Shall I Crucify Your King?

John 18:39--19:16

Turn in your Bibles to John chapter 18 for our lesson this morning. We're going to come to a passage this morning that you're going to find extremely intriguing, a little bit different than the passages as we approach most of them. Because it really turns out to be a character analysis of a man name Pilate. Perhaps as infamous a man as the world has ever known, infamous because of his cowardice. He has become the prototype of all cowards.

And as we approach our study this morning, we are continuing in a series that we've been in John's gospel for several years now. And we have come to chapter 18, closing in on the last days of the life of Christ. In fact, this is the last day, to be followed only by the days that He lived on earth after His resurrection. And as we come to this last day and the events of the last day, we are face to face with the fact that Jesus is to die. He has been tried in front of the religious court of the Jews, found guilty of nothing; nevertheless they desire to kill Him for envy's sake because they don't like Him. He disturbs their hypocritical power over the people; that is He disturbs the hypocritical power of the rulers, the Jewish religious rulers. And so, they want to be rid of Him.

But since they have no right to execute Him, technically the Romans alone have that right for the Jews are a subject people to Rome; they thus bring Him to Pilate in order that Pilate might be His executioner. They don't want Pilate to try Him; they only want Pilate to kill Him. But in order to get Pilate to do it they have to use every possible tactic that they can imagine, and you're going to see them floundering and flip‑flopping around through this entire passage, coming up with different accusations to try to get the thing finally accomplished, and they finally succeed. They are wily, they are clever, they are unscrupulous, they are bloodthirsty. And they hound Jesus and they hound Pilate until finally they get them both.

And yet, in this kind of a thing which could again, as we have seen so many times, be very debasing to Jesus, we see Him exalted. And the one who is debased in this situation is Pilate and equally debasing ... equally debased are the Jewish leaders and even the people. And in this passage we see the hysterical hate of the Jews, the panicky fear of Pilate set against the serene majesty and calm of Jesus Christ. And it seems like it's backwards for the victim to be calm and the accuser and the executioner to be frenzied, but indeed that's exactly the picture.

You see, as we have seen in the past, Jesus must die. He must die for the sins of the world. He must bear in His own body our sins on the tree. And as prophecy indicates He must be lifted up by His own word. He must die the death of crucifixion as described in the Old Testament by the psalmist. And so He must die at Gentile hands in Gentile fashion. He must also die in Gentile hands in order that the whole world may become culpable or guilty of His death.

And so, He is brought to the point of His death. And even though it's in the design of God that Jesus is to die, that relieves at no point the guilt of men who killed Him. God merely planned their guilt and their hatred and their cowardice into His redemption.

Now, in all of the humiliation and all of the mockery of this mad, unbelievable, weird scene that we're going to see this morning where Jesus is abused, then mocked, then clubbed, then spit on, scourged, smashed in the face and finally nailed to a cross, we would think we would see a debased Jesus, but we don't. We see Him in as much beauty as you will ever see Him. And though as Isaiah said: "There is no beauty that we should desire Him," there is no form or comeliness physically, His visage is marred yet He is majestic in His person. And above all things He is faultless. And rather than being the condemnation of Jesus, the trial before Pilate is the damnation of Pilate. The indictment against Jesus is lie upon lie upon lie upon lie. But the indictments against the Jewish leaders and against Pilate is truth. And they are the ones condemned.

It's an interesting kind of a situation because you see, the Jews are afraid of Jesus. Pilate is afraid of the Jews. And Jesus is afraid of nobody.

Now, let me remind you that the religious trial is over; that the Jews according to their own law have determined that Jesus must die. Now when I say their own law, I mean not by the law of God, or by any kind of a judicial process, they want to get rid of Jesus because they hate Him for envy, they hate Him. And so they plot His trial only as a step to His death. It isn't a legitimate trial, there was nothing just about it from beginning to end, the religious trial. There were two trials: the religious and then the civil. The religious trial, you'll remember, had three phases. The first one before Annas when they tried to get an indictment against Jesus and there wasn't any. The second phase in the middle of the night they got Caiaphas who was the high priest, and the Sanhedrin together and condemned Him to death. And then they met again in the morning to try to legalize the whole deal. Those three phases of trial one proved Jesus was innocent, not guilty but it was a plot to kill Him so His innocence had no part in it. It didn't matter whether He was innocent or guilty at all, they were going to kill Him anyway.

