Behold, Your King | Sermon 03/17/2024

Jesus Before Pilate and the Choice Between Jesus and Barabbas

All right, it's great to see you all. Good morning.

Happy Lord's Day.

We're going to briefly be in chapter 18, and we're mostly gonna be in John 19. So if you wanna turn there with me in your Bibles, 1838 through 1915 are the verses we're gonna be in. The title of the sermon today, church, is Behold Your King.

Behold Your King. So starting in verse 38 of the gospel, according to John chapter 18, hear now the words of the infallible, the living and true God. Pilate said to him, what is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, I find no guilt in him.

But you have a custom that I release someone for you.

At the Passover.

Do you wish then that I release for you the king of the Jews? So they cried out again saying, not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber. Pilate then took Jesus and scourged him, and the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and put a purple robe on him.

And they began to come up to him and say, hail, king of the Jews, and to give him slaps in the face. Pilate came out again and said to them, behold, I am bringing him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in him.

Jesus then came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, behold, the man. So when the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out saying, crucify, crucify. Pilate said to them, take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.

The Jews answered him, we have a law, and by that law, he ought to die because he made himself out to be the son of God. Therefore, when Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. And he entered into the praetorium again and said to Jesus, where are you from?

But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, you do not speak to me? You do not, do you not know that I have authority to release you and I have authority to crucify you? Jesus answered, you would have no authority over me unless it had been given you from above.

For this reason, he who delivered me to you has the greater sin. As a result of this, Pilate made efforts to release him. But the Jews cried out saying, if you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar.

Everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar. Therefore, when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat on the judgment seat at a place called the pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha.

Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover.

It was the sixth hour.

And he said to the Jews, behold, your king. So they cried out, away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, shall I crucify your king? The chief priest answered, we have no king but Caesar.

This ends the reading of God's magnificent and holy word. Let's pray once more as his people. God, I ask that you would be here with us in this moment, that you would reveal what you would like us to know and see in your word today.

Transform us by this glorious word, Lord. If anyone here doesn't know what's happening here, Lord, show it to them supernaturally by faith. God, I pray that you would remove distractions from our hearts and our minds today.

So many things try to take the place of you in our hearts. And so God, I pray that this moment you would show us how important it is that Jesus went through this and what his scourging means for us now leading up to this crucifixion.

God, we praise you, we thank you. We pray this all in your mighty son's name, Jesus, amen. So church, we are now in the final hours leading up to the death of Christ. Although we have been going through John's account for months of that Thursday when Jesus was privately instructing and encouraging his disciples and then that evening walk from the city to the Garden of Gethsemane, which then led to his arrest and unlawful interrogation and a trial by Annas and Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, he was then brought to Pontius Pilate early Friday morning.

And it has been a rapid change of events, very rapid, moving very quickly. When you think about the gospel, according to John, at the beginning, there was a sampling of various accounts over the several years of Jesus's earthly ministry over many chapters, but the end here will be like a microscope, okay?

Lots of detail over a short amount of chapters. When you think about it, Jesus likely hasn't slept since Wednesday. It's Friday, Jesus hasn't slept since Wednesday. He's tired, he has now since been betrayed, arrested, bound, denied, scorned, reviled, abused, mocked, slapped, beaten, spat upon and falsely accused.

Truly, as the scripture says, he made himself of no reputation, very true. And so we ended last week looking at the dialogue between Pilate and the Jewish leaders, as well as Pilate and Jesus one-on-one.

Pilate wouldn't bow to the priests and the Pharisees, but his resolve is slowly waning. We're gonna see that today. Remember, Pilate doesn't necessarily want justice. He wants power, he wants to maintain order, but he doesn't wanna show the Jews that they can simply intimidate him and do whatever they want.

He's going to flex his power over them. He's gonna push back. In fact, he investigated and he pushed back. Pilate didn't see Jesus as the political threat that they espoused him to be. And so Jesus then, if you remember, properly affirmed his kingship and his kingdom.

It's not of this world, it's not of this world's evil system. It's heavenly in origin. And it has already started to spread upon the earth with his coming. We then looked at passages that indicated the kingdom of God has hit earth.

Jesus's kingdom, rule and reign has now spanned realms, and it spreads through the gospel and through transformed hearts. Jesus even said he is here for his kingship and the truth. And so the truth will be told and the truth will be heard by those given to him from the father.

