3457. All Are Guilty

A Sermon Published On Thursday, May 6, 1915.

Pilate says to them … “Let him be crucified.” {Mt 27:22,23}

1. This morning we heard the shouts of “Hosanna!” {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 678, “Praise Your God, Oh Zion” 669} It was very delightful for us to behold the multitude marching with the King of Zion through the streets of Jerusalem, welcoming him with glad acclaim. But the shouts of “Hosanna” had hardly died away before they were followed by the cruel note, “Crucify him! crucify him!” or, as the text puts it, “Let him be crucified!” Clearly in this case the Vox populi {the voice of the people} was not the Vox Dei. {the voice of God} The one is fickle and shifting, the other is fixed and steadfast. The voice of the people is changeable as the wind. The Word of the Lord is as firm as a rock, and it endures for ever. The multitude will always be found fitful and vacillating. They will enthrone a man today, and, chase him from the streets tomorrow. Take very little account of human applause. The breath of fame’s trumpet is a poor reward for a life of toil to serve one’s generation. Do not care for it, oh you of noble spirit! Do not heed the world’s frowns, and do not court its smiles. When you are flattered by its approbation, or slandered by its persecution, remember that men’s temper and disposition vary like the climate, and alter like the weather. Hosannas turn into curses. The idol of one hour is the aversion of another.

2. The point, however, to which I shall endeavour to draw your attention tonight (and may the Holy Spirit assist us) is of far more importance than the prattling gossip of the common crowd.

3. I. In this sad and brutal cry, “Let him be crucified,” I observe:—A VERY STRANGE ILLUSTRATION OF THE ASSERTED DIGNITY OF HUMAN NATURE.

4. I have heard until I have been sick of hearing, I have read until I am weary of reading, all kinds of praise passed on it. I do not know what a grand and noble being the creature man is in the estimation of certain lackadaisical divines. They seem to make this their chief purpose—to laud and magnify their own species. The intent of all their preaching is to please men’s ear with their rhetoric, and to delude men’s judgment with their flattery, and as for their logic, it exalts the ideal of man, while it ignores the actual sinner. It sets up the image, and says, “Behold what a splendid intellectual creature man is!” We look around and fail to catch a sight of the individual he portrays. I do not hesitate to say that he who praises man does the opposite to glorifying God, and is as far as the poles apart from testifying to the truth. The truth, as we learn it in the Word of God, is most uncomplimentary to man—it rolls him in the very dust, ranks him with the worms, makes nothing of him; yes, less than nothing. So desperate is his moral condition that it condemns him to his only fit place, the very lowest pit of hell, as the due reward of his deeds. But inasmuch as they praise human nature so much, I would like the admirers of it to look for a little while on this scene, where humanity gathers around the Saviour, Christ the Lord, and cries, “Crucify him! crucify him!”

5. And, first, what do you say to this dignity of human nature, in that it does not know God? This is taking the sin at the lowest point, for had they known him, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. Through ignorance they did it; equal ignorance on the part of the rabble and their rulers. It is the best excuse that can possibly be afforded for their cry, their cruelty, and their crime. But what an excuse! How humiliating! Here were men who did not know the God who made them! Why do you boast of intellect—the keen perception of the human mind in the face of such imbecility? They did not know the God who fed them! “The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib,” but Israel did not know her Lord, her King, her God. He came with a thousand prophecies to herald him, and he fulfilled them all. The simplest Sunday School child reading through the Old Testament can see that the Christ of the New Testament is he of whom the seers and the prophets spoke in vision by the power of the Spirit. But here was human nature left to itself with the book in its hand, and totally unable to decipher the evidences or recognise the Messiah. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him. You call this “bright-eyed human nature,” and it cannot see the sun! You talk about its superior intelligence, and yet what was an axiom to angels, they could not discern. Angels knew him—how could they fail to know him? But these eyes of men are so blinded with the mire of prejudice, and the love of sin, that though the Godhead shone gloriously through the manhood of Jesus, they could not—they would not perceive him to be the Christ; and they put the Son of God, the Heir of Heaven, to an ignominious death. Speak no more about wisdom! do not boast about your sages! Do not extol your philosophy, and your deep learning! Oh! the bat has brighter eyes than you, and moles see more than do those men who, grovelling in the earth, fail to perceive their Lord! Men did not know God himself when he was incarnate in human flesh.

