The apostasy of government, John 18:38-19:22

In the last few weeks we have been looking at the various aspects of apostasy as a contrast to believing the truth.  Apostasy, as you know, is the act of turning away from the truth.  We started out examining the apostasy of the church in the example of the disciples at the arrest of Jesus.  Peter’s denial of Christ exemplified the apostasy of the church.

Then last week we looked at the apostasy of the world, particularly as evidenced by religion and politics.  The Jewish religious leaders under Annas exemplified apostate religion, and Pilate illustrated apostasy in politics.

Today we are going to look at one last example of apostasy, and that is the apostasy of government.  Government is a divinely appointed institution, which God uses for HIs purposes.  Romans 13:1 says, “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.”  However, even though God has established government, and has given it the authority to govern, we will see in this passage how as an institution it has turned away from the truth of God, or become apostate, and instead serves the purposes of man.

We might further define those three entities which are apostate as follows; Religion is man’s attempts to reach God; attempting to administer divine truth by mans methods. Politics is the art of compromise; attempting to manipulate truth to reach a consensus among men. And government is the rule of the people (the rule of law); attempting to enforce man’s truth through law.  In each case, truth is subservient to man and not vice versa, as God intended it.

Now as we go through this passage, we will see seven ways in which government evidenced apostasy.  As I have previously pointed out, Truth is on trial.  Jesus is the manifestation of divine truth.  And He is on trial for that truth which He manifests from God.  

So in rebellion against the Truth, Jesus is arrested and put on trial.  And we see seven characteristics of apostasy on the part of the government which I have outlined to help us see how this apostasy on the part of government is played out; they are exchanging the truth, mocking the truth, rejecting the truth, examining the truth, judging the truth, killing the truth, and rewriting the  truth.

First let’s consider exchanging the truth.  In chapter 18 Pilate declares, “what is truth?”  And ironically, Truth is standing right in front of him, and yet he does not recognize it.  So Pilate does what people have done for centuries, what people do even today.  As the representative of government he offers the people a choice; man’s version of the truth versus God’s designation of the Truth.  He offers them either Christ or a man called Barabbas.  Now John tells us that Barabbas was a  robber.  He was a convicted criminal. And yet when faced with the choice of choosing a criminal or an innocent man, they chose the criminal.  So basically, they chose to exchange the truth for a lie.

Paul in his letter to the Romans, says the world is condemned because of that very thing.  He says in Rom.1:25, “For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.”  Paul isn’t just talking about pagan idolatry here, he is talking about serving the devil himself, the father of lies.  

I want to point out something interesting about the name Barabbas.  Barabbas means "son of a father”.  So we have here son of a father, Barabbas, and on the other hand Jesus who claims to be the Son of God the Father. So here is the choice that Israel is faced with. Will you release Barabbas, son of the father? Or shall I release to you Jesus the Son of God the Father?  And of course we know that they chose the creature, rather than the Creator.  So given a choice by government, the people chose to exchange the truth for a lie.

But in this travesty of human justice, let us not miss the picture of divine justice presented for us here.  In God’s court of justice, mankind stands before God as Barrabas, guilty of sin and condemned to death.  But God offers His Son, Jesus Christ, to die in our place, so that we might go free. It is the divine principle of the just dying for the unjust, the innocent taking the place of punishment for the guilty- pictured in the law as the innocent, spotless lamb slain for the sins of the people.  And this principle is stated succinctly in 2Cor. 5:21, “ [God] made [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Secondly, in it’s apostasy, government mocks the truth. As we look at the beginning of chapter 19, we see Jesus mocked by Pilate and his soldiers.  Pilate is almost obsessed with this idea of Jesus as King. Pilate of course is only a governor of Judea.  He would have to bow to a King. So when He asks Jesus in chapter 18 if He was a King, Jesus asserts that He is in fact a King, but not of this world. He is really saying “I am a King, but not of this government.” He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords reigning throughout the world spiritually.  But rather than that statement undermining Christ’s authority, in reality it means that Pilate’s authority is subservient to Christ’s authority.  But perhaps Pilate fails to comprehend this principle in entirety, or maybe he does comprehend it, but instead of bowing to Christ as Lord, he mocks Christ’s rule.

