"Behold Your King" John 19:1-16 Sunday Evening Worship Service

John chapter 18, and I will read for us the whole passage to begin with, so you get the scene.

John 18 · chapter mention

This is all of Pilate's questioning of Jesus.

John chapter 18, verse 28.

John 18:28

Then they, that is the Jewish leadership, led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters.

It was early morning.

They themselves didn't enter the governor's headquarters so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover.

So Pilate went outside to them and said, What accusation do you bring against this man?

They answered him, If this man weren't doing evil, we wouldn't have delivered him over to you.

Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves, judge him by your own law.

The Jews said to him, It's not lawful for us to put anyone to death.

This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken, to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, Are you the king of the Jews?

Jesus answered, Do you say this of your own accord?

Or did others say it to you about me?

Pilate answered, Am I a Jew?

Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me.

What have you done?

Jesus answered, My kingdom isn't of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from this world.

Then Pilate said to him, So you are a king?

Jesus answered, You say that I'm a king.

For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth.

Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.

Pilate said to him, What is truth?

After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, I find no guilt in him, but you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover.

So do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?

They cried out, Not this man, but Barabbas.

Now, Barabbas was a robber.

Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him.

And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe.

They came up to him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews, and struck him with their hands.

Pilate went out again and said to them, See, I'm bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.

So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

Pilate said to them, Behold the man.

When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, Crucify him, crucify him.

Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.

The Jews answered him, We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God.

And when Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid.

He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, Where are you from?

But Jesus gave him no answer.

So Pilate said to him, You won't speak to me?

Don't you know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?

And Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all, unless it had been given you from above.

Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.

From then on, Pilate sought to release him.

But the Jews cried out, If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend.

Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.

So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the stone pavement in an Aramaic Gabbatha.

Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover, it was about the sixth hour, and he said to the Jews, Behold your king.

They cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him.

And Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king?

The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.

So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.

So reads the word of the living God.

Dramatic irony is a literary device that can be used to powerful effect, whereby the characters of a story don't know something critical that you, the audience, do.

Often the effect is tragic.

Give you a couple of examples.

If you like Shakespearean work, Othello is told by his apparent friend Iago that his love, Desdemona, is cheating on him.

Now the audience knows that Iago is a scoundrel and that he's lying, but Othello doesn't know that, and so he says in response, I know thou art full of love and honesty.

It's dramatic irony.

He's not, he's lying.

That's the point.

Othello doesn't know it.

Or, maybe you like something more recent, apparently, when someone was boarding the Titanic, they said, quote, even God himself couldn't sink this ship.

If you were to read that today, that would be dramatic irony.

You know that that's not true.

Or if you want something even more lowbrow, literally any horror movie where the kids are about to go into the abandoned house and you know the murderer's in there, and you're like screaming at the screen, don't go in there.

Dramatic irony.

They don't know something, and you do.

If you want dramatic irony boiled down to a noise, it's dun it, dun-un, dunun, dunun, dunun, dunun, right?

Jaws.

Like they don't know he's coming, but you do.

That's the point.

That's dramatic irony.

It's also used in the Bible.

Probably the most famous example of dramatic irony is in 2 Samuel chapter 12.

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

You remember David commits adultery with Bathsheba and kills her husband, Uriah the Hittite.

In 2 Samuel chapter 12, Nathan the prophet is sent to him to tell David a little story.

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

And you know the whole time you're reading it, this story is about David, about this rich guy who has a whole bunch of sheep, but he takes the poor guy's sheep.

And then David obviously doesn't get it because at the very end of this thing, he says, that guy should be killed.

And you remember Nathan's response, no, you're the guy.

Atahaish, you're the man.

It's dramatic irony.

It's used all throughout the Bible, and the point of it is that the characters don't know what's going on, but the audience does.

In John chapter 18 and 19, where we find the trial of Jesus before Pilate, John the apostle, is employing thick amounts of dramatic irony.

John 18 · chapter mention

And in case it's not apparent, let me just point out a couple examples.

The Jews say it's not lawful for us to put anyone to death.

Oh, isn't it?

Whose law?

Pilate, who's the one person who's supposed to be caring about what the truth is in this trial, says, What is the truth?

The soldiers cry out to Jesus, Hail, King of the Jews, mocking him.

They don't believe it.

And yet it's true.

It's dramatic irony.

