John 18:28-19:16, Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Dr. John Carpenter

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John 18:28-19:16 What Is Evil Like?

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John chapter 18, beginning from verses 28 to chapter 19, verse 16. Hear the word of the
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Lord. Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters.
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It was early morning. They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the
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Passover. So Pilate went outside to them and said, What accusation do you bring against this man?
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And they answered him, If this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to you. And Pilate said to them,
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Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law. The Jews said to him, It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.
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This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken, to show by what kind of death he was going to die.
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So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, Are you the king of the
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Jews? Jesus answered, Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?
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Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me.
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What have you done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the
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Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world. Then Pilate said to him,
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So you are a king. Jesus answered, You say that I am a king. For this purpose, I was born.
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And for this purpose, I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.
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Pilate said to him, What is truth? After he had said this, he went back outside to the
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Jews and told them, I find no guilt in him. But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the
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Passover. So do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews? They cried out again,
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Not this man, but Barabbas. Now, Barabbas was a robber. Then Pilate took
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Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe.
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They came up to him saying, Hail, king of the Jews, and struck him with their hands.
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Pilate went out again and said to them, See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.
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So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, Behold the man.
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When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, Crucify him, crucify him.
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Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him. For I find no guilt in him.
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The Jews answered him, We have a law. And according to that law, he ought to die because he has made himself the son of God.
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When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, Where are you from?
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But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?
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Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.
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Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. From then on,
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Pilate sought to release him. But the Jews cried out, If you release this man, you are not
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Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar. So when
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Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the
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Stone Pavement and Aramaic Gabbatha. Now, it was the day of preparation of the
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Passover. It was about the six hour. He said to the Jews, Behold, your king. And they cried out,
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Away with him, away with him, crucify him. And Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king?
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The chief priest answered, We have no king but Caesar. So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.
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May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. In 1964,
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Hannah Arndt, a Jewish German lady who had escaped Nazi Germany in the late 1930s after being interrogated by the
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Gestapo, was sent to Jerusalem by the New Yorker magazine to cover the trial of Adolf Eichmann.
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Eichmann was one of the chief organizers of the Nazi death camps, what we call the Holocaust, responsible for the murder of millions of people.
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He managed to escape Germany after World War II and fled to Argentina. But in 1960, Israeli agents caught him there and smuggled him out of Argentina to Israel, where they put him on trial.
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Hannah Arndt reported on his trial. She then wrote a book entitled
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Eichmann in Jerusalem, a report on the banality of evil. Banality is defined in the dictionary as lacking force or virginality, trite, commonplace.
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We could even say boring. What was one of the top organizers of the Holocaust like?
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Here was one of the worst criminals of all time, a mastermind in the most horrible mass murder in history.
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And Ms. Arndt discovered that he was terrifyingly ordinary. He had joined the
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Nazi SS simply because he was unemployed. And someone suggested, hey, why don't you join the
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SS? And he thought, well, why not? He wasn't personally anti -Semitic. He was just a functionary.
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He was given a job and he did it, even if the job was killing millions of people.
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He was, as Arndt described him, a leaf on the whirlwind of time.
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He didn't appear to be a remarkable, hideous person. Certainly no fangs, no pointed tail. He appeared normal, even boring, banal.
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He was a bureaucrat doing what someone had to do. Even if he felt something was wrong, he didn't have the courage to stand up and stop it.
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It wasn't something special in him that made him so evil. It was something that was not in him, simply a lack.
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It was a lack of truth. Here in John 18 and 19, we see
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Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem, a report on the banality of evil.
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What is the man who is responsible for the worst crime in history, the man solely responsible legally for the murder of the only truly innocent person, what's he like?
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I mean, what kind of person does it take to do that? Well, is he bold and exciting? Kind of like Heath Ledger's, you know,
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Joker? Is he colorful and entertaining and doing just whatever he wanted with an abandon and a relish, no matter what anyone thought?
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Or is he like Eichmann, just a cog in a machine? Here we have a report on what evil is like in five parts.
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Evil avoids responsibility, is apathetic about truth, it associates with sin, it appeases evil, and it is afraid.
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What's evil like? First, evil avoids. In chapter 18, verses 28 to 32, the religious leaders try to avoid ritual uncleanness, and then
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Pontius Pilate tries to avoid doing his job. In the first half of John chapter 18, the
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Lord Jesus is hauled before the religious leaders, people who are supposed to have the light of God's Word, but they love darkness more than light, and they sought to stuff out the light.
