April 10, 2000

• Jesus Accused Before Pilate

  

  Jesus Accused before Pilate, Part 1

  Luke 23:1-3

  We now meet another of the corrupt characters in the unfolding drama of the death of Christ.  We add Pilate and we will soon add Herod to the list of Judas, Annas, Caiaphas and the entire Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court of Israel.  They are a Mosaic of tragic figures.  All of them thought that they had the power or the influence to determine the destiny of Jesus, to render judgment on Jesus.  They were wrong and that is the strange irony of this Mosaic.  In reality, the destiny of Jesus had been determined by God.  Jesus was never the victim of human decisions, a corrupt disciple that betrayed Him, a couple of corrupt High Priests who arraigned Him, the Jewish Supreme Court who condemned Him or of Pilate and Herod who ultimately executed Him.  He was God’s chosen Lamb, and God had predetermined that He would die.

  But nonetheless, this litany of corrupt and tragic characters play very particular roles in the murder of the Son of God.  None of them really determined the destiny of Jesus but what they did with Jesus determined their own destiny.  None of them really condemned Jesus, but each of them condemned himself.  

  In Matthew 27:22, Pilate, the Roman governor of Israel, asks this question, “What shall I do with Jesus who is called the Christ?”  And while on the one hand he over-assumed his power, for he could not really do anything with Jesus by his own power and authority.  On the other hand, the question is a legitimate question and it is a question that faces every human being.  What will I do with Jesus who is called the Christ?  You will answer that question and your answer will have no effect on Jesus, it will have an eternal effect on you.  

  According to John 11:53, the Jewish leaders, all of them wanted Jesus dead...the Pharisees, the scribes and the Sadducees and the entire Jewish Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin all wanted Jesus dead.  The final end had been determined...kill Jesus.  They had to find a means to get to that already determined end.
   
  First of all, they needed to be able to capture Jesus away from the crowds which means they needed to be able to capture Him at night but He disappeared at night.  And, of course, He disappeared into the Mount of Olives in the thick Olive trees in the darkness, it would be nearly impossible to find Him among so many others there.  And so they needed someone who knew where it was on the Mount of Olives He would go, and where He could be found.  And that someone was Judas, the betrayer, the traitor.  And for thirty pieces of silver, Judas agreed to lead  them in the darkness of night to Jesus where they could arrest Him without commotion from the crowds. 

  It was after midnight following Thursday night’s Passover celebration that Jesus had gone to the Mount of Olives to a particular place on the Mount of Olives, one of many gardens that were there called the Garden of Gethsemane which means olive press.  He had gone there with His disciples as they did after each day’s activities during that Passion Week.  And this time, however, He had asked them to pray for Him because He was fighting a great battle of temptation.  Instead of praying, they fell asleep.  And Jesus went in, confronted the temptation, came out having sweat great drops of blood triumphant, nonetheless.  

  No sooner had He come back from this intense time of prayer victorious, then the crowd arrived led by Judas.  They could have numbered as many as one thousand people, milling around in the olive trees in the darkness.  They bound Jesus and took Him immediately to the house of Annas who had previously been the High Priest.  Since he stepped down, forced down by the Romans, it had been a series of sons and a son-in-law who took his place in the high priestly chair.  However he was the real power behind that office.  They took Jesus bound to Annas because they thought Annas being the most corrupt and the most experienced at conniving could come up with some crime for which they could get Jesus executed.  He would be the chief criminal mind in Israel.  

  They dragged Him into the house of Annas and began a series of unjust violations of all laws of jurisprudence known to them.  Annas could not come up with an indictment.  He could not come up with a crime.  He could not come up with anything to prosecute Jesus for.  He could not succeed in a legitimate arraignment.  And so he sent Him across the courtyard to the house of Caiaphas, his son-in-law.  Caiaphas was convening with the Sanhedrin, over 70 men, the rulers of Israel, those who were the judges, the final court of appeals, the Supreme Court of Israel who had come to that great noble court because of proficiency of lower courts...these are the great paragons of justice in Israel.  They convened to try to find a reason to kill Jesus and they bring in a parade of false witnesses that they bribe.  But they can’t get the false witnesses to lie and tell the same lie.  So none of the stories agree and so it is fruitless.
   
  So far they haven’t come up with anything that they can sell to the Romans as a reason to kill Jesus.  They revert to the one thing that was true about Jesus which they rejected that He did say He was the Messiah, and the Son of God, and that, they said, is blasphemy.   And so, on the basis of the sin of blasphemy, they condemn Him to die.  All of this between one and three A.M., a violation of every law of justice known to them. 
   
  There is to be a visible trial of Jesus to satisfy expected justice, but they can’t do that until the sun comes up at about five o’clock.  And so they hold Jesus in the darkness of the house of Caiaphas for two hours, from three to five.  During that time He is mocked, He is spit on, He is punched with fists and He is repeatedly blasphemed.   And when the members of the Sanhedrin tire of doing that to Him, they pass Him down to the temple police who follow their example and repeat the same indignities. 

  Finally sunrise comes at about five.  All the illegal, unjust, corrupt perversion of justice has already been concluded.  But to lay a veneer of legality over their evil injustice, the Sanhedrin convenes a very brief early meeting to publicly ratify the condemnation of Jesus.  And it is that meeting that is discussed at the end of Luke 22.  Mark says it was early in the morning and that the whole Sanhedrin was there.  Matthew says they passed the resolution to put Him to death.  And they do it very rapidly, repeating just very briefly the scenario already done from one to three in the night.

  They have a problem.  They do not have the power to kill Jesus.  In John 18:31 they say, “We are not permitted to put anyone to death.”  They’re going to pretend to be concerned about what they’re permitted to do, the very selective approach to what was right, that was true, the Jews had no right to kill.  The Romans, the occupying Roman power only able to kill.  They had kept to themselves what was called eous gladiai, the right of the sword.  They had taken it away from occupied Israel.  The Talmud even notes this that some 40 years before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., the leadership of Israel had lost the power to exercise the death penalty. 

