Jesus before Pilate

March 31, 2021

Read John 18:28-40

The Jewish leaders wanted the Romans to be the ones seen to be responsible for Jesus’s death. They also wanted Jesus to be crucified, as that would show that Jesus was cursed by God (Deut.21:22-23). So, they took him to Pilate, the Roman Governor (28). All four gospels record this trial, but John includes far more detail, especially of the conversation between Pilate and Jesus about Jesus being a king.

These Jews did not want to make themselves ceremonially unclean, but they had no concern about committing murder! There is further irony in their resolve to kill the one who would fulfil the very feast of Passover which they wished to celebrate (28). Their problem was that they needed the Roman death penalty, but Jesus had done nothing wrong according to Roman law (29-31). Yet their desire for Jesus to be crucified was in line with his own prediction (32; 12:32), for it was by being cursed in this way that he would take away the sin of the world (1:29; Gal.3:13).

Jesus had never claimed to be “the king of the Jews” (33) but the Jews knew that Pilate would only be interested in a political offence. It was a trumped-up charge which, nevertheless, was true, as Jesus affirmed (37; Matt.27:11; Mark 15:2; Luke 23:3). However, it is a heavenly kingship, “not of this world” but “from another place” (34-36). So there was no direct threat to Rome and therefore no basis for finding Jesus guilty of sedition. This does not mean that his kingdom has nothing to do with this world, for he had come into it “to testify to the truth” (37; 1:14; 3:31-33). Pilate dismissed the personal challenge of these words with a cynical question, “What is truth?”, not realising that the answer was, in fact, standing before him (38; 14:6).