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The Innocent King and the Chosen Criminal (Matthew 27:15-18) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking, a deep dive into the sources that
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  shape our understanding of the world.
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  I want you to start by just, you know, closing your eyes for a
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  second. Put yourself in a very specific
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  location. Picture yourself standing on
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  this massive heat baked stone pavement.
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  It's the Antonia Fortress in the city of Jerusalem.
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  And the year is well, somewhere in the early 30s AD.
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  The Mediterranean sun is just beating down on your neck.
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  The air is thick with dust. Yeah, and the smell too.
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  Oh yeah, the smell of a massive agitated crowd just pushing in
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  from every side. The noise is deafening and
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  elevated. Before this restless multitude
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  is a Roman governor. Pontius Pilots.
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  Right. He's this brilliant but brutal
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  politician, and right now he's visibly sweating under the
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  pressure of this moment. He's presenting a choice to the
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  people standing on the pavement. Flanking him are two men.
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  Both are in chains, both have been beaten. 1 is a notorious
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  violent killer. His hands are stained with
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  literal blood from a an uprising in the city streets, and the
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  other is a teacher, a healer, the sinless Son of God.
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  I mean, the visual contrast alone right there is staggering.
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  You have the author of Life standing next to a man who,
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  well, he makes his living by taking life.
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  And the fate of both of these men rest entirely on the
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  shouting voices of the local population down below them.
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  It's wild to think about, and our mission today is to examine
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  this very specific historical moment.
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  It's recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 27, verses 15
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  through 18. We're going to unpack the
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  historical, political, and, you know, theological collision that
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  happened on that pavement. We're looking at a peculiar
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  Roman legal custom, the malicious envy of religious
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  elites, and the highly unstable desires of an angry crowd.
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  All of these elements just crashed together to produce the
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  greatest judicial exchange in human history.
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  And we have to approach the scene knowing that the text
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  demands are active participation.
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  Like you cannot read this account as a detached historical
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  spectator. Right, you can't just sit on the
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  sidelines. No, it forces a verdict on the
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  part of the reader. It brings you in.
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  I won't give you any spoilers up front, but I can promise you
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  this. By the end of this conversation,
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  you will view the release of the criminal Barabbas not just as a
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  historical injustice, but as a mirror reflecting your own
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  position before a holy God. Spot on.
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  But before we can comprehend the choice made on that stone
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  pavement, we have to grasp the intense political and cultural
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  friction of the moment. We need to step into the
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  historical background. Yeah, the context is everything
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  here. So the Roman governor we
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  mentioned is Pontius Pilate. Now, Pilate is often depicted in
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  art and you know medieval literature as this conflicted,
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  almost sympathetic figure. Right, the guy wringing his
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  hands. Yeah, like he just got caught in
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  a bad situation and really wanted to do the right thing but
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  couldn't. But looking at the historical
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  reality of 1st century Judea, that popular image is completely
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  inaccurate. Isn't.
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  It oh, it was a total myth. Pontius Pilate, who governed
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  Judea from AD 26 to 36. He was not a secure king sitting
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  comfortably on an ivory throne. He was a Roman prefect or
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  procurator of the equestrian rank.
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  So that means he was essentially a middle management military
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  governor. And he was skating on incredibly
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  thin ice. OK, so he's not the top of the
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  food chain. Not at all.
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  Judea was considered this volatile, high friction outpost
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  on the eastern edge of the Roman Empire.
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  PILOT had two primary job requirements from Rome.
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  First, collect the imperial taxes with ruthless efficiency,
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  and 2nd, prevent any local riots.
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  Get the money and keep it quiet. That's it.
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  If he failed at either of those tasks, his career and likely his
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  physical life will be over in an instant.
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  So his entire administration is driven by sheer practicality.
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  Keep the peace at all costs. Keep the money flowing back to
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  the Capitol. That is the complete sum of his
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  mandate and, well, to make matters worse, he had already
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  failed on the peacekeeping front several times before this trial
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  ever took. Place.
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  Oh, really? Yeah, historical sources like
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  Slavius Josephus and Philo Alexandria, they document that
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  Pilate had this chronic, almost arrogant insensitivity to Jewish
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  religious convictions. He didn't care about their
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  customs. No, early in his tenure he had
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  brought Roman military standards.
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  You know, the Poles burying the emperor's image straight into
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  Jerusalem under the cover of night.
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  And for the Jewish people, that was blatant idolatry.
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  Completely. It provoked massive outrage.
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  A massive crowd traveled to his headquarters in Caesarea, bared
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  their necks and basically told him they would rather die than
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  see their laws violated. And Pilot had to back down,
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  which made him look incredibly weak to his superiors back in
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  Rome. Right, and he also had that
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  incident with the aqueduct, didn't he?
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  That 1 ended in actual bloodshed.
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  Yes, he appropriated sacred temple funds, the Korban, to
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  build an aqueduct into Jerusalem.
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  Which is just a massive overstep.
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  Huge and when 10s of thousands of people protested this at his
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  tribunal, Pilot did not back down.
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  This time, he sent Roman soldiers disguising civilian
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  clothing into the crowd. Undercover cops?
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  Basically, yeah. And at his signal, they pulled
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  out concealed clubs and beat many of the protesters to death.
