Pilate’s Moral Struggle
Fortifying the Foundations # 41
John 19:1-16[1]
7-18-04
In our text this morning we encounter a tremendous moral struggle. The man experiencing this struggle is the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate. His struggle begins when providence brings him face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ. His encounter with Christ is an encounter with truth and truth always demands a response. We have already talked in previous messages about how all of this came about. But this morning we want to examine the elements of his struggle and by doing that learn how to successfully deal with our own struggles.
I. The Verdict of Pilate’s own Conscience is loud and clear. Over and over we hear him say concerning Jesus, “I find no fault in this man.”[2] Pilate knows that Jesus is innocent of the charges that have been brought against him. He even knows why these religious leaders have trumped up these charges against Jesus. Matt 27:18 “For he knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him.” Pilate cannot claim ignorance concerning Jesus guilt. He personally interrogated him several times.[3] Each interrogation further confirmed Jesus’ innocence.
Pilate’s conscience is also telling him that there is something very unusual about Jesus. He has sat in judgment over hundreds of men. He knows how people respond when facing with a death sentence. He expects to see either a trembling soul pleading for mercy and begging for his life or a hardened criminal trying to lie or bribe his way out of trouble. At one point he is so flabbergasted by Jesus demeanor that he says to him (John 19:10) “Do you refuse to speak to me?” The emphasis in his question is on the Greek word “Emoi” (to ME). “Jesus, you might keep silent before anyone else in this trial. But I am the one who can either let you go or have you crucified.”[4]
Every answer Jesus gave Pilate brought more and more truth to bear on his conscience. Jesus answered those questions by talking about the real source of authority, which is God not Caesar. Jesus had talked to Pilate about the nature of His kingdom—a kingdom not from this world but from heaven above. He had talked with him about two kinds of people—those on the side of truth and those in opposition to truth. Pilate progressively realizes that there is something highly unusual about Jesus.
In John 19:7 the Jews finally tell Pilate the real reason they want Jesus put to death. Up to that time they had tried to frame their accusations in a way that would win Pilate’s agreement with them against Jesus. But in the heat of the moment the truth spills out. “We have a law[5], and according to our law he must die” now here comes the zinger “because he claimed to be the Son of God.” With everything Pilate has observed about Jesus and everything his conscience was screaming to him those words were terrorizing.
Pilate was not a Jew. In fact, he despised the Jews. He did not embrace their religious beliefs. But as Roman he has religious beliefs of his own. And it was very common for Romans to believe in demigods like Hercules and other mythology. Maybe this Jesus really is a supernatural being.[6] His demeanor certainly indicates something very unusual. John tells us in verse 8 of our text “When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid...”
In addition to all of this God gave Pilate’s wife a dream. We do not know exactly what she saw in the dream. But we do know that God sent it as a supernatural warning to Pilate and his wife. Matt 27:19 “While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: "Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him." There is Pilate struggling with his own conscience. Everything within him is saying that Jesus is innocent. There is obviously something unusual about Jesus that may very well be supernatural. Then comes this message from his wife, “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man...”
Do you see the grace of God in all this? A man’s conscience is telling him the right thing to do. Then God mercifully sends a supernatural dream to warn him even further. Pilate knows what is right. He has the authority by his own confession (19:10) to do the right thing. But here is his problem.
II. The Voice of the Crowd is in conflict with his conscience and he wants to please the crowd.
Pilate has a lot to lose here. He is in a position of power and advantage. He is respected. His wife enjoys their palace. He makes good money and has a great future. The problem is if he follows his conscience he may lose all of that. He has already been reprimanded by Rome for mishandling previous events.[7] He does not need to have more complaints sent in from the local authorities. Yes, he is in charge. But Caesar’s approach to government is to pacify the locals as much as possible and keep collecting their taxes.[8] If he can’t handle that they will find someone who can. Think about our situation in Iraq especially before sovereignty was handed over to the new Iraqi government. We have the military might and the authority to control the region. But if we are insensitive to the religious customs of the people we could find ourselves facing an impossible situation. We want leaders there who take charge but do not needlessly alienate people. And that was also what Rome wanted.
