The Trial of Jesus | John 18:28-40
Brian Hedges | March 20, 2022
Let’s turn in God’s word this morning to John 18. While you’re turning there, let me quote C.S. Lewis from an essay that he wrote many years ago now. The essay was called “God in the Dock,” and of course he’s using British terminology, where “dock” means a court, someone who was in a dock in trial; God in the dock.
Lewis described the difference between ancient and modern people and how they perceived God. He said, “The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man, the roles are reversed. He is the judge; God is in the dock.”
That’s true, as far as it goes. You think about the perspective of many people in the world today who sit in judgment; maybe they’re skeptical or even critical of the Bible and of God and of Christianity. But the reality is that God was in the dock long before modernity, long before C.S. Lewis wrote that essay, because God allowed himself to be judged by man when the God-man, Jesus Christ, was placed on trial in the courts of Caiaphas, Pilate, and Herod.
I think sometimes in our rush to get from the garden of Gethsemane or the upper room to the cross we pass over too quickly the trials. But we need to remember that in the narratives recorded for us in the gospel, every single step that Jesus took was important, was for us and for our salvation. The Gospel writers really take their time in telling this story. They include these important details about the trials of Jesus that are meant to teach us something very important.
This morning we’re looking at one of those trials, the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate in John 18. We’re studying together the passion and resurrection narratives in the Gospel of John; we’re working through John 18-21, and really we’re just working our way up to Good Friday, where Good Friday will culminate with the death of Jesus Christ on the cross; and then on Easter Sunday, in just a few weeks, we’ll be looking at the resurrection story in John 20; and then in the weeks following, the rest of the resurrection narratives in John. You could say that we’re really spending several weeks on Good Friday, and then we’re going to spend several weeks on Easter, as we’re looking at these important stories recorded in the Gospel of John.
Today we’re in John 18:28-40, and it’s really the first half of the trial of Jesus before Pilate. It will continue in chapter 19 through the first 16 verses. But today we’re going to look at the beginning of this in John 18:28-40. It’s on page 904 if you’re following along in one of the Bibles in the chairs in front of you. Let me read the passage, and then we’re going to work through it together, verse by verse, beginning in verse 28.
“Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters. It was early morning. They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover. So Pilate went outside to them and said, ‘What accusation do you bring against this man?’ They answered him, ‘If this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to you.’ Pilate said to them, ‘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.’ This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die.
“So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?’ Pilate answered, ‘Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. 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 Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.’ Then Pilate said to him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born 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.’ Pilate said to him, ‘What is truth?’
“After he had said this, he went back outside to the 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 Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?’ They cried out again, ‘Not this man, but Barabbas!’ Now Barabbas was a robber.”
This is God’s word.
I think as we read these passages we feel like we are on sacred ground, reading these stories about Jesus leading up to the cross. Today, as we look at the first part of the trial of Jesus before Pilate, we can break it down really into three steps, three parts. There are, first of all, the charges that are made against Jesus in verses 28-32. Then you have the interrogation, as Pilate examines Jesus in verses 33-38a, and then thirdly you have the verdict, also in verse 38, and then what follows in verses 39-40.
That’s the basic outline; we’re going to follow the flow of the passage. As we do this, I want us to really dig in and see—there are some very important things we learn about Jesus, about Jesus’ plan, about Jesus’ kingdom, about who he is. There are important lessons to be learned from the various characters in the story, and important things for us to learn and apply to ourselves based on Jesus’ testimony, his witness before Pilate.
1. The Charges
Let’s begin with the charges in verses 28-32. In these verses the Jews hand Jesus over to Pilate for trial, in order to secure the death penalty. That’s the main thing going on here. We’ll begin in verse 28.
“Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor’s headquarters.” Caiaphas, of course, was the high priest of Israel, and there had been a trial of Jesus before Caiaphas. John does not actually record that trial. The last time we saw Jesus, Jesus was in the household of Annas, who was the father-in-law of the high priest, but another trial followed that, in the middle of the night, before Caiaphas. That’s recorded for us in Matthew 26 as well as in the Gospel of Mark.
John passes over Caiaphas; he just references it. He gives more attention, more detail about the trial before Pilate than any of the other Gospel writers. There was also a trial before Herod. There was a point where Pilate sends Jesus over to Herod and then Herod sends him back. So there were multiple trials; it was chaos as these different groups of people were trying to figure out what to do with Jesus, with the Jewish leaders, the Sanhedrin, lobbying for his death by crucifixion.