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  It caused a massive Stampede. So the man is essentially a
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  walking public relations disaster for Rome.
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  Pretty much. Emperor Tiberius must have been
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  dreading opening his mail from the Judean province.
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  Tiberius was absolutely watching.
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  Furthermore Pilot's political patron in Rome, a guy named
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  Sajanis who was notoriously anti-Semitic by the way.
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  He had recently fallen from favor and been executed for
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  treason. Oh wow, so Pilot lost his guy?
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  He lost his political cover. Tiberias was already highly
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  suspicious of anyone connected to Seginis.
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  Pilot was intensely vulnerable. Any major civil disturbance
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  could be fatal for him. That makes so much sense.
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  Right now, place that vulnerable compromise politician in
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  Jerusalem during the Passover festival.
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  This is a high concourse national festival drawing
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  hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all over the known
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  world. City is just packed.
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  Bursting at the seams, nationalistic fervor is at an
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  absolute peak and anti Roman sentiment is boiling over.
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  A riot right now is Pilate's absolute worst nightmare.
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  So Pilate is backed into a dangerous corner before Jesus is
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  even brought before him. But let's talk about the Jewish
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  Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin. They are the ones who arrested
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  Jesus in the 1st place, back in the Garden of Gethsemane.
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  Why bring him to Pilate at all? Why involve the Romans?
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  I mean, it seems like an internal issue.
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  Well, the Sanhedrin led by the Seducian high priestly family of
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  Caiaphas. They hated Jesus for theological
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  reasons. They had formally condemned him
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  in their own ecclesiastical court on the charge of
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  blasphemy. Jesus had made explicit
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  messianic claims. He equated himself with God in
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  their minds under Levitical law that warranted the death
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  penalty. Right, but they couldn't execute
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  him themselves. Precisely under the framework of
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  Roman occupation, the Sanhedrin retained significant internal
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  judicial authority over religious matters.
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  They had their own temple police, they can make arrests,
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  they could enforce religious ordinances.
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  But Rome had strictly stripped them of the ES Gladiac.
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  That is the right of the sword. They did not have the legal
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  authority to carry out capital punishment if they wanted Jesus
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  dead, and they absolutely did. They needed the Roman state
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  machinery to do the execution for.
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  Them. Now wait a minute, I want to
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  trace the logic here. Because if the Sanhedrin hated
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  Jesus for religious reasons, how on earth did they get Pilot to
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  care? Pilot was a Pagan Roman.
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  He worshipped the Pantheon and the Emperor.
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  He wouldn't execute a local rabbi over a debate about Jewish
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  theology. No, not at all.
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  If they walked in and said this man claims to be the son of God,
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  Pilate would just roll his eyes and tell them to handle their
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  own internal squabble. You are hitting on the tactical
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  shift the religious leaders made.
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  They were incredibly cunning. They knew Pilate would dismiss a
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  theological dispute out of hand, so they completely fabricated a
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  political charge. They transitioned from
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  prosecuting a case of blasphemy to alleging high treason against
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  the empire. They told Pilate that Jesus was
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  an insurrectionist who opposed paying imperial taxes to Caesar
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  and claimed to be an earthly rival king.
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  So they turned an internal religious dispute into an
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  international national security threat.
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  They manufactured a crisis Pilot could not ignore the Roman
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  charge would be Crimean Lycemae status or treason given pilots
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  fragile political standing That we just discussed a claim of
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  sedition and a rival king was something he had to investigate.
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  Because if he ignored it. If word got back to Emperor
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  Tiberius that Pilot was tolerating A rival monarch in
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  Judea, Pilate would be crucified himself.
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  And here is where the historical context just blows my mind.
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  Look at the backdrop against which all of this political
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  maneuvering and lying is happening.
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  It's the Passover. Yes, this is the annual
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  celebration where the nation of Israel remembers their
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  historical deliverance from bondage in Egypt.
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  The Great Covenant memorial of redemption.
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  Exactly. I mean spot on.
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  The entire festival revolves around the blood of a substitute
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  lamb. You put the blood of the
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  innocent lamb on the wooden doorpost and the wrathful
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  judgment of God passes over your house.
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  The innocent lamb dies so the guilty family can live.
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  And right in the middle of this specific festival, the true Lamb
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  of God, Jesus, is standing right there, ready to shed his blood
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  on wood while the religious leaders of Israel are actively,
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  aggressively plotting his murder.
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  The atmosphere is thick with absolute irony.
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  The nation is rigorously, meticulously observing a ritual
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  commemorating divine redemption while simultaneously rejecting
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  the actual Redeemer standing right in front of them.
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  It's staggering. The true Passover lamb stands
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  before Gentile authority, and the religious leaders of Israel
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  demand his destruction. So Pilate is looking at the
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  situation. He interrogates Jesus privately.
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  And as we know from the wider gospel narrative, Pilate
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  realizes very quickly that Jesus is not a political
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  revolutionary. He has no army.
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  He possesses no weapons. The charge of insurrection is
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  clearly a manufactured lie, but Pilot still has this massive,
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  agitated crowd gathering outside and a group of furious,
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  influential religious elites demanding blood.
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  Pilot needs a way out of this trap.