But Pilate is faced with truth in the flesh. He's faced with truth incarnate. And he's faced with the truth of the situation. This man is innocent of the Jews' accusations, and he will now try to make concessions and compromises to avoid offending this group.

And so when you think about it now, at the point we're at, Pilate is caught in a place where he can either do what is either right and difficult or wrong and easy. So let's see how it continues. Verse 38, Pilate said to Jesus, what is truth?

And when he had said this, Pilate went out again to the Jews and said to them, I find no guilt in him. Remember, the chief priests were concerned about ritual cleanness and uncleanness for that matter, and the ability to participate in the Passover, which in what they're doing, we talked about this, they're participating in something that defiles them, something that makes them unclean.

They have blood on their hands. They're already polluted with sin, these Jewish men, but they remained near the boundary of the praetorium, this Roman residence of the governor. And when Pilate took Jesus into his residence to question him more privately, he had to come back out.

And that's what's happening here in this moment. It's very possible now that the sun has risen, Jerusalem residents are waking up, their religious leaders are standing at the edge of the Roman governor's property, and as these Jerusalem residents wake up and they look and see their religious leaders standing right there, a crowd starts forming.

A crowd starts forming right here in front of the governor's house in Jerusalem. More lies likely are being spread of Jesus among the people. They start telling others what's happening here, and this crowd forms.

In fact, the other gospels report that there were large crowds gathered through this Friday morning. So Pilate returns to the outer colonnade and says, I find no guilt in him. The word for guilt here is like grounds or the basis of the charges that were brought.

He doesn't find any basis for what they've told him. And Pilate then interpreted Jesus' answers of him reporting that he is a king and that he has a kingdom that is not of this world. He interpreted those statements as, I'm not a king that threatens political power or danger to the Roman Empire.

That's how Pilate looks at it. Because the Jewish leaders came before Pilate and accused Jesus of sedition. This is a rebel. He wants to be king. He wants to overthrow you. He wants to overthrow the emperor.

And Pilate interrogates him and goes, I don't see a man that's ready to take over. I don't see that with what Jesus has said. I don't see any armies coming for this man. Now, if Pilate had true integrity, Jesus would have been released and the Jewish officials would have been discharged, but there is a fear inside of him.

There's a fear inside of Pilate, not a fear of God, but a fear of man. He wants to save face. He knows these men have a lot of influence and it worries him greatly more than doing what is right. So expecting their protest, Pilate makes an offer to them, verse 39, but you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover.

Do you wish then that I release for you the king of the Jews? And so all the gospels assume this yearly prisoner release, something that had now since become a custom. And Pilate asks if they want him to release Jesus.

And he keeps calling him the king of the Jews at this moment. And that antagonizes the chief priests. Do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews? And they're like, it's just making them more mad.

It's inflaming them. Matthew 27, verses 15 through 21, give more detail to this very moment. You can look in your printout or look in your Bible, Matthew 27, verse 15. It starts, now at the feast, the governor was accustomed to release for the people any one prisoner whom they wanted.

At that time, they were holding a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when the people gathered together, Pilate said to them, whom do you want me to release for you, Barabbas or Jesus who is called Christ?

For he knew that because of envy, they had handed him over. While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent him a message saying, have nothing to do with this righteous man. For last night, I suffered greatly in a dream because of him.

But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to put Jesus to death. So the governor said to them, which of you two, which of the two do you want me to release for you?

And they cried out, Barabbas. This goes right in line with our verse. In verse 40, it says in John 18, so they cried out again saying, not this man, not this man, not this man pointing to Jesus, but Barabbas.

John reports that this man was a robber. And this word robber means someone that plunders. But this man Barabbas was no ordinary burglar or bandit. He was more of what we would understand today as a terrorist, a terrorist against Roman authorities.

In fact, Mark reports, Barabbas had taken part in the famous insurrection. He's an insurrectionist. He helped lead an armed rebellion, Barabbas. He even committed murder in the midst of these endeavors.

So Barabbas is actually the one who truly deserves the accusations that the Jews are giving. Do you get that? They're coming up to Pilate and said, this man Jesus calls himself a king. He calls himself the son of God.

He's going against Caesar and he's going against you. But Barabbas, the man that they actually want to be released is the one who actually led an insurrection and riots and a rebellion against the empire.

That's the irony. And everyone's oblivious to it. Murder and man pleasing are mixed into a cocktail and everyone is drinking it down except for Christ. Now, one thing I wanted to mention to you about Barabbas is that one textual variant of Matthew indicates that Barabbas' first name is Jesus.

