This Lord has been before the religious authority; He is now to appear before the civil power. It was a mockery everywhere; and so it must be shown out against His person who will one day cut off him that privily slanders his neighbor and will not suffer the man that has a high look and a proud heart, any more than the liar and deceiver, early destroying all the wicked of the land, and especially from the city of Jehovah. But His glary they wist not, nor consequently His grace; yet they should not have been blind to His holy and righteous ways; but man religious or profane was filling up the cup of his iniquity, and the more so because of God's long-suffering.
“They lead then Jesus from Caiaphas to the pretorium; and it was early; and they entered not into the pretorium that they might not be defiled but eat the passover. Pilate then went out unto them and said, What accusation do ye bring against this man? They answered and said to him, If this [man] were not an evil-doer, we should not have delivered him up to thee. Pilate therefore said to them, Take ye him, and judge him according to your law. The Jews said to him, It is not allowed to us to put any one to death; that the word of Jesus might be fulfilled which he said signifying by what death he should die. Pilate then again entered into the pretorium, and called Jesus and said to him, Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus answered, Of thyself sayest thou this, or did others say [it] to thee about me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thy nation and the chief priests delivered thee up to me: what hast thou done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, my servants would be fighting that I might not be delivered up to the Jews; but now my kingdom is not from hence. Pilate then said to him, Art thou then a king? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. I have been born for this, and for this I have come into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith to him, What is truth? And having said he again went out unto the Jews, and saith to them, I find no fault in him; but ye have a custom that I release one to you at the passover: will ye then that I release to you the King of the Jews? They cried then again, all saying, Not this [man] but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.” (Vers. 28-40.)
The activity of hostile will marked the Jews, whose zeal was as great as their punctiliousness and their lack of conscience. Late and early were they at work, from one high priest to another, pushing on to the Roman governor. Bent on the blood of the Messiah they scrupled to enter the pretorium; they must not be defiled, as they would eat the passover and had not yet done so. (Ver. 28.) Little thought they that they were but bringing about the death of the true paschal Lamb, and so in guilty unbelief fulfilling the voice of the law to their own destruction, whatever God's purpose in His death. The hard-hearted pagan seems at first fair and just compared with the chosen nation: we shall see how at last Satan found the way to excite his unrighteousness and fix him, as them, in hopeless evil through rejecting Christ. Pilate felt that there was no proper case for him, and asks a tangible accusation. (Ver. 29.) The want of this they evade by an affected or real affront at his question, as if they could not be unjust. (Ver. 30.) The governor would gladly have thrown the responsibility on the Jews, who betray their own foregone conclusion: Jesus must die; and as death could not be lawfully at their hands, it must be by the hand of lawless men. He must die the death of the cross. Thus was the word of Jesus to be fulfilled, signifying what death He should die. (Ver. 32.) John 3:15; 8:28; 12:32, 33: compare Matt. 16:21; 17:12, 22, 23; 20:18, 19. Stephen might be stoned by the Jews in an outburst of religious fury, James be slain with the sword by Herod; but the Son of man must be condemned by the Jewish chief priests and scribes, and be crucified by the Gentiles. “For in truth against thy holy servant Jesus whom thou anointedst, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the nations and people of Israel were gathered together to do whatever thy hand and thy counsel pre-determined should come to pass.” (Acts 4:27, 28.) Man universally must prove his guilt to the last degree and the divine word be fulfilled to the letter, God Himself (we may say in the person of His Son) being cast out in shame from His own earth, for all this and more was involved in this deliberate and fatal act. Yet was it the deepest moral glory. Now was the Son of man glorified, and God was glorified in Him. Obedience unto death, absolute devotedness, suffering beyond measure both for righteousness and for sin, met there on the one hand; and on the other the truth, the justice, the grace and the majesty of God, were not vindicated only but glorified, while Satan's power and claims were forever annulled, and a perfect everlasting basis to God's glory laid for the blessing of man and creation in general: such were the fruits of Christ's death on the cross. How dense the blindness of its instruments how dim the intelligence even of its favored objects! How blessed the Father and the Son in love and holiness, spite of all accomplishing all!
