Well, this morning as we give our attention to the study of God's word, I direct your attention to Matthew 27 by way of introduction. As we return now in our study of the Matthew of gospel, Lord willing, with the exception of the annual meeting weekend, which is coming up, we will be preaching straight through the rest of Matthew's gospel starting this morning in chapter 27 and verse 11. And Lord willing, we'll be done by Shepherd's Conference, which is the start of March, if not shortly thereafter. And so I look forward to going through the rest of this Gospel with you. It's a marvelous study through the last couple of years, and I hope you're excited about it as well. Just a couple of words of instruction in preparation for what's coming. When we finish Matthew's Gospel, it is still my intention to go next to Titus. Maybe 2 Timothy, but I'm leaning toward Titus. I think that'll be best for all of us. And I'm looking forward to that study myself as well. And it probably won't take us as long to go through Titus as it did Matthew, depending on how many extra messages Chuck comes up with for me to preach. Just a little word of instruction regarding the annual meeting message. Over the last couple of months in particular, I've had a number of you that have come up and asked me some questions. And some of them have been really good, especially from some of the kids. And so with that in mind, I talked to the elders about it. And for our annual meeting, you know, our annual meeting Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday, And we start with a morning service, and then we have a fellowship together, and then we have our annual meeting. And normally I do a message on the subject of the church, whether it's instructive or exhortational or an admonishment or whatever. And we've done that every year for 19 years. This year I'm going to do a Q&A. And so it won't be just raise your hands at that point. It'll be all the questions that you submit. So if they're your questions or if you want good ones, have your kids give you questions and you can submit them all. You can write them on prayer cards and put them in the offering plate the next couple of weeks. Or you can hand it to me directly or to Chuck and I'll put them all together and Annual meeting Sunday. I'm going to spend an hour and a minute try to answer all of those questions for you So I'm looking forward to it and I and I hope that's an encouragement to you Any question you have this related to the Bible to Christianity to Christian life to theology? Just go ahead and ask it and I'll put them all together and put a nice message together out of that So that's what we'll be doing on our annual meeting Sunday for all the rest of the Sundays Lord willing Until we complete Matthew's gospel, though, we'll be in this gospel. And with that as our start, if you'll take a look at Matthew 27 this morning, verses 11 to 31, this is the text we'll be looking at. I've entitled this morning's message, very creatively, The Trial Before Pilate, because that's precisely what we have in the text. The significance of it, though, is related to what they charge Jesus with and what they find him guilty of. You know, when you look at the nature of the gospel message, you see it is directly tied to the identity of Jesus Christ and by extension to the impeccability of his character and nature, that he is absolutely without sin. This is the fundamental aspect of the gospel message itself. Romans chapter three and verse twenty three, Paul says, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Ephesians two, we are by nature objects of wrath. Why? Because we're sinners and we deserve God's wrath because of our sins. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21, the Apostle Paul says regarding Christ, God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. The whole reason that Jesus came was to die and pay for our sins. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 3, Paul describes the gospel as, states that the gospel is he died for our sins. Now the only way in which Jesus' death can be sufficient to pay the penalty for our sins is if he is himself sinless. And that is the clear testimony from all four of the gospels as you look at the record of the crucifixion and the events leading up to it. The facts of the gospel are that Jesus was condemned and crucified, but he was nevertheless without sin. And if you look at the charges specifically that are leveled against him, he is crucified because of who he is and what he claimed to be. There is no one that finds any fault in him apart from his claim to be equal with God and his claim to be the Christ. That's what he's condemned for. And that's the testimony of all four gospels. When we went through previously the testimony of the trial of Jesus, first before the high priest and then before the Sanhedrin, You notice at the end of Matthew chapter 26, we're told, starting in verse 61, they're leveling charges saying that he said he could destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days, etc. But in verse 62, the high priest then stands up and says to Jesus directly, Do you not answer what it is that these men are testifying against you? And Jesus kept silent. So they're leveling all these charges and he doesn't respond to any of them. Then the high priest in verse 63 says to Jesus, I adjure you by the living God that you tell us whether you are the Christ, the son of God. And Jesus says to him, you have said it yourself. They condemned him because he claimed that he was equal with God, he claimed to be the son of God. They condemned him on the basis of blasphemy. That's the charge they leveled against him. In fact, when you get to. It's in the parallel text when you get to. Oh, no, it's sixty five. When they when he appears before the Sanhedrin, then the high priest then tears his robe and says he is blasphemed. What further need do we have of witnesses? Behold, you have heard the blasphemy yourselves. What do you think? And they all answered, he deserves death. The Jews condemned him for blasphemy. Now, listen. If Jesus claims to be God and he does and he isn't really God, then it's right to condemn him for blasphemy. Correct? If he isn't really God and he claims to be God, and they condemn him for that, then that's the right charge. That's what the Jews in the High Priest and the Sanhedrin, that's what they find him guilty of. Claiming to be equal with God. Claiming to be the Son of God. And they reject him on that basis. What you're going to see as we enter into the trial now before Pilate, the charges have changed. And we'll get into that as part of the injustice of the whole process. But you'll also see that