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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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Luke 23:6
Comments
(Synoptics: Luke 23:6-12)The chief priests have just informed Pilate that ‘he [Jesus] stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.’ That was their attempt to aggravate Jesus’ guilt in the eyes of Pilate to encourage him to pass sentence. But Pilate wanted to get rid of the problem of passing judgment on this man, and hearing of Galilee he immediately latched onto this. He was looking for a way out of what he was finding a very difficult situation. He could see through their scheming and their twisting of the evidence and was convinced of Jesus’ innocence. He put down the eagerness of the Jews that Jesus be condemned to their envy of him (Matthew 27:18), but he was finding it hard to handle the threat of having the Jews report him to Rome for not dealing with this case firmly; they were only going to be satisfied with the death penalty. Furthermore Pilate’s wife had sent him an alarming message about a dream she had had about ‘this righteous man’ (Matthew 27:19). So hearing of Galilee, Pilate sees an opportunity to rid himself of the problem, and enquires whether Jesus is from Galilee. If so, that will present him with a new option. He knew that Herod was in the capital and therefore it would be easy to send Jesus to Herod for him to handle the case, and it would buy him favour with Herod, who up to this day had been his enemy. This was not what the Lord’s accusers had expected, because they had only mentioned Galilee in order to aggravate the charges against Jesus. As Hendriksen comments, ‘Was not Galilee always the very hotbed of revolution?’
Application
Pilate lacked the backbone to stand up for justice and truth, and although he believed Jesus was innocent, he did not have sufficiently strong principles to stand his ground and resist the unjust demands of the Jews. He cared too much about his own position to risk having them report him to Rome. How easy it is for sin to overcome those who are not committed to the truth, and to get them to yield to some compromised policy! If we are going to negotiate this evil world, we will have to be so committed to the truth that no personal disadvantage is going to persuade us to alter our course. A man of principle who is ready to sacrifice his own interests is a rare find indeed.
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