So Pilate takes a man who he himself has declared as innocent, Jesus Christ, and has Him scourged.  John doesn’t give us the details of this scourging, but typically it was with a whip called a cat of nine tails, whose lashes were tipped with bits of glass or steel.  The law had limited the maximum number of strokes to 39, because 40 were known to kill a person.  So they scourged Jesus, probably to within an inch of His life, though He was innocent of any wrong.  Pilate reveals how cruel and evil he is, being willing to scourge an innocent man for the sake of appeasing the Jews and perhaps satiating his own jealousness towards anyone who challenged his authority.

The mockery though is even more fully revealed by the crown of thorns and the purple robe the soldiers placed on HIm, and then parading the bleeding, lacerated Christ before the mob pronouncing “Hail, King of the Jews!” and slapping Him in the face.

The mockery of apostasy as revealed in this example shows that it’s possible to espouse the truth and yet not really believe it. It’s possible to proclaim Jesus is Lord and yet live for the devil.  It’s possible that one’s actions can make a mockery of their professed faith in God.  2Peter 3:3 says, “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts.”  Claiming to be set free by the truth is made a mockery by living in sin. Faith is more than just lip service.  As James said, “show me your faith by your works.”

Thirdly, the apostasy of government rejects the truth. Vs.4, Pilate came out again and said to them, “Behold, I am bringing Him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in Him.”

Jesus then came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold, the Man!” So when the chief priests and the officers saw Him, they cried out saying, “Crucify, crucify!” Pilate *said to them, “Take Him yourselves and crucify Him, for I find no guilt in Him.”

Pilate asserts again and again that Christ is guiltless of any crime.  Yet in spite of that, the Jews still reject Him.  This rejection of Christ really began a long time before this trial.  Jesus spoke of this rejection in a parable found in Luke 19:14, in which the citizens of the kingdom say, “We do not want this man to reign over us.”  Jesus was speaking allegorically of the citizens of Israel, who would reject God’s reign.  And as Christ prophesied in yet another parable, they would kill the Son in order to try to thwart God’s sovereignty over them.

Government either recognizes God’s rule over the world, and they are merely stewards of that responsibility given to them by God, or they have rejected God’s rule, in order to rule themselves according to their lusts.  And far too often in our society today, we see government capitulate to protests, in spite of whether or not the signs and slogans of the crowds are true or not.  As Isaiah 59:14 says, “Truth has stumbled in the street, and uprightness cannot enter.”

And I would suggest that this is the crux of man’s rejection of salvation.  Man rejects the idea that Christ should rule over them. They may not mind the idea of Christ dying in their place, but they reject the notion that they give up their right to self rule.  Most people reject salvation because they want to live their life by their standards, by their rules, and as such reject the rule of Christ as Lord of their life.

That brings us to the fourth aspect of apostasy in government, and that is the examination of the truth. When Pilate has said they should crucify Him themselves, they respond, “We have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to be the Son of God.”  This accusation strikes fear into the heart of Pilate.  Pilate was more than willing to punish an innocent man who claimed a spiritual kingdom, but the thought that Christ was actually God in flesh concerned him greatly. 

So Pilate brings Christ out to the Praetorium, his private residence, in order to examine Him. In effect, Pilate had already examined Christ by scourging, a method used to soften up the criminal so that he would be ready to confess.  But at that point, Pilate had no charge to condemn Him with.  Now he has this assertion by the Jews that Christ had committed blasphemy by declaring Himself as the Son of God. 

But the Jews appeal to their law, probably referring to the law of Moses concerning blasphemy.  However, they do not examine Him according to truth.  Truth affirms that He is the Son of God.  He was foretold by the prophets, heralded by angels, acknowledged verbally by God in the heavens, transfigured before His disciples, and He had performed hundreds of miracles that could only be of God and which served to validate the truth of His teaching.  All of which, if they would have considered, would have eliminated the charge of blasphemy and caused them to fall on their knees in worship.  But they aren’t interested in the truth, only in finding fault.

For Pilate, however, the possibility that Christ was the Son of God was alarming, and he takes Jesus privately into his quarters and begins to question Him saying, “Where are you from?”  But Jesus gave him no answer. 