In verse 28 they hand Jesus over to Pilate. Notice it says it was early morning by this point. Jesus has just spent an entire night being shuffled around to these different places; now it’s early morning, and the text says, “They themselves did not enter the governor’s headquarters so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover.:
Now, there are a couple of things going on here. John is telling us that the Sanhedrin never go inside Pilate’s headquarters, the Praetorium, this place where Pilate was ruling from. One reason John is telling us this is because it’s helping us understand the two stages on which this drama will unfold, and from verse 28 all the way down through John 19:16 you have two stages, an inside, indoor stage and an outdoor stage; outside, as Pilate is talking with the Sanhedrin and this mob of people calling for the crucifixion of Jesus; and then inside, as Pilate is examining Jesus, talking to Jesus. There’s this alternation as Pilate is speaking with Jesus on the inside and then goes back outside. You’ll notice that as you read through the passage.
But this is also showing the reason why the Jews refused to go inside, and the reason they refused to go inside was because of their religious scruples. It says, “They themselves did not enter the governor’s headquarters so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover.” I think as we read that we should not miss the irony. Here they are, so concerned with ceremonial, ritual purity so that they could eat the Passover, going on into the Feast of Unleavened Bread. They probably didn’t want to go into Pilate’s household because there would have been leaven inside; that would have rendered them unclean for the rest of the day. They don’t want to miss the Feast of Unleavened Bread; they don’t want to go inside. They are so concerned with ritual purity, and yet at the very same time they are committing the most heinous crime as they turn over the Son of God himself to death.
D.A. Carson says, “The Jews take elaborate precautions to avoid ritual contamination in order to eat the Passover at the very time they are busy manipulating the judicial system to secure the death of him who alone is the true Passover.”
It shows us the danger of prioritizing religion, and especially the externals of religion, the minutiae of religion, the ceremonial ritual aspects of religion, over genuine righteousness. You remember how Jesus had condemned the scribes, the Pharisees, and the hypocrites in Matthew 23. There’s a whole series of woes in Matthew 23. One of the things Jesus said was, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!”
There’s not any example anywhere in Scripture where that happens more than right here, as they are so concerned, so fastidious about ritual, ceremonial purity, and yet they are turning over Jesus to die.
We have to be careful of that ourselves, brothers and sisters. We can become so concerned with religion that we miss genuine righteousness. We can become so fastidious about the public and external accouterments of ceremony and religious distinctives that we miss the weightier matters of justice and mercy and faithfulness. I’ve seen people become more concerned about denominational distinctives than they are about genuine love for others or love and worship of God. We can be devoted to religion and miss Jesus, and that's what was going on here.
Then they bring an accusation, they bring the charge. You see it in verses 29-30. “So Pilate went outside to them and said, ‘What accusation do you bring against this man?’ They answered him, ‘If this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to you.’”
It’s pretty vague, what they say here. “We wouldn’t have even brought him if he wasn’t doing evil.” We get a little more detail about the charges from Luke 23:1-2. We read that “the whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate, and they began to accuse him, saying, ‘We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.’”
What they’re saying is only half true. Of course, a half truth is a lie. It was not true that Jesus forbade them to give tribute to Caesar; remember, Jesus had actually said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” Jesus had taught his disciples to pay tribute, to pay taxes.
Yes, he had claimed to be Christ, to be a king, but not a king in the way they thought, and the real reason they wanted to get rid of Jesus was not just the claim of Messiahship, but when you read the trial before Caiaphas in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark, it’s because he claimed to be the Son of Man; it’s because he claimed deity, to be the Son of God himself. They understood that to be blasphemy; that’s why they want to get rid of him. But they have to bring up a charge that the Romans would consider valid, so they accuse Jesus of sedition. They accuse him of being politically unsafe, someone who will cause an uprising against Rome.
Pilate is not initially taking the bait. In verse 31 he says, “Take him yourselves,” right? “‘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.’”
There’s the real issue. They want Jesus dead, they want him crucified, and they don’t have the legal authority to do that. So they bring him to Pilate.
Notice in verse 32 this little comment from John, the evangelist writing the Gospel. He says, “This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die.”
What we see here is that at one and the same time the Jewish Sanhedrin, Pilate, all these people who are involved in decisions that lead to the death of the Son of God, at one and the same time as they are sinning, God is working out his divine purpose. Jesus is not a helpless victim here. In fact, everything is transpiring as he had foretold.
John uses the formula here. “This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken.” It’s the formula usually used about Scripture. “This was to fulfill what was written in the Scriptures,” but here it’s the word of Jesus that is being fulfilled, because Jesus, in all four Gospels it’s recorded that Jesus predicted his death. In the Gospel of John in particular, in John 12:32-33, he said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to himself,” and John says, “He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.” Not just any kind of death, but a death in which he is lifted up, lifted up by crucifixion.