The Jewish leaders know Pilate’s vulnerability and play it to the hilt. In verse 12 of our text, when Pilate tried to set Jesus free the Jews kept shouting, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar.” That hit Pilate’s struggle dead center. The right thing to do was to set Jesus free. But, was he willing to pay the price to do the right thing? Pilate did what we are often tempted to do in a situation like this. He tried to avoid the decision as much as he could.
1st When the Jews brought Jesus to him he tried to hand him back to them. John 18:31 “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law?” That didn’t work because they were insisting on the death penalty, which the Jews could not execute without Roman approval. The Jewish leaders forced Pilate’s hand by saying that Jesus had claimed to be a king. A Roman governor could not ignore that kind of claim without getting into trouble with his superiors. If he ignored it and then Jesus did lead a rebellion he would be accountable for not dealing with it.
2nd Pilate’s second attempt to avoid a decision happened when he heard that Jesus was from Galilee. Luke 23:7 tells us that Galilee was under Herod’s jurisdictions so Pilate sent Jesus to Herod, who was in Jerusalem at the time. We know from Luke’s account that Herod was glad to see Jesus because he wanted Jesus to work a miracle for him—put on a show. But instead Jesus wouldn’t even answer Herod’s questions. Herod’s soldiers abused and mocked Jesus and sent him back to Pilate.
3. Pilate then had a stroke of genius. He remembered a custom observed during the Passover in which the Roman governor would let the people choose one prisoner to be released. Pilate saw this as a solution to his problem. He would narrow the choice between Jesus and a scoundrel named Barabbas.[9] Barabbas was such a low life he was sure they would not choose him. But he Jewish leaders were determined to have Jesus killed and they led the crowd in asking for Barabbas instead of Jesus. Pilate’s moral dilemma just would not go away. It was during this effort that he learned about his wife’s dream.
4. I’m sure Pilate did not want to do this but he figured it was better than putting Jesus to death. He ordered his soldiers to flog Jesus. Historians tell us that the whips used by the Romans had pieces of metal and bones tied in each thong.[10] These whippings were so brutal that some died from the flogging alone. John tells us that the soldiers mocked Jesus and repeatedly slapped him on the face with their hands. They put a purple robe on him to ridicule him as king and a crown of thorns on his head.
In that pitiful condition Pilate brought Jesus before the crowd confident that they would be satisfied with the punishment and consent to Jesus’ release.[11] But that didn’t work either. They continued to demand that Jesus be crucified. During this whole ordeal Pilate tries over and over again to reason with the mob and get them to let Jesus go. But every effort put the decision right back in his lap. Would he or would he not authorize the crucifixion of Jesus?
III. The Vacillation of Pilate’s Will culminates in the wrong decision. John 19:16 “Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.”
In addition to trying to avoid making the decision (he ultimately had to make), Pilate also did a couple of things to try to appease his conscience.
During the latter stages of this process he took a bowl of water and washed his hands before the crowd and said to them “I am innocent of this man’s blood, it is your responsibility.” (Matt. 27:24) You may remember the chilling answer the crowd gave to that statement. Matt 27:25 “All the people answered, ‘Let his blood be on us and on our children!’”
There is a significant contrast between Pilate and the religious rulers in Jerusalem. Jesus addressed the contrast in John 19:11 when he said to Pilate, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” Most scholars conclude that Jesus is referring to the high priest, Caiaphas.[12] It’s doubtful that Pilate knew anything about Judas. He would have probably understood Jesus to be talking about the religious ruler of the Jews who had brought Jesus to him.
Notice that Jesus does indicate degrees of guilt in his statement.[13] There is good evidence that there will be degrees in hell for when the books are opened on Judgment Day Revelation 20:13 tells us that each will be judged according to what he had done. Caiaphas and the other Jewish rulers had sinned against more light than Pilate had. They had the scriptures and were in spiritual leadership. But they also were far more set in their opposition to Jesus than Pilate was.
Today there are people like Caiaphas who are all-out against Jesus. They have had great opportunity to know the truth. But instead of loving the truth they have set themselves in opposition to it. They have the greater condemnation.
