A question comes up as we
study the trial & execution of Jesus.
Bible
teachers regularly say that the reason why the priests took Jesus to Pilate was
because the Romans had taken the right of capital punishment away from the Jews.
But
when we read the Book of Acts or some of the history of the
In
History
tells us
It
certainly looks like the Jews were able to carry out executions here – so why
did they haul Jesus before Pilate?
31Then Pilate said to them, “You take Him and judge Him
according to your law.”
The Romans had
withdrawn the right of Jewish civil government to practice capital punishment,
for criminal matters & for acts of sedition or rebellion.
But
the Romans knew the Jewish religion demanded stoning for
certain kinds of heresy.
The
Romans were loath to interfere with people religious beliefs.
The
only time they did so was when those beliefs directly affect the security of
So
they had allowed the Jewish authorities the right to judge religious matters –
and to execute those who’d been proven guilty of heresy.
Pilate knew the tiff between
the priests and Jesus was a religious matter – so he told them to deal with it
– they had that authority.
The problem was, the priests
knew that if they stoned Jesus, the masses of Passover pilgrims packed into
They
considered Jesus a prophet, & possibly the Messiah.
They’d
been trying for the last 3 years to discredit Him and get the public to turn
against Him.
Every
attempt had only resulted in Him coming out looking better while they looked
ever more nasty and jealous of His growing influence.
They
didn’t really have any solid grounds to condemn Him as a heretic.
His
mere claim
to being the Messiah & the Son of God wasn’t enough; they needed to prove
somehow that His claim was bogus – and all their attempts had done was affirm
that it was valid.
If
they just took Jesus out & stoned Him, public opinion would likely rise in
an angry reaction against them.
So they took Jesus to Pilate
and accused Him of sedition – of being a threat to
Therefore the Jews said to
him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death,”
What they mean is – anyone
accused of sedition.
They
didn’t want Jesus stoned as a heretic; they wanted Him crucified
by the Romans as a political rebel.
That
way they could be rid of Him & duck the anger of the people.
32that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled which He
spoke, signifying by what death He would die.
Jesus
had made it clear that He was going to be crucified, not stoned.
1So then Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him.
As we saw at the end of Ch. 18,
knowing Jesus was an innocent man, Pilate attempted to release Him by
suggesting to the crowd that had gathered that they pick Jesus as the One he
ought to release for the special Passover pardon.
That’s why a crowd had
gathered so early that morning – because each year at Passover the governor
would release one of those they held in prison.
This was a way to show the
good will of
But the priests had
circulated a warning that they were to ask for the criminal Barabbas. Anyone asking for Jesus would be in serious
trouble.
With this failure to get
Jesus off the hook, Pilate thought a good beating would be enough to mollify
the priests’ hostility. So he had Jesus scourged.
The
scourging would prove to all concerned that Jesus couldn’t possibly be a king
as the priests had charged.
Any
king who was a real danger to
Scourging:
Scourging was carried out with a whip composed of multiple thongs, each twined
round pieces of bone or sharp metal.
We’re
not told how many lashes Jesus was given, but other historians tells us that
the usually punishment was between 20 & 40, depending on the strength of
the victim.
The
goal was to rip the flesh of the back to ribbons.
Not
a few of those scourged died of the beating when their ribs & internal
organs were exposed.
The
scene shown in the movie, The Passion of
the Christ is an accurate idea of what scourging was.
Jesus’
was particularly savage, leading to His quick demise on the cross.
He
died after only 6 hours; some victims lasted for a couple days.
2And the soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and
put it on His head, and they put on Him a purple robe. 3Then they said, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they
struck Him with their hands.
Emboldened by Jesus’ mute
acceptance of the scourging, the soldiers decided to have some sport with Him
before turning Him back over to Pilate.
They’d
known endless abuse from the Jews & this was their chance to give some of
it back – they thought.
So
they dressed Jesus in a robe whose color spoke of royalty, & put a mock
crown on His head – then they feigned their adulation of Him by slapping and
striking Him.
The
other Gospels tell us they spat in His face & plucked out His beard.
It is right at this place
that personally, I see the restraint of Christ most fully revealed.
He
knew He was going to the Cross & that it was there He would atone for
our sins. That was the climax of
His mission.
But
all of this was just the lead up - & to have to endure
this merciless, undeserved, mocking & torture was just so very wrong!
I’ll
bet every one of us, in the same place, would have put up with just so much,
then we would have said, “Okay – that’s enough!” And ended it with a little fun
of our own.
Think of the absolute
insanity of the way Jesus was treated.
It
is right here, with the scourging & the mocking by the soldiers that we see
the full depravity of the human race.