Listen, God is not obligated to answer man’s questions as to where He came from, or how or why He does certain things.  Job became angry with God and asked God for answers on the assumption that God wasn’t fair and just, and when God finally did respond, He did not answer the question “why”.  God is good and just and merciful, but He is God.  He is the eternal sovereign, and finite, mortal man cannot ascertain Him.  So Jesus did not answer Pilate.

Vs.10,11So Pilate said to Him, “You do not speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?” Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.”

  

As Romans 13:1 which we looked at earlier says, “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.”  Pilate thinks that he has authority to judge, but he fails to realize that actually the great Judge of all the earth is judging him.  

Thomas Jefferson wrote that the the US Government has no powers but such as the Constitution gives it.  And as I said last week in regards to the Constitution, the founders recognized that certain truths from God were evident, from which they established certain laws.

That principle is expounded in Jesus’s statement which is that government’s authority comes from God and God alone.  Without such truth as a foundation, there can be no justice.  But in the case of the government under Pilate, we see that truth is rejected for what is considered popular and expedient.  And so he judges Christ according to the dictates of the people, and the pressures of the moment.

And by the way, we see that being played out today as well. Society is trying to change laws and influence government by protests, by mob violence.  And as we have seen it is effective to a great degree.  That method has been used with great effect since the 60’s to change American policy, to make the general public and particularly the politicians think that it is the majority opinion, when in fact many times it’s just the louder opinion.  Oftentimes the silent majority suffers injury from a more vocal and violent minority.

That leads us to the next aspect of the apostasy of government;  judging the truth. Vs.13, “Therefore when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out, and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha.” 

John’s gospel is full of irony.  And the height of irony is that Pilate sits on his judgment seat to cast judgment upon the Son of God.  This same Jesus, whom Pilate and worthless men put to death, will one day sit on the Great White Throne.  And all judgment will be given to Him to judge every man according to his deeds.  John writes in  Rev. 20:11 “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, [that includes kings and governors and celebrities and all who are considered great in this world) standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.

And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

So here is the governor of this tiny region called Judea, sitting in judgment of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Judge of the whole earth.  What irony.  Who is man that dares to judge God?  And how will God judge him that has passed judgment on Christ by refusing to submit to Him as Lord and King? 

Vs.14, “Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, ‘Behold, your King!’ So they cried out, ‘Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Shall I crucify your King?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but Caesar.’ So he then handed Him over to them to be crucified.”

In their judgment of Christ they sealed their own judgment. Here is a nation that was designed to be a theocratic nation. Here is the nation that claimed Jehovah as their God and King. But they renounce their theocratic relationship to Jehovah God, by saying, "We have no king but Caesar." And so Israel, guilty of blasphemy in the denial of the Son of God, and guilty of apostasy in turning from God as King to Caesar thus denounces the theocracy, their own unique position before God, and so in just a few years they will receive their judgment and be scattered to the four corners of the earth, until there is no longer any Israel at all. 

God is patient with the government of mankind, not wishing for any to perish but all to come to repentance.  But one need only look at history to see the long line of governments that have abandoned God and become apostate, and as a result are no longer a power any longer on the earth to be reckoned with.  The great Egyptian empire is no more.  The Babylonian empire has been destroyed. The Roman Empire has crumbled.  The Greek Empire is no more to be found.  England’s once grand empire is no longer.  Nazi Germany’s empire was destroyed.  And America, as the  modern world’s greatest superpower, is on the brink of imploding under the weight of it’s own corruption.  But the truth of God endures forever.  God’s empire is increasing and will never end.

So the apostasy of the government results in killing Truth.  That is the only solution to a world who hates the truth.  That is their only way they think they can silence the truth, and thus silence their consciences.  So they crucify Christ. Vs.17,  “They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha. There they crucified Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between.” 

And governments have been killing Christians ever since, trying to silence the gospel.  Trying to silence the truth of God.  Christianity Today magazine has put the number of Christian martyrs since Christ walked the earth at 70 million people.  And the persecution has not slowed down.  Many sources say that Christians are the most persecuted group in the world today.  Jesus said in John 15:20, “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.”

