The Barabbas-temperament is not only released but is sometimes even strongly honoured and rewarded in life just as it is praised in poetry, films and novels. No one can be blamed for this. This behaviour occurs because one believes that it is the only true and just way of saving one's own life, position and honour. When one does not know any better, one cannot of course act in any other way. One cannot act according to knowledge that one does not possess. And it was because of this that Christ on the cross prayed for his executioners and said, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
      The average civilised human being has not reached so far in evolution that he can set Christ free in situations where this release would bring inconvenience or unpleasantness upon himself or even cost him his life. Here he becomes, like Pilate, an unjust judge and releases the thief or the murderer in himself while imprisoning and executing to a greater or lesser extent the Christ-being in his own mentality or behaviour.
      The civilised modern man cannot bring upon himself a greater fiasco or a worse fate. He can, like Pilate, save his physical position and his well-being for the moment; wash his hands and lay the blame on the others, but this does not change the cosmic seriousness of the situation for this modern Pilate. The unjust decision to release the thief or Barabbas instead of Christ in his own being will sooner or later rebound on his own head. In situations where one releases the Barabbas in one's own being, one is of course Barabbas and thereby to a greater or lesser extent a persecutor of one's neighbour just as, in situations where one releases the Christ in one's own innermost being, one is a Christ. So the Pilate-temperament, that is the state of being a modern civilised human being, does not constitute the highest happiness or ultimate goal in God's plan or purpose for the human being. One is led forward to becoming a Pilate-being, which is the same as being led forward to becoming a judge who must judge between Christ and Barabbas, in order to thereby come to experience what it means to judge unjustly; what it means to set Barabbas free instead of Christ in one's own being.