Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let Him be crucified. Matthew 27:22
We watched the cars drive up the road past the sign that invited people to come in and hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Very few of the cars slowed down enough to even check to see what times the meetings were. All they would see on the sign were the words Gospel Meetings, and all they would see in the field beside the sign was the big Gospel tent, with a few cars parked outside. Some of those people had received invitations in the mail, and some had been visited by the preachers as they canvassed the community. But most of those people who drove past had very little idea what was being presented in that tent. And very few of them had any idea what the Gospel is, even Who Jesus Christ is. But those people, as they drove past, were making a decision as to what they were to do with Jesus which is called Christ. And that decision, every time they drove past, will confront them forever in eternity. Just like the chief priests and other leaders who called for the Lord Jesus to be crucified.
Pilate asked the most crucial question that any sinner can ask. And he eventually made a decision, the wrong decision, even though he had two powerful reasons for making the right decision. First, he was fully aware that the Jews had delivered Jesus for envy, and not for any reasonable cause. Second, he was warned by his wife to avoid mishandling this case. What difference did it make to Pilate that he opted to allow the Jews’ demands to be met? Sadly, it meant that he will forever pay for his tragic mistake. What difference did it make to the Jewish leaders that they called for Jesus’ crucifixion? It means that they must forever bear the responsibility of calling for our Lord’s innocent blood. What difference did it make to the Lord Jesus that the Jews cried for His blood and that Pilate agreed to their wishes? It made no difference: He was fulfilling the eternal purposes of God to be delivered into the hands of sinful men that He might become the Lamb of God.
The Jews thought they were getting rid of the troublesome Nazarene. Pilate thought he was smoothing over a sticky situation with the testy locals. But what transpired in Pilate’s judgment hall – even though it marked tragic mistakes on the part of the Jews and the Roman governor – was a vital part of God’s great plan of salvation. Those mistakes by those people that day were in accordance with their free will, and just as surely were in accordance with God’s great purpose of love and mercy to lost sinners.
We are thankful for the plan of salvation that has brought us into the good of the love of God, a plan that was brought about amid the wrong choices of men and the right choices of repentant sinners like us. -Jim MacIntosh