ultimately the Gentiles then condemn Jesus. They find him guilty of claiming to be the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the living God, the King of the Jews. And they condemn him and crucify him on that basis. Now, hear me. If you look at what the Bible says then, what it says is Jesus was crucified because of who he is. He was crucified because he claimed to be equal with God and because he was the Messiah. That's why he was crucified. He was not crucified because he did anything wrong. When you go through the gospel narratives, all four of them, you will find that Jesus is not just someone who who wound up convicted of a crime that he didn't commit. I mean, he didn't commit any crimes at all. He was sinless. But this isn't just an account of someone that was falsely accused and condemned and executed, even though he was innocent of that crime. This is a this is there are there are plenty of stories. Jesus is not the first person. to be found guilty of something or to be condemned for a crime that he didn't commit and then to be executed for it. And he won't be the last, hasn't been the last. But that's not the point of the gospel narratives. What they make very clear is when the religious leaders convict Jesus of a crime worthy of death, What they reject him for and what they condemn him for is the sin of blasphemy, claiming to be equal with God. Well, it's only blasphemy if you're not God. And as we go through the narrative this morning, you're going to see what the Romans condemn him for is for being the king of the Jews. And he is. When Jesus was crucified, he was crucified because of who he is. And he is without sin. That's how his death can pay for our sins, because he truly was the sinless son of God, the Messiah. Now, as we take a look at the text, I want you to see very clearly from the text that Jesus was, in fact, condemned unjustly and that he was ultimately only found guilty of being who he truly is, the Christ, the son of the living God. And I'm going to share with you this morning five injustices of Jesus's conviction before Pilate that I hope will demonstrate that very fact to you. Five injustices that we can see here in Matthew 27, verses 11 and 31, that help you to see Jesus's conviction before Pilate was not only unjust, but ultimately the only thing he proves to be guilty of is being the Christ, the Son of the living God. And that's how his death, can pay for our sins. Now, as we begin in verse 11, I want you to see that, first of all, the first injustice of this conviction before Pilate is that the charge has changed. The charge that is leveled against Jesus now before Pilate is different than the charge that the Sanhedrin and the high priest have found Jesus guilty of to begin with. Back in chapter 26, and I know I just showed this to you, but I remind you, the high priest says, I adjure you by the living God. Tell us whether you're the Christ, the Son of God. And he says, you've said it. Verse 65, the high priest then tears his robe and says he's blaspheme. What further witnesses do we need? What are they finding him guilty of? Blasphemy. Why does he deserve to be executed? Because he's committed the sin of blasphemy. Now, when you take a look at verse 11 of chapter 27, notice that Matthew tells us that Jesus now stands before the governor and the governor questions him, saying, Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus said, It is as you say. Now, The governor here is Pontius Pilate. Now, most of us are very familiar with him, and we went through a lot of details on him when we went through Luke's gospel together. And I'm not going to go back through all of that, but he was a procurator or a prefect or a praetor, depending on which historian you're reading as far as the terminology related to his governorship goes. But he was a military appointed governor by Rome over Judea. So the southern province of Judea is his responsibility. He spent most of his time in Caesarea. And we were just there this past summer. It's a beautiful place. It's right there along the. the Mediterranean Sea, the view is awesome, the weather is spectacular, and so Pilate would have spent most of his time as governor there along that Mediterranean Sea, enjoying all the sights and all the modern amenities that would have been associated with living in those days. But he would come into Jerusalem And he would either stay at the fortress of Antonia or more likely, now that I've been there, more likely he went and stayed in Herod the Great's palace and huge estate there along the outer wall of Jerusalem. And he stayed in one of those wings. And so the only reason he has come into Jerusalem at this time is for the festival. during the feast of Passover you would have an influx of people that would multiply the number of people that we in Jerusalem upwards of five times as many people would be there during the festival of Passover all the way up to Pentecost as is normally there. And when you're governing a bunch of people that are religiously zealous and you're governing a Roman province that the whole reason they have a military governor is because of the likelihood of riots and revolts, then guess what? When a lot of people come in for a celebration, you're more likely to what? Come in and be on hand so that you can oversee what's happening. All right. Well, that's why Pilate is in town. And when they bring him before Pilate, Pilate begins to ask him the question, are you the king of the Jews now? Matthew is kind of giving us just the short story of this. If you keep your finger here in Matthew 27 and jump over to Luke 23, let me give you a little bit more of the discussion that happened. We're also going to go to John chapter 18. In fact, let's start in John 18. So keep your finger in Matthew 27 and Luke 23. And let's just look at John 18. Let me bring out a couple of high points here. When they led Jesus from Caiaphas, that's the high priest, into the praetorium, praetorium is a it's a basically a Latin term that that refers to the official residence for the praetor or procurator or Roman governor or the or the head military leader. It in military campaigns, it just referred to the tent, the praetor's tent, praetorium. When you're talking about in a city, you're talking about either the estate, or you're talking about the magisterial or government building, or you're talking about the fortress and the room in the fortress where the governor sees people. That's the praetorium. So they lead Jesus from Caiaphas, most likely meeting there on the temple grounds, into the praetorium where the governor was. And it was early, early in the morning, somewhere around eight o'clock in the morning. They themselves did not