These are the charges. Jesus now is before PIlate. He is in the Praetorium, he is in these headquarters of Pilate, the governor, and we turn then to the interrogation in verses 33-38.
2. The Interrogation
In these verses, Pilate questions Jesus about his kingship, and Jesus answers by clarifying the nature of his kingdom. This is verses 33-38, and really you have a series of questions and answers. It’s a dialogue; it’s an exchange, a conversation between Pilate and Jesus. You see the first question and Jesus’ answer in verses 33-34.
“So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?’”
It shows Jesus’ carefulness in answering Pilate. He is “wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove,” as he had told his own disciples to be. Jesus is not giving away anything—he’s not denying anything, but he’s not just acknowledging himself to be guilty of crimes that of course he did not commit. He had not been seditious at all. So he begins to question Pilate.
Pilate asks another question then in verse 35, and with a great deal of contempt. He says, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?”
Jesus answers by describing something about his kingdom, about his reign. He says, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have bee fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”
What Jesus means is that the source, the origin of his kingdom is not from this world. His kingdom does not derive from the world or from the earth. And he means that his kingdom is not characterized by the things that characterize worldly, earthly kingdoms. In other words, Jesus is not bringing his kingdom at the point of a sword. He will not bring his kingdom through violence; he will not reign through force or through coercion. In fact, the only other time outside of the passion narratives where Jesus explicitly refers to the kingdom in the Gospel of John is in John 3, where he told Nicodemus, “Unless you are born again you cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
How do you get into this kingdom? You’re not coerced into it; in fact, it takes a miracle, it takes the miracle of rebirth, of regeneration. You have to be born of water and of the Spirit to even enter the kingdom of God.
You remember that Jesus, just a few hours before, had told Peter, who had drawn his sword, ready to fight for him, Jesus had told Peter, “Put away your sword. Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” His kingdom is not like the worldly kingdom, it’s not like kingdoms of the earth; his kingdom is a different kind of kingdom.
Pilate then says to him in verse 37, “So you are a king?” Jesus had said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” “So you are a king, then?”
Jesus answers him, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth.”
This shows us something else about the kingdom of Christ; it shows us that it is a kingdom of truth. It is a reign characterized by truth. Jesus came to bear witness to the truth.
That, of course, taps into a key theme in John’s Gospel, the theme of truth. You remember in John 1, in the prologue, we read that “the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. The law came by Moses, but grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ.”
You remember that Jesus had said to those who heard him, “If you abide [or continue] in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
In fact, Jesus had said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” He came to bear witness to the truth, to teach the truth, to preach the truth, and he himself was the embodiment of truth. How is it that Jesus bore witness to the truth? Well, in everything he said he was bearing witness to the truth. He was bearing witness to the truth of God his Father, his character, who he is, his love, his justice, his holiness, his grace. He was bearing witness to the truth of human beings and their need, their sin, their condemnation, having loved darkness rather than light, and their need for new birth, for regeneration, for change.
He had borne witness, in some ways, about himself, as he had made these astounding claims to be the way, the truth, and the life, to be the resurrection and the life, to be the true bread from heaven, to be the Son of God. Everything Jesus said was bearing witness to the truth.
Then Jesus says, “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” That’s important. It tells us who it is that really has aligned themselves with what is true, with what is real: it is those people who listen to the voice of Jesus.
Then Pilate in verse 38 responds, “What is truth?”
Francis Bacon in a famous essay referenced this. “‘What is truth?’ said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.” Pilate says, “What is truth?” and then in his cynicism, his skepticism he walks away. James Montgomery Boice says, “The question that welled up from Pilate’s deep cynicism was the disillusioned and despairing cry of his age. It is this that makes Pilate the preeminently modern man.” “What is truth?” He’s standing before truth incarnate, but he doesn’t stop to listen.
I think this whole exchange suggests three applications before we move on to the verdict in this trial.
(1) The first is just to beware of the danger of ignoring truth for the sake of expediency, which is what Pilate does. There was an opportunity right there where Pilate could have inquired further and learned more about who Jesus was and what he had come to do, but Pilate doesn’t stay to listen.
It reminds me of a story that John MacArthur told many years ago. It’s a story of an Avianca jet that crashed in Spain in 1984. When the investigators studied the accident afterwards they recovered the black box, and they heard the recorded dialogue. They were surprised and alarmed to find that there had been a shrill, computerized voice, a synthesized voice from the plane’s automatic warning system that told the crew repeatedly in English, “Pull up! Pull up! Pull up!” The pilate had said, “Shut up, gringo,” shut off the radio, and just a few seconds later the plane crashed into the side of a mountain.
