March 17, 2004 John 19:4-7
Pilate came out and said to the Jews, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.” 5 When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!” 6 As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!” But Pilate answered, “You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.” 7 The Jews insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”
Have you been following the Terry Nichols case at all? Every time I see coverage of it, it seems kind of strange to me, because the guy looks like a banker. He doesn’t seem like the type of guy that they’d be talking about putting on death row. Yet they’re walking him around in this strange looking padded suit with twenty armed guards around him, like he’s going to go Ninja on them and escape or something.
When I compare him to that guy down in Florida who abducted the teenage girl and was caught on TV - now that guy looks dangerous. Or how about the released sexual molestor who abducted the girl up in South Dakota? I would venture to bet that if you surveyed the country - a majority of Americans would find much more satisfaction in the death of those two murderers who murdered two people - than in the death of Terry Nichols who - if guilty - is responsible for the death of over a hundred people.
Why is that? We base our decisions on not just how many people died - but on how the murder occurred and also on who did it as well. Terry Nichols looks like a nice guy, the other two didn’t. The other two were sexual offenders - Terry Nichols wasn’t. Terry Nichols committed his crime several years ago, whereas the abductors committed their crime just recently. These are all factors that come into play on our judgments.
But should they be? When you get into the who and the why of crime - it seems to muddy things up more than help things out. Today it seems that the psychology of crime has become way too involved - when they talk about why someone killed - too many people get away with what becomes more or less a justification of crime. Defense attorneys play up on that stuff way too much in trying to sway a jury one way or another. When judging on whether someone should die or not, you need to look beyond emotions, looks or what you think is right - and get down to the facts. First of all, was the law broken or not? Second of all, does the law say the crime deserves death? That should be it.
When the Sanhedrin brought Jesus before Pilate - the governor had this concept down rather well. When they kept on demanding Jesus’ death, Pilate kept on coming back to the law - “what crime has this man committed?” So the Sanhedrin - mainly the officials - the experts in the law - had to then attempt to use the law to condemn Jesus. Inadvertently, in doing so, they ended up -
Speaking the Legal Truth
The Sanhedrin had a rich history of laws and punishments to draw from in the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, the Old Testament also has a rich history on the death penalty. Look at some of the things that were worthy of death in the Old Testament -
Exodus 21:15 Anyone who attacks a his father or his mother must be put to death.
Exodus 21:16 Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death.
Exodus 21:17 “Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.
Exodus 21:29 If the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull must be stoned and the owner also must be put to death.
Exodus 22:19 Anyone who has sexual relations with an animal must be put to death.
Exodus 31:14 Anyone who desecrates (the Sabbath) must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people.
Leviticus 20:10 ‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.
Leviticus 20:13 ‘If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
Leviticus 20:15 ‘If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he must be put to death, and you must kill the animal.
All of these laws seem rather black and white. If these crimes were committed, you were supposed to put them to death. This doesn’t mean that intent wasn’t always taken into account. Exodus 21:12-14 “Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death. 13 However, if he does not do it intentionally, but God lets it happen, he is to flee to a place I will designate. 14 But if a man schemes and kills another man deliberately, take him away from my altar and put him to death. In this case intention had a determination as to whether someone should be put to death or not. I didn’t put a lot of study into this, but from a brief look it doesn’t appear that there was any jail time or any other punishments besides either restitution through pain, money, or death.
There are even some passages that specifically state WHO was to put the offender to death. The parents of a disobedient son were to bring the children to the elders and the MEN of the town were to stone him to death. (Deut 21) One of the most intriguing ones to me was the law found in Deuteronomy 13 -
If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. 9 You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. 10 Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 11 Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again. (Dt 13:6-11).
Notice WHO was to put to death in this place - his own brother, father, or spouse - was to be the first in putting him or her to death. From this example you can see that according to the Old Testament law, the people were to be the first line of defense in policing their own people. Family was supposed to discipline family under the guidance of the town leaders and the Levites who were spread throughout the regions.
What was the purpose of the death penalty? The purpose was that ALL ISRAEL will hear and BE AFRAID - and NO ONE will DO such an evil thing again. History shows, however, that the Jews almost NEVER enforced the laws the way God told them to, and so they ended up in chaos both physically and spiritually. By the time that Jesus was born it appears that the death penalty was seldom if ever enforced. (There is only one occurrence of it that I can remember - where Jesus was brought an adulterous woman who was about to be stoned to death.)