enter into the praetorium so that they would not be defiled, but they might eat the Passover. Again, this gets into that interpretive issue we talked about a few weeks ago, where Jesus celebrates the Passover on Thursday. How can he both celebrate the Passover and eat the Passover lamb with his disciples and use that context to establish the communion and at the same time on the next day They're still getting ready to sacrifice the Passover lamb. And the answer is because those who were from Galilee use the calendar that was different from those that were in Judea. So there's actually back to back days, the celebration of the Passover. We went over all of this in the past. I'm not going to belabor the point, but Jesus has celebrated the Passover Thursday night, along with all of those who come into town from out of town and were Galilean. The next day, Friday, is the Passover that the Judeans celebrate. So all those who are residents in Jerusalem in the immediate surrounding context, they mark their calendar so that Friday is the Passover celebration. This is the 14th of Nisan. So they're getting ready to celebrate the Passover. And the priests haven't had the Passover meal yet because they're residents of Jerusalem. So that's why they won't go into the praetorium. They would become unclean and not be able then to eat the Passover. So Pilate has to go out to them. And when they go out to them, John 18 verse 29, he said, What accusation do you bring against this man? Notice they answer in verse 30 and say to him that this man were not an evil doer. We would not have delivered him to you. We wouldn't have bothered you with this unless he really was evil. So Pilate said, take him and judge him yourselves according to your law. And then the Jews said, we're not permitted to put anyone to death. And this was to fulfill the word spoken by Jesus in which he spoke, signifying by what kind of death he was about to die. Pilate then entered again into the praetorium, summoned Jesus and said to him, are you the king of the Jews? So this has become the charge they've leveled against him that he claims to be the king of the Jews. Now, let's go to Luke 23 and flesh out the rest of the details. Luke 22. Verse 71, the end of chapter 22, says this is the meeting in the Sanhedrin, the final formal ceremony between the priests and the religious leaders. What further testimony do we need? We've heard it ourselves from his own mouth. He claims to be equal with God. They find him guilty of blasphemy. Then the whole body of him, chapter 23 of Luke, says, they got up, they brought him before Pilate, and they began to accuse him, saying, We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar and saying that he himself is the Christ, a king. Notice they're not bringing up the charge of blasphemy. What are they saying? They're coming up with all these new charges, these new accusations. Why wouldn't they just say, hey, he's guilty of blasphemy and we want you to execute him? Answer. The Romans don't care about blasphemy, not according to blasphemy against the Jewish God. They don't recognize the Jewish God. In fact, who do they worship? They got a whole pile of gods that they borrowed from the Greeks, and they even begin to worship the emperor, the Roman emperor. So you blaspheme the Jewish God. What do I care if I'm if I'm a Roman, right? So you can't just bring him in here and say he's blasphemed your God. That's not a capital offense against Rome. So when they bring in before Pilate, they've got to come up with charges that Pilate will view as justifying a capital offense and therefore worthy of capital punishment. So they're coming up with all these charges that match a charge of sedition or insurrection or trying to come up with a rebellion. We found this man misleading our nation. forbidding to pay taxes, saying that he is a king. So Pilate asked him, saying, Are you the king of the Jews? And he answered and says, It is as you say. Now, you'll notice in verse 4, it goes on to Pilate saying to the chief priests in the crowds, I find no guilt in this man. Well, how can you find no guilt when all he did was say yes? Go back to John and look at chapter 18 with me. Starting at verse 33, Pilate enters again into the praetorium. He summons Jesus. He says, Are you the king of the Jews? Notice a fuller record of the conversation is given here. Jesus says, Are you saying this on your own initiative or did others say this to you about me? Pilate answered, I'm not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and a chief priest delivered you to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm. Therefore, Pilate said to him, So you are a king. And Jesus answered, It is as you say, or you say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I come into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice." Pilate says to him, what is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said, I find no guilt in him. Pilate becomes convinced this is a religious issue. He's not claiming to be a king that in any way, shape or form is challenging the Roman government or the Roman authorities. There's no capital offense. There's no crime here. In fact, if you look in Matthew 27, we're going to cheat and skip ahead a little bit here. Notice in verse 18, we're even told that Pilate knew that it was because of envy that they had handed him over. Pilate knows that the whole reason that they're trying to get Jesus condemned and executed is because they're envious. They're jealous of him. Well, how would they be jealous of him? And how would Pilate know about this? For the last three years, what has Jesus been doing in Judea and Galilee and in the whole land? What has he been doing? Miracles and preaching and teaching. Everybody hears about it. Everybody sees it. Everybody knows about it. In fact, when Jesus is taken before Herod, when Pilate says, Oh, wait, wait, wait, he did all this stuff in Galilee. Well, let's send him to Herod and let Herod hear about it. And Herod's all excited because he's always wanted to see Jesus do a miracle. Everybody heard about Jesus. Just at the beginning of this week, remember the whole reason that Pilate is in town is because of the Passover and the increase in the number of people present. What happened at the very beginning of this week when Jesus came into town along with all the rest of the pilgrims from Galilee? A lot of times we refer to it as the triumphal entry, right? All the people were throwing down palm branches, Hosanna, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, right? Yeah, they're welcoming Jesus and everybody's thrilled. And the chief priests were the ones that were out there saying, do you hear