About this sermon
The Apostles’ Creed confesses that Christ ‘suffered under Pontius Pilate,’ and those words anchor the gospel in real history, unlike religions that could survive without their founders. The words also affirm that the Son of God truly suffered in a real human body. Pilate declares Jesus innocent again and again, yet under pressure from the Jewish leaders he has him scourged and hands him over to be crucified, as the chief priests cry, ‘We have no king but Caesar.’ The just one suffered for the unjust so that sinners could be freely justified.
Sermon transcript
friends, please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. We return this morning to our Foundations of Faith series, and the passage today, my sermon text today, is John 19, verses 1 through 16. John chapter 19, verses 1 through 16. Here is John’s account of of our Lord’s trial and in particular the stage of the trial in which Jesus is sentenced to die by crucifixion. Let us hear God’s holy word. Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him saying, hail, king of the Jews, and struck him with their hands. Pilate went out again and said to them, see, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.
So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, behold the man. When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, crucify him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God. When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, Where are you from? but Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, you will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you? Jesus answered him, you would have no authority over me at all, unless it had been given you from above.
Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, if you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar. So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic, Gabbatha. Now, it was the day of preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, Behold your king! 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 delivered him over to them to be crucified. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.
Please join me in your hearts as we ask the Lord’s blessing in prayer upon the preaching of his word. O Lord and Father in heaven, as we come to this sobering portion of Your Word. We pray that by Your Spirit, You would once again open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from Your Word. Grant us the grace to be attentive. Grant us the grace to receive this Word as Your Word. And we pray that by Your Spirit, Your Word would find a lodging place in our souls and bear much spiritual fruit in our lives. Lord, grant unto me, your unworthy servant, the grace to declare and speak forth your word with clarity and power and with the assistance of your spirit for the glory of the name of Jesus Christ, the edification of your saints and the salvation of sinners.
We pray these things, heavenly father, in Jesus name and all of God’s people said, amen. You may be seated. Dear friends, as you see in your sermon outline and in your bulletin, the title of my sermon this morning is Foundations of Faith Suffered Under Pontius Pilate. And there’s a number of key words you can listen for that the children can listen for, especially if they find that helpful in following along. The words history, humiliation, suffering, authority, and king. Well, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is important for us to have a clear understanding of what we believe, of why we believe it, and of how to faithfully confess and bear testimony to our faith before others. This Foundations of Faith series that I’ve been preaching recently is intended to help us in doing those very things.
And so, beloved, on this First Lord’s Day of the new year, we return to our Foundations of Faith series, which is a biblically-based series in which we are reviewing some of the foundational truths of our holy Christian faith. And we’re using the Apostles’ Creed as our guide. not because the Apostles’ Creed is inspired, but rather because the Apostles’ Creed summarizes some very central foundational biblical truths that we as Christians confess and believe. On this Lord’s Day morning, we resume our consideration of the second credo, the second, I believe, statement of the Apostles’ Creed, and we focus today on the affirmation of that second credo, that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate. Now dear friends, there are many important truths that are highlighted in this section of the creed, but two important truths stand out in this second credo.
First of all, the second credo of the Apostles’ Creed highlights the fact that the Christian gospel is grounded in genuine history and in real historical events, not in mythology or in mythological stories that are disconnected from objective history. You see, friends, our God, the God of the Bible, is a God of history and providence. He is a God who has sovereignly decreed all of creation and is sovereignly working out his plan and purpose within history. And Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, entered into real space-time history in the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth, and he did so in order to redeem us from our sins. So that’s one very important aspect of our faith that we need to always keep in mind. This is one of the things, for example, that makes biblical Christianity different from religions like Buddhism.
