John 19:4-16

FINAL EFFORT OF PILATE FOR HIS RELEASE

John 19:4-16. “ Then Pilate again came out, and spake to them, Behold, I lead Him out to you, that you may know that I find nothing criminal in Him. Then Jesus came out, bearing the thorny crown, and the purple robe. And he says to them, Behold the Man!” Now recognize the scene. Pilate leads Him out, lacerated and bleeding because of the cruel scourging; the cruel thorns at the same time interpenetrating His flesh, the blood issuing from every thorn point! He is now an object of indescribable pity. So Pilate thinks to arouse their sympathies and produce a merciful reaction in His favor, and that they would relent and say, “He has suffered enough, release Him; and if He can survive all of those cruel wounds, let Him live.” But in this, Pilate is mistaken. He finds them as cruel as the grave and as merciless as the pandemonium. In the old judgment-hall in Jerusalem they point out to us travelers the door out of which Pilate led Him when he said, “Behold the Man!” There is now a life-size effigy on the wall above the door, exhibiting Him as He stood before His persecutors, led out by Pilate.

“ Then, when the high priests and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, Crucify Him! crucify Him!” Having already suffered death over and over in the cruel scourging, and now the bleeding, smarting wounds excruciating Him unutterably, yet those demonized preachers and officers, as destitute of sympathy, pity, and mercy as the fiends of the pit, on sight of Him, instead of being moved to commiseration, give way to the volcano of diabolical cruelty ‘heaving and surging in the deep interior of their fallen spirits, screaming vociferously, “Crucify Him! crucify Him!”

“ Pilate says to them, You take Him, and crucify Him; for I find nothing criminal in Him.” Pilate awfully fears his responsibility in the case, and resorted to every conceivable stratagem to evade it; but signally and finally failed, as he was dealing with incarnate demons, though standing at the head of the fallen Church.

“ The Jews responded to him, We have a law, and according to our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God.” You find the law against blasphemy to which they here refer in Leviticus 24:16. You see the dilemma in which their blind and wicked misconstruction of the law would necessarily place the Messiah. He must be true, and consequently testify to His Divine Sonship. Whereas it would be blasphemy for any of us to claim to be the Son of God in that high Messianic sense, it was not blasphemy for the real Christ to thus publicly proclaim Himself. You see the Jews had no trouble to find a law in the Bible for the condemnation and execution of Christ. Hence they boldly, and even boastingly, certify that they are acting according to the law. How wonderfully history repeats itself! The denominations have no trouble now to find a law for the decapitation and excommunication of their most godly members and ministers. But what about the law? They utterly misconstrue and misapply it, precisely as these fallen preachers and Church officers when they found a law in God's Book which required them to kill His Son. You see demonstratively, as illustrated in the martyrdom of Jesus and millions of His followers, that when the devil gets into preachers and ruling elders they have no trouble to find a law in the Bible justifying them in the most diabolical treatment of God's saints. God says for us to go everywhere and preach. Who dares say “No?” Satan and the people actuated by him are all who could possibly antagonize the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, as all of God's true and intelligent people want the gospel preached to “every creature.” So on the law questions, so much agitated by ecclesiastical tyrants at the present day, just remember John 19:7, where the murderers of Jesus boldly claimed to be acting in harmony with the law of God.

“ Then when Pilate heard this word, he feared the more.” The Roman mythology claims that Jupiter, Apollo, Neptune, and other gods, have their sons upon the earth, invested in mortal flesh. Now, Pilate becomes terribly alarmed, lest he may be dealing with the son of some one of the gods a most dangerous affair, as Jupiter might strike him with a thunderbolt, Apollo with an arrow, or Neptune engulf him in the sea if he ever sailed again. Under this alarm, Pilate puts forth every feasible effort (in his own estimation) to save His life.

“ And again he went into the judgment-hall, and says to Jesus, Whence art Thou? And Jesus gave him no answer. Then Pilate says m Him, Do you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to crucify you, and I have authority to release you?” Exousia, “power,” in E. V., is better translated “authority,” which Pilate did have; while at least he felt that he lacked the power (dunarnis), which he would have used if at that time at his command, his military forces being too weak to protect Jesus.