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  Yes, since Pilot is looking at a manufactured political charge,
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  he desperately needs a legal loophole.
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  He cannot just dismiss the case and let Jesus walk without
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  infuriating the Sanhedrin and risking the very riot he's
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  supposed to prevent. Which would end his career,
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  right? But his conscience, his wife's
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  warning, and his basic Roman legal training all tell him
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  Jesus is innocent of treason. This dilemma leads us straight
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  to the custom of the Passover amnesty.
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  The text says now at that feast the governor was accustomed to
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  release to the people a prisoner whom they wished.
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  This practice was known historically as the privilegium
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  Pascal. It was a Roman custom of
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  releasing A prisoner at the feast.
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  While Roman law had broader provisions for imperial pardons,
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  this specific practice of letting the local crowd choose a
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  prisoner for release at a religious festival was seemingly
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  unique to the provincial administration of Judea.
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  Why would the Roman war machine do that?
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  It seems like it completely undermines their own justice
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  system to just let convicted criminals walk free based on
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  crowd noise. It was a highly calculated
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  political pressure valve. Rome used this custom to
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  temporarily appease the subjugated Jewish populace by
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  handing over one of their own condemned citizens.
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  The Roman state attempted to project a superficial image of
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  clemency and goodwill. Throw them a bone, basically.
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  Yes, it was concession designed to maintain control, especially
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  during Passover, when nationalistic tensions were
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  extraordinarily high and the city was packed with zealots.
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  You know, I was trying to think of a way to picture pilots
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  mindset here and I want to try this analogy out on you.
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  OK, let's hear it. Imagine a police bomb squad
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  technician. He's trying to defuse a massive
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  explosive in a crowded city square.
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  He opens the panel and his training tells him clearly that
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  he needs to cut the blue wire to save everyone, right?
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  But there is a huge angry mob standing behind the barricades
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  screaming at him to cut the red wire.
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  The mob is getting violent. They're throwing rocks at him.
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  The technician knows cutting the red wire will detonate the bomb
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  and destroy the building, but the pressure is so intense and
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  the rocks are hitting him. So instead of doing what he
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  knows is right, he just hands the wire cutters to the mob and
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  says you guys decide. Wow.
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  He knows it will end in disaster, but he cares more
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  about stopping the immediate yelling than he does about doing
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  his duty. That captures the absolute moral
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  cowardice in the moment perfectly.
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  The bomb technician has objective knowledge of what is
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  right, but he prioritizes his own immediate comfort and safety
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  over the truth. That is the exact psychology
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  driving Pilot on the pavement. It is the sin of pragmatism.
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  Pilot represents the total bankruptcy of human institutions
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  when they operate without the fear of God.
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  He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus was innocent.
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  He stated it publicly multiple times.
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  I find no guilt in this man. Right.
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  As the chief judicial officer of the Roman Empire in Judea,
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  Pilate had objective moral and legal obligations to protect the
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  innocent and punish the guilty. Justice was supposed to be
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  blind, yet he reduced the solemn execution of justice to a
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  populist public relations campaign.
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  Just putting his finger to the wind.
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  Yes, he subjected objective righteousness to the shifting,
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  volatile passions of a street mob.
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  If you are listening to this right now, I think you have to
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  ask yourself how often this dynamic plays out in your own
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  life. How often do our institutions,
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  our workplaces, or our own personal decisions sacrifice
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  absolute, objective truth for the sake of cultural relevance?
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  That's a heavy question. How often when do you and I
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  trade what is demonstrably right for crowd satisfaction or just
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  basic conflict avoidance? It happens every single day.
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  We constantly attempt to manage the truth rather than submit to
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  the truth. The world conditions us to ask
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  what will preserve our position, our reputation, our financial
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  safety, our social standing. Keep the peace.
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  Cut the red wire. Right.
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  The text we are examining completely exposes the moral rot
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  of that pragmatic approach. Pilot knows enough to hesitate,
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  but he lacks the moral fortitude to obey righteousness.
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  He walks the catastrophic path of cowardly leadership.
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  So Pilot's pragmatic strategy to use this amnesty loophole
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  requires an alternative option. He cannot just go out there and
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  say, do you want Jesus released? Because they will just yell no,
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  no they. 'D reject that instantly.
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  He needs to present a comparative choice.
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  He decides to place Jesus next to the most obvious terrifying
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  criminal he has in the dungeon, assuming the crowd will
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  naturally choose the harmless teacher over a violent rebel who
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  endangers their city. He sets up what he thinks is a
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  foolproof contrast, verse 16 says, and they have then a
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  notable prisoner called Barabbas.
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  Let's talk about Barabbas. When I hear prisoner, I tend to
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  think of a guy who stole a loaf of bread or maybe got into a
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  brawl in a Tavern. Who was this man?
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  The Greek word used by Matthew to describe Barabbas is
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  ipisimos. Now in classical Greek
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  literature, this word can mean distinguished or outstanding in
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  a positive sense, like a famous athlete or a renowned scholar.
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  But in this context it carries a highly negative, dark meaning.
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  It means someone who is outstandingly infamous.
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  It means a man branded, flagged and universally marked out by
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  his wicked deeds. So he is a major threat to
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  public safety. Far beyond a common thief,
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  Matthew keeps the description brief, but the other Gospel
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  accounts fill out his terrifying resume.
