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Feb. 28, 1988
Sadly, it is possible for long-time believers to struggle with an apathetic spirit as they encounter the familiar story of Jesus’ passion. Alistair Begg challenges us to come face-to-face with our sin, which scourged, mocked, and sentenced the perfect Christ. Both Herod and Pilate reacted to Jesus in a way that is instructive and cautionary as we seek to quicken our own imaginations and fathom what was accomplished through these events.
1Then Pilate took Jesus and qflogged him. 2rAnd the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. 3They came up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him with their hands. 4Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that sI find no guilt in him.” 5So Jesus came out, wearing tthe crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, u“Behold the man!” 6When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, v“Take him yourselves and crucify him, for wI find no guilt in him.” 7The Jews1 answered him, “We have a law, and xaccording to that law he ought to die because yhe has made himself the Son of God.” 8When Pilate heard this statement, zhe was even more afraid. 9aHe entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, b“Where are you from?” But cJesus gave him no answer. 10So 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?” 11Jesus answered him, d“You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore ehe who delivered me over to you fhas the greater sin.”
12From then on gPilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. hEveryone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” 13So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on ithe judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic2 Gabbatha. 14Now it was jthe day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour.3 He said to the Jews, k“Behold your King!” 15They cried out, l“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.” 16mSo he ndelivered him over to them to be crucified.
So they took Jesus,
Copyright © 2025, Alistair Begg. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.
