This study covers the Jesus before Pilate and the release of Barabbas. It is a pivotal point in Jesus’ trial that lead to his crucifixion.
Luke 23:13-25
Introduction
Our study passage for tonight is Luke 23:13-15 and it
begins with Pilate professing Jesus’ innocence and ends with Pilate sentencing
Jesus to be crucified. In the course of a few hours Pilate finds himself, to paraphrase
the Apostle Paul, doing the very thing he did not want to do (Rom 7:19).
I want to focus on Pilate’s internal struggle to balance
what he knows he ought to do with what he thinks will be best for himself.
There are, I believe some valuable lessons for us as believers. We will
supplement Luke’s Gospel with the parallel accounts in the Gospels of John and
Matthew. Lord willing, we will look quickly at the issue of responsibility for
Jesus’ death and the freeing of Barabbas.
The parallel accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion are found
here: Matthew 27:15-24, Mark 15:6-15, John 18:38-19:16
Jesus
before Pilate Luke 23:13
Luke’s Gospel tells us that Jesus was brought before
Pilate, who sent Him to Herod. Herod in turn questioned Jesus and sent Him back
to Pilate. The Gospel of John gives us the fullest account of Pilate’s
interview with Jesus but does not mention the interrogation by Herod. We can
only speculate when the discussions John records between Jesus and Pilate occurred,
before or after Jesus was sent to Herod. My belief is that John’s account of
the conversation between Pilate and Jesus occurred after Jesus had been sent to
Herod.
I suspect that Pilate sought to deflect what he saw as a
religious matter into Herod’s court and only began to question Jesus after
Herod sent Him back and Pilate realized he would have to make a decision My
opinion is that the timing is probably irrelevant. For me, what is significant
is how John’s account helps clarify what we read in our passage from Luke
tonight. Turn with me first to John 18:33-38:
33 Then Pilate entered the
Praetorium again [Pilate had gone out to speak with the Jews who were escorting Jesus],
called Jesus, and said to Him, "Are You the King of the Jews?"
34 Jesus answered him,
"Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this
concerning Me?"
35 Pilate answered, "Am
I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered You to me. What
have You done?"
36 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."
37 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."
38 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.”
Pilate begins by asking Jesus if He is indeed the King of
the Jews, the Messiah, which is one of the charges that was brought against Him.
Observe that Jesus does not answer Pilate directly but instead asks his reason
for the question. Some speculate that Jesus is asking Pilate to clarify what
kind of king he has in mind, a political king or a spiritual king. I prefer to
take Jesus’ question at face value: Jesus is asking Pilate if he himself has
any reason to believe that Jesus is Messiah or if he is simply repeating something
others have told him.
I believe that there is an aspect of Jesus’ question that
is applicable for believers today. I believe Jesus desires that when we speak
about Him that our words reflect what we believe and we do not simply repeat
what we have heard about Him from others. I believe that we will speak with more
authority and that our words contain more truth when we speak about Jesus from our
personal experiences rather than from what we may have heard others say.
It is interesting how Pilate responds to Jesus’ question:
“Am I a Jew?” Pilate seems to say, “How should I know whether you are King of
the Jews or not?” Pilate views this as predominantly a matter among the Jews.
This is why he had initially told Jesus’ accusers "You take Him and judge Him according to
your law." (John 18:31) Pilate reminds Jesus that he has not
brought this charge against Him but is only investigating what he has been
told. It is the Jews who have charged Him with claiming to be the Messiah.
Pilate is simply repeating what he has been told. He ends by asking Jesus “What
have You done?” What did You do that prompted the Jews to bring this charge
against You?
Here Jesus explains to Pilate that His kingdom is not of
this world, which is why neither Jesus nor His servants fought to keep the Jews
from apprehending Him. Jesus’ talk of His kingdom prompts Pilate to ask if He
is in fact a king. Jesus tells Pilate that he has spoken rightly when he called
Jesus a king. Jesus then explains to Pilate that He has come into the world to
bear witness to the truth. Although I suspect that Pilate did not understand
the implications of what Jesus was telling him, I suspect that it nevertheless
made Jesus seem politically less threatening. The fact that Jesus’ kingdom was
not a political rival of Rome was probably somewhat reassuring to Pilate.