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  Barabbas was a known insurrectionist and a murderer.
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  He had participated in a recent violent, bloody uprising right
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  there in the city of Jerusalem. In the volatile powder keg
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  climate of Passover, when anti Roman tensions were running
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  high, a prisoner like Barabbas was a supreme danger to everyone
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  around him. You know what I find absolutely
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  fascinating? Here is the textual history
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  behind this man's name. I was looking into this and it
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  adds a layer of depth that is just staggering.
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  You're referring to the stunning textual detail preserved in
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  several ancient manuscript witnesses.
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  If we look at the Cesarean text type, the Codex Chorodethi and
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  early Syriac versions of the Gospel of Matthew in verses 16
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  and 17, the text highly likely originally read Jesus Barabbas.
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  This detail completely stopped me in my tracks.
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  You are saying the murderer's first name was Jesus?
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  It is highly probable, and many prominent textual critics argue
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  for its originality. Jesus or Yeshua in the Aramaic
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  and Hebrew was an incredibly common name in the 1st century.
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  It means Yahweh saves right? As the gospel texts were copied
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  by later scribes over the centuries.
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  Many of those scribes likely omitted the first name Jesus
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  before Barabbas out of a profound sense of reference.
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  They just couldn't handle the association.
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  Right. They simply could not stomach
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  the idea of a violent murderer sharing the exact same name as
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  the Lord of Glory. They thought it was offensive so
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  they dropped it, but the older, harder reading indicates that
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  Pilot literally presented 2 men named Jesus to the screaming
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  crowd. My mind is completely blown by
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  that. The crowd is looking at two men
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  named Yahweh Saves. Let's look at the surname then.
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  Mar Abbas. Breakdown the linguistics of
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  that for us. It is an Aramaic patronymic.
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  Bar means son just like Simon. Barjona means Simon, son of
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  Jonah, and Abaz means Father. Son of the Father, yes.
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  So put this all together. Pilate is standing two men side
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  by side on the pavement. The crowd is looking at 2
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  individuals with the exact same first name, both claiming in
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  their own ways to represent the hope and deliverance of Israel.
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  On the left you have Jesus Barabbas, the counterfeit Son of
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  the Father, a lawless rebel who promises a Kingdom built on
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  violence, bloodshed, and political full upheaval.
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  And on the right you have Jesus the Christ, the true, eternal,
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  sinless Son of the Heavenly Father, who brings a Kingdom of
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  absolute righteousness, peace, and spiritual redemption.
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  That is the supreme, divinely orchestrated historical irony of
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  this entire event. Pilot unwittingly sets up the
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  ultimate spiritual contrast of the ages.
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  The crowd is forced to choose between two figures who offer a
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  form of salvation, but through diametrically opposed means and
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  for entirely different kingdoms. And the choice the crowd makes
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  exposes something terrifying about the default setting of the
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  human heart. It is a devastating clinical
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  exposure when left to its own uncoerced desires apart from the
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  intervening grace of God. Fallen humanity absolutely does
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  not want a Savior who demands holiness, who requires
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  repentance, and who calls for total submission to the absolute
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  Lordship of God. We don't want the demands.
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  No, humanity vastly prefers the counterfeit.
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  We want the Barabbas. We want the guy who will fight
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  our physical enemies but leave our sins alone.
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  Yes, we naturally desire a political revolutionary figure
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  who will validate our carnal passions, defeat our earthly
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  adversaries, and secure our physical comfort and prosperity,
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  all while leaving our deeply sinful hearts completely
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  untouched. Right.
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  Fix my circumstances, not me. Barabbas represents a very
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  recognizable form of worldly deliverance, force, rebellion,
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  agitation and striking back. Jesus comes meek, riding on a
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  donkey, offering a spiritual Kingdom that requires us to take
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  up our own cross and die to ourselves.
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  The natural man will always choose Barabbas.
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  It makes terrible perfect sense why the crowd leans the way they
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  do when you frame it like that. But let's turn our attention
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  back to Pilot for a moment. While he is presenting this
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  choice to the crowd, hoping they take the easy out so he can save
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  his own skin, he is entirely aware of the real reason the
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  religious elites brought Jesus to him in the 1st place.
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  He knows the treason charge is garbage.
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  This brings us to a psychological insight in verse
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  18. Matthew gives us a window into
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  Pilot's mind, he writes, For he knew that because of envy, they
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  had delivered him over. So Pilot, the secular, Pagan,
• 19:59
  ruthless politician, looks right past all the pious theological
• 20:03
  masks of the Sanhedrin. He sees right through.
• 20:05
  It they are coming to him and their holy garments, talking
• 20:07
  about treason, quoting the law, feigning loyalty to Caesar, and
• 20:12
  Pilot just looks at them and sees pure, unfiltered ugly envy.
• 20:17
  Possesses A clinical comprehension of their true
• 20:18
  motive. As a Roman politician who
• 20:21
  survived the cutthroat environment of imperial Rome, he
• 20:24
  was an expert in reading human ambition and malice.
• 20:26
  Right. The Greek noun Matthew uses here
• 20:29
  for envy is thonos. This is a crucial, heavily
• 20:33
  weighted word to understand. Thonos is not ordinary jealousy.
