Pilate’s pride was touched by that silence. In his reply our Lord refers to the relative responsibility of those who shared in his condemnation. It was as if he said, “Great as your sin is, in forfeiting your position, it is less than the sin of those who have put me into your power.” Pilate then became aware of the coil of evil in which he was caught. He was dealing with a matter that touched the unseen and eternal, but the threat to report him to Cesar suddenly brought him back to the earthly and human aspects of the case. With ill-concealed irritation he adopted the phraseology of the priests and cried, Behold your King! The Jews touched the lowest depth of degradation when, trampling under foot their national pride, they cried, We have no king but Caesar! Pilate signed the necessary documents and retired to his palace as having been himself sentenced.

John 19: 18-24. Just outside the city gates, beside the main road, was a little conical eminence, which from its resemblance to a skull was called in Aramaic, Golgotha, and in Latin, Calvary. As we speak of the brow of a hill, they called the bald eminence a skull.

The three languages in which the inscription was written stand for religion, government, and science. Note that every one of us is unconsciously writing his verdict about Jesus Christ; and when once it is written, there is no altering it. We may be forgiven, but the past cannot be obliterated.

The clothes of the crucified were the perquisite of the soldiers. But Christ’s were so poor that they were not worth keeping entire, except the inner tunic, the gift of someone’s—it may well have been his mother’s—love. What a contrast! Above, the consummate evidence of love working out the plan of eternity; below, the appeal of ignorance and brutality to chance.