Pilate's Role: Truth and Redemption in Christ

In the Apostles Creed, we find something that is a little bit unusual, and that is, there is a reference in this creed to a historical person other than Jesus, that person who makes it into the creed and remains notorious and infamous because of it, is Pontius Pilate. [00:00:31]

The Early Church considered Pontius Pilate to be a very important person in terms of redemptive history, that he was used of God at a particular time and in a particular place for a particular reason; namely, to bring about the death of Christ that is designed for our redemption. [00:01:24]

And Pontius Pilate functions, according to the thinkers of the Early Church, in a role that is called the "Publico Persona," or as we would say, "A public person." He is a public figure who is in a position of authority, the seat of Roman power, as he represents the Roman government in this drama. [00:01:50]

But in the Early Church with the conviction that Pilate was not speaking merely as a private individual, but as one authorized by the Roman state, that his words take on more weighty significance. But even beyond the role of speaking as a public person in these categories, the Early Church saw in Pilate a man who was making statements that had meaning far beyond what he himself intended. [00:04:23]

And so these dual statements of Pilate, number one, "I find no fault in the man." Now I want to ask for a moment why do you suppose Pilate said that? Pilate said that because he didn't find any fault in the man. And the reason he didn't find any fault in the man that he had just interrogated is because there was no fault to be found. [00:07:53]

Behold the man. And I speak particularly today to men who are looking for role models, who are looking for heroes, who are suffering some kind of identity crisis with their own masculinity. If you want to find out what it means to be a man in the fullest sense of the word, listen to Pontius Pilate when he says, "Ecce homo. Behold the man." [00:08:15]

Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now my kingdom is not from here." That's a fascinating reply that Jesus makes. The first thing he says is, "You are thinking in the wrong categories Pilate." [00:11:06]

Jesus said, "For this reason have I come into the world to bear witness to the Truth. That's what I'm about Pontius Pilate. My mission is not to bring peace. My mission is not to bring unity. My mission is to bring truth, to speak the Truth, to act the Truth, to do the Truth, and to tell the Truth." [00:14:56]

Pilate now responds with the famous query, "What is truth?" Here is where we are at a disadvantage. The Bible doesn't tell us anything about his facial expression, his gestures, or the tone of voice when he asked that question. Was it sarcastic? Was it cynical? Did he say look at Jesus, smug and say, "Truth, huh, what's truth?" [00:18:54]

The great irony, of course, of this encounter, this face to face meeting, is that what Pilate didn't know at that moment was that he was standing face to face with Truth. He hadn't heard Jesus' words that Jesus had spoken just the night before. "I am the Truth." Jesus was the very incarnation of truth. [00:19:34]

I'd like to ask you, how important is truth to you? As part of our American history and heroism of the revolution to extol the virtues of men like Patrick Henry, who stood up and gave stirring speeches like, "Give me liberty or give me death." That phrase stirs the souls of patriots, but it's a stirring of the soul of a person who is committed to a nation, to a political system, to something of this world. [00:21:20]

Nations come and go, but the truth of God abides forever. We need Christians today who will stand up and say, give me truth, or give me death. Because, and on the pages of scripture, we understand that truth is sacred. Truth is something that comes from God. Truth is holy truth is worth fighting for. Truth is worth dying for. [00:22:00]