"The Judgment of Pilate" Sermon: John 18:33-19:16a

“The Judgment of Pilate”

[John 18:33-19:16a]

March 29, 2013 Second Reformed Church

            What do we know about Pontius Pilate?  The answer is – surprisingly little.

            We know nothing of his early years.  He was appointed to be prefect – governor – of Judea by Tiberius Caesar in 26 A.D.  Historians indicate that Pilate went out of his way to offend Jewish customs and religion, and many historians say he had a vindictive and furious temper.

            Pilate is best known for crucifying a Jewish rabbi somewhere between 30 and 33 A.D. – which is what our text concerns tonight.

            Second to this event was Pilate’s reaction to a large group of armed Samaritans climbing Mount Gerizim to view relics of Moses.  It is not at all clear as to whether Pilate set them up, or whether someone else set them up, or whether the Samaritans just believed such relics existed there.  But Pilate chose to marshal his forces and slaughter them in a preventative strike.  This event was so anger-provoking, that Pilate was recalled to Rome by Tiberius in 36 A.D.  What happened to him after that is unknown.

            What is better known is the job description of a Roman governor of an occupied land – like Israel.  Pilate had two jobs:  he was to handle judicial matters – for which he was judge and jury, and he was to collect taxes for Rome.

            After Jesus was betrayed by Judas and turned over to the Sanhedrin – the ruling Pharisees and Sadducees – they sought a way to get rid of Him – permanently.  However, under Roman occupation, they were not allowed to enforce the law by capital punishment – they had to go to the Romans if they wanted to have someone put to death.  The problem with Jesus was they wanted to put Him to death for blasphemy – for claiming He was God – and the Romans wouldn’t have cared about that charge – they had to come up with something else.  And so they came up with charges of trying to overthrow the government and dissuade people from paying their taxes.  Those charges would get the attention of Rome.  And so, they delivered Jesus to Pilate to be judged.

            “So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?’ Pilate answered, ‘Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?’ Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.’ Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.’ Pilate said to him, ‘What is truth?’

            “After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, ‘I find no guilt in him.’”

            Pilate’s job, once charges had been made, was to investigate the charge and rule on it.  And so, Pilate began his interrogation by asking Jesus if He was the King of the Jews.  Pilate asked Jesus if it was His intention to overthrow the government.  And Jesus asked him what evidence he had against Him.  To which Pilate effectively answered, “It’s your own people who have brought You here and charged You.  Tell me what You have done wrong?”  Pilate demands that Jesus defend Himself, because Roman law was “guilty until proven innocent.”

            Jesus told Pilate that He was a king, but a king of another world.  If He was king of this world or wanted to be king of this world, He supporters would have taken up arms to free Him.  And Pilate questions Him again, “So You are a king?”  And Jesus tells him, yes, He is a king.  And the purpose of His birth was to bear witness to the truth – everyone who believes in the truth follows Him.  And then we have one of the most famous lines of the Bible, “What is truth?”

            How did Pilate ask the question?  Was he sincerely asking Jesus for an answer?  Was he wistfully wishing there were such a thing?  Or was he responding with sarcasm – or dismissing Jesus and His claim of the truth?  We don’t know.  It seems more likely, given what little we know about Pilate that he was responding in the latter way:  What is truth?

            Pilate had enough.  Jesus claimed to be the king of another planet Who knew the truth – hardly an offense to Rome.  Pilate came out before the crowd and gave his judgment:  “I find no guilt in Him.”

            Pilate’s judgment was “not guilty.”

            Even so, Pilate was not a fool – he had the religious leaders stirring up the crowd that something would happen, and he thought of a way to appease them:

“‘But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?’ They cried out again, ‘Not this man, but Barabbas!’ Now Barabbas was a robber.’”

Luke tells us more:  Barabbas was a robber, yes, but he was also a mass murderer – Barabbas was a terrorist.  R. C. Sproul points out that Pilate was trying to set this choice up so Jesus would be set free.  It was as if Pilate offered us, today, the choice of the release of Osama Bin Laden or Jesus.  The answer was easy – no one would choose a terrorist over Jesus – no matter what problems you may have had with Him, right?