There is one final aspect of apostasy in government that we will look at today, and that is rewriting the truth. Vs.19, Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It was written, “JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS.” Therefore many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Latin and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews were saying to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews’; but that He said, ‘I am King of the Jews.’” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”

Pilate wished to frame the argument his way.  His argument was that Jesus was a Jew, and his death was a result of Jewish law.  He wanted to absolve himself of any responsibility in the matter. He wanted to wash his hands of the whole affair.  But Jesus did not let Pilate off so easily.  Jesus made it clear that He was a King, but not of this realm.  However, He also made it clear to Pilate that His realm superseded Pilate’s realm.  He said Pilate would have no authority if God did not give him that authority. 

So Pilate in one last desperate brazen act, writes a sign to be placed on Jesus’s cross, “The King of the Jews.”  In one sense it was true.  But it was only part of the truth.  The full truth was that Jesus is King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.  He was the very Son of God.  And so Pilate failed to comprehend the full truth.

Instead, Pilate writes his version of the truth.  And says, “what I have written, I have written,” as if to say that his word was law.  But as we have already stated, God’s law is the final authority.  Governments may write enough laws to fill up the Atlantic Ocean, but all of them cannot equal the truth of God’s Word, the Bible.  It is the “sola scriptura”; the sole authority for life and practice.  It is the source of truth, regardless of the revisionist historians, regardless of what the scientists say, regardless of the consensus of the courts of men.

The question for Pilate is the same for men today.  What will you do with Jesus? If he was just the king of the Jews 2000 years ago, that was martyred, then we can write him off as inconsequential to 21st century Americans.  But if He was the Son of God who gave His life as the Passover Lamb slain for the sins of the world, so that we like Barabbas might be set free, then we must fall at His feet and worship Him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Do not turn away from the truth.  Everyone will one day stand before the Great White Throne Judgment and answer this question:  “What did you do with Jesus Christ?” I pray that you will confess Him as your Lord and Savior.

Romans 10:9-10, 13 says,  “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus [as] Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;  for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. ...  for "WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED."

The apostasy of the world in the realm of religion and politics, John 18:12-38

The question of whether or not the truth is really that important is what we have been looking at for the last couple of weeks as we have studied the arrest and now the trial of Jesus.  The writer of John  has been showing the contrast of truth versus apostasy.  Remaining stedfast in the truth, versus caving in to natural wisdom or human preferences which subverts the truth.

Last week we looked in detail at the denial of Peter, his attempt to fight in his own wisdom and strength resulted in eventually blaspheming and denying the Lord.  And we looked at four steps by which the church - not the world, but the church - can turn from the truth to apostasy as illustrated by Peter.  The steps to apostasy were first relying upon your own wisdom and strength,  then distancing yourself from God,  third, a desire for friendship and acceptance by the world, which finally culminates in blasphemy and denial of the Lord.  And we often see those steps to apostasy mirrored today in the church.

Now this week, as we follow the events recorded by John, we see another view of apostasy, the apostasy of the unsaved, or the apostasy of the world. Christ manifested the truth of God to the world, but the world turned away from truth, deliberately choosing apostasy.  Truth is what was on trial then, and it is what is on trial in our modern culture as well.  And we who believe the truth find ourselves on trial as well.  As Jesus in vs.37 says, “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”  You are either in agreement with the truth, or you are in opposition to the truth.  And the world is antagonistic to the truth.  Apostasy is championed, in both the religious and political realms of this world.

Even a cursory look at the problems headlining our society today reveals  the dilemma of our modern culture, which is summed up in  Isaiah 59:14 which says, “Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the street, and uprightness cannot enter.”  Today truth has stumbled in the street.  Apostasy seems to hold sway in the world and it threatens to overwhelm the church.  The world loves darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil, they hate righteousness, and they love wickedness.

But while we can expect such a sentiment from the world who is in rebellion against God, it is even more disconcerting that the same questions are being asked by organized religion, if not directly, then indirectly.  Is truth worth standing for?  Does the truth really matter?  Is the truth worth dying for? Is the truth worth separating over?  Or do we just throw up our hands as Pilate did and say, “What is truth?”

I would submit to you that the truth is all that there is.  It is the most important thing.  Not conformity to religion, not conformity to the status quo, not conformity to political ideology.  Jesus said, “you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”  So truth is important.