  The first of the Roman governors in occupied Israel, a man named Caponious(?), it is said of him by Josephus that Caesar had instructed him that only the Romans had the right to take a life, so even secular sources indicate that this was true.  Now, you say “Why didn’t they just kill Him like they did Stephen in Acts 7, when the Jews stoned Stephen to death in a rage against him.  Why didn’t they do that?” That was illegal.  That was mob violence.  That was against Roman Law and they didn’t want to act as a violent mob in this situation.  They were acting as a Supreme Court.  The Jews that killed Stephen in Acts 7 were no court, they were just the populace who were there who cried against His blasphemy.  Certainly the leaders of Israel were part and parcel to that, some of them.  But this court wants to maintain the veneer of its jurisprudence.  So they will not act like an illegal mob. 

  However, there’s another reason as well.  Scripture predicted in Matthew 20:18-19 that Jesus would be killed by Gentiles...not by an angry Jewish mob.  The Old Testament in Psalm 22 describes the Son of God as being crucified in language that can only fulfill a crucifixion, not thrown down and crushed, but lifted up.  And in John 18:32, Jesus said, “He would be lifted up,” a picture of crucifixion. 

  So the Romans for reasons laid in prophecy and for reasons in the mind of the Supreme Court of maintaining their own credibility, had to be executed in a legal fashion by the Romans themselves.  Therefore the case had to go to Pilate because he was the Roman governor.  He was in Jerusalem at the time because of Passover and that was where the potential problems would be with the massive swelling of the population during Passover season. 

  “Then the whole body of them arose."  “The whole body” means the entire Sanhedrin.  They were all there, the whole entire body of them.  Mark also says, “The whole Sanhedrin.”  This was a display of their supposed unanimity, as a display of justice.  They couldn’t all be wrong, was what they were trying to say.  It also is an indication of the breadth of the apostasy that dominated Israel even at its leadership level.  In an attempt to display the righteousness of their cause, they all come, all 70 of them show up bringing Jesus to Pilate.  John 18 that Jesus is bound.  He has now been ridiculed, spit on, beaten and now He is still bound and taken by this entire body to Pilate.
   
  Pilate has been the governor for a few years.  He was the governor of Israel from 26 to 36 A.D.  He’ll be in power for a few years after Jesus dies.  However, this act in itself is an utter disregard for justice.  Remember what I told you a few weeks ago, according to Jewish law, when the Council rendered a verdict of guilty, they had to stay in their seats, they could not dismiss from the court.  The Council had to stay in that place, they had to remain there one full day so that during that day anyone who had any testimony to bring to indicate anything other than the verdict of condemnation, that is anyone who could show up with further evidence as to the innocence of the one condemned would have a full hearing in the court.  They disregarded that as they had disregarded every other element of their own system. 

  After condemning Jesus, they immediately arose and left the court chamber.  They should have stayed there, seated in their chamber through that entire day.  And one could even make an argument, the next day until plenty of opportunity had been for testimony to come in, contrary to the decision.  On the day in which the person was executed, they were to stay in their chambers until He was taken to execution and actually executed.  They have no interest in justice at all.  They all rise and take Jesus bound and march Him to Pilate not far away.  Now, before we get to Jesus and Pilate, there’s somebody else that we have to find.  What happened to Judas? 

  Judas was dismissed on Thursday night, went, worked the final aspects of his deal to betray Jesus, led the entourage of chief priests and elders and scribes and Pharisees into the Garden, along with the temple police and the Romans as well.  He had done that and then he disappeared.  The disciples have scattered.  Peter has denied Christ three times already and is out weeping bitterly.  But where is Judas? 

  Matthew 27 “When morning had come, all the Chief Priests and elders of the people,” again, all of them were there, “took Council against Jesus to put Him to death.” That was their objective.  That’s the very brief morning meeting, the phony court for public view.  And then, verse 2, “They bound Him and led Him away and delivered Him up to Pilate, the governor.”
   
  It is at this point that Judas reenters the scene.  “Then when Judas who had betrayed Him saw that He had been condemned...”  Judas is close to the action.  He couldn’t escape and walk away.  What he had done is so heinous, what he had done is so beyond any other sin ever committed by any other human being that he is drawn to the consequences of his deed.  He can’t pull away.  It is a horrendous and torturous experience for him to stay nearby, but he can’t leave.  He is compelled.  He follows the proceedings of Jesus probably through the night.  He’s certainly there in the morning when this veneer of legality takes place and the final condemnation is made public.  He sees Jesus condemned.  He sees Him now being led out of the council chambers by the whole Council to Pilate for the purpose of execution. 

  They have come up with some crimes for Pilate.  They can’t go to Pilate and say, “Kill Him because of blasphemy,” that’s not a civil crime.  Luke 23:2 says, “They began to accuse Him saying, ‘We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar and saying that He Himself is Christ the King.’” They paint the portrait of Jesus as an insurrectionist, as a revolutionary, as a rival king to Caesar who is misleading the whole nation.  That is, literally gathering the whole nation in an anti-Roman effort and telling them to stop paying taxes to Caesar and declaring Himself to be the King.  

  So they come up with this idea that Jesus is a threat to Roman power.  Jesus is a threat to Caesar.  He’s a threat to Pax Romana, Roman peace because there’s going to be an insurrection and He’s leading it.  This, they feel, will wake Pilate up.  If that was true then Pilate would be duty bound to execute Jesus, to fulfill his responsibility.  That’s the very thing he was supposed to make sure didn’t happen.  So they crafted it right around what would be his primary duty.
   