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They have only one obstacle in their way. They're not allowed by Roman law to apply the death penalty.
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The Romans reserve that right to themselves. And so they have to bring Jesus before the
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Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. They seek to avoid violating their scrupulous rituals in verse 28.
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They lead their victim, what they think is their victim anyway, to the Roman governor's house, Pontius Pilate's house.
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They won't go inside to the house, because if they do, they'll be considered ritually unclean, and then they won't be allowed to receive the
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Passover, which is incredibly ironic and shows their hypocrisy. They take these elaborate precautions to avoid ritual contamination, so they can eat the
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Passover sacrifice at the very time that they are busy sacrificing him who alone is the true
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Passover. Pontius Pilate is a different kind of man. He may have been, like a lot of pagans in his day, a bit superstitious, but he is here the educated, sophisticated bureaucrat doing his duty as he sought.
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He sees himself as an ambassador of civilization, trying to bring civilization to these uncouth
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Jewish people. But his day -to -day job was to quell any uprising, ensure the empire got its taxes from Judea, and keep the peace, impose the
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Roman peace, and if necessary, impose that Roman peace with the sword and the cross. Before this man is brought another prisoner, another of many prisoners he's seen.
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Pilate put many men to death in his career, but this prisoner is different. Pilate asked the prosecutors, what's the accusation against him?
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What did he do wrong? And notice that in verse 30, they can't articulate one. They just say, he's doing evil.
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And they, once again, as religious people do, just assert themselves. If he weren't doing evil, we wouldn't have brought him to you.
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But what evil? They just assert it. Pilate doesn't want to deal with this.
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He knows this is all about religion, a disagreement over theology. And he didn't really care.
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He wants to avoid involvement because this is hard. And he wants to avoid what's hard.
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This means taking a stand on something. He wants to avoid that. So he says, take him yourselves and judge him by your own law, in verse 31.
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But they're desperate. They're hungry to put him to death. They're hot.
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They're passionate in their hatred of Christ, in their quest to kill him. Pilate is cold.
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He couldn't care less. And so he, not really out of compassion, but out of his quest to avoid this problem, tries to turn them down.
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Go judge him yourself. But then they reveal what they're really after. We're not allowed to kill him, and we're desperate to kill him.
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Verse 32 says that this was to fulfill Jesus' own prediction that he would die by being lifted up.
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Now, the normal Jewish manner of execution would be by stoning, but they weren't legally allowed to do that. And God was behind that by the
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Romans being in control in their method of execution so that Jesus would be lifted up on a cross.
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They would have to get, of course, Pilate to agree to that. So the rest of the passage is this dance, this negotiation,
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Pilate seeking to avoid responsibility and the religious leaders pressuring, manipulating him to crucify
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Jesus. Evil avoids. What's hard? What's true?
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What's evil like? Well, first it avoids, and then it is second, it's apathetic in verses 33 to 38.
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Pilate now knows that these people want Jesus dead. He probably despised them, but he knows that these are the people he has to deal with.
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And so he goes inside to interrogate Jesus. He asks him what was probably, you would guess, you think in tone, probably an offhand, almost humorous question.
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You can kind of see him maybe sitting in a chair gesturing. So you, you already beaten up by the guards, probably with some blood, bruises, swollen lip, are you king of the
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Jews? He gets an answer he didn't expect. The answer wasn't sniveling like somebody who's just desperate to get out of this alive, nor was it full of a loud bravado like some young revolutionary willing to be a martyr in his crusade to throw out the
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Romans going out in a blaze of defiant glory. Jesus' answer is very different than any of that.
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Do you say this of your own accord? Am I king of the Jews? Do you say that of your own accord?
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Or did others say it to you about me? Where are you getting this from, Pilate? Now, that answer was to make
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Pilate think about the source of his accusation. Jesus is asking him, why, Pilate, are you following what these religious leaders are suggesting you do?
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In other words, he's warning Pilate, think, think carefully about the forces that are at work here that are moving you.
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Don't just get swept along by something you don't agree with. Don't be a leaf on the whirlwind of time.
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At the same time, he's also implying to Pilate, you know, if you tried, you could have seen for yourself that that is true, that I am the king.
