When Pilate therefore had heard this saying, he feared the more. And he entered into the hall again, and he said to Jesus: Whence art Thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate therefore saith to Him: Speakest Thou not to me? Knowest Thou not that I have power to crucify Thee, and I have power to release Thee? Jesus answered: Thou shouldst not have any power against Me, unless it were given thee from above. Therefore he that hath delivered Me to thee hath the greater sin." - John 19:8-11
1. Our Lord once said: "He that is not with Me is against Me." But there are those who seem to be neither for Him nor against Him; who favour Him, but will not be allied with Him; who encourage Him, but will not help Him; who are friends with Him, but will not confess Him; who acknowledge His good works, but yet do not and will not know Him; who admire Him as a man, but as God have no interest in Him; if they have heard of Him as the Son of God, it has only made them rest less, then curious, then assertive of their own authority, lest they be conquered by Him; finally, because He has proved harmless to them, they have in some way shown them selves favourable to Him. Such, for the most part, is the non-religious world above all, the non-religious ruling world. It inquires, it threatens, but always assumes that it, and it alone, has "power to crucify, and power to release."
2. There is another element in the world of men, which, as Our Lord here says, "hath the greater sin." It is that which consists of those on whom religion has set its mark. To have known Him and to have rejected Him; to have condemned Him because He has "made Himself the Son of God"; to have stirred up the non-religious world against Him on this account; to have done Him to death, ignoring His claim, ignoring His good works, ignoring His singular and thrice-proved innocence; to have so confused the issue that the Son of God should be done to death as a political danger: those who have done this have "the greater sin." The powers that rule the world have the standards of the world, and these powers they have from God, though they know Him not; but they pretend to no more than the things of this world, until another power compels them to take cognizance of the things of God. Then perforce they must judge God by their own standards, for which He is too great. Then they find themselves not with Him, but against Him.
3. But the three forces are at work in each one of us. One part is with Our Lord; another is not with Him, but neither would it be against Him; and this, in most of us, is the power that is strongest. Then there is the third, the power within us which would have its own complete way, which would make its own faith and its own morals, which knows from afar that the teaching of the Son of God is for it "a hard saying," which cannot hope to serve two masters. This sets itself against the Son of God; it lays at His door all manner of charges, finding their justification in His mutilated words or His interpreted actions. It denounces Him to the neutral element within us, not at first on the ground that He is our enemy, but that He is the enemy of human freedom. Hence the battle in each soul and for each soul.
Summary
1. Pilate represents here the "neutral" world.
2. The Jews represent the avowed enemies of faith.
3. In each one's soul Christ, Pilate, and the Jews have their counterparts.
- from The Crown of Sorrow, by Archbishop Alban Goodier