  Now Judas must have become aware of this, close enough to have heard this.  And remember, it’s a public trial.  He’s condemned.  Somehow during or after that Council, they have come up with this idea that Jesus is a threat to Rome, so Pilate is going to have a civil crime on which to judge Jesus.  So it says in verse 3 then when Judas who had betrayed Him saw that He had been condemned, the Authorized Version of the King James says, “He repented.”  It is the word remorse or regret.  He sees Jesus unjustly condemned, going to an excruciating, ignominious, public, horrendous, painful death on a cross.  And the whole scene is more than his ugly sorted soul can handle.  Yes his conscience is crippled.  Yes his heart is avaricious.  Yes his mind is greedy.  But he cannot escape guilt.  The pain is excruciating, it is agonizing.  It tortures him, it paralyzes him.  He is thrashed by the enormity of his crime. 

  In a sense, there’s some good news in this.  It is good to know that a man as vile as this man of whom Jesus said, “He is a devil,” and about whom Jesus said, “Satan entered into him,” he is a Satan-possessed devilish man, it is good to know that this one who can sin against pure light, who can sin against pure love, who can sin at a level that no other man before or since has ever sinned or will ever sin, that this man as wretched as he is, who would sell the Son of God for money, this man who is so consumed with self-fulfillment, so wretched, cannot escape his own conscience.  How powerful is conscience?  It overrules Satan.  It overrules evil at its worst.  Even the devil and his demons and sin at its apex cannot cancel the warning system God plants in the soul of man.  This is a gift from God to stop the sinner in his tracks no matter how wretched he is.  And Judas is hammered by his conscience, hammered by guilt. 

  He felt remorse.  That’s not repentance, that’s remorse.  He feels regret and it’s continuous here.  He begins to feel remorse and it accumulates and it mounts.  He feels sorry for what he did.  Please notice this.  It is not the sorrow that comes from the fear of man.  It’s not sorrow because he’s worried about what people are going to think.  It’s not that.  He knows the people will think well because they want Him dead.  It is not the sorrow that comes from the fear of God, worrying about what God might do to him.  That’s not what he’s experiencing.  It is not the pain and the anguish and the agony of a dreading personal consequences.  It is just the sheer torture of a conscience gone mad over a deed that is so evil.  It is just the inherent wrongness, the inherent essential evil in the betrayal that brings about this horrible anguish.  Apart from consequences, he’s not thinking about consequences because he perpetrates on himself the worst of consequences as a way out of what is worse than any consequences, and that is the sheer torture of guilt. 

  Whatever he was feeling through the night that kept him close was intensified to an explosive level when he saw Jesus condemned.  His soul was cut deeply.  His reasoning mind flung loose and now it was assaulted by the stinging darts of a conscience that desperately attacked him and condemned him and devastated him for this horrendous treatment of the perfectly pure and holy Son of God.  He was feeling pure pain over the horror of his sin.  He was sorry that he ever did it. 

  He was never was a believer in Jesus Christ as Messiah and God, if he ever cared about Messiah or God.  He is, for all intents and purposes, a practical atheist.  He is a materialist.  He doesn’t care about the deity of Jesus, if that is even an issue to him.  In fact, when he died, Jesus said he went to his own place, the place for people who want to be away from God, a place for people who have no consideration of God in their life.  If he ever had a theological thought, if he ever had a thought about believing in God, or believing in Christ as God, it never does appear.  He is an unbeliever.  This is not a believer who is now repenting to get back with the Lord, this is a man who was never a believer, who was a devil, Satan-possessed who went to his own place, the place that he should have been because it’s the place for people who want nothing to do with God and it’s called hell.  

  He is suffering sheer agony of guilt.  It could have become true repentance, it never did.  It is not what Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 7, “Godly sorrow that leads to repentance.” It’s the sorrow of guilt that leads to suicide.  But there’s a path before he gets to that.  He is so tortured, he thinks, “Maybe if I undo what I’ve done,” so it says in verse 3, “He returned the 30 pieces of silver to the Chief Priest and elders.”
   
  So get the picture.  They’ve just made their condemnation, he sees it.  They’ve just crafted their accusation against Pilate, he hears it.  Maybe it was already approaching Pilate’s pretorium when Jesus...when Judas approaches the Council and says, “Here’s your money back.”  The Chief Priests and the elders are, in fact, the Sanhedrin.  Why is he giving it back?  Verse 4, saying, “I’ve sinned by betraying innocent blood.”  You know, a sinner can be so tortured by his sin that he can get no relief, have Jesus a few feet away and make a straight line for hell.  That’s what Judas did.
   
  But there’s something else working here.  Judas had been part of the scheme to kill Jesus.  He was one with all the liars who trumped up the false charges.  He was then a false witness in every sense by complicity, aiding and abetting in every sin.  I think Judas knew his role.  He comes back and says, “This man is innocent.”  That Council should have been in their chambers.  They should never have left.  They should have been there all day and Judas would have gone into their chambers in the legal format and said, “I am here to fulfill the opportunity that this court gives to me to speak in behalf of the innocence of Jesus.  I have sinned against innocent blood.” But they disbanded and fled and so Judas, in a sense, has to go find the court.  Judas is acting in a fashion consistent with legality and they are not.  And he goes to them and says, “As a token of my commitment to His absolute innocence of what you’re charging Him with, I will give you all the money back.”  

  And there was something else.  If you lied in a case, in a capital case, what was your punishment as a false witness?  Death.  I think Judas would be saying to them, “Kill me, don’t kill Him.  Please kill me.  I can’t live with this guilt.”  Filled with Satan, controlled by Satan, his conscience screaming at him, guilt setting off warnings like sirens in his head, he goes back, “Take your money, change your verdict, kill me, if you must.”  How bizarre is this?  How ironic is this, that Judas who starts it all by aiding and abetting the liars and the killers becomes a witness to the innocence of Christ?  A witness to the innocence of Christ.  This is their lead witness, this is their betrayer. 
   
