Luke 23:1-5--Jesus Before Pilate

Luke 23:1-5
English Standard Version
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Jesus Before Pilate
23 Then the whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate. 2 And they began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.” 3 And Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And he answered him, “You have said so.” 4 Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no guilt in this man.” 5 But they were urgent, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place.”

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So, the Sanhedrin, that is the Council, brought Jesus to Pilate for execution so that their hands could be clean.  They have had no issue trying to stone Jesus in the past, nor would they have issues with stoning people like Stephen in the future, for that would have been the prescribed Old Testament punishment for blasphemy, but they wanted to distance themselves from this execution because they feared from their own words that Jesus was the Son of God.  Jesus even knew so and told them that their own words accused them.  They were concerned that if the people believed in Him that the people would riot to establish Him as King of the Jews, and that the Romans would get upset and would invade and take away both the political authority of the Council and the High Priest, and they would take away any freedom that the Jews had at that point.  The Romans knew how to conquer people groups if they wanted to--they could either make the culture be submissive and pay tribute to them, or if that failed, they would come in with their military and conquer everyone and make them all into slaves throughout their vast empire, separating everyone from one another so that they lacked any connection to their culture.  This would have been worse than the Exile the Jews faced in either Egypt or Babylon, for at least the Jews were gathered together in a way there where they had each other.

So, the Council, convincing themselves that they are doing what is best for themselves and the people, bring Jesus up on charges they could never establish by any of their witnesses.  They knew Pilate would not listen to an accusation of the crime of blasphemy for that would be a crime against God that God should be able to deal with Himself if it upset Him so much (in the mind of the Romans).  No, it would be crimes against the government, especially Caesar who the Romans worshiped as a god-man, that the government of Rome would respond to in order to punish those who, in their minds, had sinned against them.  So then the chief priests accused Jesus of forbidding the Jews to pay their tribute and taxes to Caesar (this is a lie if you read the Gospels), and that He said that He Himself was Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One), and a king.  They knew exactly what buttons to push to get Rome to respond, and they chose the big three--money, emperor worship, and revolution.

Remember how I said last time that Jesus does not glorify Himself and He was very particular about what He said in front of the crowds and what He said privately to His disciples, though He has been direct and confrontational with the Pharisees and Sadducees who made up the Council as well as the scribes and teachers of the Law (sometimes referred to as "lawyers" in some versions) so that now all these political rivals stand shoulder-to-shoulder demanding that Rome put this man to death.  Pilate senses something is wrong here and decides to interrogate Jesus for himself.

Pilate asks Jesus, "Are you the King of the Jews?" and Jesus' answer here is quite ambivalent.  It's almost like Jesus answer of "You say so" is to let Pilate know that those exact words have never come out of Jesus' mouth.  Jesus does not deny the fact that He is the King of the Jews, but He does not take the opportunity to affirm His privilege or right over not just the Jews, but the whole world.  He could have said He was the ruler of heaven and earth and all that was in them, but He would not call Himself "King" because that title belongs to God the Father and He would not usurp it.  Jesus is only the crown prince that sits at the right hand of the Father for now, but one day, not very long from now, the Father will give the throne to the Son and the Son will be called "King of Kings" and "Lord of Lords" so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.  Notice that even this proclamation when it happens will glorify the Father, for the is the reason that the Son does everything He does....even His trial and crucifixion that He is about to go through.  If we listen to His High Priestly Prayer in John 17, He is concerned first and foremost that He glorify the Father, but He also asks that through it all that the Father would use this situation to glorify both the Father and the Son so that all people would be drawn to the cross and to God through it.

This is not the last time that Pilate will try to question Jesus about His kingdom and His authority.  He will later ask Jesus again and Jesus will tell Pilate that He is a king, but that His kingdom is not of this world.  If it was, then He would have commanded His subjects to fight for Him and His kingdom.  This is one of the key verses that those who only believe in a spiritual kingdom point to when they say they have a hard time believing in the physical return of Jesus to literally sit on the throne of David in Jerusalem.  Jesus at least says that at this time, it is not His purpose to take His place as the king, and that Pilate, Caesar and Rome have nothing to worry about from Him in those regards for the time being.  Pilate recognizes what Jesus is saying and both finds no fault with Him and tries to get the people to take Jesus back, for Pilate not only believes that Jesus is innocent, but that He is actually their god (I'll use a little 'g' here because Pilate was polytheistic and believed in a pantheon of gods and goddesses but did not believe that the one called I AM in the Old Testament was any different than these gods and goddesses they worshiped.  Maybe Jesus was even a demigod to Pilate like the Greeks and Romans believed in, a "son of the gods."  Either way, Pilate was convinced of His innocence and was trying to set Jesus free.  Yet the people will have none of it, and they insist that Jesus is stirring up the people to riot (maybe trying to associate Him with the Zealot movement that was trying to overthrow Rome), for the leaders of the people had so stirred them up, especially using the holiday to emotionally manipulate the people, that they would not be satisfied unless they believed that this impurity had been removed from their midst--for that is part of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  Yet, Pilate knew there was no impurity there.

Jesus will get passed around to several leaders and will end up back at Pilate in the end.  Luke doesn't give us all the details of all the trials Jesus faced that day, but Luke does tell us that when He hears that Jesus is from Galilee, Pilate tries to send Jesus off to Herod, because that was Herod's territory, where Pilate would have overseen the areas of Judea and Samaria.  Herod will quickly pass Jesus right back to Pilate (this is what we'll talk about next time) and enough time will pass during this timeframe that when it is time for Jesus to be crucified, it will be just the right time, as we've mentioned before.