The people chose to free Barabbas – the terrorist – and not Jesus.  Pilate must have been stunned.  Perhaps, he thought, “they are so mad at Jesus that they want to see some blood spilt – so I will flog Him.” 

A point of Roman law:  it was illegal to flog someone until he had been found guilty.

Flogging was done with a whip with many tails – and there were three different types of whips, but the historians of the day describe this as the most severe whip – based on what they saw and what it did.  The whips had numerous tails, and those tails were embedded with pieces of glass and metal and sharp rocks.  Jesus was whipped the maximum number of times by law – thirty-nine lashes – and the historians of the day report that by the time they finished, there was not a spot on Jesus’ body that was not torn, bruised, or bloodied.

And Pilate allowed the soldiers to humiliate Him:  he allowed them – after the flogging – to make a crown of thorns and press it down into His head.  These were not the little thorns like the thorns on our little crown.  Scholars differ, but say the thorns were somewhere between three and twelve inches long – depending on what plant they took them from.  The crown would not have been placed on His head, but pushed and beaten down on His head, so the thorns would tear into Him.

And they continued by dressing Him in a purple robe – mocking Him as King.  Mockingly calling to Him, and punching Him in the face.

            “Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ and struck him with their hands. Pilate went out again and said to them, ‘See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.’ So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, ‘Behold the man!’”

            Pilate brought the bloodied, beaten, mocked Jesus out before the crowd again.  Surely, He was more dead than alive after being up all night, being flogged to the fullest extent of the law, having a crown of thorns beaten into His brow, and having the soldiers mock Him and beat Him.

            And Pilate announced for a second time, “I find no guilt in Him.”

            And Pilate spoke another famous line, “Behold the man!”  “Look at Him.  He has been beaten almost to death.  He has been mocked.  He is nothing.  He is nothing to fear.  Why do you let Him upset You?  What danger could He be to you?  Look at Him now.”

The judgment of Pilate was that Jesus was “not guilty.”

But the crowd would have none of it:

“When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, ‘Crucify him, crucify him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.’”

Incredulously, the Jews still clamored for Jesus to be crucified.  So out of frustration and disgust, Pilate told them to take Jesus and crucify Him themselves – he would have nothing to do with it.  But he knew that they couldn’t do that – it was against the law.

Still, Pilate announced for a third time, “I find no guilt in Him.”

The judgment of Pilate was that Jesus was “not guilty.”

 “The Jews answered him, ‘We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.’”

The Jews finally admitted why they had brought Jesus to Pilate.  Jesus claimed to be God – and they would not tolerate Him as God.  Without examining a whit of evidence, they had condemned Jesus as a blasphemer, and they wanted Him put to death as a blasphemer – He had claimed to be God!

 “When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid.”

Why was Pilate afraid?  It could be that he was getting more concerning about the volatility of the crowd, but considering what Pilate does, Calvin and R.C. Sproul suggest that Pilate had just become afraid of Jesus.

The Romans believed that gods came to earth from time to time and took part and interfered in our history – so it was possible that Jesus really was a god – and if Jesus was a god, and the Jews were clamoring for Pilate to crucify Him – that could result in all kinds of horrible things for Pilate’s future.  He was afraid of committing sacrilege.  He probably also thought about what he had already done – if Jesus was a god, and he had had Him scourged and beaten, how might He take revenge on Pilate?

“He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, ‘Where are you from?’ But Jesus gave him no answer.”

“Jesus – where are You from?  Are you a god?  Or are You a mere man?”  To Pilate’s extreme frustration, Jesus said nothing.

“So Pilate said to him, ‘You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?’ Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.’”

So Pilate lost it with Jesus:  “Jesus.  Whoever or whatever You are – don’t You understand, I am Your only hope.  I am judge and jury.  If You would just reveal Yourself to me – give me some argument that I can use against the crowd, I will let You go, but if You don’t, I will have to send You to be crucified.  Don’t You understand, Your life is in my hands?”

Jesus responded, “The only reason My life is in your hands is that you have been given the authority to pass judgment on Me here.  The only reason you have authority over Me is because God gave you the authority – you were chosen for this very purpose.  Although the rest of your life will be all but forgotten, everyone on earth will know that I “suffer under Pontius Pilate” – you will be remembered forever for what occurred here today.   Yet, the ones who brought me to you committed the greater sin.”

