all we say that He who knew what was in man saw that though
Pilate was for the moment alarmed and in earnest, yet there was beneath
that earnestness an ineradicable vacillation? It is very possible that
the treatment He had received at Pilate's hand had convinced Him that
Pilate would eventually yield to the Jews; and what need, then, of
protracting the process? No man who has any dignity and self-respect
will make declarations about his character which he sees will do no
good: no man is bound to be at the beck of every one to answer
accusations they may bring against him; by doing so he will often only
involve himself in miserable, petty wranglings, and profit no one. Jesus
therefore was not going to make revelations about Himself which He saw
would only make Him once again a shuttlecock driven between the two
contending parties.

Besides--and this probably is the main reason of the silence--Pilate was
now forgetting altogether the relation between himself and his Prisoner.
Jesus had been accused before him on a definite charge which he had
found to be baseless. He ought therefore to have released Him. This new
charge of the Jews was one of which Pilate could not take cognisance;
and of this Jesus reminds him by His silence. Jesus might have made
influence for Himself by working upon the superstition of Pilate; but
this was not to be thought of.

Offended at His silence, Pilate exclaims: "Speakest Thou not unto me?
Knowest Thou not that I have power to release Thee, and have power to
crucify Thee?" Here was an unwonted kind of prisoner who would not curry
favour with His judge. But instead of entreating Pilate to use this
power in His favour Jesus replies: "Thou wouldest have no power against
Me, except it were given thee from above; therefore he that delivered Me
unto thee hath greater sin." Pilate's office was the ordinance of God,
and therefore his judgments should express the justice and will of God;
and it was this which made the sin of Caiaphas and the Jews so great:
they were making use of a Divine ordinance to serve their own
God-resisting purposes. Had Pilate been a mere irresponsible executioner
their sin would have been sufficiently heinous; but in using an
official who is God's representative of law, order, and justice to
fulfil their own wicked and unjust designs they recklessly prostitute
God's ordinance of justice and involve themselves in a darker
criminality.

More impressed than ever by this powerf