Jesus Before Pilate

John 18:28-38

     For our study this morning I'd like to ask you to turn in your Bible to the eighteenth chapter of John and we'll just continue our study of the gospel of John as we have been moving through in this marvelous gospel and studying the person of Jesus Christ. We have learned that a very obvious recurring thing happens in every paragraph in John and that is that John incessantly relentlessly presents the majesty of Jesus Christ, particularly in reference to His deity. John is not nearly as concerned with the humanity of Jesus, and He was 100 percent man, as he is with the deity of Christ, the fact that He was indeed God in human flesh. So, John at every point in his gospel is concerned with the deity of Christ ... letting it be known that Jesus is God. Not that He's a god, one of many gods, sub‑god, a creature of God or any other such thing, but that He is in fact God, equal in nature to Jehovah God.

     And so, John constantly magnifies Christ. And as we have begun to study the most humiliating time of Christ's life, we find that even in these humiliating events John manages to glorify Christ as God again.

     And so, this morning we come to the beginning of the trial before Pilate which really extends through 15 verses in chapter 19. But none of us is so foolish as to believe we would ever hope to get that far in one message. And so we will attempt only to take the first part and do the best we can with that.

     Now, John in verses 28 to 38 introduces us to the trial before Pilate, phase one. And it had three phases as did the religious trial prior to it. And in this, which is a very humiliating thing, Jesus taken like a common criminal before His would‑be executioners, and yet in even a situation like this, the magnificence of Jesus Christ becomes very, very radiant, very, very obvious. And we see Him as God and instead of seeing Jesus on trial before Pilate we see Pilate on trial before Jesus.

     Now the power of this particular portion of Scripture, as all of the narrative of John's gospel, lies in the inter‑play of personalities involved. The main character being Jesus and then Pilate and then the Jewish leaders. Now when we use the term "Jews" as John uses it, we're not referring to the Jewish populace whom would be in reference, for example, on Palm Sunday, as we call it, shouting "Hosanna" and acknowledging, Jesus to be King, but to the Jewish leaders. John uses the term "Jews" in reference to the angry, hostile, anti‑Christ Jewish leaders, made up predominantly of the Pharisees and the chief priests. And so keep that in mind. In John's mind, the term "Jews" then is primarily reserved for the Hebrews who are hostile to Christ. Whereas there were many of them who were not hostile to Him.

     And to begin with, in order to understand the scene we must understand the Jews. And by that, again I say I mean those leaders. To give you a little bit of a picture in the background so that you'll understand why they're bringing Jesus to Pilate, let me say this. During the Jewish period of history in which Jesus lived the Jews happened to be, including all of the people of Israel, under the bondage of Rome. The Jewish leaders chafed, to say the least, under this bondage. And although Rome was wise and the Roman kind of peace which they had set apart ... set out in the world called "Pax Romana" was a very, very wise kind of peace in that it allowed a certain degree of self‑government for the subjects, still restricted the right of execution for Rome. And so, although the people of Israel were autonomous in the sense that they could operate in their own courts to a certain degree, they could not execute. That is they could not bring about capital punishment.

     Now the Old Testament had allowed capital punishment, had been designed by God as a punishment for sin to be a deterrent to sin and crime. And here the Jews had been taken away ... from them had been taken away the right to capital punishment and so consequently they were at the mercy of Rome, at least in the very legal sense, for the execution of Jesus.

     Now the Jewish leaders had long ago plotted to kill Jesus. That had been a plot that had been brewing in the minds of the leaders for quite a while. Caiaphas had made the statement several chapters back that it was expedient that one man should die, and that being Jesus. So the death of Jesus Christ was a plot. The religious trial was purely a mockery to carry out the plot. There were no accusations. The indictment before Annas was no indictment at all. They had nothing they could bring against Jesus. The trial in the middle of the night before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin was a joke. It was a farce. It had not the slightest taint of justice connected with it. But they're stuck on the fact that they cannot execute Jesus, legally. And so they must bring Jesus to Rome because the ius gladiaii, or "the right of the sword" belonged only to the Romans.