Even the founders of our country understood that our freedom as Americans depended upon the truth.  The Constitution begins, “We hold these truths to be self evident…”  They acknowledged that truth was derived from our Creator.  But I’m afraid that though they made a good start, they fell short of the truth.  True life and freedom can only come when we believe and accept the gospel which is the truth of God given by Christ Jesus.  As Jesus said, “you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” 

So as the church, we must believe all the truth, and nothing less than the truth.  It’s so important that as a church truth must be paramount in our focus.  We cannot allow false teaching to creep in.  Because like leaven, a little leaven leavens the whole lump, a little falsehood corrupts the truth so that it loses it’s power to set you free.  A little lie serves to keep you in bondage.

The truths or doctrines of our faith are like railroad ties, underlying the steel rails of the track.  If you start removing some of the ties, soon the rails are no longer able to keep the train on track, and you end up with a train wreck.  But the world doesn’t see truth like that. They see truth as a restriction on their freedom.  They hate it because it makes them feel guilty.  They want independence from God, even though such freedom leads to destruction.  So they want to subvert the truth, and are hostile to the truth.  The world is at enmity with God.

In our text today we see this attempt by the world to subvert the truth concerning Jesus Christ.  Truth is on trial, as I said previously. And the world is characterized by two entities in this passage; religion and politics. Those are the two elements of the world we are looking at today in this story.  Religion and politics. First let’s consider religion. Not the church (the true believers) but religion. Religion is man’s attempts to reach God.  Christianity is God reaching down to man through Jesus Christ.  

Now in this passage, religion can be illustrated Annas, the father in law of the high priest, who was Caiaphas.  John doesn’t tell us much about Jesus’s trial with Caiaphas, but other gospels fill in those blanks.  However, as I said in previous messages, John isn’t interested in a chronological biography here, he is giving us his gospel.  And so the message I believe he wants to get across to us is not necessarily every detail of Christ’s trial, but the dominate characteristic of the religious bureaucracy, which was their animosity and hatred of the truth of Christ. 

John focuses on Annas, because he is the real manipulator behind the Jewish religious system.  Caiaphas, who is the high priest that year is his son in law.  But Annas, who had once been the high priest himself, is the godfather so to speak.  Annas is the one who was in charge of all the concessions which were in the temple; the money changers and the sellers of doves and sacrifices.  All of that was known as the “bazaars of Annas.”  He was the godfather of what Jesus referred to as a “den of thieves” when He made a scourge of cords and cleaned out the temple.

And by the way, Jesus did that twice. At the beginning of His ministry and then after His last triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus cleaned out the temple.  And that operation had exposed and called out the corruption of the religious system of the Jewish temple and the priesthood which was complicit in it.  What they did was they fleeced people who came into the temple to present their sacrifice.  Annas had inspectors there who inspected the animal or birds that someone brought to be sacrificed. And of course, the law required that the sacrifice had to be without spot or blemish.  So when the inspector would look it over, he would find fault and say that it had some sort of defect and could not be sacrificed.  So then the only real option was for the person to buy one of the “perfect” specimens that the bazaars offered for sale, which of course cost much more money than what you could buy the same for elsewhere.  And to make it even more odious, these thieves had another aspect to their racket that included money changing.  They said you couldn’t buy the sacrificial animal with Roman money, or make an offering with Roman currency because it had Caesar’s image on it, and that amounted to idolatry.  So you had to exchange your money for Jewish money, which again cost you a hefty commission.  So they had quite a racket going on, enough to make the Mafia jealous.

Caiaphas, being the High Priest, was complicit in this scheme of course.  It was a family business, after all.  They were made extremely wealthy by it.  But the High Priest was by this time a political appointment.  The Romans recognized the degree of control and authority of religion in Israel, and so they had taken over the appointment of the High Priest in order to make sure that whoever was in that position followed their wishes and worked with them.  And Caiaphas and his father in law Annas had managed to ingratiate themselves to the Roman authorities through graft and behind the scenes deal making.  

