Dennis Tuuri

# SERMON TRANSCRIPT
## John 18:28–19:17

found in John chapter 18 and I’ll be reading into chapter 19 and we’ll actually spend two weeks on this particular text. We will read it all together though in one section because it is a particular pericope or section of text clearly delineated as such. So we’ll read John 18:28–19:17. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium, and it was early morning. But they themselves did not go into the Praetorium, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. Pilate then went out to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” They answered and said to him, “If he were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered him up to you.” Then Pilate said to them, “You take him and judge him according to your law.” Therefore, the Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death,” that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spoke, signifying by what death he would die.

Then Pilate entered the Praetorium again, called Jesus, and said to him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus answered him, “Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate therefore said to him, “Are you a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king.

For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, “I find no fault in him at all. But you have a custom that I should release someone to you at the Passover. Do you therefore want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” Then they all cried again, saying, “Not this man, but Barabbas.” Now Barabbas was a robber.

So then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him, and the soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe. Then they said, “Hail, King of the Jews.” And they struck him with their hands. Pilate then went out again and said to them, “Behold, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no fault in him.” Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

And Pilate said to them, “Behold the man.” Therefore, when the chief priests and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “You take him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him.” The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to our law, he ought to die because he made himself the son of God.” Therefore, when Pilate heard that saying, he was the more afraid and went again into the Praetorium and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer.

Then Pilate said to him, “Are you not speaking to me? Do you not know that I have power to crucify you and power to release you?” Jesus answered, “You could have no power at all against me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore, the one who delivered me to you has a greater sin.” From then on, Pilate sought to release him. But the Jews cried out, saying, “If you let this man go, you are not Caesar’s friend.

Whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar.” When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus out and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the pavement. But in Hebrew, Gabbatha. Now it was the preparation day of the Passover and about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, “Behold your king.” But they cried out, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your king?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” Then he delivered him to them to be crucified.

Then they took Jesus and led him away. Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you again for your most holy word. We thank you for this account of the very centrality of our faith, the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross for us, his crucifixion and the events that led up to it. Help us, Father, to be taught by your Holy Spirit as we attend to this text that we may be transformed by your spirit and go from glory to glory. May we mature in our witness bearing to the Lord Jesus Christ in all things. In his name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

We have taken a particular text here or section and as I said we’ll deal with it in two weeks. This section is really seen by many commentators as the central section of the entire crucifixion narrative that begins in chapter 18 verse 1 and ends at the end of 19 verse 42. Jesus is arrested in a garden. Jesus is then tried before the high priest. Jesus is then on trial before Pilate at a different location. Jesus then is taken to the place where he is to be crucified. And then the final section, Jesus is buried again in a garden.

So we go from garden to garden and we go from location to location and the center one of these five location shifts in this narrative is the one that we’re in the midst of now where Jesus is taken from Caiaphas to Pilate and then we’ll be taken to the crucifixion. So this section is sort of at the center in John’s delineation of the passion narrative itself.

Also as we come to this text we should bear in mind what we read in John 12:31. Our savior speaking of the hour of his passion said this: “Now is the judgment of this world. Now is the prince of this world cast out.” As we move to a consideration of the judgment of Jesus in the hall of judgment, so translated in the King James version, and then the very marked references in the latter section of the text to the pavement, the place of judgment, the judge’s seat, what we’ll see in this text is a judgment. But our savior has already told us to look not for the judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ but for the judgment of this world and remembering particularly that world usually refers in John’s gospel to the Jewish church representing the world—the world being represented by that church that will excommunicate his disciples later, etc.

The various ways that text is played out reminds us that when the world is spoken of it applies first and foremost to the Jewish nation and only secondarily to the rest of the world. And so what we look for in this text is a judgment not ultimately of Christ but of the Jewish church. And that is of course exactly what the text shows to us as we’ll demonstrate as we go through it.

Now I’ve listed it again on your outline. I’ve simply listed the text as it flows out naturally. Again it’s like last week’s text. There’s a back and forth and back and forth. Even more dramatic here. There’s this action where the Jews bring Jesus to Pilate. They won’t go into this particular place, the Praetorium—hall of judgment in the King James version, governor’s residence. Praetorium is really more of a transliteration of the Greek term used and it certainly implies a place where judgment is given by the ruler, by Pilate. It’s a hall of judgment—isn’t that bad—it is the governor’s residence, but the significance is that judgment happens here.

And so because the Jews refuse to enter into this judgment hall, they stay on the outside and that sets up the literary structure that John gives us of Pilate going back and forth between Jesus and the Jews. He talks to the Jews four times. He talks to Jesus twice and he goes back and forth, back and forth. And at the very center of this back and forth action is the scourging of the Lord Jesus Christ in the middle of it. And so that’s the way I outlined the text for you. It’s the way it naturally falls out. It’s not difficult.

If you were to take a word processor like I do every week and just put the text in front of you and say, “Well, here’s a break. Now he’s leaving Jesus and going out to the Jews. And oh, now he’s going back to Jesus. And oh, now he’s going back to the Jews. And now he’s scourging him. Now he’s going back to the Jews. Now he’s going back to Jesus. Now he’s going back to the Jews.” This is the structure you would come up with. It’s not difficult. And this structure is recognized by a great many commentators.

And it shows us, you know, again, a parallelism. And it shows us, you know, a couple of climax points. One is at the middle—the scourging of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the center of the narrative. And this narrative is the center of the passion narrative. So in a way we reach in that scourging the very heart of John’s presentation of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ and the events that lead up to it. Now the ultimate climax is his crucifixion, but at the middle there is this climax with the scourging of Christ. It’s quite important for us and this text is a text that is absolutely pregnant with all kinds of implications and meanings that once just a little bit of thought is given to them can jump out at you.

