( For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast.)
The verse belongs to the account of Jesus standing before Pilate during the Passover feast, when the Jewish leaders and priests and rulers sought His condemnation and pressured the Roman governor to carry out their will, while the crowd demanded His crucifixion. It states the feast custom requiring Pilate to release to the people one prisoner condemned to death at the great national festival. That custom was a pagan invention with no particle of justice in it.
Pilate was convinced that Jesus was innocent, knew the Jews had brought Him to the judgment hall from envy, and recognized that His power even while bound and under accusation was not that of a common man but of God, so he dared not give Him up to that maddened power and tried to use the release custom as a subterfuge to set Jesus free. In the vain hope of exciting pity so that the multitude would decide the punishment was enough, Pilate had Jesus scourged in the presence of the multitude and then presented the true and innocent Christ side by side with Barabbas for choice. He flattered himself that the contrast between innocence and guilt would be so convincing that the people would choose Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus stood pale, exhausted and stained with blood, with a crown of thorns on His head and stripped to the waist revealing long cruel stripes from which blood flowed freely, yet His noble character could not be hidden and stood in marked contrast to Barabbas. Barabbas was a notable, notorious robber chief and murderer whose every feature proclaimed a debased and hardened desperado. He pretended to be Christ and did great wickedness through satanic agencies, claiming that whatever he could obtain by theft and robbery and murder was his own and claiming religious power and a right to establish a different order of things and to set the world right.
The people chose Barabbas rather than Jesus, the Son of God, and demanded that Jesus be crucified. The fickleness of the crowd and the rejection of Jesus in the judgment hall formed the great trial for which He had prepared His disciples. Jesus on the cross stands as an example of faithfulness to God amid the power of those opposing Him.
The verse belongs to the account of Jesus standing before Pilate during the Passover feast, when the Jewish leaders and priests and rulers sought His condemnation and pressured the Roman governor to carry out their will, while the crowd demanded His crucifixion. It states the feast custom requiring Pilate to release to the people one prisoner condemned to death at the great national festival. That custom was a pagan invention with no particle of justice in it.
Pilate was convinced that Jesus was innocent, knew the Jews had brought Him to the judgment hall from envy, and recognized that His power even while bound and under accusation was not that of a common man but of God, so he dared not give Him up to that maddened power and tried to use the release custom as a subterfuge to set Jesus free. In the vain hope of exciting pity so that the multitude would decide the punishment was enough, Pilate had Jesus scourged in the presence of the multitude and then presented the true and innocent Christ side by side with Barabbas for choice. He flattered himself that the contrast between innocence and guilt would be so convincing that the people would choose Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus stood pale, exhausted and stained with blood, with a crown of thorns on His head and stripped to the waist revealing long cruel stripes from which blood flowed freely, yet His noble character could not be hidden and stood in marked contrast to Barabbas. Barabbas was a notable, notorious robber chief and murderer whose every feature proclaimed a debased and hardened desperado. He pretended to be Christ and did great wickedness through satanic agencies, claiming that whatever he could obtain by theft and robbery and murder was his own and claiming religious power and a right to establish a different order of things and to set the world right.
The people chose Barabbas rather than Jesus, the Son of God, and demanded that Jesus be crucified. The fickleness of the crowd and the rejection of Jesus in the judgment hall formed the great trial for which He had prepared His disciples. Jesus on the cross stands as an example of faithfulness to God amid the power of those opposing Him.