Is Scripture Trying to Absolve Pilate?

If you’ve read the Gospels, you might have noticed a sharp contrast between the Jews and Pilate. In Luke and John, Pilate doesn’t want to crucify Jesus (Luke 23:4, John 19:4). In Matthew, Pilate questions Jesus’ innocence (Matthew 27:23), and in Mark he recognizes that “it was out of self-interest” that Jesus had been handed over to him (Mark 15:10). Even in Acts, Peter differentiates between Pilate and those Jews who wanted Jesus dead:

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go.

Acts 3:13 (NIV)

Why does Scripture emphasize this difference? Surely it can’t be an effort to somehow “absolve” Pilate while condemning the Jews, can it?

Ledges

To have
and
to hold,
bitter
memories
neatly
shelved
with
grief
loss
the horror—
of
that
day…

Here We Go Again: Israel and the Promises They Didn’t Keep

In Nehemiah 9, we read a heartfelt, sincere prayer and confession from the Israelites who had returned from exile. They go into great detail about their corporate sins as they recount God’s faithfulness, beginning with Abram and God’s “covenant with him to give to his descendants the Promised Land (Nehemiah 9:8, NIV). They confess their ancestors’ unfaithfulness from the exodus through the present, highlighting their arrogance, idolatry, and persistence in doing evil while God remained faithful.

They close their prayer with a promise:

“In view of all this, we are making a binding agreement, putting it in writing, and our leaders, our Levites and our priests are affixing their seals to it.”

Nehemiah 9:38 (NIV)

And in Nehemiah 10, we’re given a list of 84 men—many representing heads of families and/or whole ancestral courses or divisions of priests—who signed the document. The rest of the population joined them:

“The rest of the people—priests, Levites, gatekeepers, musicians, temple servants and all who separated themselves from the neighboring peoples for the sake of the Law of God, together with their wives and all their sons and daughters who are able to understand—all these now join their fellow Israelites the nobles, and bind themselves with a curse and an oath to follow the Law of God given through Moses the servant of God and to obey carefully all the commands, regulations and decrees of the LORD our Lord.

Nehemiah 10:28-29 (NIV)

This wasn’t Johnny promising he wouldn’t pick on his little brother anymore—these people were sincere enough to “bind themselves with a curse and an oath—concluding, ‘We will not neglect the house of our God ‘” (Nehemiah 10:39, NIV).

And yet, the book of Nehemiah closes with Nehemiah demanding, “Why is the house of God neglected?” (Nehemiah 13:11, NIV).

If you’re like me, you’re probably shaking your head in disgust because this isn’t the first time Israel’s made a promise to “return” to the Lord and broken it. In fact, from Exodus through the promise in Nehemiah 9, I count at least 10 times when Israel has begged for forgiveness, pleading, “We’ll never do *it* again,” only to do *it* again.

It’s enough to make anyone shake their head in disgust.

Well, if we weren’t just like them.

Does Close Reading Always Pay Off?

I’ve always loved reading. My parents got me hooked on books at a very young age to help with a lazy eye. I must have been about three or four. Because I was born in the summer, I was one of the youngest kids in my grade. Once I began reading, I didn’t stop. I devoured books like candy, except I never got sick from reading too much!