But, what about Pilate’s compromise? Caiaphas may have greater guilt, but Pilate is nonetheless guilty. He violated his own conscience. He even did it in spite of the warning that God sent in the dream his wife had. In 1 Tim. 6:13 Paul reminded Timothy that Jesus witnessed a good confession before Pilate.[14] Pilate had every opportunity to make the right choice but simply decided to protect his own position rather than do the right thing.
By washing his hands before the crowd he was sending a message to the Jewish crowd. In fact, the ritual was not a Roman ceremony but a Jewish one. According to Deut. 21:6-9 this is what the elders were to do in the case of an unsolved murder.[15] They were to publicly declaring their innocence in that way. But the ritual itself was not the whole story. The ritual was an outward declaration of what was already true. They were innocent and this was their statement of that fact. But Pilate was not innocent of the blood of Jesus. He not only flogged an innocent man but he authorized his crucifixion. The ritual alone would not change that fact.
Even today people try to use religious rituals the way Pilate did. People who have never surrendered their lives to Christ go through water baptism thinking that ceremony will by itself give them a right standing before God. But water baptism is to be the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.[16] Water baptism is indeed a valid declaration of the work of God in a person’s heart. But just doing a ritual without the spiritual reality is not sufficient. Even though Pilate’s ritual came from the Bible it did not remove his guilt.
Pilate did one other thing to appease his conscience. He had a sign fastened to Jesus’ cross, which said, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” John 19:21-22 tells us that when the chief priests complained about the sign and wanted it changed to simply say that Jesus claimed to be King of the Jews, Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.” Pilate is obviously still in a personal struggle. I would love to know the conversation that went on between Pilate and Joseph of Armathaea when that devout follower of Jesus went to Pilate for the body of Jesus (Matt. 27:57-58). It would have been interesting to hear the conversations that went on between Pilate and his wife once the stories about Jesus’ resurrection began to circulate around Jerusalem.
We do not know what eventually happened to Pilate. All kinds of traditions and legends exist. The Coptic (Egyptian) Church is said to observe June 25 as a day of honoring Pilate as a saint and martyr. The Greek Church honors Pilate’s wife as a saint. Eusebius’ story is more likely. He says that Pilate was banished to the city of Vienne in Gaul (France) where he eventually committed suicide.[17] When I get to heaven I will be interested to see whether Pilate and his wife are there.
We do know from the historian, Josephus that Pilate eventually lost the position he tried so desperately to retain at the trial of Jesus. In 36 AD Pilate was called to Rome to answer complaints brought against and his governorship ended.[18]
What did Pilate’s compromise buy him? A few short years of luxury and then he lost it all anyway. What will a man give in exchange for his soul? What mistakes did Pilate make?
1. He valued the wrong things. He valued temporal comfort and power over heaven and eternity.
2. He feared the wrong things. “The fear of man brings a snare.” Pilate knew that his past behavior would not hold up under scrutiny by Rome. He was intimidated by the Jewish leaders threat to accuse him of disloyalty to Caesar. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Although Pilate had a conscience and a certain fear of doing wrong, his fear of man was stronger than his fear of God. In Matt 10:28 Jesus said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
3. He failed to heed God’s warning. God mercifully sent a dream to Pilate’s wife. Guys, if God speaks to your wife listen to her. Ladies, I should have gotten some amen’s for that statement. Pilate was not turned by a supernatural warning even though it had come through someone he could trust.
4. He failed to take a firm stand for what he knew was right. He was double minded. He was torn between two directions. On the one hand, he wanted to do the right thing. But more than that he was unwilling to risk his personal desires to do it. This is the truth we must learn from Pilate’s error. A little compromise leads to more compromise. A halfhearted stand for what is right will usually crumble under the pressures of temptation. Make a firm decision to do the right thing and then do not play with the alternatives. Do not try some slick compromise like Pilate did when he offered the choice between Barabbas and Jesus or when he flogged Jesus. Do not avoid the decision. Make the decision to do what’s right and trust God with the outcome. Follow Daniel, not Pilate. Take your stand the way the three Hebrew children did[19] and let God take care of the results.
