Unbelief and Mocking Jesus

from Google Images

For practical purposes the Romans needed an accusation to charge Jesus in order to crucify him, because such a thing would become a matter of public record. In the second century AD Justin Martyr, while addressing the Emperor, Pius, mentioned that proof of what he said could be obtained from the Acts of Pilate,^[1] something that hardly could be so, if Pilate wasn’t required to record the reasons for the executions he commanded. Therefore, Pilate’s official verdict was: Jesus of Nazareth was the King of the Jews—a political crime, something for which he had earlier found him innocent. Nevertheless, he could hardly mention in a public record that he had executed Jesus for claiming to be the Son of God, a religious crime, according to the Jews (John 19:7, 13-16), but a matter of harmless superstition, according to Rome (cf. Acts 25:18-20).