But because they had not the right of execution, they now bring Him to Pilate. And this is trial two and it's a civil trial before the Roman governor and it takes three phases also. The first phase we saw last week. Last week we saw, beginning in verse 28, that Jesus was brought to Pilate and that Pilate examined Him to see whether this indictment was true. And first of all he said ‑What's He ... what do you accuse Him of? And they said ‑ Well, He's a bad man. Which is a little bit vague, right? They said ‑ Do you think we would bring somebody to you who wasn't a bad, horrible person? In other words, you're impugning our character, Pilate. And finally they decided they needed an accusation, so they accused Him of being a political reactionary who was trying to overthrow Rome. And Pilate looked over at Jesus, simple, clothed in peasant garb, silent, standing there and said: "That is a political insurrectionist? That is a king? A threat to Caesar? Who you kidding?" And Pilate concluded at the end of verse 38, phase one of trial two, "I find in Him ... what? ... no fault at all." You're kidding, this is no political reactionary. Jesus had said to him, ‑ If I was a king and I wanted to knock off Rome, My servants would fight, My servants didn't fight, they ran. One of them tried to fight and I told him to put away his sword.

And so, Pilate says No, no, no ... this is no political insurrectionist. You know, this is one of the lies that's current today. A girl came to me after the morning service this morning and she said, "You know," she said, "it's interesting that you should preach on this because somebody has been coming to me and there's a new thing that's out." And  evidently she had gotten hold of it at Valley State College and it's a particular treatise dealing with the fact that Jesus was a political revolutionary and He was executed by Rome because Rome found Him guilty of that. That's a lie. Pilate says ‑ I find no fault in Him ‑ six times. They found no fault in Him. There was no insurrection. There was no reason to execute Him. And Pilate says ‑ What are you going to kill Him for? What did He do? And they said ‑ Well, He's an insurrectionist against Rome. And Pilate questioned Him and found out He wasn't. The Romans bore no accusation against Jesus.

Well, Pilate's in a pickle, to put it mildly. Because of this...now stay with me and I'll give you the background, are you ready for this? ... Pilate had messed up with the Jews...oh, badly. Remember how I told you that when he got into there as the governor, he had fouled up so many times and Rome had to send down word ‑ either shape up or they were going to yank him out of there? He had irritated the Jews. Now Roman...the Roman law what was called Pax Romana, the Roman Peace, moved in on an area and subjected the people but it allowed them home rule and it allowed them a kind of a peace. And the Romans were not really oppressive unless the people were revolutionary. The Romans wanted to keep it peaceful and they were very good at that.

Well, Pilate had a tough time doing that with the Jewish people. They kept having these revolts and Pilate was really in bad shape. And to make things worse, not only did Rome know that he was having a hard time handling these people from revolting, but to make it worse he had capitulated to the Jews on three occasions and they knew that they had him right under their thumbs. They knew he was nothing but a puppet and they could move him around anywhere they wanted to move him. Because, they could always hold over his head the threat ‑ If you don't do what we want, we'll revolt and guess who will hear about it? And you'll get the axe.

And so, Pilate was being blackmailed into doing this to Christ. They were putting the pressure on Pilate in a blackmail sense. They were saying, in effect, ‑ Pilate, if you don't do what we want with Jesus, you're going to find a lot of trouble. Finally, we'll see the ... the final ... the coup de grace that really finally trips the hammer in Pilate's brain and gives him the final decision to go ahead and let Jesus be crucified, was just that issue. And they knew how to get to Pilate. Little by little they just stuck the knife in and they just kept twisting it and twisting it until finally it was over.

So, Pilate's really got two options on his hands. Now he's a man of some justice. He's not any kind of a, you know, average commoner, this guy's a pretty sharp guy or he wouldn't be placed in such a position by Rome. And to his benefit we should say that he's got some sense of justice. They bring to him an innocent man and he's faced with two options. All right, the man is innocent, I could let Him go. That would be right cause He's innocent. But I let Him go, I've got a Jewish revolution, word goes to Caesar and I get either removed or my head removed because Tiberius didn't tolerate messing around. Tiberius Caesar was quick. And when he saw something he didn't like, it was over and he happened to be the emperor at that time. And so, Pilate had the option of doing what was right and losing his job and maybe his head because the Jews would undoubtedly revolt, or he had the option of doing what was wrong, executing an innocent man, and therefore cross‑graining all the Roman justice and judgment that he had ever learned and crucifying his own soul because in some sense he had a morality. So he had two choices ... either save your soul or save your neck.