So we’re just going to talk through the text and point out some things as we did last week in what happens here and see the unity of what’s going on.

Verse 28: they lead Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor’s headquarters, the Hall of Judgment. It’s early morning. Okay, so there’s a time reference here. There’ll be a time reference at the end of this narrative as well. It’ll be high noon, sixth hour—high noon. So what we see here is the dawn of entering into the hall of judgment. This is the dawn of the day of judgment. This is the dawn of the judgment of Israel. This is the dawn of the beginning of the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn’t look like that from the account, but that’s what’s going on. We have this identified to us as early morning—dawn. Day is dawning, a day of judgment, a day of victory for the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then we’re told that the Jews would not enter the governor’s headquarters that they would not be defiled but could eat the Passover. And they kind of thought that there may have been babes aborted in any gentile home and they have these reasons, but clearly there’s a high hypocrisy going on here. This is the paschal lamb standing in front of them, Jesus, and they don’t want to go in to where he is because they want to eat the Passover. They don’t want to be defiled. There’s nothing in the law of God that would prohibit them from entering a gentile house in the day of preparation for Passover. This is one of those added things that they built into it that show their fallenness immediately.

As I mentioned last week, this is Peter’s sin later with the Gentiles—this is their sin of not seeing themselves as ministers to the Gentiles, but rather restricting themselves from entering in. But again, it’s used in the sovereignty of God to set up this dialogue, this scene alteration that goes on—stage one and stage two is one way to think of it. So the day of judgment dawns with a statement of high irony and high hypocrisy on the part of the Jews. And the day of the victory of Jesus Christ over the world is breaking. “Now is the judgment of this world.”

**Next section: Pilate and the Jews, first to fourth scenes.**

We have these seven scenes laid out. There’s an entrance and a departure of Jesus at the end. There’s seven scenes in the middle—Pilate and the Jews first to fourth. So Pilate goes outside to them and says, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” They answered him, “If this man were not evil he would—we would not have delivered him over to you.” Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.” The Jews said to him, “It’s not lawful for us to put anyone to death”—this was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

Okay, what is Pilate doing here? Well, we know that Pilate had some information about this case already. Remember that a large contingent of Roman soldiers went with the religious leaders of Israel to arrest Jesus. So Pilate knew about this case. Pilate knew everything that was going on that could cause a potential stir or disruption of the civil order that Rome was imposing on Israel. He knew about it. But what Pilate is doing, he’s not really being nasty to the Jews. It seems like he’s doing what Pilate would always do.

A trial would begin with the statement of the accusation against the prisoner. What’s the charge? You know, the judge sits down, the judge begins to hear the matter, and the first thing he wants to know from the people that are bringing the charges is, well, what are the charges against this guy? It’s a formal statement by Pilate to open the trial up. So we’re in the judgment hall and now we’ve got the opening of a trial and it’s going to be ultimately a trial, not really ultimately of Christ—well, that’s the first meaning, but underneath it is clearly the trial of the Jewish nation.

But he asks them what the charge is and they’re rather insolent in their response to him. They don’t tell him what their charge is. Instead, they say, “Well, he’s evil. We want him killed,” basically without giving a charge. And this shows the horrific state of the Jewish leaders. It’s going to become worse as this event goes on. And as the sun goes up in the sky, we’ll see more and more light shed on who these men are until at high noon they’ll declare utter apostasy in a declaration to Pilate—utter apostasy of their whole meaning and identity of themselves as a Jewish nation. So it begins here though they have no charge that they bring against him.

And what they do say is that we can’t kill him. Only you can kill him. Now there’s historically people have argued over whether that’s true or not but clearly the Jews desire for Pilate to crucify Christ rather than to stone him to death. Now, we know later on they’ll stone Stephen, but here they want Jesus crucified by the Romans for their particular purposes. But the text draws our attention here to the sovereignty of God. Jesus had said that he would be lifted up in death and in being lifted up he would draw all the world to him. Okay? Speaking of his manner of death.

So immediately here we are put in a position of looking in this narrative of what the sovereign God who determines all this stuff is doing in spite of what men are attempting to do. They mean it for evil. God means it for good. God has lessons in this text all around that are not the lessons that Pilate and the Jews want to have portrayed. So the sovereignty of God is strongly asserted here at the beginning of the trial narrative. It begins with the sovereignty of God asserted.

Now this means that if this is from one sense God’s trial of the men involved then we should keep in mind what God’s laws are regarding trials and I’ve given you the citation there from Deuteronomy 19 and what it tells us is that if under God’s law if I was to bring a charge against you and I wanted you to be fined or beaten or killed if it turns out that I brought that charge maliciously—if I’ve given false witness to accomplish a punishment on you that is unjust, then the law holds that the judge should make that determination and administer that punishment that I sought for you upon me. Okay? So, the way God works is you bring a false charge that’s unprovable. What you want done to him is what I’m going to do to you.

So the sovereignty of God in this trial immediately tells us that what this is really about is the false testimony of the Jews who have no legitimate charge against Christ and about God’s judgment in trial of the Jews in juxtaposition of their supposed trial of Jesus through Pilate. So the trial narrative begins for us here and it begins in the context of God’s sovereign tribunal so to speak as opposed to the tribunal of man. Okay.

Proceeding on then—now the Jews said, “Well, we’re not going to take the charge and just kill him. We can’t crucify him. You go talk to him.” He then goes back to Jesus in verse 33. Pilate enters into the headquarters again, calls Jesus, says to him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?”

So Pilate goes back in and begins now the formal interrogation of Christ. And somehow he knows that in relationship to what the Jews are saying, they’re saying that he’s declaring himself king somehow. So he asks them this question. But notice that Jesus does not respond with a direct answer. Jesus responds with a question. Jesus the prisoner, the one being interrogated, puts the judge in the dock. He answers—he asks him a probing question.

