Why did Jesus 'Flunk' His Trial?
I wrote this today as an e-mail to someone who raised questions on the local radio in 'Morning Thought' about why Pontius Pilot allowed Jesus to be cruicified.
I think that sometimes people do not 'read deeply' into the narrative of the Bible. It is a newish skill I am practicing with the help of some commentaries I am reading at the moment.
I am choosing two pictures from my Arctic trip back in March to illustrate this essay.
Jesus as far as I can recollect made no direct claim to be 'The Son of God' to anyone but the Samaritan Woman at the well. This is to satisfy a legal precedent as she was not a Jew. To state that He was 'The Son of God' to a non Jew, is not a problem.
However in dialogue NIV in John ch 8 verses 48 to 59, there is a very interesting affray going on.
Specifically verse 58. which has some interesting punctuation in my NIV. "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered. Note this is not a full stop, it is a comma.
There is open dialogue going on here and Jesus is being shouted down.
As far as I understand Judaic thought at the time, the Torah was (and is) the express truth as revealed by God through Moses. So Jesus just chucked an incendiary bomb into an already heated argument.
At that time there was no concept of 'embodiment of truth'. Jesus was stating here He was this embodiment, but this meant that it then called into question the giving of the Torah as divinely inspired and only through Moses as an historical event.
There was no pre-cedent for this ordained word of God to be embodied.
Then a very strange bit of wording and punctuation. There is a missing full stop and speech mark. So break away "before Abraham was born, ....
(To even suggest that He, 'Jesus' took pre-cedent status over Moses, was scandalous and irretreavable. He had to DIE!)
This is also an opening of a teaching or discussion which was interrupted with another question or accusation .... To which Jesus replies "I am!"
What was that question? Perhaps someone in this altercation shouts "Are You The Son of God?" Then Jesus is able to reply in affirmation to the question as it is posed to Him by someone who has raised the question and wants a definitive reply.
To which He then is rejected by the others present as a blasphemer and is according to Torah Law 'up for a stoning'.
Barabbas called himself 'Son of God', but no one took him seriously! However they took Jesus very seriously.
Jesus was deemed to be undermining the context of Shavout, the giving of the Torah. He was undermining the very fabric of Jewish society with His claims. The only recourse of action in the state of Israel at that time, was to overturn a ruling by the senior legal civil power. Pontius Pilot. In order to 'rectify' an internal state of affairs that would have completely undermined the whole of Jewish life, thought, learning and context.
In doing so, this placed the Jewish Nation in a dire position. As I understand it, The Law of the Torah is one of causuality, mitigated by God's direct intervention of Grace.
At no time did Jesus say that His intention was to change this Law of the Torah, or diminish it in any way. He also made it very clear to His disciples that there was nothing to be added to it either. However we have managed to lose the plot a great deal, (In my opinion). Ha that's funny. Take the i out of Pilot and you get Plot. (Which is another term for narrative amongst many other meanings).
So the question of ' Are you the Son of God' has to remain a personal question for each individual for all time. (Unless God wraps up time itself and puts a bow on it)
A person is led and guided by The Holy Spirit of God to make this choice for themselves.
Remembering that Jesus came so that the 'Gospel' could be preached throughout the world.
I do not think that 'God's chosen People', stop being 'Chosen' because of rejecting Jesus then or now.
Without this very rejection we would not be having a reflection on this at all, we would have never heard of Jesus.
Also Jesus came to demonstrate the Mercy of God.
That Barabbus must go free is the climax of the trial. If Barabbas didn't go free, how indeed can we be spared and redeemed? Jesus demonstrated in this, that no one is beyond salvation.
I think that sometimes people do not 'read deeply' into the narrative of the Bible. It is a newish skill I am practicing with the help of some commentaries I am reading at the moment.
I am choosing two pictures from my Arctic trip back in March to illustrate this essay.
Jesus as far as I can recollect made no direct claim to be 'The Son of God' to anyone but the Samaritan Woman at the well. This is to satisfy a legal precedent as she was not a Jew. To state that He was 'The Son of God' to a non Jew, is not a problem.
However in dialogue NIV in John ch 8 verses 48 to 59, there is a very interesting affray going on.
