Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1353
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, May 6, 1877
“He said unto the Jews, Behold your King.” John 19:14.
PILATE said much more than he meant and, therefore, we shall not restrict our consideration of his words to what he intended. John tells us considering Caiaphas, “and this spoke he not of himself,” and we may say the same of Pilate. Everything said or done in connection with the Savior during the day of His Crucifixion was full of meaning, far fuller of meaning than the speakers or actors were aware. Transformed by the Cross, even the commonplace becomes solemn and weighty!
When Caiaphas said that it was expedient that one man should die for the people, that the whole nation perish not, he little thought that he was enunciating the great Gospel principle of Substitution! When the Jewish people cried out before Pilate, “His blood be on us and on our children,” they little knew the judgment which they were bringing upon themselves which would commence to be fulfilled at the siege of Jerusalem and follow them, hanging like a heavy cloud over their race, for centuries! When the soldier with a spear pierced His side he had no idea that he was bringing forth before all eyes that blood and water which are, to the whole Church, the emblems of the double cleansing which we find in Jesus, cleansing by atoning blood and sanctifying Grace.
The fullness of time had come and all things were full. Each movement on that awful day was brimming with mystery. Neither could the Master or those around Him stir or speak without teaching some Gospel, or enforcing some lesson. Whereas on certain days frivolity seems to rule the hour and little is to be gathered from much that is spoken—on the day of the Passion even the most careless spoke as men inspired! Pilate, the undecided spirit, with no mind of his own, uttered language as weighty as if he, too, had been among the Prophets. His acquittal of our Lord, his mention of Barabbas, his writing of the inscription to be fixed over the head of Jesus and many other matters were all fraught with instruction.
It was to the Jews that Pilate brought forth Jesus, arrayed in garments of derision, and to them He said, “Ecce Rex”—“Behold your King!” It was by the seed of Abraham that He was rejected as their King. But we shall not think of them in order to blame that unhappy nation, but to remind ourselves that we, also, may fall into the same sin. As a nation favored with the Gospel, we stand, in many respects, in the same privileged condition as the Jews did. To us is the Word of God made known! To our keeping, the oracles of God are committed in these last days and we, though by Nature, shoots of the wild olive, are engrafted into that favored stock from which Israel has, for a while, been cut off. Shall we prove equally unworthy? Shall any of us be found guilty of the blood of Jesus?
We hear of Jesus this day—are we rejecting Him? The suffering Messiah will be brought forth, again, this morning, not by Pilate, but by one who longs to do Him honor. And when He stands before you and is proclaimed, again, in the words, “Behold your King!” will you, also, cry, “Away with Him! Away with Him!”? Let us hope that there will not be found, here, hearts so evil as to imitate the rebellious nation and cry, “We will not have this Man to reign over us.” Oh that each one of us may acknowledge the Lord Jesus to be his King, for beneath His scepter there is rest and joy! He is worthy to be crowned by every heart! Let us all unite in beholding Him with reverence and receiving Him with delight!
Give me your ears and hearts while Jesus is evidently set forth as standing among you. And for the next few minutes let it be your only business to, “Behold your King.”
I. Come with me, then, to the place which is called The Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha, and there, “behold your King.” I shall first ask you to BEHOLD YOUR KING PREPARING HIS THRONE, yes, and making Himself ready to sit upon it. When you look, in answer to the summons, “Behold your King,” what do you see? You see the “Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief wearing a crown of thorns and covered with an old purple cloak which had been
thrown about Him in mockery. You can see, if you look closely, the traces of His streaming blood, for He has just been scourged and you may, also, discover that His face is blackened with bruises and stained with shameful spit from the soldiers’ mouths—
“Thus trimmed forth they bring Him to the rout, Who, ‘Crucify Him,’ cry with one strong shout, God holds His peace at man, and man cries out.” It is a terrible spectacle, but I ask you to gaze upon it steadily and see the establishment of the Redeemer’s Throne. See how He becomes your mediatorial King. He was setting up a new Throne on Gabbatha, where He would reign as the King of pardoned sinners and the Prince of Peace! He was King before all worlds as Lord of all by right of His eternal power and Godhead. He had a Throne when worlds were made, as King of all kings by creation. He had, also, always filled the Throne of Providence, upholding all things by the Word of His power. On His head were many crowns and to Pilate’s question, “Are You a king, then?” He did fitly answer, “You say that I am a king.”