Here
is what man is really like! He takes the
perfect holy God who has done nothing throughout His time on Earth but blessed
people and shown incredibly love & compassion.
When
we get our hands on Him, we rip off His robe, tie Him to a post and flay His
backside till it’s left in strips of bleeding flesh.
They
we dress Him up so we can mock and further abuse Him.
So much for the vaunted ideal
of secular humanism which say that man is noble & good & that he just needs
to be freed of the superstitions of religion so that he can achieve
his potential.
You
want to see what humanity will lower itself to if you take God away – Here it
is!
If
we did this to God when He became man – what do you think we will do to
one another if we finally come to the place of removing God from the
picture?
Look
to the gas ovens of Auscwitz, the gulags of Siberia, & the killing fields
of
And yet Secular Humanism is
the prevailing philosophy in our public schools & universities.
4Pilate then went out again, and said to them, “Behold,
I am bringing Him out to you, that you may know that I find no fault in Him.” 5Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the
purple robe. And Pilate said to them, “Behold the Man!”
Pilate thought for sure the
pitiful spectacle of the beaten Jesus would mollify the crowd & for pity’s
sake they would agree to His release.
He
miscalculated.
6Therefore, when the chief priests and officers saw
Him, they cried out, saying, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!”
Pilate said to them, “You take Him and crucify Him, for I find no
fault in Him.”
The priests knew what Pilate
was trying to do & saw the crowd’s horror when presented with Jesus, so
they quickly picked up the call for Jesus’ crucifixion.
Having
already been warned by the priests what would happen if they consented to
Jesus’ release, the other gospels tell us the crowd added their voices to the
priest call for His death.
Pilate knows he doesn’t have
any real grounds for condemning Jesus so in frustration he throws it back at
the priests. But of course, they can’t
crucify anyone – only the Romans could do that.
7The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according
to our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God.”
They admit that
the real charge, the thing that has made them so intent of getting rid of Jesus
is what they consider blasphemy – Jesus claimed to be God.
8Therefore, when Pilate heard that saying, he was the
more afraid, 9and went again into the Praetorium,
and said to Jesus, “Where are You from?” But Jesus gave him no answer.
As governor, Pilate had
certainly heard of Jesus before this.
The
whole region was abuzz with talk of the miracle-working Rabbi from
But
the claim that He was the Son of God was new & troubling to Pilate.
Here’s why – Many Romans were
superstitious.
It
was a frequent theme in their legends & religion that the gods would
occasionally take human form.
Sometimes
they would have sexual relations with human women & produce children. The
story of Hercules was one of these.
Jesus’
claim to being the Son of God troubled Pilate because of all this.
What
made it worse is that as
This
confirmed Pilate’s suspicions that Jesus was not only innocent, there was
something much deeper at work in all this than just the priest’s attempt to get
rid of an opponent.
So he returned to another
interrogation of the prisoner.
But
Jesus refused to speak.
10Then Pilate said to Him, “Are You not speaking to me?
Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and power to release You?”
Pilate was not used to being
ignored & reminds Jesus of his authority.
He
wants to compel Jesus to speak & uses the leverage of his position.
11Jesus answered, “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been
given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater
sin.”
Jesus reminded Pilate of
something every ruler knows – he was only in his position because a higher
authority had placed him there.
And
authority given must be accounted for.
How
Pilate uses his authority will determine not Jesus’ fate, but Pilate’s.
With this answer, Jesus turns
the tables on Pilate & lets him know, the governor is not judging Jesus.
Rather,
what Pilate decides about Jesus determines Pilate’s fate.
No
one judges Christ. It’s the other way
around – what we decide about Jesus judges us!
As Pilate felt himself being
backed into a corner, Jesus told him that while he would have to answer for
what he did with Jesus, the greater reckoning would be that of the high priest
Caiaphus.
12From then on Pilate sought to release Him, but the
Jews cried out, saying, “If you let this Man go, you are not Caesar’s friend.
Whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar.”
When Jesus told Pilate He
knew the governor was being manipulated into a political trap, Pilate decided
Jesus really was innocent & had to be released.
As soon as the priests knew
this was the direction things were going, they played their ace in the hole.
They
knew that because of 2 previous official reprimands from
He’d
been warned that if another official delegation of the Jewish leaders came to
The
only way out of such disgrace was to commit suicide.
So here the Jews threaten
Pilate with their trump card; if he doesn’t bend to their wishes and crucify
Jesus, they will send a delegation to
Imagine the head of the
Reporters
would bring that news back home here and the Pentagon would go ape!
Bush
would bring him home to face a court-marshal for gross dereliction of duty.
