In this series we’re considering the statements made by Pilate, the judge at the trial of the Lord Jesus. Pilate probably didn’t intend his words to be profound, but they are!

We hope you find them interesting and thought-provoking.

When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather [that] a tumult was rising, he took water and washed [his] hands before the multitude, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see [to it].” (Matthew 27:24)

Investigating the ‘Jesus of Nazareth case’, Pilate had become convinced that the man on trial was entirely innocent of any charges. As the official representative of Roman justice his duty was clear: he should immediately have acquitted the Lord Jesus Christ. But he knew that the Jewish religious leaders had an ingrained hatred of this Man and were stirring up the Jerusalem crowds, vastly inflated by the influx of worshippers for the Passover feast, into a dangerously explosive fury. And the last thing he wanted was another riot to tarnish his already unsavoury reputation. More, the shrewd Jewish leaders had accused Pilate of treachery against Caesar himself, if he let Jesus of Nazareth go free (John 19:12). That was the final blow. With a craven disregard for justice and right, he publicly washed his hands of the matter. He dared to claim innocence for himself, whereas in reality the Lord Jesus was the truly innocent One, not only guiltless of anything calling for the death penalty but also completely free from all stain of sin. He alone is the just Man who did what was right before God and avoided everything that was wrong. The Bible is clear in its diagnosis of mankind as a whole: all have fallen short of God’s perfect standard and deserve the ultimate punishment (Rom 3:23; 6:23). And here is the great marvel. The One who didn’t deserve to die offered Himself in the place of those whose sins cry out for judgment. Christ died ‘the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God’ (1 Peter 3:18).