Well, you know, are you asking me this because you perceive my kingdom or are you asking me this because the Jews put you up to saying this to me? And the significance of this is that again in the sovereignty of God in a judgment of the world beginning here, Jesus begins the interrogation of Pilate and what Jesus does in his discussion with Pilate is to see whether Pilate will respond to the truth or not. That’s what Jesus will go on to talk to him about. So Pilate begins the interrogation with a reference to Jesus’s kingdom and Jesus answers him with a question.

Now Pilate isn’t about to get into soul-searching. He says, “Am I a Jew, your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” So this is—you know, again John’s gospel begins by saying that Jesus comes to his own and his own receive him not. Pilate makes that point clear here that you’ve come to your own—your own receive you not. What have you done to warrant this kind of great difficulty against that the Jews are bringing against you?

Now ultimately Pilate is trying to determine how he can put this man to death if he is a king in Pilate’s sense of the term king. That means he is seditious against Caesar. If he’s a king and trying to get troops together to work against Roman authority and he knows that’s what the Jews really want is the overthrow of Rome. If that’s what Jesus is doing, then Pilate can quite easily accommodate his Jewish friends here, Caiaphas, the high priest who sent this delegation over and kill this guy because that’s a capital crime. So that’s probably what Pilate is getting at in his questioning of Jesus—is are you seditious?

The problem is that Jesus asserts indeed that he is a king here. He doesn’t deny that. But he then goes on to talk about the nature or the authority of his kingdom. Now the next time that Pilate will talk to Jesus, he’ll ask Jesus where he came from. “Where did you come from?” Because the Jews will say, “Well, he says he’s the son of God.” And he’ll say, where’d you come from? What’s the origin of Jesus here? What Jesus begins to describe to him is the origin of his kingdom. And in both cases, Jesus comes from above, of course. And his kingdom, its origination, its authority is vested not ultimately from below, but rather from above.

And so Jesus then first of all says positively that he is a king. He says that by saying that my kingdom is not of this world. “So are you the king of the Jews? Yeah, I am a king.” So this first—the positive statement—that he is saying yes indeed I am a king. But then he tells Pilate negatively what the kingdom is not. And he says, this kingdom is not of this world. He doesn’t say that this kingdom has no relevance to this world. In fact, he says just the opposite in a moment. But he’s saying that his kingdom does not receive its authority or vesting from this world, from the Jews or from Pilate or anybody else on the face of the earth. His kingdom is a heavenly one. Not in what it will accomplish or what effect it has in men’s lives—no, but in terms of its origin, it’s not of this world.

Also, very dramatically here, he contrasts his kingdom with the kingdoms of the fallen world by talking about the nature of his kingdom. He says, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not of this world.” So Jesus draws the attention to the differentiation of his kingdom from the world’s kingdoms by saying that if his kingdom were like theirs, he would accomplish his ends by coercion. He would accomplish his ends by physical authority by the use of the sword. Okay. Now, we know that God does bring temporal judgments. But Jesus is telling us something very important about the nature of the kingdom and how the kingdom grows. And he says it first negatively. It’s not by coercion or by physical might. Then he goes on to say what it is positively.

Pilate says, “So you are a king.” Jesus says, “You say that I am a king.” In other words, that’s right. You’ve said it. I am a king for this purpose of being a king. I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”

So Jesus says that his kingdom is not one of coercion but one of what we could say persuasion. His kingdom is one that will grow as people follow him in his bearing witness to the truth. Now part of that witness is that God judges the unrighteous. There is physical authority, physical judgments that occur. But Jesus differentiates his kingdom which is one of essentially characterized as truth and a bearing witness to truth—to the kingdoms of the fallen world which are characterized by coercion and the sword. The tongue, the speaking forth of the truth of God and bearing witness to the truth is pitted against the sword and coercion.

Now Pilate—is that satisfies Pilate? He’s not worried. He’s going to go out and tell the Jews innocent. Why? Because Jesus has made it quite clear that he’s not a king in Pilate’s mind—he’s no king. A king, Pilate thinks of—a king in Pilate’s way of thinking is a king of coercion. Those are the guys he’s worried about. Those are the guys he’s trying to root out in terms of their coercion or use of the sword against Caesar. So in Pilate’s way of thinking, he’s not a king. He’s a guy that talks and hopes people will follow him. Nothing to that.

And in fact, he says that here at the end of his interview with Christ, “What is truth?” It is not a philosophical inquiry on the part of Pilate that’s going on here. It is a statement of the irrelevance of transcendent truth to what’s going on in Pilate’s life and certainly in the trial of Jesus Christ. Truth has no relevance here. What’s truth? We’re not talking truth here. We’re not talking ultimate transcendent truth. Truth is as I determine it to be is what Pilate is saying. There’s no transcendent other—no other truth apart from what I declare truth is. And actually, I have no fixed standard myself. We’ll see that because he’s going to put to death a guy that had no reason to be put to death from his perspective.

Pilate is an extreme relativist. He claims that truth has no relevance to him. Now, of course, in actuality, no man can do this truthfully. Man deceitfully makes these statements. You know, Van Til uses the illustration of the little girl who he saw once on a train. She was in her father’s lap, a little child, a one-year-old or a two-year-old and she slaps the dad’s face. Pilate is going to slap the Father’s face here. Slap Jesus’ faith literally. He’ll have him beaten on the face later, but he’s slapping God in the face here. Your truth, transcendent truth, means nothing to me.

