Freewill

"I don't have a choice."

Have you ever heard someone say this or something like it?  Have you ever believed it yourself?  There are a lot of situations that seem to force us into only one course of action.

Pilate certainly felt that he had no choice when he was presiding over the trial of Jesus of Nazareth.  Pilate was a praefectus, ruling over the Roman-held are of Israel from 26AD to 36AD.  During that time, he had several encounters with the Israelites that did not end well.  Many of the peoples conquered by the Roman Empire had little difficulty integrating themselves into the empire, after all Rome required very little of them.  They were allowed to maintain most of their culture, traditions, and religious practices.  However, they were required to worship the emperor as a god.  Obviously, this did not go over well with the Israelites, whose most preeminent belief is, "Hear, O Israel:  The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might" (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).  The people of God refused to do that, and Rome refused to back down.

There are a number of situations when Pilate provoked the Israelites.  He brought images of Caesar on banners into Jerusalem and set up shields at the palace of Herod.  Both seemed intended to irritate the Jews.  Pilate backed down after both of these.  Josephus recounts on incident in which Pilate used the money from the temple to build an aqueduct.  This time, when the Jews protested, Pilate signaled to his soldiers who assaulted and murdered random Israelites in the crowd.  Philo wrote that Pilate had "vindictiveness and furious temper," and was "naturally inflexible, a blend of self-will and relentlessness." Pilate feared that the Israelites might send a delegation to Emperor Tiberius protesting the gold-coated shields, "if they actually sent an embassy they would also expose the rest of his conduct as governor by stating in full the briberies, the insults, the robberies, the outrages and wanton injuries, the executions without trial constantly repeated, the ceaseless and supremely grievous cruelty."


Tiberius was not happy with the problems Pilate was causing in Israel, and when the trial of Jesus occurred, it put Pilate in a tenuous position.  He had already provoked the anger of the Israelites multiple times, and Tiberius was quite clear that if any more blood was spilled under Pilate's rule, he would answer for it with his own.  Pilate had no choice but to give the Jews what they wanted, Christ crucified.  Wrong.  He always had a choice.  He could have let an innocent man go, but he showed who he really was.  He chose himself over what was right, and that is the point.  He chose.


Just like everyone else, Pilate had the freewill to make his own decisions.  He chose to bring in the banners with Caesar's emblem even though past Prefects made the concession to use banners without emblems.  Pilate chose to put up the gold-covered shields at Herod's palace.  Pilate chose to steal money from the temple, and he chose to murder the Israelites who protested the theft.


Even though we have the freewill to make any decisions we want, the consequences of those decisions will follow us.  The consequences Pilate faced because of his decisions were an unstable Israel and an angry emperor.  These consequences pushed Pilate toward the decision to hand Jesus over to the Jews, but that does not mean he had no choice.  If Pilate was a righteous man, he would have prevented Jesus' execution and accepted whatever would have happened as a result.  Instead he chose to condemn an innocent.  "So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, 'I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves'" (Matthew 27:24).

Most of our everyday decisions do not involve the execution of anyone, but each of us has the freewill and responsibility to make those decisions.  God gave us that freewill.  Many times the correct choice will be obvious.  Many times it will not be.  Sometimes the right choice will be obvious, but you will not want to follow it.  The correct decisions is not always easy to make.  However, we will be held responsible for each of those decisions, no matter how difficult.  God is good, though.  He will give us the strength necessary to make the tough calls.  Just trust Him to help you and take care of everything afterward.

Not knowing what the right choice is can make it even harder, but that is why you need to stay close to God.  Trust Him to give you the right choice.  Trust Him to guide you to the correct decision, and He will see you through to the end, "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20b).