what everybody's saying? Tell them to stop. And Jesus says, hey, listen, if they were quiet, the rocks would cry out. When Jesus, through the week, we went through all the accounts in Matthew's gospel. When Jesus, through the week, went into the temple to teach, everybody goes to listen to him. He's doing miracles. And what are the religious leaders doing? They're trying to challenge him and find fault with him. Yeah, it's very clear that Jesus is very popular. It's very clear that Jesus is doing stuff that's impressing people. It's very clear that Jesus has a massive following. And to Pilate, now having talked to Jesus, it's very clear to him that the religious leaders just don't like him and are envious of him and are trying to trump up charges to get Pilate to just execute him. And that's why Pilate very clearly says, I find no fault in him. The first injustice of this whole thing, though, is you can see that the Jews and when I use the term Jews, I don't mean people who are Jewish, period. It's a term that the Bible in this context is using refer most particularly to the Jewish religious leaders. So when the religious leaders bring Jesus, they find him guilty of claiming to be equal with God. But when they bring him before Pilate, what have they charged him with? Claiming to be king. claiming to be Messiah, the Christ. So that's the first injustice. Jesus stands before the governor and the governor questions him saying, Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus says, It is as you say. The second injustice is that as Pilate begins to examine the case against Jesus, he finds that number two, the evidence is absent. This is injustice number two. The evidence is absence. Not only has the charge changed in order to facilitate getting him condemned and executed like they want, but the evidence isn't there. The evidence is lacking. Jesus stands before the governor. The governor questions him, saying, Are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus says to him, It is as you say. And while he's being accused by the chief priests and the elders, he did not answer. And then Pilate said to him, Do you not hear how many things they testify against you? And he didn't answer him with regard to even a single, literally a single word, a single charge, a single accusation so that the governor was quite amazed. You know, the normal process of one of these hearings was the, um, uh, the accusers would come in and get on the governor's docket to level this charge. And then they would bring the accused in and the accusers would come in. It's like the defendant and the prosecutor. The accusers would come in and lay out before the governor or before the official magistrate all of the charges. And they would defend those charges. They would lay out the case against the accused. After the case is all laid out, then the governor would interview the accused. typically right there in front of the accusers. And the governor would also interact back and forth with them sometimes. Is that right? I mean, this is like, what is that? Judge Judy or whatever, where you're going back. I mean, that's not unlike the kind of a setting. And and the judge would lead the discussion. The judge would be asking for evidence. The judge would be interacting. And the judge could even take the the accused aside. And when this process is all complete, and all the interviews have been conducted, and all the evidence has been seen, then the judge would excuse himself, together with his advisors if he had any, and make a decision based upon all that he had just heard, and then come back and give his verdict and instructions related to what the consequences were. Either release him, or punish him, or crucify him, whatever. That's basically the process. So you're going through this process, and the religious leaders come in, and we just looked at Luke 23. What kind of charges were they leveling against him? Nothing to do with what they found him guilty of, but the things that he was teaching. And we went through what Jesus actually said. Did Jesus tell people not to pay their taxes? No. What did he say? Should we pay taxes to Caesar? What did Jesus say? Well, show me a coin. Whose pictures on it? Caesar's. Well, then render to Caesar what is Caesar's and render to God what is God. Now, let me ask you a question. If you were being interviewed about what you taught and someone was misrepresenting you and what you taught, what would you do? That's not what I said. What I literally said was, show me a coin. And when they showed me the coin, I asked, whose pictures on there? And when they said Caesar, I said, then pay to render to Caesar what he said. That's what I taught. You know, Jesus doesn't respond at all. Jesus's life is at stake here. Jesus has the most powerful people other than the Roman authorities, the most powerful people in Jerusalem are laying out massively offensive and threatening false charges against him. And he doesn't respond to any of it. That's why it says pilot when when Jesus didn't answer him with regard to even a single charge and pilot even goes and says, don't you have anything to say in response to all this? And Jesus doesn't answer. The governor was quite amazed. That word amazed is a word that is normally used to describe the way people responded to or reacted to miracles. Pilots had hearings, criminal hearings like this many times. It's part of his job. This is the first time he's ever had an innocent man not defend his innocence. This is the first time he's ever had a guy accused of this kind of stuff that means he's going to wind up crucified or worse, beaten and crucified. This is the first time he's ever been in a situation where the guy under attack like this is meek. He's like a lamb led to the slaughter. He's blown away. He's absolutely blown away. Not even a single charge does he respond to. This is a fulfillment of Isaiah 53 7. He did not open his mouth. He didn't argue. He didn't fight. He kept, as Hebrews said, entrusting himself to him who judges justly. And when Pilate hears all this evidence, he says, I find no fault in him. And he and pilot it that as we looked at earlier pilot It even says that pilot knew the whole reason that they handed him over was because of envy You're going to see that by the time he gets down to Verse 22 when he says then what do I do with Jesus and they say crucify him in verse 23? He's going to say why what evil has he done? What's he done that merits? any kind of punishment. There just isn't any evidence. Now, as we transition to our next point, I want you to take your Bibles and go back to Luke 23, and I want to show you something. Luke 23, verse 13. Pilate summons