CONTENTS.
The LORD JESUS is here led away to Pilate. He is Condemned, and delivered to be Crucified. His Death and Burial.
AND straightway in the morning the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, and bound Jesus, and carried him away, and delivered him to Pilate.
I detain the Reader in the very opening of this chapter, to remark with what hot lust those enemies of CHRIST hastened to suck his blood. It must have been little short of midnight before their assembly broke up; if not, (as confess I am inclined to think,) they sat up all night until the morning; for Matthew in his relation of their proceedings saith, that when the morning was come, they led him away to Pilate. Matthew 27:1-40.
The most profitable view of these solemn transactions will be, I apprehend, to contemplate the sufferings of CHRIST, with an eye to our personal interest in them, and, as I verily, believe, there is hardly a single circumstance, but what hath a mystical meaning, I pray GOD the HOLY GHOST, in his glorifying the LORD JESUS, that he will be graciously pleased to unfold them to our hearts.
And here, in the first instance, as recorded in this chapter, we are told that they bound CHRIST and led him away to Pilate. The binding CHRIST, had certainly a very striking allusion to his Church, for whom CHRIST was bound and crucified. By sin we are all bound over to the just judgment of Almighty GOD. In the captivity of Satan we are also bound, until CHRIST makes us free; and without his deliverance, in becoming sin, and a curse for us, every son and daughter of Adam is like the unprofitable servant spoken of in the parable, concerning whom the LORD saith, take him and bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 22:13.
Now then, if the LORD JESUS will deliver his people out of captivity, he shall in all points personate those whom he delivers. He shall ex claim as in their person, innumerable evils have compassed me about; mine iniquities have taken hold of me. Psalms 40:12. He shall be bound as a malefactor; yea, crucified between two thieves, as if the greatest of the three, standing as the sinner's surety: and thus he shall be bound, and led as a sacrifice, as Isaac was bound, and laid upon the altar. Genesis 22:9, and as the sacrifices are supposed to have been bound under the law, so here in this point, as in every other, fulfilling all righteousness. See Leviticus 4:7; Psalms 118:27; Isaiah 49:24-25; Hosea 13:14.