John 18:28

JESUS BEFORE PILATE. (Joh 18:28-40)

Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas to the hall of judgment--but not till "in the morning the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council against Him to put Him to death, and bound Him" (Mat 27:1; and see on Mar 15:1). The word here rendered "hall of judgment" is from the Latin, and denotes "the palace of the governor of a Roman province."

they themselves went not into the judgment hall lest they should be defiled--by contact with ceremonially unclean Gentiles.

but that they might eat the passover--If this refer to the principal part of the festival, the eating of the lamb, the question is, how our Lord and His disciples came to eat it the night before; and, as it was an evening meal, how ceremonial defilement contracted in the morning would unfit them for partaking of it, as after six o'clock it was reckoned a new day. These are questions which have occasioned immense research and learned treatises. But as the usages of the Jews appear to have somewhat varied at different times, and our present knowledge of them is not sufficient to clear up all difficulties, they are among the not very important questions which probably will never be entirely solved.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(28) On the accusation before Pilate (Joh_18:28-38), comp. Notes on the parallels in Mat_27:11-14; Mar_15:2-5; Luk_23:2-5.

The hall of judgment.—Literally, the Prœtorium. Comp. Note on Mat_27:27. It is interesting to observe the various renderings which our translators have given for this one word. Here, “hall of judgment,” or “Pilate’s house,” and “judgment-hall;” Joh_18:33, “hall of judgment” without the marginal alternative; Joh_19:9, “judgment-hall;” in Mat_27:27, “common-hall,” or “governor’s house;” in Mar_15:16, “prætorium” (the original word Anglicised); in Act_23:35, “judgment-hall;” in Php_1:13, “palace,” this being perhaps the only passage where “palace” does not give the right meaning. (Comp. Note there.)

And it was early.—The Greek word occurs in the division of the night in Mar_13:35 (“even,” “midnight,” “cock-crowing,” “morning”) for the time between cock-crowing and sunrise, as we should say roughly, from three to six o’clock; but comp. Mat_27:1, and Luk_22:66. We must remember that Pilate must have sent the band (Joh_18:3), and was therefore expecting its return.

And they themselves went not into the judgment hall.—They sent Jesus in under guard of the Roman band, while they remained outside.

But that they might eat the passover.—Comp. Excursus F: The Day of the Crucifixion of our Lord.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

28. Then led they] Better, They led therefore (Joh_18:3). S. John assumes that his readers know the result of Jesus being taken to Caiaphas (Joh_18:24): He had been condemned to death; and now His enemies (there is no need to name them) take Him to the Roman governor to get the sentence executed.

the hall of judgment] The margin is better, Pilate’s house, i.e. the palace. In the original it is praitorion, the Greek form of praetorium. Our translators have varied their rendering of it capriciously: Mat_27:27, ‘common hall,’ with ‘governor’s house’ in the margin; Mar_15:16, ‘Praetorium;’ Joh_18:33; Joh_19:9, ‘judgment-hall.’ Yet the meaning must be the same in all these passages. Comp. Act_23:35, ‘judgment-hall;’ Php_1:13, ‘the palace.’ The meaning of praetorium varies according to the context. The word is of military origin; (1) ‘the general’s tent’ or ‘head quarters.’ Hence, in the provinces, (2) ‘the governor’s residence,’ the meaning in Act_23:35 : in a sort of metaphorical sense, (3) a ‘mansion’ or ‘palace’ (Juvenal I. 75): at Rome. (4) ‘the praetorian guard,’ the probable meaning in Php_1:13. Of these leading significations the second is probably right here and throughout the Gospels; the official residence of the Procurator. Where Pilate resided in Jerusalem is not quite certain. We know that ‘Herod’s Praetorium,’ a magnificent building on the western hill of Jerusalem, was used by Roman governors somewhat later (Philo, Leg. ad Gaium, p. 1034). But it is perhaps more likely that Pilate occupied part of the fortress Antonia, on the supposed site of which a chamber with a column in it has recently been discovered, which it is thought may possibly be the scene of the scourging.

S. John’s narrative alternates between the outside and inside of the Praetorium. Outside; 28–32; 38–40; Joh_19:4-7; John 12-16. Inside; 33–37; Joh_19:1-3; John 8-11.

28–32. Outside the Praetorium; the Jews claim the execution of the Sanhedrin’s sentence of death, and Pilate refuses it.

early] The same word, proï, is rendered ‘morning’ Mat_16:3; Mar_1:35; Mar_11:20; Mar_13:35; Mar_15:1; the last passage being partly parallel to this. In Mar_13:35 the word stands for the fourth watch (see on Mar_6:48), which lasted from 3.0 to 6.0 a.m. A Roman court might be held directly after sunrise; and as Pilate had probably been informed that an important case was to be brought before him, delay in which might cause serious disturbance, there is nothing improbable in his being ready to open his court between 4.0 and 5.0 a.m. The hierarchy were in a difficulty. Jesus could not safely be arrested by daylight, and the Sanhedrin could not legally pronounce sentence of death by night: hence they had had to wait till dawn to condemn Him. Now another regulation hampers them: a day must intervene between sentence and execution. This they shuffled out of by going at once to Pilate. Of course if he undertook the execution, he must fix the time; and their representations would secure his ordering immediate execution. Thus they shifted the breach of the law from themselves to him.

As in the life of our Lord as a whole, so also in this last week and last day of it, the exact sequence and time of the events cannot be ascertained with certainty. Chronology is not what the Evangelists aim at giving us. For a tentative arrangement of the chief events of the Passion see Appendix C.

they themselves] In contrast with their Victim, whom they sent in under a Roman guard.

lest they should] Better, that they might not, omitting ‘that they’ in the next clause.

be defiled] by entering a house not properly cleansed of leaven (Exo_12:15).

eat the passover] It is quite evident that S. John does not regard the Last Supper as a Paschal meal. Comp. Joh_13:1; Joh_13:29. It is equally evident that the synoptic narratives convey the impression that the Last Supper was the ordinary Jewish Passover (Mat_26:17-19; Mar_14:14; Mar_14:16; Luk_22:7-8; Luk_22:11; Luk_22:13; Luk_22:15). Whatever be the right solution of the difficulty, the independence of the author of the Fourth Gospel is manifest. Would anyone counterfeiting an Apostle venture thus to contradict what seemed to have such strong Apostolic authority? Would he not expect that a glaring discrepancy on so important a point would prove fatal to his pretensions? Assume that S. John is simply recording his own vivid recollections, whether or no we suppose him to be correcting the impression produced by the Synoptists, and this difficulty at any rate is avoided. S. John’s narrative is too precise and consistent to be explained away. On the difficulty as regards the Synoptists see Appendix A; also Excursus V at the end of Dr Farrar’s S. Luke.

28–19:16. The Roman or Civil Trial

As already stated, S. John omits both toe examination before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin at an irregular time and place, at midnight and at ‘the Booths’ (Mat_26:57-68 : Mar_14:53-65), and also the formal meeting of the Sanhedrin after daybreak in the proper place (Mat_27:1; Mar_15:1; Luk_22:66-71), at which Jesus was sentenced to death. He proceeds to narrate what the Synoptists omit, the conference between Pilate and the Jews (Joh_18:28-32) and two private examinations of Jesus by Pilate (Joh_18:33-38 and Joh_19:8-11). Here also we seem to have the evidence of an eyewitness. We know that S. John followed his Lord into the high priest’s palace (Joh_18:15), and stood by the Cross (Joh_19:26); it is therefore probable enough that he followed Him into the Procurator’s court.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 18:28. Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment — Το πραιτωριον, the pretorium, the governor’s palace. Properly speaking, the pretorium was that part of the palace where the soldiers kept guard, Mar 15:16; but in common language it was applied to the palace in general. The Jewish high-priests and elders sent Jesus hither that he might be tried by the Roman governor, Pilate, because they could not otherwise accomplish their purpose, the power of life and death being now taken out of their hands. And it was early — Although by this time it was broad daylight, yet it was early in the morning, and much sooner than the governor used to appear. It is therefore probable that he was called up on this extraordinary occasion; and they themselves went not into the judgment-hall — Or, into the palace, of which the judgment-hall was a part; lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the passover — Having purified themselves in order to eat the passover, they would not enter into the palace, which was the house of a heathen, for fear of contracting such defilement as might have rendered them incapable of eating the paschal-supper. They stood, therefore, before the palace, waiting for the governor, who on such occasions came out to them.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES

Joh_18:28. Then led they Jesus, etc.—The Evangelist presupposes the trial before the Sanhedrin, and its issue. Jesus had been condemned to death. But the Jews had no power to carry out a death sentence. They must prevail on the Roman governor, by fair means or foul, to do this for them. Hall of judgment.—Palace (πραιτώριον, prætorium), i.e. the Roman governor’s house, supposed to have been a palace built by Herod. They themselves, etc.—See Homiletic Note to Joh_13:1. How true this is to our Lord’s description of these men as “whited sepulchres” (Mat_23:27). They made clean the outside of cup and platter. Here they were afraid of an outward defilement which might pervent them participating in the passover feast. They recked nothing of the inward defilement of heart and conscience, which was evident in all these scenes. Justice, truth, righteousness, mercifulness, the weightier matters of the law, were to them as nothing.

Joh_18:29. Pilate then went out, etc.—In all this narrative of St. John the Synoptic account is presupposed. Pilate went out of his own palace to some convenient place where he might hold a colloquy with the Jews. He condescended so far to their prejudices. He demanded what accusation they brought against this man which would bring Him under the penalty of Roman law. For Pilate, like Gallio, would care nothing for merely religious questions (Act_18:12-17).

Joh_18:30. They answered … malefactor.—And this after His deeds of beneficence and His holy life! How far had these men yielded themselves to the power of evil!

Joh_18:31. Then said Pilate, etc.—I.e. they wished to judge, and merely permit Pilate to carry their judgment into effect. Not so, is Pilate’s answer. If this Man is judged by your tribunal, you can sentence Him according to your law and carry out the sentence. Very galling must it have been to those proud rulers thus to be reminded of the limitations of their power. But Pilate’s reply brought out their malice and envy in all its hatefulness. They had to shift their accusation from a religious to a political ground, and hypocritically to pretend that they were concerned for the majesty of the conquering Roman power (Luk_23:2).

Joh_18:32. That the saying of Jesus, etc.—He had prophesied this before it came to pass (Mar_10:33; Mat_26:2). Crucifixion was a Roman punishment. These wicked rulers thought that Jesus would thus be made a reproach both to Jews and Gentiles.

Joh_18:33. Art Thou the King of the Jews?—Pilate saw that there was something strange in this accusation. These rulers of the Jews would never have delivered up a popular leader who sought to free them from the Roman yoke; and the governor was to learn more of this King and His kingdom ere the trial was over. He saw that this charge of the Jewish Sanhedrin was a trumped-up one.

Joh_18:38. Pilate … went out again to the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in Him no fault.—This is a striking, testimony. It shows us Pilate at his best, as the Roman judge and governor, set to rule and administer justice impartially. It shows also the character of our Lord’s enemies. They knew well that there was no actual fault in Christ (Mat_26:60). It was their hatred of the truth, and the fear of losing position and influence, that made them cast aside all thought of righteousness, etc., in their treatment of Jesus. Jesus was innocent; His foes and judges admitted this. His death was not an expiation of any wrong in His life—it was an expiation for the sins of the world.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH—Joh_18:28-40

Chap. Joh_18:28 to Joh_19:22. Pilate.—Of all the strange and moving incidents in the scenes immediately preceding our Lord’s crucifixion, there is none perhaps more striking than that during which Pontius Pilate uttered these memorable words: “Behold the man!”

I. Pilate’s sincerity.—

1. They were not words of mockery or scorn; rather they were spoken with a sincere desire to influence men’s pity, and thus bring about the release of Jesus.

2. We must recognise the fact that all through those scenes of patient suffering of our Lord, Pilate was endeavouring to appease the blood-thirsty crowds, while at the same time keeping Jesus out of their grasp.

3. It is not because he was the guiltiest in this terrible transaction that his name has been handed down to execration in the creeds of Christendom. This was done merely as a record of the time of our Lord’s crucifixion.

II. His unrighteous, vacillating action.—

1. Yet with all allowance for human frailty, and remembering our Lord’s words to Pilate, “He that hath delivered Me unto thee hath the greater sin” (the Sanhedrin judged Christ on religious grounds, and they should have known better), still Pilate cannot be exonerated from complicity in this great crime. He acted the part of an unjust judge; for he declared Jesus to be innocent of any crime, and yet ordered His soldiers, at the cry of a furious mob, to lead the innocent to the basest malefactor’s death.

2. Pilate was an opportunist, a time-server; he was chained by the bonds of his own evil life and wicked deeds; so that when the hour of tria1 came he was not free to act on the side of right and truth. He had been an unjust and a cruel governor of Judæa, had made many enemies, and had already been accused of maladministration at the Imperial Court. There were continued revolts against his authority, especially as he had seriously offended the religious prejudices of the people. He knew many enemies were watching for some slip in his administration, so that they might procure his recall and punishment. Hence his vacillating conduct all through this trial.

3. He saw through the motives of Christ’s enemies, and rightly treated their quibbling accusation against Christ, about His claiming to be a king, with scorn. He eagerly seized the chance which the mention of Galilee in the Jews’ accusation gave him of getting rid of the whole matter (Luk_23:7). But when Herod in mockery sent back Jesus to him clothed in the white robe of a candidate for office, he was compelled to make up his mind one way or another.

4. His conscience was up in arms; the meek and patient bearing of Jesus, of whom he had no doubt heard, together with his hatred of the Jews, and distaste of being compelled to carry out their wishes, made him determined to release Christ. He promised to accede to the people so far; he would scourge Jesus, so as to disgrace Him and discredit any claims He might make. When this proposal was rejected, another was made—that Jesus should be delivered, or freed from custody, according to a custom prevailing then at the time of the passover. But the Jews, as if to show plainly to all men their malice, cried out for the release of one Barabbas, who had been condemned for that very crime of sedition of which they falsely accused Jesus.

5. The Jews saw their power; they knew that Pilate feared them, and his vacillating conduct at the beginning made them confident that they would prevail.

III. His great crime.—

1. Pilate therefore took his place on the judgment seat, on the tesselated pavement raised above the rest of the courtyard of the palace, or prætorium, and gave orders to the soldiers to scourge Jesus, as this was also a preliminary to crucifixion.

2. After the cruel mocking and scourging, Jesus was led forth to an elevated spot where all might see Him, and Pilate said, “Behold the man!” The governor hoped to save Jesus from crucifixion even yet. As he sat on the judgment seat, his wife, moved by a dream, sent to him, saying, “Have thou nothing to do with that just man” (Mat_27:19). Still more did he fear when the Jews accused Jesus of claiming to be the Son of God, and when Jesus Himself admitted the claim.

3. But the Jews had one more argument that proved too powerful for time-serving Pilate: “If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar’s friend.” The Roman sense of justice, hatred of the Jews, the clamourings of conscience, were swept away by the rising tide of self-interest. Pilate did what he called on others to do; he “beheld the man.” Pity, justice, the voice of God, all were in vain to keep the sin-shackled time-server from this great crime. Self in the other scale made the balance kick the beam.

IV. His miserable end.—

1. But even this great crime did not save him from the fate he dreaded. He was shortly after this accused of a cruel and unprovoked attack on the peaceful Samaritans, summoned to Rome, tried and exiled, and, like Judas, was finally laid in a suicide’s grave.

2. Want of true principle and a time-serving spirit will lead men to the commission of the greatest crimes, in the name and for the sake of policy. “What is truth?” said Pilate, meaning perhaps, What has that to do with acts of government or policy? Much every way, O unhappy Pilate! For righteousness and truth are eternal; and though the time-server may seem for the moment to prevail, yet it shall only serve to discover more fully in the end his utter confusion. Thou didst imagine that it was better, in order to prevent a riot, to offer up as a victim to popular hatred, uncondemned, nay, pronounced by thyself innocent, that poor, bleeding, thorn-crowned form. But thou wert in reality the victim—victim of thine own evil deeds and of abject fear of the people.

3. The seeming victim became the conqueror—the unjust judge became a despised exile; and the people who invoked on their heads the awful curse, “His blood be on us and on our children,” still wander homeless on earth, until they behold Christ as “the Lamb of God who beareth away the sin of the world.”

Joh_18:36. The true nature of Christ’s kingdom.—As the King of the kingdom of truth is from above, so is His kingdom. Although it extends to this world, and men here on earth may become members of it, yet it is not “of the earth, earthy.” Christ did not come to set up an empire which would extend itself by conquest, and usurp the government of secular kingdoms, although He sought to influence these indirectly by the establishment of His kingdom. His dominion is first inward, in order that it may at last be outward, and that finally “the kingdoms of the world” may become “the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.” That Christ’s kingdom is not of this world is seen—

I. In the means used for its extension.—

1. As the Redeemer said to the vacillating Roman judge, “If My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight.” Earthly kingdoms are extended mostly by conquest. The means used for their advancement are material. Armies and navies, secular and social laws, courts of justice, officers of justice, penalties and prisons, are among the many means employed for the external and internal order and safety of the kingdoms of earth.

2. And these in their place are not to be contemned or set aside. Righteous political and social government is to be hailed with joy. But none of these means in themselves can raise men nearer God. Rome had a wonderful code of laws, a noble political system, a far-reaching and powerful dominion. But these things made her corruption only more conspicuous and her fall more terrible.

3. Christ’s kingdom rests on principles of eternal truth. The aim and end of His dominion is not earthly glory, conquest, power; but the advance of spiritual and moral ends. And it must have been surprising to those among whom Jesus moved, and whose idea of kingdom and dominion did not rise above the empires and governments of time, to hear Christ’s claim, and then to look around for the means by which He sought to support it. It was this that alienated the Jews, who longed for conquest and earthly glory. It was this that staggered Pilate when the Saviour acknowledged that He was a king. Christ’s kingdom also is not of this world—

II. In the scope of its government.—

1. It is not restricted to earth and time, like the kingdoms of this world. Its laws do not fluctuate or change with changing times. They are ever the same—unalterable—as the expressions of truth and righteousness. It can and does exist alongside of various forms of earthly government; its spirit and principles may, indeed, enter into, inspire, and purify them all.

2. And that is so because it is the kingdom of the truth. It is set up in the hearts of men, putting an end to the reign of the spirit of lies, triumphing over the evil, evoking humility, faith, love, hope, purity, and every spiritual grace; in short, making men new creatures, in spirit and mind like to the King.

3. And thus the subjects of this kingdom are not bound to it by any merely external tie, which might at any time be broken, as in the case of subjects of an earthly kingdom. They are not forced against their will to serve this King, as are enslaved subjects of an earthly tyrant and of the prince of the power of the air. No; for in this kingdom truth prevails, and he who rebels against truth knows that he rebels against his higher nature. And the true subjects of this unworldly kingdom are willingly and joyfully submissive to its laws and rules, because its King rules in their hearts and lives. His love is their constraint, His service their joy. That Christ’s kingdom is not of this world is seen in the fact of—

III. Its universality and perpetuity.—

1. Less and less as the years pass is any earthly monarch likely to achieve universal dominion. And even when great empires have been builded up by mighty conquerors they have speedily been broken in pieces and have perished. The race of to-day treads on the ruins of the past. Beneath our feet are the ruined homes, shrines, palaces, of great peoples and kingdoms. It seemed in their day as if they were founded for ever, and now only their sculptured stones remain to show their glory and power. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and many another rise up in memory to tell us that their power and glory are in the dust.

2. And why could they not remain? They were not founded on truth, on eternal reality. The nation and government founded on righteousness alone can stand. And when nations and governments forget God, when peoples make their laws and conduct their negotiations without Him, when they decree that nations and governments have nothing to do with the maintenance and advancement of the kingdom of truth, then their end is near (Isa_60:12).

3. For Christ’s kingdom alone and those who subject themselves to Him are enduring. His kingdom alone will advance through all generations, and shall endure throughout eternity. And the Churches and kingdoms who submit to and honour its King shall also endure. Individual governments and ecclesiastical communities may rise and pass away. But amid all turmoil and change this all-embracing kingdom shall advance, gathering to itself faithful peoples and communities in its progress, until the kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.

Joh_18:37. The King of the spiritual kingdom.—When Jesus stood before Pilate, the governor, seeking to elicit the facts as to the charge laid against our Lord by the Jews, sought especially to arrive at the truth regarding His alleged claim to be a king. This especially touched the honour of the Roman, and the peace of his government. Was this one of those numerous pretenders to religious and temporal leadership of the Jewish people who were ever and anon rising up and leading men after them? Had our Lord replied directly by “yes” or “no” to the Roman governor’s question, He would have left a false impression. Had He said simply, “Yes, I am a king,” Pilate would have considered the charge of the Jews justified. Had he said “No,” He would have left Pilate with a false idea as to His true nature and position. Therefore He replied that He was truly a king, but that His kingdom was not of this world.

I. Christ is truly a king by nature and descent.—

1. “Unto this end have I been born,” etc.; “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world” (Joh_16:28; also Joh_10:36). His birth in time was a coming forth to fulfil an eternal divine purpose, and the fulfilment of this purpose rested on His essential nature as the Son of God. He was on earth in lowly guise as the Son of man; but He came into the world, because He existed before all worlds with the Father.

2. Nor did He come to the world to assume this dominion on His own authority. It was in complete accordance with the Father’s will that He came, so that it is also said that the Father sent Him. The sending and the coming are indeed, viewed from the heavenly standpoint, one divine act. But for this end, that the kingdom of heaven might be established, Christ became obedient to the Father. By this very obedience He put Himself into the true position from which He could conquer and reign over men, bringing them back to loyalty and obedience to the Father.

3. And because of this He hath been highly exalted (Php_2:9-10; Heb_5:8-9; Psa_2:6-8); and to Him has been given an everlasting dominion, a kingdom that shall know no end.

II. Christ is King of the spiritual kingdom because by His knowledge, wisdom, and power He is fitted to govern.—

1. Not even the wisest and best of men have been able to save the human race from evil and bring them back to allegiance to eternal Truth. We have only to look back on the history of our race to see how true this is. The race has wandered ever further from the truth. Wise kings have reigned, wise leaders have risen, even divinely inspired leaders. The divinely given law of Moses itself was but a preparatory and imperfect system, which was to pass away. How much more imperfect then the systems of a Zarathushtra, a Kong-fu-tze, a Plato! None had the knowledge, the wisdom, the power, to bring men under the dominion of Truth.

2. But Christ had all these. The eternal manifestation of eternal Truth, He knew what men needed. He alone could fully declare the mind of God, and reveal to men heavenly realities; testify to truth already revealed in law and prophecy; and, above all, manifest the reality of the Father’s love in His own person and work.

3. And He is King not only because He bore witness to the truth. His authority consisted not alone in the teaching of certain truths concerning man and God and eternal things, but because of His power to attract men to Himself, to transform them into His likeness, and thus make them true subjects of His eternal kingdom.

III. Christ’s kingship is a fact of history and experience.—

1. To Him is given universal dominion over all who are of the truth. We see before our eyes the ancient prophecies being daily fulfilled. From every land and nation, all peoples and tongues, they come to subject themselves to His kingly sway. All whose hearts are moved by the Spirit, who are attracted toward the truth, who seek truly to know and love God—all such hear Christ’s voice, and submit themselves to His mild and gracious authority.

2. And how rapid, comparatively speaking, has been the spread of His kingship when we remember that He is the King of truth, and that men by nature are opposed to Him. So all along the course there has been opposition from without and error from within to hinder His government. And He has conquered first, not the dreamy and superstitious races of the East, but the highest type of humanity in the West. And now His authority as the King of truth is not confined to a little band of disciples, but is more or less faithfully submitted to by more than one quarter of the population of the globe. And every day more and more men are bowing the knee in His name and confessing that He is Lord.

3. And individual experience confesses the blessed power of His reign. When He comes the darkness passes with the works of darkness; and love, peace, joy abound. The love of truth leads to freedom from error and sin. “He draws all men unto Him.” An invisible bond of fellowship unites to Him men of every clime and time, as joyful fellow-subjects of that King “whose kingdom ruleth over all.”

Joh_18:37. The King.—How does Jesus forward His kingdom?

I. Not by material force.—

1. Look at the history of those who have ruled in this way: the Cæsars, a Scylla, a Marius, a Tiberius, whose tenure of power was distinguished by the frightful turmoil of human passion, the flowing of rivers of blood, etc. There was nothing new or strange in all this. It is an epitome of the history of mankind.

2. It was not thus that God wished to forward His kingdom among men. He gave in a strange and unexpected manner His method in the form of a criminal nailed to a cross, conquering thus for Himself an empire of which no Cæsar ever dreamed.

3. At the foot of that cross men learned that there is in the world something more powerful than material force—it is mind; and something even more powerful than intellect—it is love. “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me” (Joh_12:32).

II. Not by force of cleverness.—

1. The kings of material force must be put on one side. Christ is not among them. We look higher. Above force there is skill. You have seen the genius of cleverness contriving its fabrications in the shade, and preparing for a successful issue. With what patience it creates its resources. With what assurance it bids audacity supply what is lacking, diverting the imaginations of men until the hour when it feels itself strong enough to unveil its pretensions.

2. People admire this success. But on a nearer view some disquieting circumstances are brought to light. How many calculations, how many ruses and deceits are involved! Ask a clever man of the world what he thinks of one who would endeavour to succeed, whilst attending to the dictates of morality, in following the line of duty to the end without deviating, and you will see with what scorn he will dismiss this naïve innocence into the region of chimeras,

3. And yet Christ has founded a greater empire than all those who have used only their cleverness and skill; and when we examine His life no trace of this cleverness is found in it. This word is indeed incompatible with Christ’s character. When a critic, attempting to explain the marvellous dominion which Jesus exercised over His own, attributed to Him calculation, dissimulation, etc., the public conscience arose in dissent and gave an immense protest.