So that’s who these guys were.  They were using religion for personal advantage.  Truth had stumbled in the streets, because there was no righteousness in the leadership.  They cared more about preserving their political positions, about keeping the powers that be happy, and about garnering wealth  than they did about truth.  In fact, Caiaphas was the one who had said in vs14, “It is expedient for one to die on behalf of the people.”  Unbeknown to him, God was prophesying through him that Christ would die for the sins of the people.  But from his perspective, what he was really saying, was it was expedient to sacrifice truth, to murder Jesus, for the sake of their religious enterprise.

So Annas, starting in vs.19, begins a sham trial of Jesus in the middle of the night.  It was totally illegal and improper.  There were no witnesses there to bring charges against Him. And as you look at his line of questioning, you notice that he doesn’t accuse Christ, but that He wants to get Jesus to say something which they can use to incriminate Him.  They ask Him about His disciples and about His teaching.  

So Jesus answers him saying, “I have spoken openly to the world; I always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together; and I spoke nothing in secret. Why do you question Me? Question those who have heard what I spoke to them; they know what I said.”

Here is what really is happening; the ruling party of the Jews have already issued a verdict upon Jesus.  He is to be killed, to be crucified.  They have already determined that He has to be done away with.  They have no charges in regards to Him teaching anything that isn’t true, or scriptural, but their issue is that He challenges their authority and their ability to exert financial gain from their religion.  So there is a conflict between their religious traditions and Christ’s teaching of truth of God and their only solution is to silence Christ by killing Him.

Listen, there are similar attacks against the church today.  There are traditions, practices, that have been passed down from generations and are considered essential to church health and wealth.  And if you don’t conform to the country club mentality, then you are ostracized and even sometimes attacked.  You are put on trial so to speak by the religious community because you don’t conform to the church paradigm which is practiced by most churches.  Truth is sacrificed for the sake of conformity to the approved template, for the sake of organizational conformity.  And when you don’t adhere to their template because you don’t see that specified in God’s blueprint for the church then you are subject to hostility and denunciation.

And as we see in the case of the High Priest’s appointment, there is a parallel in the church today over leadership that is not according to the calling of God.  I read a blog the other day from a pastor, lamenting the number of pastors he knew that had recently quit the ministry.  They talked about things like burnout, and lack of appreciation, or conflicts with membership or committees.  I don’t deny that pastors can get burned out, or that they can suffer from loneliness or depression just like any other person does. I am sometimes a victim of such things myself from time to time. But what I think is perhaps the root of the problem is that there are a lot of pastors today that have been called by churches, but not necessarily called by God. They may have been appointed by a seminary, but not appointed by Christ.  If a pastor has a clear call of God to preach the gospel, and pastor the flock of Christ that Christ has given him, then I think that such a man will not likely quit the ministry due to feeling under appreciated.  I think far too many men are called to a pastorate as a result of a popularity contest held by the church’s pastor search committee, and in order to maintain that approval rating, they have to conform to what the people want them to do, rather than faithfully perform their ministry according to what God would have them do.  And that lack of a divine call upon their lives is equivalent to what Jesus referred to as a hireling, and not a true shepherd, who abandons his sheep when trouble comes.

There is a progression to apostasy as we discussed last week.  And acquiescing to the culture  rather than standing on the truth of God’s word leads eventually to denial and blasphemy of Christ. One denial of truth soon leads to another and so on until it is completely corrupted. And the pastor that is a hireling will try to appease the people and give them what they want at the expense of the truth of the gospel. But a little leaven soon leavens the whole lump.

Well, the response to Jesus’s rebuke of the High Priest earned Him a slap in the mouth.  Vs22, 

When He had said this, one of the officers standing nearby struck Jesus, saying, “Is that the way You answer the high priest?” Jesus answered him, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify of the wrong; but if rightly, why do you strike Me?”

Jesus comes back to the truth.  If I’m telling the truth, why do you strike Me? The reason is that they hated the truth.  They didn’t want to hear the truth.  And I believe that resentment is still the prevailing sentiment today in organized religion.  People don’t want to hear the truth, if it opposes what they want to believe.  We have seen that lately in the political arena as well, haven’t we?  The riots in our cities are a rebellion against the truth.  They can’t stand to hear the truth.  So they strike out, they riot, they break things and cause damage in order to prevent or intimidate  people from speaking the truth.  And as Jesus indicated, they break laws in order to try to convince others that they are unlawful.

