Then they led Jesus away from Caiaphas into the Praetorium. By now it was early morning, and the Jews did not enter the Praetorium, to avoid being defiled and unable to eat the Passover. Sermons
I. CEREMONIAL DEFILEMENT MAY BE AVOIDED WHILST REAL DEFILEMENT OF THE SOUL IS CONTRACTED. The heathen religions of antiquity were in no vital way connected with morality. A man might be a very religious, and yet a very bad, man; and that without any inconsistency. But the faith of the Hebrews was based upon revelation, and combined belief of the truth with practice of righteousness. It was culpable in a high degree in men who enjoyed revelation so clear and full, to be led aside from the ways of justice at the very moment when they were carefully observing the requirements of the ceremonial law. It is an evidence of their depravity, and at the same time of their blunted sensibilities to what was right and reasonable, that they should so act. How much more deserving of condemnation are professed Christians, who, whilst scrupulously observing the ordinances of religion and the regulations of their Churches, at the same time are guilty of serious infractions of the moral law! Yet men are found who keep with outward strictness the day of rest, who partake of the holy Eucharist, and yet are not ashamed to act unjustly, to speak slanderously, and to cherish a selfish and worldly spirit. II. CEREMONIAL DEFILEMENT MAY BE CONTRACTED WHILST REAL DEFILEMENT OF THE SOUL IS AVOIDED. There are many cases in which "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." As David ate the showbread, as the disciples of Jesus plucked the ears of corn, and Jesus himself healed the sick on the sabbath, so men may often be justified in transgressing the letter of a commandment in order to keep the spirit of the law. The claims of humanity are rightly to be preferred to the requirements of an external character, which nevertheless have their place and their use. And good men may even frequent the society of the vicious, the criminal, the degraded, when, by so doing, they may make an opportunity for bringing the gospel of Christ's love before the minds of those to whom nothing but the gospel can bring rescue, salvation, and eternal life. Many methods may upon this principle be justified which would not on their own account be accepted and practiced by the sensitive and fastidious. Salus populi suprema lex. If it is so in politics, surely in the religious life we may well be, like the apostle, "all things to all men, if by any means we may Will some.' - T.
Then led they Jesus... to the Hall of Judgment. I. COMMON. How many religionists are afraid to enter certain places lest they should receive a taint! Papists stand aloof from all Protestant scenes of worship; Protestants from Catholics; Anglicans from Nonconformists; Dissenters from Episcopal. Who are these men of spurious sanctity? Are they lawyers who never take advantage of their clients; merchants who never practise dishonesty on their customers; doctors who never impose on their patients; servants who never cheat their masters; aristocrats who are never haughty and licentious? I trow not. The chances are that they belong to those classes. For no order had Christ a profounder contempt, "Woe unto you," &c.II. IRRATIONAL. It is founded on an absurd idea of — 1. Localities — it presupposes that some places are more holy than others. Is St. Peter's holier than St. Paul's? or St. Paul's than any other sanctuary? Nay, every spot is "holy ground" since God made it, and is prisent with it. True, the purpose for which a certain place has bee set apart may be good or bad, but the place is the same. 2. Human obligation. It supposes that a man is bound to be more holy in one place or time than in another, more holy in church, and on the Sabbath, than elsewhere on any other day — a preposterous fiction. Man, though of complex elements, is but one being and moral in all. "Whatever he does" is bound to be to "the glory of God." 3. Mind. It supposes that the mind is some passive substance that can be defiled by some outward element or agent irrespective of its own choice and effort — a piece of stone you can daub or wash. But it is not so. Nothing outward can effect the mind independently of itself. It can make itself filthy in scenes and services supposed to be the most holy; it can keep itself pure in places the most vile. The body when in a healthy state can appropriate everything that is necessary from nature and to expel what is pernicious. The soul has a power analogous to this. Let us use it as Noah did, who amidst a foul generation "walked with God," and fulfilled a noble destiny; as Paul used it at sceptical Athens or dissolute Corinth, and who proved that "all things work together for good," &c. III. PERNICIOUS. 1. It is a positive injury to its subject. The religionist who moves about the world with the dread of having his soul defiled, is like a man who enters a sick room afraid of inbreathing disease. He is nervous, and loses his brightness and buoyancy. The spurious saint lacks naturalness and elasticity of soul. Afraid of being defiled, he shuns the scenes of innocent recreation, and trembles all over in the presence of schismatics and heretics. 