6. The sin, however, was of a deeper dye when men said, “Crucify him! crucify him!” Clearly, human nature hated goodness in its most attractive form. A flattering preacher once closed a glowing statement with some such words as these:—“Oh Virtue, you fair and lovely object, could you descend among men, and appear in your perfection, all men would prostrate themselves before you as a deity, and you would be beloved by all mankind.”

7. What monstrous assumption! What an extravagant perversion of fact! Virtue did descend into this world, and was incarnate. That incarnate Virtue they did not hail as “God,” but as “devil.” Instead of worshipping him, they hounded him even to the death, and nailed him to the tree. In our Lord Jesus Christ there was perfect virtue. You cannot detect an error; no, neither an excrescence {a} or a deficiency; yet virtue consists not merely in abstaining from harm, but it involved the exercise of every faculty in doing good. His character was matchless, and his goodness was set in the most attractive sphere; for, notice that, it was not virtue in majestic demeanour, like that of Lycurgus, {b} enacting laws, and administering the prerogatives of government; or like that of Moses writing on the tables of stone, statutes and ordinances of infinite verity, having the sanctions of God with consequences of faithful indemnity or of fearful penalty. His was virtue in the attitude of lowly service, with the emotions of tender sympathy, proving itself by acts of unfailing benevolence. He did not come to tell men they must do this and that, but he came to show them and to teach them how to do the will of God from the heart. It was virtue irradiated with pity, adorned with patience, bejewelled with richest love: ever and always kindly affectioned. His was benevolence more than rare, for it was unique. Never was there greater love than that of Christ.

8. Sometimes virtue becomes repulsive to men because of its sternness; they cannot bear a perfect law if, like that of Draco, {c} it should be written in blood. But here was Christ, all affable and amiable—a man among men. He was with them at their wedding feasts, and with them at their funeral rites. He was to men a brother, and he showed and proved himself such indeed. Yet, for all that, virtue so beautiful, so embellished, so familiar in the habitations of mankind, was disliked, abhorred, and hunted to the death. Sometimes men oppose goodness, if they see it in high places; they will envy the rank, and, therefore, forget the virtue. But here was the Christ of God in lowliness, wearing the peasant’s garb—eating the food of the people—poor, indeed, so poor that he has not even so much wealth as the fox that has its hole, or the bird that has a nest where to lay its head. Surely virtue which condescended to such a condition ought to have secured the admiration of mankind! And Christ had laid aside all his princely power. He did not come as a king with sovereign rule, to compel men to do his bidding. Sometimes men will revolt against what seems to coerce them. They say they will be drawn, but they will not be driven. But Christ was no driver. Just as a shepherd goes before his sheep, so he gently led the way. And yet, perfect virtue, immaculate—virtue enshrined in everything that was attractive, without anything that ought to have aroused animosity. Incarnate virtue; how did it fare? Hear then, oh you who boast of human dignity, and the glory of human nature!—this Holy One was made the central object for all the arrows of malice and of spite. He in whom these excellencies were exhibited had for his reward of honour the cry, “Let him be crucified.” Oh poor fallen human nature—what do you say to this?

9. I impeach humanity again of the utmost possible folly; because, in crucifying Christ, it crucified its best friend. Jesus Christ was not only the friend of man, so as to take human nature upon himself, but he was the friend of sinners, so that he came into the world to seek and to save those who were lost. The only errand that Christ pursued in life was a selfless one. Everyone could see that. He neither hoarded wealth, nor gained high places in the government; neither did he seek popular esteem. He saved others, but for himself he reserved nothing. He gave up everything for the sons of men. Yet when they could clearly see that the best and most self-denying of all philanthropists was before them, they treat him as a criminal, and nail him to a cross. What a friend he was to those who conspired against him as a foe! How generously he had espoused the cause of those very people who now turned on him, and said, “Let him he crucified!” He had healed their sick; he had raised their dead; he had opened the eyes of their blind; and he had restored the withered limbs of their paralytics. For which of these things did they crucify him? He was always the people’s friend, the champion of the populace. He came to break oppression, to set the captive free, and all who heard him must have known that the was the great prophet of liberty, the lifter up of the fallen, the destroyer of everything that was oppressive, unjust, or even unmerciful. Still, though never man was such a friend as he, this stupid world, this worse than swinish world, needed to put its best friend to death. Oh humanity! blush for yourself, lest angels blush at your impiety, and even demons laugh at your infatuation.