4. If any one wanted to proclaim a new doctrine, and gain the adherence of the intelligent people to it, he would not shut himself up in an obscure province like Galilee, or come with the most sublime teaching to the most ignorant, who did not comprehend the full beauty of it. At the beginning of His ministry a chief ruler of the sect of the Pharisees came to Jesus. Had He been desirous of gaining adherents, He would have endeavoured to treat him with caution, so that He might gain the Pharisees to His side. But we know how Jesus received Nicodemus. And to the people who came to Him with their Messianic dreams (Joh_6:15), and sought to make Him a king, He spoke in such fashion that they went back from Him, leaving only the twelve (Joh_6:66). Was this cleverness? But those disciples—did He not promise them speedy victory, thrones and kingdoms, etc.? Nay, He rather announced persecutions and trials awaiting them, etc. Was this cleverness? He spoke the truth to the people and to the Pharisees, denouncing the latter for their sins, etc. Was this cleverness? No; from the point of view of policy, all this was folly. It was not, then, by skill and cleverness that Christ attained to His dominion.

III. Not by intellectual force.—

1. This realm also has its kings, kings in poetry, philosophy, art, science—a Homer or Plato, a Raphael or Newton. Shall we place Christ in their ranks?

2. There are three classes of rulers in this domain, corresponding to the beautiful, the good, the true. To the desire of the beautiful the domain of art corresponds; to the desire of the true the domain of science; to the desire of the good the domain of morality. Each domain has its kings. In which shall we seek for Jesus?

3. Is it on the heights of Art? No, although Jesus has brought a new ideal to the imagination, and has revealed new beauty which had till then been unnoticed; and certainly art owes to Christianity some of its grandest inspirations. When the repentant sinner beats on his breast, when the Saviour of the world dies on the cross, is it the imagination only that is moved, or are you taken into another region—the region of holiness and love? Yes.

4. Is it in the field of science and its brilliant discoveries and researches, etc., that we shall place the Redeemer? Again, no. His teaching, it is true, is in accordance with the highest laws of the mind. And it is in Christian lands that science has advanced most. But here Christ did not seek to reign (Mat_11:25-26). His Gospel was not addressed especially to the wise men of this world. The force by which He draws men is not connected with human logic. He did not speak in syllogisms, or like a master of the schools. This has been made a reproach against Christianity by such philosophers as Lucian, Celsus, Porphyry. And supposing Christ had reigned in the realm of intelligence alone, would the wise have come around Him? And then what of the poor and unlearned? To the poor the Gospel was preached (Luk_4:18).

5. Above the intellectual is the moral. There is nothing higher. The moral order is the will of God. It is in this supreme order that Jesus is King—King by holiness, King by love, for these are the two poles of that world. Thus He said to Pilate, “I am a king; for this end was I born.” And He is not King here simply because He revealed to men a new ideal. Certainly He did this: all will accord that He gave new ideas concerning love to God and man. But this is not all. Nor did He merely enunciate some great moral verities. He was not merely the prophet of truth, but He was the Truth Himself—the incarnation of moral truth.

6. What Jesus desires is the dominion in men’s souls—a spiritual dominion, the most real and absolute. And it is He who lives and reigns from age to age. By His words and actions, His miracles, He showed His right to this authority which He claimed, and the love which He desired should be accorded to Him universally by His followers. And the beauty of His character, the power of His love displayed in His saving work, has drawn men to Him in the bonds of an affection which is more and more becoming worldwide.—Abridged from Eug. Bersier.

Joh_18:37-38. The scepticism of Pilate.—The lesson which we are to draw from this verse must depend upon the view we take of the spirit in which the words were spoken. Some of the best commentators conceive them to have been words of mockery, and such is the great Lord Bacon’s view. “ ‘What is truth?’ said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.” In all deference to such authority, we cannot believe that this sentence was spoken in jest. In Pilate’s whole conduct there is no trace of such a tone. It betrays throughout much of uncertainty, nothing of lightness. He was cruelly tormented with the perplexity of efforts to save his prisoner. He risked his own reputation. He pronounced Him, almost with vehemence, to be innocent. He even felt awe, and was afraid of Him. In such a frame of mind mockery was impossible. Let us try to comprehend the character of the man who asked this question. His character will help us to judge the tone in which he asked. And his character, the character of his mind and life, are clear enough from the few things recorded of him. He first hears what the people have to say; then asks the opinion of the priests—then comes back to Jesus—goes again to the priests and people—lends his ear—listens to the ferocity on the one hand, and feels the beauty on the other, balancing between them; and then he becomes bewildered, as a man of the world is apt to do who has had no groundwork of religious education, and hears superficial discussions on religious matters, and superficial charges, and superficial slanders, till he knows not what to think. What could come out of such procedure? Nothing but that cheerlessness of soul to which certainty respecting anything and everything here on earth seems unattainable. This is the exact mental state which we call scepticism. Out of that mood, when he heard the enthusiast before him speak of a kingdom of the truth, there broke a sad, bitter, sarcastic, “What is truth?” Who knows anything about it? Another discoverer of the undiscoverable? Jesting Pilate! With Pilate the matter was beyond a jest.

1. The causes of Pilate’s scepticism.—

1. Indecision of character.—Here is a man knowing the right and doing the wrong, not willing to do an act of manifest injustice if he can avoid it, but hesitating to prevent it, for fear of a charge against himself—pitiably vacillating because his hands were tied by the consciousness of past guilt and personal danger. How could such a man be certain about anything?

2. Falseness to his own convictions.—Pilate had a conviction that Jesus was innocent. Instead of acting at once on that, he went and parleyed. He argued and debated till the practical force of the conviction was unsettled. Pilate was false to his conscience.

3. The taint of the worldly temper of his day.—Pilate had been a public man. He knew life, had mixed much with the world’s business and the world’s politics, had come across a multiplicity of opinions, and gained a smattering of them all. He knew how many philosophies and religions pretended to an exclusive possession of truth, and how the pretensions of each were overthrown by another. And his incredulity was but a specimen of the scepticism fashionable in his day. To such a character Jesus would not explain His truth. He gave no reply; He held His peace. God’s truth is too sacred to be expounded to superficial worldliness in its transient fit of earnestness.

4. That priestly bigotry which forbids inquiry and makes doubt a crime.—The priests of that day had much to answer for. The results of their priestcraft were twofold. The first result was seen in the fanaticism of the people who cried for blood; the second in the scepticism of Pilate.

II. The way appointed for discovering “what is truth.”—

1. I am not about to be guilty of the presumption of answering the question which Jesus did not answer. Some persons hearing the text might think it to be the duty of any man who took it as a text to preach upon to lay down what truth is.

2. The truth cannot be compressed into a sermon. The reply to Pilate’s question cannot be contained in any verbal form.

3. The truth is infinite as the firmament above you. In childhood both seem near and measurable; but with years they grow and grow, and seem further off, and further and grander, and deeper and vaster, as God Himself, till you smile to remember how you thought you could touch the sky, and blush to recollect the proud and self-sufficient way in which you used to talk of knowing or preaching “the truth.”

4. The truth is made up of principles: an inward life, not any mere formula of words. God’s character: spiritual worship; the divine life in the soul. How shall I put that into sentences ten or ten thousand? “The words which I speak unto you, they are truth, and they are life.”

5. The appointed ways to teach this truth. They are three:

(1) Independence. Let no man start as if independence savoured of presumption. No man cares for your health as you do; therefore you rely blindly upon none. No man has the keeping of your own soul, or cares for it as you do. For yourself, therefore, you inquire and think, and you refuse to delegate that work to bishop, priest, or Church. Call they that presumption?

(2) Humbleness. There are two kinds of temper contrary to this spirit. The first is a disputing, captious temper. The next is a hopeless spirit.

(3) Action. This was Christ’s rule: “If any man will do His will,” etc. A blessed rule; a plain and simple rule. Here we are in a world of mystery, where all is difficult and very much dark—where a hundred jarring creeds declare themselves to be the truth, and all are plausible. How shall a man decide? Let him do the right that lies before him: much is uncertain—some things at least are clear. Whatever else may be wrong, it must be right to be pure—to be just and tender, and merciful and honest. It must be right to love, and to deny oneself. Let him do the will of God, and he shall know.—F. W. Robertson.

Joh_18:39-40. Jesus rejected for Barabbas.—The sad scenes of this history follow each other with great rapidity. The apostle summarises the various incidents in these scenes with masterly force in his bold sermon to those Jews, after he and John in the name of Jesus had healed the lame man in the temple. It was the same, yet not the same Peter who had acted such an ignoble part in those very scenes. They delivered up Jesus, whom God had glorified; they denied the holy and just One before Pilate, who was more just than they (Joh_19:11), for he declared that Jesus was innocent and should be freed. But worse than all, they desired that a murderer should be granted unto them in place of the Holy One and the Just (Acts 3.). Here we consider their awful choice.

I. Pilate’s plan for the release of Jesus.—

1. The Roman governor was sore perplexed. Conscience, superstition, hatred of the Jews, a strange drawing toward this silent, dignified prisoner, made him long to wash his hands of the whole matter.

2. He had sent Jesus to Herod, thus thinking to get rid of the trouble; but now Jesus is returned for his judgment, and he must decide. He had almost made up his mind to brave those men who desired the death of Jesus for no fault, but to gratify their own envy and malignity.

3. But the governor bethought him of an expedient which should succeed. At this passover feast it was the custom to deliver up to the multitude one of the offenders against law whom they desired to see liberated. It was a symbolic reminder to the people of their own deliverance from Egyptian bondage. Pilate grasped at this expedient. He would offer the mob the choice between this meek, innocent, spotless man, and the greatest criminal who deservedly lay in a dungeon, one Jesus Barabbas (Mar_15:7). Surely, although the leaders might do otherwise, the body of the crowd would choose Jesus.

II. The Jews’ choice of Barabbas.—

1. Pilate was to learn that opportunism is neither the pleasantest nor safest policy. It is a two-edged weapon, and often wounds the hand that wields it.

2. He had made sure of the issue of his expedient, which would save him the trouble and unpopularity of having to refuse the request of those turbulent leaders of the people. But he was to learn how far they would descend in their hatred to this innocent sufferer, who had spoken the truth which so enraged those rulers. Thus his expedient failed, and the case was still laid on his conscience for decision.

3. But his attempt brought out the true feelings of those godless men. The chief priests moved the people that they should rather ask Barabbas (Mar_15:11). It may thus be gathered that had the people been left to themselves they would never have made this awful choice. But they were more subservient to their leaders than anxious for justice and truth. The worst kind of slavery this.

4. Well had Jesus told those leaders and their too subservient followers their origin and descent (Joh_8:44). And now they openly proved it before all the world by choosing one who had hitherto been one of the most conspicuous children of their evil father.

Lesson.—Let us not, however, too harshly condemn those men thus hurried away by passion. Peter did not when he said, “And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it,” etc. (Act_3:17). Do not men sometimes choose the evil? Before knowing Christ, did not even Christians perhaps company with those who were His enemies and children of the wicked one? Did they not delight more in them than in His service and the company of His people? And do not such who have now chosen Christ look back, with feelings of mingled sorrow and shame, to think that they so long rejected the Holy One and the Just, and companied so long with those who were children and servants of the prince of this world?

ILLUSTRATIONS

Joh_18:36. The true use of this life determined by its connexion with that to come.—You will never make a proper use of the life that now is until you regard it in connexion with that which is to come. Standing at the Saviour’s cross you will be able to take a right view of both worlds. You will see earth in all its littleness and tumult, and heaven in all its magnitude and peacefulness; and while rendering to the one the attention which its transient importance demands, you will reserve the fulness of your energy for the momentous claims of the other. I make no apology for asking whether you are making a kingdom of your politics, and whether you have begun at the true source of all genuine and permanent reformation. My firm conviction being that Christianity will adjust the relationships of individuals and consolidate the liberty of empires, my life is consecrated to its explanation and enforcement. When the heart is right with God, there will be little difficulty in arranging political details; but while the heart is swollen with passion, while selfishness holds out her greedy hand and party spirit rends the air with the clamorous cry, while pride looks disdainfully on the poor and rank draws its invidious boundaries, while capital is regardless of the true interests of labour and merit must give place to patronage, there can be no lasting reformation. We must strike the upas at its roots. If you, as political reformers, can amputate any of the deadly branches, you will indeed earn the gratitude of your race. Far be it from me to question the utility of your labour; but again I tell you, we must strike the upas at its root! Church of the living God, this is your business! It is for you to lift the axe and smite the deadly tree! You have a tremendous power which you can bring to bear, not only on the spiritual, but on the civil interests of man: every prayer you breathe may exert influence on the political destiny of the nation! I call upon you, therefore, to do your utmost in the propagation of the Christian faith; in the name of God, I forbid you to relax any spiritual effort. Toil on, and in due time there shall be but one kingdom and one King; He shall come, whose right is to reign—on His head shall the crown flourish. Freedom and peace shall unfurl their banners; brotherhood and charity shall wake their sweetest music; then shall a cry be heard, loud as the roar of the thunder, the rush of the whirlwind, and the anthem of the sea, Alleluia! The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ.—Dr. Joseph Parker.

Joh_18:36. The majesty and sanctity of living for the invisible.—Oh that I could pour in upon the young the majesty and sanctity of living for the invisible—that is to say, for honour, and truth, and fidelity! Oh that I could make you feel how essentially brittle, how friable, how perishable, are all material sources of strength! God is the centre of life, and spiritual realities are the only things that will endure. Stone and iron, and silver and gold, and timber, and cities, and nations, and outward things are but pictures, painted soon to fade away; while truth and love, and fidelity, and purity shall last for ever and for ever.—H. W. Beecher.

Joh_18:37. Christ the promised spiritual king.—In the sublime vision of the prophet Daniel (chap. 7) a grand and striking prophetic picture is given of the conquering might and the glorious establishment of Christ’s kingdom. And it was because of their misunderstanding the spiritual drift and meaning of such prophecies, because they translated with gross literality those grand prophetic promises, that the Jewish people as a whole failed to realise the true greatness of the Saviour and rejected Him as their king. But with kingly dignity our Lord referred all those majestic prophetic visions to Himself and His kingdom. He claimed to be the king of a great spiritual dominion—a gathering-place for all the nations, to which they should come from north, south, east, and west. It was to be unlike the kingdoms of the world, represented as those are in the vision of the prophet by fierce beasts, which war with and destroy each other, which are therefore passing and temporary. His great and universal dominion has its origin in another sphere than that of earth. When the need of earth was greatest, when the groaning of enslaved humanity rose loud and woeful, then God came to judgment on the kingdoms of the world. And then, behold, one like the Son of man came on the clouds of heaven; and to Him from the Ancient of Days was given dominion and glory, and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him, etc. (Dan_7:14.) Such is the dominion Christ claims as His. It is not of this world. It is advanced by no material force. And its king come to men not in the guise of a conqueror, in regal, warlike splendour, but meek and lowly as the Son of man.

Joh_18:37. “For to me to live is Christ” the motto of Christ’s subjects.—You have seen a young man whose spirit yearns for the salvation of his race; he is educated and mentally strong; his home is a scene of happiness, parents and relatives hold him in highest regard; were he to employ his talents in his fatherland, they might ensure him competence, and perhaps renown; but he is determined to realise his convictions of duty; he is ready to sever the strong attachments which bind him to the land of his birth, and brave the innumerable perils which may beset his enterprise—forasmuch as his kingdom is not of this world. You find in such a youth an illustration of a principle already enunciated; he is not destitute of interest in the political progress of his nation, far less is he wanting in affection to those who gave him life—but he cannot make a kingdom of such considerations; he renders to them the attention due to their respective merits, but in his estimation there are claims whose importance is infinitely greater. His life-cry is, “For to me to live is Christ; everything must subordinate itself to Christ. Christ is the fairest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely; he redeemed me with His blood, and shall be served with undivided energy, for in serving Him I am most effectually promoting the well-being of all the objects of my love.”—Dr. Joseph Parker.

Joh_18:37. The future is Christ’s.—Think, then. Who in the past has been loved more than Jesus Christ? His disciples left all for Him—they had to choose; on the one side His love and the most terrible sacrifices, on the other earthly happiness and the most legitimate affections. Jesus has won them! Explain by what miracle this love has been enkindled after them among millions of men who have never seen Jesus Christ; for, do not deceive yourselves, this is the feeling which inspired in the Church of the first centuries that heroic devotion, that love, which was not extinguished by the most savage and atrocious persecution. And if you pass over those eighteen centuries, who to-day is loved more than Jesus Christ? who occupies in the affections of men so great a place? And for us who love Him, is Jesus simply an individual of the past, a beautiful and touching figure, of which history has preserved the remembrance for us? Is He not, on the contrary, the Being whom we consider the most living and present? Is the love of which He is the object an abstraction? and has it not, like the most loving affections, its sorrows and trials, its anguish in our falls, its joys in our rising again? Are we the objects of a fantastic hallucination when we feel His invisible presence, when the view of His holiness fills us with trouble in the midst of our wicked pleasures, when repentant and ashamed we go to weep upon His breast, when repulsed by the world we experience His consolations filling our souls? And if we were alone in the experience of this love! But have you thought on the matter? This love has shined to all parts of the world. We see ourselves in the presence of an inexplicable problem if He is not divine. We see, as I have said, men who have received from their likes an idolatrous attachment. Every people has its heroes. But He whom we have not seen is a man who in every country, at all times, and among races the most diverse, has been able to awaken in the depths of men’s hearts the same emotions and the same love. Is it not certain that the heroes of one race have often no renown among other races, because each of them possesses the exclusive type of his nationality? and gains his influence just from that cause that limits it at the same time? Endeavour to get men among our European races to admire the heroes, the demigods which the East adores, and even were it a possibility that their religion could be established, endeavour to make men love them. But Christ alone has had this marvellous power of making Himself beloved everywhere across time and space even. Every tongue raises to Him a song of love and adoration. Those divine emotions that fill my soul in listening to Him were felt by Origen and Augustine fifteen hundred years ago under an African sky; and to-day in his distant hut an Esquimaux of the polar regions, or a poor negro, shall experience them as I do. At this moment, on this Sabbath day, wherever the Church is gathered together, millions of hearts are moved at the name of Christ by the same feelings as you have; and if all those voices could make themselves heard, you would know in a measure the extent of His kingdom.… Gather together in thought all those whom this love has saved, ignorant and wise, great and small, of the world; children in whose innocent souls has been felt a mysterious attraction toward Jesus, and who in dying have gone to His arms—sinners who have fallen to the depth of the abyss, souls sorrowful and groaning. Behold athwart the centuries this cortege of worshippers who are increasing day by day, and, before this universal testimony of hearts who love Him, recognise Him for whom all hearts have been made. He said, “I am a King”; and see a redeemed humanity who reply to Him by proclaiming His kingdom. What royalty, what a domination, what an empire! To be loved in all the centuries, loved everywhere, loved even to the death, loved ever more deeply: behold the kingdom of Christ. And people ask us yet why we believe in His divinity! Oh, wise men of this world, who believe that His reign is ended, and who see in Him nothing but a master of the past who has been superseded—you who think that the criticism of the schools will do that which eighteen centuries of attack have not been able to do, and reduce the Gospel to powder! you know not how much Christ is loved, you know not what place He occupies in the heart of the world. Yes; in the Church of to-day, so feeble, so faithless and worldly, however, you do not know all that is seen to shine forth of devotion and heroism on the day when for confessing Jesus Christ all must be left behind, even life itself. I do not know what the future has in store for us. I do not know what those doctrines which this generation tolerates with a soft complaisance will bring forth, this materialism which denies freedom in God and responsibility in man, this insulting disdain of the unseen world, this proud confidence in the forces of humanity, this fanatic atheism which regards as hypocrisy or imbecility faith, prayer, the supernatural.… I know not if the Church will be called to go through a new baptism of suffering and persecution. At all events, it is not on the simple progress of toleration, nor on the native goodness of man, that I count to make such excesses impossible. I remember that no epoch, more so than the last century, preached the goodness of man and toleration; and I recall the fact also as to the way in which the century ended. But if the storm must come, let it come, let it come. For if it will remove from the Church all the unreal homage, all the false regard, which a generation who laughs in secret at the faith lavishes upon it, what will it matter? In this inevitable defection the world will learn at least how much Christ is loved; it will see all this that draws to Him faith, devotion, and hope; it will see that He is yet the King of souls, and that, to snatch Him from the love of the Church, it would be necessary to snatch away the heart of humanity. Lord, the future is Thine. The kingdom has been given to Thee, and Thy kingdom will come. But how shall it serve us to proclaim Thy kingdom if Thou hast not first triumphed in our hearts? Ah! let us submit them—these hearts worldly and rebellious—break down our resistance, our pride, our egoism; and reign at least over those whom Thou hast gained, who are waiting for those days in which we believe Thou wilt reign over a world at peace, and when all men shall bow the knee before Thee.—Translated from Eug. Bersier.

Joh_18:38. None are by nature “of the truth.”—The expression “every one that is of the truth” betokens an inward preparation for conversion which no one, however, experiences without the operation of “preventing grace.” No one is by nature of the truth; but all men, as the Scriptures say, are liars, since they love darkness rather than light, because the light reproves them for their sins and disturbs their repose; and because they press error to their bosoms and shut themselves up against the entrance of truth, which menaces their sensual pleasures with danger and urges them to a life of self-denial. Thus, as St. Paul once expressed it, they “hold the truth in unrighteousness.” But as soon as the Spirit, which, like the wind, bloweth where it listeth, gains room, the love of delusion gives way to the ardent desire to be freed from it, and studious self-deception to the willingness to “prove all things, and to hold fast that which is good.” Before the honest, serious inquiry after truth and peace the visionary forms of these false ideas vanish to which the poor soul had been previously attached. But when, by the operation of the Spirit of God, we have attained to this simplicity of heart, we become joined to those who are of the truth. Then, if the divine Teacher utters His voice, how does our inmost soul echo to the sound of His light and life-giving words! If He then says, “Come unto Me, ye that are weary and heavy laden,” how gladly do we accept the gracious invitation! If He then unveils His glory and beauty, how do our longing souls rush into His arms rejoicing! If He then displays the standard of His cross, how do we not hasten to it, to build tabernacles under its peaceful shadow!—F. W. Krummacher, “Suffering Saviour.”

Joh_18:39-40. Satan’s children.—Whence sprang the weeds in the history of our Lord’s passion? Whence the thistles even among the weeping willows and olive trees of Gethsemane? Whence the thorns on Golgotha? That the enemy had done. When the members of the Sanhedrin set up false witnesses, and made them assert that Jesus had arrogantly said He would destroy and build up the temple again; when on the declaration of Jesus that He was the Son of God and the judge of the world, they answered in hypocritical anger, “Now we have heard His blasphemy,” etc. (Mat_26:65); when they, the guardians of the law and the protectors of religion, were given a choice between Jesus and Barabbas, and when asked, Which of these two will ye have? urged the people to demand the release of the murderer and to slay the Lamb; when out of the poisoned spring of envy they drew the resolve to storm the vacillating governor with the cry, “Crucify, crucify!” and determined on the murder of the Righteous, invoking a mad curse upon their own heads.… “His blood be on us and on our children,” … were those who did this of the viper’s brood, Satan’s children, descendants of Cain?—their lips were lying, their hands were murderous.—Translated from Dr. R. Kögel.

The old saying that the voice of the people is the voice of God receives an instructive commentary in the vote for Barabbas and against Jesus. That was what a plebiscite for the discovery of the people’s favourite came to. What a reliable method of finding the best man universal suffrage, manipulated by wire-pullers like these priests, is! and how wise the people are who let it guide their judgments, or, still wiser, who fret their lives out in angling for its approval! Better be condemned with Jesus than adopted with Barabbas.—Dr. A. Maclaren.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

John

ART THOU A KING?

Joh 18:28 - Joh 18:40.

John evidently intends to supplement the synoptic Gospels’ account. He tells of Christ’s appearance before Annas, but passes by that before Caiaphas, though he shows his knowledge of it. Similarly he touches lightly on the public hearing before Pilate, but gives us in detail the private conversation in this section, which he alone records. We may suppose that he was present at both the hearing before Annas and the interview within the palace between Jesus and Herod, for he would not be deterred from entering, as the Jews were, and there seems to have been no other impediment in the way. The passage has three stages-the fencing between the Sanhedrists and Pilate, the ‘good confession before Pontius Pilate,’ and the preference of Barabbas to Jesus.

I. The passage of arms between the priests and the governor.

‘It was early,’ probably before 6 A.M. A hurried meeting of the Sanhedrim had condemned Jesus to death, and the next thing was to get the Roman authority to carry out the sentence. The necessity of appeal to it was a bitter pill, but it had to be swallowed, for the right of capital punishment had been withdrawn. A ‘religious’ scruple, too, stood in the way-very characteristic of such formalists. Killing an innocent man would not in the least defile them, or unfit for eating the passover, but to go into a house that had not been purged of ‘leaven,’ and was further unclean as the residence of a Gentile, though he was the governor, that would stain their consciences-a singular scale of magnitude, which saw no sin in condemning Jesus, and great sin in going into Pilate’s palace! Perhaps some of our conventional sins are of a like sort.

Pilate was, probably, not over-pleased at being roused so early, nor at having to defer to a scruple which would to him look like insolence; and through all his bearing to the Sanhedrim a certain irritation shows itself, which sometimes flashes out in sarcasm, but is for the most part kept down. His first question is, perhaps, not so simple as it looks, for he must have had some previous knowledge of the case, since Roman soldiers had been used for the arrest. But, clearly, those who brought him a prisoner were bound to be the prosecutors.

Whether or not Pilate knew that his question was embarrassing, the rulers felt it so. Why did they not wish to formulate a charge? Partly from pride. They hugged the delusion that their court was competent to condemn, and wanted, as we all often do, to shut their eyes to a plain fact, as if ignoring it annihilated it. Partly because the charge on which they had condemned Jesus-that of blasphemy in calling Himself ‘the Son of God’-was not a crime known to Roman law, and to allege it would probably have ended in the whole matter being scornfully dismissed. So they stood on their dignity and tried to bluster. ‘We have condemned Him; that is enough. We look to you to carry out the sentence at our bidding.’ So the ‘ecclesiastical authority’ has often said to the ‘secular arm’ since then, and unfortunately the civil authority has not always been as wise as Pilate was.

He saw an opening to get rid of the whole matter, and with just a faint flavour of irony suggests that, as they have ‘a law’-which he, no doubt, thought of as a very barbarous code-they had better go by it, and punish as well as condemn. That sarcastic proposal compelled them to acknowledge their subjection. Pilate had given the reins the least touch, but enough to make them feel the bit; and though it went sore against the grain, they will own their master rather than lose their victim. So their reluctant lips say, ‘It is not lawful for us.’ Pilate has brought them on their knees at last, and they forget their dignity, and own the truth. Malicious hatred will eat any amount of dirt and humiliation to gain its ends, especially if it calls itself religious zeal.

