What's Pilate Got To Do With It

173 - Today's Prime Time Devo comes from 1Ti 6:13,14 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ's appearing, (1 Tim 6:13,14) How does Pontius Pilate manage to wriggle his way into this portion of Scripture? This question is more important than one might think. I hate to keep bringing it up (not really) but the mention of his name ought to cause us to think of the Apostle's Creed. You know that part in which we declare that Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried! This was the witness, (the Greek word here is martyrdom) of Christ, which was ordered by Pilate. It is the baptism that Jesus spoke of in Mr 10:38,39, that we are all to be baptized with. “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" 39 They said to Him, "We are able." So Jesus said to them, "You will indeed drink the cup that I drink, and with the baptism I am baptized with you will be baptized;” His crucifixion, ordered by Pilate is the basis of the good confession of our faith, that confession of Timothy's “in the presence of many witnesses,” mentioned in the preceding verse, namely baptism! The Bible tells us in Col 2:12) that we are “buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.' It is in our baptism that we are martyred without necessarily having to endure the physical aspect of what some disciples have endured, and certainly not enduring the extent of what Jesus endured on the cross for us. “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Rom 6:3,4) And so the actions of Pilate are a very important part of our faith story, for as we enter the waters of baptism, we put on Christ and enter into all that Jesus has done for us: Ga 3:27 says, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.