Now, there's something kind of vague about your soul. There's nothing vague about your neck. Right? So when it gets down to the nitty‑gritty, chances are you'll go for your neck. You know, that's what's going on in our world today? And Jesus said: "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose ... what? ... lose his soul?" Fools, people live for money, pleasure, sex ... whatever. And they crucify their souls.

     Well, that was Pilate's option. And his neck was so tangible, you know. And so they had him where they wanted him. And with that in his mind, he has just tried to get this thing over with by saying to the Jews ‑ I find no fault in Him. But then he's faced with another problem. He doesn't know what to do with Jesus. He can't give Him back or he's going to have this whole problem on his hands, so he now begins a process of figuring out schemes to get rid of Jesus, see, out‑the‑back‑door deals. First thing he thinks of ‑ Oh, let's see, Herod... this is Luke 23 and this is the second phase of the trial which John skips, I'm talking in the white space here, but Luke picks it up. He says ‑ I got it ... here, Jesus is originally from Galilee, right? Nazareth of Galilee. Herod is the chief cheese in Galilee. Herod also happened to be in Jerusalem at this time. Pilate says ‑ I'll pass the buck to Herod. So Luke 23 verses 4 to 12 says he gathers up Jesus ... whist ... over to Herod.Herod looks at Jesus a while, soldiers mock Him, beat Him a little bit, then Herod says ‑ Take Him back to Pilate. And Pilate is stuck again.

And then we come to verse 39 and John Dicks it up from there. And this is the story of Pilate's inability to get rid of Jesus. May I make a spiritual point at this time, and I'm going to remind you of it at the end? You have here exactly what every man has to face, listen to it, an ultimate decision about what to do with Jesus Christ. Pilate tried every single thing he could to get rid of Jesus and he couldn't get rid of Him, God forced him to make the decision himself. And so he will every man.

All right, as we move into the trial in verse 39, I'm going to show you three things: Pilate's failing proposals, Pilate's fatal panic, Pilate's final pronouncement. And here we see the absolute dissipation and destruction of a human being. And by that I don't mean Jesus ... I mean Pilate. By the time this deal is over you're going to see a raving maniac, a man who has momentary insanity ... Pilate. He completely loses it.

First of all, Pilate's failing proposals. Now Pilate thinks up a couple of proposals in order to get rid of Jesus. Now I've already told you about a couple of them. You remember back, for example, in chapter 18 verse 31, he didn't know what to do with Jesus there so he said ‑ You take Him and you judge Him. He tried to get rid of Jesus there. He tried to get rid of Jesus again by sending Him to Herod and that didn't work, and he's still stuck with Him. So he comes up with a couple of other brainstorms that he thinks might really work, and I call them Pilate's failing proposals. Now he's under stress, to say the least. Remember now, he's got an option between his soul and his neck and it's a fearful thing. In his heart and his mind he knows that Jesus is innocent. And he knows that the whole thing is a plot by the Jewish leaders to have Jesus murdered out of pure envy, he knows that. He knows that Jesus has committed no political crime, that Rome has no accusation to make against Jesus, that he has legally no right to execute Jesus, he's enough of a man of justice to at least be conscious of that. He knows Jesus is no criminal, he knows Jesus is no threat to Roman political security. But is Jesus ever a threat to his security. He is on the proverbial horns of the dilemma. He cannot afford another revolt or Rome will eliminate him and he knows the character of Tiberius and he knows that he is quick. And even though he's got a sense of justice he's got that lingering thing in the depths of the human heart that says ‑ I want to stay alive at all costs. And so, it's very complicated. And this is Pilate.

But, the decision is his. And so, he tries, first of all, to worm out of it. Notice verse 39: "But ye have custom that I should release unto you one at the Passover."

Now, there was a custom evidently that Pilate had with the people. It may have begun before Pilate was the governor; that every year at Passover they would release from the jails of the Romans one Roman prisoner, a Jewish criminal who had been taken by Rome in prison. Now it is very obvious that this was a concession on the part of Rome to the people because the other gospel writers tells us that the people had the right to choose who it was that they desired to be released. And so Pilate in his little brain begins to think ‑ Aha, it's Passover time and they get to choose whomever they will to be released. And he thinks here's my out. I'll offer them Jesus.

Now, this isn't a bad thought. You've got to give Pilate some credit. Keep in mind, not too many days before that, Jesus had come riding into Jerusalem on the colt, the foal of an ass, and everybody was sayingwhat? "Hosanna to the King ... hosanna to the King." Pilate figures ‑ The people ... hmm, a plus for Jesus, the rulers... hmm, negative.