John sees in the issue of this first round in the duel between Pilate and the rulers the sequence of events which brought about the fulfilment of our Lord’s prediction of His crucifixion, since that was not a Jewish mode of execution. This encounter of keen wits becomes tragical and awful when we remember Who it was that these men were wrangling about.

II. We have Jesus and Pilate; the ‘good confession,’ and the indifferent answer.

We must suppose that, unwillingly, the rulers had brought the accusation that Jesus had attempted rebellion against Rome. John omits that, because he takes it for granted that it is known. It is implied in the conversation which now ensued. We must note as remarkable that Pilate does not conduct his first examination in the presence of the rulers, but has Jesus brought to him in the palace. Perhaps he simply wished to annoy the accusers, but more probably his Roman sense of justice combined with his wish to assert his authority, and perhaps with a suspicion that there was something strange about the whole matter-and not least strange that the Sanhedrim, who were not enthusiastic supporters of Rome, should all at once display such loyalty-to make him wish to have the prisoner by himself, and try to fathom the business. With Roman directness he went straight to the point: ‘Art Thou the King of the Jews, as they have been saying?’ There is emphasis on ‘Thou’-the emphasis which a practical Roman official would be likely to put as he looked at the weak, wearied, evidently poor and helpless man bound before him. There is almost a touch of pity in the question, and certainly the beginning of the conviction that this was not a very formidable rival to Caesar.

The answer to be given depended on the sense in which Pilate asked the question, to bring out which is the object of Christ’s question in reply. If Pilate was asking of himself, then what he meant by ‘a king’ was one of earth’s monarchs after the emperor’s pattern, and the answer would be ‘No.’ If he was repeating a Jewish charge, then, ‘a king’ might mean the prophetic King of Israel, who was no rival of earthly monarchs, and the answer would be ‘Yes,’ but that ‘Yes’ would give Pilate no more reason to crucify Him than the ‘No’ would have given.

Pilate is getting tired of fencing, and impatiently answers, with true Roman contempt for subject-people’s thoughts as well as their weapons. ‘I . . . a Jew?’ is said with a curl of the firm lips. He points to his informants, ‘Thine own nation and the chief priests,’ and does not say that their surrender of a would-be leader in a war of independence struck him as suspicious. But he brushes aside the cobwebs which he felt were being spun round him, and comes to the point, ‘What hast Thou done?’ He is supremely indifferent to ideas and vagaries of enthusiasts. This poor man before him may call Himself anything He chooses, but his only concern is with overt acts. Strange to ask the Prisoner what He had done! It had been well for Pilate if he had held fast by that question, and based his judgment resolutely on its answer! He kept asking it all through the case, he never succeeded in getting an answer; he was convinced that Jesus had done nothing worthy of death, and yet fear, and a wish to curry favour with the rulers, drove him to stain the judge’s robe with innocent blood, from which he vainly sought to cleanse his hands.

Our Lord’s double answer claims a kingdom, but first shows what it is not, and then what it is. It is ‘not of this world,’ though it is in this world, being established and developed here, but having nothing in common with earthly dominions, nor being advanced by their weapons or methods. Pilate could convince himself that this ‘kingdom’ bore no menace to Rome, from the fact that no resistance had been offered to Christ’s capture. But the principle involved in these great words goes far beyond their immediate application. It forbids Christ’s ‘servants’ to assimilate His kingdom to the world, or to use worldly powers as the means for the kingdom’s advancement. The history of the Church has sadly proved how hard it is for Christian men to learn the lesson, and how fatal to the energy and purity of the Church the forgetfulness of it has been. The temptation to such assimilation besets all organised Christianity, and is as strong to-day as when Constantine gave the Church the paralysing gift of ‘establishing’ it as a kingdom ‘of this world.’

Pilate did pick out of this saying an increased certainty that he had nothing to fear from this strange ‘King’; and half-amused contempt for a dreamer, and half-pitying wonder at such lofty claims from such a helpless enthusiast, prompted his question, ‘Art Thou a king then?’ One can fancy the scornful emphasis on that ‘Thou.’ and can understand how grotesquely absurd the notion of his prisoner’s being a king must have seemed.

Having made clear part of the sense in which the avowal was to be taken, our Lord answered plainly ‘Yes.’ Thus before the high-priest, He declared Himself to be the Son of God, and before Pilate He claimed to be King, at each tribunal putting forward the claim which each was competent to examine-and, alas! at each meeting similar levity and refusal to inquire seriously into the validity of the claim. The solemn revelation to Pilate of the true nature of His kingdom and of Himself the King fell on careless ears. A deeper mystery than Pilate dreamed of lay beneath the double designation of His origin; for He not only had been ‘born’ like other men, but had ‘come into the world,’ having ‘come forth from the Father,’ and having been before He was born. It was scarcely possible that Pilate should apprehend the meaning of that duplication, but some vague impression of a mysterious personality might reach him, and Jesus would not have fully expressed His own consciousness if He had simply said, ‘I was born.’ Let us see that we keep firm hold of all which that utterance implies and declares.

The end of the Incarnation is to ‘bear witness to the truth.’ That witness is the one weapon by which Christ’s kingdom is established. That witness is not given by words only, precious as these are, but by deeds which are more than words. These witnessing deeds are not complete till Calvary and the empty grave and Olivet have witnessed at once to the perfect incarnation of divine love, to the perfect Sacrifice for the world’s sin, to the Victor over death, and to the opening of heaven to all believers. Jesus is ‘the faithful and true Witness,’ as John calls Him, not without reminiscences of this passage, just because He is ‘the First-begotten of the dead.’ As here He told Pilate that He was a ‘king,’ because a ‘witness,’ so John, in the passage referred to, bases His being ‘Prince of the kings of the earth’ on the same fact.

How little Pilate knew that he was standing at the very crisis of his fate! A yielding to the impression that was slightly touching his heart and conscience, and he, too, might have ‘heard’ Christ’s voice. But he was not ‘of the truth,’ though he might have been if he had willed, and so the words were wind to him, and he brushed aside all the mist, as he thought it, with the light question, which summed up a Roman man of the world’s indifference to ideas, and belief in solid facts like legions and swords. ‘What is truth?’ may be the cry of a seeking soul, or the sneer of a confirmed sceptic, or the shrug of indifference of the ‘practical man.’

It was the last in Pilate’s case, as is shown by his not waiting for an answer, but ending the conversation with it as a last shot. It meant, too, that he felt quite certain that this man, with his high-strained, unpractical talk about a kingdom resting on such a filmy nothing, was absolutely harmless. Therefore the only just thing for him to have done was to have gone out to the impatient crowd and said so, and flatly refused to do the dirty work of the priests for them, by killing an innocent man. But he was too cowardly for that, and, no doubt, thought that the murder of one poor Jew was a small price to pay for popularity with his troublesome subjects. Still, like all weak men, he was not easy in his conscience, and made a futile attempt to get the right thing done, and yet not to suffer for doing it. The rejection of Barabbas is touched very lightly by John, and must be left unnoticed here. The great contribution to our knowledge which John makes is this private interview between the King who reigns by the truth, and the representative of earthly rule, based on arms and worldly forces.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER 26.

JESUS AT PILATE’S BAR

Mat 27:1-14; Mar 15:1-5; Luk 23:1-5; Joh 18:28-38. “Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas into the judgment-hall.”

When I was in Jerusalem last November and December, I went directly from the Sanhedrin hall, on Mount Zion in the west, to Pilate’s judgment- hall, north-east wall, on the intervening slope between Mount Moriah and Bezetha. “And it was morning.” Thus Jesus has been up all night, dragged hither and thither, abused and afflicted by His enemies, and must be awfully fatigued and exhausted. “And they did not go into the judgment- hall, in order that they may not be polluted, but may eat the Passover.” This illustrates the nonsense into which Satan runs religious people when they give him a chance. Here they are so fearful of contracting ceremonial defilement that they will not so much as enter the Gentile judgment-hall; while they are already guilty of the blackest murder ever concocted in the bottomless pit. You must not think that these things are peculiar to the ancient times. The world is full of them now.

“Then Pilate came out to them, and said, What accusation do you bring against this Man? They responded and said, If He were not an evildoer, we had not delivered Him to thee. Then Pilate said to them, You indeed take Him, and judge Him according to your law. Then the Jews said to him, It is not lawful for us to kill any one, in order that the word of Jesus may be fulfilled, which He spoke, signifying by what death He was about to die.” Very early in our Lord’s ministry (Joh 3:14), in the case of the brazen serpent, He predicted the manner of His death by crucifixion. This was a Roman punishment, the Jews having no such a law. Consequently He was delivered by the Jews to the Romans for execution. You see here the dilemma in which the Jews were involved.

a. Having condemned Him to die for blasphemy, they now wake up to the fact that Judea is no longer free, but a Roman province, the prerogative of capital punishment having already passed out of the hands of the Jews and become the sole right of the Romans. Consequently they have to take Him to Pilate, the Roman proconsul.

b. By the time they arrive at Pilate’s judgment-hall, they have awakened to the fact that the Romans have no law against blasphemy, for which they have condemned Jesus to die. Consequently they see that it will be utterly unavailable to bring this charge against Him before a Roman court. Therefore they have no bill of charges to present to Pilate justifying the commitment of a prisoner to his adjudication.

c. Now they find themselves in a serious puzzle, as the overwhelming probability favors the conclusion that if they present to Pilate the prisoner charged with nothing but blasphemy, on which Roman legislation is utterly Silent, Pilate will simply throw the case out of court, refuse to adjudicate, and drive them all away from his tribunal, as Gallio did at Corinth (Acts 18) when Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, brought Paul to him for condemnation, having no charge against him except matters pertaining to their own religion, which the proconsul looked upon as superstition, and consequently, threw it out of court, driving the Jews away from his tribunal, when the Gentile multitude became so disgusted with the foolish persecutions of the Jews against an innocent man that they took Sosthenes and gave him a good thrashing, which seems to have proved a blessing to him, as we only hear of him once more (1 Corinthians 1), when he is associated with Paul in the evangelistic work at Ephesus, having been converted and turned missionary.

d. The final result of all this tergiversation is, that they drop the charge of blasphemy altogether, and take up a new one, on which there had been no action, committing Him to Pilate under the accusation of high treason, claiming to be King of the Jews, and consequently a rival of the Roman emperor.

Luk 23:2. “And they began to accuse Him, saying, We found Him revolutionizing the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is, Christ a King.” You see how adroitly they manipulated the matter. As the Scriptures denominate Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King, they construe Him as claiming to be King, and consequently a rival of Caesar.

Joh 18:33-38. “Then Pilate went again into the judgment-hall, and spoke to Jesus, and said to Him, Art Thou the King of the Jews? Jesus responded to him, Do you speak this of yourself, or did others tell you concerning Me? Pilate responded, Whether am I a Jew? Thy nation and the chief priests delivered Thee to me; what hast Thou done Jesus responded, My kingdom is not from this world , If My kingdom were from this world, My servants would fight for Me, in order that I may not be delivered to the Jews. But now My kingdom is not from thence.” This statement of our Savior in reference to His kingdom is frequently quoted as an argument against the coming Millennial Theocracy; but a moment’s reflection reveals the utter impertinency of such an application. Of course, God’s kingdom is not of this world, but of heaven; but that is no reason why, it should, not bear rule over this world. The kingdom of God is here now; yet it is not of this world. The kingdom of Satan is here; not of this world, but of hell, and a usurpation on the earth. When Satan is east out and imprisoned in hell (Revelation 20), thus all obstructions to the heavenly kingdom being removed, the latter, will, so wonderfully prevail on the earth as to receive a boundless, new impetus, not eliminating grace, but adding to it glory, when

“He shall have dominion over river, sea, and shore, Far as the eagle’s pinion or dove’s light wing can soar.”

“Then Pilate said to Him, Art Thou not then a King? Jesus responded, Thou sayest that I am.” N.B. — This is an Oriental form of positive affirmation, Jesus admitting to Pilate that He is King. “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, that I may witness to the truth.” His is significantly a kingdom of truth, in contradistinction to Satan’s kingdom of falsehood and error. “Every one being of the truth heareth My voice.” Poor Pilate was not of the truth. He was a corrupt thieving politician, therefore he did not hear the voice of Jesus, but came to a miserable end, dying a suicide in lonely exile, having been degraded and banished by Caligula, the Roman emperor.

“Pilate says to Him, What is truth?” Pilate took up the idea that He was a dreamy, visionary philosopher, gone wild with hard study, imagining that He was a King, and that He had found out the truth, as so many Greek sages claimed to have done; meanwhile he had no confidence in His claims to have discovered the truth. Consequently, when he asked the question, he goes right away, not waiting for an answer.

“Saying this again, he went out to the Jews, and tells them, I find nothing criminal in Him.” The Roman Empire had conquered all the world, and was at that time ruling all nations. The very idea that a poor prisoner in bonds, without an army to defend Him, should claim to be King of the Jews was, in Pilate’s judgment, sheer nonsense. Consequently he looks upon the royal claims of his prisoner as simply a matter of ridicule. Believing Him to be a harmless fanatic, dreaming that He is King of the Jews, therefore he makes short work of the judgment by bringing in a verdict of innocence.

Mat 27:12-14. “And while He was being accused by the high priests and elders, He responded nothing. Then Pilate says to Him, Do You not hear how many things they witness against You? And He responded to him not a word, so that the governor was astonished exceedingly.” Will you not follow the example of Jesus, when people falsely accuse you, and keep silent? Let them tell; ever so many scandals on you, give them no attention whatever; and they will soon get ashamed and let you alone, and in all probability make a specialty of showing you kindness.

Luk 23:4-5. “Pilate said to the chief priests and the multitudes, I find nothing criminal in this Man. And they continued to become more and more uproarious, saying that He revolutionizes the people, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee even unto this place.” The sun having risen about five is rapidly climbing the Oriental skies, and pouring down, the day from the summit of great Mount Olivet. His enemies, having worked hard all night to get Him condemned and killed before day, lest the people rally and fight, for Him, are now in an awful dilemma. They have Him on hand and are determined to kill Him; meanwhile the people are pouring in from all directions, and they awfully fear an outbreak, in which they will very likely be killed.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Section 3. (Joh 18:28-40; Joh 19:1-16.)

Hearts made manifest.

1. In the third section the Lord answers for Himself before Pilate; and this is proportionately much dwelt upon, and particulars given which we do not find elsewhere. It is evident that what we are shown is the searching out of the Roman’s conscience in the light of the Presence before which he stands. Judge and accused change places; and, hard as the governor may be -a man stained with many crimes, he yet compares favorably with Israel’s leaders, blinded and darkened with the light they have shut out. That Pilate shrank, though vainly, from what the insane fury of the Jews forced upon him is plain in all the Gospels; but John shows us the under-workings of a convicted soul, as no other does, and the Lord’s compassionate faithfulness towards the, miserable victim of his own self-treachery. Hearts are made manifest all through, and the Light shines upon all the clouds that would obscure it. Even the refusal of the people to take the matter into their own hands, when Pilate would put it in them, only works, as is noted, for the fulfilment of the word of Jesus. Crucifixion was not a Jewish punishment. The "hanging upon a tree" was with them after death, and not a mode of inflicting this: but with death all was ended for the Lord; and the rich man’s sepulchre begins His vindication.

2. Before Pilate the Lord answers at once, when He is questioned, that He is King of the Jews. But He asks, Is this his own question? -has he personal interest in it? Of Messiah he must have heard, and of all the hopes that were connected with it; more surely still, of a reign of righteousness and truth to replace the long oppression, and bring peace at last to a weary, if not sin-weary world. Was the intervention of God anything, -even an alarm perhaps, to one of the world’s rulers? But Pilate puts off the question as a mere Jewish one: let him look at how his own case stands as a man accused by his own people; what reason had they? The Lord answers him, but keeps His steady pressure upon the conscience, already uneasy, of the real criminal before Him the real Judge. He lets Pilate know that His Kingdom is not of this world, -has not its origin or nature from the world: else would, He not have been left, unarmed and without a struggle, to the merciless hands that had been laid upon Him. Had His followers, -out of all the crowds that had gathered round Him, -been organized into such a force as would be needed for the establishment of a kingdom such as Rome could fear or take into account? His Kingdom plainly was not like one of these.

But then He really was a King? the Roman questioned. And the Lord answers that indeed He is a King: that His birth and coming into the world (and here a gleam of His divine nature flashes out) was to bear witness to the truth. Truth, in a false and hollow world, to establish this was the purpose of His life and mission. By this would He establish also His kingdom over the hearts and minds-of men. Truth is one, decisive, imperial: he that would learn it must be subject" to it. And here Christ drops a word for the conscience of His hearer, "Every one who is of the truth heareth My voice."

Pilate answers like the sceptical Roman that he is, "What is truth?" Alas, their Pantheon of captured gods had had bitter fruit in their rough conquerors. They had learned to believe in gods no more, save in him who had over-topped them all, their emperor; and in him the farce was but too transparent. And yet here was

a word to get behind even such defences: for, if he knew not what was truth, he could know, at least, whether he was "of" it. And, if to be true were needful for such knowledge, was the lack of this, perhaps, what made truth appear such an unattainable thing?

3. Something, at least, makes Pilate uneasy; he stays for no answer, but goes off to the multitude, to declare that he can find no fault with Jesus. His business was, in that case, only to release Him; but he seeks compromise with his conscience, instead of yielding to it, and, in what seems to him a way of escape from a difficult situation, puts the whole matter into the people’s hands. Thus he makes it almost impossible to return to the path of righteousness from which he has departed, and proclaims himself openly as not of the truth.

But the people reveal themselves in a worse fashion still, and do what even a Pilate believes impossible. It is this impossibility upon which he reckons, only to find that he has shut for himself the door of escape which he had hoped to find. They immediately avail themselves of the opportunity to show their preference of a robber and murderer to their own glorious King. We have noticed elsewhere how strangely yet significantly this name Bar-Abbas, "son of the father," comes in here. It was the Son of the Father, just as that, -whom they were refusing now; but of what father was this lawless one the son? A shadow it is, surely, of their awful apostasy to come, when they will receive him who comes in his own name, true child of the rebel and "murderer from the beginning" of whom the Lord had warned some before, in words which had cut deep into those who heard them, that they were the spiritual children. The works of their father they were indeed now doing.

Pilate, now in their hands, gives up Jesus to be scourged; hoping, however, as it would seem, by this according to his former proposal (Luk 23:22), to appease the people, that he might then release Him. In every compromise of this sort he only and miserably fails. John does not dwell upon all this: he mentions the scourging, the crown of thorns, the mockery of the purple robe; but these very briefly. By all this, Pilate vainly endeavors to awaken sympathy in behalf of the One whom again, to his own condemnation, he declares to be without fault. We may be sure, from his known character, he would have gladly found what would have justified him in pursuing with good will the course upon which he was now being urged unwillingly. Yet he emphatically reiterates that he finds no fault in Him. Israel it is who hound Him to the death; crying out what death, -the most cruel and ignominious one, -they have chosen for Him. "Take ye Him and crucify Him," Pilate answers" for I find no fault in Him." Then they bring out their real accusation: "We have a law, and by our law He ought to die because He made Himself the Son of God." He must die, because He is what He is, and affirms it. He must die for the grace which has made Him become Man!

4. But Pilate is stricken again by such an accusation: for the legends of heathen superstition are revived at the suggestion, and he remembers, no doubt, that gods and sons of the gods had visited men, according to current beliefs, which he had perhaps too rashly discredited. Did He not carry Himself as if indeed divine? And there were other influences, as the dream of his wife, to make him tremble. He calls Him once more before him, and with an unaccustomed awe upon his spirit, asks Him, "Who art Thou?" He is not a weak man (save as the slave of his own lusts is weak); he is not easily moved to pity; nor is it pity now. He had mingled the blood of the Galileans with their sacrifices, and could have trampled these Jews down now remorselessly, had he not been in hands for the moment stronger than his own. So the Lord plainly and compassionately tells him now. He would have had no authority at all against Him, had it not been given him from above. God, (though moved in a way far different from men,) God had delivered Him up; and, alas! the Jew had found in this his opportunity, misconceive it as he might, to pour out the enmity of his heart upon the very One of whom all the ages prophesied, and whom he had been prepared by the voice of heaven’s messengers continuously uttered to expect. The Jew had then, indeed, a greater sin than Pilate’s: the actual traitor was but the representative of his nation then.

5. Pilate is shaken more than ever by the Lord’s words, and again seeks to release Him; but he is not master of himself, and cannot be of others. The Jews know the man, and know their opportunity, and bring to bear upon him an argument that makes him plastic in their hands at once. God is a possibility indeed, but Rome is a certainty, and nearer at hand. "If thou let this Man go," they cry, "thou art not Caesar’s friend; every one that maketh himself a king declareth against Caesar."

"Pilate’s playing with the situation," observes Lange, "is now past; now the situation plays with him. First he said -not asked, -What is truth? Now his frightened heart, to which the emperor’s favor is the supreme law of life, says, What is justice?" He takes his place on the judgment-seat, therefore, and with what seems something between a taunt and a faint, final plea, says to the Jews, "Behold your King!" But they are only stung to madness: "Away! away with Him!" they cry, "Crucify Him!" "Shall I crucify your King?" he asks again; and now they are made in divine government to pass upon themselves the judgment under which they have ever since been lying: the chief priests answer, "We have no king but Caesar."

It was not the verdict of the Jews alone, and they have not suffered alone. The whole world has been lying under the yoke which they have preferred to the easy yoke of Christ. They have often got very tired of Caesar, -true; and, as we see by their fitful movements every now and then, would fain be rid of him. They are always crying, "Give us better government;" but all they can do is, with doubtful betterment, to divide him up into many little Caesars; better, as they think, because weaker, and with divided interests, so that the balance of power may secure the even weights of justice. That is still an experiment, some think; but this chronic war is never peace, not can be; and the reason is, men have refused the Prince of peace. Modify it, rename it, disguise it, as you please, the reign of Caesar is the only alternative.

The struggle on Pilate’s part is ended; he consents to the people’s verdict; the Lord of life is adjudged to death, -to the death of the Cross.

F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18:28 The trial before Caiaphas ended in the early hours of the morning. Since they did not have the power of capital punishment (18:31), the Sanhedrin needed to enlist Pilate, the Roman governor, to carry out an execution. • it would defile them: They did not want to become ritually unclean by contact with Gentiles in Pilate’s headquarters. So Pilate, probably fearing a riot, went outside to meet them. • The Passover meal itself had occurred the night before (see 13:1; Mark 14:14-16). The following day, another meal began the weeklong Festival of Unleavened Bread (Lev 23:5-6).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Joh 18:28. Αὐτοὶ) they themselves.—ἳνα μὴ μιανθῶσιν, lest they should be defiled) as Pilate’s house was not cleared out of leaven: Deu 16:4, “There shall be no leavened bread seen with thee in all thy coasts seven days.”—φάγωσι τὸ πάσχα, that they might eat the Passover) So 2Ch 30:22, ויאכלו המועד, “They ate the feast seven days.”[385] [This observation of John is not opposed to that view whereby we have shown that the Jews ate the Passover on the evening which formed the commencement of the Friday; i.e. at the close or evening of Thursday. (See note of the Gnom. on Mat 26:17.) In fact, the word Πάσχα, in the strict sense, means only the Passover lamb, not a bull, etc.[386] But when the Passover in general is mentioned, by the Passover lamb, as being the principal part (Deu 16:1, “Keep the Passover,” with which comp. Joh 18:2, “sacrifice the Passover of the flock and the herd”), the whole feast is meant by Synecdoche (a part for the whole); namely, on the same principle as Σάββατον, the Sabbath, means both the seventh day of the week in the strict sense, and by consequence the whole week. To these considerations Lightfoot (Hor. on this passage) adds, that the defilement by entering the Pretorium or judgment-hall would last only up to evening, and that therefore would not prevent them, after being cleansed, from eating the Paschal lamb. Since, then, in this passage, the Evangelist is speaking of such an eating of the Passover as the Jews would have been excluded from before the evening by any defilement, no doubt a different part of the feast from the actual feast of the Passover lamb is indicated.—Harm., p. 544, et seqq.] Τὸ πάσχα cannot be the Accusative of time, during the Feast. For though defiled, they might eat common food. [Therefore it could not be ordinary eating, but eating the Passover, which this passage implies that defilement would have excluded them from.]

[385] But Engl. Vers. “They did eat throughout the feast.—E. and T.

[386] No other animal but a lamb would be expressed by Πάσχα, even though two young bullocks were sacrificed on the first day: Num 28:19.—E. and T.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh_18:28. Εἰς τὸ πραιτώριον] into the praetorium, where the procurator dwelt, whether it was the palace of Herod (so usually), or, more probably, a building in the tower of Antonia (so Ewald). Comp. on Mat_27:27 : Mar_15:16.

πρωΐ] i.e. in the fourth watch of the night (see on Mat_14:25), therefore toward daybreak. Pilate might expect them so early, since he had in fact ordered the σπεῖρα, Joh_18:3, on duty.

αὐτοί] They themselves did not go in, but caused Jesus only to be brought in by the soldiers, Joh_18:3.