• 20:36
  I think we often use those words interchangeably.
• 20:39
  How do jealousy and envy differ in this context?
• 20:42
  The Greek language is very precise.
• 20:44
  Jealousy or Zelos is wanting what someone else has.
• 20:48
  If you buy a beautiful new house, I might feel jealousy.
• 20:50
  I want a beautiful new house too.
• 20:52
  It can lead to ambition. But phonos as defined in extra
• 20:56
  biblical Greco Roman philosophy by writers like Aristotle in his
• 21:00
  Rhetoric, or by Demosthenes and Plutarch, it is far darker and
• 21:04
  far more sinister. OK, I hope so.
• 21:06
  It describes A malicious, destructive pain felt when
• 21:10
  confronting another person's moral excellence, success, or
• 21:13
  unmerited prosperity. So it is not I want what you
• 21:16
  have, it is I hate you for having it and I want to
• 21:19
  completely destroy you so you don't have it anymore.
• 21:21
  It is the misery felt because someone else is blessed.
• 21:24
  That is the distinction. Phonos has no positive aspect
• 21:28
  whatsoever. It cannot motivate you to work
• 21:30
  harder, It only motivates you to tear the other person down.
• 21:33
  It's entirely destructive. Wow.
• 21:35
  It is a fundamental resentment against God's distribution of
• 21:38
  gifts, honor, or blessing. It actively grieves when another
• 21:41
  person is. Exalted Why did the religious
• 21:44
  elites feel this specific type of destructive, corrosive pain
• 21:48
  toward Jesus? What was it about this Carpenter
• 21:52
  from Nazareth that triggered such intense phonos that they
• 21:55
  were willing to commit murder? You have to look at the power
• 21:58
  dynamic. The religious leaders possessed
• 22:01
  a massive legalistic, self-made religious empire.
• 22:04
  They had immense status, wealth, political influence and a total
• 22:09
  monopoly on spiritual authority in Israel.
• 22:11
  They determined who was in and who was out.
• 22:13
  They held all the cards. And then Jesus arrived on the
• 22:15
  scene. He did not come through their
• 22:17
  approved rabbinic channels. He did not ask for their
• 22:19
  permission. He arrived with perfect inherent
• 22:22
  righteousness and absolute sovereign grace.
• 22:26
  His authoritative teaching, His flawless character, and His
• 22:29
  undeniable miraculous works completely exposed the hypocrisy
• 22:32
  and emptiness of their system. He stripped them of their pride.
• 22:35
  He showed the people that the Emperor had no clothes.
• 22:38
  He did. The crowds were flocking to
• 22:40
  Jesus, and the leaders were losing their grip on control.
• 22:44
  They did not hate Jesus because they thought he was a bad
• 22:46
  teacher. They hated him precisely because
• 22:49
  his pure light exposed their internal darkness.
• 22:53
  Their envy reveals that this entire trial is not a pursuit of
• 22:56
  justice. It is a desperate, violent
• 22:58
  revolt against God's anointed King.
• 23:01
  It is the old ancient sin of Cain hating righteous Abel where
• 23:05
  Joseph's brothers throwing the favorite son into a pit out of
• 23:07
  pure spite. If you are listening, I want you
• 23:09
  to think about how this dynamic has absolutely not disappeared
• 23:12
  from our world today. Religious moralism always reacts
• 23:15
  with intense hostility when confronted with pure, unmerited
• 23:19
  grace. Always.
• 23:20
  Why? Because grace lives zero room
• 23:22
  for human merit. It leaves zero room for our
• 23:24
  pride. If salvation is entirely a free
• 23:27
  gift from God, achieved solely by the finished work of Jesus
• 23:30
  Christ, then all our our self-righteous efforts, all our
• 23:32
  moral rule keeping, all our religious resumes, they count
• 23:35
  for absolutely nothing. Nothing at all.
• 23:38
  That reality violently exposes the malice and pride hidden
• 23:41
  inside respectable outward religion.
• 23:43
  Envy is especially poisonous because it frequently dresses
• 23:47
  itself up in highly respectable pious clothing.
• 23:50
  Oh yeah. The chief priests likely
• 23:53
  convinced themselves in their own minds that they were
• 23:55
  performing a righteous duty. They told themselves they were
• 23:58
  protecting the nation from Roman retaliation, preserving
• 24:02
  doctrinal purity, and maintaining public order.
• 24:04
  They use the high minded language of institutional
• 24:07
  stability to mask their inward murderous resentment.
• 24:11
  So Pilate has presented the options.
• 24:13
  The counterfeit savior Barabbas is on one side, the true Christ
• 24:16
  is on the other. The hidden motives of the
• 24:18
  envious priests are raging in the background, manipulating the
• 24:21
  situation, and the monumental decision falls directly to the
• 24:24
  gathered crowd on the pavement. This brings us to the terrifying
• 24:28
  reality of human volition in a fallen state.
• 24:31
  Matthew stresses in verse 15 that the choice was given over
• 24:34
  to the prisoner whom they wished.
• 24:36
  Whom they wished. The Greek text highlights the
• 24:38
  desire, the will of the multitude.
• 24:40
  The text lays the responsibility squarely and unavoidably on the
• 24:43
  human well. And what does this massive crowd
• 24:46
  wish for? What is their collective desire?
