NOTES for Mar 15:1-15

Standing before Pilate, Jesus does not defend Himself. This is not surprising, since what the members of the Sanhedrin rejected would be even harder for Pilate to grasp.

Though he finds no guilt in Christ, Pilate nevertheless grants amnesty not to Him, but to Barabbas, whom the people demand. Strictly speaking, Pilate has no concern for the wishes of conquered provincials, but political circumstances required him to curry favor with them. To this day even many Christians repeat the pagan proverb, "The voice of the people is the voice of God," forgetting or not knowing the people's own wisdom: "The voice of the people crucified Christ." On that day the openly pagan Pilate and the Jewish crowd that supposedly knew Scripture united in rejecting the true God in the name of unstable immediate interests.

Scripture does not tell us the later fate of the freed Barabbas. Yet he became the first of sinners whom Christ saved by dying in his place. Barabbas accepted salvation not for eternal life, but for temporary earthly life, and we do not know whether he used his chance for full salvation. But after Barabbas, this chance has now been given to each of us by the sacrifice of Jesus. How we use it is for us to decide.