ἵνα μὴ μιανθῶσιν, ἀλλʼ ἵνα φάγ. τὸ πάσχα] On the emphatic repetition of the ἵνα, comp. Rev_9:5; Xen. Mem. i. 2. 48. The entrance into the pagan house, not purified from the corrupt leaven, would have made them levitically impure (μιαίνω, the solemn word of profanation, Plat. Legg. ix. p. 868 A; Tim. p. 69 D; Soph. Ant. 1031, LXX. in Schleusner, III. p. 559), and have thereby prevented them from eating the Passover on the legal day (they would have been bound, according to the analogy of Num_9:6 ff., to defer it till the 14th of the following month). Since φαγεῖν τὸ πάσχα throughout the N. T. (Mat_26:17; Mar_14:12; Mar_14:14; Luk_22:11; Luk_22:15; comp. ἑτοιμάζειν τὸ πάσχα, Mat_26:19; Mar_14:16; Luk_22:8; θύειν τὸ πάσχα, 1Co_5:7; Luk_22:7; Mar_14:12; see also Exo_12:21; 2Ch_35:13) denotes nothing else than to eat the paschal meal, as אָכַל הַפֶּסח, 2Ch_30:18, comp. 3 Esr. Joh_1:6; Joh_1:12, Joh_7:12, it is thus clear that on the day, in the early part of which Jesus was brought to the procurator, the paschal lamb had not yet been eaten, but was to be eaten, and that consequently Jesus was crucified on the day before the feast. This result of the Johannean account is undoubtedly confirmed by Joh_13:1, according to which πρὸ τῆς ἑορτῆς gives the authoritative standard for the whole history of the passion, and that in such wise that the Jewish Passover feast was necessarily still future, when Jesus held His last meal with the disciples, with which latter, then, the seizure, condemnation, and execution stood in unbroken connection; further, by Joh_13:29, according to which the Johannean last supper cannot have been the paschal meal; finally, by Joh_19:14; Joh_19:31 (see on those passages), as, moreover, the view that the murdered Jesus was the antitype of the slaughtered paschal lamb (Joh_19:36), is appropriate only to that day as the day of His death, on which the paschal lamb was slaughtered, i.e. on the 14th Nisan.[218] Since, however, as according to the Synoptics, so also according to John (Joh_19:31), Jesus died on the Friday, after He had, on the evening preceding, held His last meal, John 13, there results the variation that, according to the Synoptics, the feast begins on Thursday evening, and Jesus holds the actual Jewish paschal meal, but is crucified on the first feast-day (Friday); in opposition to which, according to John, the feast begins on Friday evening, the last supper of Jesus (Thursday evening) is an ordinary meal (see Winer, Progr.: δεῖπνον, de quo Joh. xiii., etc., Leips. 1847), and His death follows on the day before the feast (Friday). According to the Synoptics, the Friday of the death of Jesus was thus the 15th Nisan; but according to John, the 14th Nisan. We can scarcely conceive a more indubitable result of exegesis, recognised also by Lücke, ed. 2 and 3, Neander, Krabbe, Theile, Sieffert, Usteri, Ideler, Bleek, De Wette, Brückner, Ebrard, Krit. d. Evang. Gesch., ed. 2 (not in Olshausen, Leidensgesch., p. 43 f.), Ewald, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Hase, Weisse, Rückert, Abendm. p. 28 ff., Steitz, J. Müller, Koessing (Catholic), de suprema Chr. coena, 1858, p. 57 ff., Kahnis, Dogm. I. p. 417, Pressensé, Keim, and several others. Nevertheless, harmonistic attempts have been made as far as possible to prove the agreement, either of the Synoptics with John (so mostly the older harmonists, see Weitzel, Passahfeier, p. 305 f.; recently, especially Movers in the Zeitschrift f. Phil. u. Kathol. Theol., 1833, vii. p. 58 ff., viii. p. 62 ff., Maier, Aechth. d. Ev. Joh., 1854, p. 429 ff., Weitzel, Isenberg, d. Todestag des Herrn, 1868, p. 31 ff., and several others), or of John with the Synoptics (so most later harmonists).[219] Attempts of the first kind break down at once before this consideration, that in the Synoptics the last meal is the regular[220] and legal one of the 14th Nisan, with the Passover lamb, slaughtered of necessity on the selfsame day between the two evenings in the forecourt (comp. Lightfoot, p. 470 f., 651), but not a paschal meal anticipated by Jesus contrary to the law (abrogating, in fact, the legal appointment, see Weitzel), as Grotius, Hammond, Clericus, and several others thought, also Kahnis, Abendm. p. 14, Krafft, p. 130, Godet, p. 629 ff., who appeals specially again to Mat_26:17-18, Märcker, Uebereinst. d. Matth. und Joh. p. 20 ff., who thinks the non-legal character of the meal is passed over in silence by the Synoptics. Those attempts, however, according to which Johns account is made to be the same as that of the Synoptics (Bynaeus, de morte J. Ch. III. p. 13 ff., Lightfoot, p. 1121 ff., Reland, Bengel, and several others; latterly, especially Tholuck, Guericke, Olshausen, B. Crusius, Hengstenberg in loc., and in the Evang. K.-Zeit. 1838, Nr. 98 ff., Wieseler, Synopse, p. 333 ff., and in Herzogs Encyklop. XXI. p. 550 ff., Luthardt, Wichelhaus, Hofmann in the Zeitschr. f. Prot. u. Kirche, 1853, p. 260 ff., Lichtenstein and Friedlieb, Gesch. d. Lebens J. Chr. p. 140 ff., Lange, Riggenbach, von Gumpach, Röpe, d. Mahl. d. Fusswaschens, Hamb. 1856, Ebrard on Olshausen, Baeumlein, Langen, Letzte Lebenstage Jesu, 1864, p. 136), are rendered void by the correct explanation of Joh_13:1; Joh_13:29, Joh_19:14; Joh_19:31, and, in respect of the present passage, by the following observations: (a) τὸ πάσχα cannot be understood of the sacrificial food of the feast to the exclusion of the lamb, particularly not of the Chagiga (חֲגִיגָה the freewill passover offerings, consisting of small cattle and oxen, according to Deu_16:2, on which sacrificial meals were held; see Lightfoot), as is here assumed by the current harmonists,[221] since rather by φαγεῖν is the Passover lamb constantly designated (comp. generally Gesenius, Thes. II. p. 1115), also in Josephus and in the Talmud (אכל הפסח), and consequently no reader could attach any other meaning to it;[222] in Deu_16:2-3, however, פסח does not mean as a passover (Hengstenberg, comp. Schultz on Deut. p. 471), but likewise nothing else than agnus paschalis, from which, then, צאֹן וּבָקר are distinguished as other sacrifices and sacrificial animals (comp. Joh_18:6-7), whereby with עליו, Joh_18:3, we are referred back to the whole of the eating at the feast. 2Ch_35:7-9 also (comp. rather Joh_18:11; Joh_18:13) contributes as little to prove the assumed reference of πάσχα to the Passover sacrifices generally, as Exo_12:48 for the view that to eat the Passover signifies the celebration of the feast in general; since, certainly, in the passage in question, the general ΠΟΙῆΣΑΙ ΤῸ Π. (prepare) is by no means equivalent to the special ἔδεται ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ.[223] (b) The objection, that entering the Gentile house would only have produced pollution for the same day (טִבּוּל יוֹם),[224] which might have been removed by washing before evening, and therefore before the beginning of the new day, and that consequently the Jews would have still been able to eat the Passover lamb, which was to be first partaken of in the evening (see especially Hengstenberg, Wieseler, and Wichelhaus, following Bynaeus and Lightfoot), cannot be proved from Maimonides (Pesach. iii. 1, vi. 1), must rather, in view of the great sacredness of the Passover feast (comp. Joh_11:55), be regarded as quite unsupported by the present passage (at all events in reference to the time of Jesus), irrespective also of this, that such a pollution would have been a hindrance to the personal slaughtering of the lamb, and certainly was, most of all, avoided precisely by the hierarchs, 2Ch_30:17-18. (c) On the whole of the inadmissible plea, which has been raised from the history of the Easter controversies against this, that John places the death of Jesus on the 14th Nisan, see Introd. § 2. (d) It has even been asserted, in order to make the account of John apply to the synoptic determination of time, that the time of the Passover meal was not the evening of the 14th Nisan at all, but the evening of the 13th Nisan (consequently the beginning of the 14th); so, after Frisch, recently Rauch in the Stud. u. Krit. 1832, p. 537 ff., according to which our φαγεῖν τ. πάσχα was understood of the eating of the ἌΖΥΜΑ. But the evening of the 14th (consequently the beginning of the 15th) stands so unassailably firm on the foundation of the law, according to Jewish tradition, and according to Josephus (see De Wette in the Stud. u. Krit. 1834, 4; Lücke, II. p. 727 ff.), that the above attempt is simply to be noted as a piece of history, as also that of Schneckenburger (Beitr. p. 4 ff.), which is based on the error that Joh_19:14 is the παρασκευή for the Feast of Sheaves. (e) Had John conceived the last Supper to be the Passover meal, there would certainly not have been wanting in the farewell discourses significant references to the Passover;[225] they are, however, entirely wanting, and, moreover, the general designation of the Supper itself, δείπνου γινομένου, Joh_12:2 (comp. Joh_12:2), agrees therewith, to remove from the mind of the unprejudiced reader the thought of the festival meal.

Is, however, the difference between John and the Synoptics incapable of being adjusted, the question then arises, On which side historical accuracy lies? Those who dispute the authenticity of the Gospel could not be in doubt on this point But it is otherwise from the standpoint of this authenticity, and that not of mediate authenticity at second hand (assuming which, Weizsäcker gives the preference to the synoptic account), but of that which is immediate and apostolical. If, that is to say, in the case of irreconcilable departures from the synoptic tradition, the first rank is in general, à priori, to be conceded to John, as the sole direct witness, whose writing has been preserved unaltered; if, further, the representation also by the Apostle Paul of Christ as the Passover Lamb applies only to the Johannean determination of the day of His death (see on 1Co_5:7); and if, along with this, Pauls account of the institution of the Lords Supper does not run counter (in answer to Keim) to this Johannean determination; if, further, even the statement of the Judaism, which was outside the church, that Jesus was executed vespera paschatis (ערב הפסח), i.e. on the 14th Nisan, supports the account of John (see Sanhedr. 6. 2 f., 43. 1, in Lightfoot, ad Act. i. 3), where the fabulous element in the Talmudic quotation of the circumstances attending the execution does not affect the simple date of time; if the conducting of a criminal trial[226] and execution on the first feast-day, even after the most recent attempts to show their admissibility (see especially Wieseler, p. 361 ff.), is at least highly improbable (see Bleek, p. 139 ff.; Ewald, Alterth. p. 415), and is opposed by Act_12:25 ff., and in the case before us would be regarded as an exception from the rule,[227] in fact, imprudent and irreconcilable with the great danger which was well known to the Sanhedrin (Mat_26:5); if, generally, the 15th Nisan, with its Sabbatic character, and as the legal day of the festive gathering in the temple, is altogether unsuitable to all the undertakings, processions, and parades which were set on foot by the hierarchs and by the people on the day of Jesus death, as well as to the taking down from the cross and the burial; if, on the other hand, the custom of setting at liberty a prisoner (Joh_18:39) most naturally corresponds to the idea, and therewith to the day of the paschal lamb, to the idea and to the day of forgiveness; if, finally, even in the Synoptics themselves, traces still exist of the true historical relation, according to which the day of Jesus death must have been no first day of the feast, but a day of traffic and labour (Mat_26:59-60; Mar_15:21; Mar_15:42; Mar_15:46; Luk_23:26; Luk_23:54; Luk_23:56), as, moreover, the opinion of the Sanhedrin, Mat_26:5, Mar_14:1 : μὴ ἐν τῇ ἑορτῇ! corresponds to the Johannean account, and to the haste with which, according to the latter, the affair was despatched, actually still before the feast,then all these moments are just so many reasons, the collective weight of which is decisive in favour of John,[228] without the further necessity of making an uncertain appeal to the present calendar of the feast, according to which the 15th Nisan may not fall on a Friday (see against his application to that period, Wieseler, p. 437 f.), and to the prohibition, Exo_12:22, against quitting house and town after the Passover meal (see on Mat_26:30, and Wetstein on Mar_14:26).

The question how the correct relation of time in the synoptic tradition could be altered by a day, withdraws itself from any solution that is demonstrable from history. Most naturally, however, the institution of the Lords Supper suggests the point of connection, both by the references, which Jesus Himself in His discourses connected therewith gave to the Supper in its bearing on the Passover meal, by the idea of which He was moved (Luk_22:15), as also by the view of the Supper as the antitypical Passover meal, which view must necessarily have been developed from the apostolic apprehension of Christ as the Paschal Lamb (Joh_19:36; 1Co_5:7), so far as He in the Supper had given Himself to be partaken of, Himself the perfected Passover Lamb, which He, simply by His death, was on the point of becoming. Thus the day of institution of the Supper became, in the anti-typical mode of regarding it, an ideal 14th Nisan, and in the tradition, in virtue of the reflective operation of the idea upon it, gradually became an actual one, and consequently the παρασκευή, which was firmly established as the day of death, became, instead of the preparation of the Passover (14th Nisan), as John has again fixed it, the preparation of the Sabbath,[229] this Sabbath, however, regarded, not as the first day of the feast, as in John, consequently not as the 15th Nisan, but as the second day of the feast (16th Nisan).

Further, the deviation of John from the Synoptics is the less to be employed as a reason for doubting the genuineness of the former, the more improbable it is in itself that a later inventor, who nevertheless sought apostolic authority, would have run the risk of entering into conflict with the prevailing tradition in so extremely important a determination, and, in subservience to the idea of Christ as the perfected Passover Lamb (see especially Baur, p. 272 ff., and in the Theol. Jahrb. 1854, p. 267 f.; Hilgenfeld, Pascha streit d. alten K. p. 221 ff.; Schenkel, p. 362 f.; Keim, Gesch. J. I. p. 132; Scholten, p. 282 ff.), to date back by a day the execution of Christ. Were the Johannean history, in so far substantially unhistorical, a production resulting from the idea of the Passover lamb, then certainly this idea would itself stand forth with far more of purpose and expression than it does (especially, for instance, in the farewell discourses), and would have been indicated, not merely on the occasion of the wound in the side, Joh_19:36, in the light of a single token; in that case one might believe oneself justified, with Weisse, Evangelienfrage, p. 130, in laying to the charge of the writer of the Gospel that he had, in conformity with certain presuppositions, put together the sequence of events for himself partly in an accidental and partly in an arbitrary manner.

[218] Tertullian, adv. Jud_1:8 : Passio perfecta est die azymorum, quo agnum occiderent ad vesperam a Mose fuerat praeceptum.

[219] Chrysostom gives a choice between the two attempts at reconciliation. Either John means by τὸ πάσχα: τὴν ἑορτὴν τὴν πᾶσαν; or, Christ anticipated the celebration on the day before the Passover of the Jews, τηρῶν τὴν ἑαυτοῦ σφαγὴν τῇ παρασκευῇ, on which the O. T. paschal meal was solemnized. In this way Chrysostom already writes the programme for the whole of the later investigations on this point down to the present day. For the history of the controversy, see in Wichelhaus, Kommentar über d. Leidensgesch. p. 191 ff.

[220] The view which became current at the time of the Reformation and afterwards among the older theologians, especially through Casaubons and Scaligers influence, that the Jews had postponed the Passover for a day, was entirely baseless, but found all the more ready acceptance because there remained thereby time in full accordance with the law for the observance of the paschal meal on the part of Jesus. According to this view, which has again been recently supported by Philippi (Glaubensl. I. p. 266 f., ed. 2), the Jews, in order not to be bound for two days running to the strictness of the Sabbath observance, transferred the first feast-day, which at that time fell on the Friday, to the Sabbath; whereas Christ abode faithfully by the legal term; the synoptical account goes by this legal determination, but the Johannean by the former arbitrary one. From ἔδει, Luk_22:7, no inference whatever can be drawn in favour of this harmonistic expedient, which is without any historical support. Serno (d. Tag. d. letzten Passahmahls, Berl. 1859) has sought, in a peculiar way, to confirm the correctness of both accounts by the doubling of the feast-days during the diaspora. According to this, it may have come about that for the Galileans in Jerusalem that was already the first day of the Passover, which for the Jerusalemites was but the day before the feast. In this way the twofold representation was stamped on the page of history. Against this it is at once decisive that the Galileans did not belong to the diaspora. See, moreover, Weiss, in the Lit. Bl. d. altg. K. Z. 1860, Nr. 42; Wieseler and Reuters Repert. 1860, p. 132 ff.; Ewald, Jahrb. XI. p. 253 f. On the above doubling of the feast-days, see Ideler, Handbuch d. Chronol. I. p. 513 ff. According to Isenberg, l.c., many thousand strangers, in order not to break in upon the Sabbath with the preparation for the Passover meal, held this meal already on the 13th Nisan. So also did Jesus, in order to institute the Lords Supper as the fulfilment of the Passover feast, and to die as the Antitype of the Passover lamb. The above presupposition, however, is unhistorical. A paschal lamb on the 13th Nisan is to the Jewish consciousness an impossibility.

[221] Although the eating of the Chagigah was not necessarily restricted to the 15th Nisan, but might take place well enough on any of the following Passover feast-days; hence a religious obligation as regards the 15th Nisan by no means lay in the way of their entering the Gentile house, so that they might be able to eat the Chagigah. But the partaking of the paschal lamb was restricted to its definite day, the 14th Nisan.

[222] Paul also, in the Stud. u. Krit. 1866, p. 367 ff., and 1867, p. 535 ff., explains it of the eating of the Passover lamb, but thinks that they had not been able to accomplish the eating on the evening that preceded the πρωΐ, and now at the first grey of morning desired to make up for that which was omitted in the urgency of their haste. What an irregularity against the law (Lev_23:5, Deu_16:7; Saalschütz, M. R. p. 407 f.) and usage is thus imagined, without the slightest indication in the text! And the thought of such a completely exceptional early eating could not be entertained by the Jews, moreover, for this reason, that they must indeed stand by, and did stand by their delinquent, could not leave him as he was, and go thence, in order to eat the neglected Passover.Aberle, in the Tüb. QuartalsChr. 1863, p. 537 ff., admits indeed the difference of Johns representation from that of the Synoptics, but thinks the Johannean day of death of Jesus appears through their account (in itself correct), and that they intentionally expressed themselves in an ambiguous manner (incorrect). See against Aberle, Hilgenfeld in his ZeitsChr. 1865, p. 94 ff.

[223] 2Ch_30:22, where the eating of the feast sacrifices generally (המועד) is spoken of, proves nothing whatever for the special expression: eat the Passover, rather is distinguished from it.

[224] Jdt_12:7-9 proves nothing in this respect for our passage (against Hengstenberg), where the evening bath of Judith falls at most (comp. Grotius) under the point of view of Mar_7:4, where there is no question of any eating of a holy, festal character.

[225] This circumstance is also decisive against the invention of an anticipated Passover. For precisely at a Passover feast of so exceptional a character the Passover ideas which furnished its motive would not have been kept at a distance by John, but would have been brought by him into the foreground.

[226] This difficulty drives Hilgenfeld (Paschastr. d. alten Kirche, p. 154, also in his ZeitsChr. 1863, p. 338 ff.), after the precedent of Jost, Gesch. d. Judenth. I. p. 407 ff., to the desperate assumption that do actual criminal proceedings took place at all. Neither in Mat_26:3, nor Mat_26:57, and Mat_27:1, is an actual Synedrium intended, but only councils summoned by the high priest.

[227] Among the Greeks also, an execution on a feast day was regarded as a profanation and pollution, and was, if it exceptionally took place, as in the case of Phocion (Plutarch, Phoc. 37), a great scandal; see Hermann, Gottesd. Alterth. § 43.12.

[228] Here the appeal urged by Movers to Tr. Sanhedr. f. 63. 1, is by no means required, according to which the members of the Sanhedrin might not eat anything on the day on which they had pronounced a sentence of death. On this showing, they absolutely could not have had the design of eating the Chagigah.

[229] Moreover, the Passover meal, on the Friday evening, could by no means have been deranged by the dawning of the Sabbath. For the slaying and roasting of the lamb took place before the dawn of the Sabbath, and the pilgrims were wont to arrive early enough in Jerusalem (comp. Joh_11:55). The burning of the remains of the lamb was not, however, prevented by the Sabbath (Schoettgen, Hor. I. p. 121), and generally the rule held good: Si quis unum praeceptum observat, ille ab observatione alterius praecepti liber est, Sohar, Deut. princ. f. 107, c. 427. This also in answer to Isenberg, l.c. Besides, the paschal lamb was a sacrifice, the arrangements connected with which the Sabbath consequently did not prevent, even if the 14th Nisan itself was a Sabbath.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 18:28 . Ἄγουσιν , “They lead,” i.e. , the Sanhedrists who had assembled lead: in Luk 23:1 , ἀναστὰν ἅπαν τὸ πλῆθος αὐτῶν . ἀπὸ τοῦ Καϊάφα . Field prefers translating “from the house of Caiaphas,” cf. Mar 5:35 ; Act 16:40 . πραιτώριον , praetorium , lit. “the general’s tent”; here probably the governor’s quarters in Antonia, but possibly the magnificent palace of Herod used by the Roman governor while in Jerusalem; see especially Keim, Jesus of Nazareth , vi. 79 E. Tr. ἦν δὲ πρωΐα καὶ αὐτοὶ οὐκ εἰσῆλθον … “It was early morning (the fourth watch, from 3 to 6 A.M., see Mar 13:35 ; see on Joh 13:38 ) and they themselves entered not into the palace that they might not be defiled but might eat the passover.” The dawning of the day seems to have reminded them of its sacred character. To enter a house from which all leaven had not been removed was pollution. Probably too the mere entrance into the house of a Gentile was the gnat these men strained at. The plain inference from the word is that the Paschal Supper was yet to be eaten. But see Edersheim’s Life of Jesus , ii. 566.

Joh 18:28 to Joh 19:16 . Jesus before Pilate .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

28–19:16. THE ROMAN OR CIVIL TRIAL

As already stated, S. John omits both the examination before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin at an irregular time and place, at midnight and at ‘the Booths’ (Mat 26:57-68; Mar 14:53-65), and also the formal meeting of the Sanhedrin after daybreak in the proper place (Mat 27:1; Mar 15:1; Luk 22:66-71), at which Jesus was sentenced to death. He proceeds to narrate what the Synoptists omit, the conference between Pilate and the Jews (Joh 18:28-32) and two private examinations of Jesus by Pilate (Joh 18:33-38 and Joh 19:8-11). Here also we seem to have the evidence of an eyewitness. We know that S. John followed his Lord into the high-priest’s palace (Joh 18:15), and stood by the Cross (Joh 19:26); it is therefore probable enough that he followed into the Procurator’s court.

28–32. Outside the Praetorium; the Jews claim the execution of the Sanhedrin’s sentence of death, and Pilate refuses it.

πρωζ. This is rendered ‘morning’ Mat 16:3; Mar 1:35; Mar 11:20; Mar 13:35; Mar 15:1; the last passage being partly parallel to this. In Mar 13:35 the word stands for the fourth watch (see on Mar 6:48), which lasted from 3.0 to 6.0 A.M. A Roman court might be held directly after sunrise; and as Pilate had probably been informed that an important case was to be brought before him, delay in which might cause serious disturbance, there is nothing improbable in his being ready to open his court between 4.0 and 5.0 A.M. The hierarchy were in a difficulty. Jesus could not safely be arrested by daylight, and the Sanhedrin could not legally pronounce sentence of death by night: hence they had had to wait till dawn to condemn Him. Now another regulation hampers them: a day must intervene between sentence and execution. This they shuffled out of by going at once to Pilate. Of course if he undertook the execution, he must fix the time; and their representations would secure his ordering immediate execution. Thus they shifted the breach of the law from themselves to him.

As in the life of our Lord as a whole, so also in this last week and last day of it, the exact sequence and time of the events cannot be ascertained with certainty. Chronology is not what the Evangelists aim at giving us. For a tentative arrangement of the chief events of the Passion see Appendix C.

αὐτοί. The “most characteristic trait of a religious and godless nation ever put on record” (Maurice). They themselves (in contrast to their Victim, whom they sent in under a Roman guard) entered not into the palace, that they might not be defiled by entering a house possibly polluted by heathen abominations and certainly not cleansed from leaven (Exo 12:15). But Jewish zeal had taught the Romans that idols could not be tolerated in the Holy City.

ἵνα φάγωσιν τὸ π. It is evident that S. John does not regard the Last Supper as a Paschal meal. Comp. Joh 13:1; Joh 13:29. It is equally evident that the synoptic narratives convey the impression that the Last Supper was the ordinary Jewish Passover (Mat 26:17-19; Mar 14:14; Mar 14:16; Luk 22:7-8; Luk 22:11; Luk 22:13; Luk 22:15). Whatever be the right solution, the independence of the author of the Fourth Gospel is manifest. Would anyone counterfeiting an Apostle venture thus to contradict what seemed to have such strong Apostolic authority? Would he not expect that a glaring discrepancy on so important a point would prove fatal to his pretensions? Assume that S. John is simply recording his own vivid recollections, whether or no we suppose him to be correcting the impression produced by the Synoptists, and this difficulty at any rate is avoided. S. John’s narrative is too precise and consistent to be explained away. On the difficulty as regards the Synoptists see Appendix A; see also Excursus V at the end of Dr Farrar’s S. Luke.

28. ἄγουσιν οὖν. They lead therefore (Joh 18:3). S. John assumes that his readers know the result of Jesus being taken to Caiaphas (Joh 18:24): He had been condemned to death; and now His enemies (there is no need to name them) take Him to the Roman governor to get the sentence executed.

ἀπὸ τ. Κ. From the house of Caiaphas. Comp. Mar 5:35; Act 16:40.

τὸ πραιτώριον. The palace, Pilate’s house, the praetorium. Our translators have varied their rendering of it capriciously: Mat 27:17, ‘common hall,’ with ‘governor’s house’ in the margin; Mar 15:16, ‘Praetorium;’ Joh 18:33; Joh 19:9, ‘judgment-hall.’ Yet the meaning must be the same in all these passages. Comp. Act 23:35, ‘judgment-hall;’ Php 1:13, ‘the palace.’ The meaning of praetorium varies according to the context. The word is of military origin; (1) ‘the general’s tent’ or ‘head-quarters.’ Hence, in the provinces, (2) ‘the governor’s residence,’ the meaning in Act 23:35: in a sort of metaphorical sense, (3) a ‘mansion’ or ‘palace’ (Juvenal I. 75): at Rome, (4) ‘the praetorian guard,’ the probable meaning in Php 1:13. Of these leading significations the second is probably right here and throughout the Gospels; the official residence of the Procurator. Where Pilate resided in Jerusalem is not quite certain. We know that ‘Herod’s Praetorium,’ a magnificent building on the western hill of Jerusalem, was used by Roman governors somewhat later (Philo, Leg. ad Gaium, p. 1034). But it is perhaps more likely that Pilate occupied part of the fortress Antonia, on the supposed site of which a chamber with a column in it has recently been discovered, which it is thought may possibly be the scene of the scourging.