But the girl couldn’t slap the father in the face if she wasn’t sitting on his lap. The categories that Pilate wants to use of truth at all and of his assertions and judgment—all these things are categories and realities that he’s borrowed from God. The use of language itself is a God-given gift. Pilate uses truth some degree of making decisions and determinations. He doesn’t fall into absolute nihilism. He doesn’t just sit in a corner and say nothing is nothing is nothing. He can’t live that way. He borrows God’s truth, but he uses God’s truth in a perverted way to strike out at the God of truth.

To Pilate and to civil rulers throughout the history of mankind, transcendent truth is not important to them. Now, we’ve seen this in spades the last two weeks as we deliberate. We’re talking about a judgment hall here and ultimate judgment authority in terms of law in the state of Israel, the Roman government. We have our Supreme Court and transcendent truth—it’s been made quite clear—is not important to what these men do. The truth of God’s word that homosexuality, no matter what we say about it, is sin and rebellion against God, in fact, it is the judgment of God. It doesn’t lead to judgment. God says that he turns people over to homosexuality as judgment for their thanklessness and then their perverted sexual activity. That’s why we’ve changed our confessional statement. We have adultery and homosexuality and abortion. They’re all related together. Man wants what man wants and ultimately God turns him over to the judgment of that and he wants him himself.

The only person he can really love is himself and he wants to find somebody as close to himself as possible. But in any event, the Supreme Court of our nation says the transcendent truth is unimportant. In a series of decisions, it’s okay to discriminate on the basis of race. You can’t outlaw homosexual acts. Homosexuals have—and they didn’t just say that. They said that homosexuality is in this area of privacy. What will stop them now from saying whatever happens in the confines of one’s homes between consenting adults. How can we outlaw any of that up to and including torture, murder? I mean, what’s the difference? Transcendent truth has been jettisoned by our civil authorities.

I’ll talk more about this next week when we talk about the Jews’ assertion that they have no king but Caesar. But understand here that this is what Pilate is saying. Truth is irrelevant to the proceeding. So Pilate has done his little investigation. He’s been satisfied that this isn’t a king in the sense of kings that he has to deal with. And what he’s going to do now is go back to the Jews and say well it’s not important.

And my own notes here is that having reconstituted Israel, Christ will reign via his witness of the truth. The kingdom will grow. Jesus is asserting even in the midst of the interrogation of him and in the center narrative of the passion narrative we see Jesus asserting his kingship and his kingdom will grow through his bearing witness to the truth and that in a very marked way at the center of our narrative here. And so we see this reversal. We see Jesus putting Pilate in the dock. We see Jesus explaining his kingdom and as a result exposing light on the kingdoms of the world and judging them and telling men that ultimately their kingdom will not prosper. His kingdom will.

Now it’s ironic, of course, because Pilate sees no great threat to Rome in this. But of course, we know the rest of the story. We know that over the next century or two, Rome will be Christianized through the bearing witness of the truth on the part of the church. All of Rome will eventually serve the interests of the church. The Roman government will convene senates and councils for the purpose of bringing purity of doctrine to the Christian church. It’ll bear witness to the truth.

So Pilate ultimately is wrong because he doesn’t understand truth. He believes the lie that power, brute force and power and coercion, the sword, is the way kingdoms are built. And he’s absolutely wrong. And anyone who believes that same thing today is wrong. Any one that asserts the irrelevance of the ultimate truth of the kingdom of Christ. And that kingdom is one of bearing witness and persuasion rather than the sword and coercion. These men will be found wanting and thrown in the dust bin of history. The new creation, the kingdom of Christ will expand. All right?

So he goes back to the Jews and after he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him, but you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” They cried out again, “Not this man, but Barabbas.” Now Barabbas was a robber.

The Jews in complete violation of the word of God, of course, not only do they condemn the innocent, but they want freed the guilty, which is a perversion of justice, a direct violation of several scriptures that I’ve given you the references to in Isaiah 5 and in Proverbs 17. Those that both convict the guilty and let go or convict the innocent rather and let go the guilty. This is exactly what the rulers of Israel are doing.

Barabbas we are told here is a robber but the word robber really means much more than that. And we’re told in the other gospel accounts that Barabbas was an insurrectionist. He had actually murdered somebody in an insurrection. He is really the kind of man that Pilate is trying to put to death. And Pilate is outsmarting himself here. Pilate wants to let go the peaceable Christ that he doesn’t fear. And in doing that would seal the death penalty for Barabbas.

You know, he knows the Jews may ask Barabbas’ release. Well, he tries to convince him to let Jesus go free instead because he wants Barabbas dead. Barabbas is a threat to him—or so he thinks—because Barabbas is an insurrectionist, an ethical rebel, a revolter. Just like him, Barabbas believes in coercion and the sword.

You know, it’s interesting that historically, apparently, Barabbas’ full name is Jesus Barabbas. And Barabbas is bar—son, abba—father, son of the father. And so Jesus of course is savior. Barabbas is the false method of salvation. Barabbas is the son of the father Adam. He’s like his father Adam. And Barabbas is the one who wants to by physical force and power build the Jewish kingdom. He’s committed to Jewish kingdom, but he wants to accomplish it the same way Pilate believes in kingdoms. He’s what Jesus Christ is not.

And of course, the Jewish leaders show their insolence to authority not just by their original insolent statement to Pilate. They show right there the relationship to God. When we are insolent to civil authorities as opposed to being truthful the way Jesus was, when we are insolent, we show our rebellion against our Father in heaven who instituted the powers that be in the context of our land. And these men further show their rebellion against God’s ordained authorities because they want an insurrectionist let go.

And so he says, “He’s no threat to me. Let’s suggest that you let him go and then I can kill Barabbas.” Pilate is much like Peter was last week. Pilate begins with a rejection of the truth when Jesus brings it to him. Jesus is witnessing to the truth to Pilate and calling him to follow. Pilate denies truth and embraces the falsehood. He says truth has no relevance. And then Pilate, you know, begins to suggest to the Jews they release Christ. Not truthfully saying what he wants. He begins to deceive or actually continues his deception.