10. Then there was this about human nature, that it destroyed its best instructor. The teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the confession of his enemies, was too sound to be disparaged; and he was too wise to be entangled in the meshes of their controversies. He never taught tyranny. Commend me to a single sentence in any of Christ’s teaching that would make a despot sit more steadfastly on his throne. He never taught anarchy. Find, if you can, a single word that would make men burst the bonds of righteous fidelity, and lead lawless lives. He taught no asceticism that would denude life of wholesome pleasure or healthful enjoyment. Far, far was he, on the other hand, from teaching any libertinism that would tolerate anything that is unclean, unchaste, impure, in word or deed. His teaching was for man—instructing him what was best for him to do, how it was best to do it, and what it was necessary for his own good that he should eschew and avoid. “Never a man spoke like this man!”

11. I was in the Hall of Philosophers a little while ago, where were the busts of Socrates, and Plato, and Solon, and all the great men of former ages. But if they were all put together, of what little account were the maxims that they taught mankind for the promotion of real happiness and true goodness? Why, the sum-total is nothing in comparison with that one sermon of the Christ of Nazareth which he preached on the Mount? That one sermon put into the scale outweighs the wisdom of Greece and Rome. And yet, when the Man had come who unselfishly, lovingly, tenderly, wisely would lead our fallen race into the paths of holiness, and onward to the goal of perfect felicity, what did humanity do but grind its teeth, and gather up its weapons and say, “Away with such a fellow from the earth; it is not fit that he should live!” Alas, human nature! How demented and imbecilic you are! The very beasts might lay claim to more sagacity and shrewdness than you have.

12. Then, too, those who boast of human nature, might, perhaps, say that the multitude on that occasion were not so much to blame as the priests, for the priests persuaded the people. Indeed, sirs, I grant you that; but I suppose priests are human, though I sometimes question it. Surely, if ever a man comes to be near akin to a devil, it must be when he assumes to be a priest, and to have the power to open and to shut the gates of heaven and hell.

13. I would rather any day a man call me a demon than a priest. There is something so degraded, so detestable in the profession of a priest that my soul loathes it. I would tear off the last rag of priestcraft that ever stuck to my flesh, and feel it to be like that tunic of fire which burned into the flesh of the hero of old. {d} Away with it! But what must men be—what must human nature be that it submits to priests? I say you degrade human nature further when you say they put Christ to death because they submitted to the persuasions of the priests. It is true; but where is the manhood of man, that he will be led by the nose by a fellow man, who chooses to put on a strange, uncouth garb, and pretend to be the messenger of God, while he perverts the oracles of God, and teaches lies. When will the day come that human nature will prove itself to have pure mettle and manly spirit in it by shaking off the horrible iniquities of priestcraft? Set this crime down to priestcraft, if you wish. The priests do conspire—they always did, and always will conspire to set the people against God! and against Christ. But where is manhood that it should put itself beneath the foot of such a thing—a thing, that men call a priest? Shame on you, human nature, that you should became so abject as to be the football of a priest, and submit yourself to an order which sacrilegiously usurps divine authority, and insolently tyrannises over human conscience.

14. I must close this indictment against human nature with its vaunted dignity by accusing it of deliberate cruelty in slaying a defenceless man. Who ever thought it to be other than dastardly to strike a man, who will not defend himself, or to strike one who, being struck, only turns the other cheek?

15. Cowardice! cowardice! cowardice, craven, base, lies at your door, oh humanity! The Christ who was like a sheep—harmless and defenceless—was treated as if he had been one of the wild beasts of the forest. Who could have had the heart to strike him who gave his back to the strikers, and his cheeks to those who pulled out the hair? Oh humanity! If I stand at the judgment bar to impeach you, I scarcely know where to begin the indictment, and, having begun it, I do not know where to close it. How fallen, dishonoured, infamous are you, oh humanity! Low, depraved, heinous, indeed, have you become that you could put the Messiah himself to death, and crucify the Lord of Glory.

16. II. Passing onward, I shall now occupy a few minutes as I:—ENDEAVOUR TO CLOSE THE DOOR AGAINST CERTAIN SELF-RIGHTEOUS DISCLAIMERS.