Again the Roman (whose characteristic common sense saw through the envy and malice of the Jews, and repudiated all anxiety as to the honor or security of Caesar) entered into the pretorium, called the Lord, and said, Art thou the King of the Jews! He who was silent before the high priest till adjured by the living God answered Pilate by the question, Of thyself sayest thou this; or did others say it to thee about Mb (Vers. 33, 34.) This was the turning-point. If the governor were uneasy as to the rights and interests of Caesar, the Lord could have pointed to His uniform life, as in John 6:15, and to His invariable teaching, as in Luke 20:25, as a perfect disproof and re-assurance. But if the question originated, as it really did, with the Jews (Luke 23:2), the Lord had nothing to say but the truth in the face of Israel's unbelief and gainsaying, nothing to do but witness the “good confession” before Pontius Pilate; and this He does.
The governor's answer made plain what was already sure, that the true Son of David was rejected by the Jew undefinitively false to the one divine hope of the nation. “Am I a Jew?” said he; “thy nation and the chief priests delivered thee up to me what hast thou done?” (Ver. 35.) Not one thing against which is any law: every word, every way, testified of God. He spoke, He was the truth, which not only detected man but presented the Father, and both were intolerable. They would have none of Him; not because He did not give every possible proof of His Messiahship, but because He put them in presence of God and of their sins, from which testimony there was no escape but the rejection of Himself. Hence the all-importance of what was in question. People and priests alike refused their own Messiah; and He bowed to it. Deeper things were meanwhile in accomplishment; and the infinite glory of His person, already confessed by the disciples, as well as His work of eternal redemption, were about to be proclaimed in the gospel and to supersede Jewish hopes, and the gathering together in one of the scattered children of God should replace the disowned nation, till at the end of the age they shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of Jehovah, when the long-rejected Jesus shall once more and forever recall them as His own, and bless them unchangingly, and make them a blessing to all the families of the earth.
Hence Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, my servants would be fighting that I might not be delivered up to the Jews; but now my kingdom is not from hence.” (Ver. 36.) When the Jews repent and the Lord returns in power and glory, not only will He be revealed from heaven in flaming fire taking vengeance, but Jerusalem be made a burdensome stone for all people, bending Judah for Him and filling the bow with Ephraim. But here we have Christianity which has come in before that day with His kingdom not of this world, nor from hence but from above, where all savors of the rejected but glorified Christ, and according to the revealed knowledge of the Father, the Jews being as such outside and manifest enemies.
The governor, while satisfied that there was nothing to fear politically, could not but perceive a claim incomprehensible to his mind. “Art thou then a king?” This the Lord could not deny. It was the truth, and He confessed it, whatever it might cost. But having done so, He set forth that which applies now. “Thou sayest I am a king. I have been born for this, and for this I have come into the world, that I might bear witness to the troth.” The law was given by Moses, and Jesus was the born King of the Jews. But He was conscious of another and higher glory bound up with His person as Son of God: grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. “Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.” How solemn and unwavering the testimony! The Jews were zealous for the law, not because it was of God, but because it was theirs; the Romans sought this world and its power. They were both blind to the eternal and unseen. Jesus was the truth, as well as the Faithful and True Witness to it. But He adds more, strange to the ears of man, and not least to Roman cars; “Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.” If a man did not hear Him, he was not of the truth. How could it be otherwise if He was the Only-begotten Son, a man on earth? What could such an One come for but for this, if He came in grace, not in judgment? And Pilate, with a “What is truth?” returns to the Jews. He did not seriously seek an answer: an awakened conscience alone does; and grace, as it produces the desire in the sinner, gives the answer of good from God. Not so Pilate, who having said this went out again to the Jews, saying, “I find no fault in him;” and suggesting as a solution of the difficulty the customary release of a prisoner at the feast, he offers to let go their King. But this only draws out the depth of their hatred, and they all cry out.... “Not this man but Barabbas.” Now Barabbas, as the evangelist adds, was a robber. So the Jews chose Satan's son of the father; for so the word means. How evident that man rejecting Jesus is Satan's slave!