Now Buddhism is a religious philosophical system and of course Buddhism derives its name from the Buddha, but even if the Buddha was a mythological figure and not a real historical figure, the religion of Buddhism could continue because Buddhism does not depend upon historical events. But Christianity is different. Biblical Christianity is rooted in God’s actions of mercy and judgment that take place within history for the redemption and salvation of his people. Now, a second important truth that the second credo of the Apostles’ Creed highlights is that Jesus, though fully divine, nevertheless experienced real suffering. And he experienced real suffering because he was also a real flesh and blood human being. And therefore the Apostles’ Creed, especially in its second credo, stands as a witness against all heresies which would deny the full flesh and blood humanity of our Lord.
Heresies such as Gnosticism and Docetism and every other heresy that would deny our Lord’s full human nature. This statement of the creed in which we confess that our Lord suffered under Pontius Pilate underscores these and similar important truths. This statement from the creed is based on passages from the gospels such as the one that we are considering this morning from the Gospel of John. And so let’s now turn our attention to this passage of God’s Word, John chapter 19. Now in our passage for this Lord’s Day morning we have John’s account of part of our Lord’s trial. And you know when we compare the gospel accounts in the New Testament we observe that our Lord’s trial took place in a number of different phases. For example, there was an initial Jewish religious phase of our Lord’s trial, which took place before the high priest Caiaphas and the Jewish ruling council, which was called the Sanhedrin.
And then there was an initial interrogation of the Lord Jesus before Pontius Pilate, which, and that of course, represented the civil or secular phase of our Lord’s trial. Now Luke’s gospel tells us that at some point in this process, Pilate had tried to pass Jesus off to Herod, since as a Galilean, Jesus belonged to Herod’s jurisdiction. But of course, Herod ended up sending Jesus right back to Pilate. So Pilate couldn’t extricate himself from having to deal with this man, Jesus of Nazareth, who was brought before him. for trial. And finally, there was the sentencing phase when Pilate finally caved to the pressure from the Jewish religious authorities and unjustly sentenced our Lord Jesus to die an awful, painful, shameful death by crucifixion. Crucifixion being one of the most horrible forms of torture ever invented by the twisted, sick mind of sinful, fallen humanity.
As we approach our passage for this morning, the Jewish phase of our Lord’s trial has already happened, and his initial interrogation by Pontius Pilate has already taken place. Our passage for this morning is John’s record of the sentencing phase of our Lord’s trial. And this passage for this morning indeed underscores the truth that we confess in the creed that Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate. passage for today bearing clear testimony to that. So let’s dive into the details of our passage, and if you’re following along in your sermon outline, this is the first point, first main point in my sermon outline. Beloved, behold the man. Let us consider the humiliation and innocence of the Son of God. Behold the man. as we consider the humiliation and the innocence of the Son of God. We’ll focus on the first seven verses of our passage first of all.
Now this section of our passage showcases the depth of utter humiliation and utter shame that our Lord Jesus endured for us in his state of humiliation as Jesus begins his steep descent into the black hole of the outer darkness that he would endure on the cross where he would bear our sins. Notice verse one, it says this, then Pilate, then meaning after the things recorded at the end of chapter 18, then Pilate took Jesus and did what? Flogged him. Now again, remember, Jesus has been initially interrogated by Pilate, but no sentencing has taken place yet. And yet Pilate orders Jesus to be flogged. Now, it appears that our Lord was flogged twice, both before and after His sentencing, enduring a somewhat lighter beating prior to His sentencing, and then enduring the dreaded and often deadly scourging after He was sentenced and immediately before His crucifixion.
It’s likely that the flogging, which John writes about here, was what the Romans called the fustigatio, which, according to one scholar, is the lightest form of flogging administered for minor crimes, and not the more brutal and severe form of scourging, which was called the verbaratio, and which our Lord received after Pilate had pronounced the death sentence. as we shall see, perhaps this initial lighter beating was intended by Pilate to kind of batter and bruise our Lord just enough to hopefully draw forth sympathy from our Lord’s enemies, the Jewish religious authorities, and hopefully in Pilate’s mind, hopefully perhaps to convince them to back off on their insistence that Pilate sentenced Jesus to death by crucifixion. But whatever the case may be, whatever Pilate’s intentions in subjecting Jesus to this initial lighter form of beating before bringing him out before the Jews, whatever the case may be, the pain and the indignities that our Lord Jesus endured as the suffering servant of the Lord predicted by Isaiah 53 had already begun in earnest.