• 24:48
  This specific historical moment permanently shatters the modern,
• 24:52
  comfortable myth of human neutrality.
• 24:54
  We like to think people are basically good.
• 24:56
  We do. The crowd was not confused.
• 24:58
  They were not just lacking the right information waiting for a
• 25:00
  better apologetics argument. They were actively, vehemently
• 25:04
  hostile to God when presented with the clearest choice in
• 25:07
  history. They demand the release of a
• 25:09
  known violent murderer, and they demand the torturous crucifixion
• 25:13
  of the righteous King of Kings. What we are watching here is a
• 25:16
  clinical, undeniable demonstration of a theological
• 25:19
  concept we call total inability or total depravity.
• 25:23
  Yes, this is total depravity in action.
• 25:26
  The doctrine of total inability teaches that apart from the
• 25:29
  regenerating intervention of divine grace, the human will is
• 25:33
  entirely disabled and radically opposed to all spiritual good.
• 25:36
  Right, we can't just choose good on our own.
• 25:38
  We are not sitting on a neutral fence, able to impartially weigh
• 25:41
  the evidence and rationally choose God.
• 25:43
  Left to our own devices, our desires are fundamentally
• 25:46
  disordered. As the apostle Paul writes, the
• 25:49
  mindset on the flesh is hostile to God.
• 25:51
  It does not submit to God's law. Indeed it cannot.
• 25:53
  I see this contrasting so sharply with how we think today.
• 25:57
  Modern society idolizes the majority vote and the concept of
• 26:00
  public opinion. We run polls for everything.
• 26:03
  Oh, absolutely. We assume that if you can get
• 26:05
  enough people to agree on something, if a view gets enough
• 26:07
  traction, it must be right. We trust the wisdom of crowds.
• 26:11
  But look at this pavement. Here, the majority is totally
• 26:14
  united, incredibly loud, completely sincere, and entirely
• 26:18
  catastrophically wrong. The crowd is unified and
• 26:21
  demanding an atrocity. Truth is not established by a
• 26:25
  crowd. Numbers do not sanctify error
• 26:28
  1,000,000 Voices shouting a lie do not turn it into the truth.
• 26:31
  The crowd here becomes a communal, terrifying expression
• 26:34
  of sinful desire. They are highly vulnerable to
• 26:38
  manipulation by the envious leaders and they are fully ready
• 26:41
  to prefer the wrong man. It's a sobering thought.
• 26:43
  This is a massive warning against the idolatry of public
• 26:46
  opinion. A viewpoint does not become
• 26:47
  righteous simply because a majority of people passionately
• 26:50
  hold it. So the crowd makes its choice.
• 26:52
  They shep for Barabbas. They scream.
• 26:54
  Crucify him Regarding Jesus, the Roman governor, prioritizing his
• 26:59
  own career over objective justice pays to the pressure.
• 27:03
  He washes his hands in a futile gesture to clear his conscience.
• 27:06
  Yeah, as if water could wash that away.
• 27:08
  Right. The innocent man is condemned to
• 27:10
  die, and the guilty man walks out into the sunlight.
• 27:13
  Now we are getting to the core theological heartbeat of this
• 27:17
  entire passage, and arguably of the entire Christian faith.
• 27:21
  The historical event we are analyzing right now is the most
• 27:25
  vivid physical depiction of substitutionary atonement in the
• 27:28
  entire biblical record. We are watching the theology of
• 27:31
  penal substitution take place in real time, flesh and blood
• 27:35
  history. I want to visualize this, walk
• 27:37
  us through what is happening in the physical space of that
• 27:39
  prison. Imagine Barabbas sitting in his
• 27:42
  dark, damp cell inside the lowest levels of the Antonia
• 27:45
  Fortress. He is a hardened criminal.
• 27:47
  He knows the Roman legal system intimately.
• 27:49
  He knows how this ends. Right.
• 27:51
  He knows his guilt is public, undeniable, and fully
• 27:55
  documented. He can likely hear the sounds of
• 27:57
  the Roman Garrison outside his door.
• 27:59
  He hears the hammer striking wood.
• 28:01
  He knows a Roman cross is being prepared, and he knows without a
• 28:05
  shadow of a doubt it is for him. And he?
• 28:07
  Fully deserves it. He fully deserves it.
• 28:09
  He is completely unable to deliver himself powerless before
• 28:12
  the military might of the Roman Empire.
• 28:15
  And justly, legally condemned to a horrific death.
• 28:18
  He has no defense lawyer coming to file an appeal.
• 28:21
  He has no money to bribe the guards.
• 28:23
  The execution is imminent. He is out of options.
• 28:25
  He cannot offer restitution. He cannot promise reform.
• 28:28
  The sentence is final, but suddenly the heavy iron cell
• 28:32
  door swings open. The Roman guards step in, but
• 28:34
  instead of dragging him by his hair to the execution site to be
• 28:37
  nailed to the wood, they take his chains off.
• 28:40
  They tell him he is free to go. He walks out of the fortress.
• 28:43
  He is set free not because he argued good case, not because he
• 28:46
  paid a fine, and certainly not because he was suddenly found
• 28:48
  innocent. He is set free for one reason
• 28:50
  only. Someone else took his place.