     And it's a very interesting thing to realize that this didn't really come about in Israel till many years after Roman domination had already begun. It wasn't until 40 years, the Talmud says, before the destruction of the temple that judgment in matters of death was taken away from the people of Israel. In other words, if the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. it wasn't until 30 A.D., stay with me on this one, it wasn't until 30 A.D. that Israel lost the right of execution. That would be right around the time of the execution of Jesus Christ. God had actually moved history in order that when it came time for Christ to die, He would die at Gentile hands. Though it was a Jewish plot, it was a Gentile execution. And God was designing this in view of prophecy. Jesus Christ was to be hanged on a tree. Jesus Christ was to be lifted up. All the pictures and types of Christ of the Old Testament had crucifixion in view, even particularly Psalm 22 which gives us a detailed view of crucifixion, and had Jesus been crucified anytime prior to that Roman rule, which took away the right of execution, Jesus would then have been stoned because Leviticus 24:16 says that for blasphemy a man was to be stoned, and consequently would have been unfulfilling in the sense of fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies, all of the Old Testament would have been wrong. The whole thing would have been a fraud and you could have thrown away your Bible. But God moved history so that just prior to the time of the crucifixion of Jesus, the law changed, the right of execution passed into the hands of the Romans and thus Jesus was to die at the hands of the Gentiles, making His death, in a sense, a conglomerate decision on the part of Jew and Gentile. And not only that, being assured that He would then die on a tree, as Paul said, "Cursed is everyone," quoting Galatians 3:13, Paul said: "Christ would die on a tree because cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree."

     And so, fulfilling accurate prophecy, God moved history in order that it might be changed. That the Romans would have the right of the sword just in time for the death of Jesus.

     Now because they were under this Roman domination Caesar had, of course, granted to his governors, or procurators, or praetors or commanders, whatever you want to call them, all the same thing, the right of life and death. The first particular governor that Caesar had placed in there by the name of Coponius had that first right. And eventually, as I say, by the time of 30 A.D. the right had totally become Rome's.

     Now it's an interesting thing to compare with this, for example, the death of Stephen, because there were occasions in Jewish anger when they executed but it was not a formal execution, it was a riotous, mob‑type reaction. But they had no such right legally. And so they know this that legally if Jesus is to die, the Romans must do it. And so even though they've carried out their mock trial, come to the conclusion that He has to die because He's a blasphemer, He claims to be equal with God, they never considered the fact that that was a true claim. So they now seek Pilate because they have to have the Roman execution. And it's an interesting thing as you trace the hatred of these Jewish leaders to Jesus Christ, of course they were apostates, had they been true Jews as Paul says in Romans 2, inwardly, they never would have responded to their own Messiah like this, they were apostates. First of all, Jesus was ignored by them, then He irritated them. Then finally He became the object of their envy and jealousy and then they hated Him and then they plotted His murder. By the time you come to this passage in John 18, they hate Him with a passion that borders on hysteria. They hate Him. They hate Him so bad that they're plotting and carrying on all these activities in the middle of the night to get rid of Him in the morning before the crowd surges out and they have complications. They want to deliver Him to the Romans as fast as they can, get the thing over, with before anybody can change the decision. And by the time you come to the end of Jesus Christ's life, by the time you even come into chapter 19 before Pilate, the last time, you find them in a shrieking kind of madness like wolves standing and screaming at the top of their voices: Crucify Him, Crucify Him, Crucify Him.

     And so, in the end they reach an insanity of hatred that causes them to lose all reason, all mercy and all humanity. But hatred does that.

     So, the Jews then are prominent in this drama because they are the ones who bring Jesus to Pilate. Now as I said, the death has already been planned. I mean, that's just a matter of form. Jesus must die. They must get rid of Jesus 'cause He keeps stepping on their ecclesiastical toes. He keeps confronting them at the issues where they hurt. And they're not willing to accept His doctrine of sin and judgment. And so, they bring Him to Pilate.

     And you know, it's such a confusion to see this picture because here was Jesus in total magnificence in total deity presenting Himself to people who should have known Him, if they'd really known their own Scripture, and their judgment was absolutely the direct opposite of the truth. He was from God‑they concluded He was from Satan. The friend of sinners was shackled by the hate of sinners. The judge of all the earth was arraigned before a fallen son of Adam. The Lord of glory was treated like a vile criminal. The Holy One was condemned as a blasphemer. Liars gave false witness against the living truth. And He who was the resurrection and the life was killed at the hands of men.