  And they responded this way, verse 4, “What is that to us?”  You’re the High Priest.  You’re the leaders of Israel.  You’re the Supreme Court.  What do you mean, what is that to us?  It’s everything to you.  Aren’t you concerned about justice?  We don’t have any interest in your money, see to it yourself.”  They have no interest in justice or truth.  They do not want to consider for one split second that Jesus might be innocent of the crime that they are accusing Him of before Pilate.  Matthew writing this 30 years later could be calling for the impeachment of the Supreme Court of Israel.  Certainly when you put the gospels together, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and you see the horrendous injustice, all four gospel writers are calling for the impeachment of Israel’s Supreme Court by virtue of the way they treated Jesus.  But it would be enough to impeach them for not listening to the testimony of Judas.
   
  But, they’re not interested in innocence and they’re not interested in Judas.  They don’t care if he’s tortured.  They don’t care if he feels guilty.  Matthew 23 describes them, “They bind heavy burdens on people and never relieve them.”  They produce sons of hell.  They’re hypocrites.  They devour widows’ houses.  They abuse people.  They have no compassion.  They weren’t about to listen to Judas.  They weren’t about to execute Judas.  And they weren’t about to sympathize with him.  They could care less.  He was maybe trying to have them get him executed so that he could have some release from his pain.  

  When you think about the testimony of Judas, it’s so powerful.  Put yourself in Judas’ position.  You’re feeling this pain, this excruciating agonizing torture of what you’ve done.  Desperately what you’re going to do is run your mind back over the last three years with Jesus.  And you’re going to look for just one thing that He did that was wrong, one thing that was inappropriate, one thing that was evil, one thought, one word, one thing He said, one thing that He did, one oversight, one mistake, one error, one failure to be wise, one wrong prophecy, just one thing evil, one thing wrong so you could justify and rationalize your betrayal.  And all you do by running back over three years is intensify it because there aren’t any such things.  They don’t exist. 

  So the torture is deeper by the memory.  The testimony of Judas who said, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood,” is huge.  An eyewitness for three years.  “What is that to us?  We couldn’t care less about you or your testimony.  See to it yourself, do what you want with the money.   “He went to the temple and threw the pieces of silver into the sanctuary...”  Sanctuary is naos in the Greek, it means the holy place...hieros is the whole temple with the courtyards and things.  This is the holy place.  There was a holy place and then the Holy of Holies.  Into the holy place, only the priests could go.  He wants to spite these priests who won’t take his money.  He could have gone back and put it in the temple treasury, the little receptacles in the Court of the Women, could have put it in there.  That’s where it came from.  They paid him money out of the temple treasury, so he could have put it back into the temple treasury.  He wasn’t concerned about that.  He wasn’t concerned about the ethics of that.  He wasn’t concerned about some philanthropic act.  All he wanted to do was spite the priests.  And so he threw the money inside the holy place where they alone could go so they would have to process that...pick it up and deal with it.  This is anger.  This is resentment.  This is spite.  This is vengeance.
   
  He didn’t have any worthy cause in mind.  He wanted to force them to suffer like he was suffering.  It didn’t work. “He departed, went away and hanged himself.”  How bad is the guilt when death is the only relief?  You think of what is hell, hell is where your conscience is fully informed, fully released to accuse you forever.  So he hanged himself and it got worse eternally. 

  What a sad ending to one with such unique spiritual opportunity.  In Acts 1:18, it says that when he hanged himself, he fell headlong, burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.  When he tried to hang himself, he either didn’t tie a good knot, didn’t pick a good branch and he fell over the precipice where he intended to hang himself and either before he had died, or after, his body was smashed on the rocks and burst open.  What a horrible ending.  Only Judas and Ahithophel in Scripture killed themselves by hanging, cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree says Deuteronomy 21, such a cursed way to die.  But the remorse was so profound, it wasn’t repentance, he didn’t go to find forgiveness, he went to hell thinking he was finding relief. 

  Matthew 6:27, “The chief priest took the pieces of silver and said, ‘It’s not lawful to put them into the temple treasury since it is the price of blood.’” Now we’re going to get lawful.  It’s not lawful.  Remember, folks, it’s daytime now and people are around and you’ve got to play the game.  So they bought a field.  Then Matthew says, “This potter’s field to this day is called the Field of Blood.”  That would have been 30 years later when Matthew was writing.  And it actually fulfilled prophecy.  It fulfilled Old Testament prophecy.  The prophecy is actually in Zechariah chapter 11, but Matthew attributes it to Jeremiah because the prophets, the book of all the prophets began with Jeremiah.  So they often referred to the prophecies as the Jeremiah...even though it was actually in the prophet Zechariah.  It was a part of all the books which began with Jeremiah.  They bought the field, to this day Matthew says, that is to be remembered as the field of blood...blood money. That field, by the way, probably down in the Valley of Hinnom, down the backside south from the city of Jerusalem.  

  ---

  

  Jesus Accused before Pilate, Part 2

  Luke 23:2-7

  “Then the whole body of them arose and brought Him before Pilate, and they began to accuse Him, saying, ‘We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King.’  And Pilate asked Him, saying, ‘Are You the King of the Jews?’  And He answered him and said, ‘It is as you say.’  And Pilate said to the chief priests and the multitudes, ‘I find no guilt in this man.’  But they kept on insisting, saying, ‘He stirs up the people teaching all over Judea, starting from Galilee, even as far as this place.’  But when Pilate heard it, he asked whether the man was a Galilean.  And when he learned that he belonged to Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent Him to Herod who himself also was in Jerusalem at that time.” 

  Matthew tells us that when Jesus was before Pilate, Pilate asked the Jewish leaders who had brought Jesus there, the Sanhedrin, this question...what shall I do them with Jesus who is called the Christ?  Pilate was very enamored with his position and confident of his power.  Pilate was certain that he wielded the greatest authority in the land of Israel.  He really was a superior to all those in Jewish leadership by virtue of Roman occupation and Roman military presence.  He was a superior even to Herod and the other small-time kings that ruled certain regions in a limited way, and he didn’t mind demonstrating his power.  When he asked the question, “What shall I do with Jesus?” he’s under the illusion that he actually does have something to say about what happens to Jesus.  The truth is, neither he nor anyone else could do anything with Jesus on his own.  No one has the power, position or authority to determine what will be done with Jesus except God.  In fact, in our Lord’s trial before Pilate, Pilate expresses this illusion of his power with these words, he says to Jesus, according to John 19:10, “Do You not know that I have power, authority to crucify You?”  To which Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me unless it had been given you from above.” 