• 28:52
  Yes, because someone else, someone entirely Florida State
• 28:57
  innocent, have been handed over to take his specific cross.
• 29:01
  The iron bands of captivity are literally transferred from the
• 29:05
  risks of Barabbas to the risks of Christ.
• 29:07
  The sentence of death is transferred from the guilty
• 29:09
  rebel to the innocent king. This perfectly illustrates the
• 29:13
  mechanics of what Reformed theologians call double
• 29:15
  imputation. I want to make sure we nail this
• 29:18
  concept down. So if I'm tracking this right,
• 29:19
  imputation isn't just a canceled debt.
• 29:22
  It's like my spiritual bank account is $1,000,000 in the red
• 29:26
  because of my sin. OK, good analogy.
• 29:28
  Christ doesn't just zero out the account.
• 29:29
  So I'm at 0. He takes my $1,000,000 debt upon
• 29:32
  himself and pays it, and then he deposits his own infinite wealth
• 29:36
  of righteousness into my account.
• 29:37
  Is that what theologians mean by double imputation?
• 29:40
  The analogy is right on the money.
• 29:42
  It involves 2 simultaneous viraculous transfers.
• 29:46
  First, our sin, our lawlessness, our men's guilt is imputed or
• 29:50
  legally credited to Christ on the cross.
• 29:53
  He willingly absorbs the full unmitigated wrath and the
• 29:56
  penalty of the broken law. He pays it.
• 29:58
  This is what we call his passive obedience.
• 30:00
  He submits to the suffering and death required by divine
• 30:03
  justice. He pays the debt in full, taking
• 30:05
  the punishment we earned. He exhausts the wrath of God
• 30:08
  against that sin, but as you noted, that is only half of the
• 30:11
  exchange. If God only took away our sin,
• 30:13
  we would be spiritually neutral. We would have a blank slate but
• 30:17
  no positive righteousness to earn eternal life or stand
• 30:20
  before a holy God. We'd just be at 0.
• 30:22
  Right. So the second transfer is that
• 30:25
  Christ's perfect record of righteousness, his flawless,
• 30:29
  lifelong obedience to every single command of the law, is
• 30:32
  imputed to us. This is his act of obedience.
• 30:35
  So we get his perfect grade on the test and he takes our
• 30:38
  failing grade and the punishment.
• 30:40
  That comes with it precisely. We are accounted and accepted as
• 30:43
  righteous before the judgement seat of God, not for anything
• 30:46
  wrought in US or done by us, but for Christ's sake alone.
• 30:50
  Barabbas, walking free in the Jerusalem sunlight while Christ
• 30:53
  goes to the darkness of Golgotha, is the physical
• 30:55
  historical embodiment of that blessed exchange.
• 30:58
  If you are listening to this right now, you need to
• 31:00
  understand something incredibly humbling.
• 31:03
  We naturally read these historical texts and we want to
• 31:06
  identify with Jesus, the hero of the story, of course.
• 31:09
  Or maybe, if we are feeling honest, we want to identify with
• 31:11
  the disciples who fled, but at least tried to follow him at one
• 31:15
  point. But the undeniable truth of this
• 31:17
  text is that you and I are Barabbas.
• 31:19
  We are the guilty ones sitting in the cell.
• 31:21
  We contribute absolutely nothing to our rescue except the sin
• 31:24
  that makes the rescue necessary in the first place.
• 31:27
  By nature we are lawbreakers. We have rebelled against the
• 31:30
  rightful authority of our Creator.
• 31:32
  We have loved lesser things. We fully deserve the righteous
• 31:36
  judgement of the Law. The good news of the gospel is
• 31:38
  not that we made a wiser selection than the crowd in
• 31:41
  Jerusalem. The good news is that the Father
• 31:44
  gave the Son, and the Son willingly stood in the place of
• 31:47
  the condemned. Salvation is entirely of the
• 31:50
  Lord from beginning to end. The guilty go free solely
• 31:53
  because the innocent one is delivered up.
• 31:55
  Looking at this horrific miscarriage of justice, you have
• 31:59
  a cowardly politician washing his hands of his duty, you have
• 32:03
  envious priests manipulating the legal system to commit murder,
• 32:07
  you have a bloodthirsty mob screaming for violence and a
• 32:10
  literal murderer going free. From a purely human, earthly
• 32:14
  perspective, it looks like history has spiraled completely
• 32:18
  out of control. It looks like total chaos.
• 32:20
  It looks like evil has won a total victory.
• 32:22
  He looks dark and hopeless, but it hasn't spiraled out of
• 32:26
  control, not for a single microsecond.
• 32:28
  And this brings us to the most comforting reality of the text,
• 32:32
  the divine decree of God ruling over human injustice.
• 32:36
  How can God be in control of such a blatant atrocity?
• 32:38
  This is the murder of the Son of God.
• 32:40
  We have to clarify the biblical doctrine of the province of God.
• 32:44
  While Pilate, the priests and the massive crowd are completely
• 32:47
  100% morally responsible for their wicked choices.
• 32:51
  Every single detail of this scene on the pavement was
• 32:54
  functioning exactly according to the pre temporal decree of God.