And what we’ll see is this very act of his is going to get him in trouble. And at the end of the day, he ends up releasing the insurrectionist, the guy that’s really he considers a threat, and killing the one that is no threat to him. Just like Peter, he begins with small denials of truth, but he’s caught in that trap. So at the end of the day, even though he’s trying to release Jesus by the end of the narrative, he can’t because he won’t repent of his deceit and his strategy and his trickery. He’s acting like all worldly kings act, too clever by half and as a result not ever accomplishing what they try to accomplish.

So we have this high irony here of the release of the guilty man being sought by the Jews and instead condemning the righteous man.

**So we now move to the center of the narrative.**

They’ve demanded that Jesus be crucified. And now we get to the very center of what Pilate is going to do. And again here he’s trying his best to avoid killing Jesus. He has not yet released Barabbas. His intent appears to be to continue now by humiliating Christ, bringing him out. Well, we’ll beat him a lot and then the people will see this and maybe then they’ll ask out of pity for him his release and then I can kill Barabbas. Of course, it doesn’t work.

But for God’s purposes, the sovereign God who is overseeing all of this, Pilate then scourges the Lord Jesus Christ. “Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews,’ and struck him with their hands.”

Now, why is this at the heart of this narrative? And what’s going on here? First, we have to understand this was no small beating. This is truly—he’s been struck already by the Jewish leaders. But the kind of flogging that is administered to Jesus here, here’s what it is. They would take the prisoner, they would surround him. Now, they had three levels of beatings. For juvenile delinquents, they would beat him with rods, just sticks. Boom, boom, boom. You know, but for this kind of crime, they would take a device, a rod, the end of which had been attached metal things of different sorts or bones tied to kind of make a little chain at the end of a stick. So, they would use this instrument that we would think of it as torture and beat this prisoner.

He may start standing up, but soon he’s on his knees. He’s laying down. And the guard would surround him and beat him until they couldn’t beat him anymore. They would beat him until they were too tired to continue to lift the rod. They would beat him. There are recorded cases of these kind of floggings from this time period. They would beat him until flesh certainly was revealed. They would beat him usually until the bones could be seen through the cuts made by their continual beating of this person.

Josephus had an enemy of his beaten until his entrails were showing from his stomach, cutting through the skin and then the connecting tissue and down into the entrails themselves that come out. Now, you see this is probably why, no doubt it is why Jesus died so quickly on the cross. Many prisoners didn’t survive the beating. The beating would kill them. This is why Jesus didn’t have the strength to carry his own cross all the way to where he was going to be crucified. And this is probably why he died early. They beat him most severely.

Not only did they beat him, but they mocked him. But it’s again, you know, in all of this, there’s this great irony of what God is showing through the narrative. They put a purple robe, then they put this crown of thorns. Now, we have a little crown of thorns for our Easter celebration at our home. Try to find some thorns around from some plant and weave them together, make a little crown. This is not what the crown of thorns was in the Jewish—in this period of Roman history rather. Emperors and saviors were portrayed as having light horns, a radiant crown upon their head, long beams of light going out.

And the thorns that were probably used in this case were from the date palm. Some of these thorns would be as long as 12 inches. It wasn’t just to show a little wreath crown on his head. It was to sew a chest crown on his head. This is what they were doing. Writing of the time shows us this was the inscription upon Caesar’s head. He would have the celestial crown because he’s divinity. You see?

So, two things from that. One, the crown was a horrific method of torture. These were not little thorns. These were 12-inch long thorns in some case pressed down upon his head. See? And so, more absolute horror. And of course, then the other gospel accounts tell us that he was beaten in the face by the Roman soldiers. We’re told they slapped him here. He was beaten in the face until his face was basically unrecognizable. I mean, the horrors of the punishment and the torture here should not be overlooked.

But you know, as heart-wrenching as that is, you know, the man of sorrows, right? But the man who is the perfect embodiment of love, grace, truth, and purity, this is what the world of fallen men does to him. As horrific as that is, it’s at the center of this narrative for another reason. They then say, “Hail, King of the Jews.” This is a Caesar—hail Caesar—hail King of the Jews. And then you’re supposed to kiss the emperor when he comes by. And instead, they spit on Jesus.

They are mocking that he is not Caesar. They are putting him in contrast to Caesar, divine God, King. But what God is showing us is that the divine god king is in fact being enthroned. He is being crowned here at the center of the passion narrative is our Savior in all of his aspects. His divinity is shown by that radiant crown. His kingship is shown by the purple robe and by the cries of hail Jesus, King of the Jews. But Jesus Christ is not like Pilate and he’s not like Barabbas. His kingdom is not one of coercion.

Jesus bears witness to the truth of the person of God by dying on the cross for us. It is the nature of God to sacrifice himself for those that he loves, to lay down his life for us his people. It is the very nature of God. And Jesus here is bearing witness to the truth and all truth ultimately is found in the truth of who God is and God is the Savior who will reign most assuredly. This whole narrative shows his sovereign reigning, but he will reign by means of suffering for the sins of his people and dying for them.

And what a lesson for us in our homes. What a lesson the contrast between coercion and the bearing witness to the truth. Forcing people as opposed to serving people. Insisting through means of power and authority of physical might as opposed to speaking the truth and having God reconcile that truth to his people and to bring them forth and to see the kingdom formed in people’s lives changed by bearing witness for the truth of God.