But what I want to show you in this text, and what I think is so impactful and helpful for us here, is that what John is doing is not simply saying that the characters don't know something you do, and so that should have a kind of emotional impact on you as you read this.

The dramatic irony of this text is the point.

Because what the chief priests don't realize about what they're saying, and what Pilate doesn't realize, what everyone except for Jesus doesn't get about this horrific scene is the very heart of the gospel.

They have no idea what they're doing, and they have no idea that what they're doing is exposing their hearts.

And I think it's the same for us.

When we read this text, our hearts are exposed too.

We see a mirror of our own hypocrisy, of our own apathy, of our own wrong thinking and opposition to Jesus in Pilate and in Caiaphas.

This is a text whose dramatic irony exposes us.

Or to say it another way, when we put Jesus on trial, Jesus puts us on trial.

We see in the trial of Jesus leading to his crucifixion a mirror of our own self-ignorant hearts, our own sinful lack of self-awareness, a parable of our own sin.

John Owen, the Puritan, said, Men are utter strangers to themselves.

And I think that's true.

We know so little of our own hearts, just like they did.

And John means to use this word to lay bare the motives and the intentions of our hearts.

When we choose expediency over obedience, convenience over conviction, and comfort over Christ, we too put Jesus on trial.

And what we cannot see about ourselves, the author can.

The only person in this whole scene who understands what's going on is Jesus, isn't it?

And so it is in our lives.

How often do you not even know why you do what you do?

What's going on in your own heart, and Jesus does.

The dramatic irony of our own lives is the very hinge of the gospel to see ourselves how heaven sees us.

A kind of divine self-awareness.

And so as we read this text and work our way through it, I want not only for you to read it, but for you to let it read you.

I want you to let it do what we read earlier in Hebrews 4 to cut to the very intentions of your heart and lay you bare, so that you might see the glory of Jesus in stark contrast.

And so we're going to look at this in four parts, moving through it quickly.

When we put Jesus on trial, we see four kinds of hypocrisy.

I'm sorry, four kinds of irony.

Four kinds of irony.

And the first is the irony of our hypocrisy.

The irony of our hypocrisy.

And we see that particularly in the Jewish leaders.

So look at verse 28.

John writes, Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters.

It was early morning.

And they themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover.

Here we are, Friday of Passion Week.

The Last Supper is over.

The garden arrest has taken place.

The Jewish trial has already occurred.

And now they bring him to the governor's headquarters, to the praetorium.

Now there's some debate about whether this is Herod's palace or this is the Fortress Antonia.

I think it's the latter.

Either way, it's where Pilate is.

The Praetorium is probably still covered in darkness at this point.

It says it's early morning.

That could be a couple of different watches of the night, but it's probably before the sun has come up.

This sham trial has been going on all night.

All kinds of crazy accusations being levied at Jesus, and none of them real.

And so the Jewish leaders, having already decided way back in chapter 11 that they were going to kill Jesus, have now come together and decided fully and finally this is how we're going to do it.

But they've got a problem.

They're not legally allowed to kill Jesus.

And so they go to the one who can.

Pilate.

They were trusting in this moment in Pilate's reputation as a vicious, violent, brutal governor over Judea.

If you want to get to know Pilate a little bit, this Roman equestrian who had taken charge over the governorship of Judea, he was the prefect.

Herod Agrippa described Pilate as, quote, naturally inflexible, a blend of self-will and relentlessness.

The Jewish author Philo lists Pilate's crimes as the following: quote, the briberies, the insults, the robberies, the outrages and wanton injuries, the executions without trial, constantly repeated, the ceaseless and supremely grievous cruelty.

Or, if you want to get to know Pilate, you could turn to Luke chapter 13 and you would see someone lodges a question with Jesus.

Luke 13 · chapter mention

What about that time that Pilate mingled the blood of the Galileans with their sacrifices?

Probably an instance in Pilate's life where he took a bunch of money from the temple in Jerusalem, used it to build an aqueduct.

Everyone in Jerusalem was upset about this.

They protested right before him, and he just sent his guards into the protest and killed everyone.

That's who we're dealing with when the Jews show up to the praetorium.

If you want someone brutally and illegally murdered, Pilate is your guy.

He's also the only one who could legally do it, and he happens to be in Jerusalem for the Passover, which is a fascinating historical side note.

