So much has been written about the savior and his role in life, some by ancient prophets looking forward to his day, some by his contemporaries, and yet more by those looking back by those that came after. He is the single most important man that has ever walked the earth. Yet this meaning only comes from his death—the atonement. He was the only one in his day that really understood what was going on and what the people should be doing and they blamed him of blasphemy. This fact would be true if he were any one other than who he was. Had anyone else done what he did, said what he said they would have been blasphemous, but it was inherently impossible for him to blaspheme since he is the Son of God, a God himself. These men vehemently tried to destroy the one person that could help them. In Mathew we hear that Jesus was taken to Caiaphas, one of the old high priests and a relative to other of the high priests. They all worked to destroy this man, who preached peace, in order to save the nation.  They are so blinded by their power and the status quo that they can’t see Christ for who he truly is. His is brought to Pilate, who sees that Jesus is a righteous man, but due to prior transgression can do nothing. He offers to release a prisoner, Jesus of Nazareth or Barabbas whose name is very interesting—Bar meaning the son of, and Abbas, the Father, so the son of the father. As well his first name very well could have been Joshua, or Jesus, as it is one of the three most popular names of the time for Jewish boys. And Joshua means Jehovah will save or Jehovah is salvation. So Jehovah is salvation and working through the son of the father. And he was put up next to Jesus Christ, the real son of God, having very different ways to bring salvation. Barabbas was a true antichrist. Christ taught of peace and spiritual salvation while Barabbas taught armed resistance and physical liberation to solve their problems. The chief priests chose wrong, freeing a man that would bring destruction down upon them and condemning the one man that could save them. Then they cried out a very ironic statement that his blood would be upon them and their children. Many view this as anti Semitic or anti Jewish, but it was written by a Jew for Jews. They were saying they would take the blame, but in symbolism they took the blood of the atonement on them, the saving ordinance. The one thing we all have to do, but they missed the point completely, though Mathew’s readers don’t, they see the irony and the chief priests’ mistake and how it relates to the blood of the atonement sacrifice of the lamb performed by Moses in Deuteronomy.

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