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And so you better pay more attention to me, pay more attention to me than you're paying to those who handed me over to you.
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Pilate tries to avoid that kind of question in verse 35. I'm not a Jew. I don't care about whether you're the king of the
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Jews or not. Are you going to cause a revolution? I don't care about these religious questions. I have practical matters to deal with.
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Mainly, should I execute you or not? Now, what have you done? Pilate asks him in verse 35.
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So Jesus answers the question directly. Yes, I am a king, but my kingdom is not of this world.
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It's not the same kind of kingdom you deal with, Pilate. It doesn't get its power from armies and spears and arrows and crosses.
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And for proof, Jesus shows that if he were the kind of revolutionary Pilate was afraid he might be, my servants would have been fighting.
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My disciples, they would be mounting a revolution to protect me. If my kingdom was the same kind of kingdom you're worried about,
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I would not have called out Peter in the garden. But, he says, my kingdom doesn't come from here.
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His rule is different altogether, of a different order completely.
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It is the kingdom of God, and it extends only as God extends it. Now, that doesn't mean that God's kingdom has nothing to do with this world.
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That it has no application to the kingdoms of man as if the kingdom of God is mystical, kind of otherworldly.
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Something God we believe in, but it has no impact on how we live. A matter of feelings detached from real life, as if you could be a faithful Christian and devout and believe you're a citizen of that kingdom, and you feel the love and the peace of God and experience of your worship, and you surrender to his rule in your heart, and then you go out in the world and you live no differently than anyone else.
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No. As if you can say that the fate of the unborn is a political problem, and my
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Christianity, my faith has no bearing on it. I believe in my heart in pro -life, but I'm going to live out in the world, what's falsely called pro -choice.
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No. Don't let anyone tell you that what Jesus says here is that it means that his kingdom, when he says his kingdom is not of this world, that he means that there's some kind of wall separating real life out there, life in the world, from your spiritual life.
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Well, that's false. That's not Christian. That's just secularism. What the
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Lord Jesus means is that his kingdom, that is his rule, does not come from, it does not issue out of, does not have its source, its roots in or its power from, not from the world or anything human.
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Jesus' kingdom is from God and God alone, so we can't use the power of the government to bring people to Christ.
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It won't work. To force people to attend church, you could technically force people to attend church, you would end up just corrupting the church.
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You wouldn't extend the kingdom of God that way. Make them believe in right doctrine. You can make them say it, but you can't really make them believe it.
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So it just won't work. His kingdom doesn't come out of governmental power.
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It comes from God. Now, it will then may affect governmental power, but it comes from God.
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It's from above. Now, Pilate, this arrogant, this educated, sophisticated pagan, jumps on that implied admission that Jesus is a king.
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He says, so you are. You're admitting it, that you're a king. So Jesus, having described what his kingship is not, then describes what it is.
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It is the kingdom of truth. He says in verse 37, for this purpose, I was born.
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This is Jesus himself telling his purpose. For this purpose, I've come into the world, came from heaven into the world to bear witness to the truth.
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Everyone who is of the truth, that's what they're related to, that's their character, they're truthful.
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Everybody who is of the truth listens to me. Ah, truth.
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Now he's talking a language Pilate thinks he understands. After all, the
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Greek philosophy that the Romans had adopted, probably Pilate was educated in as a child, was all about a search for the truth.
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And the Lord Jesus says that he came for the very purpose of revealing the truth. Pilate should be very happy. Now he can tell the philosophers what the truth is.
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And he says, Jesus says that everyone, including Pilate, who was from the truth, not from the world, where the
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Romans and the falsely religious people come from, but from the truth, all those people will listen to me,
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Jesus says. They will pay attention to what Jesus says. They'll do that because of something positive about them.
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They are of the truth. That's their origin, that's their heart.
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Greek and Roman philosophers had racked their brains, debated for centuries, what is truth? And here
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Jesus stands before the son of that culture and says, I'll tell you. If you will listen,
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Pilate shrugs it off. He's apathetic about truth. What is truth?
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In other words, who cares? Truth is not something he has time for. Truth is for those philosophers and atheists, and even they don't seem to be able to figure out what it is.
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I, the governor of this troublesome province, have to deal with practical things, day -to -day reality.
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Don't lecture me about truth. Sheer apathy.
