberius was emperor, and then quoting, by the procurator Pontius Pilate. So there is at least one mention in secular history about him. To find out more about him, I went into that which must have been his background.
We don't know anything about his birth. We don't know anything about his origin. He had a Roman name and was a Roman procurator, so obviously he was a Roman. And after what happened here, we know very little except Beside the Gospels, Pilate is mentioned three times in the book of the Acts, and then he's mentioned in one other place in the New Testament. But there can be no doubt, because he was a procurator or a governor, that he belonged to a class called the equestrian class.
Now, do you know what an equestrian is? A horse rider. That's right. but this has nothing to do with horse riding. Mind you, the connotation may well come from this history because this equestrian class which corresponded, if you please, to the British knighthood, these were the knights of the Roman Empire and they would on given occasions where purple-trimmed tunics, they had special gold rings, and this was the privilege of sitting in the first fourteen rows of all the Roman theatres that they visited.
But to be a knight of this sort, to be in this equestrian class. And by the way, the connection comes in the fact that a little later on a Roman emperor, through the gold ring and the purple-trimmed tunic added a horse. And so maybe that's the reason why today equestrian means a horseman. But to belong to this privileged class, all that you had to be was wealthy. I discovered that there was a law that was put on the books in sixty-seven A.D., which determined how much a man had to have in order to belong to the equestrian class.
It wouldn't sound very much to you now if I gave you the amount, but undoubtedly then it was a munificent sum. So these men, by reason of their wealth, had an entree into this privileged equestrian class. Now, there were those who made their equestrianism a career. Others were content to wear their tunics and ride their horses and be adorned with their gold rings. But there were such a thing as an equestrian career.
And this began with a military position in the army as a tribune. Now you read about the tribunes. Well, this is the beginning of an equestrian career. Now here is the Roman knight going into the real business of knighthood. The lowest rank was tribune. The highest rank was prefect. He had a large prefecture and he governed in a wide area. But in between the Tribune and the prefect was the procurator.
And because he had to belong to the equestrian class, we know certain things about Pontius Pilate. We know that he had to be rich, and we know that he had, long time ago, said goodbye to the bottom of the ladder. His tribune days were a long way behind him, and he had climbed slowly, undoubtedly, the ladder. and he had reached to this point where he was, what our chapter calls, a governor. The word is procurator.
Now such a man had to have personal contact with the emperor and was answerable directly to the emperor, though he had certain superiors, including the prefects, the prefects who could have an effect upon his career. Now the procurator's job, generally speaking, was to look after the emperor's finances. So there was a procurator in Rome to look after the money, and there was a procurator in every one of the Roman provinces.
However, sometimes the emperor would add to that responsibility a number of other responsibilities. If he had enough confidence in the man, if he felt that the man could handle a job more than just collecting the money for the emperor, overseeing such a collection, then he would place these other responsibilities upon them. Now, Pilate was a man who had a civil, and a military and a criminal responsibility, that is, adjudication.
He was a judge in a civil sense, he was a judge in a criminal sense, and he was a judge in a military sense. Now this does not surprise me when I read this chapter and emphasize in my reading the things that are said about Pontius Pilate. It says, when the Lord Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, art thou the king of the Jews, and received the answer thou sayest, Pilate was impressed. And when the enemies of the Lord Jesus...
came to charge the Lord Jesus, and he would not dain to reply to their charges. Pilate said to him, Do you not hear how many things they witness against you? And the Christ who didn't answer the priests and the elders didn't even reply to Pilate. And instead of Pilate being incensed, we read, in so much that the governor marbled greatly. Now this man was a man of great insight. It also says in our chapter that when he stands before the crowd to present Barabbas and the Lord Jesus, he does it in order to get the release of the Lord Jesus because it says, He knew that for envy they had delivered the Lord Jesus.
He was a man of great discernment. I'm not surprised that to his money collecting, his emperor added these adjudications in the civil and military and criminal areas. Now we understand from the writings of the Jewish historians that Pilate was a procurator for ten years. There's a little bit of variation as to which ten years they were, but there's only about a year in the differences that we read in those histories.
But now Pilate, having indicated his wonder at the person of the Lord Jesus, when he hears the crowd crying out for Barabbas, he loses his patience. Why should I do that, he says? What evil has this man done? Why should I not release him? they cry out the more let him be crucified and then it says when Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing his efforts were of no avail but rather a tumult was made the thought there is a big uproar began he took water and in front of the multitude he washed his hands And he said, I am innocent of the blood of this just person, see ye to it.
