circuits, as a missionary, among the cities and villages of that
populous district. [26:4] Matthew, Mark, and Luke dwell chiefly upon
this portion of His history. Towards the termination of His course,
Judea was the principal scene of His ministrations. Jerusalem was the
centre of Jewish power and prejudice, and He had hitherto chiefly
laboured in remote districts of the land, that He might escape the
malignity of the scribes and Pharisees; but, as His end approached, He
acted with greater publicity, and often taught openly in the very courts
of the temple. John supplements the narratives of the other evangelists
by recording our Lord's proceedings in Judea.

A few members of the Sanhedrim, such as Nicodemus, [27:1] believed Jesus
to be "a teacher come from God," but by far the majority regarded Him
with extreme aversion. They could not imagine that the son of a
carpenter was to be the Saviour of their country, for they expected the
Messiah to appear surrounded with all the splendour of secular
magnificence. They were hypocritical and selfish; they had been
repeatedly rebuked by Christ for their impiety; and, as they marked His
increasing favour with the multitude, their envy and indignation became
ungovernable. They accordingly seized Him at the time of the Passover,
and, on the charge that He said He was the Son of God, He was condemned
as a blasphemer. [27:2] He suffered crucifixion--an ignominious form of
capital punishment from which the laws of the empire exempted every
Roman citizen--and, to add to His disgrace, He was put to death between
two thieves. [27:3] But even Pontius Pilate, who was then Procurator of
Judea, and who, in that capacity, endorsed the sentence, was constrained
to acknowledge that He was a "just person" in whom He could find "no
fault." [27:4] Pilate was a truckling time-server, and he acquiesced in
the decision, simply because he was afraid to exasperate the Jews by
rescuing from their grasp an innocent man whom they persecuted with