Guilty

DEVOTION

 THE BOOK OF ACTS

GUILTY

Acts 5:25-28

25 Then someone came and said, "Look! The men you put in jail are standing in the temple courts teaching the people." 26 At that, the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles. They did not use force, because they feared that the people would stone them. 27 Having brought the apostles, they made them appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. 28 "We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name," he said. "Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood."

NIV

It is rather strange the high priest would want to put the blame for his guilt of killing Jesus onto the apostles. The high priest and his associates, the Sanhedrin appeared to believe they were not guilty, but that Peter and John were trying to make it sound as if they were. The Sanhedrin did not want to admit their guilt, as is the case with so many people. There are many very nice people in this world who do many nice things, many humanitarian deeds, helping others who are in need, yet they are guilty of Jesus’s blood. We believers are guilty of his blood as well, the only difference between us and them is that we have admitted it and repented asking him to forgive us. The high priest and the rest of the Sanhedrin were so entrenched in their own self-righteousness they would never admit their guilt. The shame is their guilt was not hanging Jesus on that cross, but it was their sin which required Jesus to hang on that cross. Even though we will see Peter tell them they were in fact the ones who killed Jesus, the truth is so did Peter, John and the rest of the disciples, because Jesus came to set them all free by hanging on that cross for all their sins. It might be easy to look at the guilt of others and miss our own guilt. It also might be easy to forget our guilt after years of being among the righteous, thinking ourselves free of sin, and therefore no longer guilty of sin, which is the reason for Christ dying on that cross. The truth is we do still fail, we do still fall short, and we do still sin. Although it is true we are no longer living a life of sin, a life of denial of Jesus, we still commit sin, as we have not yet reached perfection and will not until that day we will be changed from corruptible to incorruptible. The high priest and his associates must have felt their religious acts made them righteous, but only the blood of Jesus makes men righteous. We cannot afford to allow ourselves to think as that Sanhedrin did. We cannot ever think our acts of righteousness, our attending church, our doing good deeds, our serving others, can ever be good enough or righteous enough to win our salvation. Yes we do those things because we love Jesus, but we must always remember our guilt as well. We can be like these apostles and teach the full message in the streets of town, we might even be persecuted in some way for our faith, but we must recognize we still need the blood of Jesus to cover our sin. Although we have been set free we are still guilty. It is true that we have been declared righteous if we obey God, but we are in fact guilty of his blood. Thank you Lord for your grace and mercy, thank you for your eternal forgiveness, thank you for Jesus.