I suspect that above the conversation from John’s Gospel occurred
just prior to the start of our passage in Luke 23. Having been reassured that
Jesus was not a threat to Rome’s sovereignty, Pilate now addresses the chief
priests, rulers, and the people who have gathered around the Praetorium waiting
for his decision. What is especially interesting and striking to in our passage
tonight that even though both Pilate and Herod found no fault in Jesus, Pilate
nevertheless proposes to chastise Him – i.e., scourge Him – before releasing
Him.
The Latin verb (excoriare) from which our English word
“scourge” is derived literally meant “to flay or remove the skin from the
body.” Recall that a Roman scourging consisted of 49 lashes with a cat of nine
tails, a whip of several strands in which sharp material was embedded. As we
have often heard Pastor Robert remark, scourging was a brutal punishment
designed to bring about a confession of guilt from the person being whipped. It
was not uncommon for individuals who had been scourged to die while they were
being whipped or shortly afterwards. I believe we can see in Pilate’s offer to
the crowd to scourge Jesus before releasing Him evidence of his internal
struggle to balance what was right with what was in his best interests.
Luke’s account tells us that Pilate’s offer was not
well-received. All together they cried out “Away with this Man, and release to us
Barabbas.” (Luke 23:18) A second and third time Pilate proclaimed
Jesus’ innocence and sought to release Him. However, the crowd is adamant and
continued to demand His crucifixion. Notice what Luke says in verse Luke 23:23:
“And the voices of the men and of the chief priests prevailed.”
Skip ahead with me a few verses to John 19:8-12. Here we
can see additional evidence of Pilate’s internal struggle in the second
exchange between Pilate and Jesus. John places this second conversation after the
crowd has called for Barabbas and before Pilate has given in and sentenced
Jesus to be crucified. I suspect that it may have occurred after the second or
third time Pilate defended Jesus’ innocence in our passage from Luke
tonight.
After the Jews tell Pilate that Jesus deserves death
because He has made Himself the Son of God, I suspect Pilate remembered the
warning that his wife had given him shortly before to have nothing to do with
“that just Man.” (Matthew 27:19) Pilate’s wife had been troubled dream that
very day she had had about Jesus. Pilate immediately asks Jesus where He is
from but Jesus remains silent.
To encourage a response, Pilate warns Jesus that he
(Pilate) has the power of life or death over Him. To which Jesus responds
telling Pilate that the ultimate source of his power is God: “You could have no
power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above.”
(John 19:11) Then Jesus cryptically adds “Therefore the one who delivered Me to you
has the greater sin.”
Jesus’ words evidently stirred Pilate up because John
states that from then on Pilate sought to release Jesus. The Jews however
continued to call for Jesus’ head and cried out, "If you let this Man go, you are not
Caesar's friend. Whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar."
(John 19:12) Their words also touched
a nerve and ultimately swayed Pilate. The last thing Pilate desired was to be labeled
as a person who was not a friend of Caesar, as someone who sympathized with a
king speaking out against Caesar.
Even though Pilate understood that the chief
priests had handed Jesus over to him because of envy, (MK 15:10) and not
because of any wrongdoing, in the end, Pilate’s fear of man undermined his
desire to free Jesus. His wife’s warnings went for naught. Our passage in Luke
concludes with Pilate granting the wishes of the crowd. (Luke 23: 24-25)
The
question of responsibility
Jesus final remark to Pilate in John 19 provides an ideal
segue to the next topic I wish to touch on: the question of whether a
particular person, or group of persons, was responsible for putting Jesus on
the cross. I want to stress at the outset that this is a complex topic and one
that we can or will not fully explore. I will not to offer a definitive answer
but rather hope to stimulate you to search the Scriptures and do some thinking
and praying about this on your own.