  Jesus is saying here, “You’re not going to judge Me, but I’m going to judge you.  If you believe in Me, you’ll escape that judgment.  If you do not believe in Me, you have been judged already because you have not believed.”  While Jesus in the account of His trials might look like the criminal, He is, in fact, the judge.  And the would-be judges are the real criminals and Jesus’ destiny is not determined by them, but their destiny is determined by Him, as is the destiny of every human being. 

  John 5:24-5, “Truly, truly I say to you, he who hears My Word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and doesn’t come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life.  Truly, truly I say to you, an hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear shall live.  For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gives to the Son to have life in Himself and He gave Him authority to execute judgment.”
   
  The strange irony of the trials of Jesus is that all those who thought they were judging Him were, in fact, being judged by Him.  And it was not just Annas and Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin and Pilate and Herod and Judas, it was the whole nation of Israel.  For whether they overtly rejected Jesus as Messiah, or remained in indifference toward Him, anything short of believing in Him as the Son of God and Messiah brought them under His judgment.  Sinners still live with the illusion that they can make a judgment on Jesus Christ and avoid Him making a judgment on them.  But that’s not the case.  You judge Jesus wrongly, and He will judge you rightly.  The question is not what will you do with Jesus?  The question is when you see Him face-to-face, what will He do with you?  He is the one person in all history who is the eternal determiner of everyone’s destiny, whether it’s heaven or hell.  

  It is now the last week of His ministry, we call it Passion Week.  It was on Monday of Passion Week that He came in to what is the triumphal entry, when a very fickle and superficial “Hosanna” was ringing in His ears from a massive multitude that could have numbered as many as a quarter of a million people, hailing Him as the possible Messiah.  On Tuesday He comes again into the city and cleanses the temple, literally attacking the religious system at its heart.  He does teaching on Wednesday and teaching on Thursday and that’s the end of His public ministry.   Wednesday night He goes to the Mount of Olives and talks to His disciples about His return in glory in the future.  Thursday is a silent day in terms of teaching, preparation for the Passover.  

  After midnight, He is betrayed by Judas who shows up with as many as a thousand in an entourage, made up of Roman soldiers and Jewish leaders and temple police to take Jesus prisoner.  They capture Him just after midnight which makes it early on Friday morning.  They march Him off to Annas, take Him to the house of Annas who is going to be the one because he’s so conniving and corrupt to maybe come up with an indictment against Jesus that will work.  He can’t really pull it off.  So they move Him across the courtyard of that place to the house of Caiaphas, his son-in-law who is currently the high priest.  He gathers the assembly together, the Council, the supreme court called the Sanhedrin and they eventually between one and three in the morning in an illegal trial in every way you cut it come up with the fact that Jesus is a blasphemer who claims to be the Messiah when He is not, who claims to be God the Son when He is not, and thus He must be executed.  They decide that by three in the morning. 

  Between three and five in the morning, they hold Jesus because they have to have some kind of a fake trial in the daylight to legitimize it because their law required that.  No one could be convicted in the trial in the middle of the night.  So they have to hold a facade of a public trial, and they have to wait for dawn.  In the two hours between three and five, they spit on Jesus, punch Him in the face, mock Him and heap scorn on Him and make a joke out of Him.
   
  After dawn, they convene in a public meeting in the early dawn and they go through the recitation of the same things they decided in the middle of the night and accuse Him of blasphemy.  It is just after five o’clock, they now want to march Him to Pilate because they don’t have the right to execute anybody, the Romans removed that right from the Jews and they hold it for themselves only as the occupying army.  They take Him to Pilate with a view of getting Pilate to kill Him for them. The problem is, blasphemy is not going to work for Pilate.  Maybe a good religious reason for the Jews to execute Jesus, it is no reason at all for the Romans to execute Jesus.  And one of the things the Romans prided themselves on was their sense of justice and doing what is right.  It was what perpetuated their kingdom in the world and let them survive for so long, that for the most part they did try to operate a just system of jurisprudence in the world that they had conquered.
   
  Somewhere between the end of the meeting of the Sanhedrin just after dawn, and the few minutes later when they arrived at Pilate’s praetorium, which is his residence in Jerusalem, they have come up with an accusation.  Luke 23:2.  “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King.”  They are basically saying Jesus is a threat to Rome.  He is an insurrectionist.  He is a rebel.  He is a revolutionary.  He is misleading our nation in the sense they mean that He is collecting our nation against Rome, forbidding to pay taxes, endeavoring to weaken Rome and claiming Himself to be a King, He is posing Himself as an adversary to Caesar.  They want Pilate to buy into the idea that Jesus is a threat to Roman power and authority.  And if that is indeed the case, Pilate must act and if Pilate thinks it’s the case, he will act without hesitation because that was his primary duty, to protect the Roman power and the Roman presence.

  John 18:28, “They led Jesus, therefore, from Caiaphas into the praetorium and it was early.”  And again here, John notes for us that this is just after dawn.  The early morning sham trial which was trying to legitimize the illegal trial in the middle of the night went by very rapidly.  They’re in a hurry.  They want the Romans to kill Jesus as fast as they can before there’s any opportunity for any kind of reaction from the people, among whom Jesus has popularity.  So they want to escalate this as fast as they can.  They don’t know it, but so does God because Jesus needs to be convicted, crucified, and dead by the middle of the afternoon so that He dies exactly when the Passover lambs were being slaughtered between three and five, is in the ground before sunset so that He’s a portion of three days in the ground to fulfill the prophecy of three days and then the resurrection.  So God’s timetable is what’s dominating these events, even though they don’t know it.  They’re motivated by other things.
   