He was a remarkable man, you know. But in the end he was a coward. And tradition tells us that he died by his own hand. He took his own life. It may well be true. because it would not be to be wondered at. Now we are told of Pilate that he had an attitude of no conciliation toward the Jews. That he was a man who was very unbending. He was a man who was used to speaking and whatever he said was done.
but he had had some tussles with the Jews. We read that there was a time when he had brought into Jerusalem a number of ensigns, a number of flags, the flags of the various companies of his soldiers. Now these bore the likeness of the emperor and were anathema to the Jews. Now they brought them in by night. when they thought nobody would know. But there they were for the moment when Pilate wanted to display them with all the pump and power that was at his command.
But somebody let the cat out of the bag, and the Jews found the ensigns were in Jerusalem, and so there was a whole mass of them, stormed his palace, and they were allowed into his presence in order to make known their grievance, we are told. Pilate listened to them, and then he said, you're not really here to make your grievances known. What I do, I do because I choose to do it. Unless you back down you are going to be slain right here in this hall."
Do you know what happened? The Jews to a man fell on their faces and bared their necks. That was their way of saying, kill us, but we will not back down. When I read that, I thought of Masada, and what happened on Masada, how the Jews there were willing to lay down their lives rather than surrender to the Romans. There was another time when Pilate actually diverted monies, temple monies, from the temple in order that he might provide an aqueduct for Jerusalem.
And the Jews rioted. And so Pilate He disguised numbers of his soldiers and sent them among the crowds, and they beat the Jews so mercilessly that the riot was quelled because these badly injured people could no longer stand. Now all of this gives me an insight into the character of Pontius Pilate. But he was a true soldier. in that he recognized strength when he saw it, and in the Lord Jesus he recognized strength such as he had never seen before.
Now that's the man with whom these Jews have to do. the Jewish leaders have gone among the multitude and stirred them up to say, give us Barabbas, give us Barabbas, Pilate tries to change their mind, he reasons with them, and they yell out the more, we want Barabbas, give us Barabbas, and I can hear the crowd crying, Barabbas, Barabbas, Barabbas, until it isn't possible to hear yourself speak. And so this very In his own way, brave man, in his own way, remarkable man, this man with great insight says it is no use.
So when he sees they are about to create a tremendous uproar, you know what he does. He does what only a coward would do, and he uses the words that condemn him. I am innocent of the blood of this just person. See to it. He was the judge. And the victim was guiltless. And yet we read right after that, when he had scourged Jesus, scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. but I've only left myself twelve minutes for the message of the evening.
When Pontius Pilate said that, then answered all the people and said, His blood be on us and on our children. Then answered. So here we have a reply. It was a reply to what? When Pilate said, see to it, what exactly did he mean? The NIV puts it this way, it is now your responsibility. That was what he said, and the people said, his blood be on us and on our children.
Now there was nothing that Pilate needed to know. So he wasn't asking a question. There wasn't anything that Pilate needed from them. So he was not making a request. There was nothing that Pilate felt any longer could be done. And so he was no longer reasoning with them. And so he gives up and turns his back. And they say, Willie, will carry the responsibility. It was not only a reply, it was a concerted reply.
It says, then answered all the people, all the people, all how hard modern jewelry today is trying to slither from underneath the guilt of causing the death of the Son of God. There's a great debate going on now between the Roman Catholic Church, indeed between the Vatican and the Jewish leaders about this business of being guilty of causing the death of the Lord Jesus. But there can be no question. They were guilty and they stand guilty because they said, His glory on us and on our children. And all the people said it.
It was a concerted reply. You know a mob is a strange thing. It's a strange thing. It is very, very hard to know what's going to happen next. In a mob, and I can remember some of us in Jerusalem in the bazaar which was crowded, so you could scarcely move, when there was suddenly an altercation. and an attempted knifing how suddenly afraid we became only because we were in the middle of a mob. Now fortunately we got away all right and nothing developed because Israeli soldiers just rushed in to take care of the situation.
