'Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged Him. And the soldiers
platted a crown of thorns, and put it on His head, and they put on Him
a purple robe. And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote Him
with their hands. Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto
them, Behold, I bring Him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no
fault in Him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and
the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the Man! When the
chief priests therefore and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying,
Crucify Him, crucify Him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye Him, and
crucify Him: for I find no fault in Him. The Jews answered him, We have
a law, and by our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son
of God. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more
afraid; And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus,
Whence art Thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Then saith Pilate unto
Him, Speakest Thou not unto me I knowest Thou not that I have power to
crucify Thee, and have power to release Thee? Jesus answered, Thou
couldest have no power at all against Me, except it were given thee
from above: therefore he that delivered Me unto thee hath the greater
sin. And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release Him: but the Jews
cried out, saying, If thou let this Man go, thou art not Caesar's
friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar. When
Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat
down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but
in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. And it was the preparation of the passover,
and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King!
But they cried out, Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him! Pilate
saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered,
We have no king but Caesar. Then delivered he Him therefore unto them
to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led Him away.'--JOHN xix.
1-16.
The struggle between the vacillation of Pilate and the fixed malignity
of the rulers is the principal theme of this fragment of Christ's
judicial trial. He Himself is passive and all but silent, speaking only
one sentence of calm rebuke. The frequent changes of scene from within
to without the praetorium indicate the steps in the struggle, and
vividly reflect the irresolution of Pilate. These changes may help to
mark the stages in the narrative.
I. The cruelties and indignities in verses 1-3 were inflicted within
the 'palace,' to which Pilate, with his prisoner, had returned after
the popular vote for Barabbas. John makes that choice of the robber the
reason for the scourging of Jesus. His thought seems to be that Pilate,
having failed in his attempt to get rid of the whole difficulty by
releasing Jesus, according to the 'custom,' ordered the scourging, in
hope that the lighter punishment might satisfy the turbulent crowd,
whom he wished to humour, while, if possible, saving their victim. It
was the expedient of a weak and cynical nature, and, like all weak
attempts at compromise between right and wrong, only emboldened the
hatred which it was meant to appease. If by clamour the rulers had
succeeded in getting Pilate to scourge a man whom he thought innocent,
they might well hope to get him to crucify, if they clamoured loudly
and long enough.
One attitude only befitted Pilate, since he did not in the least
believe that Jesus threatened the Roman supremacy; namely, to set Him
at liberty, and let the disappointed rulers growl like wild beasts
robbed of their prey. But he did not care enough about a single
half-crazy Jewish peasant to imperil his standing well with his awkward
subjects, for the sake of righteousness. The one good which Rome could
give to its vassal nations was inflexible justice and a sovereign law;
but in Pilate's action there was not even the pretence of legality.
Tricks and expedients run through it all, and never once does he say,
This is the law, this is justice, and by it I stand or fall.
The cruel scourging, which, in Roman hands, was a much more severe
punishment than the Jewish 'beating with rods' and often ended in
death, was inflicted on the silent, unresisting Christ, not because His
judge thought that it was deserved, but to please accusers whose charge
he knew to be absurd. The underlings naturally followed their betters'
example, and after they had executed Pilate's orders to scourge,
covered the bleeding wounds with some robe, perhaps ragged, but of the
royal colour, and crushed the twisted wreath of thorn-branch down on
the brows, to make fresh wounds there. The jest of crowning such a
poor, helpless creature as Jesus seemed to them, was exactly on the
level of such rude natures, and would be the more exquisite to them
because it was double-barrelled, and insulted the nation as well as the
'King.' They came in a string, as the tense of the original word
suggests, and offered their mock reverence. But that sport became tame
after a little, and mockery passed into violence, as it always does in
such natures. These rough legionaries were cruel and brutal, and they
were unconscious witnesses to His Kingship as founded on suffering; but
they were innocent as compared with the polished gentleman on the
judgment-seat who prostituted justice, and the learned Pharisees
outside who were howling for blood.