  So we come to John 18.  They lead Jesus from Caiaphas into the praetorium, it’s early.  They themselves didn’t enter the praetorium in order that they might not be defiled but might eat the Passover.  Kind of disgusting, isn’t it?  That they might not be defiled.  What do you mean?  Ceremonial unclean...you could never set your foot if you were a Jew into the domain of the domicile of Gentiles.  Praetorium was certainly that, it was Pilate’s residence in Jerusalem.  If you touch that place, according to their silly, ridiculous traditions, you had become ceremonial unclean.  You had spiritually been defiled.  You were eliminated from the celebration of the Passover, and that was critical.  The Passover was everything to them, the high point.  While being fastidious about their ceremonial cleanness, they had no concern at all about their moral defilement.  They had just butchered justice.  They had just determined to kill the Son of God, the Messiah, the Redeemer, the Promised One.  They are so defiled, so corrupt of heart, and yet so externally fastidious.  And this is the ugliness and the hypocrisy of legalism, religious superficiality. 
   
  They show up with Jesus, all of them, the whole Sanhedrin.  I’m sure this has never happened in Pilate’s ten years.  He would be governor from 26 to 36 A.D., ten-year period.  This did not happen.  The entire Sanhedrin, the entire body of over 70 men, were there and he knew, Pilate did, that the pressure was on.  This was an occasion the likes he had never seen.  They wouldn’t come in, so Pilate comes out, verse 29.  “Pilate therefore went out to them, said, ‘What accusation to you bring against this man?’” He was told they were there because they had a criminal.  They were there because they wanted the Romans to execute this criminal.  And so Pilate doing what a good and honorable judge would do, asked the appropriate question...what’s the accusation that you bring against this man? 

  This, by the way, the first legal act in all the phases of Jesus supposed trials.  This is the first time somebody does something that is legal, that is legitimate.  What crime has He committed?  And that opens the civil trial.  That opens the trial before the Gentiles which include two phases before Pilate and one in the middle with Herod.  But they are not prepared to identify the crime any further than to state it, that He’s misleading the nation, forbidding to pay taxes, and claiming to be a king.  They don’t want to get into the details.  They don’t want to have to prove this.  They don’t have any witnesses to call.  Remember, in the Jewish trial they couldn’t find any two witnesses, even when they bribed them, they couldn’t get them to come up with consistent lies.  They don’t have a case.  They don’t have an indictment.  They don’t have a specific crime.  They don’t have any evidence to support the nature of that crime and His guilt.  They don’t have any witnesses who can give a cohesive story.  So they react in the only way possible, verse 30, the impugn Pilate as if to even ask such a question is to question their integrity.
   
  “They answered and said to him, ‘If this man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered Him up to you.’” They impugned Pilate for even asking what His crimes were.  They’re these noble, holy, righteous, sanctimonious people who would never think of bringing someone to be executed unless it were firmly established that the man was an evildoer.  Now Pilate knew that Jesus had been arrested because a cohort of Roman soldiers went into the Garden of Gethsemane with the Jewish leaders and the temple police to arrest Him.  So he knew what his troops were doing.  He knew Jesus came in on Monday and he knew He was being hailed as some kind of Messiah and massive crowds were surrounding Him.  He knew on Tuesday that Jesus went in and singlehandedly wiped out the corrupt businesses throughout the temple courtyard.  He knew Jesus was drawing massive crowds.  This is a small city.  All these buildings are up against each other.  It’s a few minutes from each place to the next place walking.  He knows that the Jews have problems with Jesus.
   
  He knows Jesus has attacked their temple operation.  He also knows their leadership in the temple is corrupt because much had been negotiated between leaders of the temple and the Roman authorities.  That’s why Caiaphas on an earlier occasion said, “We negotiated ourselves a position of strength and operation with Rome.  If we don’t stop this Jesus and kill Him, we’re going to lose our position with Rome.”  So the governor Pilate was very aware of the kind of people who ran the temple enterprise.  He was very aware that Jesus had come in and torn the place up.  He was very aware that the masses of people were attracted to Jesus’ teaching.  He knew that.  So he knew that the Jewish leadership hated Jesus for what He had done to their system in the temple and that they resented Jesus’ popularity.  In Matthew 27:18 it says, “Pilate knew they hated Jesus because of envy.”
   
  So going in, Pilate was not at all convinced that there was an actual crime committed by Jesus.  And if there was some religious issue with Jesus, that was no concern to him.  Pilate, however, is backed into a corner here.  He’s never seen the whole Sanhedrin at his door.  He knows he’s dealing with someone who has seriously assaulted their economics and seriously assaulted their religion, their theology, if you will, as much of that as he could understand.  And he knows they hate Him and resent Him because they’re envious of Him, because He has the people.  He’s everything they’re not...wise, learned, profound, compassionate, sympathetic, tenderhearted, powerful, and selfless.  He hasn’t filled His own pockets with wealth by abusing widows like they had.  They hate Jesus for every reason, but Pilate’s aware that the dominant attitude is envy.  So he knows that they feel very, very strongly.  They want Jesus dead. 
   
  Not wanting to get backed any further into a difficult place, verse 31, “Pilate therefore said to them, ‘Take Him yourselves.  Judge Him according to your law.’”  What is that?  They had said, “If this man were not an evildoer would we have brought Him to you?”  Which, of course, he would take as a joke.  If you really thought this man was a rival to Caesar, if you really thought this man was successful in getting the people of Israel to turn against the Roman power and presence, if you really thought this man was causing people not to pay tax to Rome, you would protect Him.  He would be your hero.  You’d help Him, you wouldn’t bring Him to me to execute Him.  If He really is a threat to Rome, do you think I’m going to buy that you would bring Him here for me to kill Him?  If He is a real threat to Rome, He’s your hero and you’re going to help Him. 
   