Our fallen nature wants to force people every time. Our fallen nature is the same as Pilate’s. It’s the same as the Jews’. It’s the same as Barabbas’. It’s the same, if we were to admit it, as these Roman soldiers. And for a man to bring conviction to us of our sin, that’s the last thing we want. We want to mock him. God is not mocked. At the center of this narrative is the enthronement of the God of heaven who is now reigning and is pictured in that reign in the context of this beating of him and his mockery.

We have deep and important truths that are being portrayed for us here. Surely we see all the fulfillments of the Old Testament that he gave his back to the smiters, Isaiah 53, and all its picture. He goes as like a lamb to the slaughter. All of those things are pictured before us. The suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ is all right there encompassed here. But do not forget the other side of that is that God is showing us that his kingdom will reign. He is reigning even in the midst of men who will use him for their particular purposes.

No, the King reigns in the context of this narrative and at the center of this narrative is Jesus Christ bearing witness to the truth of the character of God in suffering the cup of wrath against him that we might indeed be brought into life and he shows us what the kingdom is like and how we are to work on expanding and manifesting that kingdom as well.

Then we go back to the Jews.

Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I’m bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.” So before and after this picture of the suffering King is the assertion of his innocency. You see the structure? He’s innocent. Well, I’ll kill him. He beats him. He suffers for us near death. He will suffer on the cross to death. He suffers, but he’s reigning and he’s innocent. Innocent both sides declared by Pilate and declared twice in this particular narrative.

Again, Pilate says, “I find no guilt in him.” Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said, “Behold the man.” When the chief priests and the officers saw him, the chief priests cried out, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.” The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law, he ought to die because he made himself out to be the son of God.”

**A couple of points here.**

This is the fifth in this series of seven scenes. The fourth one is always pivotal in a seven-fold structure. It has to do with the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day and how God rules through delegated authorities. And the fourth slot told us again of how God rules, who is the true king, who determines the flow of history, whose kingdoms will expand—those who submit to Jesus Christ and who take up the cross daily and follow him and bear witness to the truth and expect the kingdom to grow that way instead of coercing men.

The fifth slot is normally one of command. And the fifth slot in creation, God commands the created things in the sky and in the sea to multiply. Well, here the Jews issue their first command to Pilate to crucify Jesus Christ. So, they want him crucified. They say, “Crucify Jesus.” And Pilate says, “Well, he’s innocent.” And they say, “Well, he’s declared himself to be the son of God.”

Now, did they bring evidence as to why this is untrue? No. They simply make the assertion and it’s supposed to be evident to anybody listening or the public watching this trial and interrogation that clearly he’s spoken blasphemy. It’s blasphemous to say you’re the son of God when you’re not. Why don’t they regard him as the son of God? Because they’re like Pilate. They’ve rejected the truth. And in their rejection of the truth, relative to office, relative to authority, they cannot imagine God revealing himself in this way.

You see, just like Pilate thought Jesus was no threat because he was no true king because he didn’t rule by coercion, but rather through proclamation of the truth, to the Jews, it’s obvious that he’s not God because their god is a god of violence and coercion like them, like their hero Barabbas, like Pilate, like all the kings that they want, like Caesar that they’re going to affirm their loyalty to at the end of the text. They believe in a god like Caesar, like Pilate, like themselves, a god of coercion and not a god who sacrifices for the sake of his people and dies for them. They have the same basic sin as Pilate—the sin of Adam and the ungodly line.

What did it do? Lamech, you know, Lamech—Cain, you know, people violently strike out and think to get whatever they want, not by killing other people. I’d beat a man. I’d kill the boy because he made an insult to me. Lamech brags to his two wives. You see, that’s fallen man. And that’s what’s portrayed for us here. Jesus is the one who’s contrasted to the work of men. The Jews witness to crucify an innocent man who is himself the son of God. Pilate is trying to release him. He wants Barabbas killed, but the Jew—he’s fallen into his trap of deceit and it won’t turn out that way.

Now Pilate hears the statement that he’s the son of God. And the text tells us that he became more afraid. I could have just said he became afraid, but he’s already afraid. You see, fallen man who believes in coercion always is afraid because there’s always over him someone who’s going to beat him if he does wrong. And we’ll see the Jews play on that in the next exchange between him and them. But understand that while a person may seem proud, he may seem full of power and authority before you, he is guilty before God and he fears the very thing that he is and is doing in the world.

Now he becomes more afraid. Maybe this is some kind of Greek god who’s come down. Who knows what’s going to happen here. He becomes more afraid. He enters the headquarters again and says to Jesus, “Where are you from?” Just like the heavenly kingdom. Now he says, “Where are you from?” Jesus gives him no answer. So Pilate said, “Will you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you, authority to crucify you?” And Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been granted you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.”

God is in charge over and over again. This narrative tells us that he’s there. You’re there to judge because God has installed you in that position. You have no authority other than the one that I’ve given to you ultimately. My authority is from above. I’ve already told you that the authority above rules and that’s who you are subject to as well. So, we have here the origin of the kingdom being said to be heavenly with an effect upon earth because the origin of the King is heavenly with an effect upon earth.

Well, from then on, Pilate sought to release him. And but the Jews cry out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out, sat down in the judgment seat at a place called the stone pavement, in Aramaic, Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your king.” They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your king?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” And then the last scene is—led out to be crucified.

**Now, a couple of things you need to know historically to understand this little section.**

When they say you’re no friend of Caesar, they’re not referring to an official title that Pilate had. Friend of Caesar was like, you know, friend of the president. It was like a congressional medal of honor. It was an honor given to particular people. And they’re saying, “Well, you’ve been given this honor being Caesar’s friend, but that’s going to be taken away if you don’t kill this guy because he’s a threat to Caesar. They play on Pilate’s fears of man. Ultimately, it’s Pilate’s fear of man that is the snare to him that will lead him to crucify an innocent man, indeed the son of God.

