Luke 23:1-5,13-25: The Jews and Pilate Did not Understand

In our previous post we were asking about Elihu: did he have it all together?  He did not because he could not draw into his “opinion” Job 1-2.  God had not revealed that to him, or to Job or the friends.  God hid this information.

Now consider the following:

Deut. 29:29: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Prov. 25:2: It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.

God concealed His work from Job.  Job’s need was to patiently wait upon the Lord, day by day, for strength to live in his trial.  He did not need to know what God did not tell him.  The same can be said of the children of Israel, that the “mystery of God” was hidden from them before it was revealed in the NT (Eph. 3:1-7).  They were not responsible for what God hid but were for what He revealed. 

Solomon tells us that God is intentional about this.  It is His glory to conceal, not because He gets the last laugh on us ignorant fools, but because He becomes for us the focus of trust.  What we don’t know about the future we put in his hands.

But then Solomon adds: the honor of kings is to search out a matter.  He is not saying the king is searching out the thing that God concealed.  Rather, the king has authority to investigate, to determine truth for the sake of justice, and so forth. 

This all came together for me (perhaps I gained some understanding) in my reading today, in Job, Proverbs and then Luke.  Pilate did what is honorable for a “king” (governor) to do: he searched out the matter of the charges against Jesus.  He was accused of “perverting the nation,” “stirring up the people,” and “misleading the people.”  These are accusations that would alarm Pilate.  But he did due diligence and searched out the matter, and again and again said, “I find no fault in this Man.”  And yet, in the end, he condemned Jesus to crucifixion. 

We can put it together, because what God hid from Pilate He has revealed to us. 

⁶ However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. ⁷ But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, ⁸ which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

God kept His plan a mystery until the right time.  This did not hinder anyone’s coming to saving faith. We are responsible for what God revealed, and by the Holy Spirit He has revealed the things that have been freely given to us by God (1 Cor. 2:12).  Having been revealed, we are now responsible for the receiving and acting on this grace extended to us in life.  For through Him (Christ) we both have access by one Spirit to the Father (Eph. 2:18).