  Pilate already knew how much they hated him, we’ll see more about that later.  And they had even reported Pilate’s ineptitude to Caesar and brought the wrath of Caesar down on Pilate’s head.  Pilate was already afraid of them.  And he was also afraid of Jesus, it says that in John 19:8, he was afraid of Jesus, he was afraid of the Jews.  He was afraid he would lose his job if they went to Caesar about his ineptitude again.
   
  So what he says in verse 31 is really, “Go kill Him yourself, take Him yourselves.  Judge Him according to your law.  I delegate permission to you to kill Jesus.” Well, you say, “This is perfect.  You couldn’t ask anything better than that.  Take Him out and stone Him,” Because when the Jews killed somebody, that’s what they did.  Notice their reaction, verse 31.  “The Jews said to him, ‘We are not permitted to put anyone to death.’” I mean, the duplicity here is so stunning.  They don’t mind violating the Son of God, they don’t mind violating the Word of God, they don’t mind violating the Law, they don’t mind violating all of the rules of jurisprudence, they just don’t want to violate the Romans law.  Are you kidding?  The hypocrisy is palpable here.  And Pilate’s not stupid.  He didn’t get to be the governor of Israel by being stupid.  Are you kidding?  You expect me to believe that if there’s a real threat to Rome you’re going to bring Him in here for me to kill Him?  Now you expect me to believe that you are going to do everything in your power to uphold Roman law?  You’re too noble to ever disobey Roman law? 

  Why did they say that?”  First, they were afraid of the people.  They wanted Rome to do this execution because it took it out of their hands, and then the people wouldn’t hold them responsible.  And they were also afraid of Jesus cause they knew His power.  They didn’t want to deal with Him in that kind of situation.   There was another view.  Look at verse 32.  “When they said we’re not permitted to put anyone to death, they said it that the Word of Jesus might be fulfilled which He spoke signifying by what kind of death He was about to die.”  They didn’t even know what they were doing.  You might have thought that they would overcome their fear of Jesus, overcome their fear of the massive repercussions of the people who thought that Jesus, of course, was a prophet and a representative of God.  You might have thought that they would have been able to overcome that and just go ahead and stone Jesus.  But they never got to that point because it never could happen because Jesus had prophesied that He would not be killed by stoning.

  What did He prophesy?  In John 12:32, Jesus says this, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”  And then John writes, “He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was about to die.”  It would not be a death by throwing down, it would be a death by lifting up.  It would not be a stoning, it would be a crucifixion.  They didn’t know it, they weren’t determining the death of Jesus and they weren’t even determining the manner of the death of Jesus, that was all for God to determine.  Pilate says to them, “Go kill Him yourself.” They say, “We can’t do that.”  Motivated by fear of Jesus and fear of the crowds, but really held captive to the purposes of God to the lifting up of Jesus rather than the throwing down of Jesus. 
   
  In Luke 23:2 they fire out their accusations to Pilate.  He’s perverting our nation, forbidding to pay taxes, claiming to be a king.  This is new, folks, they just thought this one up on the way over there from Caiaphas’ house.  They’ve got to come up with a crime of treason against Rome.  Blasphemy isn’t going to work.  And, of course, these accusations are ludicrous and false.  He was a model citizen, showed respect for and obedience to the power of Rome, to the law of Rome.  Never an insurrectionist, never a revolutionary, always working on the heart.  Told people to be good citizens, to live godly lives.  Told them to pay their taxes.  When they tried to make Him a King, He wouldn’t let them.  It’s all just lies, lies, lies.  And again, why does the Scripture give us all this?  Because, folks, you have to understand this.  I mean, I know the world doesn’t like to hear this, but the death of Jesus Christ was the agenda of the leaders of Israel. 
   
  In John 18:33, Pilate therefore entering again into the Praetorium, he went out, had that brief conversation on the outside with Jesus and then he enters in and he summons Jesus in to a private conversation.  And he says to Him, this has to be somewhat scornfully, “Are You the King of the Jews?”  He looks at Jesus who has no palace, has no army, has no institution behind Him, has no entourage, is absolutely alone.  All His disciples scattered to the high winds in fear.  Who has the clothes on His back and probably not a coin in His pocket, no one there to defend Him, no one there to support Him, and says, “Are You the King of the Jews?”  This is ridicule and nothing but ridicule against this, in Pilate’s view, hapless, hopeless, helpless Galilean.
   
  Verse 34, “Jesus answered him,” 'Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?'”  He’s saying this.  “Am I on the list of threats to Rome?  Do you have Me written down somewhere as a rebel, an insurrectionist, a tax dodger, a revolutionary, a competing monarch with Caesar?  Am I on that list somewhere, or are you just running somebody else’s errand here?”  He couldn’t have said just a simple yes.  Or Pilate might have taken politically, because how else would he take it?  And he couldn’t just say a simple no, I’m not a king, because He is a King.  But the first thing He establishes, folks, and you have to understand this, is that this is not really a Gentile issue here, it’s a Jewish issue.  This is not Pilate’s issue.  He does not have Jesus on a list of revolutionaries.  Whatever some revisionist history people might want to tell you, the Gentiles, the Romans did not determine that Jesus was a threat to Rome.  And Jesus elicits that.  Is this your issue?  Is this your conclusion?  Do you have evidence to indicate this? 

  Pilate answers in verse 35, “I’m not a Jew, am I?  Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You up to me.  What have You done?  I haven’t got a clue about any crime that You’ve committed against anybody, certainly not against Rome?  What have You done?  This isn’t my issue.  I am admittedly on an errand here.  It’s Your own nation and the chief priests who delivered You up to me, for the one purpose, execution.”  It never was a Gentile agenda.  It never was a Roman agenda.  It’s Your own people.  It should be obvious it isn’t my issue.  I don’t even know what You’ve done.  If these accusations are true, I don’t have any evidence to that. 

