Suffered Under Pontius Pilate (Geneva Catechism)

Catechism of the Church of Geneva (1545)
Being a form of instruction for children in the doctrine of Christ

Suffered Under Pontius Pilate

M.—Why do you leap at once from his birth to his death, passing over the whole history of his life?

S.—Because nothing is treated of here but what so properly belongs to our salvation, as in a manner to contain the substance of it.

M.—Why do you not say in one word simply "was dead," (died,) but also add the name of the governor under whom he suffered?

S.—That has respect not only to the credit of the statement, but also to let us know that his death was connected with condemnation.

M.—Explain this more clearly.

S.—He died to discharge the penalty due by us, and in this way exempt us from it. But as we all being sinners were obnoxious to the judgment of God, he, that he might act as our substitute, was pleased to be sisted in presence of an earthly judge, and condemned by his mouth, that we might be acquitted before the celestial tribunal of God.

M.—But Pilate pronounces him innocent, and therefore does not condemn him as a malefactor. (Matt. xxvii. 24.)

S.—It is necessary to attend to both things. The judge bears testimony to his innocence, to prove that he suffered not for his own misdeeds but ours, and he is formally condemned by the sentence of the same judge, to make it plain that he endured the sentence which he deserved as our surety, that thus he might free us from guilt.

M.—Well answered. Were he a sinner he would not be a fit surety to pay the penalty of another's sin; and yet that his condemnation might obtain our acquittal, he behoved to be classed among transgressors?

S.—I understand so.

M.—Is there any greater importance in his having been crucified than if he had suffered any other kind of death?

S.—Very much greater, as Paul also reminds us, (Gal iii. 13,) when he says, that he hung upon a tree to take our curse upon himself and free us from it. For that kind of death was doomed to execration. (Deut. xxi. 23.)

M.—What? Is not an affront put upon the Son of God when it is said that even before God he was subjected to the curse?

S.—By no means; since by undergoing he abolished it, and yet meanwhile he ceased not to be blessed in order that he might visit us with his blessing.

M.—Go on.

S.—Since death was the punishment imposed on man because of sin, the Son of God endured it, and by enduring overcame it. But to make it more manifest that he underwent a real death, he chose to be placed in the tomb like other men.

M.—But nothing seems to be derived to us from this victory, since we still die?

S.—That is no obstacle. Nor to believers is death now any thing else than a passage to a better life.

M.—Hence it follows that death is no longer to be dreaded as if it were a fearful thing, but we should with intrepid mind follow Christ our leader, who as he did not perish in death, will not suffer us to perish?

S.—Thus should we act.