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?
--
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.
--
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
No comments:
Post a Comment