testimony to the impression which the character of Christ had made on
His contemporaries. 'The Holy One and the Just' implies moral
perfection. The whole narrative of the Crucifixion brings out that
impression. Pilate's wife speaks with awe of 'that just person.'
'Which of you convinceth me of sin?' 'If I have done evil, bear
witness of the evil.' 'I find no fault in Him.' We may take it for
granted that the impression Jesus made among His contemporaries was,
at the lowest, that He was a pure and good man.

The nation had to choose one of two. Jesus was the one; who was the
other? A man half brigand, half rebel, who had raised some petty
revolt against Rome, more as a pretext for robbery and crime than
from patriotism, and whose hands reeked with blood. And this was the
nation's hero!

The juxtaposition throws a strong light on the people's motive for
rejecting Jesus. The rulers may have condemned Him for blasphemy, but
the people had a more practical reason, and in it no doubt the rulers
shared. It was not because He claimed to be the Messiah that they
gave Him up to Pilate, but because He would not meet their notions of
what the Messiah should be and do. If He had called them to arms, not
a man of them would have betrayed Him to Pilate, but all, or the more
daring of them, would have rallied to His standard. Their hate was
the measure of their deep disappointment with His course. If instead
of showing love and meekness, He had blown up the coals of religious
hatred; if instead of going about doing good, He had mustered the men
of lawless Galilee for a revolt, would these fawning hypocrites have
dragged him to Pilate on the charge of forbidding to give tribute to
Caesar, and of claiming to be a King? Why, there was not one of them
but would have been glad to murder every tax-gatherer in Palestine,