  John gives us a little more detail into the conversation between Pilate and Jesus about the kind of King He was.  Jesus answers, “My Kingdom is not of this world.”  Luke says He said, “It is as you say, I am a King, it is true, I am a King, but My Kingdom is not of this world.”  Not of this world, it’s not the kind of Kingdom you would understand.  “If My Kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting that I might not be delivered up to the Jews.”  If My Kingdom were of this world, you would have seen a fight in the Garden of Gethsemane about five hours ago.  You would have seen a big fight because if My Kingdom were of this world, then My servants would have fought your soldiers and the temple police and the Jewish leaders to protect Me.  And there would have been some help to get Me out of there.  But My Kingdom is not of this world.  It’s not of this realm, not temporal, it’s not physical, it’s not earthly...spiritual Kingdom.  It has a future earthly form but it is for all time a spiritual Kingdom made up of those who submit to My sovereign rule.
   
  Verse 37, “Pilate therefore said to Him, ‘So, You are a King.’” Again scorn, mockery...so You are a King.  “Jesus answered, ‘You say correctly that I am a King.’” That’s a parallel to Luke 24 where Jesus says “It is as you say.  For this I have been born and for this I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth.  Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”  God sent Me into the world to speak the truth, proclaim the truth about the true Kingdom of salvation. To which Pilate, verse 38, responds, “What is truth?”  Cynical.  But he’s convinced that Jesus is no revolutionary.  Verse 38, “When he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, ‘I find no guilt in Him.’” And with that you can go back to Luke 23.  I find no guilt in Him.  And that takes you to verse 4.  “He said to the chief priests and the multitudes, ‘I find no guilt in this man.’” Pilate’s verdict?  Not guilty. 

  Do you get the flow here?  It’s important that the record stand for all time that Jesus is not a revolutionary, He is not an insurrectionist, He is not trying to build an earthly power base, He is not trying to establish an earthly Kingdom at all.  That is settled and established.  Not only by the words of Jesus, the affirmation of Pilate...let the record stand.  The whole charge was invented by the Jews who want Him dead for other reasons.  And if, in fact, He were a successful threat to Rome, the last thing they would do would bring Him to Pilate.  
   
  In Luke’s account you could break it down this way.  It starts with the accusation in verse 2.  They began to accuse Him of misleading our nation, stirring up a revolt against Rome.  He answered that in John 18:37, we just read it, “If My Kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight.  My Kingdom is not of this world.”  I’m not leading people into a revolution.  Forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, go back to chapter 20:20-25, Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s, pay your taxes.”  Then they said He’s saying that He’s a king.  John 6:15, “They tried to make Him a King and He disappeared out of their midst.”  If Pilate had been convinced that Jesus was an insurrectionist, it would have been his duty to kill Jesus and he would have done it without batting an eye. 
   
  There stood Jesus before all these accusations, thrown at Him by the Jews.  In Matthew 27:13-4, Pilate said to Him, “Don’t You hear how many things they testify against You?”  And He didn’t answer with regard to even a single charge.  So the governor was quite amazed.  Look, this is a guy who had criminals brought before him on a regular routine.  And criminals brought before him would howl and yell and cry and plead and beg their case, particularly if they were innocent.  Here is a man who is absolutely innocent of all charges and never says a word.  He’s used to the guilty protesting, let alone the innocent protesting, pleading, demanding exoneration.  Here is this calm, majestic, resolute silence as Jesus in full majesty heads to the inevitable hour of His death for the glory of God and the salvation of the elect.
   
  So it starts with the accusation.  Then comes the interrogation in verse 3.  “Pilate asks Him, ‘Are You a King?’” We went through that interrogation in John 18.  The interrogation is followed by the exoneration in verse 4.  “Not guilty,” he says to the Sanhedrin.  “Not guilty.” That leads to the intimidattion.  That is not legal.  It’s legal to have an accusation brought against someone if it’s legitimate, to have an examination of the person to render a verdict.  In this case, after the accusation and after the discussion of guilt in the interrogation, the rendering of  “not guilty” is the exoneration, that changes nothing.  They’re not interested in justice.  They don’t want Pilate to be a judge.  They don’t want Pilate to retry the case.  They don’t have a case, an accusation that stands, evidence or witnesses.  All they have is intimidation.  

  They kept on insisting in verse 5 saying, “He stirs up the people teaching all over Judea, starting in Galilee even as far as this place.”  Vicious hatred drives them.  Pilate knows Jesus is innocent but he’s in a touch spot.  He’s afraid of Jesus.  John 19:8 says he’s afraid of Jesus cause Jesus has a reputation of being powerful.  He’s afraid of the Jews because he’s never seen anything like this, he knows they want Jesus dead.  But he knows it’s unjust and there’s no Roman involvement in this whatsoever.  He doesn’t want to prostitute at least initially his role.  And he has some sense of what is right, at least at the start.  So he’s looking for an escape hatch.  How can I get out of this trap?
   
  When they said he started this in Galilee and came down as far as this place, meaning Jerusalem, that triggered something in his mind.  So in verse 6 when Pilate heard, he asked whether the man was a Galilean.  And, of course, He was, Luke establishes that, chapter 1 verse 26, chapter 2 verse 4, chapter 4 verse 16 that Jesus was from Galilee.  And that was where there was this petty king by the name of Herod Antipas, one of the sons of Herod the Great who ruled over Galilean Peraea.  And so Pilate decides that maybe the thing to do is to move Jesus to the jurisdiction that Herod is over because that’s where He’s from and there would be a trial for Him in that jurisdiction.  This is Pilate’s way of getting rid of this very difficult issue.
   
  Verse 7, “When he heard..or learned that Jesus did belong to Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent Him to Herod who himself also was in Jerusalem at that time.  Pilate thought Herod’s going to help me here.  What did he expect out of Herod?  That’s a long debated question. 

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