the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and he says to them, You brought this man to me as one who incites the people to rebellion. So that's the charge you're leveling against him. It's insurrection. It's looking to incite a rebellion. But behold, having examined him before you, I have found no guilt in this man regarding the charges which you make against him. No, nor has Herod, because he sent him back to us. And behold, nothing deserving death has been done by him. There's no evidence. There's no proof whatsoever that he's guilty of any of the things you're charging him with. Now, I want you to notice something else. Look at verse 16. Therefore, I will release him. Is that what it says? No. Therefore, I will punish him. And release him. What did he just say in the verse before? I don't find any fault in him. Well, then why are you punishing him? See, that's the third injustice that we get to hear. The first is that when they bring him before Pilate, the charges changed. The second is the evidence is absent. There's no proof that he has done anything wrong or any of the things they're accusing him of. But number three, then the process is compromised and they punish him even though he's innocent. This is where the scourging happened, by the way. When you look at Matthew, Matthew isn't looking for a chronological kind of an account here. Matthew is is laying out the case for Jesus as the Messiah to the Jews. So he's not so much worried about chronology as like Luke is. But this is where the actual scourging takes place. This is where they take him in and they strap him to a post. The whole scourging process, I can't really illustrate for you, but you would be chained and strapped and tied either with leather straps or maybe even in manacles and you would be across and your back would be stretched out so that the flesh would be taut, nice and tight. And then they would take basically a stick, like a baseball bat, just the handle, something along those lines. And then they would have leather straps. And at the end of those leather straps would typically be either something similar to small nails or spikes or even bits of broken pottery. And then they would take those usually somewhere between three and five straps and that that hand that wouldn't handle. And then you just take them and you lay it right across the guy's back. Now, this is why the Jews had set the limit for thirty nine stripes, because people could die just from the scourging. And if you actually were discouraged by Romans, even the first few strikes wound up ripping flesh off your back. And it was not uncommon for actual vital organs to be visible because the skin had been so ripped open. Now listen, this isn't a spanking. Okay? This isn't hard labor. This is a beating that You're about one, depending on who you read, you're like one in three or one in four people tend to die as a result of having been scourged. This is this is. Serious punishment. This this kind of treatment is due to those who commit the kind of offense that is not a capital offense, but it's bad enough. I want to make sure that I get the point across to everybody else in this society that if you do anything like this, this is what's happening to you, too. So you might want to double think before you do this. OK, this isn't even like caning that people complain about that happens in the East and the Far East. You know, people in the South Pacific Islands or whatever, the cane, an old poor American citizen that broke the law wound up caned. Well, caning is a beating with rods. This is a scourging. What did Pilate just say? He's innocent. So I'll just scourge him? Tell me something, is that just? No. And Jesus submits to that as well. When you read the end of Isaiah 52, setting up the whole Isaiah 53 prophetic testimony, when it says He was marred more than any man, when it talks about Him being beaten beyond recognition, this is what we're talking about. He really was flayed. even though it was affirmed that he was innocent, even in the middle of the process. The process was compromised. The process of justice itself is compromised. In fact, Pilate declares him innocent and then says he's going to just punish him. Why is he even going to punish him if he's innocent? Because he's got the religious leaders breathing down his neck. And if you know anything about Pilate's history, he's made enough mistakes as a military governor when he first came in and took over. that it started to cause revolts amongst the people. And so the religious leaders wrote back to Rome, and Rome finds out that the things that Pilate is doing is inciting the people to be more rebellious, not less rebellious, which is the whole reason I sent a military governor there to begin with. And now you're stirring up the people. I sent you there to bring peace. So I get my tax dollars and so we don't have to go put down a revolt. And the way you're exercising military authority is is making things worse. In fact, when you get to near the end of the trial in in Chapter 19 of John's gospel, We're told that Pilate toward the end makes efforts to release Jesus. But the Jews cry out. This is the religious leaders. If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar. Listen, you let Jesus go. And we're telling Caesar that you let somebody go that that claimed to be a king. We're going to get you in trouble with Rome. There's a there's a there's political manipulations going on behind the scenes here that result in pilot compromising the process of justice. Now, when you go back to Matthew 27 and verse 15, we're at the feast. and we're told here by matthew the governor was accustomed to release for the people anyone prisoner whom they had had wanted whom the the people would and a lot of people and i i think the more i study this the more convinced i am in this this was likely a custom that pilot himself started because he started off on such a wrong foot to begin his his time of uh... uh... governorship there in any case the bible tells us clearly it was a custom that at the feast of passover the governor would release any one prisoner that the people asked for. It was just a show of mercy, and a show of good faith, and a show of seeking to gain a measure of approval of the people, of the governor. At that time they were holding a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. The term notorious literally means that this is a This is a big boy offender. When you think of notorious people, notorious is a word that refers to renown, to fame, to significance. Notorious is from a negative perspective, where famous would be from a positive perspective. Some of the pirates, like Blackbeard and whatnot, would be notorious pirates. Well, this is a