17. I think I hear one and another of you say, “But I should not have done so. I will not admit that my nature is so corrupt or abandoned.” Listen, friend! is not your self-esteem a little suspicious? Of whom were you born but of a woman, as they were? Your circumstances may be somewhat different. Praise your circumstances, not yourself; for had you been in their circumstances, you would have done the same. It is suspicious, I say, when a man begins to say, “I am better than these.” Why, this is just what those very people, the priests of old, pretended. What did they say but this, “We will build the sepulchres of the prophets whom our fathers killed, for had we lived in our fathers’ day, we would not have killed them.” And by that very speech of theirs—that self-righteous speech—the Lord Jesus said that they proved that they were the true sons of their fathers. When men begin to plead that they are so much better than others, that they would not have done such things, the suspicion crosses one’s mind that they do not know what spirit they are of. Certainly they are rather proud in heart than humble in mind.

18. But now what would you have done if you had been there? A French king who once heard this story said, “I wish I had been there with ten thousand of my guards! I would have cut the throat of every man of them.” Just so. No doubt that is what he would have done; and in doing so he would have crucified the Saviour in the worst possible way, for he would have implicated the Saviour in a bloody massacre, which would have been for Christ a worse crucifixion, if worse could be than what he did suffer. The man spoke out in the truth and honesty of his soul, and he confessed that he would practically have crucified the Saviour. “But,” one says, “I would have spoken for him, had I been there.” Yes, and do you speak for him now? “Well, I would not hear him maligned,” one says. But suppose your life depended on it, or your job, or your reputation? I will tell you what you would have done; you would have spoken for him, like Pilate, and washed your hands and said, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person. You see to it.” You would have gone no further than that, I warrant you, unless your heart was renewed—unless Christ had changed your heart, and I am not dealing now with renewed human nature, nor with changed hearts—I am speaking of what is originally in us as men. And if we had gone as far as Pilate, I fear there is not one of us who would not have gone further.

19. To come to close quarters with you, dear hearer, if you are an unsaved, unregenerate man, I will ask you what you have done already. Perhaps I speak to some here who have sneered at the gospel. You have been accustomed to ridicule it, and when you have heard of anyone who has been particularly bold in the service of Christ, without enquiring whether your verdict was true or not, you set him down at once as being a hypocrite, a fanatic, or a fool. Now, I ask you whether that spirit which leads you to malign the Christian is not precisely that spirit which led others to condemn the Christ, and to say, “Crucify him! crucify him!” In one age they nail men to a cross of wood; in another age, when they cannot do that, they hold them up to contempt: the spirit is just the same. There lived a man a hundred years ago in this land whose whole life was spent in the service of Christ—a man of gigantic talents, who attracted thousands to listen to his ministry; a man who never spent a farthing of worldly money, but lived to win souls, to feed the poor, and bless the sick. Now that man, Whitfield, was so abused, and traduced, and slandered, that even Cowper, when he sung his praises, had to begin them like this:—

   Leuconomus (beneath well-sounding Greek,

   I hide a name, a poet must not speak).

Though he proceeds to speak highly of him, he does not mention his name, except under the Greek form. And so there have lived in this world men of whom the world was not worthy, and the only return they have had has been abuse. What is this but the same spirit which crucified the Lord?

20. But you tell me you have persecuted no one, and you have ridiculed no one. I am glad to hear it; but what is your standing now with regard to the Christ of the gospel? Are you trusting in him? Are you relying on him as your Saviour? Have you given up all your good works, and are you depending on what he has done? Do you answer, “No!” Then I tell you, you are crucifying him. You are rejecting him in the point on which he is most jealous; you are setting yourself up as your own saviour in opposition to him; and this is to him a worse grief and a more dire insult even than the nailing of him to the accursed tree. Oh! but you say you have not set up any righteousness of your own; you do not think at all about the matter; you do not care about it. So be it, then according to your own admission, albeit the Pharisees would give thirty pieces of silver for him, you would not give twopence for him. There is the only difference. You have the gospel brought to you, and when you hear it you criticize the speaker—that is all. You have the Bible, and when you get it you bind it in morocco, and put it on a shelf and never read it. And, perhaps, many of this congregation, though living in the land of gospel light, are quite ignorant of what the gospel is. Oh! sirs, is this not to crucify him? This is to ignore him, and this is not only to kill him, but to bury him. You have wrapped him in grave-clothes and laid him in his grave as best you can. You have, in fact, said, “It is nothing to me. I do not care for his book, nor his people, nor his cross, unless it is in ornament after the way of the world’s church; but as for the essence, and marrow, and truth of the thing, I will have none of it.” Oh! this is the cry of many, and while they cry like this let them not expect to self-righteously excuse themselves.

