This post is part of a series of communion mediations working through the Apostles’ Creed. You can read the creed here. The previous post can be found here.
He Suffered Under Pontius Pilate
We believe - that Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” Now, if you are familiar with the gospel narratives, this part of our confession in the Creed isn’t exactly a newsflash. Pilate plays an important role - he was, of course, the one who had legal authority to have Jesus executed (John 19:10). But, when we’re looking at the creed - speaking, as it does, of the very core matters of the faith - doesn’t this reference to Pilate feel a little out of place? What is it doing here? This reference to Pilate, random though it may seem to us, is very important: it locates the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus at a real point in time, it emphasizes the historical fact of Jesus’ work on our behalf. Liberal theologians of the 19th and 20th centuries wanted to extract the “unimportant” historical claims from the Bible, in order to leave us with the “spiritual truth.” You can see a similar impulse in the work of a secular scholar like Jordan Peterson today - he thinks there is all kinds of truth in Christianity, but he isn’t quite willing to submit to the truth of Christianity.
But the creed won’t give us this easy way out. Similar to the argument of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, where he appeals to the more than 500 witnesses to the resurrection, the creed reminds us the crucifixion is a real crucifixion, which took place under a real Roman procurator, and led ultimately, to a real resurrection from the dead. Friends, if this work of Christ in our place did not actually happen in space and time, then our faith is in vain, our hope is in vain, this is all meaningless and silly.
But it did happen. Jesus did suffer under Pontius Pilate. But Pilate was not ultimately the one responsible, his authority was given by those higher up - higher up in Rome, but ultimately, by God the Father in heaven. As Jesus said John 10:18, “no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” Jesus suffered under Pilate not, ultimately, because Pilate was a weak and evil ruler (though he was that). Jesus suffered under Pilate because this is why he had come into the world. To seek and to save - by his suffering - that which was lost. Jesus laid his life down at Calvary for you and for me. And because of this, all of those who trust in his sacrifice in their place are promised participation in his resurrection life. We are bound to him, and in that binding, we are also bound to one another. This is what we celebrate in communion - that Jesus really did lay his life down for sinners, and that he really has made us one through the blood of his cross. It’s a historical fact: you can bank eternity on it.
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