     Now you say, "Well why does John take so much pains to point all this out? Isn't it kind of humiliating for Jesus? Sure, to be rejected by His own people, to have such abuse and such ridicule, why would John portray this if John wants to portray His exaltation?" Very simple reason. Because from the beginning of the trial before Pilate until the end of the trial before Pilate, you know what dominates the scene? The innocence of Jesus. Did you get that? The innocence of Jesus. Pilate starts out by saying ‑- I don't know what the accusation is. He ends up by saying ‑- There's no fault in this man. What is this all about? And all the way through Pilate keeps trying to get out of the deal because he knows Jesus is innocent. And he doesn't want the blood of this just man on his hands. It's almost, as I said, as if Jesus isn't even on trial, Pilate is. Pilate turns out to be the one on trial to see whether he'll do what's right or not. And so naturally, John wanting to exalt Jesus picks the area of the trial which shows the innocence of Jesus and splashes it clear across his gospel and that's what you have here. And by the time you've gone through the whole trial of Pilate, all you've done is seen the magnificence of Jesus Christ and the stupidity of Pilate. Jesus is in total control.

     Now let's lead up to verse 28. The religious trial has already happened. The trial ... the little indictment before Annas which turned out to be a fiasco as Jesus handled Annas and left him speechless, has then moved to the kind of middle‑of‑the‑night operation before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin as they got together in the middle of the night, sometime around three in the morning and decided Jesus must die. From three in the morning until the break of dawn, which wouldn't be too long, I remember last summer we were in Israel, we were swimming in the Sea of Galilee by five in the morning and the sun was well up in the sky. It gets light very early at that ... at particular points of time in the year. And even at other times it would be light as early as six o'clock at the very latest. And so, early in the morning they hold another mock trial before the religious leaders to try to legalize what was illegal because it was held at night. Having done that, they are ready now to take their prisoner and deliver Him to Pilate because they've got to get this execution going and they want to get there as early as they can.

     Now Roman court opened at sunrise and closed at sunset. So we can t commend Pilate for being up early in the morning, that was part of his job.

     They got Him over there as soon as they could and the Bible tells us in verse 28 very simply, they led Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment, or the praetorium, which was the place where the Roman garrison was kept, likely it was in Fort Antonious which butts up against the temple in Jerusalem. "And they took Jesus to the hall of judgment and it was early."

     Now, the Holy Spirit puts that in there for a very important reason. That is to remind us that this was a hurry‑up operation. They wanted to get it over with and get Him in the hands of the Romans for execution before the people would ever find out what was going on because many of the people were enamored with the person of Jesus Christ. They had one desire, that was to get Jesus into Roman hands that He might die. So the whole mob arrives at the hall of judgment just as the dawn is breaking and it's getting ready for the time for the court to open and they're ready to hand Jesus over for trial. The only thing is, they're ready ... they're really not ready for a trial; they're only ready for a judgment on execution.

     Now as an interesting insight in this verse because you see in verse 28 after they brought Him, and it was early, these words: "And they themselves went not into the judgment hall (or the praetorium, listen to this, here's hypocrisy in a classic illustration) they went not in lest they should be defiled but that they might eat the Passover." Now I'm not going to go into a great long discussion about the technicalities of this passage because there are some very interesting technicalities here that we could talk about in terms of when the Passover was and where were they in time and what were they trying to avoid and how long was the defilement going to last, etc., etc. Let me just give you the point. The point is they were hypocrites. Here they were coming and they were not willing to enter the Gentile house lest they should be defiled. At the same time they're ready to execute the Messiah. They had it a little backwards.

     Now, I don't know where they got ... there's a very difference in commentators and historians as to where they got the idea that you'd be defiled by going into the house of a Gentile and you couldn't eat the Passover. There's no such law in the Old Testament. However, in Numbers 19:14 there is a law, an indication of defilement that comes from contact with a dead body. Such defilement would last seven days whereas many lesser defilements would last only till evening, could be washed and then it would be cleansed away. And this kind of a spiritual or religious defilement of seven days would be by contacting a body, a dead body. Leon Morris submits to us, and he is no small scholar in terms of biblical understanding, he says this: "The reason that the Gentile houses were regarded as conveying uncleanness was that the Gentiles were thought to throw abortions down the drain. It was thus the defilement connected with the dead and hence a seven‑day defilement that the homes of Gentiles conveyed."