21. But I address some tonight who would shudder at all this, and say, “Oh! sir, I have neither persecuted his people, nor thought lightly of him; neither have I been negligent concerning him, for oh! I long to be saved by him. I seek his face day and night, and confess my sins into his ear, and I ask for pardon through his blood.” Beloved, I am glad to hear you say this; but I must ask you a question too. Have you ever doubted whether he could save you? Do you doubt now whether he is willing to save you? Ah! then you crucify him, for there is nothing that so grieves him as that unkind, selfish thought that he is unwilling to forgive. This touches him in the heart. This pierces his heart as with a spear, for you to think that he will not, or cannot, pardon you. Be guilty of this no longer. Satan told you it was humility—no, but it is dishonouring your Saviour. Come, poor awakened sinner, full of guilt, and full of fear, and say, “I believe; I will believe that he is both able and willing to save me.” Then, but not until then, may you be able to say, “I have not crucified him.”

22. III. Now I shall leave that, more especially to address:—THOSE WHO HAVE CONFESSED THE SIN OF CRUCIFYING CHRIST, AND HAVE RECEIVED PARDON FOR IT.

23. Beloved, we are coming to the table of the Lord. With what profound emotions should these meditations fill our hearts as we observe this ordinance? When we remember that our sins crucified Christ (for he would not have needed to have died if we had not sinned), we ought to think of it with deep repentance.

   ’Twas you, my sins, my cruel sins,

      His chief tormentors were:

   Each of my crimes became a nail,

      And unbelief a spear.

   ’Twas you that pulled the vengeance down

      Upon his guiltless head;

   Break, break my heart, yea burst mine eyes,

      And be my coldness dead.

24. Oh! what a sorrow, to think we stabbed our Friend to the heart. For our sake he died. There was a little bit of poetry some of us used to repeat at school, “The death of Gelert.” {e} When the Welsh chieftain found that in hot-blooded haste he had killed the hound that had saved his child, he wept very bitterly. That was for a dog. If you went home tonight and found that you had by some misfortune killed your friend, and he had died, and by his death had saved your life, I know you would treasure up his memory. But it is the Christ of God whom you and I have murdered by our sins. They say, in old tradition, that as often as ever Peter heard a cock crow, he was accustomed to weep; and as often as we come to this table we might very well be accustomed to weep, too, to think that our sins made our Saviour bleed.

25. Then what a holy jealousy should stir within us! If my sins did this, by God’s Holy Spirit’s help, there shall be an end of my sins. Away with you, you murderers, I will not spare you!—neither the pleasurable sin, nor the profitable sin, nor the fashionable sin, nor the little sin, as men call it. I cry, “Revenge!” against my sins, and slay the murderers too. Oh! ask for grace tonight so that you may put sin to death.

26. And, once more, when we remember that our sins crucified him, how it ought to waken in our souls a devout resolution that we will crown him! Did they say, “Crucify him! crucify him!”? Then our voice shall be louder still, “Crown him! crown him! crown him!” And does a ribald world still say, “Crucify him!”? Then we who have received the second birth will say, “Crown him! crown him! crown him!” The world still clamours, “Crucify!” Go out, you sons of God, and proclaim the coronation of the Christ who once wore the crown of thorns. Do not blush, and do not be afraid to defend him before his adversaries, for he will soon come to put his adversaries to shame, and on his head his crown shall flourish for ever. I would, coming to this table tonight, speak this to my heart:—oh my soul, was Jesus made to suffer for you? Then what can you do for him? Do you have an unbroken alabaster box in your possession? Then bring it out now. Can you not devise some new way by which you might serve him yet, so as to bring yourself to the pinch to bear much sacrifice with stern self-denial? Come, my soul, deny yourself something that you may glorify him; give to his cause; help his poor; speak to his wounded ones; console his distressed people, lay yourself out for him. Are there any members of this church that are doing nothing for Jesus? Oh! I pity you, my dear brothers and sisters, if you are idle! But while I cannot suggest to you what to do, I pray the Lord to put it into your hearts tonight to do something more than you have ever done to honour Christ. You need not tell anyone about it; the less said about it the better. Go and do it, not letting your left hand know what your right hand does. Go and weave some crown for him, though it is only from the poor fading flowers of your heart’s love. Go and honour him. You cannot wipe out the dishonour you yourself have caused him in the past, but you can do something—you can bring him honour as long as you have any being, by bringing others, through the help of his blessed Spirit, to love and honour him. May God grant us a refreshing time at the Communion; may we have the company of the King himself.