S. John’s narrative alternates between the outside and inside of the Praetorium. Outside; 28–32, 38–40, Joh 19:4-7; Joh 19:12-16. Inside; 33–37, Joh 19:1-3; Joh 19:8-11.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

Vv. 28-40. The bearing of Joh 18:28 on the question as to whether Jesus died on the 14th or the 15th of the month Nisan, and, in connection with this, whether the Lord’s Supper was instituted on the evening of the Jewish Passover supper, is dependent on whether the expression to eat the Passover can be, or probably is to be, referred to anything else than the Passover supper itself. The presentation of the facts of the case by Godet is sufficient to show two things: first, that the passages from the Old Testament which are relied on to prove the wider extension of meaning for the expression in question do not prove it. Indeed, the point to be proved is not simply an extension of meaning to cover the whole feast, but such an extension as would cover the rest of the feast, with the exclusion of the supper itself;—secondly, that there is no sufficient reason to believe that the words that they might not be defiled are not applicable to the 14th day.

It is doubtful whether it can be affirmed as beyond question that the words here used must mean that the Jewish Passover supper had not yet occurred. But this is nevertheless the more natural interpretation of the words, and the probabilities of the case point strongly in this direction.

2. If we may take John’s account as giving the beginning of the trial of Jesus before Pilate, it would seem that the Jewish rulers supposed that the mere fact of their presenting Him before the Roman tribunal would secure a verdict in their favor. They must have supposed that this result would be secured either by the respect which Pilate, in such a case, would have for them as rulers among the Jews, or by the fact that the crime of blasphemy was one which might properly come under their jurisdiction, and that the resort to the Roman power was only to obtain permission to inflict the death- penalty which the crime deserved. Their first words to Pilate (Joh 18:30) in answer to his question of Joh 18:29 imply, apparently, that whatever charge they have against Jesus belongs within the sphere of their own law, rather than that of the Romans.

3. The simplest explanation of the question proposed by Pilate in Joh 18:33 is that the Jews, after Joh 18:31, brought forward the charge which is mentioned in Luk 23:2 : “We found this man perverting our nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a King.” This view of the matter is taken by Godet and others. Meyer denies this, and holds that John could not have omitted such an essential point. He thinks that Pilate must have known of this political accusation through the application of the Jews for the help of the σπεῖρα. Weiss, however, in his edition of Meyer’s Commentary, declares these reasons of Meyer to be insufficient. The omission of the charge as something already known, and something that would be understood, is in consistency with what we find in John’s Gospel in other cases. It is certainly difficult to account for Pilate’s question unless there was some such charge, and the insertion of Luk 23:2 here is not unnatural.

4. The explanation given by Godet in Joh 18:34 is also, in all probability, the true one. If we hold that Jesus intended to ask whether Pilate meant that He claimed to be a king in the Roman and political sense, or in the Jewish and Messianic sense, the course of the conversation and inquiry moves on in the most simple and natural way. If He claimed to be king in the former sense, there might be just ground of accusation against Him before the Roman tribunal, but if in the latter, there might be none. Pilate answers, “Am I a Jew?”—that is to say, I have nothing to do with Jewish questions. I mean, of course, king in the only sense of the word in which I, as a Roman judge, can consider it. This is a matter belonging wholly to the Jews: they have delivered thee to me, with a charge that thou claimest to be a king in opposition to Caesar. I have to investigate this question only. Tell me what thou hast done.

Having drawn an answer to this effect from him, Jesus now, in His turn, gives a more definite reply—that He is a king, but not in the Roman sense—and He adds the most decisive proof of this negative: namely, that if He were a king or claimed to be one in the earthly meaning of the word, His servants would fight for Him, as they were evidently now not doing. Pilate then asks if He really means that He is a king, and Jesus answers: Yes—in the sphere of the truth. Truth is nothing to Pilate, and he goes out at once, and says, I find no crime in Him, and proposes to release Him. Nothing can be more simple and straightforward than this progress of thought, if the explanations of Joh 18:33-34 which have been suggested are adopted as correct.

5. The servants spoken of in Joh 18:6 are those who believe in the justice of His claims. They are, in one sense, His disciples, but the case is presented as a hypothetical one, and these adherents are accordingly conceived of as they would be if the circumstances were in accordance with the supposition.

6. Theουκουν of Joh 18:37 should have the circumflex accent on the last syllable, and the meaning is thus, “After all, then, thou art a king?” “Is it not true, then, that thou art a king?” The question is, so far as the progress of thought in the passage is concerned, merely a renewal of the one which had been suggested before. But it includes a certain ironical element, or an expression of surprise that one in the condition of Jesus should claim to be a king in any sense.

7. The phrase Thou sayest is, in substance, an affirmative answer. A. R. V. regards ὅτι as meaning for, and this is not improbably the true view of the sentence: Yes, for I am a king.

8. The question of Pilate, What is truth? undoubtedly indicates that he felt that there was no such thing, and that it was idle for a man to be dreaming of any such kingdom. Pilate’s attitude towards Jesus was not that of enmity or of scorn. He was, apparently, impressed by His calmness, dignity and sincerity. He evidently believed Him guiltless, so far as any charge of crime against the Roman authority was concerned. He comprehended fully, we may believe, the bitterness and selfishness of the opposition of the Jews. He saw clearly that they had no foundation to rest upon, as they brought their case before him. He was disposed to discharge Him, and even tried to effect His release. But as related to “the truth,” he was an intellectual sceptic. He believed that there was no such thing as truth. He had pity for Jesus, and regarded Him as a harmless enthusiast for what He called the truth; but he meant to remind Him by his question, that it was a delusion for Him to give Himself to the search for it, or to suppose that He had discovered it. It was for this reason, as we may believe, that he did not wait for an answer to his question. It was presented with no desire for an answer.

9. Pilate had the Roman sense of justice, as Renan says in the sentence quoted by Godet, and hence, when he went out to the Jewish rulers (Joh 18:38), he distinctly declared that he discovered no criminality in Jesus, and therefore proposed to release Him. But Pilate was a time-serving politician, rather than a man of lofty character and boldness in obeying his sense of right. He had, also, a dangerous record behind him. He was like men of his class, when placed in his circumstances, in all ages of the world’s history. It was certain, from the beginning, that he would yield to the Jews. The question was only whether his resistance would be longer or shorter. The Jewish rulers were far bolder men, and they knew well with whom they had to deal. They pressed him gradually but steadily, and were ready with a new charge whenever the one already presented failed of its effect. The story of the two parties in this judicial attempt to put Jesus to death is so life-like, that it bears the strongest evidence of its truthfulness.

10. This life-like character of the narrative makes it probable that the author was an ear and eye-witness of what he relates, and, as Weiss ed. Mey. remarks, this seems not impossible when the publicity of the Roman judicial trials is borne in mind. That John should have had admission to the examination before Annas, by reason of his acquaintance with him, and to the trial before Pilate, because of the custom of admitting persons in such cases to the judgment-hall, but should have been excluded from the trial in the house of Caiaphas before the Sanhedrim, may easily be supposed—and the supposition is in harmony with the facts of the narrative as we find them: namely, the insertion of the story of what took place before Annas and Pilate, and the omission of the scene in the house of Caiaphas.

Ver. 28. “They lead Jesus therefore from Caiaphas to the Praetorium. Now it was early. And they did not themselves enter into the Praetorium, that they might not be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover.”

ThePraetorium was at Rome the place where the praetor sat when he administered justice. This name had been applied to the palaces of the Roman governors in the provinces. Most interpreters hold that this term designates here the palace of Herod, which was in the western part of the upper city. In proof of this the passage of Josephus, Bell. Jud.2.14, 8, is cited, where it is said that “Florus lived at that time (τότε) in the royal palace;” but this passage proves precisely that the Roman governor did not ordinarily live there. It is more probable that Pilate occupied a palace contiguous to the citadel Antonia, where the Roman garrison was stationed, at the north-west corner of the temple. It is there, at all events, that tradition places the starting- point of the Via Dolorosa. — Πρωΐ (T. R. πρωΐα), in the early morning, includes the time from three to six o’clock (Mar 13:35). The Roman courts opened their sessions at any hour after sunrise (Westcott). Pilate, as we have seen, was forewarned, since the previous evening, of what was taking place, and he had no doubt consented to receive the Jews at this early hour.

The scruple which prevents the Jews from entering into the governor’s house places us again face to face with the contradiction which seems to exist between the narrative of John and that of the Synoptics. If, as these latter seem to say, the Jews had already on the previous evening celebrated the Paschal meal, how can we explain the fact that, through defiling themselves by contact with the leaven which would necessarily be found in a Gentile house, they fear that they may be unable to celebrate this meal on this same evening? The only way of escaping this contradiction, it seems, would be to give a wider sense to the expression to eat the Passover, by referring it, not to the Paschal meal properly so called, but to the food of the feast in general, such as the unleavened bread and the flesh of the peace-offerings which were celebrated during the seven days of the feast.

Some passages are thought to have been found in the Old Testament where the word Passover is taken in this more general sense; thus Deu 16:2-3 : “Thou shalt sacrifice the Passover to the Lord, of the flock and of the herd, and with it (these meats) thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days.” Comp. the analogous expression 2Ch 30:22 (literally): “And they ate the feast (the feast- sacrifices) seven days, offering sacrifices of peace offerings and praising the Lord;” 2Ch 35:7-9 : “And Josiah gave to those of the people who were there lambs and kids, to the number of thirty thousand, all of them for Passover offerings, and three thousand bullocks, of the king’s substance.” To confirm this conclusion it is alleged that, according to the Talmud, the defilement which the Jews would have contracted by entering the Praetorium would have continued in any case only until the end of the day, and consequently would not have prevented them from eating the Paschal meal in the evening.

But the passages cited do not prove what they would need to prove. As to the first (Deu 16:2-3), the term Passover is applied exclusively, in Joh 18:5-6, which immediately follow, to the Paschal lamb; hence it follows that in Joh 18:2 the expression of the herd and of the flock is not an explanatory apposition of the word pesach (Passover), but a supplementary addition by which all the secondary sacrifices which complete the Paschal supper during the course of the week are designated. At all events, if the term Passover really included here, together with the Paschal lamb, all the other sacrifices of the feast, it would not follow therefrom that it could designate, as would be the case in our passage, these last apart from the first. As to the with it, it refers to all the sacrificial meats which were to be accompanied by unleavened bread during the entire week.

In 2 Chronicles 30 the name Passover is applied in 2Ch 30:15; 2Ch 30:17-18 exclusively to the Paschal lamb. Why, then, should the chronicler in Joh 18:22 substitute for the proper term: to eat the Passover, the more general expression to eat the feast, if it was not because he wished now to speak of the sacrifices of the feast, exclusive of the eating of the Paschal lamb? Besides, the reading: and they ate (vajokelou) the feast, is very doubtful. The LXX certainly read: vajekallou, and they finished the feast; for they translate: καὶ συνετέλεσαν.

In the third passage (2Ch 35:7-9) the distinction between the lambs or kids which were intended to serve for the Paschal meal (pesachim) and the bullocks which were consecrated to the other sacrifices and feasts is obvious.

But even supposing that in some passages of the Old Testament the term Passover had received from the context a wider meaning than ordinary, would it follow from this that a phrase so common in the New Testament, in Josephus and in the Talmud, as that of eating the Passover, could be applied, without any explanatory indication, to entirely different meals from the Paschal supper, and this even to the exclusion of the latter?

As to the objection derived from the duration of the defilement which the Jews would have contracted:

1. It is impossible to form any certain conclusion, with reference to the time of Jesus, from a passage of the Rabbi Maimonides written about the year 1200.

2. This passage refers to a defilement arising from contact with dead animals, etc., and not to the defilement arising from leaven, and with special relation to the Paschal feast.

The same is the case with the examples borrowed from other kinds of defilement (Lev 15:5 ff., Lev 15:19 ff.). After the analogy of Num 9:6 ff., the Jews would simply have been obliged to put off the celebration of the Passover until the 14th of the following month.

3. If the question were only of the feast-meals in general, the members of the Sanhedrim might have abstained altogether from taking part in them; for these meals were voluntary; the Paschal supper alone did not allow of abstention.

4. The defilement thus contracted would, in any case, have forced the priests, who were members of the Sanhedrim, to abstain from participating in the sacrifice of the lamb in the afternoon, an abstention which was incompatible with their official duty.

For all these reasons it is impossible for me to adopt the opinion of many and learned interpreters who refer the expression to eat the Passover in our verse to the peace-offering (the Chagigah), which the Jews offered on the 16th of Nisan at mid-day; we will mention among the modern writers only Tholuck, Olshausen, Hengstenberg, Wieseler, Hofmann, Lange, Riggenbach, Baumlein, Langen, Luthardt, Kirchner and Keil.

The pronoun αὐτοί, themselves, contrasts the Jews, with their Levitical purity, to Jesus, whom nothing could any longer defile, so defiled was He already in their eyes. He was immediately delivered over to the governor, and introduced into the Praetorium. From this time, therefore, Pilate will go from the Praetorium to the Jews (Joh 18:29; Joh 18:38, Joh 19:4-12) and from the Jews to the Praetorium (Joh 18:33, Joh 19:1; Joh 19:9). Keim judges this situation to be historically impossible, and jests about this ambulant judge, this peripatetic negotiator, whom the narrative of John presents to us. But the apostle clearly perceived that this situation had an exceptional character, and he has precisely explained it by this Joh 18:28. Pilate does not feel himself free in his position with regard to the Jews; the sequel shows this only too clearly. This is the reason why he bears with their scruples.

The first position taken by the Jews:

II. The Trial before Pilate: 18:28-19:16.

Had the Romans, in making Judea a province of the empire, taken away from the Jews the right of capital punishment? Our narrative affirms this positively by putting in the mouths of the latter the words (Joh 18:31): “It is not permitted us to put any one to death.” To this have been objected the execution of Stephen, Act 7:57 ff., and the permission which Titus had granted the Jews to put foreigners, even Romans, to death who had invaded the inclosure of the temple court (Josephus, Antiq. 6.2, 4). But the first event was an extra-legal act of popular fury, and the permission given by Titus is quite an exceptional case. According to the Talmud, as according to John, the right of inflicting capital punishment belonged no longer to the Sanhedrim. And it was precisely at the time of the judgment of Jesus that this change took place, “forty years before the destruction of the temple.” Probably, in the time which followed the annexation, the governors desired to use moderation towards the conquered people. But the despotic Pilate had reduced the Jews to the common law of the provinces. This was the reason which obliged the rulers to bring Jesus before this governor in order to obtain from him the confirmation and execution of the sentence which they had just pronounced.

Pilate was from the year 26 procurator of Judea, under the order of the proconsul of Syria. He was deposed in 36 by Vitellius and sent to Rome, to be judged there for all the wrongs which he had committed. According to “Greek historians” (Euseb. Joh 2:7), he was put to death under Caligula.

Such were the reasons which made the Jews hold a third session—that of the morning, which took place very early, no longer in the high-priest’s house, but in the vicinity of the temple, either in the famous hall paved with mosaic (lischkath haggazith), situated in the interior court at the south of the temple, or in the synagogue Beth midrasch, between the court of the women and the outer court (see Keim, III. p. 351). This is confirmed by Matthew (Mat 27:1), Mark (Mar 16:1), and especially Luke (Luk 22:66 ff.) The last mentioned has preserved for us the most complete account of this session, perhaps mingling in it some particulars borrowed from the great session in the night, which he passes over in silence. In any case, the examination and the judgment of Jesus must have been repeated a second time, though summarily, and confirmed in this morning session, which was the only legal and plenary one (πάντες, all, Matt.). We must observe the expression of Matthew, ώστε θανατῶσαι αὐτόν, to put him to death, which indicates the seeking for ways and means to succeed in obtaining from Pilate the execution of the sentence, as well as the expression of Luke: “They led him into their assembly,” Luk 22:66, which can only refer to the passage from the house of Caiaphas (Luk 22:54) to one of the two meeting-halls near the temple, of which we have just spoken.

The Jews ask Pilate to confirm their sentence without an examination (Joh 18:30). The latter refuses; this is the first phase of the negotiations: Joh 18:28-32. Then they set forth a political accusation: He made Himself a king. Pilate judges this accusation unfounded; then he makes two ineffectual attempts to deliver Jesus with the support of the people; this is the second phase: Joh 18:33 to Joh 19:6. The Jews then bring forward a religious charge: He made Himself Son of God. On hearing this accusation Pilate endeavors still more to deliver Jesus; this is the third phase: Joh 19:7-12 a. At this moment, the Jews, seeing their prey ready to escape them, put aside all shame, and employ the odious expedient of personal intimidation to make the judge’s conscience yield. On this path they suffer themselves to be carried away even to the point of the denial of their dearest hope—that of the Messiah; they declare themselves vassals of Caesar; this is the fourth phase: Joh 19:12-16.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Son of God is brought before the judgment seat of an earthly and profane man, in whom there is found much less wickedness, than in the princes of the people of God: A lively image of the wrath of God against sin, and therewithal of his great mercy, and least of all, of his most severe judgment against the stubborn contemners of his grace when it is offered unto them.

From Caiaphas’s house.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

We have here an account of Christ's arraignment before Pilate, the Roman governor, in the praetorium (a Latin word made Greek), the praetor's house, or hall of judgment; thither they hurried him, to get him condemned in the Roman court, and executed by the Roman power. Being resolved on his death, they took this course, 1. That he might be put to death the more legally and regularly, according to the present constitution of their government, since they became a province of the empire; not stoned in a popular tumult, as Stephen, but put to death with the present formalities of justice. Thus he was treated as a malefactor, being made sin for us. 2. That he might be put to death the more safely. If they could engage the Roman government in the matter, which the people stood in awe of, there would be little danger of an uproar. 3. That he might be put to death with more reproach to himself. The death of the cross, which the Romans commonly used, being of all deaths the most ignominious, they were desirous by it to put an indelible mark of infamy upon him, and so to sink his reputation for ever. This therefore they harped upon, Crucify him. 4. That he might be put to death with less reproach to them. It was an invidious thing to put one to death that had done so much good in the world, and therefore they were willing to throw the odium upon the Roman government, to make that the less acceptable to the people, and save themselves from the reproach. Thus many are more afraid of the scandal of a bad action than of the sin of it. See Act 5:28. Two things are here observed concerning the prosecution: - (1.) Their policy and industry in the prosecution: It was early; some think about two or three in the morning, others about five or six, when most people were in their beds; and so there would be the less danger of opposition from the people that were for Christ; while, at the same time, they had their agents about, to call those together whom they could influence to cry out against him. See how much their heart was upon it, and how violent they were in the prosecution. Now that they had him in their hands, they would lose no time till they had him upon the cross, but denied themselves their natural rest, to push on this matter. See Mic 2:1. (2.) Their superstition and vile hypocrisy: The chief priests and elders, though they came along with the prisoner, that the thing might be done effectually, went not into the judgment-hall, because it was the house of an uncircumcised Gentile, lest they should be defiled, but kept out of doors, that they might eat the passover, not the paschal lamb (that was eaten the night before) but the passover-feast, upon the sacrifices which were offered on the fifteenth day, the Chagigah, as they called it, the passover-bullocks spoken of Deu 16:2; Ch2 30:24; Ch2 35:8, Ch2 35:9. These they were to eat of, and therefore would not go into the court, for fear of touching a Gentile, and thereby contracting, not a legal, but only a traditional pollution. This they scrupled, but made no scruple of breaking through all the laws of equity to persecute Christ to the death. They strained at a gnat, and swallowed a camel. Let us now see what passed at the judgment-hall. Here is,

I. Pilate's conference with the prosecutors. They were called first, and stated what they had to say against the prisoner, as was very fit, Joh 18:29-32.

1. The judge calls for the indictment. Because they would not come into the hall, he went out to them into the court before the house, to talk with them. Looking upon Pilate as a magistrate, that we may give every one his due, here are three things commendable in him: - (1.) His diligent and close application to business. If it had been upon a good occasion, it had been very well that he was willing to be called up early to the judgment-seat. Men in public trusts must not love their ease. (2.) His condescending to the humour of the people, and receding from the honour of his place to gratify their scruples. He might have said, "If they be so nice as not to come in to me, let them go home as they came;" by the same rule as we might say, "If the complainant scruple to take off his hat to the magistrate, let not his complaint be heard;" but Pilate insists not upon it, bears with them, and goes out to them; for, when it is for good, we should become all things to all men. (3.) His adherence to the rule of justice, in demanding the accusation, suspecting the prosecution to be malicious: "What accusation bring you against this man?" What is the crime you charge him with, and what proof have you of it? It was a law of nature, before Valerius Publicola made it a Roman law, Ne quis indicta causa condemnetur - No man should be condemned unheard. See Act 25:16, Act 25:17. It is unreasonable to commit a man, without alleging some cause in the warrant, and much more to arraign a man when there is no bill of indictment found against him.

2. The prosecutors demand judgment against him upon a general surmise that he was a criminal, not alleging, much less proving, any thing in particular worthy of death or of bonds (Joh 18:30): If he were not a malefactor, or evildoer, we would not have delivered him to thee to be condemned. This bespeaks them, (1.) Very rude and uncivil to Pilate, a company of ill-natured men, that affected to despise dominion. When Pilate was so complaisant to them as to come out to treat with them, yet they were to the highest degree out of humour with him. He put the most reasonable question to them that could be; but, if it had been the most absurd, they could not have answered him with more disdain. (2.) Very spiteful and malicious towards our Lord Jesus: right or wrong, they will have him to be a malefactor, and treated as one. We are to presume a man innocent till he is proved guilty, but they will presume him guilty who could prove himself innocent. They cannot say, "He is a traitor, a murderer, a felon, a breaker of the peace," but they say, "He is an evil-doer." He an evil-doer who went about doing good! Let those be called whom he had cured, and fed, and taught; whom he has rescued from devils, and raised from death; and let them be asked whether he be an evil-doer or no. Note, It is no new thing for the best of benefactors to be branded and run down as the worst of malefactors. (3.) Very proud and conceited of themselves, and their own judgment and justice, as if their delivering a man up, under the general character of a malefactor, were sufficient for the civil magistrate to ground a judicial sentence upon, than which what could be more haughty?

3. The judge remands him to their own court (Joh 18:31): "Take you him, and judge him according to your own law, and do not trouble me with him." Now, (1.) Some think Pilate herein complimented them, acknowledging the remains of their power, and allowing them to exert it. Corporal punishment they might inflict, as scourging in their synagogues; whether capital or no is uncertain. "But," saith Pilate, "go as far as your law will allow you, and, if you go further, it shall be connived at." This he said, willing to do the Jews a pleasure, but unwilling to do them the service they required. (2.) Others think he bantered them, and upbraided them with their present state of weakness and subjection. They would be the sole judges of the guilt. "Pray," saith Pilate, "if you will be so, go on as you have begun; you have found him guilty by your own law, condemn him, if you dare, by your own law, to carry on the humour." Nothing is more absurd, nor more deserves to be exposed, than for those to pretend to dictate, and boast of their wisdom, who are weak and in subordinate stations, and whose lot it is to be dictated to. Some think Pilate here reflects upon the law of Moses, as if it allowed them what the Roman law would by no means allow - the judging of a man unheard. "It may be your law will suffer such a thing, but ours will not." Thus, through their corruptions, the law of God was blasphemed; and so is his gospel too.

4. They disown any authority as judges, and (since it must be so) are content to be prosecutors. They now grow less insolent and more submissive, and own, "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death, whatever less punishment we may inflict, and this is a malefactor whom we would have the blood of."

(1.) Some think they had lost their power to give judgment in matters of life and death only by their own carelessness, and cowardly yielding to the darling iniquities of the age; so Dr. Lightfoot ouk exesti - It is not in our power to pass sentence of death upon any, if we do, we shall have the mob about us immediately.

(2.) Others think their power was taken from them by the Romans, because they had not used it well, or because it was thought too great a trust to be lodged in the hands of a conquered and yet an unsubdued people. Their acknowledgement of this they designed for a compliment to Pilate, and to atone for their rudeness (Joh 18:30), but it amounts to a full evidence that the sceptre was departed from Judah, and therefore that now the Messiah was come, Gen 49:10. If the Jews have no power to put any man to death, where is the sceptre? Yet they ask not, Where is the Shiloh?

(3.) However, there was a providence in it, that either they should have not power to put any man to death, or should decline the exercise of it upon this occasion, That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spoke, signifying what death he should die, Joh 18:32. Observe, [1.] In general, that even those who designed the defeating of Christ's sayings were, beyond their intention, made serviceable to the fulfilling of them by an overruling hand of God. No word of Christ shall fall to the ground; he can never either deceive or be deceived. Even the chief priests, while they persecuted him as a deceiver, had their spirit so directed as to help to prove him true, when we should think that by taking other measures they might have defeated his predictions. Howbeit, they meant not so, Isa 10:7. [2.] Those sayings of Christ in particular were fulfilled which he had spoken concerning his own death. Two sayings of Christ concerning his death were fulfilled, by the Jews declining to judge him according to their law. First, He had said that he should be delivered to the Gentiles, and that they should put him to death (Mat 20:19; Mar 10:33; Luk 18:32, Luk 18:33), and hereby that saying was fulfilled. Secondly, He had said that he should be crucified (Mat 20:19; Mat 26:2), lifted up, Joh 3:14; Joh 12:32. Now, if they had judged him by their law, he had been stoned; burning, strangling, and beheading, were in some cases used among the Jews, but never crucifying. It was therefore necessary that Christ should be put to death by the Romans, that, being hanged upon a tree, he might be made a curse for us (Gal 3:13), and his hands and feet might be pierced. As the Roman power had brought him to be born at Bethlehem, so now to die upon a cross, and both according to the scriptures. It is likewise determined concerning us, though not discovered to us, what death we shall die, which should free us from all disquieting cares about that matter. "Lord, what, and when, and how thou hast appointed."

II. Here is Pilate's conference with the prisoner, Joh 18:33, etc., where we have,

1. The prisoner set to the bar. Pilate, after he had conferred with the chief priests at his door, entered into the hall, and called for Jesus to be brought in. He would not examine him in the crowd, where he might be disturbed by the noise, but ordered him to be brought into the hall; for he made no difficulty of going in among the Gentiles. We by sin were become liable to the judgment of God, and were to be brought before his bar; therefore Christ, being made sin and a curse for us, was arraigned as a criminal. Pilate entered into judgment with him, that God might not enter into judgment with us.

2. His examination. The other evangelists tell us that his accusers had laid it to his charge that he perverted the nation, forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, and upon this he is examined.