It was under this guise, then, that the Sanhedrin brought Jesus before the Romans. They wanted to enforce the DEATH penalty on Him, but under the domination of the Romans it appears they could no longer do so without the permission of the Romans. Imagine, for instance, that the Jews living in America tried to enforce these Old Testament laws within our system today. They would be stoning homosexuals, adulterers, and many more people than our law allows. They couldn’t just do that. However, the Jews had much more freedom under the Romans to even bring Jesus to trial than they do in our country. Our governors and mayors wouldn’t even THINK of putting someone to death for these crimes - they wouldn’t even hear the case. Pilate did.
When Pilate asked which law Jesus broke in order to deserve death - the Jews said several things. They tried to involve Roman law - like opposing taxes to Caesar and claiming to be the King of the Jews - as if he were going to lead a rebellion. But after Pilate questioned him, he realized that Jesus wasn’t talking about leading a rebellion. He said, “my kingdom is not of this world.” So when he brought him back to the officials - he told them that he had no reason to crucify him. This is when the officials go back to their law - a different law which they believed justified the crucifixion of Jesus . Vs. 7 says, The Jews insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.” (Jn 19:7) Note what they said - not that Jesus claimed to be A Son of God, but because He literally “made Himself the Son of God.” The high priest called this blasphemy. According to the Old Testament law, this was a charge that was worthy of death. Leviticus 24:16 says, Anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD must be put to death.
Several weeks ago I was in a meeting for our 25th Anniversary. During that time, someone knocked at the basement door. When I answered the door, a man gave me a sheet of paper with a prophecy on it. He told me that he had died and been brought back to life - and during that time he had a revelation from God as to what planet we would be living on at Judgment Day. I didn’t have time to listen to him because I was in a meeting. But do you know what my original thought was? This guy is coo-coo - he’s nuts. Yet I still read through the paper and gave it a brief consideration. After all, what if he really was from God? Doesn’t he deserve the time at least to be briefly considered?
The Officials didn’t even give Jesus this consideration. Even though he had performed the miracles, raised people from the dead, and even though he had proved what he was saying from a great knowledge of the Old Testament, they still assumed that Jesus was lying when He was claiming to be the Son of God - the Messiah. Therefore, they also assumed that Jesus was blaspheming and He deserved to die. It was not against the law to CLAIM to be the Son of God. It was against the law to FALSELY claim to be the Son of God. The fact was that they never seriously considered the fact that Jesus was performing miracles, or that He was interpreting God’s Word in the way that God wanted it to be interpreted. They just assumed He had to be lying. He just HAD to be blaspheming. Therefore, he had to die for BREAKING the law. It wasn’t that the Officials didn’t know the law. They had it right. It was that they didn’t know the Son. Jesus DIDN’T deserve to die - not for blasphemy. Instead, He deserved to be their Messiah - to be worshiped and honored and listened to.
Sometimes prosecutors can get tunnel vision - when they find someone they really feel is guilty - they’ll look for any law they can to arrest him. It is the duty of a prosecutor to know the law. When Al Capone was finally arrested, the Federal government wasn’t able to accuse him of murder or aggravation or theft. They couldn’t find any proof that directly connected Capone to any of his gang’s murders. Instead, they went with an accusation and a law that they could both prove and charge him with - tax evasion. He ended up spending the rest of his life in prison on that very thing. In that sense, the prosecutors did a good job - they found something to accuse him of. The officials and Sanhedrin wanted to find some law - ANY LAW - to accuse Christ of breaking. They never did find one, because Christ didn’t blaspheme. He didn’t break any law. Pilate even said as much.
But that didn’t mean he shouldn’t die. Let me say it again. That didn’t mean he SHOULDN’T die. Actually, the law did state that He must die - but it was a different law. The first law that God laid out stated the death principle when God said to Adam in Genesis 2:17 “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” As soon as God spoke this Law - it couldn’t be changed or repealed. The consequence was set. This same law was repeated throughout the Scriptures. Ezekiel 18:20 says, The soul who sins is the one who will die. Sinners must die. They must be punished. God’s law cannot be compromised. It cannot be changed. When God condemns sinners - they must be condemned.