Specifically verse 58. which has some interesting punctuation in my NIV. "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered. Note this is not a full stop, it is a comma.
There is open dialogue going on here and Jesus is being shouted down.
As far as I understand Judaic thought at the time, the Torah was (and is) the express truth as revealed by God through Moses. So Jesus just chucked an incendiary bomb into an already heated argument.
At that time there was no concept of 'embodiment of truth'. Jesus was stating here He was this embodiment, but this meant that it then called into question the giving of the Torah as divinely inspired and only through Moses as an historical event.
There was no pre-cedent for this ordained word of God to be embodied.
Then a very strange bit of wording and punctuation. There is a missing full stop and speech mark. So break away "before Abraham was born, ....
(To even suggest that He, 'Jesus' took pre-cedent status over Moses, was scandalous and irretreavable. He had to DIE!)
This is also an opening of a teaching or discussion which was interrupted with another question or accusation .... To which Jesus replies "I am!"
What was that question? Perhaps someone in this altercation shouts "Are You The Son of God?" Then Jesus is able to reply in affirmation to the question as it is posed to Him by someone who has raised the question and wants a definitive reply.
To which He then is rejected by the others present as a blasphemer and is according to Torah Law 'up for a stoning'.
Barabbas called himself 'Son of God', but no one took him seriously! However they took Jesus very seriously.
Jesus was deemed to be undermining the context of Shavout, the giving of the Torah. He was undermining the very fabric of Jewish society with His claims. The only recourse of action in the state of Israel at that time, was to overturn a ruling by the senior legal civil power. Pontius Pilot. In order to 'rectify' an internal state of affairs that would have completely undermined the whole of Jewish life, thought, learning and context.
In doing so, this placed the Jewish Nation in a dire position. As I understand it, The Law of the Torah is one of causuality, mitigated by God's direct intervention of Grace.
At no time did Jesus say that His intention was to change this Law of the Torah, or diminish it in any way. He also made it very clear to His disciples that there was nothing to be added to it either. However we have managed to lose the plot a great deal, (In my opinion). Ha that's funny. Take the i out of Pilot and you get Plot. (Which is another term for narrative amongst many other meanings).
So the question of ' Are you the Son of God' has to remain a personal question for each individual for all time. (Unless God wraps up time itself and puts a bow on it)
A person is led and guided by The Holy Spirit of God to make this choice for themselves.
Remembering that Jesus came so that the 'Gospel' could be preached throughout the world.
I do not think that 'God's chosen People', stop being 'Chosen' because of rejecting Jesus then or now.
Without this very rejection we would not be having a reflection on this at all, we would have never heard of Jesus.
Also Jesus came to demonstrate the Mercy of God.
That Barabbus must go free is the climax of the trial. If Barabbas didn't go free, how indeed can we be spared and redeemed? Jesus demonstrated in this, that no one is beyond salvation.
Perhaps Here is my point
This is the 'full picture' that I took a snippet from above.
This sculpture marks the 'official margin' of the Arctic Circle. However in the snippet of the picture above, it has been 'taken out of it's contextual environment considerably.
Now in actuallity, this is not even where the Arctic Circle began that day, as Magnetic North placed it a few minutes away.
This sculpture marks the 'official margin' of the Arctic Circle. However in the snippet of the picture above, it has been 'taken out of it's contextual environment considerably.
Now in actuallity, this is not even where the Arctic Circle began that day, as Magnetic North placed it a few minutes away.
This is as close a picture I could get at magnetic North as my camera had run out of battery and was running on someone else's battery that my camera said was incompatible! I just kept turning off the camera, and took the next picture before it could spit the battery out!
This was taken at 11.59 on the 11/03/2011 My GPS wasn't working as far as I am aware, but it would be interesting to check the ship's log to see how close I got it.
So perhaps this is another analogy.
The first picture of the beacon shows us there is a point at which one crosses into the Arctic Circle. This is like a 'Baptismal Point'.
Yet the knowledge that this is a concept, and that every year the actual magnetic North is moving, can open our understanding to the idea that 'The Spirit of God' also moves.
He moves our world every day.
He can move our Hearts and Minds when they are open to Him, and He can move us to change, and follow Him to where Jesus is pointing Now.
Glad I was wearing thermals, It was freezing!