2. It is a calumny on true religion. The religion of Christ is happiness, and these spurious saints are the greatest obstructions to the progress of Christianity. (D. Thomas, D. D.) I. SCRUPLES. The Jewish hierarchs were afraid of —1. Ceremonial defilement. Good! they had not otherwise been faithful Jews. 2. Exclusion from the feast. Good again! it was a mark of true religion to observe the ordinances. II. NO SCRUPLES. The rulers were not afraid — 1. To send in Christ to Pilate's house. They could not risk contamination, but he might, if indeed He could be more defiled then he already was. 2. To plot the murder of the Son of God. Yet they were the leaders of religious society in their day! Heaven's favourites if any were. Lesson: Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.) The sentence is an extraordinary example of the false scrupulosity of conscience which a wicked man may keep up, about forms and ceremonies and trifling externals in religion, at the very time he is deliberately committing some gross and enormous sin. The notorious fact that Italian bandits and murderers will make much of fasting, keeping Lent, confession, absolution, Virgin Mary worship, saint worship, and image worship, at the very time when they are arranging robberies and assassinations, is an accurate illustration of the same principle. The extent to which formality and wickedness can go side by side is frightful, and little known. The Jews were afraid of being defiled by going into a Gentile's house, at the very moment when they were doing the devil's work, and murdering the Prince of Life! Just so, many people in England will attach immense importance to fasting and keeping lent and attending saints'-day services, while they see no harm in going to races, operas, and balls, at other times! Persons who have very low notions about the Seventh Commandment, will actually tell you it is wrong to be married in Lent! The very same persons who totally disregard Sunday abroad will make much ado about saints'-days at home! Absurd strictness about Lent, and excess of riot and licentiousness in carnival, will often go together. Peele remarks, "Nothing is more common than for persons over zealous about rituals to be remiss about morals."(Bp. Ryle.) How much more particular men are to seem clean outside than to be clean inside. Very few men, or women, will go to church in their working dress, or with untidy garments of any sort; but a great many men and women will go to church without any mental or spiritual preparation for the services there. Ten times more attention is commonly paid on a Sunday morning to blacking boots, and to arranging hair, and to putting on one's best clothing in the showiest way, than to family prayers and to private devotions, in "getting ready for church." It is a very rare thing for a person to go to church without washing the face and hands in advance of the start from home. It is not as rare for one to go to church without an attempt to clean up — inside. Very often a mother will tell a teacher that her little boy or little girl doesn't come to Sunday school because of a lack of decent clothing. More rarely does a mother admit that her boy or girl is so viciously disposed as to endanger the morals of the other scholars in her child's class. Is there such a great difference, after all, in the spirit of our neighbours — not to include ourselves — nowadays, and the spirit of those Jews who would plan to crucify Jesus, but would shrink from going to their religious services with soiled hands and defiled garments?(H. C. Trumbull.) In Sir Fowell Buxton's account of his visit to the prison at Civita Vecchia (Life, c. 29.) may be found the following curious illustration: — "It is odd enough that Gasparoni is very religious now: he fasts not only on Friday, but adds a supererogatory Saturday... But, curious as his theology now is, it is still more strange that, according to his own account, he was always a very religious man. I asked him whether he had fasted when he was a bandit? He said, 'yes,' 'Why did you fast?' said I. 'Perche sono della religions della Madonna. 'Which did you think was the worst, eating meat on a Friday or killing a man?' He answered without hesitation, 'In my case it was a crime not to fast, it was no crime to kill those who came to betray me.' With all his present religion, however, he told the Mayor of the town the other day, that if he got loose, the first thing he would do would be to cut the throats of all the priests: and the Mayor said in this he perfectly believed him, and if he were now to break out, he would be ten times worse than ever. One fact, however, shows some degree of scrupulosity. The people of the country bear testimony that he never committed murder on a Friday!"Pilate then went out. is introduced without any further characterization as a well-known personage, the name Pontius Pilate showing that he was connected with the Geus Pontia, and that one of his ancestors or himself had received the cognomen Pilatus, adorned or furnished with a javelin (Virgil AEn. 12:121), on account of meritorious services. Called "the governor" (Matthew 27:2; Tacit. Ann.15:44), he was the fifth Roman procurator of Judaea, his predecessors having been Caponius, Marcus Ambivius, Annius Rufus, Valereius Gratus. Pilate had held the office for ten years during the reign of Tiberius. His arbitrary conduct in introducing Caesar's ensigns into Jerusalem, and in bringing water into the city for which he paid with money belonging to the Temple, led to successive risings amongst his subjects (Jos. "Ant." and "Wars"). Philo accuses him of "bribery, violence, robbery, cruelty, insult, continual executions without semblance of justice, endless and unendurable atrocities." If this, perhaps, as the testimony of an enemy is too strong, it is certain that Pilate was a Roman governor of the regulation type, who acted without the slightest regard for the peculiarities (especially religious) of the provinces over which he ruled, and punished every opposition to his arbitrary conduct with the greatest severity. It would not be easy to find another man so well fitted to drive the Jewish nation to desperation. Accused before Vitellus, the preces of Syria, he was deposed, and sent to Rome to answer for his administration.