Having made clear part of the sense in which the avowal was to be taken, our Lord answered plainly 'Yes.' Thus before the high-priest, He declared Himself to be the Son of God, and before Pilate He claimed to be King, at each tribunal putting forward the claim which each was competent to examine--and, alas! at each meeting similar levity and refusal to inquire seriously into the validity of the claim. The solemn revelation to Pilate of the true nature of His kingdom and of Himself the King fell on careless ears. A deeper mystery than Pilate dreamed of lay beneath the double designation of His origin; for He not only had been 'born' like other men, but had 'come into the world,' having 'come forth from the Father,' and having been before He was born. It was scarcely possible that Pilate should apprehend the meaning of that duplication, but some vague impression of a mysterious personality might reach him, and Jesus would not have fully expressed His own consciousness if He had simply said, 'I was born.' Let us see that we keep firm hold of all which that utterance implies and declares. The end of the Incarnation is to 'bear witness to the truth.' That witness is the one weapon by which Christ's kingdom is established. That witness is not given by words only, precious as these are, but by deeds which are more than words. These witnessing deeds are not complete till Calvary and the empty grave and Olivet have witnessed at once to the perfect incarnation of divine love, to the perfect Sacrifice for the world's sin, to the Victor over death, and to the opening of heaven to all believers. Jesus is 'the faithful and true Witness,' as John calls Him, not without reminiscences of this passage, just because He is 'the First-begotten of the dead.' As here He told Pilate that He was a 'king,' because a 'witness,' so John, in the passage referred to, bases His being 'Prince of the kings of the earth' on the same fact. How little Pilate knew that he was standing at the very crisis of his fate! A yielding to the impression that was slightly touching his heart and conscience, and he, too, might have 'heard' Christ's voice. But he was not 'of the truth,' though he might have been if he had willed, and so the words were wind to him, and he brushed aside all the mist, as he thought it, with the light question, which summed up a Roman man of the world's indifference to ideas, and belief in solid facts like legions and swords. 'What is truth?' may be the cry of a seeking soul, or the sneer of a confirmed sceptic, or the shrug of indifference of the 'practical man.'