Tuesday, September 16, 2014

How Guilty is Pontius Pilate?


Throughout history many fingers have been pointed at Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who had jurisdiction over Jerusalem when Jesus was brought before him.  Pilate condemned Jesus to death via crucifixion, satisfying the demands of the Jewish Sanhedrin and consummating the Ultimate Betrayal by Judas Iscariot.

With regard to Pilate, Mormon apostle Jeffrey R. Holland reflected the tone of how many feel about the man:

“With that He was brought before the gentile rulers in the land.  Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee, interrogated Him once, and Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor in Judea, did so twice, the second time declaring to the crowd, ‘I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man.’  Then, in an act as unconscionable as it was illogical, Pilate ‘scourged Jesus, [and] delivered him to be crucified.’  Pilate’s freshly washed hands could not have been more stained or more unclean.”

Can you imagine how Pilate must feel today?  Knowing that during his time on Earth he authorized the execution of God’s only son?

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Around the time of Jesus’ birth, Jews were expecting the long-prophesied Messiah.  They believed he would come with fanfare and great glory to militarily redeem them from their physical bondage to the Roman Empire.  What they were not expecting was the Messiah to be born humbly in a cave, to stay relatively silent until the age of a rabbi, to preach new and unknown doctrines, and to, instead, redeem them and all mankind from their spiritual bondage to the Fall of Adam.

When Jesus reached the rabbi’s age of 30, he began his ministry.  His doctrines were often unheard of, identified the hypocrisy of Jewish leaders, and in many ways contradicted the Law of Moses.  As such Jesus was met with fierce opposition from establishment teachers and incumbent leaders who felt threatened by his popularity and miracles among Jews.  Even members of the Sanhedrin who agreed with him were afraid to voice their support for fear of retaliation by their peers, as seen by Nicodemus approaching the Savior at night.

Ultimately high-ranking elements within Jewish leadership conspired to assassinate Jesus.  Fearing an uprising among the people, they sought to carry out their plans as quickly and quietly as possible.  Their scouts stalked and observed the Savior while he would minister in Jerusalem, waiting for him to be alone so he could be snatched.  This opportunity never arose, but they were given a much-needed break when Jesus’ apostle Judas walked in and offered up his Master’s solitary location in exchange for 30 pieces of silver.

Marching alongside the constables to serve Jesus’ arrest warrant, Judas gave Jesus the world’s most famous kiss.  Jesus, just after bleeding from every pore in the Garden of Gethsemane, was then arrested and immediately made a defendant in a series of illegal proceedings before the Jewish high court.  Mormon apostle James E. Talmage lists more than a dozen illegalities of these proceedings in his book Jesus the Christ.  By morning Jesus was ironically convicted of blasphemy by the Sanhedrin, Jewry’s highest crime in Jewry’s highest court, and judged worthy of death.

Unfortunately for them, the Jewish government was not authorized to perform their own executions without permission from the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.  And so a large parade of Jewish rabbis marched Jesus down to Pilate’s courtyard without delay as Roman guards watched in awe at the approaching crowd.  Pilate was awoken and brought to the courtyard wondering what kind of Jerry Springer drama he would have to deal with that day.  To his surprise, the crowd was filled with high-ranking Jewish officials trying to kill one of their own – and not through the usual Jewish stoning, but through the brutal Roman method of crucifixion.

Superstitious, bold, and politically motivated, the enthroned Pilate, not willing to simply rubber-stamp a bunch of angry rabbis’ request, brought Jesus in for an interview.  As the bound Jesus was brought before the governor in his chambers, Pilate was immediately stimulated by the Messiah’s presence and Pilate sensed a type of superstitious holiness in the prisoner he had not before encountered.  Pilate began to deeply contemplate and attempt to discern whom he was talking to and started asking questions.  When Jesus admitted that he was in fact a king, Pilate presented to the crowd that he found no fault in Jesus and that he was innocent, acting as sort of an advocate for what he saw as a lamb that they wanted slaughtered.

The crowd rejected Pilate’s information and chanted all the louder that they wanted Jesus dead.  Having a conscious, and feeling superstitious about this unusual person, Pilate did not want to condemn an innocent man to death, particularly a peculiar king.  However, being politically motivated and barbed by a shady past, he also did not want to simply acquit Jesus and, in so doing, enrage a large portion of his subjects.  And so he devised a plan to get the best of both worlds:  Jesus set free and the Jewish rabbis binkied (pacified).  He proposed to the crowd which of the two they would rather have released, according to yearly Jewish custom, Barabas (a notorious criminal convicted of the most heinous of crimes) or Jesus (the sinless Savior of mankind).  Without hesitation, however, the hate-filled crowd chanted Barabas.

Defeated, Pontius Pilate took the low road and condemned Jesus to death as requested.  Had he taken the high road, Jesus would have been acquitted and crucified through other means, as prophesied.  Even Jesus said that Pilate was powerless to change the course of the prophesied events.  Pilate would have lost his governorship due to blackmail the Jews had on their governor that they would have reported to his superiors in the Roman government had he acquitted Jesus.  Essentially, Pilate took the slime ball politician route to save face and signed off on the crucifixion of his Lord, a sinless man, an eyebrow raise considering Pilate’s wife warned him to acquit Jesus due to a dream she had.

The people involved in the execution of the Lord Jesus Christ will stand judgment.  Ironically, Jesus will be the judge at these trials.  In the case of Judas Iscariot, the members of the Sanhedrin who were active in Jesus’ prosecution, the false witnesses they found to testify against their Lord, the idle supporters of Jesus in the court who stayed silent rather than defend him – they have the most blame.  In the case of Pontius Pilate, he simply woke up one afternoon to a situation and made a disastrous decision based on politics and cowardice to crucify an innocent man whom he even had inklings was divine.

It is my opinion that Pilate receives the lesser condemnation for his actions but actually receives the brunt of criticism from Christians.  He is not deserving of the brunt.  After all, a chain of events and people led to the crucifixion of the Savior, and Pilate is one of the lesser links.  A lot of people in modern time would crucify the Savior if they were in Pilate’s position.  Only select individuals take the high road in such high-pressured, ethically challenged situations.

Jesus is a hero for his consecration to humankind.  He came as a gift from God and was rejected by his own people.  Let us kneel with Jesus in our own lives as he knelt with us in Gethsemane, let us walk with him as he walked with us on the road to Calvary, and let us worship him as he was crucified for us on Golgotha.

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The Mormon Examiner
Title:  How Guilty is Pontius Pilate?
Author:  Austin Skousen
Section:  Talmage Analytical Library
Originally Published:  September 16th, 2014
Last Updated:  September 16th, 2014
Source:  mormonexaminer.blogspot.com

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