notorious prisoner. In fact, Luke is the one who tells us, I believe it's in verse 19, yes, that Barabbas was one who had been thrown into prison because of an insurrection made in the city and for murder. And most likely, he killed a Roman soldier or some Roman soldiers. So from Pilate's perspective, who is Barabbas? Barabbas is an insurrectionist. Barabbas is a murderer. Barabbas is a threat to society and to peace and order in the city. And he sought to lead a revolt right here in Jerusalem and he's scheduled to die. This is a no-brainer. I'll put him forth and I'll put Jesus forth Forward and I'll let the people choose and who do you think the people would choose? I mean think about it if you're if you're from the government perspective Are you going to choose a terrorist? Are you going to choose a dreamer that everybody thinks is cool? It's pretty easy, right? that's what pilots thinking rather than being the faithful judge of the case and rendering a verdict of innocent because he's already admitted he knows Jesus is innocent and He's going to try to play a little game that he thinks he can't lose. He's going to put forward what he thinks is a really bad criminal. And he's going to put forward Jesus and let the people choose. And that way, when the people choose Jesus and he releases them, well, guess what? The religious leaders can't get mad at him because he'll be able to say, hey, it's the people that asked for it. I just did what the people wanted. So that's the way it goes. Verse 17, 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. And while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent him a message saying, Have nothing to do with that righteous man, because last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of him. This is probably, I think, the most interesting verse in the whole passage. This is Pilate's wife. There's no reference to her anywhere else in the narrative accounts. There's no statement about her being a Christian. There's no statement about her having any special relationship with Jesus. So what is this dream? What is this special revelation that she received? Last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of him, so don't have anything to do with it. And the really interesting thing is, it says that Pilate gets this message while he's sitting there on the judgment seat. While he's in the process of making this decision, a message from his wife shows up. And what's it say? Dear, don't have anything to do with Jesus. Because I've just I've had nightmares all night because of him. Now, somebody says, well, why would she have nightmares all night? Is it special revelation? Well, you remember when we went through the text about the arrest? Who was there with Jesus? Excuse me. Who was there to arrest Jesus in the garden? The temple guards and also part of the Roman detachment, right? Part of the Roman cohort. Do you think the governor doesn't know when his soldiers are sent out to arrest somebody? You think the governor isn't informed that they arrested him and everything went fine and then Jesus was delivered over to the high priest? So in the middle of the night, which is when the arrest happened, right? After the arrest is done, Pilate gets a report that Jesus has been arrested and turned over to the high priest. And they're going to want to see you first thing in the morning. So Pilate is ready first thing in the morning to hear the case that's brought before him. Tell me something. Any of you ever get a call from work in the middle of the night? Does the call just wake you up or does it also wake your wife up? Right. And so when I I'm convinced when pilot is interrupted here, that's when she gets awakened and finds out about it. Now, whether or not this is also got a measure of divine revelation into it or not, frankly, I don't know. And I don't feel comfortable saying definitively that it was, because if you look at all the other places, we'll just take one as an example. Starting from the very beginning of Matthew's Gospel. And the rest of the places in Scripture where it is divine revelation, it's identified as such. When there's a dream that's divine revelation, it's clear that it's divine revelation. For example, Matthew 1. The birth of Jesus was as follows. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man, not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. What's it telling you right there? This dream was a visit from an angel of the Lord. This is revelation from God. And it told him, Joseph, son of David, don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife. The child has been conceived in her as of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son. You call His name Jesus because He will save His people from their sins. And verse 22, all of this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet. And there's a citation from Isaiah. Verse 24, Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. There's a very clear indication here that this dream was revelatory, right? There is no indication of that in Matthew 27. So I would say this. Textually, the most important thing to see is what the testimony is, and that is have nothing to do with that what righteous man. This is a guy who's done nothing wrong because I I suffered greatly in a dream because of him last night. Now, if you want to take that to be divine revelation that was given to her about that, that's fine. If you want with me to conclude that, you know what, the clear testimony that everybody had about Jesus was that he was righteous, that he was a good teacher, that he was true. In either case, the point is still the same. You have yet another testimony to the fact that Jesus is innocent, that he is righteous. And yet the process of Justice is compromised here. Look at verse 20. But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to put Jesus to death. Somebody says, how can these same crowds, I mean, how can the crowds that at the beginning of the week say, Hosanna, Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. How can those people in just a few days be the same people that turn and say, crucify Him, crucify Him, we want Barabbas? A couple of things. One, there is a change in the crowd from the triumphal entry to this occasion. This event takes place just outside the residence of Pilate. Now, whether you see that as the Fortress Antonia or whether you see that as Herod's Palace, in either case, the crowd that gathers, gathers in Jerusalem right outside Pilate's official residence in the city. When you go back to the triumphal entry, the crowds are coming along with Jesus. They're primarily Galileans and people from out of town coming to the festival, coming to