However, God didn’t want the world to be condemned. Therefore, He set a different law in place to offset the first law. In the book of Esther, King Xerxes had set a law down that all of the Jews could be put to death in about eleven months. However, at the time he didn’t know that Esther - his beautiful queen - was a Jew. Therefore, in order to negate the first law, he laid down another law in The king’s edict granted the Jews in 8:11 giving - every city the right to assemble and protect themselves; to destroy, kill and annihilate any armed force of any nationality or province that might attack them and their women and children; and to plunder the property of their enemies. With that second law, the Jews pre-empted their enemies and destroyed them BEFORE they could be destroyed - all under their rights under the law of the land. In a different way, God set a different law - a different principle - to offset the condemnation of the law - right after sin entered the world in Genesis 3:15. It was here that God promised - “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” The key is in the last phrase - this would be the principle that would offset the condemnation that God Himself had declared. It is much more clear when we look at Isaiah 53 - By oppression and judgment he was taken away. He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. 9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer . . . the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, (Is 53:8-10).
When we look at Jesus Christ, then, we see the statement of the officials come true. We have a law, and according to that law, he must die. When we look at Jesus hanging on the cross - the message of the law comes across loud and clear - God hates sin. He doesn’t want to reason with it. He doesn’t want to understand it. He has no intent of sympathizing with it. You can’t soft pedal that statement. You can’t get around it. God only could do one thing with it - and that is to punish it and kill it. The wages of sin is death. That is the law.
But that is ALSO the gospel. Since He couldn’t take back His own curse, He had to redirect His curse to His Son. This was the second law - the second principle - which then would offset the first principle - that the sinner must die - and therefore the Savior must die. The world often determines the death penalty based on the looks and intention of the person under trial. If the person is a grungy looking and impenitent criminal, they’ll be more apt to say, “let him die!” It is biased in this way. In a sense, you could say that God was biased in the opposite sense. The only way that God could offset His condemnation of the world, was if He put that condemnation on His Son - His Messiah. God had to find the most perfect, holy, and righteous person in the world. He couldn’t punish just anyone. He had to punish perfection - holiness - God Himself - to offset the sins of the world.
In a sense, couldn’t you say that our whole religion is based on the death penalty? The purpose of the death penalty was to PURGE EVIL among the Israelites. The only way that God could purge sin and evil from among us was to nail it to a cross and bury it in the grave with Christ. That was also the purpose of Jesus’ death - to purge the evil from among us. In this harshest sentence of the law - the harshest punishment - we find the sweetest statement of the Gospel. When we look at Jesus get condemned, we see God taking out His punishment of the law on Christ instead of us - FOR us. When we see Jesus die, we see God’s wrath over our sins die. When we see Jesus buried, we see our sinful natures buried WITH him. Paul said it this way in Romans 8, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. (Ro 8:1-2) When we look at the cross this way - this law of death becomes the gospel of life for all who believe.
We have a law student coming to our congregation right now who is going to Washburn. Day in and out he has to study the laws of our land. He has the choice of either being a prosecutor or a defender. He has chosen to be a prosecutor. In order to do either - you have to know the law. If you don’t, an offender could go free, or an innocent person can be condemned. It is a tremendous responsibility to be in EITHER position.
It was the job of the officials - the teachers of the law - to know the law. They knew the law - probably better than most of us know our Bibles - fact wise. They knew what crime deserved what punishment. The problem wasn’t with their knowledge of the law. The problem was with their knowledge of the gospel. They only saw their Messiah who could come to powerfully rule. When Jesus didn’t fulfill their vision of a Messiah - they assumed He was blaspheming, and they used their law then to put Jesus to death. So they said, “we have a law, and according to that law he must die.” They based their decision on emotions and feelings instead of facts. They made a mistake.
God didn’t. He based His death penalty of Christ on justice and love. When the condemnation of the law came down on Christ, it ended up coming down on us. Even though it was coming down on the wrong person, it ended up being the right person - the One God had chosen for that very purpose - to die for the people. Therefore, He was able to turn their mistake into our greatest defense. This is the law and this is the gospel. This message condemns us. This message acquits us. This message saves us. Unknowingly, the Officials were speaking the truth. We have a law, and according to that law HE must die. This is the legal truth. Know it. Believe it. Share it. Amen.