Now, interestingly, Pilate’s honor—let’s see—Pilate was a good friend with a guy named Seianus. He was a high important Roman official and anybody who was a friend of Seianus became a friend of Caesar in this official capacity. Pilate probably became a friend of Caesar through his association with Seianus who was highly placed. However, in AD 30, Seianus was overthrown. His influence was done away with and he was executed and all his followers—be not all his followers but then all of his followers became suspect. Pilate’s connection to Caesar being a friend through Seianus was tied to Seianus and that had already been taken away. His original sponsor, so to speak, was already seen as guilty. Tiberius, who was the emperor at the time, was notoriously paranoid. And if he suspected anybody of disloyalty, he’d kill him. So Pilate’s fear here of Tiberius is real. God doesn’t make it easy for him. There is a real fear to be seen in his rejection of what the Jews want to do. And they play off of a real fear, not an imagined fear. Still, it’s a fear of man, Caesar, as opposed to the one who is the true Caesar of Caesars, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Another thing that’s important here is that we’re told very specifically that Pilate comes out to this place called the pavement or Gabbatha and he—or somebody sits down in the judgment seat. Now the pavement or Gabbatha—this word, the Greek word that’s translated pavement is used in the Septuagint to describe the pavement of the temple where God’s people would get together. He would appear in the tabernacle or temple and they would from that pavement raise up hosannas to him. Explicitly said that way in 2 Chronicles. And this pavement, the same Greek word is used here. This pavement is the judgment area at the conclusion of this scene.

And this is where Pilate is going to sit in his judgment seat and issue his final verdict. But it’s very curious here that the Greek is constructed in a way that is not normal. In verse 13, when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the stone pavement. It doesn’t say that Pilate came out, brought Jesus out, and then Pilate sat down. Now, we know that Pilate does sit down in the judgment seat. The other gospel accounts tell us that. But John deliberately uses a verb form of that is intransitive that makes it unclear as to who it is and in fact kind of points to Jesus. He brings him out and instead of Pilate sitting down, he brings him out and he—the one he brought out—sits on the judgment seat. That is a very possible and some people say a better translation of what is going on here.

Now whether Jesus sat on the judgment seat or not, I don’t know. But I do know that the way the text is written, God wants us to think about it. He wants to leave a degree of ambiguity. All through this narrative, there have been double things going on, right? The release of the innocent or release of the guilty, declaration of the condemnation of the innocent. There’s Barabbas, Jesus—Barabbas and Jesus Christ, the Messiah from above as opposed to the son of Adam. There’s Pilate questioning Jesus, but Jesus is questioning Pilate. There’s the Jews coming and wanting Pilate to question, interrogate, and try Christ, but Pilate keeps coming back and asking them questions that make clear their denial of the Lord Jesus Christ. They’re on trial by him. And he continues that here, right? He continues his questioning those people even as he’s going to give them to him to be crucified.

He says, “Behold, your king.” Which elicits their final great statement of apostasy. “We have no king but Jesus.” This is not simply a denial of Jesus Christ as king. This is a denial of any other king. This is a denial of Messiah. This is saying that the only king that we have loyalty to is Caesar, not the God who reigns in heaven. Their very identity as a people is all based upon the fact that they assert the kingship of Yahweh. That is what they’re supposed to be doing. And instead, what their hard attitude becomes quite clear here. They absolutely apostatize from the biblical faith. They give up everything to kill Jesus, including their very composition of a nation. Its purpose is to declare the kingship of Yahweh and of the coming Messiah who will reign in his place. They throw it all over.

You see, Pilate is interrogating them. God through Pilate is judging the Jews. And now in the final judgment scene and the pavement where they’re standing, where they should be shouting out Alleluia as Pilate says—or as Pilate says, “Behold your king”—a scene from 2 Chronicles 7. No, “We have no king but Caesar.” And Jesus—at least we have to wonder if he himself isn’t seated in that seat when they cry that out.

Now, it could be the tribunal couch was there with several seats. We don’t know. But the text wants us to think about this. Who is judging who? Who is making the declaration upon who? And what’s clear from this scene is that God has judged his people and found them wanting. He has both declared the truth of who he is through his great expositor, the great commentator of who God is, the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember he says in John’s gospel, “I have come to exegete the Father to you. I have come to bear witness to the truth ultimately of the Father and all reality being understood on the basis of that truth.” And at the center of our narrative, he does just that.

He begins with instruction saying, “My kingdom is not one of coercion, but rather of proclamation.” And he proclaims to us the nature of God—that it is of God’s very nature to die, to suffer on behalf of those that he has called in relationship with himself, those he loves. Many of them right here apostatizing before the Lord Jesus Christ. Many of these people, no doubt we have records, many of these people came to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit began to work through an understanding of what happened that critical day of judgment dawning with them, handing him over to a king and demanding he be killed. And now at high noon, right now we’re told it’s high noon. The day of judgment has come. We have high noon. The light is at its brightest. And what does it reveal?

It reveals not just the Jewish people, but the high priests themselves crying out, “We have no king but Caesar.” It is revealed that the Lord Jesus Christ is reigning and will reign from the throne—from the cross rather. His throne is on the cross. And on that cross he’ll have inscribed—we’ll see this in the next chapter—that he is king in various languages. He reigns through suffering for his people and dying for them and bearing witness to the truth. Bearing witness to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Bearing witness to the truth of the God we serve. Bearing witness to the way that we expect the kingdom to be manifest and to grow and have influence in the context of our world.

Pilate then hands them over to their will to be crucified.

**What’s what’s important about all of this to us?**

I mean, I think it’s kind of interesting and significant, I think, that we so frequently misunderstand this. The text is clearly pointed out that Jesus is reigning throughout it. He is sovereign. It is great news for us. But I want to make three very specific points of application very shortly.