As we think about the question, many potential candidates
come to mind, individuals whose choices and actions seem in one way or another
to have put Jesus on the cross. There is Jesus’ disciple Judas, who betrayed
Jesus to the Sanhedrin. Jesus referred to Judas as a devil (John 6:70) and stated
several times that Judas betrayed Him (John 13:21-28) Then there is Satan, who
were are told entered into Judas (Luke 22:3-4) before he betrayed Jesus.
Certainly Pilate ought to bear some responsibility,
because he ordered Jesus’ crucifixion when he had the power to release Him. And
it was Roman guards who nailed Jesus to the cross and pierced His side with a
lance. Members of the Sanhedrin also seem responsible, because they plotted to
put him to death (Matthew 27:1-2).
The Jews who called out for Barabbas to be freed and
Jesus to be crucified and who cried out to Pilate when he washed his hands of
Jesus’ death "His blood be on
us and on our children" (Mathew 27:25) also seem to be
responsible. Listen to what Peter said to the Jews in Jerusalem in Acts
2:22-24:
22 "Men of Israel, hear
these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles,
wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves
also know — 23 Him, being delivered by
the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless
hands, have crucified, and put to death; 24 whom God raised up, having
loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held
by it.
And let us not forget what Peter alludes to in the above
passage, the fact that Jesus was “delivered by the determined purpose and
foreknowledge of God.” Isaiah 53:10 had foretold that “Yet it pleased the
Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief.”
In
another
sense we could view Jesus’ death on the cross as simply a case of Scripture being
fulfilled. This is what Jesus had come to earth to do - to become the Passover
Lamb of God, whose death took away the sins of the world. As Paul put it in 2
Corinthians 5.21, “For
He [God]
made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him.”
Finally, let me offer one final candidate for your
consideration: mankind as a whole. It was the sin of each and every man, woman,
and child which required Jesus to go to the cross. For truly that was the only
way that mankind’s sin could be atoned for without the death and separation
from God of each individual sinner. I have read that in the movie The Passion
of Christ that the hands that drove the nails into Jesus’ palms and feet were
those of the director Mel Gibson. Gibson it seems wanted to remind himself, and
everyone who watched the movie, that it was our sins that drove Jesus to the
cross.
The
example of Barabbas
The name "Barabbas" means "son of the
father" or "son of the master". Luke tells us that Barabbas had
been put in prison because of his involvement with rebellion and murder.
Barabbas was in prison condemned to be die because of his crimes. Barabbas was
probably destined to be crucified alongside the two thieves. Pilate wished to
spare Jesus, whom he saw as innocent of the crimes of which He had been
accused, but the people cried out for Barabbas instead. In a sense, Jesus took
Barabbas’ place on the cross. An innocent Man died on the cross allowing a
sinner to go free.
Seen in this light I believe that Barabbas is a type of
all true believers. Just like Barabbas, we are sons and daughters of the Father
and Master. Just like Barabbas we were wicked sinners in prison and sentenced
to death (and eternal separation from God) because of what we had done. Just
like Barabbas we were set free from our prison and our sentence was changed
from death to life. And just like Barabbas an innocent man, Jesus Christ, took
our place on the cross.
The
example of Pilate
In closing, there are several negative aspects of Pilate
that I want touch upon. My hope is that we can examine ourselves periodically
to make certain that these things are not true of us:
·
It is one thing to see Jesus as a just and innocent
man and another altogether to see Him as Messiah and Son of God.
- · It is one thing to say a man is innocent and another altogether to treat Him as innocent.
- · It is one thing to have a belief and another altogether to be committed to that belief.
- · It is one thing to be swayed by fear of man and another altogether to be swayed by fear of God.
- · It is one thing to wash one hand’s of another person’s blood and another altogether to be washed by the blood of Jesus.
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