Goes on to say in verse two, and the soldiers twisted together a crown, but what kind of crown? A crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him saying, hail, king of the Jews, and struck him with their hands. The soldiers ridiculed. and torment our Lord by clothing Jesus in mock royal apparel, pressing down upon his brow a mock crown of thorns which would have gone deeply into his brow and created quite a flow of blood over his face, and then arraying him in a mock royal robe of purple, purple being an imperial color, and then displaying their contemptuous disdain for him by addressing him with a mock royal acclamation, hail, king of the Jews, an acclamation which was similar to the way that Roman soldiers would acclaim the Caesar.
Little did these soldiers know that the very one whom they were mocking and ridiculing and scorning and disdaining as a false king, that this pitiful looking man in such a state of humiliation in their presence that this pitiful looking Jew was actually their sovereign lord and king, indeed the creator incarnate. One wonders how they would have reacted if it had been revealed to them who they were actually mocking and ridiculing. In any case, it goes on to say in verse four, Pilate went out again and said to them, see, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him. Now this is very, very significant friends. Once again Pilate declares, this isn’t the first time that Pilate has declared our Lord’s innocence in the process of our Lord’s trial.
Here once again, Pilate declares Jesus to be innocent. In his eyes as a Roman governing official, in the eyes of the Roman law, Jesus has done nothing wrong, nothing worthy, certainly nothing worthy of death. And this is an important theme in John’s gospel, for it highlights the legal innocence of Jesus, and therefore emphasizes the truth that John the Baptist had proclaimed about Jesus earlier in the gospel, namely, the truth that Jesus is the sinless, spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, as John the Baptist had testified of Jesus back in chapter one, verse 21. Jesus was indeed the innocent one. He was the spotless, sinless lamb of God. Even his earthly judge pronounced him to be free of guilt and to be innocent. And so what happens next? We go on to verse five.
It says, so Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And what a pitiful spectacle that must have been. Jesus, this bruised and battered man, with a crown of thorns and blood from his brow, robed in a purple robe to mock him. He comes out, and what does Pilate say? Pilate said to them, behold the man, behold the man. Now what did Pilate mean by this statement, behold the man? We’re not told, we can only speculate, but a good guess is that perhaps by making this statement, Pilate was in effect saying, now you folks, you Jewish authorities, look at this fellow, look at this poor fellow. Certainly he can’t be guilty of any crime deserving death. Certainly you don’t want me to crucify this fellow. But whatever Pilate intended by these words, behold the man.
It is likely that the Apostle John, who writes under the inspiration of the Spirit, intends for us, his readers, to see a deeper meaning in these words. throughout the process of our Lord’s trial before Pilate. Pilate says a number of statements, makes a number of statements that are profound and deep and statements that Pilate himself may not have, certainly did not understand the significance of what he was saying. He says here, behold the man. It’s likely that John intends for us as readers to see a deeper meaning in these words of Pilate. Think about it, my friends. Jesus Christ is indeed not just a man, he is the man. He is the ideal, perfect man. He is the last Adam, the one who as man represents his people and dies as their sin bearer, their substitute on the cross of Calvary.
If this is the case, if this is the case that John intends for us to see this meaning behind these words, then John’s record of Pilate’s words stress the irony of this situation. Pilate makes this saying, statement, behold the man, trying to apparently get pity from his adversary so that they won’t continue to insist that Jesus be crucified, but in making this statement, behold the man, He makes a statement that is truer and deeper than he can possibly conceive. Jesus is the man, he is indeed the God-man, the Word made flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. But how did they react as Pilate brings Jesus, Jesus having suffered an initial beating, having been humiliated with the crown of thorns and the mock acclamations and the purple robe? How did the crowds, the Jewish crowds respond? Look at verse six.