Now, by this time the praetorium area there has been filled up with people, in the morning they begin to gather. And there's already a mob there, much more than the leaders ... the people have already arrived. So Pilate figures this ‑ It's the leaders that want Him dead, the people, they like Him, so I will offer Him to the people as the prisoner to be released. That's not bad thinking. Surely, the people will overwhelm the situation and they'll demand His release because they like Him. Surely ... I'm sure Pilate expected the crowd to say ‑ Yeah, release Jesus. So He takes Jesus and he even tries to put that thought in their mind. He takes Jesus out there with another man by the name of Barabbas and in verse 39 it says he says, in the middle of the verse, "...Will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews?" And it's very cynical...See, here's your king. "...Will you that I release unto you at this point..." You know, he's ... he's pretty rational and I'm sure he's thinking in the back of his mind ‑ Boy, that settles it, they'll just ... they'll want Him, you know. They don't want Barabbas. Barabbas was the scum of the earth. I mean, nobody wanted Barabbas. I mean, this guy was no ... this wasn't any little petty guy, this guy was a real notorious criminal. The Bible says he was a notable person. And besides that, the other gospels tells us that he was an insurrectionist, he had been involved in an insurrection. The other writers also indicate to us that he had murdered and here it says in verse 40, at the end: "...Barabbas was a robber." And the Greek word is bandit. This guy was a highwayman.

Likely, the highwaymen always frequented the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. And you go down that road, it's just a steep road going down into the...to the desert where Jericho is, and the highwaymen always hid along ‑the way. And this guy was a bandit, murderer, insurrectionist, the whole routine. And so Pilate puts him up there with Jesus.

Verse 40: "Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas." We want Barabbas released. And you can imagine, if you've ever seen a double take, you would have seen one then on Pilate's part. What is ... what happened? You say, What in the world are these people ... they say, Hosanna ... this is the ... this is the great characteristic of the fickle crowd, see. This is the mood of the mob. Whatever way the deal goes, we go. See, if it's Hosanna Day, Hosanna. If it's Crucify Day, crucify, see. I mean, that's typical. If it's Christmas ‑ Oh, the Lord Jesus. If it's not Christmas ‑ Use His name in vain, right? If it's Easter ‑ go to church and sit there, and hmm, God, three cheers and all that. If it's not Easter ‑ curse God.

You see, this is the fickle mood of the mob and this is exactly what you have right here in Mark chapter 15, it tells us what happened. I'll read it to you. Mark 15:11 says: "But the chief priests stirred up the people that he should rather release Barabbas unto them." Guess who stirred the people up? Religious leaders ... Barabbas, Barabbas, Barabbas ... you know. That's people for you ... sheep, witless, following their leaders. What does the Old Testament say? "Like people, like priest," Hosea, that's what he said. So the chief priests, suppose to be the leaders, we want Barabbas. And all the people chime in and they want Barabbas and Pilate can't believe it. So typical of men.

Well, now Pilate really lost his cool. He has stopped functioning now as a judge and he began to panic. And he now comes across like a weakling who is cornered like an animal and he's cringing. And now he's really stuck. What's he going to do with Jesus now? He's been cynical in saying ‑ Do you want to release the King of the Jews? This is your King. And he could... he thought he could play with this cynicism because it was a sure thing. But it didn't turn out to be a sure thing. And now he's stuck with Jesus again.

You say ‑ "Well, why did they choose Barabbas?" Well, Barabbas was insurrectionist, the Bible tells us that. And it is very possible that they wanted Barabbas released to start an insurrection. Maybe they figured this was their leader, possible. Kind of interesting that they brought Jesus to be condemned because of His insurrectionist and then wanted an insurrectionist back so they could have an insurrection. That shows you...that shows you the honesty of their charges. They didn't care what accusation, they only wanted Him dead and they keep jumping around from accusation to accusation. If it doesn't work that He's a Roman revolutionary, we'll get Him on some other deal. They just kept working at everything they could find, and we'll see it as we go.

But anyway, Barabbas was an interesting character. His name bar, the first part of his name indicates "son of," that's Hebrew for "son of." And abbas could be from several things, possibly abb ... rabbonwhich would be "rabbi" ... could be the son of a rabbi, which would give him a little more quality‑type character, if that's possible, a man who was a bandit and a murderer. And it may be that they just wanted him because they didn't want Jesus. That's obviously the case. Maybe they thought that it was a good thing to get Barabbas along in the deal, too.