We have even seen similar attacks here in our church.  We speak the truth, and eventually someone gets their pet doctrine stepped on, but rather than seriously seek to know the truth, they go out of their way to attack the pastor, and demean him to as many people in the community as they can. Such is the nature of apostasy.  But Jesus is the example of how we are to react to it.

There is one other aspect of  the apostasy of religion that is illustrated here in vs 28, “Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas into the Praetorium, and it was early; and they themselves did not enter into the Praetorium so that they would not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.”  What this indicates is a commitment to ceremony at the expense of truth.  The hypocrisy of these Jews is really astounding.  They don't want to be defiled, and so they will not enter into the hall of judgment because the hall of judgment is in the hands of Gentiles. God hadn’t told them to do this, this was their tradition.  So in their minds,  to enter into the hall of judgment will bring about the possibility of defilement.  It’s ironic that they are so  scrupulous about the little details of tradition, but totally unconcerned about their blatant sin of the murder of the Son of God.

Now, what makes it even more significant is that John says they didn't enter into the hall of

judgment that they might not be defiled, so they might eat the Passover. Think of the irony of that. Who is the Passover lamb? Well Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5: 7 that Jesus Christ is the Passover lamb. He says, "Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.” So they continue in their sin of murder, but publicly adhere to ceremonial cleanliness, in order that they might eat the Passover, while putting to death the Passover Lamb.  

And as a modern parallel of that, let us be careful in the church if we accommodate sin in order to not offend the world, so that we might practice our religion. Remember that Christ suffered and died for those sins.  And when we wink at sin, or say that sin isn’t actually sin, we cheapen the grace of God through licentiousness, trampling underfoot the blood of Jesus Christ, disregarding the fact that God sacrificed Jesus to pay the penalty for those sins so that we might be set free from them.

The second aspect of the apostasy of the world that is illustrated here is the political realm.  Pilate is a prime example of the political aspect of the world.  Let me give you a little background on Pilate.  First of all, he married well.  He married Claudia, who was the daughter of Tiberius, the grand daughter of Caesar Augustus.  As a result of that marriage, he was appointed prefect of Judea, or what we might call the governor.  

Pilate was a politician, trying to please the Emperor of Rome on the one hand, and to placate the Jews on the other.  Yet Josephus and other historians tell us that he repeatedly irritated the Jews, and had more than once been rebuked by Rome for his treatment of the Jews.  So perhaps that is an indication of why Pilate seems to try to accommodate the Jews desire to crucify Christ, even though he found no fault in Him. Even his wife urged him not to have anything to do with crucifying the Lord. He was trying to please people, even if it meant he would have to sentence to death an innocent man.

I’ve come up with my own definition of the word politics. Politics is the art of compromise. It means one will jettison truth in order to reach a consensus.  Politics is usually opposed to absolute truth.  Now in Pilates case, you get the feeling that he wasn’t happy being political, but he felt he had no other alternative.  Look at the predicament he found himself in. 

 Vs.29, “Therefore Pilate went out to them and said, ‘What accusation do you bring against this Man?’ They answered and said to him, ‘If this Man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered Him to you.’ So Pilate said to them, ‘Take Him yourselves, and judge Him according to your law.” The Jews said to him, “We are not permitted to put anyone to death,’ to fulfill the word of Jesus which He spoke, signifying by what kind of death He was about to die.”

The predicament is this; Pilate is summoned to court to pass sentence on Jesus, whom I believe it would have been next to impossible for him not to have heard of to some extent, and the judgment, which is crucifixion has already been determined, and yet there is no charge that they prove is worthy of death.  The religious leaders have put Pilate in a box. They know Pilate has been in trouble with Rome over his treatment of the Jews in the past, and he cannot afford to upset the Jewish leaders. So in order to appease the Jewish rulers, he must condemn Jesus to death.  But in his heart he knows that Jesus is not guilty of death.

