John 19:8
When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid.
What a curious development. Pilate is afraid of what precisely? The Bible doesn’t say, it simply moves on with the evil drama of sinful men delivering over the only true and honest and, therefore, innocent man in history to be executed. But we know this, indeed, because Pilate has exactly the innate fear of God that all men have. In Romans 1 we learn the unequivocal truth that God is known by all men and always has been, in fact, since the creation of the world and that man, in his moral rebellion, has been suppressing the obvious within his heart. We are, and Pilate was, without an excuse before God. This suppression works for the most part, but it bubbles up at diverse times – deaths, tragedies, great events, and, like in this case, sober encounters with the divine and eternal.
Think of this the next time you are fearful of men. The great governor, Pilate, with the unmatched might of the Roman army behind him, trembles at the notion that he has before him, as a lowly convict, the Son of God. And he’s no Jew – Pilate – but the mightiest man for miles and miles. You could travel for days and not encounter Pilate’s superior. Yet he’s stunned by this charge against Jesus. So, when we tremble before the world’s unbelief, we should take heart that the Bible tells us that even our most ardent critics and our most shameful persecutors actually do know the true and living God – they’re just doing their best to ignore Him.
Romans 1, in telling us that what can be known about God has been made plain to us through creation, is saying that it’s a profoundly illogical thing to deny God. And it takes consistent effort. Jesus didn’t even bother to make a defense for himself and yet Pilate’s own conscience does it for him. This is possible because eternity – God’s divine power and eternal nature – are clearly perceived by every soul, so there’s no excuse.
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