II. In verses 4-8 the scene changes again to without the palace, and
shows us Pilate trying another expedient, equally in vain. The
hesitating governor has no chance with the resolute, rooted hate of the
rulers. Jesus silently and unresistingly follows Pilate from the hall,
still wearing the mockery of royal pomp. Pilate had calculated that the
sight of Him in such guise, and bleeding from the lash, might turn hate
into contempt, and perhaps give a touch of pity. 'Behold the man!' as
he meant it, was as if he had said, 'Is this poor, bruised, spiritless
sufferer worth hate or fear? Does He look like a King or a dangerous
enemy?' Pilate for once drops the scoff of calling Him their King, and
seeks to conciliate and move to pity. The profound meanings which later
ages have delighted to find in his words, however warrantable, are no
part of their design as spoken, and we gain a better lesson from the
scene by keeping close to the thoughts of the actors. What a contrast
between the vacillation of the governor, on the one hand, afraid to do
right and reluctant to do wrong, and the dogged malignity of the rulers
and their tools on the other, and the calm, meek endurance of the
silent Christ, knowing all their thoughts, pitying all, and fixed in
loving resolve, even firmer than the rulers' hate, to bear the utmost,
that He might save a world!
Some pity may have stirred in the crowd, but the priests and their
immediate dependants silenced it by their yell of fresh hate at the
sight of the prisoner. Note how John gives the very impression of the
fierce, brief roar, like that of wild beasts for their prey, by his
'Crucify, crucify!' without addition of the person. Pilate lost
patience at last, and angrily and half seriously gives permission to
them to take the law into their own hands. He really means, 'I will not
be your tool, and if my conviction of "the Man's" innocence is to be of
no account, _you_ must punish Him; for _I_ will not.' How far he meant
to abdicate authority, and how far he was launching sarcasms, it is
difficult to say. Throughout he is sarcastic, and thereby indicates his
weakness, indemnifying himself for being thwarted by sneers which sit
so ill on authority.
But the offer, or sarcasm, whichever it was, missed fire, as the appeal
to pity had done, and only led to the production of a new weapon. In
their frantic determination to compass Jesus' death, the rulers
hesitate at no degradation; and now they adduced the charge of
blasphemy, and were ready to make a heathen the judge. To ask a Roman
governor to execute their law on a religious offender, was to drag
their national prerogative in the mud. But formal religionists,
inflamed by religious animosity, are often the degraders of religion
for the gratification of their hatred. They are poor preservers of the
Church who call on the secular arm to execute their 'laws.' Rome went a
long way in letting subject peoples keep their institutions; but it was
too much to expect Pilate to be the hangman for these furious priests,
on a charge scarcely intelligible to him.
What was Jesus doing while all this hell of wickedness and fury boiled
round Him? Standing there, passive and dumb, 'as a sheep before her
shearers,' Himself is the least conspicuous figure in the history of
His own trial. In silent communion with the Father, in silent
submission to His murderers, in silent pity for us, in silent
contemplation of 'the joy that was set before Him,' He waits on their
will.
III. Once more the scene changes to the interior of the praetorium (vs.
9-11). The rulers' words stirred a deepened awe in Pilate. He 'was the
more afraid'; then he had been already afraid. His wife's dream, the
impression already produced by the person of Jesus, had touched him
more deeply than probably he himself was aware of; and now this charge
that Jesus had 'made Himself the Son of God' shook him. What if this
strange man were in some sense a messenger of the gods? Had he been
scourging one sent from them? Sceptical he probably was, and therefore
superstitious; and half-forgotten and disbelieved stories of gods who
had 'come down in the likeness of men' would swim up in his memory. If
this Man were such, His strange demeanour would be explained. Therefore
he carried Jesus in again, and, not now as judge, sought to hear from
His own lips His version of the alleged claim.