27. Now are there any here who confess their guilt in the death of Christ? Then let me say to every sinner here, if you will look to him who was pierced, you shall live. There is only one look at Jesus that is needed to give you pardon. “He who believes in him is not condemned.” You have nailed him to the tree: now look at him. Moses hung the serpent on the pole—then looked himself and told all Israel to look. I, who had my share in crucifying him, look tonight. He is all my salvation: I trust in nothing else. Look then—indeed, look! May God help each one of you now to look, and you are saved. May God grant it, for Christ’s sake. Amen.

{a} Excrescence: An abnormal, morbid, or disfiguring outgrowth; a disfiguring protuberance or swelling on an animal or vegetable body. OED.
{b} Lycurgus: c. 820 BC, was the quasi-legendary lawgiver of Sparta who established the military-oriented reformation of Spartan society in accordance with the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. All his reforms promoted the three Spartan virtues: equality (among citizens), military fitness, and austerity. See Explorer "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycurgus_of_Sparta"
{c} Draco: archon at Athens in 621 B.C., who established a severe code of laws. OED.
{d} In Greek mythology, the Shirt of Nessus, Tunic of Nessus, Nessus-robe, or Nessus’ shirt was the poisoned shirt that killed Hercules. See Explorer "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirt_of_Nessus"
{e} Gelert is a legendary dog associated with the village of Beddgelert. Here, the dog is alleged to have belonged to Llywelyn the Great, Prince of Gwynedd, a gift from King John of England. In this legend, Llywelyn returns from hunting to find his baby missing, the cradle overturned, and Gelert with a blood-smeared mouth. Believing the dog had savaged the child, Llywelyn draws his sword and kills Gelert. After the dog’s dying yelp Llywelyn hears the cries of the baby, unharmed under the cradle, along with a dead wolf which had attacked the child and been killed by Gelert. Llywelyn is overcome with remorse and buries the dog with great ceremony, but can still hear its dying yelp. After that day Llywelyn never smiles again. See Explorer "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelert" Expositions By C. H. Spurgeon {Joh 1:19-33 19:1-16}

19-28. And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” And he confessed and did not deny; but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” And he says, “I am not.” “Are you that prophet?” And he answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you? so that we may give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say of yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as said the prophet Isaiah.” And those who were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked him, and said to him, “Why do you baptize then, if you are not that Christ, nor Elijah, neither that prophet?” John answered them, saying, “I baptize with water: but there stands one among you, whom you do not know: it is he who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe’s latchet, I am unworthy to unloose.” These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.

Was that the place where the Israelites crossed the Jordan? It is said to have been so; and truly this is the place where we cross the Jordan too—coming out of old Judaism into the true faith of the revealed Christ.

29. The next day John sees Jesus coming to him, and says, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

I think I hear the Elijah-like tones of that son of the desert, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

30. This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who is preferred before me: for he was before me.’

Ah! how infinitely before John; how before him having no beginning of days, before him in his exalted nature, before him in his superior rank and office!

31. And I did not know him: but that he should be revealed to Israel, therefore I am come baptizing with water.”

It was by baptism that the Christ was to be known. John knew more of Jesus Christ than anyone else, yet he did not know him to be the Lamb of God until he had baptized him.

32, 33. And John bore record, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it rested on him. And I did not know him: but he who sent me to baptize with water, the same said to me. ‘On whom you shall see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’”

I do not doubt that John had assuredly guessed that Jesus was the person; but he had nothing to do with guesses: he was a witness for God, and he could only speak as God revealed things to him.

John 19

1-3. Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. And the soldiers twisted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe. And said, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

Just as they were gathered to say, “Ave Imperator”—“Hail emperor”—so imitating that word which they applied to Caesar, and applying it to Jesus in mockery. “King of the Jews,” the utmost scorn was thrown into the last word, “of the Jews.” There had been a general tradition that there should arise among the Jews a king who would subdue the nations, and the Romans jested at the very thought that they should be conquered by the leader of such a despised nation as the Jews, and so they said, “King of the Jews.”