That's right. That means that his full name could have been Jesus Barabbas, Jesus Barabbas. Bar means son of, Abbas means father. So who are the men who are being offered as two options at the Passover prisoner release to the people?

You have Jesus, son of a father, a father. And then you have Jesus, son of the heavenly father. Jesus, son of a father, the zealot murderer Barabbas. Or you have Jesus, capital S, the son of God, the son of the father.

The people cried for the freedom and release of the false son,.

The false Jesus.

Barabbas was the kind of savior that people wanted though. A terrorist to rally against Rome. And so they chose Jesus, son of a father, not Jesus, son of the father. In Peter's second sermon in Acts chapter three, he says, pointing at the religious leaders in Jerusalem, he says, but you disowned the holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be given to you.

They chose the one who takes life rather than gives it. And you know, this makes me think about how many times that we choose other things over Jesus. Like Pilate, we can choose to save face. We can save reputation over Christ.

We can be offered power in place of faithfulness to Jesus. And sometimes we take it. You can get even better pay. You can get better careers if you just shut up about Jesus. We can choose to maintain godly, ungodly relationships over Jesus.

And so what you and I are doing in those moments is we're choosing a false Jesus, a false savior in our lives. In other words, an idol, an idol. An idol that wants your fidelity to it rather than God.

But the grace of God works through that sovereignly. He calls us to repent from such wrong choices. If that's you today, if you're a man pleaser, if you're someone who chooses others or things over Jesus, he calls us to repent today from that.

And by his spirit, may he help us. And he does help us to pick Jesus. The true son. And he will bring good out of all of it. Like he will bring good out of people choosing Barabbas over Christ. This was necessary.

Barabbas had to be chosen. You see, the story is ugly, but it ends in redemption. Go to verse one of chapter 19. And the people chose to release Barabbas. It says Pilate then took Jesus and scourged him.

This is very much in line with the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In Luke 23, Pilate tells the chief priests and rulers that he has found no guilt in the man named Jesus. And he has done nothing deserving of death, but he indicates that he will punish Jesus.

He says, I'll punish him, then I'll release him to you. That's in Luke chapter 23. Now, you might think, why? If Pilate has come out multiple times now and said, I find no fault in him, this man doesn't deserve death.

Why then would he punish Jesus? If Pilate finds no fault, why would he flog him? I think in Pilate's mind, he thinks ordering the scourging will meet the Jews' demands. The demands that cried out, that said, blasphemy has been done.

And perhaps in scourging Jesus and sending him out to these Jewish men, they might, he might gain their favor and relent. And the cries of crucifixion might be quieted. Maybe that's what he's thinking in his mind.

He punishes Jesus, they'll stop crying for crucifixion. He'll at least do that. He himself has already determined Jesus is not a threat. His wife has had a troubling dream concerning Jesus. She told him, she sent a note to him, have nothing to do with this just man.

But this moment, though, this is when the humiliation and suffering of Jesus truly begins. Now, some scholars have wondered if there were two scourgings, that this was possibly a lighter scourging that happened first, for those who were a public nuisance to society, and then a another second flogging would come.

One that would have would have occurred with the declaration of crucifixion, when crucifixion is handed down, a terrible flogging would occur. And so that second one, that very terrible one is called verbaratio.

The point is, not whether or not Jesus was flogged once or twice, or if this is the severe one or not, all of it would have happened within that hour or very shortly anyways. We don't know if it was one or two.

But what we do know, according to Scripture, is that they would have absolutely given the worst scourging Romans could possibly give to Jesus. They did. This isn't like the the 40 lashes minus one in Deuteronomy 25 that the Jews had for each other.

The Mosaic law said, Then it shall be if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall make the man lie down, and he will be beaten with the number of stripes according to his guilt. The man may beat the other man 40 times but no more, so that he does not beat him with any more stripes than these, and your brother become degraded in your eyes.

You see, that was a law for those who received scourging or whipping punishment. And so the Jews would say, Let's not even go to 40 whips. Let's do 39. Because what if we accidentally miscounted, and we accidentally did 41, and we degraded our brother in our sight?

So the Jews famously did the 40 minus one stripes, 39 stripes. Paul talks about that. Paul talks about how he received that multiple times. But the Romans did not abide by that law with the Jews. The Romans had torturers that were so astute with anatomy and pain that they would whip a man senseless, but keep him within inches of his life so as to endure more pain.