the Passover. These are the same people that are eyewitnesses of the majority of his miracles. Of course, they're saying, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. The people that came in to the triumphal entry, the Galileans, are the ones that have already celebrated the Passover the day before. You think they're getting up first thing in the morning and coming into town the next day when it's the time for the Judean celebration of the Passover? Tell me something. How many of you go to Walmart on Christmas Eve? I notice your wife's hand is down now. So, she sent you. Yeah, see? Yeah, I rest my case. You know when you know it's going to be that the crowds are there? Right? Do you go if you don't have to? Typically not, right? You want to know why the crowd is primarily made up of people who aren't the same people that said, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord? Because it's a different audience. These are the residents of Jerusalem. These are not the Galileans that came in. Not only that, when you consider the fact that the Gospels tell us that the religious leaders convinced the people to ask for Barabbas and convinced the people to have Jesus crucified, how do you think they did that? Well, these are your religious leaders. These are your teachers. These are the highest ranking muckety mucks in the city. These are the guys you look up to. And what are they telling all the people? Oh, he blasphemed. He appeared before the high priest and the whole Sanhedrin found him guilty of blasphemy. And all these people are going, this is a blasphemer. Yeah. And so it's not hard to picture them all getting on board and agreeing and joining in and calling for Barabbas to be released and Jesus to be crucified. Not to mention the contrast in appearances when. If you line up the Gospels, the best harmonization of all the narrative seems to me to say he is scourged. And then he is mocked again after he's found guilty, which is what we'll see at the end of Matthew 27 here. He is scourged and then brought forward with this crown of thorns on his head and all the beatings and the bruisings. He's not only been beaten by the religious leaders, slapped by the high priest, beaten by the Sanhedrin and scourged by the Romans. And now he's dressed up and put in front of the people. Behold the man. And then here's Barabbas in chains, the insurrectionist. You think about this. If if you're a native Galilee or excuse me, a native Judean, if you're a resident of Jerusalem and you're tired of the Romans over you. And and Barabbas tried to lead an insurrection and got caught and wound up killing a Roman soldier or two and got condemned for it. How do you view him? Do you view him as a terrorist the way the Romans do? Or do you view him more like Robin Hood? or Rambo or whoever, right? Yeah. That's our guy. So we can either have old beat-up Jesus or we can have Barabbas. And besides, our religious leaders are telling us that Jesus is a blasphemer. The chief priests and the elders had persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to put Jesus to death. Verse 21, But the governor said to them, Which of the two do you want me to release to you? And they said, Barabbas. This has been a shock to Pilate. Pilate thought he had it all worked out. Now, before we go further, what should Pilate have done? He should have released him. He's not guilty. He's even said multiple times, he's not guilty. And then he punishes him anyways, even though he's not guilty. And now He gives the crowd an opportunity. This whole thing is a compromise of justice. Verse 22, then He says, Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? And they said, Crucify Him. Notice Pilate says again then, Why? What evil has He done? But they kept shouting all the more, saying, Crucify Him. This kept shouting all the more is a This is a volume description. This is fourth quarter. Close game. And everybody's going, what? Defense! Defense! Ever been there at a game when that happens? Ever been to someplace like Oracle or wherever, and you know, there's a large crowd there, and they're really passionate, they're really zealous? And the more intense and the closer it gets, the more the time ticks off, the more time the ball goes back and forth, the more loud the crowd gets, the more you're just standing on your feet. OK, that's the intensity that's being described here. Why? What evil has he done? But they kept shouting all the more saying crucify him. And that leads us to seeing the fourth injustice, and that is that the verdict itself is unjust. The verdict is unjust. When Pilate saw, verse 24, that he was accomplishing nothing. He's not going to get this crowd to make his decision for him the way he wants it to. But rather, a riot is starting. The longer this goes on, listen, the more animated, the more vocal, anxious these people get, the more violent they're getting. He took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, I am innocent of this man's blood. See to that yourselves. And all the people said his blood shall be on us and on our children. A couple of things to point out here before we go on. First is. The fact that when he takes a cause for water, a basin of water to wash his hands now, we Because Pilate did this, we all think that this has forever been, because we even use it as a colloquial expression, you know, I wash my hands of this matter, right? I'm saying I have nothing to do with this. I'm not responsible for this. Okay. Pilate, in essence, invents this, and it comes from him borrowing what the Jews did to him all the time. He's doing it to them. Remember, the Jews would not even walk into a Gentile's house. We already saw in John's gospel that the religious leaders would not walk into even the praetorium, even to Pilate's official residence and the place where he normally heard cases. He had to go out to them. Okay, the reason is, if they walked in there, they would be unclean, and they would have to go through a whole process of ceremonial cleansing, including the washings and everything else. So when Pilate is being compelled to execute a man he knows is innocent, he calls for a basin of water and washes his hands in front of them, just like they always wash their hands after getting anywhere near him. Now, secondly, let me just ask you a question. Does this actually absolve Pilate of responsibility for this? Oh, yeah, yeah. He's free and clear in God's sight, right? Because even the people said, yeah, his blood's on us. No, it doesn't free him of anything. He's fully accountable for his decision. Everyone is. But you will notice also what the crowd does say. He says, I'm innocent of this man's blood, which is just a footnote. Isn't