(1.) Here is a question put to him, with a design to ensnare him and to find out something upon which to ground an accusation: "Art thou the king of the Jews? ho basileus - that king of the Jews who has been so much talked of and so long expected - Messiah the prince, art thou he? Dost thou pretend to be he? Dost thou call thyself, and wouldest thou be thought so?" For he was far from imagining that really he was so, or making a question of that. Some think Pilate asked this with an air of scorn and contempt: "What! art thou a king, who makest so mean a figure? Art thou the king of the Jews, by whom thou art thus hated and persecuted? Art thou king de jure - of right, while the emperor is only king de facto - in fact?" Since it could not be proved he ever said it, he would constrain him to say it now, that he might proceed upon his own confession.

(2.) Christ answers this question with another; not for evasion, but as an intimation to Pilate to consider what he did, and upon what grounds he went (Joh 18:34): "Sayest thou this thing of thyself, from a suspicion arising in thy own breast, or did others tell it thee of me, and dost thou ask it only to oblige them?" [1.] "It is plain that thou hast no reason to say this of thyself." Pilate was bound by his office to take care of the interests of the Roman government, but he could not say that this was in any danger, or suffered any damage, from any thing our Lord Jesus had ever said or done. He never appeared in worldly pomp, never assumed any secular power, never acted as a judge or divider; never were any traitorous principles or practices objected to him, nor any thing that might give the least shadow of suspicion. [2.] "If others tell it thee of me, to incense thee against me, thou oughtest to consider who they are, and upon what principles they go, and whether those who represent me as an enemy to Caesar are not really such themselves, and therefore use this only as a pretence to cover their malice, for, if so, the matter ought to be well weighed by a judge that would do justice." Nay, if Pilate had been as inquisitive as he ought to have been in this matter, he would have found that the true reason why the chief priests were outrageous against Jesus was because he did not set up a temporal kingdom in opposition to the Roman power; if he would have done this, and would have wrought miracles to bring the Jews out of the Roman bondage, as Moses did to bring them out of the Egyptian, they would have been so far from siding with the Romans against him that they would have made him their king, and have fought under him against the Romans; but, not answering this expectation of theirs, they charged that upon him of which they were themselves most notoriously guilty - disaffection to and design against the present government; and was such an information as this fit to be countenanced?

(3.) Pilate resents Christ's answer, and takes it very ill, Joh 18:35. This is a direct answer to Christ's question, Joh 18:34. [1.] Christ had asked him whether he spoke of himself. "No," says he; "am I a Jew, that thou suspectest me to be in the plot against thee? I know nothing of the Messiah, nor desire to know, and therefore interest not myself in the dispute who is the Messiah and who not; the dispute who is the Messiah and who not; it is all alike to me." Observe with what disdain Pilate asks, Am I a Jew? The Jews were, upon many accounts, an honourable people; but, having corrupted the covenant of their God, he made them contemptible and base before all the people (Mal 2:8, Mal 2:9), so that a man of sense and honour reckoned it a scandal to be counted a Jew. Thus good names often suffer for the sake of the bad men that wear them. It is sad that when a Turk is suspected of dishonesty he should ask, "What! do you take me for a Christian?" [2.] Christ had asked him whether others told him. "Yes," says he, "and those thine own people, who, one would think would be biased in favour of thee, and the priests, whose testimony, in verbum sacerdotis - on the word of a priest, ought to be regarded; and therefore I have nothing to do but to proceed upon their information." Thus Christ, in his religion, still suffers by those that are of his own nation, even the priests, that profess relation to him, but do not live up to their profession. [3.] Christ had declined answering that question, Art thou the king of the Jews? And therefore Pilate puts another question to him more general, "What hast thou done? What provocation hast thou given to thy own nation, and particularly the priests, to be so violent against thee? Surely there cannot be all this smoke without some fire, what is it?"

(4.) Christ, in his next reply, gives a more full and direct answer to Pilate's former question, Art thou a king? explaining in what sense he was a king, but not such a king as was any ways dangerous to the Roman government, not a secular king, for his interest was not supported by secular methods, Joh 18:36. Observe,

[1.] An account of the nature and constitution of Christ's kingdom: It is not of this world. It is expressed negatively to rectify the present mistakes concerning it; but the positive is implied, it is the kingdom of heaven, and belongs to another world. Christ is a king, and has a kingdom, but not of this world. First Its rise is not from this world; the kingdoms of men arise out of the sea and the earth (Dan 7:3; Rev 13:1, Rev 13:11); but the holy city comes from God out of heaven, Rev 22:2. His kingdom is not by succession, election, or conquest, but by the immediate and special designation of the divine will and counsel. Secondly, Its nature is not worldly; it is a kingdom within men (Luk 16:21), set up in their hearts and consciences (Rom 14:17), its riches spiritual, its powers spiritual, and all its glory within. The ministers of state in Christ's kingdom have not the spirit of the world, Co1 2:12. Thirdly, Its guards and supports are not worldly; its weapons are spiritual. It neither needed nor used secular force to maintain and advance it, nor was it carried on in a way hurtful to kings or provinces; it did not in the least interfere with the prerogatives of princes nor the property of their subjects; it tended not to alter any national establishment in secular things, nor opposed any kingdom but that of sin and Satan. Fourthly, Its tendency and design are not worldly. Christ neither aimed nor would allow his disciples to aim at the pomp and power of the great men of the earth. Fifthly, Its subjects, though they are in the world, yet are not of the world; they are called and chosen out of the world, are born fRom. and bound for, another world; they are neither the world's pupils nor its darlings, neither governed by its wisdom nor enriched with its wealth.

[2.] An evidence of the spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom produced. If he had designed an opposition to the government, he would have fought them at their own weapons, and would have repelled force with force of the same nature; but he did not take this course: If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews, and my kingdom be ruined by them. But, First, His followers did not offer to fight; there was no uproar, no attempt to rescue him, though the town was now full of Galileans, his friends and countrymen, and they were generally armed; but the peaceable behaviour of his disciples on this occasion was enough to put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. Secondly, He did not order them to fight; nay, he forbade them, which was an evidence both that he did not depend upon worldly aids (for he could have summoned legions of angels into his service, which showed that his kingdom was from above), and also that he did not dread worldly opposition, for he was very willing to be delivered to the Jews, as knowing that what would have been the destruction of any worldly kingdom would be the advancement and establishment of his; justly therefore does he conclude, Now you may see my kingdom is not from hence; in the world but not of it.

(5.) In answer to Pilate's further query, he replies yet more directly, Joh 18:37, where we have, [1.] Pilate's plain question: "Art thou a king then? Thou speakest of a kingdom thou hast; art thou then, in any sense, a king? And what colour hast thou for such a claim? Explain thyself." [2.] The good confession which our Lord Jesus witnessed before Pontius Pilate, in answer to this (Ti1 6:13): Thou sayest that I am a king, that is, It is as thou sayest, I am a king; for I came to bear witness of the truth. First, He grants himself to be a king, though not in the sense that Pilate meant. The Messiah was expected under the character of a king, Messiah the prince; and therefore, having owned to Caiaphas that he was the Christ, he would not disown to Pilate that he was king, lest he should seem inconsistent with himself. Note, Though Christ took upon him the form of a servant, yet even then he justly claimed the honour and authority of a king. Secondly, He explains himself, and shows how he is a king, as he came to bear witness of the truth; he rules in the minds of men by the power of truth. If he had meant to declare himself a temporal prince, he would have said, For this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, to rule the nations, to conquer kings, and to take possession of kingdoms; no, he came to be a witness, a witness for the God that made the world, and against sin that ruins the world, and by this word of his testimony he sets up, and keeps up, his kingdom. It was foretold that he should be a witness to the people, and, as such, a leader and commander to the people, Isa 55:4. Christ's kingdom was not of this world, in which truth faileth (Isa 59:15, Qui nescit dissimulare, nescit regnare - He that cannot dissemble knows not how to reign), but of that world in which truth reigns eternally. Christ's errand into the world, and his business in the world, were to bear witness to the truth. 1. To reveal it, to discover to the world that which otherwise could not have been known concerning God and his will and good-will to men, Joh 1:18; Joh 17:26. 2. To confirm it, Rom 15:8. By his miracles he bore witness to the truth of religion, the truth of divine revelation, and of God's perfections and providence, and the truth of his promise and covenant, that all men through him might believe. Now by doing this he is a king, and sets up a kingdom. (1.) The foundation and power, the spirit and genius, of Christ's kingdom, is truth, divine truth. When he said, I am the truth, he said, in effect, I am a king. He conquers by the convincing evidence of truth; he rules by the commanding power of truth, and in his majesty rides prosperously, because of truth, Psa 45:4. It is with his truth that he shall judge the people, Psa 96:13. It is the sceptre of his kingdom; he draws with the cords of a man, with truth revealed to us, and received by us in the love of it; and thus he brings thoughts into obedience. He came a light into the world, and rules as the sun by day. (2.) The subjects of this kingdom are those that are of the truth. All that by the grace of God are rescued from under the power of the father of lies, and are disposed to receive the truth and submit to the power and influence of it, will hear Christ's voice, will become his subjects, and will bear faith and true allegiance to him. Every one that has any real sense of true religion will entertain the Christian religion, and they belong to his kingdom; by the power of truth he makes them willing, Psa 90:3. All that are in love with truth will hear the voice of Christ, for greater, better, surer, sweeter truths can nowhere be found than are found in Christ, by whom grace and truth came; so that, by hearing Christ's voice, we know that we are of the truth, Jo1 3:19.

(6.) Pilate, hereupon, puts a good question to him, but does not stay for an answer, Joh 18:38. He said, What is truth? and immediately went out again.

[1.] It is certain that this was a good question, and could not be put to one that was better able to answer it. Truth is that pearl of great price which the human understanding has a desire for and is in quest of; for it cannot rest but in that which is, or at least is apprehended to be, truth. When we search the scriptures, and attend the ministry of the word, it must be with this enquiry, What is truth? and with this prayer, Lead me in thy truth, into all truth. But many put this question that have not patience and constancy enough to persevere in their search after truth, or not humility and sincerity enough to receive it when they have found it, Ti2 3:7. Thus many deal with their own consciences; they ask them those needful questions, "What am I?" "What have I done?" but will not take time for an answer.

[2.] It is uncertain with what design Pilate asked this question. First, Perhaps he spoke it as a learner, as one that began to think well of Christ, and to look upon him with some respect, and desired to be informed what new notions he advanced and what improvements he pretended to in religion and learning. But while he desired to hear some new truth from him, as Herod to see some miracle, the clamour and outrage of the priests' mob at his gate obliged him abruptly to let fall the discourse. Secondly, Some think he spoke it as a judge, enquiring further into the cause now brought before him: "Let me into this mystery, and tell me what the truth of it is, the true state of this matter." Thirdly, Others think he spoke it as a scoffer, in a jeering way: "Thou talkest of truth; canst thou tell what truth is, or give me a definition of it?" Thus he makes a jest of the everlasting gospel, that great truth which the chief priests hated and persecuted, and which Christ was now witnessing to and suffering for; and like men of no religion, who take a pleasure in bantering all religions, he ridicules both sides; and therefore Christ made him no reply. Answer not a fool according to his folly; cast not pearls before swine. But, though Christ would not tell Pilate what is truth, he has told his disciples, and by them has told us, Joh 14:6.

III. The result of both these conferences with the prosecutors and the prisoner (Joh 18:38-40), in two things: -

1. The judge appeared his friend, and favourable to him, for,

(1.) He publicly declared him innocent, Joh 18:38. Upon the whole matter, I find in him no fault at all. He supposes there might be some controversy in religion between him and them, wherein he was as likely to be in the right as they; but nothing criminal appears against him. This solemn declaration of Christ's innocency was, [1.] For the justification and honour of the Lord Jesus. By this it appears that though he was treated as the worst of malefactors he had never merited such treatment. [2.] For explaining the design and intention of his death, that he did not die for any sin of his own, even in the judgement of the judge himself, and therefore he died as a sacrifice for our sins, and that, even in the judgment of the prosecutors themselves, one man should die for the people, Joh 11:50. This is he that did no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth (Isa 53:9), who was to be cut off, but not for himself, Dan 9:26. [3.] For aggravating the sin of the Jews that prosecuted him with so much violence. If a prisoner has had a fair trial, and has been acquitted by those that are proper judges of the crime, especially if there be no cause to suspect them partial in his favour, he must be believed innocent, and his accusers are bound to acquiesce. But our Lord Jesus, though brought in not guilty, is still run down as a malefactor, and his blood thirsted for.

(2.) He proposed an expedient for his discharge (Joh 18:39): You have a custom, that I should release to you a prisoner at the passover; shall it be this king of the Jews? He proposed this, not to the chief priests (he knew they would never agree to it), but to the multitude; it was an appeal to the people, as appears, Mat 27:15. Probably he had heard how this Jesus had been attended but the other day with the hosannas of the common people; he therefore looked upon him to be the darling of the multitude, and the envy only of the rulers, and therefore he made no doubt but they would demand the release of Jesus, and this would stop the mouth of the prosecutors, and all would be well. [1.] He allows their custom, for which, perhaps, they had had a long prescription, in honour of the passover, which was a memorial of their release. But it was adding to God's words, as if he had not instituted enough for the due commemoration of that deliverance, and, though an act of mercy, might be injustice to the public, Pro 17:15. [2.] He offers to release Jesus to them, according to the custom. If Pilate had had the honesty and courage that became a judge, he would not have named an innocent person to be competitor with a notorious criminal for this favour; if he found no fault in him, he was bound in conscience to discharge him. But he was willing to trim the matter, and please all sides, being governed more by worldly wisdom than by the rules of equity.

2. The people appeared his enemies, and implacable against him (Joh 18:40): They cried all again and again, Not this man, let not him be released, but Barabbas. Observe, (1.) How fierce and outrageous they were. Pilate proposed the thing to them calmly, as worthy their mature consideration, but they resolved it in a heat, and gave in their resolution with clamour and noise, and in the utmost confusion. Note, The enemies of Christ's holy religion cry it down, and so hope to run it down; witness the outcry at Ephesus, Act 19:34. But those who think the worse of things or persons merely for their being thus exclaimed against have a very small share of constancy and consideration. Nay, there is cause to suspect a deficiency of reason and justice on that side which calls in the assistance of popular tumult. (2.) How foolish and absurd they were, as is intimated in the short account here given of the other candidate: Now Barabbas was a robber, and therefore, [1.] A breaker of the law of God; and yet he shall be spared, rather than one who reproved the pride, avarice, and tyranny of the priests and elders. Though Barabbas be a robber, he will not rob them of Moses's seat, nor of their traditions, and then no matter. [2.] He was an enemy to the public safety and personal property. The clamour of the town is wont to be against robbers (Job 30:5, Men cried after them as after a thief), yet here it is for one. Thus those do who prefer their sins before Christ. Sin is a robber, every base lust is a robber, and yet foolishly chosen rather than Christ, who would truly enrich us.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 28. The hall of judgment] εις το πραιτωριος, To the praetorium. This was the house where Pilate lodged; hence called in our margin, Pilate's house. The praetorium is so called from being the dwelling-place of the praetor, or chief of the province. It was also the place where he held his court, and tried causes.

St. John has omitted all that passed in the house of Caiaphas - the accusations brought against Christ-the false witnesses - the insults which he received in the house of the high priest-and the assembling of the grand council, or Sanhedrin. These he found amply detailed by the other three evangelists; and for this reason it appears that he omitted them. John's is properly a supplementary Gospel.

Lest they should be defiled] The Jews considered even the touch of a Gentile as a legal defilement; and therefore would not venture into the praetorium, for fear of contracting some impurity, which would have obliged them to separate themselves from all religious ordinances till the evening, Le 15:10-11; Le 15:19-20.

That they might eat the passover.] Some maintain that το πασχα here does not mean the paschal lamb, but the other sacrifices which were offered during the paschal solemnity-for this had been eaten the evening before; and that our Lord was crucified the day after the passover. Others have maintained that the paschal lamb is here meant; that this was the proper day for sacrificing it; that it was on the very hour in which it was offered that Christ expired on the cross; and that therefore our Lord did not eat the Paschal lamb this year, or that he ate it some hours before the common time. Bishop Pearce supposes that it was lawful for the Jews to eat the paschal lamb any time between the evening of Thursday and that of Friday. He conjectures too that this permission was necessary on account of the immense number of lambs which were to be killed for that purpose. When Cestius desired to know the number of the Jews, he asked the priests how he might accomplish his wish? They informed him that this might be known by the number of the lambs slain at the passover, as never less than ten partook of one lamb, though twenty might feast on it. On this mode of computation he found the lambs to be 256,500; εικοσι πεντε μυριαδας ηριθμησαν, προς δε ἑξακισχιλια και πεντακοσια. See Josephus, War, b. vi. c. 9. s. 3.

That Jesus ate a passover this last year of his life is sufficiently evident from Mt 26:17-19; Mr 14:12-18; Lu 22:8-15; and that he ate this passover some hours before the ordinary time, and was himself slain at that hour in which the paschal lamb was ordered by the law to be sacrificed, is highly probable, if not absolutely certain. See Clarke on Mt 26:20, and at the conclusion of the chapter, where the subject, and the different opinions on it, are largely considered. See Clarke on Mt 26:26

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

28. Then they lead Jesus. That trial, which the Evangelist mentions, took place before daybreak; and yet there can be no doubt, that they had their bellows at work throughout the whole of the city to inflame the people. Thus the rage of the people was suddenly kindled, as if all, with one consent, demanded that Christ should be put to death, Now, the trial was conducted by the priests, not that they had it in their power to pronounce a sentence, but that, after having excited a prejudice against him by their previous decislon, they might deliver him to the governor, as if he had already been fully tried. The Romans gave the name Praetorium both to the governor’s house or palace, and to the judgment-seat, where he was wont to decide causes.

That they might not be defiled. In abstaining from all defilement, that, being purified according to the injunction of the Law, they may eat the Lord’s Passover, their religion, in this respect, deserves commendation. But there are two faults, and both of them are very heinous. The first is, they do not consider that they carry more pollution within their hearts, than they can contract by entering any place however profane; and the second is, they carry to excess their care about smaller matters, and neglect what is of the highest importance.

To the defiled and to unbelievers, says Paul, nothing is pure; because their minds are polluted, (Titus 1:15.)

But these hypocrites, though they are so full of malice, ambition, fraud, cruelty, and avarice, that they almost infect heaven and earth with their abominable smell, are only afraid of external pollutions. So then it is an intolerable mockery, that they expect to please God, provided that they do not contract defilement by touching some unclean thing, though they have disregarded true purity.

Another fault connected with hypocrisy is, that, while it is careful in performing ceremonies, it makes no scruple of neglecting matters of the highest importance; for God enjoined on the Jews those ceremonies which are contained in the Law, for no other reason, than that they might be habituated to the love and practice of true holiness. Besides, no part of the Law forbade them to enter into the house of a Gentile, but it was a precaution derived from the traditions of the fathers, that no person might, through oversight, contract any pollution from an unclean house. But those venerable expounders of the Law, while they carefully strain at a gnat, swallow the camel without any hesitation, (Matthew 23:24;) and it is usual with hypocrites to reckon it a greater crime to kill a flea than to kill a man. This fault is closely allied to the other, of greatly preferring the traditions of men to the holy commandments of God. In order that they may eat the passover in a proper manner, they wish to keep themselves pure; but they suppose uncleanness to be confined within the wails of the governor’s house, and yet they do not hesitate, while heaven and earth are witnesses, to pursue an innocent person to death. In short, they observe the shadow of the passover with a false and pretended reverence, and yet not only do they violate the true passover by sacrilegious hands, but endeavor, as far as lies in their power, to bury it in eternal oblivion,

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas,.... When Peter had denied him, one of the officers had smote him, the high priest had examined him, and they thought they had enough, out of his own mouth, to condemn him; they, the chief priests, elders, Scribes, and the whole multitude, led him bound as he was, from Caiaphas's house,

unto the hall of judgment; or the "praetorium"; the place where the Roman governor, who was now Pontius Pilate, used to hear and try causes in; the Romans now having matters and causes relating to life and death, in their hands:

and it was early; the morning indeed was come; but it was as soon as it was day; they had been all night in taking and examining Jesus, and consulting what to do with him; and as soon as they could expect the governor to be up, they hurry him away to him, eagerly thirsting after his blood, and fearing lest he should be rescued out of their hands:

and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; that is, the Jews, only the band of Roman soldiers went in; the reason of this was, because it was the house of a Gentile, and with them, , "the dwelling houses of Gentiles", or idolaters, "are unclean" (t); yea, if they were the houses of Israelites, and Gentiles were admitted to dwell in them, they were defiled, and all that were in them; for so they say (u),

"if the collectors for the government enter into a house to dwell in, all in the house are defiled.''

They did not think it lawful to rent out a house in Judea to an Heathen (w), or to assist in building a Basilica for them; which they explain to be a palace, in which judges sit to judge men (x): hence the reason of their caution, and which they were the more observant of,

that they might eat the passover; pure and undefiled; not the passover lamb, for that they had eaten the night before; but the "Chagigah", or feast on the fifteenth day of the month. Many Christian writers, both ancient and modern, have concluded from hence, that Christ did not keep his last passover, at the same time the Jews did; and many things are said to illustrate this matter, and justify our Lord in it: some observe the distinction of a sacrificial, and commemorative passover; the sacrificial passover is that, in which the lamb was slain, and was fixed to a certain time and place, and there was no altering it; the commemorative passover is that, in which no lamb is slain and eaten, only a commemoration made of the deliverance of the people of Israel out of Egypt; such as is now kept by the Jews, being out of their own land, where sacrifice with them is not lawful; and this it is supposed our Lord kept, and not the former: but it does not appear that there was such a commemorative passover kept by the Jews, in our Lord's time, and whilst the temple stood: and supposing there was such an one allowed, and appointed for those that were at a distance from Jerusalem, and could not come up thither, (which was not the case of Christ and his disciples,) it is reasonable to conclude, that it was to be kept, and was kept at the time the sacrificial passover was, in the room of which it was substituted, as it is by the Jews to this day; so that this will by no means clear the matter, nor solve the difficulty; besides it is very manifest, that the passover our Lord kept was sacrificial; and such an one the disciples proposed to get ready for him, and did, of which he and they are said to eat: "and the first day of unleavened bread, when they KILLED the passover, his disciples said to him, where wilt thou that we go and prepare, that thou mayest EAT the passover?" Mar 14:12 and again, "then came the day of unleavened bread, when the passover MUST be KILLED", Luk 22:7. "They made ready the passover", Luk 22:13 "and he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him", Luk 22:14 "and he said unto them, with desire I have desired to eat this passover", Luk 22:15. Others suggest, that this difference of observing the passover by Christ and the Jews arose from fixing the beginning of the month, and so accordingly the feasts in it, by the or appearance of the moon; and that our Lord went according to the true appearance of it, and the Jews according to a false account: but of this, as a fact, there is no proof; besides, though the feasts were regulated and fixed according to the appearance of the moon, yet this was not left to the arbitrary will, pleasure, and judgment of particular persons, to determine as they should think proper; but the sanhedrim, or chief council of the nation sat, at a proper time, to hear and examine witnesses about the appearance of the moon; and accordingly determined, and none might fix but them (y); and as this was doubtless the case at this time, it is not very reasonable to think, that Christ would differ from them: besides, it was either a clear case, or a doubtful one; if the former, then there would be no room nor reason to keep another day; and if it was the latter, then two days were observed, that they might be sure they were right (z); but then both were kept by all the Jews: and that the time of this passover was well known, is clear from various circumstances; such and such facts were done, so many days before it; six days before it, Jesus came to Bethany, Joh 12:1 and two days before it, he was in the same place, Mat 26:2 and says to his disciples, "ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover", &c. Others taking it for granted, that Christ kept the passover a day before the usual and precise time, defend it, by observing the despotic and legislative power of Christ, who had a right to dispense with the time of this feast, and could at his pleasure anticipate it, because the betraying of him and his death were so near at hand: that he had such a power will not be disputed; but that he should use it in this way, does not seem necessary, on account of his death, seeing none but the living were obliged to it; nor so consistent with his wisdom, since hereby the mouths of his enemies would be opened against him, for acting not agreeably to the law of God: moreover, when it is considered that the passover, according to the Jews, was always kept "in its set time" (a), and was not put off on the account of the sabbath, or anything else, to another day; and that though when it was put off for particular persons, on account of uncleanness, to another month, yet still it was to be kept on the fourteenth day at even, in that month, Num 9:10 it will not easily be received that Christ observed it a day before the time: besides, the passover lamb was not killed in a private house, but in the temple, in the court of it, and that always on the fourteenth of Nisan, after noon: so says Maimonides (b),

"it is an affirmative command to slay the passover on the fourteenth of the month Nisan, after the middle of the day. The passover is not slain but in the court, as the rest of the holy things; even in the time that altars were lawful, they did not offer the passover on a private altar; and whoever offers the passover on a private altar, is to be beaten; as it is said, "thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee", Deu 16:5.''

