Luke 23:18-25--Pilate Delivers Jesus to Be Crucified

Luke 23:18-25
English Standard Version
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Pilate Delivers Jesus to Be Crucified
18 But they all cried out together, “Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas”-- 19 a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. 20 Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, 21 but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” 22 A third time he said to them, “Why? What evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him.” 23 But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. 24 So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. 25 He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.

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Jesus most likely died in the literal place of this man Barabbas.  Since the other two that Jesus was killed in-between were describes as "thieves" (a term used to describe all types of felons that were worthy of death), Barabbas was probably the worst of the three and was going to be crucified with his companions until Jesus took his place.  The name Barabbas means "Son of Father God" ('bar' means 'son of' and "abba' is a familiar from of 'Father' akin to our word 'Daddy' that a child would say to his or her own father).  This man Barabbas did not live like one who should be called a son of God.  Much like Israel at that time, who called themselves children of God, they they were living in sin and rebellion against God and their sin was worthy of death--both physical death in the here-and-now and spiritual death (the second death) that is separation from God's blessing ("His face") for all eternity.

Luke tells us that Barabbas a more detailed list of Barabbas's crimes than simply calling him a thief or felon.  He was an insurrectionist (terrorist) and a murderer.  Pilate thought for sure that there was no way that the people would want to have Barabbas back when given the option between Jesus and Barabbas.  They claimed Jesus stirred up insurrection everywhere He went, but Barabbas actually did.  They claimed that Jesus was guilty of blasphemy, but Barabbas actually was because of how he lived in spite of his name.  Every crime that they accused Jesus of committing, 

While not part of the original Passover celebration given by God in the Law, Pilate recognized that something about Passover was about freedom and emancipation, so he made the habit of releasing one prisoner to the people during Passover to honor the people's faith traditions as much as he could understand them.  This time though, he limited their choices to either have him release Barabbas or Jesus.  They were given no other options, and the people chose for Barabbas to be released and for Jesus to be crucified (at the prompting of the Sanhedrin, chief priest and other leaders and rulers of the Jews).  Pilate tried three times to plead with the people that Jesus had done nothing wrong and Barabbas had.  He though this would be an easy way to stack the deck and get the people to go along with with he wanted them to do, but they were so blinded by their hatred of Jesus, that they were willing to accept any alternative, even one that was dangerous to them.  We don't know of anything else about Barabbas, but imagine being him and having substitutionary atonement play out so that you were literally the one scheduled to die and Jesus stood condemned in your place so that you could be set free.  That is the state that all of us are in spiritually, but this was also Barabbas's physical life and honestly the people chose Barabbas because they had more in common with him than they did with the Son of God.  They feared Jesus because He was unlike them and exposed their sins, and that was intolerable to them.  They'd rather have someone who was worse than them they could point to and say, "At least I'm not THAT evil."

When Pilate saw that the crowds could not be calmed or quieted, and likely fearing a riot that would lead to Rome taking away his governance of the Jews and Samaritans and possibly taking Pilate's own life for failure to control these people and making Rome look bad, Pilate gives into the political extortion of the chief priests and Sanhedrin.  He releases Barabbas and delivers Jesus over to be crucified...and notice how Luke phrases that here....he "turned Jesus over to their will."

We see such a clear picture here of how Jesus provides penal substitutionary atonement when He stands in our place.  We sometimes wish we knew more details about Barabbas and how he responded to all this.  We'd like to imagine that maybe he became saved after the resurrection, but we don't know that, for the Romans had no interest in recording details about him either as a terrorist or prisoner who had been set free.  The Bible is the only book that tells us about his existence, but that doesn't mean that he didn't exist.  On the contrary, it would mean that everyone at that time would have recognized his name, probably because he was infamous among the people, and likely means that he was still alive at the time for people to go back and question him about these events and get the details first-hand from him--this is most likely what Luke did since he was a historian who interviewed many, many people while writing the Gospel of Luke.  We should implicitly trust the Word of God in this case because there is testimony from at least 4 independent sources in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts about the existence of Barabbas.  All give various details about who he is that we can patch together he was a robber, murderer, insurrectionist, and a notorious one at that, yet Jesus died in his place as he did for all of us no matter how wicked we are.  That is the gospel.  Should Barabbas have been saved after this I look forward to worshiping Jesus alongside him one day.  I have a feeling that if he's there, he'll sing his songs from a personal perspective that will glorify God and magnify Jesus even more.