• 32:57
  You're saying God planned this specific event before time
• 33:00
  began? Yes, the Almighty authority and
• 33:03
  unsearchable wisdom of God manifest themselves in His
• 33:07
  Providence. This Providence extends to all
• 33:10
  actions of men, including their sinful actions.
• 33:13
  God does not just passively permit evil, sitting back and
• 33:16
  watching it happen. He wisely and powerfully bounds,
• 33:20
  directs, and governs human wickedness to accomplish His
• 33:24
  highest good. As Peter preaches in Acts
• 33:26
  chapter 2, Jesus was delivered up according to the definite
• 33:30
  plan and foreknowledge of God. Wait, hold on.
• 33:33
  I'm struggling with the math here, and I know people
• 33:34
  listening are too. You're telling me God planned
• 33:37
  this entire atrocity before time began?
• 33:40
  It was a necessary part of His sovereign decree to secure
• 33:43
  salvation, but Pilot and the crowd are still fully to blame.
• 33:46
  Yes. How does that work?
• 33:47
  It feels like we're trying to have our cake and eat it too.
• 33:49
  Can they say, hey, we were just playing our assigned parts in
• 33:51
  the divine script. You can't jug us.
• 33:53
  That is the natural human objection.
• 33:55
  But absolutely not. They are not off the hook.
• 33:57
  This is the concept of compatibilism.
• 33:59
  God is not the author of sin, and He does not force anyone to
• 34:02
  act against their will. Pilot acted freely according to
• 34:05
  his own cowardly pragmatism. He wanted to save his job, so he
• 34:09
  condemned an innocent man. The priests acted freely
• 34:12
  according to their own malicious envy.
• 34:14
  They wanted to maintain their status, so they plotted a
• 34:16
  murder. The crowd acted freely,
• 34:18
  according to their own hostile desires.
• 34:20
  They weren't robots. They all did exactly what they
• 34:22
  wanted to do in that moment. No one coerced them to sin.
• 34:25
  This makes them fully culpable and morally responsible for
• 34:29
  their wicked actions. So they are entirely guilty even
• 34:32
  though their actions fulfilled the plan.
• 34:34
  Utterly guilty. Yet God is so sovereign, so
• 34:37
  immense, and so magnificent that He can take the free, wicked
• 34:40
  choices of fallen men and overrule their malice to
• 34:43
  accomplish redemption. That's incredible.
• 34:46
  The greatest, darkest injustice in human history was the very
• 34:49
  mechanism God used to secure the salvation of His people.
• 34:53
  The Son of Man was delivered according to the determined
• 34:55
  counsel of God, while those who delivered him remain morally
• 34:59
  responsible for their lawless deeds.
• 35:01
  That tension is staggering, but it is also intensely comforting.
• 35:06
  I want to apply this directly to you as you listen today.
• 35:09
  When you face false accusation at work, when you were crushed
• 35:12
  by corrupt authority, or when you deal with public
• 35:15
  misunderstanding and deep betrayal from people you
• 35:18
  trusted, you do not have to despair.
• 35:21
  You do not. The cross proved that evil does
• 35:23
  not have the final word. If God can govern the darkest
• 35:26
  hour in human history, the unjust trial and murder of His
• 35:30
  own sinless Son, and use that very atrocity to bring about the
• 35:34
  highest conceivable good, which is the salvation of the world,
• 35:37
  then He has absolute authority over the injustices you face
• 35:40
  today. Amen.
• 35:42
  The wickedness of men on that stone pavement did not derail
• 35:45
  redemption back then, and human evil cannot derail God's purpose
• 35:48
  for your life now. The cross is the ultimate proof
• 35:51
  that God can govern the darkest hour.
• 35:52
  It absolutely does not excuse the evil pilot and the leaders
• 35:56
  remain guilty and human injustice must always be named,
• 35:59
  opposed and fought. But the Christian does not
• 36:02
  despair, as though evil has final, unchecked authority.
• 36:05
  God is on the throne even when the mob is screaming.
• 36:07
  We are nearing the end of our time together and I want to
• 36:10
  leave you with a direct personal challenge.
• 36:13
  The trial on the stone pavement of the Antonia Fortress is over.
• 36:16
  The historical event is finished, the dust has settled,
• 36:20
  but the trial of the human heart continues to this very hour.
• 36:24
  The Roman governor's frantic question still echoes across the
• 36:27
  centuries, and it beats upon the door of your conscience.
• 36:30
  Right now. Whom will you have?
• 36:32
  You cannot wash your hands of the choice.
• 36:34
  Neutrality is an illusion. You cannot abstain.
• 36:37
  To remain silent, to delay the decision, or to attempt a
• 36:41
  pragmatic compromise like Pilot is to align yourself with the
• 36:44
  screaming mob. You are either bowing to the
• 36:47
  true King who demands your life and offers you grace, or you are
• 36:51
  choosing A counterfeit Savior who leaves you in your sins.
• 36:54
  Which savior are you choosing today?
• 36:56
  A question that demands an answer from every single one of
• 36:59
  us. Thank you for joining us for
• 37:00
  this conversation on reformed thinking.
• 37:02
  We appreciate you taking the time to look closely at these
• 37:05
  sources with us. Until next time, keep thinking
• 37:08
  critically.