So Jesus will absolutely become degraded in the eyes of his kin and his brethren. That Hebrew word degraded means he will become despicable. He will become pitiful. He will become disgusting. He will become a curse in front of them.

And so if you can imagine it, they're standing at the edge of the praetorium. They're looking out on the grounds, and Jesus is stripped of his tunic. His chest is laid bare. His back is laid bare. This was purely for humiliation.

They wanted to humiliate these people as well. And so he's only got something covering his lower half. He's bare up top, and his hands would have been bound, and then he would have been tied to a wooden post that comes out of the ground.

Okay?

Not one, but several Roman torturers would have been summoned. They would have been called. And these are men with a sick and insatiable desire to inflict pain upon others. They came greedily with bloodlust.

The commanding officer would oversee the scourging. And in fact, it was known that the Roman torturers were said, you can go as long as you still have energy. They would tell the torturers, you can go as long as you can.

Once you're tired, we'll stop. It wasn't when the person being scourged was tired or worn out. It was when the torturers were out of breath. When you're out of breath, you can stop. You can be done. The most favored instrument for whipping and scourging was not a single strand leather whip.

It wasn't even a leather whip with a couple strands. The Romans would take a whip with many leather cords and they would fit pieces of bone and rocks and pottery shards and pieces of lead and sharp pieces of metal.

And they would tie them along the strands of these whips. According to historians, the flagellation was so vicious, it would expose muscle, sinew, tissue, even bones and sometimes organs in their side.

And that's what they would do. There'd possibly be three of them and they would come to Jesus and they would keep whipping him, keep whipping him on every side, every angle. He can do nothing but be tied to the post.

When his back was like raw meat, they would turn him over and it would come onto his chest and on his belly and on his legs. They would strike him everywhere with this horrible whip. It was pure agony.

His body was becoming flayed. The Bible says that he was marred beyond recognition. And those who love him are looking on and they're thinking, goodness, what does this accomplish? What comes to mind is Isaiah chapter 53.

Do you know what it says?

It says, by his what we are healed. By his stripes, we are healed. By his scourging, we are healed. That verse is often used when people are praying over others to heal them. They cry and they say, by his stripes, you are healed.

And they say that in a moment of faith. But what we actually see is in Peter's first epistle, he uses that Isaiah 53 verse in the context of Jesus's substitutionary atonement, meaning that by Jesus's stripes that he's receiving here in John 19, there's not necessarily a promise of physical immediate wellness of the body.

But Peter shows a wellness of the soul. A regeneration, a death to life reality, a total healing that comes only with eternal life. By his stripes, you are healed. These stripes are part of the reason why you have salvation today.

These stripes are why you can enter the kingdom of heaven with gladness. These stripes are for you. As Jesus grows weak and the lashings no longer feel hot, they would have felt hot on his back at the beginning, but eventually the nerve endings get damaged and soon he starts shivering.

He becomes so cold and he has blood loss and he's exposed and his back is wet with blood. His chest is wet with blood. He's freezing. Early spring, Friday morning. I can only imagine what he's thinking.

As each whip strike comes down, what is Jesus thinking? And I can only imagine what he's thinking. Maybe he's thinking back to that prayer from John 17. Father, glorify yourself. Whip, Father, glorify me with the glory that I shared with you before the world was.

Whip, Father, for the sake of those who hear through the apostles. Whip, God, for my people. Whip, over and over and over again. You know what I don't think he was thinking? I don't think he was thinking any curses towards any of these people.

I don't think he had any hatred in his heart in that moment. I don't even think he had righteous indignation, willingness, grace, love, sacrifice. That's what's in his mind. His mind wasn't even on Annas or Caiaphas or anyone who accused him.

In fact, later on at the cross, when the jeers and mockers come, he'll even look at them with an amazing love. They have the most hatred in their face you could ever see staring at him up at the cross.

And he'll say, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.

Unbelievable.

That's grace, unbelievable grace. So our Lord's torture and agony continues. Look at verses two and three. And the soldiers twisted together a crowd of thorns and put it on his head and put a purple robe on him.

And they began to come to him and say, Hail, King of the Jews. And to give him slaps in the face. So Jesus' title, King of the Jews, has now spread among the people. It's even spread to the Roman soldiers.

How depraved do you have to be to continue to abuse a man whose flesh.

Is already ripped open?