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We have that abundantly today. People think it doesn't matter how we worship, whether we use images or not, about the meaning of our songs, as long as it makes me feel good, that's all that matters, whether to sing psalms or not, the order of our services, about the substance of our words, about theology, about truth.
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What matters is whether we're getting the result we want, if we're getting people in the seats, getting lots of money coming in.
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What is truth? We think that's the modern, rational, efficient way of looking at things, but it's really the same cold apathy that caused
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Pilate to shrug his shoulders and say, that's truth, while truth himself was standing right in front of him.
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What's evil like? Now, Pilate in Jerusalem shows us evil avoids responsibility, is apathetic about truth, and third, evil associates with other evil.
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Pilate may have coolly walked away from the truth, but he did know that Jesus was not guilty of insurrection, so he declared him, his first verdict in verse 38,
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I find no guilt in him. Now, by all rights, that should settle it.
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Case closed. Jesus is the judge. He's the final, excuse me, Pilate is the judge here.
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He's the final authority, the legal authority here, and he's just declared Jesus exonerated, not guilty.
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There's no guilt in him. It's over. Should be. Jesus is declared not guilty, and a just man would release him.
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He would feel he has to release him. That's the only right thing to do if you're of the truth. But because Pilate is apathetic about the truth, there are other things to consider.
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He wants to let Jesus go, but more than that, he wants to appease the religious people.
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And so he uses a custom to hopefully get this innocent man off his hands. Otherwise, he wants to let
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Jesus go. And so he thinks he can connive away to get the result he thinks is right, of course, which is, in fact, is right.
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That custom in verse 39 was that the people got to select one prisoner to be freed at the Passover, and he assumes that they would choose the innocent
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Jesus over this common criminal named Barabbas. After all, just a few days before this, they had been shouting,
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Hosanna, as Jesus entered the city. So Pilate assumes this is the way to get this troublesome problem off my hands.
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Give them a choice between the two. He's wrong. Sin will most gladly associate with other sin than with the
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Savior. The crowd of religious people wants no part in the kingdom of truth. They will first rebuke their sins and expose their hearts' rebellion against the living
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God. They hate the light, even if they don't rob. They have more in common with a robber like Barabbas than they do with the light of the world.
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So they choose him. They choose the robber. And they still do. What's his evil like?
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Fourth, the report shows us that evil appeases.
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Pilate continues looking for a clever way to release Jesus. You know, the ploy of making them choose between Barabbas and Jesus looked like it was an easy choice.
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Surely they're going to go for Jesus. Well, it didn't work. They go for Barabbas. And now he tries another way to appease them in chapter 19, verses 1 to 5.
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He lacks the love of truth simply to stand up for what is right. Pilate knows Jesus is innocent, but that truth is not enough for Pilate.
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He's got to deal with these angry people. So he'll try to placate them.
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He'll appease them with just a little of what they want. So Pilate lets his troops loose on Jesus.
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Is Jesus flogged? He just declared him not guilty. He's innocent. How could he have him flogged?
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Well, it's a way to appease the angry people. And he lets the soldiers toy with him.
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They put a wreath of long, sharp thorns and they can do like a crown -like thing and plop it on his head, mocking him with a royal -looking robe, bowing before him and saying,
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Hail, King of the Jews! And then slugging him with their outstretched arms flung out in fake salutes.
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Now to these supposed soldiers of civilization, it was all just good fun. The young troops get to have their play and Pilate gets to show that he's punished
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Jesus some, a little bit. And now he hopes that that will be enough. He hopes that the beating will be enough to appease their anger at Jesus and dissipate their clamor for his crucifixion, perhaps even evoke a little sympathy for him.
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Then he hopes, he hopes that then he'll be able to let him go. Pilate wants to let
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Jesus go. Pilate confesses for the second time in chapter 19, verse 4, I find no guilt in him.
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Twice he's declared him innocent. He knows releasing him is the right thing to do.
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He has the power to do it, but he lacks the courage.
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He lacks the integrity to do what is right. So now Jesus is brought out with his mock robe and the thorn sticking into his scalp and blood trickling down his face.
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And Pilate declares, behold the man. And Pilate is more right than he can possibly imagine.
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Jesus, as he stands beaten in pain, bleeding from wounds all over him, is the man.
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Our representative, the last Adam who came to undo what the first Adam did.
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The religious people seeing the man standing in our place, taking the punishment we deserve, shout furiously, crucify him, crucify him.
