Key Verse: "And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together: for before they were at enmity between themselves."
- Luke 23:12 KJV
How striking and solemn the instruction conveyed in this incident! Pilate and Herod, standing in the attitude of the deadliest hate to each other, are now made friends! And what strange but mighty power has thus suddenly subdued their animosity, and turned their hatred into love? What mystic chain has drawn and bound together these hostile rulers?
Their mutual and deep enmity against Jesus! Believers in Christ! are the enemies of our glorious Redeemer, inspired by a natural and kindred feeling of hatred, induced to forget their private quarrels, and merge their differences in one common confederation to crush the Son of God, the object of their mutual hostility; and shall not the friends of the Redeemer, constrained by that divine principle of love which dwells in the hearts of all who are born of God, quench their heart-burnings, bury their antipathies, and draw more closely together in one holy, vigorous, and determined alliance to exalt the Son of God, the glorious and precious Object of their mutual affection?
Oh, if Jesus is the bond of union to those
who hate Him, how much more should He be the bond of union to those who love
Him! Beneath His cross how should all unholy jealousy and bitterness, and
wrath and anger, and clamor and all uncharitableness, be mourned over,
confessed, abhorred, and renounced by the children of the one family; and
how should all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity be unhesitatingly
and cordially recognized as such, thus "endeavoring to keep the unity of the
Spirit in the bond of peace."
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