John 18:28-32
28 Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. 29 So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?”
30 “If he were not a criminal,” they replied, “we would not have handed him over to you.”
31 Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.”
“But we have no right to execute anyone,” they objected. 32 This took place to fulfill what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die.
Now Jesus is brought from Caiaphas’ house to Pilate at the Praetorium. Pilate is there because if trouble was going to break out it would be during a major feast. Pilate actually lived down by the coast and was only there because his job depended on keeping the peace.
The Jews brought Jesus to him partly because they didn’t want to kill Jesus and be accused themselves of fomenting insurrection and partly because Deuteronomy 21:22-23 says, “And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is accursed by God; you shall not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance.”
The Pharisees were not content to just kill Jesus but they must also smear his name as cursed. As Isaiah 53:1-4 had foretold, “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him.He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.
The Pharisees were in the midst of a plot to frame and murder an innocent man but they were ok to continue with their religion so long as they didn’t become ceremonially unclean. Jesus was right about them when he said in Matthew 23:23-24, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”
Pilate is willing to go to lengths to keep the peace so he condescends to go out to them. His question is straightforward, “What is the charge?” The Pharisees cannot say that their problem with Jesus is that he is showing them for the hollow frauds they are to the people nor can they bring their flimsy excuse of a blasphemy charge to Pilate nor yet can they provide any evidence of insurrection so they simply say he must be a bad guy, why else would we bring him in? The subtext being that maybe Pilate would be kind enough to kill Jesus for them without asking too many questions. Unfortunately, Pilate doesn’t do subtext and he doesn’t want to get mired in religious squabbles. They have to spell it out for him; kill Jesus and we won’t tell Caesar you are ignoring a threat to Rome’s power.
Jesus had predicted his death several times as in John 3:14-15, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Everything Jesus said was right and true. His characterization of the Pharisees’ hypocrisy was accurate as was his foreknowledge concerning his own death and resurrection. Read Psalm 2:1-4.
brotherpayne 