Are you faced with any kind of moral struggle? Ask God to give you the courage to do the right thing. Listen to His voice this morning. Allow Him to address your conscience with truth. Hear the warnings and counsel he may give from his word or even through dreams and visions. And decide right here and right now that there will be no compromise, there will be no vacillating, there will simple be the commitment to do the right thing and let God take care of the rest.[20]
Invitation
TEXT: John 19:1-17
19:1Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3and went up to him again and again, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!" And they struck him in the face. 4Once more 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." 5When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, "Here is the man!" 6As 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." 7The Jews insisted, "We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God."
8When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, 9and he went back inside the palace. "Where do you come from?" he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10"Do you refuse to speak to me?" Pilate said. "Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?" 11Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin." 12From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar." 13When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha). 14It was the day of Preparation of Passover Week, about the sixth hour. "Here is your king," Pilate said to the Jews.
15But they shouted, "Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!" "Shall I crucify your king?" Pilate asked. "We have no king but Caesar," the chief priests answered. 16Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. NIV
Richard Tow
Grace Chapel Foursquare Church
Springfield, MO
www.gracechapelchurch.org
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[1] Text was presented earlier in the service using DVD from Visual Bible International (www.gospelofjohnthefilm.com ). Text is provided at the end of this message for easy reference. All quotes are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.
[2] John 18:38; 19:4; 19:6; Luke 23:14-15; Matthew 27:24
[3] R. Alan Culpepper, The Gospel and Letters of John (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998) p. 224 provides a helpful chart of the 7 Scenes in the trial before Pilate as follows: (1) 18:28-32 (2) 18:33-38a (3) 18:38b-40 (4) 19:1-3 (5) 19:4-7 (6) 19:8-11 (7) 19:12-16.
[4] Leon Morris, Reflections of the Gospel of John (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2000) pp. 641-643
[5] Lev. 24:6
[6] Leon Morris, p. 641
[7] PILATE: Philo tells us (Legatio ad Caium, xxxviii) that on other occasion he dedicated some gilt shields in the palace of Herod in honor of the emperor. On these shields there was no representation of any forbidden thing, but simply an inscription of the name of the donor and of him in whose honor they were set up. The Jews petitioned him to have them removed; when he refused, they appealed to Tiberius, who sent an order that they should be removed to Caesarea. (from International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Electronic Database Copyright (c)1996 by Biblesoft)
[8] Leon Morris, p. 642
[9] G.Campbell Morgan, The Westminster Pulpit (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1955) p. 288 Edersheim points out that Barabbas could scarcely been his real name. Bar-Abbas means “son of the father”.
[10] Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Vol. II (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1884) p.579
[11] Leon Morris (p. 637) thinks it is more likely that by displaying Jesus in such a state of humiliation, Pilate was making it clear that there was no possibility of that Jesus was the leader of a guerilla band as accused.
[12] H. Spence and J. Excell, Eds. The Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 17 (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s, 1962) p. 421. Also see G. Campbell Morgan, L. Morris, and Vincent.
[13] Arthur Pink, Exposition of the Gospel of John Vol. III ( Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975) p. 219
[14] Perhaps the most edifying resource concerning Jesus trial and crucifixion are the sermons by Charles Spurgeon on these texts. His sermon entitled “Our Lord’s First Appearance Before Pilate” expounds masterfully on Jesus confession before Pilate.
[15] Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Vol. II (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1884) p.578
[16] 1 Peter 3:21
[17] Merrill Tenney and S. Barabas, Eds. The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, Vol. M-P, (Grand Rapids: Regency, 1976) Pilate, p. 792
[18] PILATE: Josephus (Ant, XVIII, iv, 1, 2) gives an account of the incident which led to Pilate’s downfall.
(from International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Electronic Database Copyright (c)1996 by Biblesoft)
[19] Daniel 3:17-18
[20] In the first service we used a clip from the movie, The Patriot, (the scene in the church 1:06:03 to 1:08:22) to illustrate the need to make a courageous decision to follow one’s convictions.