     Now, this came about from the Mishna because in the Mishna it said the homes of Gentiles are unclean. Now when it's talking here about abortions in Morris' quote, he's not of course referring to medical abortions but the fact that in those days without the facilities for childbirth, many more children were aborted. And it was a common Gentile custom to put those abortions down some drain system and consequently the Jews got the belief that therefore to go into a Gentile house would be to come in contact with a dead body even though it was an aborted child and thus contact the seven‑day type of defilement. If that is true, and perhaps it is, that's where the rule came from. I don't know. But anyway, they had by this time made a rule of some sorts that it was defiling to go into a Gentile house, perhaps based on that premise, therefore wouldn't go in there lest they gain uncleanness and not be able to eat the Passover which was at this particular time.

     And here you get a classic illustration of hypocrisy. Here you get a magnificent picture of straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. Here is a classic illustration of whited sepulchers on the outside and inside full of dead men's bones, Matthew 23:27 and 28, Jesus said when He talked about the Pharisees.' They are so careful not to break the little tiny nit‑picky legalistic meaningless rule that they have made while they're willing to murder their own Messiah. But it's an old story about legalism, my friends. Legalism is that way. It always exalts the traditions of men over the commandments of God ... do you see? It always exalts the ritual over the reality, inevitably it does that. You find anybody in any kind of a legalistic thing and it is a person who is locked into a system rather than a reality, you see. And so, they keep the letter of the Passover law and murder the One who came to fulfill it. And the law that they have made over Passover isn't even biblical. So they were legalists.

     John Calvin said this: "These hypocrites, though they are so full of malice, ambition, fraud, cruelty and avarice that they almost infect heaven and earth with their abominable smell, are only afraid of external pollution."

     Now you see, a legalist loves laws, you know that? Because the more little laws he can keep the more pious he looks. So if they had twenty laws, they'd make twenty more so they could even be more sanctimonious. And then they live by those laws and thus exalt themselves over the people. You remember what Paul said to Titus? He said to the defiled, all things are ... what? ... are defiled, for even their conscience and their mind is defiled, even their legalism is defiled.

     And so, here they come in an intolerable kind of mockery, they expect to please God by legalism while they murder God's Son. But you see, that's how it is with hypocrisy. They think uncleanness is confined in Pilate's house. Pilate was unclean. But I'm sure he would have been defiled if they'd have come in there. So they keep the ritual and kill the reality. It's a shocking thing.

     Then, beginning in verse 29 John introduces to us seven magnificent characteristics of Christ and weaves them through the narrative. Now you see, just a footnote here, in Scripture you have theological portions of Scripture which we call doctrinal or instructional, directly so such as Paul's letter, such as Hebrews which we're studying at night. You also have historical narrative but don't you ever think for a minute that historical narrative doesn't have a lot of spiritual doctrine in it because it does. Historical narrative is loaded with truth. In a very glorious way the Spirit of God weaves into historical narrative great doctrines. And so here we meet the doctrine of the deity of Christ and we see seven magnificent perfections of Christ ... all woven into this encounter with Pilate.

     The seven that we see, we see Christ exalted in seven ways: the perfect man, the prophetic God, the preternatural King, the preincarnate one, the proclaimer of truth, the personal Savior and the proven faultless. And if you don't think I spent a lot of time on that, you're wrong. All these things exalt Christ. And all the way through what was going to be a humiliating situation, Christ is constantly exalted. John's done this every time, hasn't he? No different here.

     All right, let's see majestic Jesus in Pilate's judgment I hall. First of all presented as the perfect man. We see His perfections in verses 29 and 30. Verse 29: "Pilate then went out unto them and said," this is after he's already met Jesus inside, "What accusation bring ye against this man?"

     Now here we meet Pilate. Now we must consider Pilate for a minute because he's a very, very interesting character. And as we'll go through the trial in weeks to come, we'll find out that Pilate knew Jesus was innocent. Well, Pilate was convinced of the innocence of Christ, completely and totally convinced. And then the question immediately arises: Well, if the guy was so convinced, and I mean, let's face it, he wasn't any kind of a ding‑a‑ling, he must have been some kind of intelligent person or he never would have gotten that lofty a position in the Roman government. I mean, he had to have some kind of abilities and some kind of capacities or he would never have been placed in such a hot spot as Israel to be the ruler in Israel for Ro