John 18:28-40
18:28 a The trial before Caiaphas ended in the early hours of the morning. Since they did not have the power of capital punishment (18:31 b), the Sanhedrin needed to enlist Pilate, the Roman governor, to carry out an execution.• it would defile them: They did not want to become ritually unclean by contact with Gentiles in Pilate’s headquarters. So Pilate, probably fearing a riot, went outside to meet them.
• The Passover meal itself had occurred the night before (see 13:1 c; Mark 14:14-16 d). The following day, another meal began the weeklong Festival of Unleavened Bread (Lev 23:5-6 e).
18:29 f Pilate, the fifth Roman governor of Judea, ruled the country from AD 26 to 36. He usually lived on the coast in Caesarea, but kept troops stationed in a fortress in Jerusalem where he appeared personally for major festivals. He was a brutal ruler whose atrocities against the Jews were legendary (e.g., Luke 13:1 g; Josephus, War 2.9.2-4).
Summary for John 18:31-32: 18:31-32 h Pilate found the charges unsatisfying and told the Sanhedrin, judge him by your own law. Pilate saw this as a Jewish squabble, which he refused to investigate. The Jewish leaders, however, insisted that an execution was necessary.
• fulfilled Jesus’ prediction about the way he would die (see 12:32-33 i): The Jews would have employed stoning; the Romans used crucifixion. If Pilate delivered Jesus’ sentence, he would be crucified.
18:33 j Pilate was personally responsible for capital crimes in which the interests and security of the Roman Empire were at stake, so he began his formal legal inquiry.
• Are you the king of the Jews? To get the governor’s attention, Caiaphas had charged that Jesus had urged people not to pay their taxes to the Roman government and had claimed to be a king (Luke 23:2 k). To Pilate, Jesus might have been just another Jewish terrorist–revolutionary (see Luke 23:18-19 l; Acts 5:36-37 m) with a head full of messianic notions and a band of well-armed followers.
Summary for John 18:34-35: 18:34-35 n Jesus’ reply forced the governor to show the origin of his question. The Temple leadership was behind these charges. Pilate only wanted to know if Jesus was a rebel who might threaten Roman interests.
Summary for John 18:36-37: 18:36-37 o Jesus was willing to accept the title of king, but he made it clear that he did not govern an earthly kingdom that might rival Rome. Jesus’ kingship is not of this world. Rather than being a political ruler, he rules through the devotion and obedience of his followers.
Summary for John 18:38-39: 18:38-39 p What is truth? Truth was not a foreign idea to Pilate, but he did not wait for an answer to his question because he did not believe there was one.
• Pilate returned to the council members waiting outside and delivered his verdict: not guilty. Although he referred to Jesus as “King of the Jews” (see also 19:19 q), the title meant nothing more to Pilate than a mocking expression of contempt. Pilate’s offer of amnesty revealed his desire to let Jesus go.
18:40 r Jesus was no threat to Rome, but Barabbas was a revolutionary, a violent man who took part in political uprisings (see Luke 23:19 s), with a proven capacity to challenge the Roman military occupation of Israel.
John 19:1-16
Summary for John 19:1-16: 19:1-16 t Jesus was also beaten after his sentencing (Mark 15:15 u), but here John records an earlier beating, which was likely Pilate’s attempt to show that Jesus had been punished and could be released (John 19:4 v). When this failed, Pilate passed his sentence and handed Jesus over to the Jewish leaders for crucifixion (19:16 w).19:2 x The crown of thorns might have come from a date palm (cp. 12:13-14 y), the thorns of which can exceed twelve inches. There are Greek coin images showing such crowns, with the stems woven and the thorns radiating upward above the crown.
• The purple robe was probably a soldier’s robe—dark red to complete the picture of mock royalty.
Summary for John 19:4-6: 19:4-6 z Pilate’s intention was to bring Jesus out to display the marks of his punishment to sway the crowd to let him go. After being flogged with a lead-tipped whip, Jesus was bleeding profusely.
• Pilate announced his verdict of not guilty a second time, but he was met with a strident call for Jesus’ death (19:6 aa).
19:6 ab Pilate knew that a riot could happen when a man popular with the masses was executed, so he shifted responsibility to crucify Jesus to the Temple leaders.
19:7 ac During the trial before Caiaphas, the charge of blasphemy—calling himself the Son of God—was determined to be Jesus’ true crime (see Mark 14:61-65 ad).
• The leaders had already tried pitting Jesus against Roman imperial interests (John 18:33 ae), and would do so again (19:12 af). Now they challenged the governor on another level: Pilate must keep the peace by upholding local law, even when it was irrelevant to Rome. Claiming to be God’s son was not illegal, because Israel’s kings did this (Pss 2:7 ag; 89:22-27 ah). However, Jesus claimed to have the divine authority of God himself (see John 5:18 ai), which they saw as blasphemy.
Summary for John 19:8-9: 19:8-9 aj Pilate ... was more frightened than ever: He was superstitious, and the idea of gods appearing in the world was not uncommon (Acts 14:11 ak). He sensed that more than a political fight was going on, so he asked Jesus, Where are you from? He did not mean Jesus’ birthplace, but whether Jesus was a divine man who had descended from heaven.
• Why Jesus gave no answer is unclear. Perhaps it was because Pilate would not have been able to understand the answer—that true power comes only from God, and God had empowered Jesus (cp. John 19:11 al).
Summary for John 19:10-11: 19:10-11 am You would have no power over me: Although Pilate had the power to ... crucify Jesus, it was only because God had given him this temporary power so Jesus could advance toward the cross (see 10:18 an).
19:12 ao Each time he had a conversation with Jesus, Pilate tried to release him: He kept trying, but his repeated efforts were fruitless.
• “Friend of Caesar” was an official title given to individuals such as senators who showed exceptional loyalty and service to the emperor. The Jewish leaders were implying that they would ruin Pilate’s career by reporting that he was not working in Rome’s interests. They probably knew that Pilate was also having a personal crisis. His patron in Rome, Sejanus (the chief administrator of the empire under Tiberius Caesar), had fallen from favor and was executed in AD 31. Pilate had every reason to be afraid.
19:13 ap Pilate took the governor’s judgment seat (Greek bēma, cp. Acts 25:6 aq, “seat in court”) to render his verdict.
• The Stone Pavement was the platform holding the judgment seat; from there Pilate now spoke with the authority of his office.
19:14 ar the day of preparation for the Passover (or the day of preparation during the Passover): Here, Passover does not refer to the Jewish Passover meal, which had taken place the night before, but to the whole Festival of Unleavened Bread. It was now Friday, the day of preparation for the Passover Sabbath, which would begin at sundown (cp. Mark 15:42 as; Luke 23:54 at).
19:15 au The final words of the priests, “We have no king but Caesar,” stood in direct contradiction to the Old Testament understanding that God was Israel’s king (cp. Judg 8:23 av; 1 Sam 8:7 aw; 10:19 ax). Jerusalem and its leaders were in the process of killing their true king (John 18:37 ay) while paying homage to Caesar, the pagan king of Rome.
19:16 az Pilate turned Jesus over to the Roman garrison, who prepared Jesus for crucifixion by a second flogging (Mark 15:15 ba), which brought him near death. Bleeding profusely, his clothes soaked in blood, his thorn-laced crown now digging deeply into his head, and nearly in shock, Jesus was marched to a site outside the city.
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