Are the Jews cursed because they killed Christ and asked for "His blood to be on us," according to Matthew 27:25?

Poor Jews! This responsibility they take on them; they do also bear its penalty up to this day. "His blood," say they, "be on us and on our children." Terrible curse that this poor people calls on itself; curse which weighs on it until sovereign grace, in bringing a little remnant to repentance in which it will feel the sin which has been committed, changes the blood of a curse into the blood of expiation; and this on God's part who will cleanse them from the sin which they committed in shedding it. The sovereign grace of God is that alone which can find in the very iniquity of man the means of accomplishing the salvation of him who has been guilty of it. It is thus that we, who have been saved of this same grace, can render testimony to it everlastingly. In the work which saves us we have no part but our sins and the hatred which accomplished it on man's side. This poor people was on this occasion to shew to what point it had fallen, abandoned of God. They chose a robber in place of the Son of God, a murderer, but a man who flattered their own passions in exciting them against the Romans, their masters, to whom they were subjected because of their sins. Now Pilate releases to them Barabbas, and delivers to them Jesus after having scourged Him already owned to be innocent; for that which characterises Pilate here is want of heart and a proud indifference wholly stamped with cruelty.

Hence Pilate had a strangely disturbed mind. To condemn Jesus he must violate his judicial sense as well as his wife's dream and intuition. He was evidently agitated as the subterfuge failed, by which he hoped to extricate himself from the dilemma. The accusing multitude was agitated by the cunning priests and elders. The only serene figure in the terrible scene is that of the Prisoner Himself. We see Pilate virtually abdicating as to his judicial function in the case and throwing the responsibility on the people. He did not really absolve himself of course, but it did lead to the people putting themselves under full responsibility for the blood of their Messiah. In verse 25 we find the explanation of the sorrows that fell upon the people, and that have continued to dog the footsteps of their children to this day. They have yet to face the great tribulation before the account is settled according to the government of God.

(5) The government of God in all this shows itself, and the power of the enemy itself works in compelled subjection to it. We find now Israel invoking it, and not in vain. Pilate, determined to escape the responsibility of that which under pressure he is about to do, adapts to his purpose part of the Jewish ritual in the case of an unknown murder, and washes his hands in the presence of the multitude, saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this just man: see ye to it." "And all the people answered and said, His blood be upon us and on our children." Thus, if they cannot lift the load from Pilate, they accept their own responsibility in the fullest way; and ever since, flee as they might into all the countries of the earth, the avenger of blood has been behind them. No effectual city of refuge has been found for them; nor will be until they look upon Him whom they have pierced, and in repentance and faith find it in Him the source of all their blessing.

Had Israel's national sin, in crucifying their Messiah, been reckoned as murder by God there would have been absolutely no hope. All must have fallen before the avenger of blood. The prayer of Jesus on the cross was however, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." That was just as if He had said, "Father, account this sin of theirs to be manslaughter and not murder." God heard that prayer, so there was hope even for those who encompassed His death. Consequently on the Day of Pentecost Peter preached forgiveness for those who would turn in faith to the risen and exalted Jesus. That day the heavenly city of refuge was opened and there fled to it three thousand souls.

The man was murdered — murder attaches somewhere: Christ too was the Victim of an enmity with which men "hated," He says, "both Me and My Father." (John 15:24.) Yet, again, at the cross He cries, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Here we have what at least approaches the mystery of the case before us: there were those of whom the one thing must be said; there were those also of whom grace could say the other. Thus the nation can be spared, though shut out in the meanwhile from their inheritance, as he was whom the city of refuge sheltered, but who could not return home till the death of the high-priest (see Num. 35). There is governmental penalty, though not death. and when the years of chastisement have run out, then it will be said of Jerusalem, "She hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins" (40:2.) The "uneared, unsown land" indeed (how like Israel's for so long!) testifying to this. But then, at last, there Will be a generation who, as to the guilt of Christ's death, can plead, with these elders of the city, that they "have not shed this blood, nor have" their "eyes seen it," the "perennial stream" of God's abiding love having carried it away forever.

The prophetic word in the message of the Apostle was "the promise is unto you and your children" (Acts 2:39). To win over the vacillating governor Pilate, the people had lightly said, "His blood be upon us and our children" (Matt. 27:25), now the proclamation annulled the vow for the repentant Jews and their children. The latter were admitted to a place of privilege on earth, viz., the House of God. The promise was to the very people who had so flagrantly abused God's approach to man in Christ. The external sign was in baptism. "They that gladly received his word were baptised." That suggests the thought of separation from the world which crucified Christ. In Matthew 16, Peter received the keys of administration. In Acts 2, he opened the door to the Jew and in Acts 10, to the Gentile in Cornelius and his house. In Acts 16, the households of Lydia and the Philippian jailer entered into the new sphere of life in separation from the sphere of death in the world. They came under the authority of the Lord. It is quite likely that however different had been the features which marked those households previous to the conversion of the heads, subsequently they agreed in the essential character of being run under the same management, viz., that of the Lord. Nowadays the promiscuous association of christians and worldlings in what is described as "the House of God" shows the grave slump in appreciation of the divine principles relative thereto!

*Some have spoken of the Jews, as guilty of the blood of Christ, so as to have betrayed the principle of self-righteousness condemned here. And yet I doubt not that there is a sense in which the Jews are — in a special sense — connected with that sin in the divine judgment. The land of the Jews is the distinguished field of blood; the blood of Jesus, in a great sense, is specially on them and their children. And so, like Cain, that people are under the special securities of God. And further; that blood is to be cleansed from off their land, though it now so stains it. Joel 3:21.

1917 227 This may be the explanation, but whatever the Jews thought of Pilate's act, they accepted full responsibility. Whether it reminded them of the provision of the law in the case of an uncertain homicide (Deut. 21:6) or not, they cried out, in reckless hardihood, "His blood be on us and on our children." Theirs therefore was the greater guilt, though the Gentiles were not exonerated, as the Lord said to Pilate, "He that delivered me unto thee has the greater sin."

Ah, we speak of the privilege of being in a Christian land! The privilege is great indeed, but the responsibility is equally great, and fearful if, with all these blessings, there is still a disregard of the grace of God. That I conceive to be clearly what is meant by the sprinkling of the blood upon the book and the people. It was a declaration that if the terms of this covenant were violated nothing but judgment could follow. What self-confidence and spiritual blindness it reveals when the people entered into this covenant, not realizing their utter helplessness to keep the law, thus incurring its terrible condemnation the moment they violated it! And they have been ever since, as you might say, a people living under the condemnation of that sprinkled blood. They have also added to this by taking upon themselves the guilt of the death of Christ when they said, "His blood be upon us and our children." And in an equally solemn way, the knowledge and profession of allegiance to Christ is an awful sentence upon those who in heart despise and reject the gospel of the grace of God.

Nevertheless, the accomplishing of Divine counsels in Christ does not consecrate the will of man that cast Him out and slew Him; and God is righteous in judging the evil. "On this account he that delivered Me up to thee hath greater sin." The Gentile was wicked, the Jew worse; if Pontius Pilate were inexcusably unrighteous, how much more awful the position of Caiaphas or Judas Iscariot and of all they represented that day? If God sent His Son in infinite grace, He did not fail to present adequate proofs of Who and what He is, to leave all inexcusable for not perceiving and receiving Him; not only those who had God's outward authority in this world, but yet more those who had His living oracles that testified of His Son, Who was the centre and object of them all. Were they not witnesses of such works and words and ways as never had been known on earth, proportionately measuring the guilt of those who after such grace rejected One so glorious?