4.-the Greater Sin

" Then saith Pilate, unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin" (John 19:10,11). "The greater sin," here referred to, of which Israel was guilty, in delivering Jesus to Pilate, was that of making use of the power of the Gentiles, in carrying out them designs against the Lord's life. Had they, as they ought to have done, received him as their Messiah, their King, then Caesar, and Pilate, his representative in Judea, would have been deprived of that power which at the time of the Babylonish Captivity, had been given front above to the Gentiles; and Israel, as the people of God, would have recovered their proper place in the earth. But instead of this, they enlisted the power of Caesar against Him. Hence the authority was still left in the hands of the Gentiles, to be used at this critical juncture in fulfilling God's purpose as to the crucifixion of Christ, so that Pilate, however presumptuously, [yet, in a certain sense,] could with truth say to Jesus, " Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee." In all this, we see how this unhappy people were sunk in iniquity. They hated the Just one, they plotted His death, and, more than this, they delivered Him up to the Gentiles, the enemies of God, the oppressors of Israel, those from whose yoke the Lord came to save them. Had it been otherwise, Pilate could have had no power against him; but as it was, that which had been originally given from above to the Gentiles was now to be used on the side of the enemy. In all this, then, we see a fearful aggravation of Israel's guilt, " the greater sin," of which they were guilty-greater than if they had themselves, without the aid of the Gentiles, put him to death. Of this it is that Jesus accuses the nation, or rather, Caiaphas, the High Priest, their adviser and leader in the act of rejecting the Lord, and casting Him into the hands of His murderers.
5.-Love Taking Thought For The Weak.
" Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day" (Matt. 24:20). As to this, passage, observe, that to take flight in the winter would be trying to the body, while to fly on the sabbath day, being a breach of the Levitical law, would bring guilt and distress on the consciences of those whom the Lord had in view in this chapter, namely the Jewish remnant during the great tribulation under the beast (Rev. 13). How considerate, therefore, in Him, how did it show His love, the deep and tender sympathy of His heart, at such a distance of time, to take thought in this twofold way for His suffering people, to counsel them, in such explicit terms, to pray that their persons, and at the same time their consciences, in those days of amazement and terror, might be sheltered from evil! How sweet, how encouraging may this be to us! Let the heart that quails at the prospect of suffering, let the sensitive conscience; take comfort. Here the Lord allows us to pray that that which we feel ourselves ill able to meet, because of weak faith, may be averted. True, we, as members of Christ; and as indwelt by the Spirit of God, have, in reality, power to rise above suffering of every kind. Still, in a passage like this, we see the condescension of love to the weak, the Lord's tender considerate care for the timid tempted. disciple.