He lives in Caesarea, he doesn't live there, but he's there for the feast days.

Why?

Because there's this strange truce going on between him and the Jewish leaders, where he actually holds the high priest's robes.

And in order for the high priest to do what he does on Passover, he has to go to Caesar or go to Pilate and ask for the robes, and then Pilate gives him.

That's who the Jews go to.

They don't like him, but they in this moment think that they need him.

And then notice, even just in this first verse, John begins to show us the hypocrisy of these Jewish leaders.

He says it was early morning, and they themselves didn't enter the governor's headquarters so that they wouldn't be defiled, but could eat the Passover.

Oh, really?

There's no law in the Old Testament that says you can't go into a Gentile's house on Passover.

But there were some traditions that they had piled on to the law that said, if you went into a Gentile's house, well, Gentiles like abortion and they like to kill babies, and so there's probably a dead baby on the floor.

And so if you go in there, you're touching a dead baby, and therefore you can't participate in Passover.

That was the myth, at least.

And so they formed a whole tradition around it and said, we can't be in a Gentile's house, otherwise we can't partake in Passover.

Never mind, they want to put an innocent man to death.

Never mind that innocent man is the Passover lamb himself.

But no, they need to keep the law.

They want to celebrate Passover, but kill the Christ.

So Pilate goes outside to them and says, What accusation do you bring against this man?

Verse 30, they answered him, if this man weren't doing evil, we wouldn't have delivered him over to you.

John doesn't tell us all of the accusations that they lobby, just throws this out there that they're very apparently being frustrating to Pilate.

But they say a number of different things, none of which are true about Jesus, or at least entirely.

They say that he told us to not pay taxes to Caesar.

You remember a couple weeks ago, that was explicitly not the case.

He said, do pay taxes to Caesar.

They said that he is an insurrectionist.

They said that he is trying to tear down the temple.

They said that he calls himself the Christ, which is a king.

Now that one's true.

And so Pilate doesn't want to have anything to do with this.

He wants to wash his hands of this thing as quickly as possible for a whole host of political reasons.

And so Pilate says to them, verse 31, take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.

It's actually kind of a reasonable thing to say in that moment.

Sure.

This sounds like a theological debate among you all, so you should probably solve this.

Pilate wants to just get rid of Jesus.

And notice Pilate here is talking about their law.

And see the Jews' response?

The Jews said to him, It's not lawful for us to put anyone to death.

Well, whose law are you talking about now?

You know the reality is?

Look at Acts chapter 7.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

Stephen gets stoned by the religious leaders in Jerusalem.

They don't have a problem stoning people.

That would have been the Jewish method of putting someone to death.

They didn't have a problem with that.

You know what the problem was?

Everyone liked Jesus.

The crowds were for him.

So if they were seen as the ones who put him to death, then they would have a problem on their hands.

So they wanted Pilate to do the dirty work.

Do you see the hypocrisy of this?

They're saying, oh no, we're too lawful to go into your Gentile house, but we're not lawful enough to actually obey the law and stone a guy who says he's the Christ if we think he's not.

Really, we're appealing to Roman law.

That's the law that we actually care about.

The Jewish leaders just want to avoid public blame for killing Jesus, so they sell their law up the river.

And oh, by the way, look at verse 32.

This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

Jesus was in charge of this whole thing, right?

John chapter 12, he says, I'm going to be lifted up.

John 12 · chapter mention

So he's not going to be stoned, he's going to be crucified.

The Roman form of execution.

You know, the reality is for the Jewish leaders in this moment, I'm sure they thought they were doing the right thing.

I'm sure they thought they were the heroes of the story.

That's how hypocrisy always works, isn't it?

Hypocrisy always justifies the hypocrite.

But is that how hypocrisy looks from heaven's perspective?

John, I think, gives us a window into how God sees their hearts.

He sees them as double-minded.

From our perspective, we're just trying to be good people, just trying to keep the law.

The problem is you're not.

You're just trying to keep the laws that you think are convenient for you to keep that help you out.

The other ones you don't want to keep, well, forget about those.

John's laying it bare.

I remember when I was in college meeting a number of guys in fraternities and learning about their different rules.

Fraternity rules, almost all of them at the college I went to, almost all the fraternities had hardcore rules against the use of drugs.