It is kind of a parable for the way many people live—confronted with the claims of Christ, confronted with the truth of Christianity, confronted with the word of God, and there’s a warning, there’s an opportunity. “Pull up before it’s too late!” And people shut it off. “What is truth?” They don’t stop to listen. Beware of that. Listen to Jesus in his word.
(2) The second application is this, that it is those who listen to Jesus that show that they are truly aligned with the truth. Listening to Jesus is the key indication that someone is aligned with truth, with reality. Jesus says, “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” You remember how he had said in John 10:27, “My sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow me.” And in John 8 he had said, “Everyone who is of God hears my words.” Hear he says, “Those who are of the truth listen to my voice.”
What does that mean? What does it look like to listen to the voice of Jesus? Here’s one illustration. I discovered this just this week, the story of a woman named Doreen Virtue.
Doreen Virtue was not really from our circles. She was a woman who was a best-selling author; in fact, the top-selling author of New Age self-help literature. Best-selling author in the world. Her books had been published in 38 languages. She lived in Hawaii, and in January of 2015 she was driving along a Hawaiian road listening to Alistair Begg on the Christian Satellite Network. These are her words.
“Begg was giving an expository sermon called ‘Itching Ears.’ It was about 2 Timothy 4, where the apostle Paul writes that in the end times people will want their itching ears tickled by false teachers who offer false hope. I could tell he was describing people just like me.”
Something began in her life in that moment. She went home and told her husband, “I want us to go to a real Christian church.” She’d been raised in Christian science. They started going to church, she started reading the Old Testament, and in reading through Deuteronomy she came to the passage that condemns divination and sorcery and all different kinds of practices of the occult. She read that and she was like, “That’s what I’ve been doing! I’ve been doing that.” And she just broke down and wept and repented right there on the spot.
Now she is trying to get all of her books out of circulation; the publishers are still selling them, but she’s abandoned it all. She’s written a new book warning people not to read and listen to all the things that she said before she became a Christian. There’s an article on Christianity Today’s website, “I Left the New Age Behind When I Read the Old Testament.” It’s an amazing and encouraging story that shows the power of Jesus to rescue people by his word now.
“Those who are of the truth listen to my voice,” Jesus says. That’s what it looks like. Has that happened to you? Maybe it's not quite as dramatic of a conversion story, but have you heard and listened to the voice of Christ through his word and responded to the gospel, and are you in an ongoing relationship with Jesus, where you are listening to his voice, where you’re hearing his word and responding to him? This is the key indication that someone is a Christian who is of the truth.
(3) Then a third application, very briefly, is simply this: to see that just as Jesus bore witness to the truth, so must we. I say this because of 1 Timothy 6:13-14. It’s the only passage in the New Testament, outside of the Gospels and Acts, where Pontius Pilate is mentioned. It’s Paul’s words to Timothy, and this is what Paul says.
“I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
He’s appealing to Jesus’ good confession before Pilate, and he’s saying, “Now, Timothy, you do the same. Bear witness to the truth. Keep the commandment. Keep the word. Follow in the footsteps of Christ.”
3. The Verdict
Well, Jesus did witness to the truth. He was not guilty of the charges made against him, and we see this in the verdict that is given in verse 38. This is really astounding. In verse 38 Pilate declares Jesus innocent. Look at it. Verse 38b, “After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, ‘I find no guilt in him.’” That’s the verdict of the trial. The evidence has been weighed, the defendant has been examined, and he’s not guilty. In fact, Pilate will repeat this two more times. In John 19:4, “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.’” Then in John 19:6, “When the chief priests and the officers saw him they cried out, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.’”
And yet, in John 19:16 Jesus is led away to be crucified. The verdict is “not guilty,” but the sentence is death. Why? Why did this happen? It was a miscarriage of justice, to be sure. It was the result of the demands of this mob who were lobbying for, crying out for the death, the crucifixion of Jesus; and it was a result of Pilate’s cowardice, absolute lack of backbone to stand up for that which was just and that which was right.
But it was also part of God’s eternal plan, because we read in Acts 4 these words from the prayer of the early church, reflecting on Psalm 2. They say, “In this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” God was working out his divine, saving purpose; he was working it out through all of the evil and hypocrisy and cowardice and treachery of the rulers of the earth who gathered themselves against the Christ, the Lord’s anointed.