When the chief priests and the officers saw him, saw Jesus, they cried out, crucify him, crucify him. And how does Pilate respond? Pilate said to them, take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him. You can tell that Pilate’s kind of had it up to here with these Jewish leaders. And there were great tensions between the Romans and the Jews at that time. And that’s kind of accentuated in our passage for today. If Pilate had thought that presenting Jesus in this beaten, bruised, and humiliated condition would somehow soften the hearts of our Lord’s enemies, he was deeply mistaken, even as he is apparently deeply disappointed as well. Instead of responding with pity or changing their minds, they cry out to Pilate all the more insistently, all the more vehemently, all the more vitriolically, crucify him.
Crucify him. In words that must have reflected cynical exasperation and frustration, Pilate replies, take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him. Again, Pilate declares our Lord’s innocence. And Pilate says this even though Pilate knows that the Jewish authorities have no legal authority under Roman law to actually crucify Jesus. So Pilate’s sort of caught between a rock and a hard place. He’s under great pressure. He’s responsible to keep the Roman peace among the Jews and he’s getting political pressure from these Jewish religious authorities to crucify this man that he is convinced is innocent and who in fact is innocent. But then the Jews double down, the Jewish authorities double down in verse seven. It says, the Jews answered him, we have a law and according to that law, he ought to die because he has made himself the son of God.
Oh, they know how to push Pilate’s buttons. Pilate was charged with maintaining the law. Dr. Donald Guthrie in his commentary says this about this verse, it says, the accusers now introduce a religious charge based on an appeal to law. It was not the charge that he made himself the son of God which perturbed Pilate, but the reference to a law for the Romans had committed themselves to maintain Jewish customs and law. Beloved, Behold the man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the man who suffered under Pontius Pilate. The man who suffered under Pontius Pilate, why? For us and for our salvation. The man Christ Jesus, who though innocent and sinless, endured such humiliation, such shame, so that we who by grace trust in him for salvation might be delivered from the everlasting shame of God’s holy judgment and might receive the gift. everlasting life.
Dear listener, let me ask you, have you beheld the man, indeed the God-man, Jesus Christ? Have you beheld Him with the eyes of faith? Have you seen in Jesus your only hope of salvation? He is your only hope and my only hope of salvation. He is the perfect, innocent, spotless, sinless Lamb of God who died on the cross to take away the sin of the world. He is the only hope of salvation for a guilty, sinful humanity. Is He your only hope of salvation? Have you looked upon Him with the eyes of faith, trusting Him and Him alone for salvation from your sin? Oh, dear listener, repent. Turn from your sin to Christ, trust in him alone to save you from your sins. And the word of God says that you will be saved. Indeed, behold the man, the man who is more than just a man, the man who is the word made flesh, God incarnate.
And so we see here the innocence and humiliation of the man Christ Jesus. But this passage, as we move on in our text for today, this passage also highlights and underscores God’s authority above all earthly powers, and that’s the second point on your sermon outline. Let us consider next what we learn here about God’s authority over all earthly powers. And we’re gonna focus now briefly on verses eight through 11. Now this section of our passage not only reveals Pilate’s moral weakness and his fear and his vain appeal to his own vaunted authority as a Roman governing official, but more significantly, this section reveals that Pilate is simply a servant under God’s providence to serve God’s redemptive purposes in the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. responsible for his sin in charging Jesus and sentencing him to death.
But nevertheless, Pilate is a pawn. He is an instrument used by God to bring about the occasion of our Lord’s death by crucifixion, which was necessary in God’s plan of redemption for us and for our salvation. This section reveals Pilate’s utter and pathetic weakness both morally and politically in sharp contrast to God’s sovereign, superintending authority and power. Here Christ emphasizes that God’s authority is above all earthly powers, including the temporal powers that Pilate then enjoyed as a Roman official. So let’s dive in and let’s look at verse eight. When Pilate heard this statement, the statement that the Jews made in verse seven. When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, where are you from? And there once again, Pilate asks a very profound question.