No drugs at any of their parties, can't do drugs anywhere, can't can't be seen.

Because they care about the law, don't they?

Yeah, every single one of them is passing out beer to underage kids every Friday night.

You think they care about the law?

No, it's hypocrisy.

That's what's going on here.

Now, you say, well, yeah, well, thank goodness I'm not a fraternity guy.

Okay, how about this?

How many Christians have just utter moral outrage at the immorality of the culture around them and then go home and turn on the television and download that same immorality right into their brain?

Are we really that much better?

Is our hypocrisy any less heinous?

From God's perspective, it's obvious.

He sees right through us.

We're blind to this.

You know, the Jewish leaders, their motive?

It was just envy.

That's what Mark says.

Mark chapter 15.

Mark 15 · chapter mention

He says, it's just garden variety, envy, jealousy.

They just want what Jesus had.

And Luke has a fascinating little note in his gospel as well.

He says, the Pharisees who were lovers of money.

I don't think about the Pharisees that way.

I think of them as like rule keepers, right?

That's not what they were.

Deep down they were just as worldly as everyone else.

Just greedy.

Just want stuff and power and fame, just like everyone else.

Just covering it up with rules.

When we put Jesus on trial, Jesus puts us right back on trial and exposes our hypocrisy.

But more than that, he also exposes our apathy.

And so we see not only the irony of our hypocrisy, but the irony of our apathy mirrored here in the person of Pilate.

Look at verse 33.

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, Are you the king of the Jews?

Now, Pilate here is seeking a private audience with Jesus.

He wants to get down to what's actually going on here.

He doesn't have the same poison of legalism, perhaps, but he has a different kind of poison running through his veins, and that's the poison of indifference.

Really, he is just a pragmatist deep down.

He just wants to do whatever's gonna get this thing done with best.

So Pilate interviews Jesus for himself.

He's really just looking for an easy way out, and Jesus' answer immediately exposes him.

Verse 34, Jesus answered, Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?

There's two things Jesus is doing here.

Number one, he is exposing that Pilate is just a cog in this machine.

Listen, you're just a political football in this moment, Pilate.

The Jews have you right where they want you.

There's nothing that you can really do.

But also, he exposes the foolishness of this question.

Seriously?

So you you think I'm the king of the people who are trying to kill me right now?

That's what you think?

What a silly question.

Verse 35, Pilate answered, Am I a Jew?

He doesn't get it.

Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me.

What have you done?

And Jesus keys in on what Pilate says, Your own nation.

He says, Let me clarify what nation I come from.

Verse 36, Jesus answers, My kingdom is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews.

But my kingdom is not from this world.

Jesus responds saying, His kingdom is otherworldly.

He's saying that he transcends all of this.

If he wanted to, he could bring war to Pilate.

Peter tried.

But he's not fighting, is he?

Essentially, Jesus is not giving Pilate the kind of quick resolution he wants out of this exchange.

Instead, he's provoking Pilate to think critically about who exactly is standing before him.

And so he says, in verse 37, Pilate says to him, So you are a king.

Again, just trying to get to the bottom of this so he can just wash his hands.

But Jesus answers with something that Pilate needs to hear.

You say that I'm a king.

For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I've come into the world to bear witness to the truth.

And everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.

Pilate won't have it, but Jesus doubles down.

And what he does here is he exposes that this conversation in this moment is far bigger than just another parochial king, just another Herodian dynasty or another vassal state of the Roman Empire.

This is so much bigger than that.

This is about truth.

And it's the very thing that Pilate does not care about.

Jesus is exposing that this is precisely where Pilate is most apathetic, which is exactly Pilate's response in verse 38.

Pilate said to him, What is truth?

I mean, it's just a kind of disdain.

Who even cares what's true is Pilate's point.

You're a king, you're not a king, it doesn't matter.

What matters is I can put you to death.

What Pilate doesn't realize is that all of the supposed authority that he thinks he has depends utterly on what is and isn't true.

Everything depends on what's true.

Pilate, playing the part of the postmodern literature professor, doesn't understand the dramatic irony that to be indifferent to the truth and Jesus as the Lord of the truth is to undermine yourself.

There is no authority apart from the truth.

Illustrate it this way.

I remember having lunch with a friend of ours a while back.

She's not a believer, and she was challenging us on views of truth and that kind of thing.