I think a lot of people in the world find themselves in a similar position today in regards to Christianity.  They recognize something about it which seems true and right, but the acclaim of the culture is to condemn Christianity.  And at that point they have to make a decision; to please the world, or to please God.  Since they haven’t yet chosen to believe in God unto salvation, it is very unlikely that they will do so under duress.  They make the same mistake that Pilate did.  They try to escape making a decision at all.

vs.31, “So Pilate said to them, ‘Take Him yourselves, and judge Him according to your law.’ The Jews said to him, ‘We are not permitted to put anyone to death.’  But the world will not let you off the hook so easily. The world requires allegiance to it’s doctrine, just as God demands allegiance to His doctrine. 

So Pilate asks Jesus directly, “Are You the King of the Jews?”  That was a start towards the truth.  But let’s see if Pilate is seriously seeking the truth, or if he is just seeking a way out.  Jesus answers him curiously; ““Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?”  

Jesus doesn’t need to ask Pilate questions, as He knows the thoughts and intents of the heart of man.  But what He is doing is asking a question to prompt Pilate to ask himself the right question.  So Jesus says, Do you say this yourself, or did others tell you that about Me?  Are you repeating what you have heard, or are you seriously inquiring to know if I am King of the Jews?  

Note Pilate’s response; Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You to me; what have You done?”  So he tries to remove himself from the equation, putting Christianity aside as a nationalistic thing, something that has nothing to do with himself as a Roman.  And yet he cannot sweep this question of what to do about Jesus aside.  It is a question that everyman and woman must answer at some point in their lives.  Is He King of Kings, and Lord of Lords?  And if I acknowledge that He is, then I must bow the knee to Him and worship Him.  If I say He is not, then I will suffer the eternal consequence of my decision.

Jesus then answers in a way that does nothing to absolve Pilate of guilt.  Jesus’ answer  includes everyone regardless of his nationality. “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.”  

Note that Jesus does declare that He is King, but not just of the Jews, but of a realm which is over all the nations and kingdoms of this world.  It is a spiritual kingdom as opposed to an earthly kingdom.

Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”  Here is the purpose of Christ’s coming to earth as declared by Jesus Himself; to testify to the truth.  And here is the means of salvation; everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.  Hearing indicates more than listening however.  It indicates receiving, believing, and obeying the truth of Christ with all your heart and soul.  

Folks we need to understand the gospel.  Jesus testified to the truth of God.  The gospel teaches that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. You must confess that you are a sinner, and that the judgment for sin is death.  God has judged you as a sinner, deserving death. But the good news is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, became our substitute, dying in our place for our sins, so that we might receive the gift of His righteousness credited to our account.  And that believing in Him and what He accomplished, we might be given new life, even eternal life, being saved from the penalty of death.

But the politician Pilate was still trying to keep from having to make a decision.  And so are many in the world today.  The world echoes the disillusioned cry of Pilate; “what is truth?”  Truth was staring him in the face, and he would not receive it.  Oh, I believe Pilate saw it, just as clearly as Annas and Caiaphas saw the Passover Lamb standing in front of them.  But like them, Pilate cannot afford to receive it.  He loved too much the favor of this world to become identified with Christ.

Pilate thought he could please the world and still please God.  He said to Christ “what is truth,” thus hopefully excusing himself from having to accept the truth, and then he goes out to the crowd and says I find no fault in Him.  He doesn’t want to make a decision either way.  But either you accept Christ as your Lord and Savior, or you condemn Him along with the world. Undecided is not an option in the Kingdom of God.  You are either for Him or against Him. You either believe Him, or you reject Him.  Pilate would ultimately find this to be true, and though he would wash his hands for eternity, he would never wash away the blood of Christ upon his hands.

Listen, don’t die with Christ’s blood on your hands.  Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost said in Acts 2:23, “this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.”  It was your sins and mine that put Jesus to death.  And only by repentance of your sins and faith in His sacrifice for our sins on the cross can we be forgiven of our sins, and given new life.

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.  Believe the truth today and be saved.  Hold onto to the truth today and be set free.  Walk in the truth and have life more abundantly.  Today you have heard the truth of the gospel of Christ.  What will your response be? Will it be the response of religion?  Continuing to practice expediency at the cost of truth? Will it be the response of political correctness, at the expense of truth?  I pray you will believe the truth unto salvation, no matter what the world or religion or political persuasion says.