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Having gotten a little taste of what they want, they want even more. They want the whole thing. They want his death.
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They're not appeased at all. Pilate would probably, was probably flabbergasted. He declares for the third time at the end of verse 6,
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I find no guilt in him. Three times. Three times the
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Lord Jesus is openly exonerated, declared innocent by the legal authority.
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But he's not released. He's not released because Pilate walked away shrugged at the truth because Pilate was too weak.
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Pilate looks at the situation like so many of us, like almost all of us. He doesn't think, what's right?
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What is just? What's true? He thinks, what's in it for me?
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What's convenient? What helps me? Finally, our report finds that evil is afraid.
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Here, Pilate is afraid. Now, he's not afraid of truth. He's not afraid of denying justice. He's not afraid of God. But he's afraid for himself.
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He's afraid of losing. He's moved by fear. Sure, he wants to let
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Jesus go. He knows it is wrong to condemn an innocent man. But he figures, what do
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I have to gain from doing what is right? Here, he's afraid the chief priest will complain to the emperor in Rome.
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He's afraid he'll have to answer questions from his superiors in Rome. Maybe afraid of being recalled back to Rome and have to answer, why did you let that rebel go free?
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And then they tell Pilate what's really motivating them. He has made himself the son of God.
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Now, Pilate is even more afraid. Verse 8 says, notice that, even more afraid.
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Meaning that he was already afraid. He was very afraid before this and now is increasingly afraid.
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He knew better. He knew that there was something strikingly different, something radically different about this man that he had just pointed to.
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Said, behold, the man, and in his pagan superstition, he believed that there might be half
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God, half men kind of walking around on earth. Perhaps this Jesus was one of them.
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And perhaps he will incur bad luck by killing him. So here is a man,
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Pilate, powerful on the outside with his soldiers at his beck and call.
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He can say the word and have been executed, but he's weak on the inside, full of fears and no principles.
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Thrice already he's declared Jesus innocent, but he can't muster the strength to overcome his alarm, his fear at the threats to his self -interest to let him go.
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So he goes back to Jesus and ask him, you know, where are you from? Jesus stays quiet.
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Lord Jesus could easily talk his way out right now. Pilate is desperate to find a way out right now.
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Jesus could talk his way out, but he doesn't. He doesn't talk at all at this point.
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He's not afraid. He came to reveal the truth. And the truth is that civilization and religion will conspire to crucify the innocent man.
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Pilate gets frustrated because Jesus won't respond. So he boasts of his authority like a weak man.
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He boasts of his strength. He has the Roman soldiers at his beck and call. I can execute anyone I want, including you,
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Jesus. Better pay attention to me, respond to me, help me out here. And Pilate thinks he can intimidate
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Jesus, that Jesus will be as afraid of threats to himself as Pilate is afraid.
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And the Lord Jesus tells him in verse 11, you would have no authority over me unless it had been given you from above.
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Like being born from above in John 3, the authority to kill Jesus comes from above, from God himself.
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This is, after all, what he's going through, the cup that the father poured out for him to drink.
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And that's the only reason that Pilate is allowed to do what he is doing. God arranged and predestined that all this would happen.
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It's all under God's authority. Now, that's not to say that the people who perpetrated the crime are innocent simply because ultimately
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God was behind it. God was pouring it out for Jesus to drink. No, they are not innocent.
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In fact, that's what he says next, that someone will have even more guilt than you. You're going to be guilty if you go through with this, but they will have even more.
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Just because God chooses to work through human evil doesn't mean that the people who did the evil are free of guilt. The one who handed over Jesus to Pilate, Caiaphas, these religious leaders, these priests, driven by hatred of the light to murder
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Jesus, they are more guilty. They have increased guilt because they're active.
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Pilate is passive. He's that leaf on the whirlwind of time. He wants out.
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He would not have chosen to take part in this if he could think of a clever, of a faith -saving way out.
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He simply lacks the courage to insist that he will not take part in this judicial murder.
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He is too afraid to do what is right, to let Jesus go. But he is still guilty.
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His sin is lesser. It's still sin. Now today, weak people are manipulated into taking part in sins.
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Maybe just going along with it, enabling it, like staying silent when others slander. Encouraging people in this kind of transsexual delusions, like by naming their pronouns, just going along with that because it's the thing to do, or enabling sexual perversion by staying silent.