And I put a cup in the middle of the table, and I said, Is that cup there?

And she said, Maybe.

To you it is, to me it's not.

I don't know.

Like, do you realize in that moment I'm not the one who sounds foolish?

You are.

If you give up truth, you give up everything.

There's nothing without the truth.

And yet that's the world we live in, isn't it?

Do you realize that if you are apathetic towards the truth, you're the one who's powerless.

You can't be indifferent towards Jesus.

If you are, it's a death sentence for you.

Pilate digs himself further in the hole.

Verse 38, after he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, I find no guilt in him.

Well, at least that was right.

But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover, so do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?

Again, provoking the Jewish leaders here, calling him the king of the Jews.

They don't want to call him that.

This kind of Passover pardon offered, and their response is no.

We want Barabbas, literally the son of the Father.

Barabbas, you probably see in your ESV, has a little footnote.

Robber just means insurrectionist.

He was a murderer.

This guy was the actual threat to Pilate.

Jesus wasn't trying to take down Pilate's throne.

Barabbas was, and he's the one that he let go.

Expediency, in other words, it just always backfires.

The one thing that Pilate was trying to avoid, a riot, is the very thing that he just fomented by releasing a rioter into the crowds.

Pragmatism, ironically, doesn't work.

My question to you is, where does your confidence in your life come from?

Pilate was a pretty confident guy.

Why was he confident?

It's because of just the worst possible reason.

It's nonchalance, indifference, apathy.

I just don't care.

That only works for so long.

You can't ignore Jesus and get what you want for very long.

If you want to avoid the ironic trap of nonchalance and the slavery of apathy, then you have to.

Jesus says, listen to his voice.

That's the only way.

You must hear and believe the truth.

And on that day, when Jesus comes to judge the living and the dead, it's going to be really obvious who was making a foolish, apathetic decision, and who cared about the truth.

Jesus will finally cause Pilate to care on that day.

He exposes the apathy of our hearts.

But it's not only the irony of our hypocrisy, the irony of our apathy, it gets worse.

The irony of our authority.

Look at chapter 19, verse 1.

Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him.

And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe.

And they came up to him saying, Hail, King of the Jews, and struck him with their hands.

Pilate thinks, maybe if I just beat Jesus up, that'll be sufficient, and they'll let this thing go.

And so he takes him back into the Praetorium and lets the guards have their way with him using the Cat of Ninetales.

I'm sure you're familiar with this.

The crown of thorns up to 12-inch spines dug into Jesus' skull, a bloodied royal robe, and feigned fealty to a king they don't actually believe in.

I mean it's just utter mockery.

Pretending that Jesus is a king in the most disgusting way.

But remember, when they say hail king of the Jews, Jesus is the king of the Jews.

In fact, he's the king of kings.

John has proven that at length in his gospel.

So the mockery itself is a form of dramatic irony.

The one that they're ripping to shreds is the king.

He is the one who's in charge.

Verse 4.

Pilate went out again and said to them, See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.

Which is also a little bit ironic.

If there's no guilt in him, why is he covered in blood?

So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, meant to look like a fool.

Pilate said to them famously, Behold the man.

Said a phrase here, probably just intending to say, look at him.

He's nothing.

Can't you just be done with him at this point?

But he speaks so much better than he knows, doesn't he?

R.

C.

Sproul says it this way.

Quote, in a supreme irony, the one who was standing in the costume of a fool was not only the incarnation of God, but a portrait of perfect humanity.

He was the man.

The true and better Adam was standing before them, beaten and bruised and bloodied.

The best of men.

Behold the man.

But the Jewish leaders won't have it, verse six.

When the chief priest and the officers saw him, they cried out, Crucify him, crucify him.

They're bloodlust not satisfied by mere beating.

And so Pilate says to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.

And Pilate here, he's just mocking them.

He knows they can't do that.

He knows they don't have a legion of Roman soldiers to be able to pull this off.

They don't have the authority to do that.

He's just exposing to them that they're just trying to do this for public appearance sake.

And so the Jews answer him, We have a law.

And according to that law, he ought to die because, and here they tighten the screws on Pilate again, because he has made himself the Son of God.

And when Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid.

Why?

Why was Pilate so afraid by the Son of God?

Well, you remember that's someone really important's title.