There's no sense of pity. There's no sense of sympathy, only to inflict more pain. And this is only the beginning. The wrath will come at the cross. And so they twisted branches to make a crown of thorns.

It's possible that they used the long spikes of a date palm. You see, there were date palms all in the area in Jerusalem. And so they could have taken these date palms and they would have cut off the soft green leaves.

And at the base of these branches were these long spikes. If you ever visit Arizona or something like that, you'll see palm trees everywhere. There's a Las Vegas even, there's date palms. And at the base are these spikes.

And I'm telling you, some of these spikes can range from six inches to 12 inches long. And so some have thought that maybe these were palm spikes that they had woven. That makes me think about the fact that just the Sunday before this moment, it's Friday, right?

It's Friday. The Sunday before this was what? Palm Sunday. It was the triumphal entry. And what were they doing? They were saying, as Jesus came in riding lowly on a donkey, they were taking palm branches down, right?

Soft ones.

And they were laying them with their jackets, their coats at his feet, like a red carpet for a king. And they were shouting, Hosanna, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. They considered him a king.

And they put these palm branches down. And what's crazy is they go back now, days later on Friday, and they go back to the same palm trees, and they find the bases of them, and they take them and they weave spikes out of them.

That's radical.

They mock him as king to continue to inflict more pain. The thorns would have been jammed onto his head. Possibly the one place that didn't get any whipping.

Right?

The one place that's maybe not fully inflicted and damaged yet. Top of his head, his hair. And so they shove this crown of thorns on his head. Others, other archaeologists and historians have believed, well, maybe it wasn't the palm branches.

It's possible there are these perennial shrubs that are all along the hillside of Judea and Jerusalem. And these shrubs have these nasty spikes. In fact, I decided to... This is straight from Israel. I'll let you see that later.

It's probably hard to see the spikes coming off of it. But this is from one of those desert shrubs near Jerusalem. Still, that's gnarly. That's nasty. They would have shoved that on his head. So that's a possibility there.

Whichever of the two, whether it was the palm branches or this desert shrub, whatever it was, they wanted to mock our Lord Jesus Christ. They wanted to hurt him. They hurt our precious Lord. And then they put a purple robe around his shoulders.

They would have taken purple. They would have put it over the Lord Jesus Christ, wrapped it around his shoulders. They would have draped down over him. Purple robe, crown of thorns. And purple, if you know then, is the color of royalty.

It's the color of royalty. And so what possibly happened is you had a soldier who wove one of these. He made a crown. Then the other soldier went back to his quarters because soldiers and officers in the Roman army, they would have had, as you see in our army today, there are kind of utility garb, right?

There are uniforms for utility moments. Then there are uniforms for what, like formal events. You know, seeing an officer visiting town. They would have dressed better. And so Roman soldiers would have maybe had their own purple robes for themselves.

And so a soldier weaves this. Another soldier goes back to his quarters. He grabs this and says, yeah, let's show him how much a king he is. And they put these things on our Lord Jesus Christ. And I can't help but think about the colors that are happening right now with Jesus Christ.

Think about it this moment. His blood all over his body, scarlet red. The purple robe, purple. All the hits that he got from the day before, the night before, the hits that he's been, had his face, he must have black eyes.

He must have bruises on his body. What color is that? That's typically about a blue color. And so Jesus is now scarlet red, purple, and blue. And you know what's interesting is God came to the Israelites and through Moses, he told them, when you make my temple, when you make the holy of holies, I want you to separate my presence from the people with a veil that's made out of scarlet, purple, and blue.

That's the way to God's presence. And Jesus is showing that he is that. He is those colors. He already called himself in John chapter 10. He says, I am the door. He is the way. He is the way to the holy of holies.

And that's why later at the cross, when he says it is finished, in the other gospels, it says that the temple veil, which was actually very thick, it wasn't thin, it was very thick.

You can't rip it.

You can't do anything like that. An earthquake couldn't have caused this thick fabric, this heavy stuff to tear. Supernaturally, this veil, it says torn too. Why? Because the scarlet, purple, blue Jesus Christ is the way to the holiest place.

He is the way to God's presence. He is God. In Matthew, it says at this moment with the crown of thorns and the purple robe, it says that also the soldiers found a reed or a stick and they shoved it in his hand.

They gave him like a scepter, like a king's rod. And they put it in his hand and they mocked him. And so Jesus is pale.

He's bleeding everywhere.

