John 18:28-32--Jesus Before Pilate

John 18:28-32
English Standard Version

Jesus Before Pilate
28 Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters. It was early morning. They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover. 29 So Pilate went outside to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” 30 They answered him, “If this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to you.” 31 Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.” The Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.” 32 This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

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The trial by the high priest has been concluded (for now).  John skips a few steps in the process and takes us straight to Pontius Pilate, but there was a full night and morning of trials with people trying to hand off jurisdiction to one another and not wanting to handle the case.  Before we go on though, let me give a link to a site with a slideshow with a few more details about the arrest of Jesus as well as His trials and the denials of Peter:  https://www.slideshare.net/rxchurch/20140406-passion-of-christ-part-2-the-trials-of-jesus.

With the Jews unable to find evidence of Jesus committing any capital offense whereby they would be allowed to kill him themselves (blasphemy was the main crime they would be allowed to stone Jesus for, though we see them ready to stone others in the gospels for committing adulatory and other offenses as the Law prescribed), they have to hand Jesus over to the Romans for execution based off of the words that they think they can agree upon Him saying--that He is the King of the Jews and the Messiah.  The Jews might be able to get Jesus on the charge of either insurrection or treason in a Roman court.

We then see something that seems strange until we remember what is important to the Pharisees, which most of these Jews that were bringing Jesus to trial probably belonged to--they were concerned about being defiled by entering the house of a Gentile (Pontius Pilate) and not being able to eat the Passover because of this.  Really?  They just held an illegal trial at night without witnesses that could agree on anything, with the prisoner being abused and being questioned by those with no authority to ask such questions (either Annas was the real high priest because his position was for life and Caiaphas was not because he was appointed later by Rome, or Caiaphas was the real high priest and Annas was not, or neither of them were actually legitimately high priest because high priests were never to be appointed by outside governors but chosen by God.  In any case at least one or both of the interrogations were unlawful).  How is it that all of a sudden these religious leaders are now concerned with the Law?  Because it finally has to do with their personal cleanliness and being able to participate in the Passover (one of the holy days that would be a Sabbath day).

Pilate stands outside with them so that they don't have to come inside because he understands their rules and laws and that the Passover is very important to them.  In fact, Pilate even uses the Passover as a reason to try to gain favor with the people by releasing a prisoner to them every year (we may see that come up in a little bit here).  Pilate first tries to ask what the indictment is against Jesus.  The Jews give a non-answer answer of "We would not bring Him to you if He had not committed a crime."  Pilate sees that there is something sinister going on by their answer and wisely tries to punt and tells them to take Jesus back and try Him themselves according to the Law.  They had already tried this and it didn't work.

They Jews then show their cards and say that they don't have the authority to put anyone to death (only partially true, but this gets Pilate's attention now that he knows this is a case regarding a capital offense).  We've seen several times in the New Testament where the Pharisees had no problem picking up stones to try to stone Jesus in the temple or when they brought a woman to be stoned for adultery and we'll see that the Jews will stone Stephen in the book of acts and hunt down Christians to kill, so their answer is disingenuous.  They simply could not find any offense under the Law for which they had two or three witnesses to agree upon that would allow them to stone Jesus, or they would have done so.

John then points out something important.  Jesus' crucifixion has been foretold for a long time through many prophecies and foreshadowing in the Old Testament.  If the Jews had simply been able to stone Jesus to death, this would not have fulfilled these prophecies and Jesus wouldn't have been the One that was promised.  John is setting things up to say that the Romans, though a pagan empire, are also but pawns on God's chessboard that He had put in place to accomplish His purposes.  It is not just the Jews that called themselves the people of God that were under His authority, but all kingdoms of the world were under His authority and that will actually lead very well into the next topic of Jesus' trial when Pilate questions Jesus about being King of the Jews and Jesus telling Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world."  We'll talk about that passage next time.