First, understand, children. Now, I know you’re tired. It’s hot in here. Understand the importance of bearing witness to the truth. Do you see why your parents hate it when you lie? Hate it when you equivocate about what you are doing or what you have done. The kingdom is all about being truthful, bearing witness to the truth, speaking the truth. The Satan is the father of lies and he is the father of all men who try—who practice having power and authority and trying to get what they want through deceit and lying. Children, understand the great significance. Pilate says truth has no relevance to me. Children, you say the same thing. When your parents say don’t take the cookie, you take the cookie. They say, “Did you take that cookie?” And we say no. What relevance is truth to us? You’re saying. It’s as if you were part of this group that beats and flails away at Jesus trying to eliminate the witness of truth.

Your parents desire greatly that you become men and women of the truth. You know, it’s interesting—today in Proverbs class, middle of the words of the wise, there’s the warning about the immoral woman, the men to the young men being addressed in Proverbs. And just before that, it says, you know, the father says to the son, “Look at my example. Follow me because the harlot is a deep ditch.” The implication is Dad’s what you model in terms of sexuality is what your children are going to be like. You see, be like me. Dad says, “Watch out for the immoral woman.” In other words, observe my fidelity to my wife. Observe my chastity. Observe my uncomfortableness with looking at other women in an improper way and be like me.

Fathers, if you want your children to be children committed to the kingdom of truth, then you must practice the truth in your verbal speech before them. You must be witnesses to the truth in front of them.

And the second point of application, and I’ve already made it, but I want to drive it home. The essence of the truth that is at the middle of our narrative is that the kingdom of Christ is one not of coercion, but is one of witness. How often, parents, have you tried to coerce your children into changing? You cannot make your children change. They are free moral agents. They are—man is so much more powerful than we give him credit to be. God has granted it within the jurisdiction of men to rebel against God, to spit in his face, to see the very picture of purity in front of him and to beat at him and to deny him. This is the power that people have. It is an awesome power that men have.

Now you, it is proper to bring corporal punishment to your children. It’s proper to witness the truth to them which is what you’re doing—is that punishment will come to you through disobedience. It’s proper to witness to that truth. But understand that your calling is not ultimately to change your children. Only God can do that. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. Now, he may well use you and will. Your job, parents, is faithfulness to witness to the truth. Give up an attempt at coercion of your children.

Husbands and wives want to change each other. You can’t do it. I know people, you know, myself, others, I’m sure, but I know people that their lives have been just made a source of disaster because they’ve been unsuccessful in trying to coerce their mate, coerce their children to be different than they are. We can’t do it. Jesus says the way that real power flows is through bearing witness to the truth. It seems so ineffectual. It seems like we end up like Jesus, you know, powerless there. They’re beating him. He has no power. And yet, this text tells us that even if that becomes of what we do, if we suffer because of our desire to bear witness, as opposed to coercion, we’re ruling with Christ. The kingdom will expand. The voice brings disciples. Your children will change as the truth is witnessed to them as God calls them, as the Holy Spirit of God empowers them.

This is so critical. Jesus is contrasting here the nature of authority in the world of fallen men and the nature of authority in the world of redeemed men and the new creation.

And then the third point is a very simple one, but this is gospel. This is gospel. This is the day not of Christ’s humiliation. It is that. But beyond that, it is the day of his victory. It is the day of his final faithfulness. Having loved them, he loved them to the end. He witnesses to the truth in the midst of all of this going on. And at the end of the day, he sits in the tribunal seat—really and truly does—judging his enemies and vindicating those who believe in him. It looks like suffering. It looks like a dark day, but it’s a bright day. At high noon, Jesus is still reigning.

What does it mean to us? Well, it means that we suffer. We suffer because of those kids we want to be different. We suffer because our lives didn’t turn out like we wanted them to be. We suffer the sins of our mates. We suffer from the sins of our employers at times. Our job is to bear witness to the truth. And if the result of that is suffering, you know, we’re going to be tempted to strike out somehow like Barabbas or Pilate or the Jews and coercively change things with power and physical might. But God says no. God says that as you suffer for bearing witness to the truth, you are in effect moving the world. You are part of the kingdom of Jesus Christ and the Lord Jesus guarantees us here that bearing witness to the truth is the way the kingdom will expand. His people will hear the truth. Change will be affected through the simple proclamation of the truth.

This story is great news for the suffering because it says when we suffer for Christ, Christ, not only is it okay and just bear it and it’ll be all right at the end—no, your very suffering for the Lord Jesus Christ by bearing witness to him is the means whereby God is changing the world around you. And the way some of these very people—Paul and others like him—will be saved is through an understanding of watching the suffering Jesus Christ for sinners. And as your family watches you suffer for bearing witness to him, that’s the way God typically brings change to bear in the context of our lives.

We have here a narrative that, you know, as in John’s gospel from beginning to end looks like one thing but to the eyes of faith it is quite another thing. It is a trial. Truth will be brought to bear and the truth is that the guilty will be revealed. Whenever we try to persecute people for the sake of the truth, in reality we’re never really putting them on trial. It’s a trial of us. God comes with us today. What’s our perception of who he is? How will he evaluate us?

Are we going to be like Pilate seeking to rule through coercion? Or are we going to follow the Savior, seeking to rule through the proclamation and bearing witness to the truth? May God give us grace to do the latter.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you, Father, for this wonderful narrative in front of us. We thank you for the gospel that it is to those who suffer and the truth that it is to those who seek the expansion of the kingdom of Christ by bearing witness to the truth. Help us now as we offer ourselves to you by the spirit from glory to glory to be more manifest in our truth bearing and witness bearing to the Lord Jesus and the truth of his word. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.