3, 4. And they struck him with their hands. Pilate therefore went out again, and says to them, “Behold, I bring him out to you, that you may know that I find no fault in him.”

That is the second time he said it. He had declared it before; in the previous chapter we read, “I find in him no fault at all.” {Joh 18:38} And now again, “That you may know that I find no fault in him.” “Then Jesus came out”—you can see him going down the steps out of Pilate’s hall into that same courtyard—“wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate says to them”—“Ecce Homo”—“behold the man.” He does not call him king; he only gives him the title of man. As if to say, “How foolish are you to think there is any danger from him; look at him in all his suffering and shame.”

5, 6. Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate says to them, “Behold the man!” When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, “Crucify him, crucify him.” Pilate says to them, “Take him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him.”

That is the third time. It was good that he who had the principal hand in the slaughter of the Lamb of God should make his report that he was “a Lamb without blemish and without spot”; and, therefore, fit to be presented in sacrifice before God. For the third time he acquits him. The Jews answered him, “We have a law”—it may not be your law—“and by our law he ought to die because he made himself the Son of God.” This is a reviving of the charge of blasphemy which they had brought against him in the palace of the high priest.

7, 8. The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.” When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was all the more afraid:

It shows he was afraid all along—the coward—the vacillating coward and now a new superstition seizes him. He believed, as a Roman in many gods. “What?” he said to himself. “What if, after all, I should have been torturing a Divine Being, a God who has come among men in their likeness?”

9, 10. And went again, into the judgment hall, and says to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. Then Pilate says to him, “Do you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to crucify you, and have power to release you?”

And he trembled with fear, “and went again into the judgment hall,” taking his prisoner with him—you can see the two sitting there alone—“and says to Jesus, ‘Where are you from? Tell me now, what is your character, your origin, your rank?’ But Jesus gave him no answer.” Pilate’s day of grace was over; he had his opportunity, but that was now ended; there was no answer. It is a very solemn thing when God gives no answer to a man; when a man turns to Scripture, but there is no answer; when he goes to hear the voice, but there is no voice from the oracle for him; when he even bows the knee in prayer, but gets no answer. The silence of the Christ of God is very terrible. “Then Pilate says to him,” with all the pride of a Roman in his face, “Do you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to crucify you, and power to release you?”

11. Jesus answered, “You could have no power at all against me, unless it was given to you from above: therefore he who delivered me to you has the greater sin.”

“You have the power to execute the sentence, lent to you from heaven: but he who brought me here, and laid the charge against me, even Caiaphas, as the representative of the Jews, has the greater sin.” And then the Blessed One closed his lips, never to open them again until on the cross.

From this time, “like a sheep before her shearers,” he is dumb. Notice that even though that word is the word of the Judge who judges Pilate, who judges the Jews, yet there is a strain of the gentleness of his character about it, for though he virtually declares Pilate guilty of great sin, yet he says there is a greater, and while there is no apology for Pilate, yet he puts it softly.

12. And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, “If you let this man go, you are not Caesar’s friend: whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar.”

One of the Herods had put on his coins the name, “Caesar’s friend.” and so they quoted the title which one of their kings had taken, and they tell Pilate that he will not be the friend of Tiberius. Here was a sore point with Pilate; he knew that just then Tiberius was gloomy and morose, too ready to use anything against his servants; and the man by whose influence Pilate had come into power had just then lost all influence at court. So he was afraid it would be his disgrace and discharge as governor if the Jews brought a charge against him to Tiberius. Therefore he trembled.

13. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus out, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.

The usual form of the Roman judgment place, in the open air, with a stone pavement, and a raised throne.

14, 15. And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he says to the Jews, “Behold your King!” But they cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him.” Pilate says to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.”

“To crucify your king.” In bitter sarcasm: “You call him king, and ask to have him crucified.” “The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but Caesar.’” So truly they proved the truth of that word, “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes.” And here he was sent by God. He has come at last, for the sceptre has evidently departed from Judah; and these men are crying, “We have no king but the alien monarch, the all-conquering Caesar.”

16. Therefore he delivered him to them to be crucified. And they took Jesus and led him away.