Why did not Jesus answer such a question? His silence was answer; but,
besides that, Pilate had not received as he ought what Jesus had
already declared to him as to His kingdom and His relation to 'the
truth,' and careless turning away from Christ's earlier words is
righteously and necessarily punished by subsequent silence, if the same
disposition remains. That it did remain, Christ's silence is proof. Had
there been any use in answering, Pilate would not have asked in vain.
If Jesus was silent, we may be sure that He who sees all hearts and
responds to all true desires was so, because He knew that it was best
to say nothing. The question of His origin had nothing to do with
Pilate's duty then, which turned, not on whence Jesus had come, but on
what Pilate believed Him to have done, or not to have done. He who will
not do the plain duty of the moment has little chance of an answer to
his questions about such high matters.
The shallow character of the governor's awe and interest is clearly
seen from the immediate change of tone to arrogant reminder of his
absolute authority. 'To me dost Thou not speak?' The pride of offended
dignity peeps out there. He has forgotten that a moment since he half
suspected that the prisoner, whom he now seeks to terrify with the
cross, and to allure with deliverance, was perhaps come from some misty
heaven. Was that a temper which would have received Christ's answer to
his question?
But one thing he might be made to perceive, and therefore Jesus broke
silence for the only time in this section, and almost the only time
before Pilate. He reads the arrogant Roman the lesson which he and all
his tribe in all lands and ages need--that their power is derived from
God, therefore in its foundation legitimate, and in its exercise to be
guided by His will and used for His purposes. It was God who had
brought the Roman eagles, with their ravening beaks and strong claws,
to the Holy City. Pilate was right in exercising jurisdiction over
Jesus. Let him see that he exercised justice, and let him remember that
the power which he boasted that he 'had' was 'given.' The truth as to
the source of power made the guilt of Caiaphas or of the rulers the
greater, inasmuch as they had neglected the duties to which they had
been appointed, and by handing over Jesus on a charge which they
themselves should have searched out, had been guilty of 'theocratic
felony.' This sudden flash of bold rebuke, reminding Pilate of his
dependence, and charging him with the lesser but yet real 'sin,' went
deeper than any answer to his question would have done, and spurred him
to more earnest effort, as John points out. He 'sought to release Him,'
as if formerly he had been rather simply unwilling to condemn than
anxious to deliver.
IV. So the scene changes again to outside. Pilate went out alone,
leaving Jesus within, and was met before he had time, as would appear,
to speak, by the final irresistible weapon which the rulers had kept in
reserve. An accusation of treason was only too certain to be listened
to by the suspicious tyrant who was then Emperor, especially if brought
by the authorities of a subject nation. Many a provincial governor had
had but a short shrift in such a case, and Pilate knew that he was a
ruined man if these implacable zealots howling before him went to
Tiberius with such a charge. So the die was cast. With rage in his
heart, no doubt, and knowing that he was sacrificing 'innocent blood'
to save himself, he turned away from the victorious mob, apparently in
silence, and brought Jesus out once more. He had no more words to say
to his prisoner. Nothing remained but the formal act of sentence, for
which he seated himself, with a poor assumption of dignity, yet feeling
all the while, no doubt, what a contemptible surrender he was making.
Judgment-seats and mosaic pavements do not go far to secure reverence
for a judge who is no better than an assassin, killing an innocent man
to secure his own ends. Pilate's sentence fell most heavily on himself.
If 'the judge is condemned when the guilty is acquitted,' he is tenfold
condemned when the innocent is sentenced.
Pilate returned to his sarcastic mood when he returned to his
injustice, and found some satisfaction in his old jeer, 'your King.'
But the passion of hatred was too much in earnest to be turned or even
affected by such poor scoffs, and the only answer was the renewed roar
of the mob, which had murder in its tone. The repetition of the
governor's taunt, 'Shall I crucify your King?' brought out the answer
in which the rulers of the nation in their fury blindly flung away
their prerogative. It is no accident that it was 'the chief priests'
who answered, 'We have no king but Caesar.' Driven by hate, they
deliberately disown their Messianic hope, and repudiate their national
glory. They who will not have Christ have to bow to a tyrant. Rebellion
against Him brings slavery.