And seeing therefore a passover lamb was not to be killed at home, but in the court of the priests, in the temple, it does not seem probable, that a single lamb should be suffered to be killed there, for Christ and his disciples, on a day not observed by the Jews, contrary to the sense of the sanhedrim, and of the whole nation: add to this, that the sacred text is express for it, that it was at the exact time of this feast, when it was come according to general computation, that the disciples moved to Christ to prepare the passover for him, and did, and they with him kept it: the account Matthew gives is very full; "now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread"; that is, when that was come in its proper time and course, "the disciples came to Jesus"; saying unto him, where wilt "thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover?" He bids them go to the city to such a man, and say, "I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples, and the disciples did as Jesus had appointed, and they made ready the passover; now when the even was come", the time of eating the passover, according to the law of God, "he sat down with the twelve, and as they did eat", &c. Mat 26:17 and Mark is still more particular, who says, "and the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover"; that is, when the Jews killed the passover, on the very day the lamb was slain, and eaten by them; and then follows much the same account as before, Mar 14:12 and Luke yet more clearly expresses it, "then came the day of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed"; according to the law of God, and the common usage of the people of the Jews; yea, he not only observes, that Christ kept the usual day, but the very hour, the precise time of eating it; for he says, "and when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him", Luk 22:7. Nor is there anything in this text, that is an objection to Christ and the Jews keeping the passover at the same time; since by the passover here is meant, the "Chagigah", or feast kept on the fifteenth day of the month, as it is sometimes called: in Deu 16:2 it is said, "thou shalt therefore sacrifice the passover unto the Lord thy God, of the flock and the herd": now the passover of the herd, can never mean the passover lamb, but the passover "Chagigah"; and so the Jewish commentators explain it; "of the herd", says Jarchi, thou shalt sacrifice for the "Chagigah"; and says Aben Ezra, for the peace offerings; so Josiah the king is said to give for the passovers three thousand bullocks, and the priests three hundred oxen, and the Levites five hundred oxen, Ch2 35:7 which Jarchi interprets of the peace offerings of the "Chagigah", there called passovers; and so in 1 Esdres 1:7-9 mention is made of three thousand calves, besides lambs, that Josias gave for the passover; and three hundred by some other persons, and seven hundred by others: the passage in Deuteronomy, is explained of the "Chagigah", in both Talmuds (c), and in other writings (d); so besides the passover lamb, we read of sacrifices slain, , "in the name of" the passover, or on account of it (e); and particularly of the calf and the young bullock, slain for the sake of the passover (f): and now this is the passover which these men were to eat that day, and therefore were careful not to defile themselves, that so they might not be unfit for it; otherwise had it been the passover lamb in the evening, they might have washed themselves in the evening, according to the rules of , or "the daily washing", and been clean enough to have eat it: besides, it may be observed, that all the seven days were called the passover; and he that ate the unleavened bread, is said by eating that, to eat the passover; and thus they invite their guests daily to eat the bread, saying (g),

"everyone that is hungry, let him come and eat all that he needs, "and keep the passover".''

It is easy to observe the consciences of these men, who were always wont to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel; they scruple going into the judgment hall, which belonged to an Heathen governor, and where was a large number of Heathen soldiers; but they could go along with these into the garden to apprehend Christ, and spend a whole night in consulting to shed innocent blood: no wonder that God should be weary of their sacrifices and ceremonious performances, when, trusting to these, they had no regard to moral precepts: however, this may be teaching to us, in what manner we should keep the feast, and eat of the true passover, Christ; not with malice and wickedness, as these Jews ate theirs, but with sincerity and truth: besides, a sanhedrim, when they had condemned anyone to death, were forbidden to eat anything all that day (h); and so whilst scrupling one thing, they broke through another.

(t) Misn. Oholot, c. 18. sect. 7. (u) Maimon. Mishcab & Mosheb, c. 12. sect. 12. (w) Misn. Avoda Zara, c. 1. sect. 8. (x) Jarchi & Bartenora in ib. sect. 7. (y) Maimon. Kiddush Hachodesh, c. 2. sect. 7, 8. (z) Ib. c. 5. sect. 6, 7, 8. (a) Maimon. in Misn. Pesachim, c. 7. sect. 4. & Bartenora in ib. c. 5. sect. 4. (b) Hilchot Korban Pesacb. c. 1. sect. 1, 3. (c) T. Hieros. Pesacb. fol. 33. 1. T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 70. 2. (d) Maimon. Korban Pesach. c. 10. sect. 12. Moses Kotsensis Mitzvot Tora, pr. neg. 349. (e) Misn. Pesachim, c. 6. sect. 5. (f) T. Bab. Menachot, fol. 3. 1. (g) Haggadah Shel Pesach. p. 4. Ed. Rittangel. (h) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 63. 1. Maimon. Hilch. Sanhedrin, c. 13. sect. 4.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

28 Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover.

Ver. 28. Lest they should be defiled] Putrid hypocrisy! they stand upon legal defilements, and care not to defile their consciences with innocent blood. What is this, but to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel? τον ανδριανταγαργαλιζειν. So Saul seemed to make a heinous matter of eating the flesh with the blood, 1Sa 14:33, when it was nothing with him to spill the blood of innocent Jonathan. Nay, he was so scrupulous, that he would not so much as name a guilty man or sinner, but, in casting of lots, instead of saying, Show the innocent or guilty, he said, Show the innocent or upright person, as Tremellius reads it; yet at the same time (as is well observed) he made no conscience of bloody oaths. So Doeg was detained before the Lord, either because it was the sabbath, or his vow was not finished, &c. But when he went thence, he became death’s man to the Lord’s priests.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

See Mat 27:1-2.

Hall of judgment - The praetorium - the same word that in Mat 27:27, is translated “common hall.” See the notes on that place. It was the place where the Roman proctor, or governor, heard and decided cases brought before him. Jesus had been condemned by the Sanhedrin, and pronounced guilty of death Mat 26:66; but they had not power to carry their sentence into execution Joh 18:31, and they therefore sought that he might be condemned and executed by Pilate.

Lest they should be defiled - They considered the touch of a Gentile to be a defilement, and on this occasion, at least, seemed to regard it as a pollution to enter the house of a Gentile. They took care, therefore, to guard themselves against what they considered ceremonial pollution, while they were wholly unconcerned at the enormous crime of putting the innocent Saviour to death, and imbruing their hands in their Messiah’s blood. Probably there is not anywhere to be found among men another such instance of petty regard to the mere ceremonies of the law and attempting to keep from pollution, at the same time that their hearts were filled with malice, and they were meditating the most enormous of all crimes. But it shows us how much more concerned men will be at the violation of the mere forms and ceremonies of religion than at real crime, and how they endeavor to keep their consciences at ease amid their deeds of wickedness by the observance of some of the outward ceremonies of religion by mere sanctimoniousness.

That they might eat the passover - See the notes at Mat 26:2, Mat 26:17. This defilement, produced by contact with a Gentile, they considered as equivalent to that of the contact of a dead body Lev 22:4-6; Num 5:2, and as disqualifying them to partake of the passover in a proper manner. The word translated “passover” means properly the paschal lamb which was slain and eaten on the observance of this feast. This rite Jesus had observed with his disciples the day before this. It has been supposed by many that he anticipated the usual time of observing it one day, and was crucified on the day on which the Jews observed it; but this opinion is improbable. The very day of keeping the ordinance was specified in the law of Moses, and it is not probable that the Saviour departed from the commandment. All the circumstances, also, lead us to suppose that he observed it at the usual time and manner, Mat 26:17, Mat 26:19. The only passage which has led to a contrary opinion is this in John; but here the word passover does not, of necessity, mean the paschal lamb. It probably refers to the Feast which followed the sacrifice of the lamb, and which continued seven days. Compare Num 28:16-17. The whole feast was called the Passover, and they were unwilling to defile themselves, even though the paschal lamb had been killed, because it would disqualify them for participating in the remainder of the ceremonies (Lightfoot).

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Tha they might eat the Pasch. They, who by the Pasch will always understand the paschal-lamb, look upon it certain from these words, that the Scribes and Pharisees at least, had deferred eating the paschal-lamb, till Friday the 15th day, in the evening: but there are passages in the Scripture, which shew, that the word Pasch, or Phase, comprehended not only the paschal sacrifice of the lamb, but also the sacrifices, that were to be eaten with unleavened bread, during the seven days of the paschal solemnity, as Deuteronomy xvi. 2. thou shalt offer up the Phase, or Pasch, to the Lord, of sheep and oxen. And 1 Paralipomenon xxxv. 8. They gave to the priests to make the Phase, or Pasch, in altogether two thousand six hundred small cattle, and three hundred oxen. The oxen, therefore, were also given, to make up the Pasch, and were comprehended by the word Pasch, or Phase. It might, therefore, be these paschal sacrifices, and not the paschal-lamb, which the priests designed to partake of, and therefore would not enter into the palace of Pilate. See Tillemont against Lamy, on the 2nd passage out of St. John, tom. ii. p. 696. See also the Lexicon of Mr. Heure on the word Paque. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The chief priests having in their sanhedrim done with our Saviour’s case, and judged him worthy of death, as we read, Mat 26:66; Mar 14:64; which two evangelists, with Luke, relate this history of Christ’s trial before the sanhedrim, with many more circumstances than John doth; they now lead him from the ecclesiastical court to the court of the civil magistrate; either kept in Pilate’s house, who was them present civil governor under the Romans, or some where at least where he sat as judge, which was therefore called

the hall of judgment. And it was early; how early it was we cannot tell, but probably about five or six of the clock. The Jews would not go into the judgment hall, that they might not be defiled, for they accounted it a legal pollution and uncleanness to come into a heathen’s house, or to touch any thing which a heathen had touched: now the reason is assigned why they were afraid of contracting any legal pollution, viz. that they might the passover.

Object. But had they not eaten the passover the night before? That was the time prescribed by the law, to the letter of which there is no doubt but that our Saviour strictly kept himself.

Answer. Some say that they had not, because the day wherein they should have eaten it this year falling the day before their sabbath, the passover was put off to be kept on the sabbath, that two great festivals might not be kept two days successively; so as, though our Saviour kept it at the time appointed by the law, yet the Jews did not. But this is denied by other very learned then, who tell us the Jews never altered their day for keeping their passover, neither for the succeeding sabbath, nor any other reason. They say therefore, that by the passover which is mentioned in this verse is to be understood the feast, mentioned Num 28:17, which was to be kept the fifteenth day, which day was a day of great solemnity with them from the morning to the evening; all the seven days they also offered various sacrifices, which all went under the name of the passover, because they followed in the days of the paschal feast. Thus the term passover is taken, Deu 16:2, Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the passover unto the Lord thy God, of the flock and the herd. According to this notion, the meaning of those words, that they might eat the passover, is, that they might proceed in their paschal solemnity, keeping the feast according to the law. Be it as it will, these hypocrites in it notoriously discovered their hypocrisy, scrupling what caused a legal uncleanness, and not at all scrupling either immediately before their eating the passover, or presently after it, in their great festival to defile themselves with the guilt of innocent blood; nay, had Christ been such a malefactor as they pretended, yet the bringing him into judgment, their prosecuting, and accusing, and condemning him, and assisting in his crucifying, were not works fit for the day before such a solemnity, or the day after it, which was so great a festival: but there is nothing more ordinary, than for persons over zealous as to rituals, to be as remiss with reference to moral duties.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

28. From Caiaphas—For the examination before Caiaphas, compare our notes upon Mat_26:57-68.

The hall of judgment—The praetorium of Pilate, the procurator. For our account of Pilate, and the arraignment of Jesus before him, see our notes on Mat_27:1-30.

That they might eat the Passover—But, according to all the first three Evangelists, Jesus had eaten the paschal lamb the night before, namely, the evening closing Thursday. Were, then, these Jews yet to eat the paschal lamb upon the evening of the present day, namely, Friday? This has been a memorable difficulty among commentators for centuries. Sceptics have maintained that there is a contradiction between the first three Evangelists and John, inasmuch as the former represent the lamb as eaten on Thursday evening and he on Friday evening. To solve this difficulty, various theories have been proposed. Some have maintained that Jesus ate the lamb the evening before the Jews did generally; others have maintained that there were two Passover evenings allowed by the Jews themselves. The simplest and most satisfactory solution, however, is found in the different meanings of the word Passover. It no doubt did often signify simply the paschal lamb. But it also had a more extensive meaning, so as to include the entire festival of the Passover week. Such is the obvious meaning in Joh_2:13; Joh_2:23; Joh_6:4; Joh_11:55; Joh_12:1; Joh_13:1. So also in 2Ch_30:22 : “They did eat the feast seven days, offering peace-offerings.” Now during the Passover week there was to be upon each day a burnt-offering, two young bullocks, one ram, and seven lambs; also a meat-offering, and one goat for a sin-offering. Unleavened bread was to be eaten through the week. There was also the chigagah, which was a festive thank-offering made by private individuals and families. To partake of these during any day of the festival was to keep or eat the Passover. That John did not disagree with the other Evangelists in holding the supper on the night of his betrayal to be the Passover, we have good historical proof. For his disciple Polycarp, in a discussion of the question occurring in his day, expressly declared that John himself celebrated the Easter Supper on the fourteenth of Nisan, the time of the Jewish Passover.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ver. 28 Joh_19:16. (3) The Roman trial, presupposing the decision of the Sanhedrin.

Vers. 28-32. (a) Without the Praetorium. Pilate extorts the malign intention of the Jews, and dares them to disobey Roman law.

Then they lead Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the Praetorium to the imperial palace of the Roman governor. The word is used primarily for the general"s tent in the Roman camps, and for the legal residence of the chief of a province. Now, the ordinary residence of the Roman governors was at Caesarea, but at the time of the great feasts they were in the habit of going up to Jerusalem, and at a later time than this (Josephus, "Bell. Jud:," 2:14:8 15:5) the governors utilized for this purpose the former palace of Herod, a gorgeous residence in the upper city. It is, however, more probable that Pilate occupied the palace of the Castle of Antonia, overlooking the northwest corner of the temple area, and having means of direct communication with it. Edersheim inclines to the palace of Herod. From the high-priestly palace to the castle they led Jesus. And it was early. In Mat_14:25 and Mar_13:35 prwi is equivalent to the fourth watch of the night, between three and six o"clock. The breadth of the phrase would cover the period of the hurried council (see Mt 27 Mr 15) and the session of Pilate. The Roman judgments were often conducted in early morning (Seneca, "De Ira," 2:7) prima luce. The council having in their indecent haste conveyed Jesus to the Praetorium, while (and) they themselves went not into the Praetorium,lest they should be defiled (miainw , the solemn word for "profane" in Plato, Sophocles, and the LXX). This defilement by entrance into the house of a Gentile was not an enactment of the Law, but was a purely rabbinic observance (Delitzsch, "Talmudische Studien," 14. (1874); "Zeitschrift fur die gesammte Luth. Theol."). We find it operative in Act_10:28, and thus a hint given not merely of the author"s knowledge of the inner life of Judaism, but of his quiet recognition of the stupendous spectacle of malicious ritualism, and of unscrupulous antagonism to the Holiest One, busying itself about attention to the letter of that which was only a rabbinic legislation. But might eat the Passover. Here in this passage we come once more face to face with the persistent puzzle occasioned by the divergent intimations of John and the synoptists as to the day of our Lord"s death. In Mat_26:17 and Mar_14:12-14 this very phrase is used for the preparation of that Paschal supper which our Lord celebrated with his disciples (see Introduction, pp. 93, etc.). So that we have at any rate a discordant verbal usage, however the problem be solved. The day is breaking, which constitutes, according to John (prima facie), the 14th of Nisan, in the evening of which and commencement of the 15th the Passover would be killed. According to the synoptists, that Passover meal was already over, and the first great day of the feast had commenced the day of convocation, with sabbatic functions and duties. The statements are apparently in hopeless variance. Many emphasize, exaggerate, and declare insoluble the contradiction, repudiating either the authority of John or that of the synoptists. Meyer and Lucke give their verdict with John, the eye-witness, as against the synoptic tradition. Strauss and Keim, who also hold the invincible discrepancy, lift the synoptic account to a comparatively high state of historic validity, and thereby discredit the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel. We have two methods of reconciling the difficulty:

(1) An endeavor to show that the synoptic narrative itself is inconsistent with the idea that the night of the Passion was the night of the general Passover.

(a) That the entire proceeding of the trial was inconsistent with the feast-day;

(b) that Simon the Cyrenian could not bear the cross on that day;

(c) the circumstance that that Friday evening was the preparation of the Passover; and

(d) that the reckonings of the weeks till the Pentecost Sunday are all made to show that the synoptic narrative itself admits that the Crucifixion took place before the Passover meal. So also does the decision of the priests, that they would put Jesus to death mh en th eorth . (Mat_26:5 Mar_14:2) On this understanding the passage before us is interpreted in its natural sense; the Jews were unwilling to contract ceremonial defilement, because they were about to eat the Passover, and so with respect to the other references in John"s Gospel, which all, prima facto, suggest the same chronological arrangement.

(2) A very powerful argument has been constructed, however, which brings John"s account here, as well as elsewhere, into harmony with the supposed assertion of a synoptic narrative, that the Paschal meal preceded the trial of Jesus. It is said by Hengstenberg, M"Clellan, Edersheim, and others that this unwillingness to defile themselves was because they were anticipating their midday meal, at which sacrificial offerings and thank offerings, also called chagigah , were regarded as "eating the Passover". (Deu_16:2, 3 2Ch_30:22 2Ch_35:7-9) It is argued that, if the Jews were thinking of a meal which would not come off till sundown, their fear of defilement was illusory. But examination of these passages shows that there is a distinction drawn between the Paschal lamb and the cattle which might form part of the general sacrificial feasting of the following days, and that the term "Passover" is strictly limited to the Paschal lamb. M oreover, the duration of the defilement thus contracted would certainly have prevented them from any participation in the slaying of the Paschal lamb "between the evenings" of the 14th and 15th of Nisan. Dr. Moulton has made the ingenious suggestion that John"s statement here is brought into harmony with the synoptic narrative, by the supposition that the chief priests had been disturbed in their Passover preparations, and were intending to complete their meal as soon as the decision of the Roman governor had been given. This very supposition reveals the exceeding unlikelihood that all the hierarchs and chief scribes, Pharisees, and elders of the people had consented to forego the due solemnization of their national rite on that previous evening. This supposition involves a much greater violation of Passover regulation than that Jesus and the twelve should have anticipated the ceremony by a few hours. If the day is the 14th of Nisan, all, so far as John"s account is concerned, is obvious. I am therefore disposed to agree with Meyer, Keim, De Pressense, Baur, Neander, De Wette, Ebrard, Ewald, Westcott, Godet, and Lucke, against Hengstenberg, Wieseler, Tholuck, Luthardt, M"Clellan, and many others. The full interpretation of the synoptic narrative is discussed elsewhere (Introduction, p. 92.). Certainly John makes no reference to the Passover in his account of the Last Supper, neither does he refer to the institution of the Lord"s Supper. It will not be just to say, with Renan, that John has substituted the foot-washing for the sacramental least. (On the principle of his omissions, see Introduction, pp. 100.-105.)

Joh_19:16. The trial before Pilate.

This was the civil investigation following the ecclesiastical. The Sanhedrin wanted Pilate simply to ratify the sentence of death they had pronounced upon Christ.

I THE EARLY RESORT TO PILATE. "Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment-hall, lest they should be defiled; that they might eat the Passover?

1. The Sanhedrin were eager for the destruction of Jesus, and therefore sought Pilate at an unusually early hour of the morning. Their eagerness led them to disregard the law that did not allow sentence and execution to occur on the same day.

2. They were obliged to seek Pilate"s intervention; for the Romans had deprived the Jews of the right of inflicting capital punishment. They might sentence Jesus to death; it was for Pilate to execute the sentence.

3. Mark their hypocrisy. They feared the defilement of approaching a Gentile tribunal, but they did not shrink from the greater defilement of shedding innocent blood.

II THE FIRST PHASE OF THE CIVIL PROCEDURE. The Jews want their sentence on Jesus confirmed without examination. "If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee." They had judged Jesus; it was for Pilate to act the part of the executioner.

1. Pilate"s attempt to evade this demand. "Take ye him, and judge him according to your Law." The Jews still had the right of excommunication and scourging, but not of inflicting capital punishment. Pilate imagined that they would be content with the exercise of such inferior punishment as remained to them.

2. The Jews parried the thrust by declaring, in effect, that nothing but the capital sentence would satisfy them. "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death." This language implied their dependence on Pilate for carrying out the sentence.

3. This fact led to the fulfillment of our Lord"s own prophecy. "That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spake, signifying what death he should die?

(1) Crucifixion was not a Jewish, but a Roman punishment. If the Jews had been their own masters in Palestine, Jesus would have been stoned, and not "lifted up from the earth". (Joh_12:32)

(2) The Gentile as well as the Jew must have a share in the greatest crime in all history. This was to fulfill Christ"s own words that "he should be delivered to the Gentiles, and be crucified". (Mat_20:19)

III THE SECOND PHASE OF THE CIVIL PROCEDURE. The Jews frame a political accusation. "Art thou the King of the Jews?" He had made himself a King!

1. The question of Pilate implies a charge on the part of the accusers as having given rise to it. The Jews said, "We found him perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute unto Caesar, saying that he is Christ the King". (Luk_23:2)

2. It was a question which admitted of two very different answers.

(1) Jesus could have repudiated the kingship in the Roman sense.

(2) He could not have repudiated it in the religious sense without disclaiming the Messiahship.

3. Our Lord"s method of answering Pilate"s inquiry. "Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?" Everything depended in the answer upon the fact whether it issued from Jewish or from Gentile lips. Jesus acted wisely; he neither affirms nor denies anything.

4. Pilate"s hasty and contemptuous rejoinder. "Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?" What crime have you committed?

5. Our Lord"s answer is at once an admission and a denial of kingship, according as the standpoint of interpretation is Gentile or Jewish. "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

(1) His kingdom does not derive its origin from earth, though here it has its historical development.

(2) Jesus makes no concession to the zealots who looked for a temporal kingdom of the Messiah.

(3) His kingdom, as essentially spiritual, was not to be promoted by violence or force.

(4) The weapons of his warfare were taken from the armory of truth. "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.

(a) The revelation of God is the true scepter in Christ"s hands; as unlike as possible to the methods of Roman rule. Truth is the realm of Christ.

(b) The subjects of this realm are all who hear the truth. "Every one that is of truth heareth my voice." "The spiritual man judgeth all things.

6. Pilate"s contemptuous dismissal of the whole subject. "What is truth?

(1) This question was not the expression of a genuine quest after truth;

(2) nor the despair of a spirit that had failed to discover it among the philosophies of his time;

(3) but the cynical and frivolous suggestion of a skeptical sprat.

(4) He had the opportunity now of learning all about the truth, but he hastily closed the interview with the Prisoner at his bar. "He went out again unto the Jews, and said to them, I find in him no fault at all." Nothing certainly to warrant the political accusation of the Jews. But he acted an illogical and time-serving part. He ought at once to have dismissed Jesus from his bar.

(5) Pilate makes a fresh effort to save Christ without offending the Jews. "Ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the Passover: will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Sews?

(a) Pilate presumed upon a popular reaction in Christ"s favor.

(b) But the chief priests were masters of the situation. Barabbas, a robber, was chosen, and Christ left for crucifixion.

(6) Pilate makes a fresh effort to save Christ. "Then Pilate took Jesus, and scourged him.

(a) He hoped in this way to avert the extreme punishment by conciliating the less violent of Christ"s enemies, and awakening the compassion of the populace. But he utterly miscalculated the fierceness of Jewish fanaticism.

(b) The parody of Jewish royalty the crown of thorns, the purple robe, the "Hail, King of the Jews! was the scornful act of the Roman soldiers, who wished to pour contempt upon the Messianic hopes of a people they despised.

(7) Pilate"s further, but weaker, efforts to save Christ. "Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him." "Behold the Man!

(a) There is a tone of pity and respect in Pilate"s words, which meets no response among the Jews.

(b) The chief priests and officers demand his crucifixion. "They cried out, saying, Crucify him! crucify him!" The name of the cross is now mentioned for the first time, and by Jewish lips. Concessions had only made them bolder. Pilate could not now resist their extreme demands.

IV THE THIRD PHASE OF THE CIVIL PROCEDURE THE RELIGIOUS ACCUSATION. "The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.

1. The Jews point to the article of their code which punishes blasphemy with death, and demand -Pilate"s execration of their sentence.

2. The charge was true. Jesus was, indeed, the Son of God.

3. The charge had a startling effect upon the half-skeptical, half-superstitious nature of Pilate. "When Pilate therefore heard that saving, he was the more afraid." He asked Jesus, "Whence art thou?

(1) This is not a question respecting his earthly origin. Pilate knew perfectly that he was a Galilaean.

(2) It is a question as to whether he is a Divine Being who had appeared on earth.

4. Jesus gives no answer to the question.

(1) Because it is asked in pure curiosity.

(2) The true answer to the question would not have affected the procedure of Pilate in iris present circumstances. Had he not already several times declared him to be innocent?

(3) The change of accusation, besides, was the self-condemnation of the Jews.

(4) If Jesus had not been the Son of God, he would not have kept silence. His silence is his assent to the charge.

5. Pilate"s offence at the silence of Jesus. "Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?

(1) The governor stands upon his power and authority.

(2) Jesus does not repudiate the claim, but shows that it is derived, and not inherent, with a corresponding responsibility. "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above.

(a) The answer displays at once piety and meekness.

(b) It implies a Divine government of society. Under God "kings reign and princes decree justice." It therefore implies that Pilate was responsible for the use of his power.

(c) It implied that it was in accordance with a Divine dispensation that he was now subjected to the disposal of human authority.

(3) The greater responsibility and guiltiness of the Sanhedrim "Therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.

(a) The Sanhedrin subjected their King to the authority of the foreigner, and thus "committed an act of theocratic felony.

(b) The greater the light, the more aggravated is the guilt of offenders. The Jews were more guilty than the Gentiles in the whole transaction of our Lord"s crucifixion.

V THE FOURTH PHASE OF THE CIVIL PROCEDURE. The intimidation of Pilate. "Pilate saith to them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.

1. The Jews appealed to Pilate"s fears; for he was vulnerable upon many points, and Tiberius the emperor was the most suspicious of despots. "If thou let this Man go, thou art not Caesar"s friend.

2. Pilate, in turn, avenges himself upon the Jews by compelling them to forswear all their Messianic hopes. They pronounced with their own lips the abolition of the theocracy. "Such a victory was a suicide." It marked the extreme desperation of the Jews, and their utter unscrupulousness in the pursuit of their bloodthirsty ends.

3. The success of their last maneuver. "Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified." The death of Jesus was compassed by a double treason:

(1) on the part of the Jews to their true King;

(2) on the part of Pilate to truth, justice, and law.

Defilement, ceremonial and real.

All religions recognize the twofold nature of man. As we are body and soul, the requirements of religion respect both these parts of our being. The heart is the spring of conduct, and actions are the manifestation of the spiritual nature. It is obvious that an opening thus exists for hypocrisy; it is possible that there may be the outward form where the inner reality is lacking. Such was the case with those Jews chiefly priests and Pharisees whose conduct is described in the text. They felt no scruple in defiling their conscience with the crime of shedding the blood of the innocent; but they would on no account enter the Praetorium, where leaven might be present in some of the rooms, lest they should be polluted, and unfitted for taking part in the solemnities of the approaching Passover.