“ Jesus responded, Thou hast no authority against Me, unless it were given to thee from above; consequently the one having delivered Me to thee [the high priest] hath the greater sin. From this, Pilate sought to release Him. But the Jews continued to cry out, saying, If you release Him, you are not Caesar ' s friend. Every one making himself a king speaketh against Caesar.” Now you see the Jews come out and boldly threaten Pilate with prosecution for high treason against the Roman emperor, because of the favor he was extending to Jesus, whom they claimed to be an enemy and a rival of Caesar. This was a delicate point. Pilate, a corrupt, intriguing politician, had held the proconsulate of Judea seven years with difficulty. He is very anxious to remain in office; for at that time all the world was subject to the Roman despotism, and many a king, as well as subordinate ruler, when charged with treason, had been summoned to Rome, where he laid down his head on the executioner's block or submitted to lonely exile. This really turned out to be Pilate's final destiny as three years subsequently, deposed from his governorship and ordered to Rome to answer charges for maladministration, the Emperor Caligula, an awful tyrant, not only dethroned him, but banished him to Vienne, in Gaul (France), then a lonely retreat in the wild West, there to spend the remnant of his days in solitary exile. It is said that he was haunted by the form of Jesus pale, feeble, and bleeding at many wounds, as he saw Him those several hours at his bar and on the cross and was so affrighted and tormented by the awful specter, which his guilty conscience would likely portray, that he finally committed suicide, A. D. 41, thus surviving the dark tragedy of Calvary only eight miserable years. Like other corrupt, ambitious politicians, Pilate was appalled at the threat of the Jews to report him to the emperor for high treason if he dared to release Jesus, whom they claimed to be a rival of Caesar. In this way, Pilate was intimidated into acquiescence.

“ Then, Pilate hearing this word, led out Jesus, and sat upon his tribunal in the place called the Pavement, and in Hebrew, Gabbatha. And he says to the Jews, Behold your King!” This is the last resort of Pilate to effect the release of Jesus by an effort to arouse their national pride. Already Judea had been a Roman province thirty-three years. Yet those high priests, elders, and Pharisees remembered well the halcyon days of their former freedom, and so loathed the despotic yoke of Rome that they sighed and cried for the good time coming, when God would break the yoke, set them free, and give them a king of their own. As they charged Jesus with claiming to be their King, Pilate, recognizing that fact, led Him out to them, saying: “ Behold your King! Shall I crucify your King? Will not that be an ineffaceable disgrace upon your national escutcheon?” thus endeavoring to rekindle the lingering spark of their patriotic zeal, which in olden time was a rolling flame. But this, like all preceding efforts, signally failed, as we see from their response, “ And they cried out, Take Him away! take Him away! crucify Him! Pilate says to them, Shall I crucify your King? The high priests responded, We have no king but Caesar.” Thus you see they utterly rejected Pilate's appeal to their national pride and patriotism. Much as they hated Roman rule, and longed to regain their independence and have their own king, now, that they may sweep away every excuse of the governor and force him to crucify Jesus, they surrender forever all hopes of regaining their freedom, and acquiesce in their fate as the vassals of imperial Rome. How strikingly significant! They have never had a king from that day to this, and never will have till Jesus comes in His glory, gathers the elect remnant back to the Holy Land, and, pursuant to the prophecies, ascends the throne of David, King of the Jews forever.

“ Therefore he then delivered Him up to them, that He may be crucified.” Pilate, though awfully opposed to the crucifixion of Jesus, and terribly suspicious that He might turn out to be one of the Roman gods, yet, upon the whole, displayed the coward from beginning to end. If he had been a true man, finding Jesus utterly innocent, as he certified all the time, as governor of Judea he would have defended him with the last drop of his blood. When Martin Cozta, a Hungarian, having been imprisoned by the Austrian authorities at Smyrna, sent for Captain Ingram, of the United States war-sloop St. Louis, and showed him his naturalization papers, satisfying him that, though far away in Asia, he was a United States citizen, and the captain demanded of the Austrian general, in command of one hundred thousand soldiers, the release of the prisoner, and upon receiving a haughty denial, prepared immediately to open fire on the Austrian fleet, though he had but one hundred men and was five thousand miles from home, the Austrian general, seeing that he would have to kill every one of them, at once released the prisoner. If Pilate had done his duty, and shown up the hero; releasing Jesus and taking the consequences, he would neither have died an exile nor a suicide; and, best of all he might have saved his soul. But did not Jesus come into the world to die? Certainly He did; but that was no apology for either the cowardice of Pilate or the treason of Judas. God makes no provision for sin. Jesus would have died in some way if neither of these men had lost their souls by serving the devil, either in His betrayal or crucifixion.