But a mob's a strange thing. Have you ever been among a mob? Have you ever seen a mob in action? Very strange thing. It's also a very fickle thing. This crowd of people only a week earlier had been crying, what? You know, Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. And now they're crying away with him, cruisy by him. We don't want anything to do with this man. Give us the robber. Give us the murderer. Give us the rabbi's a fickle thing. A mob's a dangerous thing. This mob got its way, and in so doing defeated its own purpose, because they caused the death of the Lord Jesus, but it was all in God's plan.
But nevertheless they carried the guilt. Now this reply was not only a concerned reply, it was also an arrogant reply. His blood be on us. When Pilate says, I am turning from this responsibility, it's all yours. That Jewish crowd, all the people said, so what? So what? Did you ever hear anybody talk that way? So what? They never dreamed what they were doing when they said, his blood be on us. They were saying, we want him to die.
They were saying, we would kill him ourselves if we could, because the Romans would not permit that. They had certain, their leaders had certain jurisdiction over the people, but when it came to putting a person to death, they did not have that power. For this crowd is saying, with our own hands we would kill him if we could. And they were saying more, we don't care a fig about the consequences. And if you want to see the consequences, you read Jewish history of the last two thousand years. Yes, it was a concerted reply and an arrogant reply, but it was also a wicked, very wicked reply.
It's one thing to say, his blood be on us. It's another thing to say, end up on our children. Doesn't it make you tremble to even think about that? And yet this mob, this cruel mob, this mob that had lost control, bring down a curse upon the heads of their children and their children have suffered because of it down through these centuries. and they still suffer today, and they'll continue to suffer. There's a day of dread suffering coming for the Jew, the day at a time called the time of Jacob's trouble, and all of the Jewish sufferings of the past centuries will be as nothing when compared with the suffering of the Jew in a tribulation.
And it all goes back to this, His blood be on us and on our children. you know the same principle tragically applies today here was a people and prompted by their leaders the people chose to share with one another and their leaders the guilt and then stirred by their own passions these people chose to thwart that guilt and then goaded by their folly they sought to impose it upon their children.
We stagger when we think about this, and yet while I'm talking to you there are parents that are condemning their children to death because of their vile way of life and their refusal to spare themselves their own indulgences and so the unborn children are going to die from AIDS you see it is a principle that seems to pertain the sins of the fathers visited upon the children I wouldn't like to think that there's anybody here who is not saved because your life is still affecting your children.
Perhaps it's a little late, but maybe it's not too late for you to trust the Lord Jesus and get saved and then to reach out to your children as you haven't been able to do in unsaved days. Broken marriages today cause great grief for those whose marriages break up, but they cause greater and more lasting grief to the children. The sins of the fathers visited upon the children. His blood be on us and on our children. It's a very solemn thing to turn away from the Lord Jesus.
There's so much at stake. It's a very solemn thing for us to imagine that we can live our lives without affecting others. It really isn't possible. The message of this verse is very clear. I cannot afford to reject the Lord Jesus because other people's eternal welfare is at stake. I cannot afford to have my own desires, to follow my own desires, because the way I act affects other people.
I'm through. It is very striking that pilot should have died by his own hand. because what was there to live for after rejecting and in spite of what he said having a part in the murder of the Christ of God he may well have been a great man he must have been a well-respected man he was certainly a man of conviction though sometimes that conviction was the wrong kind in his way he must have been a ruthless man but in the end he was an abject coward because he refused to take his stand at the side of the innocent Son of God.
I know people who won't get saved because they are afraid of the consequences of getting converted. Afraid of the consequences of taking their stand beside the rejected Lord Jesus. Oh, what a price the Jews paid. And what a price such rejectors will pay. turning away from him. Let's pray, shall we? Our Father, we realize that Pontius Pilate is a rather shadowy picture or figure in history, but we thank thee for the things that thy word has revealed about him.
We do thank thee that he saw in the Lord Jesus that which was superhuman. He saw in the Lord Jesus something he could not understand but that he deeply admired. We mourn, O Lord, that he should have been so weak as to finally turn his back upon this innocent man. Yet, Lord, we know thy plan was such that when the Lord Jesus died, It was in order that those of us who were sinners might not die in our sin. And so while we sorrow over what we read in this chapter, we rejoice that its outcome was the accomplishment of the will of God and of our salvation.
Accept our thanks for our Lord Jesus Christ and grant that our hearts may day by day learn to love him more in his name. Amen.