that yet another testimony that Pilate is affirming Jesus is what? Innocent. Listen, the Gospels are full, full of testimonies to Jesus's innocence. Yet he's condemned anyway. All the people said his blood shall be on us and our children. There are many through the centuries that have used this verse as a justification for horrific anti-Semitic behavior. This verse has been used to justify crusades and evil done against Jewish people, period. This is not an anti-Semitic statement. In fact, if you were to study through Luke's Gospel, particularly as Jesus is on his way to crucifixion, he makes it very clear that this statement is directly applied to that generation. This statement, God does hold that generation accountable for their rejection of their Messiah. When they say his blood be on us and on our children, as Jesus is being led away to crucifixion, Luke tells us that he says to the women that are weeping for him, don't weep for me, weep for yourselves and for your children. And in 70 A.D., the Romans come in and destroy the city. and crucify 100,000 people. This statement does not justify anti-Semitic behavior. This statement simply demonstrates that that generation accepted responsibility for what they did, not knowing fully the weight of what they were doing. That's why Jesus, as He hangs on the cross, He says, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. Verse 26. And Pilate released Barabbas for them. But after having had Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be crucified. And that's when you get into the beating with the rod, etc. we'll talk about finally. Interesting footnote here. Barabbas. You've heard the name Barnabas, right? Bar is the Aramaic word for son. Barnabas is son of encouragement. Barabbas You know, Abba, Father, Barabbas is son of the Father. Now, I don't want to make a lot out of this, but I just find it really fascinating that they chose the son of the Father over the true son of the Father. Sometimes these kinds of things are just such chance events that you just have to point them out. We talk about the injustices of Jesus's conviction before Pilate that leads to his crucifixion. You see the charges changed. The evidence is absent. The process is compromised. The verdict is unjust. He condemns him to be crucified, even though he's innocent. And finally, the treatment is criminal. Look at verses 27 to 31 very quickly. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the praetorium. They gather the whole Roman cohort around him. They strip him and they put a scarlet robe on him. And after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and a reed, which is basically a staff. It's a short staff. It's about the thickness of a broom handle. They put that in his right hand and they kneel down before him and they mock him saying, Hail, King of the Jews. They spit on him and then they take the reed. They take the staff out of his hand. They begin to beat him on the head with it. He's been scourged. He's been beaten up even from the beginning of the night when he was arrested in front of the high priest. He's been punched. He's been whipped. Now again, he's being mocked. In verse 31, after they had mocked him, they took the robe off of him and they put on his own garments back on him and they led him away to crucify him. You know something? This kind of mockery is not justice, is it? All of the treatment that Jesus receives, even before Pilate, is just a testimony to the injustice of the entire event. Now, here's the key to understanding this whole passage. It's not to focus in on all these details and just think about the injustices of what they did to Jesus. Do you know what the real point is here? Matthew is making it very clear that Jesus has been rejected and is condemned to death for two reasons. One, because He was the Son of God. Two, because He was the Christ. Those are the charges ultimately that he is found guilty of and that he is condemned for. Why did he die? Why did he submit to all of this? So that as our sinless Savior, he could die in our place. God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. When you look at this account, What you should be reminded of is Jesus saying, no one takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own free will and accord. When you see this, instead of being filled with anger and rage at the injustice of the whole thing, instead of being filled with just that righteous indignation toward the Romans or toward the Jews, you know what you should instead do? Remember that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and the whole reason God came and Went to the cross was so that he could die for you and pay for your sins So that you could be reconciled to him through that once-for-all sacrifice Amen Father thank you for sending your son to die for us Jesus, thank you for entrusting yourself to him who judges justly and thank you for your perfect love for us that not only brought you to earth to begin with, but moved you to go all the way to the cross and remain upon the cross despite the fact that you had the full authority of heaven and at any moment could have simply spoken the universe out of existence and held everyone fully accountable for their sins. I'm reminded of your words to Peter on the night before this trial, when you were arrested, when Peter stepped forward to defend you with his short little sword, and you said, don't you think that I could simply call upon my Father to send legions of angels to deliver me? Lord, I'm reminded that even when you were arrested, You began by stepping forward and saying, I am, and all those who came to arrest you, many of them, the same soldiers who wind up crucifying you. And they fell down before you. There will be a day, Lord Jesus, when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the father. There will be a day when Annas and Caiaphas and Pilate and all stand before you and are accountable eternally for their sins. But I thank you, Lord. I thank you that you died for me and paid the penalty for my sins so that instead of being held accountable personally for all my sins, and they are countless in my mind, thank you that you have paid the full penalty for all my sins so that I can forever be reconciled to you. Thank you for enduring such treatment at the hands of ungodly men. so that you could reconcile a sinner such as myself to you and many of us. And for those here who are not yours, Lord, I pray you would draw them to yourself and open their eyes to the truth of who you are and what you came and did for us, so that you might be all the more glorified, not through our condemnation, but through our salvation. In Jesus' name and for his glory, I pray, amen.