But anyway, Barabbas is a very, very important individual because, you see, he exemplifies to us the depravity of man. Here is the best in the universe, God incarnate, and the worse in humanity and whom to men choose? The worst. So typical. Well, needless to say, Pilate is dumbfounded at this point and in Matthew 27, fitting in the slot right here, Matthew says "Pilate looked at the people and said, What then shall I do with Jesus who is called the Christ?" And you want to know something? That's a profound question. And you know something? That wasn't just a question on Pilate's lips, that was a question that came out of his aching torn heart. What do I do with Jesus? He had to release Barabbas and he's still stuck with Jesus...failing proposal. And when he said ‑ What do I do with Jesus? ‑ The Bible says they screamed in frenzy ‑ Crucify...crucify... crucify.

Pilate is sinking at this point. His dilemma is unresolved. So he comes up in his little brain that...he's still hanging on to a sense of rationality, and he comes up with another proposal, verse 1: "Then Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged Him." Now this is an effort at compromise. Luke 23:16 tells us that Pilate had said before this ‑ I will chastise Him and release Him. That's good intentions. So now he says ‑ I'll scourge Him. This is a great example of a coward, isn't it? What are you going to scourge Him for, what did He do? Why you going to beat Him, what did He do? What's His crime?

No crime, I'm just going to do this to pacify the people so I can get rid of Him. You see, he figured if he beat Jesus up and mutilated Him that the people would say ‑ That's enough, that's enough. And if he beat Him up and mutilated Him and made Him look like anything but a king, maybe they wouldn't hold on to that accusation that He was a king. And so, the Bible says he scourged Him.

Now, it's hard for us to understand what scourging is. But this is a hideous torture. And let me throw in a theological footnote at this point. We often think that Jesus bore our sins only when He died, but He bore our sins in pain and suffering, you know that don't you? He was bearing sin even when He was still alive on the cross. But I also believe that at this point when He was scourged, He was bearing sin. I believe He was bearing punishment right here. For I read in Isaiah 53:5 He was wounded for ourtransgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. Even when they hit Him in the face with their fists, He was suffering for sin for the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and with His ... what? ... stripes we are ... what?...we are healed. You see, His suffering didn't just begin on the cross, it began with all the punches, and all the spit and all of these things that went on prior to the cross, He was bearing the punishment of sin even then.

It's hard for us toimagine scourging and I'm not even sure I imagine it. But let me give you a vivid picture as I can. A Roman scourge was a stick, thick and it was wrapped in leather. At the end of it were leather thongs of some length and in the end of those leather thongs were held bits of brass and lead and bone filed to sharp points. The victim was then either stretched flat on the ground with his back up, or tied to a post, hanging, or strapped suspended from the ground. And then the man who was accustomed to doing it and knew how well to do it would lash the back 40 times with the scourge. And from what we understand, the back was torn and lacerated to such an extent that even the deep seeded veins and arteries and sometimes even the entrails and the inner organs were exposed. It was a total shredding of the back.

This was such a horrible torture that no Roman citizen, no matter how great his crime, could ever undergo scourging. It was forbidden. And it gives us some indication of why Jesus died so soon upon the cross, because He was beaten so raw before He ever got there and the loss of the blood before He ever made it to the top of that hill with His cross would have made His death much more rapid than it would have otherwise. And so, Pilate thinks if he does this it will pacify the people, but he doesn't understand beast of prey, does he? He doesn't understand that when you wave a little blood in front of them, that doesn't pacify them that only makes them more hungry.

To add to this thing, in verse 2 it says he let the soldiers play a little game with Jesus, it says: "And the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns," that is they wove it together, those long, stiff thorns, "and put it on His head," they crushed it into His brow. "And they put on Him a purple robe and said, Hail, King of the Jews." And then the Greek translation would be like this: "And they kept ... they kept saying, Hail, King of the Jews, and they kept giving Him blows with their hands," punching Him in the face with their fists.

Now you see, if you...if you can even imagine this kind of thing. In Fort Antonius where Jesus would have been, and I stood on the very pavement that they believe is the base of the fort, and it's so well preserved, on that floor are etched little Roman figures in the stone. And they're there, the Scottish sisters told us, because the Romans use to play a game. When they had all these prisoners waiting down there to be crucified, they teased them. You see, the Romans had always played games about kings. They had a game, Flaccus tells us, that they played with idiots and imbeciles. They would catch them and they would dress them up like kings and they would sit them up on places and they would mock‑worship them and they got great ente