Thursday, December 5 ~ Miriam

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Revelation 5; Hosea 9-10.

Today's scripture focus is Luke 23:1-7.

23 Then the whole body of them got up and brought Him before Pilate. 2 And they began to accuse Him, saying, “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King.” 3 So Pilate asked Him, saying, “Are You the King of the Jews?” And He answered him and said, “It is as you say.” 4 Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no guilt in this man.” 5 But they kept on insisting, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching all over Judea, starting from Galilee even as far as this place.”

6 When Pilate heard it, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. 7 And when he learned that He belonged to Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent Him to Herod, who himself also was in Jerusalem at that time.

Basically, Pilate knew that the religious leaders had no basis for their claims against Jesus, and he didn't want to be the one to do their dirty work for them.  In fact, if Jesus had talked of not paying taxes and overthrowing the Romans, or being a threat to Caesar as these men claimed, then the Jewish people, religious leaders and general population alike, should have been backing him and supporting him in an effort to get out from under Roman rule.  So Pilate had no illusions that there were legitimate reasons for him to judge Jesus other than the fact that the Jewish religious leaders wanted him dead and they couldn't pronounce that sentence themselves.  Pilate decides he's not going to be the trigger man, so to speak, so when he hears that Jesus is from Galilee, he decides to give that "honour" to Herod.  Let someone else deal with this mess.  He doesn't want to be the one held accountable for condemning someone on false charges.

I found these two paragraphs from MacArthur's sermon, Jesus Accused before Pilate, Part 2, particularly to-the-point:

The strange irony of the trials of Jesus is that all those who thought they were judging Him were, in fact, being judged by Him. And it was not just Annas and Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin and Pilate and Herod and Judas, it was the whole nation of Israel. For whether they overtly rejected Jesus as Messiah, or remained in indifference toward Him, anything short of believing in Him as the Son of God and Messiah brought them under His judgment. Sinners still live with the illusion that they can make a judgment on Jesus Christ and avoid Him making a judgment on them. But that’s not the case. You judge Jesus wrongly, and He will judge you rightly.

So while no earthly authority can determine the destiny of Jesus, every soul’s destiny is determined by what that person does with Jesus. The question is not what will you do with Jesus? The question is when you see Him face-to-face, what will He do with you? He is the one person in all history who is the eternal determiner of everyone’s destiny, whether it’s heaven or hell.

Happy Thursday!

Tomorrow's scripture focus:  Luke 23:7-12.

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage:  Revelation 6; Hosea 11-12.