Flesh and tissue is exposed. He's dirty.

He's sweaty.

He's shaking. He's wearing the crown. He's wearing the robe. He's holding the scepters. And the soldiers, all of them get in line and they come before this scene of Jesus and they all kneel before him and say, Hail, King of the Jews.

And they mock him. And as each soldier goes down and kneels and says, Hail, King of the Jews, as they come up, they slap him. Every single one of them. Everyone, they get up, they slap him. And then it's the next guy's turn.

Hail, King of the Jews, slap in the face. And we don't even know the number. It says that there were hundreds of soldiers here at this moment. We already saw that in the garden, there was a cohort, 600.

How many soldiers would have done that and stood up and slapped the Lord Jesus Christ across the face? No idea. It's unimaginable. It's unimaginable. This is the same hail Judas used in the garden when he betrayed Jesus with a kiss.

And so according to Mark, then at this moment, when each soldier was done, when each soldier got up and smacked him in the face, when they all had their fill of mocking the Lord Jesus Christ, it says one of them grabbed the reed and then Jesus cowered and they started to beat him over and over with the reed that they used as a rod in his hands, as a scepter.

Beat him over and over again with that very rod. And it says that since others had not gotten the rod, you know, there was only one, so only one could have it at a time. And maybe they even gave the rod to another person so that the other soldiers didn't feel left out.

It says that the rest of them spat on him over and over again. They were spitting all over Jesus as the other one was beating him with the rod. And so at this point, the cruel spit and saliva of both Jews and Gentiles, the Jews did it the day before, the Jews and the Gentiles spit was all over him.

Isaiah chapter 50 verse 6 speaks of this moment so many hundred years prior. It says, I gave my back to those who strike me. This is Isaiah 50. I gave my back to those who strike me and my cheeks to those who pluck out my beard.

And I did not cover my face from humiliation and spitting. It was prophesied. How the Jews could know these messianic servant passages of torture and sacrifice and not recognize it here, I don't know.

Only the spirit of God. In the Bible, to spit on someone is to cause great shame, right? That's one of the, you see police officers, one of the worst things that they could ever want happen. And they, you have guys, my uncles were police officers, several of them in Los Angeles.

And they would say, I'd rather have someone slug me in the face than spit in my face. I'd rather someone beat me than spit on me. And that's true. And this is what they're doing. You know, again, what is marveling to consider is that Jesus has no hatred in his heart at this moment.

He's not cursing them. He's not defending himself. Each sting of the whip, each hit of the face, each disgusting drop of saliva from his assailants, all the mockery, all this suffering is for something.

It means something. It has meaning. It has purpose. And he's not going to let it stop now. Too much hangs in the balance. And so Jesus continues to receive this treatment. And what makes this so infinitely offensive, and here's what it is.

I've had, I've seen atheists say, what is this? People were treated like this in the ancient world. What's the big deal here? Well, we'll see what the wrath of God is like at the cross. But what makes this act so atrocious is how innocent Jesus is.

How pure he is, so blameless, so perfect. To do this to someone so perfect is such an atrocity. This is the highest sin that could ever have been perpetuated since the fall of man, the very first sin from the garden thousands of years prior.

You see, one day, if these men don't repent, they will not bow or kneel in false allegiance or mockery, but on the day of judgment, they'll be crippled under the weight of their just condemnation.

So let's continue.

Look at verses five, four and five. Pilate came out again and said to them, behold, I am bringing him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in him. Jesus then came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, and Pilate said to the people, behold, the man.

Pilate comes out of the praetorium, the crowds of Jews, along with the chief priests. The crowd has grown considerably. Word of Jesus's so-called blasphemy has spread, and Pilate reports the verdict again.

He finds no basis, no guilt for what they're accusing him of, and then he walks back. He says, I find no guilt in this man. Then he walks back into the praetorium, and he comes out and he brings Jesus Christ with his crown of thorns and his purple robe, and this Jesus is covered in blood and wounds and exposed, and he says, behold, the man.

He's trying to show them that their accusations are unfounded. You see, this man is beaten almost near death, and he has no armies to invade. This man's harmless.

Behold, the man.

Look at this man. You think this man's a threat to the Roman Empire? Look at this man.

Behold, the man.

This ridiculous sight of a man is no threat to you, Jews. Behold, the man. He's harmless, but he is the man. He is the man, right? He is the word who became flesh. He is the logos from eternity who took on humanity.