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Not because they would have chosen to do those things if it were totally up to them or they believe in what they're kind of going along with.
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They're just a leaf carried on the whirlwind of time. But they're too weak, too weak to say no, to stand up and to oppose evil.
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Then they become enablers of sin. And so guilty too. White Southerners should know all about that.
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The racism of the South didn't prevail for so long because all whites in the South were racist, but because most wouldn't stand up to the few who were.
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They thought, well, what's in it for me? Why should I stand up for justice for black people?
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I'm not against them. I'm not a racist, but I'm not going to stand up for them. That could cost me something. So they shrugged their shoulders.
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Instead of becoming part of the solution, became part of the problem. They avoided responsibility. They were apathetic about justice, like Pilate.
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And Pilate has the sole authority to crucify Jesus or to let him go.
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Nothing stands in the way of doing what is right except his apathy, his cowardice, his lack of integrity.
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So he brings Jesus out for one more humiliation out in front of the crowd on the day of preparation for the
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Passover, when the Passover lambs were being slain. He brings the bloodied and bruised
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Jesus out, and he declares in verse 14, behold, your king, a truth far deeper than even
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Pilate could know. That enrages the crowd, and they cry out, away with him, crucify him.
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Their bloodlust is boiling. And Pilate weakly grasps one last time, one last chance to let him go.
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Shall I crucify your king? And this drives the chief priests to their own blasphemy.
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They deny the kingship of God over them. In verse 15, we have no king but Caesar.
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And that, too, was more true about how they felt, how they lived, about what their heart was like than they would admit.
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They live constantly trying to keep every minute detail of the law of Moses, hoping that they could prove they were being obedient to God.
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But it was never really about God. They were just another part of the world, just like Rome. They turned away from the truth, and they hated
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God, but they couldn't complete their plot without Pilate's approval. And Pilate knows
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Jesus is innocent. He's confessed Jesus' innocence three times, yet he lacks the anchor to tie him to the truth.
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Sure, the truth is that Jesus is innocent, but come on, what is truth?
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So, the Lord Jesus is condemned just on that.
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Imagine the greatest crime in history. The murder of the only truly innocent man is perpetrated not only through the viciousness of religious hypocrites, but on the back of the spinelessness of an unprincipled functionary.
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We often think of pure evil as something striking, exciting in a kind of repulsive way.
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We think evil is shocking, startling, colorful, is bold. It'll make your pulse surge and scare us.
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But here's Pilate, responsible for the most evil act in history, and he's nothing but a boring bureaucrat just trying to do his job.
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Here's a report on evil. Evil is banal. It's a lot like us, avoiding, apathetic, associating, appeasing, afraid, boring, because it's just so ordinary.
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We think we wouldn't do anything like that. Nothing like what Pilate did, but would we? Do you do so now?
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We think that denying Christ means explicitly giving into pressure, like Peter and his claiming, I don't have anything to do with Jesus.
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I don't know who you're talking about. But Pilate denied Christ too, even after three times declaring him not guilty. He denied
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Jesus by his bored, banal, routine, cowardly unwillingness to put what is true higher than what is convenient.
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Do you do that? Do you treat Christ as someone who could be put off if he's not convenient?
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You know, I've got to make money now. I've got to pay the bills. I've got to provide for the family. I don't have time for God right now.
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It's just so boringly responsible. We don't see that if it denies Christ, if it sacrifices
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Christ for the sake of a few more dollars, it's evil. We may never passionately, hopefully never, hotly hate
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Christ like the religious people do. But do we turn against him in our boredom, our routine, self -centered daily lives?
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And we say, sure, we'd rather not crucify
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Christ if we can get away with it. But if he gets in the way of our dollar chasing, of our shopping, of our jobs, of our
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TV watching, of our recreation, of our relationships, if he gets in the way of that, okay, yeah,
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I guess we will crucify him on the cross of our banal convenience.
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Sure, you know what is true, so did Pilate, but come on, come on, be serious.
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What is truth? You might think you have no feelings against Christ, but neither did Pilate, yet he crucified him.
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It wasn't, it isn't good enough to have a lack of hatred. You need to have a positive love for the truth, the truth of Scripture, the truth of what is right, and most of all, for the truth in the flesh, our
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Lord Jesus Christ. Do you love the truth?