That’s the threat facing
Pilate with v. 12.
13When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought
Jesus out and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called The
Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha.
This refers to a stone floor,
like a tile or mosaic.
The Romans loved
mosaics. We find them in many Romans
ruins of
Sepphoris,
the new capital of Galilee Herod was building just north of
There are several rooms there with huge,
gorgeous mosaics.
The courtyard of the
governor’s palace in
It
was there the governor’s official judge’s seat was set.
Pilate has the guards bring
Jesus out – he sits down in the sat to let all know he’s ready to render his
final verdict.
14Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, and
about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, “Behold your King!”
Since Mark tells us in 15:25
that Jesus was put on the cross at the 3rd hour – 9AM. How do we
reconcile John’s saying Pilate didn’t even render judgment until the 6th
hour?
Simple
– Mark reckoned time from a Jewish perspective while John is speaking about a
Roman trial so he uses the Romans way of reckoning time.
The
Jews numbered their hours with sunrise –about 6 AM, while the Romans began
numbering the hours with midnight.
So
Pilate issued his verdict sometime between 6 & 7 AM.
15But 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!” 16Then
he delivered Him to them to be crucified. Then they took Jesus and
led Him away.
Pilate tries one last time to
spark the compassion of the crowd toward the now pitiful appearance of Jesus,
but the priests rule the day & sway them to demand His death.
In a complete betrayal of
their role as the leaders of
These men were traitors.
17And He, bearing His cross, went out to a place
called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew,
Golgotha, 18where they crucified Him, and two
others with Him, one on either side, and Jesus in the center.
As we considered last Sunday,
there’s quite a bit of material describing the practice of Roman crucifixion
that comes to us from history.
Crosses
were placed alongside busy roads to maximize the warning they provide to anyone
who was thinking about rebelling against
There was a major road that
led out of the northern date of
The
masons had dug holes in the face of the cliff that made it look like a skull
leering over the road.
For
this reason the locals called it Skull Hill and the Romans considered it a
perfect spot to crucify people.
Jesus & the 2 thieves who
were executed with him would have carried the cross beams for their crosses.
Once
they got there, the beam would be secured to a post; they’d position the
condemned on top of this & drive spikes through the wrists & arches of
the feet.
Then
the bottom of the post would be dropped into a hole & secured with rocks,
dirt & wedges of wood.
The feet of the condemned
were no more than 3 feet off the ground, making the head of the crucified just
a little more than a couple feet higher than those standing on the ground.
19Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the
cross. And the writing was: JESUS OF
Attached to the cross of the
condemned was a list of charges specifying why they were being put to death.
Jesus’
simply said His name and His title.
The Jewish rulers were
offended by this & saw it as Pilate’s way to show his displeasure with
having been backed into a political corner by them.
So
they went running back to the Praetorium with the demand that he alter the
charge from Jesus’ title to His claim. Pilate said – “Buzz off!”
23Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took
His garments and made four parts, to each soldier a part, and also the tunic.
Now the tunic was without seam, woven from the top in one piece. 24They said therefore among themselves, “Let us not tear
it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be,” that the Scripture might be
fulfilled which says: “They divided My garments among them, And for
My clothing they cast lots.” Therefore the soldiers did these things.
The
crucifixion detail was not one most soldiers looked forward to.
As
compensation for the grizzly task, they were allowed to keep the clothing of
the condemned.
There
were 4 of them at Jesus’ crucifixion and they split up His belongings 4 ways.
The
one problem was His tunic, which had been specially made and was seamless.
Instead
of tearing it and dividing the cloth into 4 pieces, they decided to cast lots
for it. Thus fulfilling Psalm 22:18.
Some have wondered if we’re
to find some kind of special meaning in the fact Jesus’ tunic was woven in one
piece & seamless.
This
was not some kind of special technology for the time; it was a well known
method of weaving.
But
the only other reference we find to such a specific seamless garment was made
by Josephus who said the high priest’s tunic was also woven form the top in one
piece and seamless.
It
may have been this garment Caiaphus tore when he declared Jesus’ blasphemy.
The high priest was not
supposed to tear his garments because they were holy.
By
tearing them, he was defaming his position.
By
going to the cross, Jesus was fulfilling His call as our great high priest in
offering Himself as our sacrifice.
The Roman soldiers showed more
regard for the humble tunic of Jesus than Caiaphus did for his.
25Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and
His mother’s sister [aunt], Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary
Magdalene.
4 ladies.
His
aunt was Salome, the wife of Zebedee, and mother of
John
never names himself, his brother, or his mother in His gospel.
26When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple
whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” 27Then He said to the
disciple, “Behold your
mother!” And from that hour that disciple
took her to his own home.