The verdict was “not guilty,” yet the sentence was death, and we see the result in verses 39-40 with this new character introduced into the story. Pilate says, “I find no guilt in him. But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover.” This was called the Pascal Amnesty, where evidently once a year, during Passover, the Roman governor would release one Jewish prisoner to the people. “‘So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?’ They cried out again, ‘Not this man, but Barabbas.’ Now Barabbas was a robber.”
Barabbas is mentioned in all four of the Gospels. He’s called a notorious sinner in Matthew 27, and in Mark 15 we read that he had committed murder in the insurrection. The word that’s used of him—he was a robber—it doesn’t mean that he was a petty thief. More likely, he was an insurrectionist. He was probably a Zealot, someone who was involved in a plot to overthrow Rome. He actually was a threat. Unlike Jesus, he was a threat to Rome. He would have been considered a terrorist. Yet the Sanhedrin call out for Barabbas to be released instead of Jesus.
We don’t know the effect this had on Barabbas, but I want to borrow a page from Kent Hughes, who imagines, using Matthew 27, what might have been going through Barabbas’s mind.
Hughes tells us that “the Praetorium [that’s the headquarters where Jesus was being examined] was no more than 1500 feet from the Tower of Antonia. This is where Barabbas would have been held. Because he was a prominent prisoner, he was incarcerated in the bowels of Antonia, awaiting crucifixion. He probably could not hear Pilate, but it would have been impossible not to hear the roarings of the crowd.”
Now listen to the dialogue; this is from Matthew 27.
Pilate: “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” (Jesus or Barabbas)
The crowd says, “Barabbas!”
Pilate: “Then what shall I do with Jesus, who is called Christ?”
The crowd: “Let him be crucified!”
Pilate: “Why? What evil has he done?”
The crowd, shouting all the more: “Let him be crucified!”
Then Pilate washes his hands, says, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.”
The crowd cries out, “His blood be on us and on our children.”
What would Barabbas have heard? He would have heard, “Barabbas! Let him be crucified! Let him be crucified! His blood be on us and on our children.”
Hughes continues, “As hardened as he was, Barabbas must have grown faint. He may have stared at the palms of his hands in growing horror of the awaiting agony. He had seen crucifixions; he knew their interminable agony. He heard the sound of the key in the lock, felt even greater terror—and suddenly he was released from his chains and told he was free. He was probably in a daze when he emerged into the sunlight. Slowly the truth unfolded: Jesus Christ was dying in his place.”
Now again, we don’t know what happened to Barabbas, but it is a picture of substitution, Jesus the substitute, who dies in our place. Only Barabbas was set free by Jesus dying his place physically, but the Scriptures say that “for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” And “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit.” We see here Jesus, who is the true King; Jesus, the Lord; Jesus, the Messiah; Jesus, the sinless one, who dies in the place of sinful people. The verdict on him was “not guilty,” and yet he bore the penalty, he bore the judgment. The Judge himself is judged by sinful men!
This is so important to the gospel that we actually have it in our creed, don’t we? We confess when we say the apostles’ creed that he “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” Why do we include that historical detail? The Heidelberg Catechism explains in question 38. The Heidelberg Catechism has questions about the apostles’ creed, and one of the questions is this: “Why did he suffer under Pontius Pilate as judge?”
Here’s the answer: “So that he, though innocent, might be condemned by an earthly judge and so free us from the severe judgment of God that was to fall on us.”
Brothers and sisters, have you taken refuge in Christ the Judge, who is judged in your place, the sinless substitute who died so that you could go free? Have you seen his sentence, his condemnation, have you seen your verdict? What is the verdict we get? It should be “guilty,” but the verdict we get is “not guilty,” justified. Why? Because Christ has been judged in our place.
You see why we shouldn’t pass over the trials of Christ too quickly. There are things for us to learn here, and I trust this morning that each one of us in response, if we’ve never done so before, will entrust ourselves fully to Christ, confessing our sins, our need, our unrighteousness, and trusting in his obedience, his death, his righteousness on our behalf. Let’s pray together.
Father, we thank you this morning for your word, and we thank you for the testimony of your Son, Jesus Christ, who bore a good confession before Pontius Pilate. We thank you that he suffered in our place so that instead of hearing the “guilty” verdict we could have the assurance of being justified, accepted, and forgiven for Jesus’ sake. May we respond to that good news in our hearts this morning, and may our response be one of deep love for Christ. May it be transforming in our lives, as we seek to follow Christ and be people of the truth who listen to his voice.
As we come to the Lord’s table this morning, would you draw near to us as we drawn year to you. Would you help us come with reverence in our hearts, with love for the Savior, and with faith in what he has done, and would you be glorified in this time; we pray in Jesus’ name and for his sake, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