Pilate was scared all the more.  He wanted nothing more to do with Jesus.  Whoever or whatever He was – Pilate just wanted Him out of his court.

            “From then on Pilate sought to release him,”

            From then on – and we don’t know how long he argued with the religious leaders and the crowd, but Pilate kept arguing with them, that he found no guilt in Jesus.  His ruling, according to his position as governor, was that Jesus was “not guilty.”  What else could he do?  What else did they want for which he could let Jesus go and not be haunted by Him?

“but the Jews cried out, ‘If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.’ So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour.”

The Jews pulled out their “ace” – they told Pilate that if he did not crucify Jesus, he was not a “friend of Caesar.”  The expression “friend of Caesar” indicated that you were loyal to Caesar.  If you were found not to be a “friend of Caesar,” you were found to be a traitor – it was an actionable crime.  If Pilate did not crucify Jesus, they would inform Caesar that Pilate was a traitor to Rome – they would have argued that Pilate freed a terrorist – someone who sought to overthrown the crown – someone who sought to be king instead of Caesar.  It would have likely meant Pilate’s own crucifixion.

Pilate had nothing left.  He brought Jesus forward, and Pilate crumpled down in the judgment seat.

 “He said to the Jews, ‘Behold your King!’ They cried out, ‘Away with him, away with him, crucify him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Shall I crucify your King?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but Caesar.’”

Pilate was disgusted with the Jews – disgusted with the situation he was in – so he now mocked the Jews – he spoke with irony. “Behold you King!”  Pilate sat in the judgment seat as he would to deliver his verdict, and he cast dispersions on the Jews:  “You brought this Man to me because He does not suit your interpretation of your religion.  You brought Him to me because you wanted Him dead, not because the charge merited Roman justice.  So, here He is – for you – your King!”  Pilate didn’t know how true his words were:  Jesus is indeed King of the Jews, King of the Gentiles, King of heaven and earth.

And Pilate asked them one last time – after fighting to declare Jesus “not guilty” and set Him free – “Shall I crucify your king?”

And the chief priests answered with the most pathetic and damning answer, “We have no king but Caesar.”

Calvin comments, “This is a display of shocking madness, that the priests, who ought to have been well acquainted with the Law, reject Christ, in whom the salvation of the people was wholly contained, on whom all the promises depended, and on whom the whole of their religion was founded; and, indeed, by rejecting Christ, they deprive themselves of the grace of God and of every blessing. We see, then, what insanity had seized them. Let us suppose that Jesus Christ was not the Christ; still they have no excuse for acknowledging no other king but Caesar. For, first, they revolt from the spiritual kingdom of God; and, secondly, they prefer the tyranny of the Roman Empire, which they greatly abhorred, to a just government, such as God had promised to them. Thus wicked men, in order to fly from Christ, not only deprive themselves of eternal life, but draw down on their heads every kind of miseries. On the other hand, the sole happiness of the godly is, to be subject to the royal authority of Christ, whether, according to the flesh, they are placed under a just and lawful government, under the oppression of tyrants” [Calvin’s Commentaries].

 So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.

            How shall we judge Pilate?  Did he do enough?  Did he judge fairly?  Did he judge well?  Did he consider the facts of the matter?  How might he fair on the Day of Judgment?  Would you have done better on the judgment seat?

            How do you answer, this evening, to the cry, “Behold your King!”?

            Do you reject Him in the hopes of someone else?

            Do you reject Him for a human king or government?

            Or do you submit yourself – and all that your are – to His Sovereign Rule – knowing that there is no better place to be, and He Alone makes you right with God through His Work on earth?

            Let us pray:

            Almighty God, You sent Your Son to be the Way back to You for all those who would believe.  As we look at what He endured at the hands of sinful men, we are horrified and agape and we wonder how this could happen.  Yet, Your Word tells us that we were all the same, so we know we would have reacted the same way.  Help us to live holy lives now and submit to Jesus as our King.  For it is in Jesus’’ Name we pray, Amen.