I CEREMONIAL DEFILEMENT MAY BE AVOIDED WHILST REAL DEFILEMENT OF THE SOUL IS CONTRACTED. The heathen religions of antiquity were in no vital way connected with morality. A man might be a very religious, and yet a very bad, man; and that without any inconsistency. But the faith of the Hebrews was based upon revelation, and combined belief of the truth with practice of righteousness. It was culpable in a high degree in men who enjoyed revelation so clear and full, to be led aside from the ways of justice at the very moment when they were carefully observing the requirements of the ceremonial law. It is an evidence of their depravity, and at the same time of their blunted sensibilities to what was right and reasonable, that they should so act. How much more deserving of condemnation are professed Christians, who, whilst scrupulously observing the ordinances of religion and the regulations of their Churches, at the same time are guilty of serious infractions of the moral law! Yet men are found who keep with outward strictness the day of rest, who partake of the holy Eucharist, and yet are not ashamed to act unjustly, to speak slanderously, and to cherish a selfish and worldly spirit.

II CEREMONIAL DEFILEMENT MAY BE CONTRACTED WHILST REAL DEFILEMENT OF THE SOUL IS AVOIDED. There are many cases in which "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." As David ate the showbread, as the disciples of Jesus plucked the ears of corn, and Jesus himself healed the sick on the sabbath, so men may often be justified in transgressing the letter of a commandment in order to keep the spirit of the law. The claims of humanity are rightly to be preferred to the requirements of an external character, which nevertheless have their place and their use. And good men may even frequent the society of the vicious, the criminal, the degraded, when, by so doing, they may make an opportunity for bringing the gospel of Christ"s love before the minds of those to whom nothing but the gospel can bring rescue, salvation, and eternal life. Many methods may upon this principle be justified which would not on their own account be accepted and practiced by the sensitive and fastidious. Salus populi suprema lex. If it is so in politics, surely in the religious life we may well be, like the apostle, "all things to all men, if by any means we may Will some. T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

They went not into the palace themselves, lest they should be defiled - By going into a house which was not purged from leaven, Deut. xvi, 4. Matt. xxvii, 2; Mark xv, 1; Luke xxiii, 1.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The Trial before Pilate.

The arraignment before Pilate:

v. 28. Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment; and it was early. And they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover.

v. 29. Pilate then went out unto them and said, What accusation bring ye against this Man?

v. 30. They answered and said unto him, If He were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered Him up unto thee.

v. 31. Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye Him, and judge Him according to your Law. The Jews therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death;

v. 32. that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled which He spake, signifying what death He should die.

The remaining hours of the night, after cock-crowing, brought some rest to the members of the Sanhedrin, after their mock trial in the palace of Caiaphas, Mat 26:57-68, but not to Jesus, with whom the servants had their sport. And hardly did the dawn break over the eastern hills when the Sanhedrin, having confirmed their resolution of the night in a session in the Hall of Polished Stones, led Jesus away to the Praetorium, the governor’s palace in Antonia, near the Temple. It was still very early in the morning. The Jews took Jesus to the door of Pilate’s palace, thus delivering Him into the power of the Roman governor for the confirmation and execution of their verdict, since they had adjudged Him guilty of death, but no longer possessed the authority to inflict capital punishment. The members of the Sanhedrin were incidentally very careful about their behavior. They did not wish to become defiled in any way by touching anything unclean or by coming into personal contact with Gentiles. They wanted to be Levitically clean for the eating of the second chagigah, or sacrifice, of the double festival. For the word Passover is applied not only to the meal of the 14th

of Nisan, but to all the sacrificial meals that were prescribed for the seven days of the festival, Deu 16:2-3; 2Ch 30:22. But the command of God did not go so far as to prohibit the entering into the house of a Gentile at this time. That was one of the traditions of the elders which the Jews observed with such strictness. The entire proceeding gave evidence of the hypocrisy of the Jewish rulers. They did not shrink from committing wanton murder, but transgressing a foolish commandment of their elders was considered a deadly sin. Since the Jews would not enter into the judgment-hall for a formal and customary trial, Pilate came out on the platform before the Praetorium and inquired for the charges against the prisoner. This was a concession on the part of Pilate which the Jews may have construed as a weakness. At any rate, their answer upon his reasonable inquiry was an insolent challenge: If this Man were not a doer of evil, we should not have delivered Him to thee. Their attitude was almost threatening. They had found the prisoner guilty of death, and therefore Pilate should ask no questions, ask neither for evidence nor for testimony, but simply confirm their decision and have the punishment executed. Pilate therefore replied to them according to their impudent answer. If it was a matter regarding which they had such definite information, if it was a mere matter of the transgression of a ceremonial law and not an affair for the criminal court of the Roman government, then they should act accordingly. They should take the accused and carry out the punishment which their church laws imposed in such cases. The leaders of the Jews answered that their verdict called for capital punishment, for an execution which it was not in their power to carry out. Their own consciences they were quieting with the pretext that they had found Jesus guilty of blasphemy, and before Pilate they were determined to urge the accusation that He was a political criminal, a rebel dangerous to the Roman government. Pilate, on the other hand, had the conviction that the whole affair was a matter of religious controversy, which in no way concerned the Roman government. Thus it happened in the end that Jesus, being handed over into the power of the Roman governor, was crucified, according to the Roman manner of executing. Arid thereby the prophecy of the Lord was fulfilled, not only that He would be delivered into the hands of the Gentiles, but also that He would die by crucifixion, Joh 12:32-33; Mat 20:19. "Note: The Lord knew every step of the way, was conscious at all times of the things that would happen to Him; His suffering and death were voluntary and therefore of such wonderful value.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

There were two courts of judicature which our blessed Saviour was brought before, and condemned by.

1. The ecclesiastical court or sanhedrin, in which the high-priest sat as judge; here he was condemned to death for blasphemy.

2. The civil court or judgment-hall, where Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, sat judge, who, because he was a Gentile, they would not go into his house, lest they should be defiled; for they accounted it a legal pollution to come into the house of a Gentile.

Where observe, the notorious hypocrisy of these Jews: they scruple the defiling of themselves by coming near the judgment-hall, where Pilate sat, but make no scruple at all to defile themselves with the guilt of that innocent blood which Pilate shed.

When persons are over zealous for ceremonial observations, they are oftentimes too remiss with refernce to moral duties: They brought him to the judgment-hall; but they themselves went not in, lest they should be defiled.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CXXVIII. Third Stage of Jewish Trial].

CXXVIII. THIRD STAGE OF JEWISH TRIAL. JESUS FORMALLY CONDEMNED BY THE SANHEDRIN AND LED TO PILATE. (Jerusalem. Friday after dawn.) aMATT. XXVII. 1, 2; bMARK XV. 1; cLUKE XXII. 66-23:1; dJOHN XVIII. 28.

a1 Now when morning was come, c66 And as soon as it was day, bstraightway cthe assembly of the [702] elders of the people was gathered together, both chief priests and scribes; and they led him away into their council, aall the chief priests and bwith the elders aof the people band scribes, and the whole council, held a consultation, and atook counsel against Jesus to put him to death [Since blasphemy was by no means a criminal offense among the Romans, the Sanhedrin consulted together and sought for some charge of which the Romans would take notice. As we follow their course it will become evident to us that they found no new ground of accusation against Jesus, and, failing to do so, they decided to make use of our Lord's claim to be the Christ by so perverting it as to make him seem to assert an intention to rebel against the authority of Rome]: csaying, 67 If thou art the Christ, tell us. But he said unto them, If I tell you, ye will not believe [as experience had already proven-- Joh_8:59, Joh_10:31]: 68 and if I ask i you, ye will not answer. [Thus Jesus protests against the violence and injustice of his trial. His judges were asking him whether he was the Christ without any intention of investigating the truth of his claim, but merely for the purpose of condemning him by unwarrantedly assuming that he was not the Christ. They therefore asked in an unlawful spirit as well as in an unlawful manner. Jesus had a good right to ask them questions tending to confirm his Christhood by the Scripture, but had he done so they would not have answered-- Mat_22:41-45. Jesus appeals to them to try the question as to who he was, but they insist on confining the inquiry as to who he claimed to be, assuming that the claim was false.] 69 But from henceforth shall the Son of man be seated at the right hand of the power of God. [See p. 698.] 70 And they all said, Art thou then the Son of God? And he said unto them, Ye say that I am. [The Hebrew mode of expression, equivalent to "Ye say it, because I am."] 71 And they said, What further need have we of witness? for we ourselves have heard from his own mouth. [Thus they unconsciously admit their lack of evidence against Jesus.] [703] 1 And the whole company of them rose up, a2 and they bound bJesus, and carried aled him away, d28 They lead Jesus therefore from Caiaphas into the Praetorium: cand brought him before Pilate. band delivered him up to Pilate. athe governor. dand it was early; [The Sanhedrin could try and could condemn, but could not put to death without the concurring sentence of the Roman governor. To obtain this sentence, they now lead Jesus before Pilate in the early dawn, having made good use of their time.]

[FFG 702-704]

J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CXXIX. First Stage of Roman Trial].

CXXIX. FIRST STAGE OF THE ROMAN TRIAL. JESUS BEFORE PILATE FOR THE FIRST TIME. (Jerusalem. Early Friday morning.) aMATT. XXVII. 11-14; bMARK XV. 2-5; cLUKE XXIII. 2-5; dJOHN XVIII. 28-38.

dand they themselves entered not into the Praetorium, that they might not be defiled, but might eat the passover. [See Joh_12:33, Joh_12:34), but he also gave the details of his trial-- Mat_20:18, Mat_20:19, Mar_10:33, Mar_10:34.] c2 And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this man perverting our nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ a king. [The Jews now profess to change their verdict into a charge, they themselves becoming witnesses as to the truth of the matter charged. They say "We found," thereby asserting that the things which they stated to Pilate were the things for which they had condemned Jesus. Their assertion was utterly false, for the three things which they now mentioned had formed no part whatever of the evidence against Jesus in their trial of him. The first charge, that Jesus was a perverter or seducer of the people, was extremely vague. The second, that he taught to withhold tribute from Cæsar, was a deliberate falsehood. See Joh_6:15.] d33 Pilate therefore entered again into the Praetorium, and called Jesus, a11 Now Jesus stood before the governor [Jesus is called from the guards who have him in custody and stands alone before Pilate that the governor may investigate his case privately]: b2 And Pilate athe governor [705] asked him, dand said unto him, asaying, Art thou the King of the Jews? [The Gospels are unanimous in giving this question as the first words addressed by Pilate to Jesus. The question expresses surprise. There was nothing in the manner or attire of Jesus to suggest a royal claimant. The question was designed to draw Jesus out should he chance to be a fanatical or an unbalanced enthusiast.] And Jesus banswering saith canswered him and said, bunto him, Thou sayest. dSayest thou this of thyself, or did others tell it thee concerning me? [Using the Hebrew form of affirmative reply (see Joh_12:19). They objected to his kingly claims ( Mat_21:15, Mat_21:16, Luk_19:38, Luk_19:39), but Jesus shows Pilate that these kingly claims, however distasteful to the Jews, were no offense to or menace against the authority of Rome. Further than this, Jesus did not define his kingdom, for Pilate had no concern in it beyond this. It was sufficient to inform him that it made no use of physical power even for purposes of defense. Such a kingdom could cause no trouble to Rome, and the bare fact stated by Jesus proved that it was indeed such a kingdom.] 37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. [See Joh_19:7, Joh_19:8.] 38 Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? [This question has been regarded as an earnest inquiry (Chrysostom), the inquiry of one who despaired (Olshausen), a scoffing question (Alford), etc. But it is evident that Pilate asked it intending to investigate the case of Jesus further, but, suddenly concluding that he already knew enough to answer his purpose as a judge, he stifles his curiosity as a human being and proceeds with the trial of Jesus, leaving the question unanswered.] And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, cunto the chief priests and the multitudes, I find no fault in this man. dno crime in [707] him. [The pronoun "I" is emphatic; as if Pilate said, "You, prejudiced fanatics, demand his death, but I, the calm judge, pronounce him innocent."] b3 And the chief priests accused him of many things. a12 And when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing. [When Pilate left the Prætorium to speak with the Jewish rulers, it is evident that Jesus was led out with him, and so stood there in the presence of his accusers.] b4 And a13 Then bPilate again asked him, asaith unto him, bsaying, Answerest thou nothing? behold how many things they accuse thee of. aHearest thou not how many things they witness against thee? b5 But Jesus no more answered anything; a14 And he gave him no answer, not even to one word: binsomuch that Pilate athe governor bmarvelled. agreatly. [Pilate was irritated that Jesus did not speak in his own defense. He had already seen enough of our Lord's wisdom to assure him that it would be an easy matter for him to expose the malicious emptiness of these charges--charges which Pilate himself knew to be false, but about which he had to keep silent, for, being judge, he could not become our Lord's advocate. Our Lord's silence was a matter of prophecy ( Isa_53:7). Jesus kept still because to have successfully defended himself would have been to frustrate the purpose for which he came into the world-- Joh_12:23-28.] c5 But they were the more urgent, saying, He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Judaea, and beginning from Galilee even unto this place. [The Jews cling to their general accusation of sedition, and seek to make the largeness of the territory where Jesus operated overshadow and conceal the smallness of their testimony as to what his operations were.] [708]

[FFG 704-708]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

28–40. For notes on the trial before Pilate, see Matt. 27:1–25. Compare Mark 15:1–15; Luke 23:1–25. The first examination was at the house of Annas, where an officer had smitten Jesus. Then Annas sent him to Caiaphas. Still later he was tried before the Sanhedrim (see Matt. chap. 27) and condemned. Then he was led from Caiaphas to Pilate's judgment hall. The judgment hall. The prætorium, or official hall of the Roman governor. Lest they should be defiled. These Jewish leaders, filled with the hate of Christ, and ready to secure his judicial murder by the foulest means, were yet so scrupulous that they would not enter the house of a Gentile lest “they should be defiled” (see Deut. 16:4), so that they would not be able to eat the passover. The Pharisees held that contact with a Gentile, or to enter his house was a source of defilement. Hence, this deputation of the Sanhedrim waited without, and Pilate “went out unto them” to ascertain their business. Men can be very religious and yet great sinners.

That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled. Had the Jews been allowed to put Christ to death, he would have been stoned, as Stephen was, by a mob in Jerusalem, stoning being the usual Jewish method of execution, but he had “signified what death he should die” (John 12:32, and Matt. 20:18, 19) and had declared that he should be crucified.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

General Information:

Here the story line shifts back to Jesus. The soldiers and Jesus' accusers bring him to Caiaphas. Verse 28 gives us background information about why they did not enter the Praetorium. (See: Background Information)

Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas

Here it is implied that they are leading Jesus from Caiaphas' house. AT: "Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas' house" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

they did not enter the government headquarters so that they would not be defiled

Pilate was not a Jew, so if the Jewish leaders entered his headquarters, they would be defiled. This would have prevented them from celebrating the Passover. You can translate the double negative in a positive form. AT: "they themselves remained outside Pilate's headquarters because Pilate was a Gentile. They did not want to become defiled" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information and Double Negatives)

If this man was not an evildoer, we would not have given him over to you

You can translate this double negative in a positive form. AT: "This man is an evil doer, and we had to bring him to you for punishment" (See: Double Negatives)

given him over

This phrase here means to hand over to an enemy.

translationWords

palace

govern

Passover

Pilate

evil

deliver

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

28-19:16.] Jesus before the Gentile governor. Mat 27:2, Mat 27:11-30. Mar 15:1-19. Luk 23:1-25. Before this comes in the section of Luke, ch. 22:66-71, containing the close of the examination before the Sanhedrim, which did not happen till the morning. This undesigned agreement between Luke and John further confirms the justice of the view respecting the two hearings maintained above: see note on Luke, as above.

28-40.] Pilate’s first attempt to deliver Him.

28. κ. αὐτοὶ οὐκ εἰσῆλθ.] I have already discussed the difficulties attending the subject of our Lord’s last Passover, in the note on Mat 26:17-19. I will add here some remarks of Friedlieb’s, Arch. der Leid. § 30. “The Jews would not enter the Prætorium that they might not be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. For the entrance of a Jew into the house of a Gentile made him unclean till the evening. It is surprising, that according to this declaration of the Holy Evangelist, the Jews had yet to eat the Passover, whereas Jesus and His disciples had already eaten it in the previous night. And it is no less surprising, that the Jews in the early morning should have been afraid of rendering themselves unclean for the Passover,—since the Passover could not be kept till evening, i.e. on the next day, and the uncleanness which they dreaded did not, by the law, last till the next day. For this reason, the passage in John labours under no small exegetic difficulties, which we cannot altogether solve, from want of accurate knowledge of the customs of the time. Possibly the law concerning Levitical defilements and purifications had in that age been made more stringent or otherwise modified; possibly, they called some other meal, besides the actual Passover, by its name. This last we certainly, with our present knowledge of Hebrew antiquities, must assume; for the law respecting uncleanness will not allow us to interpret this passage of the proper Passover on the evening of the 14th of Nisan, nor indeed of any evening meal at all.”

The whole depends on this: can φαγεῖν τὸ πάσχα mean any thing else besides eating the paschal lamb in the strict sense? This is a question which in our day we have no power of answering; and, as De Wette has shewn (in loc.), none of the instances cited on the affirmative side are applicable. See note on ch. 19:14.

Mr. Wratislaw, in his little volume of Sermons and Dissertations (Lond. J. W. Parker, 1859), has proposed a solution of the difficulties which is at least very ingenious. Its chief point is, that the Jews, reckoning their days from evening to evening, and also holding two evenings, the former beginning at 3 p.m., the other at sunset, the space between the evenings, during which the passover was to be sacrificed (Exo 12:6), might be reckoned indifferently, sometimes as part of the preceding, sometimes as part of the following day. Then he thinks that in order to avoid any mistake, they considered the 14th Nisan to begin at 3 p.m. on Thursday, and to end at sunset on Good Friday, thus extending the day to its utmost possible limit. He instances similar confusion between the 14th and 15th Nisan, or rather Abib, in Exo 12:18 and Lev 23:6, arising from the space between the evenings being reckoned in the one case as belonging to the former, and in the other as belonging to the latter day; and suggests that the same ambiguity will account for Josephus’s statement that the Jews kept the feast of unleavened bread for eight days.

Thus, he says, any time after 3 p.m. on Thursday might be called by St. Mark “the first day of unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the passover,” and by St. Luke, “the day of unleavened bread, when the Passover must be killed,” it being killed after the first and before the second evening on Friday, and thus, loosely speaking, within the day, which commenced at 3 o’clock, and, strictly speaking, within that which commenced at sunset on Thursday. Similarly any time after 3 or sunset on the Thursday might be called the παρασκευή or preparation of the passover, which was to be eaten at some time after sunset on the Friday.

Then he understands, that the disciples made all preparations on Thursday afternoon for the passover, which was to be killed the next afternoon, and eaten the following night: and that the passover of which our Lord so earnestly desired to partake, was that which was thus prepared, but of which He knew He was not Himself destined to partake. This he supports by the true reading (omitting the οὐκέτι) in Luk 22:16.

“If this view,” he adds, “be accepted, there is no longer any question, as far as the passover is concerned, about reconciling St. John with the synoptical Gospels. The eucharist will thus have been instituted at an ordinary meal, eaten the evening before the paschal feast in the same room in which it was intended afterwards to celebrate the passover.” See this more fully illustrated in the vol. above alluded to, pp. 168-175.

The main objections to it seem to me to be, 1) the total absence of any trace of such an usage, of eating a preliminary solemn meal in the passover-chamber; 2) the plain and undeniable impression on the mind of every unbiassed reader of the synoptic Gospels, that the meal of our Lord and the Twelve was a passover, and that His ἐπιθυμίᾳ ἐπεθύμησα describes, not that which He desired to do, owing however to His predetermined course would not do,—but that which He was then doing in the fulfilment of that His earnest desire.

So that I am afraid Mr. Wratislaw’s ingenious solution leaves us, for all essentials of the question, where we were before: merely, by suggesting the introduction of possible new elements of confusion, giving us an additional warning not to be rash in assuming a discrepancy between the Evangelists, where computations of time may have been so vague and various.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

28. ἄγουσιν οὖν τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἀπὸ τοῦ Καϊάφα κτλ. We have in v. 24 the statement that Jesus was “sent to Caiaphas,” i.e. to the formal meeting of the Sanhedrim, not necessarily or probably held in the house of Caiaphas, over which Caiaphas would preside. Nothing is told here of the proceedings (see on v. 13, and cf. Mar 15:1, Mat 27:1), which were only formal, as the decision had been already reached at the irregular meeting in the house of Annas. But as the Sanhedrim could not execute the sentence of death (see v. 31) without the sanction of the Roman authorities, they had now to bring Jesus before Pilate, that he might give the necessary orders.

ἀπὸ τοῦ Καϊάφα need not mean “from the house of Caiaphas” (cf. Mar 5:35, Act 16:40), but more naturally means “from Caiaphas,” i.e. from the ecclesiastical court over which he presided. Some O.L. codices, e.g. e ff2 g, etc., have ad Caiphan, a reading due to a misunderstanding of the sequence of events. See Introd., pp. xxvi-xxviii.

εἰς τὸ πραιτώριον. πραιτώριον signified a prætor’s or general’s quarters in a camp, and the word came to be used of the official residence of a governor (cf. τὸ πραιτώριον of Herod at Cæsarea, Act 23:35). It is not certain where the prœtorium at Jerusalem, that is, Pilate’s house, was situated; but it is probably to be identified with Herod’s palace on the Hill of Zion in the western part of the upper city. Pilate was certainly lodged there on one occasion, for Philo (ad Caium, 38) reports that he hung up golden shields ἐν τοῖς κατὰ τὴν ἱερόπολιν Ἡρώδου βασιλείοις. Further, Gessius Florus, who was procurator of Judæa about thirty-five years after Pilate, had at one time Herod’s palace as a residence, for Josephus says so in a passage so illustrative of the Passion narratives that it must be quoted: Φλῶρος δὲ τότε μὲν ἐν τοῖς βασιλείοις αὐλίζεται, τῇ δʼ ὑστεραίᾳ βῆμα πρὸ αὐτῶν θέμενος καθέζεται, καὶ προσελθόντες οἵ τε ἀρχιερεῖς … παρέστησαν τῷ βήματι (Bell. Jud., ii. 14, 8). And in ii. 15, 5, Josephus explicitly calls the Procurator’s residence ἡ βασιλικὴ αὐλή; cf. Mar 15:16, ἔσω τῆς αὐλῆς, ὅ ἐστι πραιτώριον. The mention of the βῆμα placed in full view of the high priests and the notables who came before Florus for judgment is noteworthy (cf. 19:13 below).

The other site suggested for the Prætorium is the Castle of Antonia, to the north of the Temple area, a fourth-century tradition placing Pilate’s house in this neighbourhood. That a large part of the garrison lived here is admitted, but that does not favour the idea that it was the Procurator’s residence. The course of the Via Dolorosa, as now shown, favours Antonia as the place of condemnation of Jesus; but there is no real authority behind this tradition.1

πρωΐ, i.e. early in the morning of Friday, 14 Nisan (see on v. 27). Pilate must have known already that Roman soldiers had been sent to arrest Jesus the night before (v. 3), and he may have been warned to be ready at an early hour. The Jewish ecclesiastics who accompanied Jesus to the Prætorium did not enter ἵνα μὴ μιανθῶσιν ἀλλὰ φάγωσιν τὸ πάσχα. See on 11:55. By going into a house from which the leaven had not been removed (Exo 12:15), they would have been incapacitated from eating the Passover that evening. Ceremonial uncleanness in many cases lasted until sunset only (Lev 11:24, Lev 14:25, Num 19:7, Deu 23:11, etc.); but in the case of the Passover one who was unclean had to postpone its observance for a whole month (Num 9:6, Num 9:11; cf. 2Ch 30:2, 2Ch 30:3). This would have been inconvenient for the priests, and so they remained outside the house, Pilate having to come out to ask for the charge against Jesus, and to go back again into the Prætorium to question Him as to His defence.

For ἀλλὰ φάγωσιν (אABC*DNWΘ), the rec. has ἀλλʼ ἵνα φάγωσι. For φαγεῖν τὸ πάσχα, which must mean the eating of the Passover meal itself, cf. Mar 14:12, Mat 26:17.

The scruple of the priests about entering the Prætorium is recorded by Jn. only. It is an instance of his “irony” (see on 1:45) that he does not comment upon it. These men were about to pollute their souls by unscrupulous testimony which was to bring Jesus to a horrible death, yet were unwilling to incur technical or ceremonial uncleanness while giving that testimony. There is no perversion so sinister as that of the human conscience.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Led [αγουσιν] . Present tense, lead.

Hall of judgment [πραιτωριον] . A Latin word, proetorium, transcribed. Originally, the general's tent. In the Roman provinces it was the name for the official residence of the Roman governor, as here. Compare Act 23:35. It came to be applied to any spacious villa or palace. So Juvenal : "To their crimes they are indebted for their gardens, palaces [προετορια] , etc." (" Sat., " 1 75). In Rome the term was applied to the proetorian guard, or imperial bodyguard. See on Phi 1:13. Rev., palace.

Early [πρωι] . Used technically of the fourth watch, 3 - 6 A. M. See Mr 13:35. The Sanhedrim could not hold a legal meeting, especially in capital cases, before sunrise; and in such cases judicial proceedings must be conducted and terminated by day. A condemnation to death, at night, was technically illegal. In capital cases, sentence of condemnation could not be legally pronounced on the day of trial. If the night proceedings were merely preliminary to a formal trial, they would have no validity; if formal, they were, inso facto, illegal. In either case was the law observed in reference to the second council. According to the Hebrew computation of time, it was held on the same day.

Be defiled (mianqwsin). Originally, to stain, as with color. So Homer : "Tinges [μιηνη] the white ivory with purple." Not necessarily, therefore, in a bad sense, like moluvw, to besmear or besmirch with filth (1Co 8:7; Rev 3:4). In classical Greek, miainw, the verb here used, is the standing word for profaning or unhallowing. So Sophocles :

"Not even fearing this pollution [μιασμα] dire, Will I consent to burial. Well I know That man is powerless to pollute [μιαινειν] the gods."

"Antigone," 1042 - 1044.

And Plato : "And if a homicide... without purification pollutes the agora, or the games, or the temples," etc. (" Laws, " 868). See on 1Pe 1:4. The defilement in the present case was apprehended from entering a house from which all leaven had not been removed.

Eat the Passover. The purpose of this work forbids our entering upon the much - vexed question of the apparent inconsistency between John and the Synoptists as to the time of celebrating the Passover.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.