Where is Jesus from? Very profound, though Pilate certainly did not understand the profundity of his own question. But in verse eight, Pilate’s fear is emphasized, and Pilate’s fear was likely due to his pagan viewpoint. Pilate knew that there was something unusual, perhaps something weird, about this Jesus fellow. Jesus, indeed, in his human appearance, seemed weak and pitiful, and yet there was something unusual about this man, Jesus. Perhaps Pilate just couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something frightening. At some level, Pilate knew that in standing in the presence of Jesus, he was standing in the presence of the holy, and he was afraid. But this fear was also likely due to the warning that Matthew’s gospel said that he had received from his wife. Let’s take a look briefly at Matthew 27, verses 18 and 19.
Again, it’s a fascinating study if you’re interested in studying the trial and sentencing of our Lord Jesus by comparing the gospel accounts, to compare Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, because as you compare these gospel accounts, they fill out the details wonderfully. In Matthew 27, verses 18 and 19, we read these words, and here Pilate is judging Jesus. He’s sitting on the judgment seat, it says, For he knew that it was out of envy that they, that the Jews, had delivered Jesus up to him. Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream. There’s some supernatural stuff going on. Pilate’s wife had had like an omen type of dream and she sends him a message, don’t have anything to do with that righteous man.
I’ve suffered much in a dream because of him. So these factors must have been those which contributed to Pilate’s fear as recorded in our passage for today. And so Pilate, out of fear, asks Jesus privately in the headquarters, where are you from? Of course, Jesus does not answer this question. But while Jesus does not answer this Pilate’s question directly to Pilate, here in John’s narrative, this question is likely meant to cause us as readers to reflect and to consider the question, where indeed is Jesus from? And if you read through John’s gospel, it is clear that our Lord Jesus ultimately came not from Nazareth, But he came from the Father and he was going to return to the Father after accomplishing the redemptive work that the Father had given him to accomplish. And now how does Pilate respond when Jesus doesn’t deign to answer his question?
Where are you from? Well, look at verse 10. So Pilate said to him, you will not speak to me? Why are you not speaking to me, he’s wondering. You will not speak to me. Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you? Again, Pilate stresses his temporal authority over the Lord Jesus, but then notice what Jesus says in verse 11. Jesus says, you would have no authority over me at all, unless it had been given you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. Now isn’t this ironic? Here is Pilate, Jesus’s temporal judge. Pilate’s supposed to be judging Jesus, but Jesus in the way that he responds to Pilate shows that he’s the real judge, that he’s the one who’s in control, and that he’s the one confronting Pilate with Pilate’s limited authority as well as Pilate’s own sin.
And so Jesus sets Pilate straight. He reminds Pilate that he would have no authority over Jesus unless it had been given to him from above, in other words, from God. And this highlights the truth, beloved, that all earthly power is ultimately given as a grant from God. And because of that, as Jesus says, therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. Now, who would that be? Who was the one that delivered Jesus over to Pilate? Some might think, well, that must be Judas Iscariot. But no, that’s not true. Judas Iscariot did not deliver Jesus to Pilate. Judas Iscariot was instrumental in delivering Jesus over to Caiaphas and the Jewish ruling council. And so the answer to the question, who is it that delivered Jesus over to Pilate was Caiaphas, the high priest.
However, though Pilate’s sin is lesser than that of Caiaphas, nonetheless, our Lord’s statement here still confronts Pilate with his sin and by implication with Pilate’s need for repentance from that sin. Jesus was not afraid to speak truth to power, even to one who had temporal authority at least to sentence Jesus to death by crucifixion. He was not afraid to speak truth to power. For even men of high position like Pilate need to know that they are sinners who are accountable to their creator and who must answer for their sins. My friends, the takeaway from this, the lessons we can learn from this are many, but let me suggest to you by way of application, we learn here, beloved, that God is indeed sovereign over all nations and over all men of whatever high position or low position.
