John 18:28

Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor’s headquarters.  It was early morning.  They themselves did not enter the governor’s headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover.

It’s quite tempting to read of the hypocrisy of the Jews in general and the Pharisees in particular and marvel at them.  Their contradictions are apparently depthless.  They’re struggling mightily to drum up charges against Jesus in order to murder Him and yet they’re careful to observe the law so that they aren’t unclean.  Well, this is the heart of the legalist.  It’s easier to keep their foot from the property of a Gentile than to hold back their heart from jealousy, greed, murder, strife, and conspiracy.  It’s always easier to follow a rule than surrender to Christ.  

We must guard against seeing these things as something inconceivable because if we indulge in such it’s likely because we’re blinded to our own hidden sins.  Yes, yes, they’re so much more brazen then we are but this is because their time is more dramatic than ours.  Great sins abound in grave, tumultuous times; in days of quiet and peace, it’s quiet sins that dominate.  We talk badly about this person, and we judge that one.  We go to church and feel pride that we’re there and yet our hearts are dreaming of money, lust, and other selfish things.  They were blind to their sin precisely because their pride blinded them as ours blinds us today.  

Pride goes before the fall.  We hear that wrong.  We hear it as meaning that great boasters and ostentatiously vain men are the prideful that Scripture reproaches.  And we think exclusively of people that have broken our hearts or done us some wrong.  But it’s actually not just that. The pride that Scripture condemns is the all too common notion that we are pretty good.  Spurgeon said that nothing can damn a man but his own righteousness and nothing but the righteousness of Jesus will save him.  Pride is forgetful of this elemental Christian fact.  No other religion gets this.  Paul says in Romans that it’s through the gospel that the righteousness of God is revealed because only through God acting in Jesus can man be saved.  God is that holy.  Pride rejects this fact and/or gives it short thrift.  

The Christian, like Job, has his mouth stopped.  He’s humble and meek because he is intimately aware that it’s God alone that can save him from presumptuous as well as hidden sins.  

So, when we read of the such blatant and blind hypocrisy we should be moved to pray, “Lord, let it not be me.”  The soul that says, “I’m alright…I’m okay…it’s those others that are so much worse than me,” is the soul that’s in imminent danger.  Look how Peter has stumbled!  He overestimated his strength and underestimated that of Satan’s and sin.  

A careful Christian must take notice of how eager the mob was to condemn Jesus.  It would seem that their whole life’s energy was given to the destruction of another whereas no such effort was directed to self-examination.  How many sins are averted when we do this?  But it takes deep conviction of the great doctrine of the depravity of man for the Christian to get this.  Any harboring of the false notion that you aren’t so bad as the Bible tells you – not in such dire need of a Savior – will irreparably damage the virtue of Christian humility.  And Christian humility is the fruit of the Spirit – the true conviction of sin, not just remorse over particular sins, but the full and robust understanding that we are sinners, enemies of God unless there be precious, sweet grace.  

One can imagine that some in the crowd on this early morning, so careful not to defile themselves at the governor’s, whom they needed to carry out their murder, were present when the woman caught in adultery was brought to our Lord.  One can imagine their frustration at being told they were unfit to condemn an adulteress .  Pride will always work hatred – it must for it’s always busy in justifying itself and, unwilling to face its own sin, will be forever busy in condemning others.  

The Christian takes sweet, sweet rest in Christ’s atoning death.  The peace in the heart of the Christian is the true knowledge of God’s goodness towards them rather than their own goodness.  There can be no mingling of the two because pride cannot accept grace because it doesn’t think it needs it.