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NASB | John 18:38 Pilate *said to Him, "What is truth?" ¶ And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and *said to them, "I find no guilt in Him. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | John 18:38 Pilate said to Him [scornfully], "What is truth?" And when he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, "I find no guilt in Him [no crime, no cause for an accusation]. |
Subject: The "awful" Truth? |
Bible Note: Joe, Pat I of II I thought you might appreciate this. You can substitute Christianity for Catholicism, but the essential point remains the same. T "The Stupendous Failure Of Calvary Robert Hugh Benson’s Christ in the Church (B. Herder, 1911). In one of the closing chapters, titled, "The Cross," Benson is considering "the magnitude of the failure of Christ, in the Gospels and in the Church. "Not only . . . does Christ not convince the world, but He cannot even keep His friends faithful. Peter, on whom the Church is built, denies Him; John, who lies on His breast at supper, is silent when His friend is accused. There was never any failure so stupendous as that of Calvary. "In history, it is precisely the same story, over and over again. It is possible for the enemies of the Church to point to period after period in history, and to show, with at any rate some reason on their side, that the failure of Catholicism is due to the failure of Catholics. ‘Your principles are splendid,’ they tell us; ‘at least they sound splendid. But why are they not put into practice?. . . You were magnificent under Nero and Diocletian; but so soon as you seemed really to have conquered the world, you allowed the world to conquer you. You saved others; you cannot save yourself. You were unworldly so long as Nero burnt and tortured you, but you became as worldly as everyone else so soon as Constantine tolerated you. You made a fine effort in the 13th century; you really produced some saints; but as soon as your religious houses were built, they began to corrupt. You had glorious ideals when you began to Christianize Europe; but as soon as you Christianized it you began to become pagan again yourselves in the Renaissance. . . . "Now this is precisely the story of the Gospels. Again and again there came moments when the success of Jesus Christ seemed almost assured. There were moments when the whole world went after Him who seemed so perfectly to meet its ideals; when the world itself would come and take Him by force and make Him a King; when the kingdoms of the world seemed laid at His feet; and yet, somehow or another, it all came to nothing. His whole life on earth was a kind of crescendo of popularity, up to the last moment; and then, in an instant, it all crumbled down again to nothing. Palm Sunday immediately preceded Good Friday. The procession of one was almost a replica of the procession of the other. There were a few details different; the spear-shaped palm became the palm-shaped spears; but the crowd was the same, the cries were the same, acclaiming the King of the Jews; the Central Figure was the same. But the triumph turned to failure as soon as His central claim was made. He was welcomed and honored as a mere earthly King; he was rejected and condemned as a Heavenly King. Humanly considered He was something of a success; divinely considered He was a failure. As a demagogue He would have triumphed; as a God He was crucified. "Now, all this is very largely true. We may regard the progress of Christ in the Gospels and in the Church as a triumph which fails, or as a failure which triumphs. Non-Christians take the one view, and Christians the other. It depends entirely on our standpoint — whether this world is our platform, or the next. . . ." |