(T. Whitelaw, D. D.) Pilate was a thorough and complete type of the later-Roman man of the world. Stern, but not relentless — shrewd and world-worn — prompt and practical — haughtily just — and yet, as the early writers correctly observed, self seeking and cowardly — able to perceive what was right, but without moral strength to follow it out — the Procurator of Judaea stands forth a sad and terrible instance of a man whom the fear of endangered self-interest drove not only to act against the deliberate convictions of his heart and conscience, but further to commit an act of cruelty and injustice, even after those convictions had been deepened by warnings and strengthened by presentiment.(Bp. Ellicott.) I. THE SITUATION.1. The place — the praetorium or palace of Pilate. 2. The time — Friday morning, after day-break. 3. The prisoner — Jesus sentenced and bound. 4. The prosecutors. (1) (2) (3) 5. The judge — Pilate. (1) (2) II. THE PROCEDURE. 1. An indictment demanded (ver. 29). Pilate's motive may have been — (1) (2) (3) 2. An evasion attempted (ver. 30). A formal indict ment was —(1) Not convenient for the Jewish leaders. To have asserted that they had condemned Jesus as a blasphemer for calling Himself God's Son, to a heathen like Pilate, familiar with the notion of God's appearing on the earth, would probably have led to Jesus' liberation as a harmless fanatic, as well as to their expulsion from the judgment seat (Acts 18:16). Hence they urged that it was —(2) Not necessary for the governor. The circumstance that they had come to him was proof enough that Christ was no mere every-day offender. 3. A concession offered (ver. 31). Pilate was unwilling to accede to their illegality and to stoop before their insolence. If he was to be executioner he must also be the judge; if they were to be the judges they could be their own headsmen, and withdraw the case from Roman jurisdiction altogether, and finish it up at their own tribunals. Pilate saw that the Jewish hierarchs intended murder, for which he was not inclined, and with exquisite irony, knowing their impotence to inflict death, tells them to go as far as their law will allow. 4. An admission made (ver. 31). Brought to bay, the human sleuth hounds were obliged to divulge their secret, viz., that they intended to take the life of their victim, but could not do so without his assistance. III. THE ISSUE. 1. The purpose of Pilate fixed. He would not stir without an accusation. 2. The design of the Jews frustrated. They had purposed to cut their prisoner off without troubling the world with any explanation of His offences. 3. The counsel of God fulfilled (ver. 32).Lessons: 1. The debasement of conscience seen in the Jewish hierarchs. 2. The instincts of justice, operating even in a bad man — exemplified in Pilate. 3. The impossibility of defeating God's counsel — observed in the actions of both. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.) 1. Baseless calumny. "If He were not aa evil-doer — meaning that that was a well-attested fact. But what evil had He done? The calumny was implied rather than expressed, and thus it generally works. Assuming wrong in the character traduced, it expresses it in oblique innuendo, a nod of the head, a shrug of the shoulders," &c. 2. Arrogated superiority. "If he had not," &c., we could not have done such a thing — so vital is our sympathy with rectitude — we, oh no, not for the world. There is a good deal of social influence in arrogated superiority. Let a man assume that he is a great thinker, or scholar, or pre-eminently holy, and credulous fools will believe him. As a rule our contemporaries take us not for what we are, but for what we assume to be. 3. Crouching sychophancy. "To thee" — the great judge — deeming it an honour to Pilate. Corrupt men always work out their best designs by crawling servility to men in power. II. THE SECOND APPEAL (ver. 31). The response showed that — 1. They were animated by a mortal malice — nothing but Christ's death would satisfy them. 2. Thus mortal malice was restrained by Providence.(1) Public law. They would have inflicted capital punishment had not the law taken away that power.(2) A Divine decree (ver. 32). Had it been left to the Jews, Christ would have been stoned. Sinners live under a grand system of restraints, otherwise the world would be a Pandemonium. (D. Thomas, D. D.) 5208 armies 2585 Christ, trial November 23 Evening Jesus Before Caiaphas Art Thou a King? Christ and his Captors Calvary: victory. Matthew 26:47-27:61. Mark 14: 43-15:47. Luke 22:47-23:56. John 18:1-19:42. Kingship. First Stage of Jewish Trial. Examination by Annas. Thursday Night - Before Annas and Caiaphas - Peter and Jesus. The Shadow of Death A Review and a Challenge The Arrest. Peter's Denial and Repentance. Jesus Before Pilate. Comparison Between the False Church and the True. The Arrest of Jesus The Betrayal. The Trial Before the High Priest. Christ Before Pilate. Messiah Despised, and Rejected of Men Messiah Rising from the Dead The Greatest Trial on Record Of the Matters to be Considered in the Councils. |
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