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Jesus Before Pilate – Steadfast

Steadfast! It is a word we don’t use much anymore, but it’s in the scriptures and we are admonished to be “steadfast and immovable” Mosiah 5:15). What does it mean? It means to be “constant; firm; resolute; not fickle or wavering” (Websters 1828 Dictionary). Like this…

It was early in the morning when the Council of the Jews led Jesus to Pilate, the Roman Governor to condemn Him. They had already sentenced Him to death but under Roman law they could not carry it out. Only Pilate could give that order, but blasphemy meant nothing to him. So they had to come up with charges of sedition. “We found this fellow perverting the nation,” (Luke 23:2), they said.

Pilate dismissed them. He wanted nothing to do with this, but they insisted. Pilate went back and questioned Jesus, and after a few minutes he came back out and said, “I find no fault in this man” Luke 23;4). That only made the rulers more vehement. They began to accuse him of “many things” (Mark 15:3). Jesus meanwhile said nothing.

Upon learning that Jesus was a Galilean, Pilate sent him to Herod who had jurisdiction over that province. Herod “questioned with him in many words, but he answered him nothing” (Luke 23:9). Herod sent him back to Pilate. He too wanted nothing to do with the situation.

Pilate called the Chief Priests, the rulers, and this time, the people and said “I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man….I will therefore chastise Him and release him” (Luke 23:14-15) In response, the crowd–“the multitude, crying aloud, began to desire him to deliver Jesus unto them” (Mark 15:8 JST). The crowd asked for Jesus to be released, not Barabbas, but the “Chief Priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them” Mark 15:11 JST).

Within moments that crowd went from asking for the Savior’s release to chanting “Away with him. Crucify him” (Mark 15:13 JST). Pilate pleaded with them to let him go, but they cried all the louder, “Not this man, but Barabbas” (John 18:40).

For whatever reason, possibly to invoke their sympathies, Pilate had him scourged, and then brought him forth once more before the people and said “Behold the man! (John 19:5). And once more Pilate said to them, “I find no fault in him” (John 19:4), but the people screamed, “He ought to die because He made himself the Son of God” (John 19:7). That made Pilate all the more afraid and twice more he tried to let Jesus go, but when he “saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a great tumult was made, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person, see that ye do nothing to him” Matthew 27:24 JST). Eight times Pilate the Pagan sought to release the Son of God, but in the end he bowed to the clamoring crowd who were nothing more than dupes of conniving men.

All the while, Jesus stood fixed, firm, and constant—steadfast. No crowd ever did or ever could move him from the course of righteousness. Crowds and strident majorities can be, and often are, dangerous. Let us think before we follow.