Dear Editor,

Nearly two thousand years ago, the template for history is revealed in the options presented by “King Herod, Barabbas, Caesar, or Jesus Christ” as described herein.

First, King Herod, “in a furious rage” killed babies in order to eliminate any threat to his reign that the birth of Jesus occasioned.-Mt 2:16 Babies are still killed today throughout the world regardless of race or ethnicity as threats to a particular individual’s life-style who are defended by many others often “in a furious rage”. This continues despite Moses’ record of the Triune God’s (Elohim’s) testimony in Gen 1:26: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them (that is, men & women) have dominion. . . .” as well as the Apostle Paul’s testimony, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.”-Eph 3:14-15

Second, Barabbas, “a robber in prison, an insurrectionist and a murderer” was chosen by the people to receive Pilate’s mercy rather than Jesus.-Jn 18:40, Mt 26:16, Lk 23:19-25 This same lawless mindset permeates the world today substituting “mob rule” for “the rule of law” by people who should know better.

Third, Caesar embodied the very spirit of the totalitarian mind by dictating matters of ultimate importance to existence. However, Pilate’s decision to cap Jesus’ cross with the title, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (Jn 19:19-22) remained despite objections as prophesied by Isaiah in Is 9:6-7, 50:4-11.

Fourth, Jesus Christ remained on the cross through death sustaining God’s “Paradigm & Crucible of Freedom” in holy, resolute, atoning love displaying the power of his unshakable belief in God first manifested publicly at his baptism.-Mt 3:15-17, Eph 2:14-15

Jesus upheld the freedom of those hostile to himself through death certifying his body of flesh as being one with God to Satan’s dismay.-Mt 4:1-11, Lk 4:13, 22:53 Satan designed conditions to prove that Jesus was a fraud–not both the Son of man and the Son of God. He expected Jesus, when scourged and crucified, to curse God as stated in Job 2:4-5: “Then Satan answered the LORD, ‘Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. But put forth thy hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.'”

But Jesus did not curse God but forgave his enemies (Lk 23:34, Mt 5:43-45), and asked the ultimate question of God that fulfilled the “Great Commandment”, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. . . .and your neighbor as yourself.”-Mt 27:46, Mk 12:29-31 Jesus’ ultimate question revealed that the Godhead remained in his body of flesh reconciling the world to themselves through his obedience perfecting faith, hope, love, and reason.-Jn 6:51, 3:16, Col 1:19-20, Heb 10:4-21 As God’s Servant-Son, Jesus lived by revelation from God that effected the revolution–the radical change–that certified God’s image in his body of flesh as the Supreme Judge of the world by enduring the judgment of sinners through death in holy love perfected.-Jn 5:17-27, 19:1-19, 30, Heb 1:1-4

While these options continue to be practiced throughout the world in contemporary guise, the Apostle Luke reminds all that, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead.”-Acts 17:30-31 Solomon and Jesus address doubters in Eccls 11:5 & Jn 6:29 respectively, “As you do not know how the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.”

“This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” The founders of this nation believed in the Triune God’s work that included the sanctioning of its founding by the Supreme Judge of the world!-Mt 21:42-43, Jn 12:27-33, 9:39.