This is entirely keeping with
the social customs; a family was to take care of its own members.
Mary
was John’s aunt, the sister of his mother, Salome.
Both the Gospels and Acts
tell us Jesus had younger brothers; so why didn’t they take care of their
mother?
Following
the Resurrection, the followers of Christ will bond together in a tight-knit
community, and Jesus’ brothers did not at first believe in Him.
It
took a little while before they came to faith.
So
Jesus asks John to keep an eye on His mother & make sure she’s taken care
of. He did.
28After this, Jesus, £knowing that all things were
now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!” 29Now a vessel full of sour wine was
sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on
hyssop, and put it to His mouth. 30So
when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.
We covered these vs. Sunday.
31Therefore, because it was the Preparation Day,
that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath
was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken,
and that they might be taken away.
Because of Deut. 21:23, dead
bodies were not allowed to remain on a tree overnight, lest they defile the
land.
If
this was true for any old day, it applied even more to a special holy day, such
as the one that was coming – the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened bread
which comes right after Passover.
So the priests petitioned
Pilate to have the crucifixion detail break the legs of the 3 men so they would
suffocate and die.
32Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first
and of the other who was crucified with Him. 33But
when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break
His legs.
Since the point was to hasten
their death, since Jesus was already dead, they declined to break His legs.
34But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear,
and immediately blood and water came out. 35And he who
has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is
telling the truth, so that you may believe.
One of the other 4 guards
thought it was presumptuous to not break Jesus legs; what if He’d
just passed out.
So
he decided to see if Jesus was really dead or just unconscious; a good poke
with his pilium would tell.
The
head of the spear penetrated the skin between the ribs & sliced open the
pericardium.
When
he withdrew the spear, out of the wound came the both water & blood, a sign
that Jesus had died of heart-rupture.
Jesus
died, literally, of a broken heart.
John says – “I WAS THERE, and
saw it with my own eyes.”
He
says this because even bake in those days there were skeptics who said Jesus
hadn’t really died on the cross, He only swooned, and was revived later by the
cold stone bed of the tomb.
The
blood and water that flowed from the wound in Jesus’ side is proof He was dead!
36For these things were done that the Scripture should
be fulfilled, “Not one of His bones shall be broken.”
Psalm 34:20
37And again another Scripture says, “They shall
look on Him whom they pierced.”
38After this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of
Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away
the body of Jesus; and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and
took the body of Jesus. 39And Nicodemus, who at
first came to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes,
about a hundred pounds. 40Then they took the
body of Jesus, and bound it in strips of linen with the spices, as the custom
of the Jews is to bury. 41Now in the place where He
was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one
had yet been laid. 42So there they laid Jesus,
because of the Jews’ Preparation Day, for the tomb was nearby.
While the officials disciples
went into hiding after the crucifixion, 2 others who’d been secret supporters
step up & show their devotion when it was even more dangerous than before.
Interesting – when Jesus was
alive, they supported Jesus secretly for fear of what open support would cost
them in terms of their social standing.
But
now that aligning with Jesus will CERTAINLY cost them they step forward. Why?
Because
Jesus’ example in going to the cross has drawn them out of the closet.
“Coming out of the closet” is
a phrase used today to refer to homosexuals who finally admit their sexual
orientation after trying to hide it for fear of what the admission will cost
them.
Today
– “coming out” has become the cause-celeb for many.
And it seems that the more
homosexuality is accepted and endorsed in our culture, another group is being
encouraged to climb INTO the closet, or if they are already there – to stay
there: I’m referring to honest to goodness, God-fearing, Jesus-loving,
Bible-believing, Holy-living, All-loving Christians.
There are far too many closet-Christians
today.
Do
the people you work with know you’re a follower of Jesus?
How
about your family? Neighbors?
Matthew tells us Joseph was a
rich man. [Matt. 27:57]
Nicodemus
was one of the Jewish rulers & a highly respected teacher. [John 3]
Joseph went to Pilate and got
permission to bury Jesus.
He
had a brand new tomb not far from the cross where it would be easy to place the
body.
When Joseph told Pilate his
plan, Pilate complimented Joseph on his generosity, giving up his expensive
family tomb to a virtual stranger.
Joseph
told Pilate, “Oh, it’s not big deal – it’s only for the weekend.’ J
Nicodemus brought some
embalming supplies & they took care of business.
But
they weren’t able to do a proper job of it as they were rushed – the sun was
setting and they had to be done quickly.
This
is why the women returned early Sunday morning;
They’d
followed at a distance and seen the inadequate way the two men and tried to
prep Jesus’ body for burial.