God is sovereign and Jesus Christ is Lord of all. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. God’s authority is above all earthly powers and authorities. Let us recognize and submit to His divine authority and let us praise Him that He has carried out His perfect plan of redemption under His sovereign authority and for our ultimate good. But the final section of our passage for today as we wrap things up. In our final section, in verses 12 to 16, we see the unjust sentencing of Jesus, the Messianic King. The unjust sentencing of Jesus, the Messianic King. Verse 12, goes on to say, from then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out. And by the way, when John speaks of the Jews, he’s not being anti-Semitic. He’s simply saying, he’s speaking here of the Jewish religious authorities, the unbelieving Jews who had rejected their Messiah.
From then on, Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, if you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Now it’s important to understand that Caesar’s friend may actually be an official title. He’s not just saying, well, you’re not being loyal to Caesar if you let this man go. Caesar’s friend may be an official title indicating that the one who was regarded as Caesar’s friend had Caesar as his patron and that Pilate was a benefactor of Caesar. That may very well be the case. And the significance of these words here is that here the Jewish authorities are implicitly threatening to report Pilate to the emperor for tolerating a rival claimant to the throne. That was a no-no in the Roman Empire, and therefore if Pilate had chosen to release Jesus, he would almost certainly have lost, his political career would have been over, and it’s also quite possible that his life would be over as well, because you simply don’t tolerate a rival claimant to the throne, and that’s what Jesus was being accused of being.
This man says he’s a king, he’s a rival to Caesar, And so Pilate is being put here in a very difficult spot, and this difficult spot exposes his own compromise and weakness and sin and lack of a spine, if you will. And it goes on to say, Verse 13, so when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement and in Aramaic, Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. Now some scholars have pointed out, some have pointed out that Mark’s gospel says it was the third hour and there are a number of different explanations for this apparent discrepancy. One suggestion is that here John may be using the Roman reckoning of time and in Roman reckoning the first hour began at 12 midnight. whereas in Jewish reckoning, the first hour began at basically 6 a.m., and so all of this may have taken place early in the morning, but the point is, all of this, that Jesus was crucified sometime towards the middle of the day on this particular day, and it was the day of preparation of the Passover, probably the Friday in preparation for the Sabbath on that Passover week.
He said to the Jews, behold your king. Before he had said behold the man, now he says behold your king. Behold your king. They cried out again, away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, shall I crucify your king? It’s likely that this question is dripping with sarcasm. Shall I crucify your king? And what do they say? These are frightful words here at the end of our passage, end of verse 15. The chief priests answered, we have no king but Caesar. If you know the Old Testament scriptures, one of the major points of truth that is revealed in the Old Testament is that God took Israel and he was their king. By saying we have no king but Caesar, they were in effect saying we reject God’s kingship. For they indeed had rejected God’s king, God’s messianic king, the Lord Jesus Christ.
This represented their ultimate apostasy. And so what does Pilate do? Verse 16 says very succinctly, very briefly, So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. And as we learn when comparing the gospel accounts before Jesus is crucified, he is subjected to the more brutal scourging, which basically shredded the skin off of your back and buttocks area before you were actually crucified. And that form of scourging was often deadly. And so, friends, we see here that Christ suffered unjustly. We see the unjust sentencing of Jesus, the Messianic King. But this unjust sentencing, beloved, is our salvation. For Christ our Lord, the innocent, sinless, spotless Lamb of God, He suffered unjustly under Pontius Pilate. Why? To justify us. the just one suffered in the place of those of us who are unjust, that we by the grace of God may be freely justified before the Father and receive the gift of eternal life.
Beloved, We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate. He did so for us and for our salvation. Let us praise him for his amazing grace and let us proclaim the good news of our Lord’s death followed by his resurrection to a lost and dying world. Let us pray. Gracious heavenly Father, sovereign and eternal God, we praise you and we thank you for all that Jesus, our Savior, has done for us. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you were willing to suffer so as the suffering servant in order to redeem us from our sins and reconcile us to the Father. We pray, Lord, that we would take these truths to heart and that by your Spirit you would empower us to bear faithful testimony to these glorious gospel truths. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen.
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