In fact, that someone's shadow has been lingering over the entirety of this proceeding, and now it's just clearly coming into view.

His name is Caesar Tiberius, a son of God.

Written on his coins and on his shields.

What the Jews are saying is if you let this guy go, you're letting go someone who is claiming Caesar's very title.

And this would have been particularly upsetting for Pilate because a number of years prior, there was an incident where Pilate had brought a bunch of shields from Tiberius Caesar's household and hung them up in Jerusalem on Herod's palace, and the Jews did not like it.

And so they complained to Pilate.

He didn't do anything about it.

So they actually didn't run underround Pilate, went straight to Tiberius and said, you know, take those shields down.

And Tiberius scolded Pilate and said, take them down, and he did.

So he's been chastised before for allowing this son of God language on the shields to hang in Jerusalem.

Now he's got a man claiming to be the son of God standing in his very midst, and he is concerned about what might happen.

And so he brings Jesus back inside, verse 9, he entered his headquarters again, and he says to Jesus, obviously frustrated now, where are you from?

But Jesus, the sheep who was silent, gave him no answer.

And so Pilate says to him, just trying to provoke some kind of response, You won't speak to me?

Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?

Well, that was the wrong thing to say, wasn't it?

Jesus, in the way he always does, shows just how foolish it is to think that he has any real authority.

Verse 11, Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all.

It's emphatic in the Greek and in English, at all, unless it had been given you from above.

Above, like Caesar?

No higher than that.

What Jesus is saying here is that everything that is happening in this trial and everything that is about to happen in his crucifixion was his plan.

Oh Pilate, you think you think that you're the one who has authority here.

The only one who really has authority is the one who gives it.

That's why he says in chapter 18, verse 11 to Peter, put your sword into its sheath.

Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?

These soldiers taking me away, they're not the ones who have authority over these proceedings.

It's the Father.

It's me.

Nobody takes my life, Jesus says.

I lay it down willingly.

And that's why Peter will go on to say in Acts chapter 4, verse 28.

Acts 4:28

Herod and Pilate all gathered together in Jerusalem, the Gentiles and the Jewish leaders, they only did that which your sovereign hand had predestined.

You want to know what authority is, Pilate?

It's sovereignty over your own crucifixion.

Sovereignty over sin and death.

Do you see the irony?

Jesus captures it in Matthew 21 when he quotes from Psalm 118 and he says, The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

And this was the Lord's doing.

And it's marvelous in our eyes.

You think you can overthrow God by killing him?

Good luck.

But Jesus says, you're still culpable, therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.

Pilate, I get it.

You're just a cog in the machine here.

The Jewish leaders are the ones who really started this ball rolling, but you're still sinning.

Just because I'm sovereign over this thing doesn't mean you're not sinning.

You're still culpable.

Do you realize that every time you use your breath to sin against God, he's the one who gave you that breath.

Jesus made his own cross like he created it.

Jesus was sovereign over every lash of the whip on his back.

Jesus, from before the foundation of the earth, planned to make a guy named Pilate and to orchestrate every event in the universe to bring about this very moment where he would stand before him ready to die to offer himself as a sacrifice for sin.

When Jesus is hanging on the cross and dying for the sins of his people, he is a king.

He has all authority.

And not only did Jesus make Pilate, friend, he made you.

Jesus planned your life, every step of it, from beginning to end.

And he knew that in your life you would use the very breath that he gave you to rebel against him in your heart.

That you would use this body and this life and all the good gifts that he's blessed you with, you would use it to shout with your life, crucify him.

And he went anyway.

Alas, and did my savior bleed, and did my sovereign die?

Would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?

Do you see that from heaven's perspective, all of our imagined authority is derivative?

Our lives are just a dramatic irony of utter futility.

But that's not where John leaves us.

John doesn't just mean to use dramatic irony to expose what we don't know about ourselves.

He wants to show us what we don't know and we need to see about Jesus.

And that's what he does in the end here.

It's not only the irony of our hypocrisy, the irony of our apathy, and the irony of our authority, but the irony of his royalty.

Verse 12.

From then on, Pilate sought to release him.

Of course he did.

But the Jews cried out: If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend.

Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.

This is it.

They've tightened the vice grip for the last time.

They've put it all on the table.

Let's make plain what we're saying, Pilate.

If you don't crucify this man, we're calling Caesar in.

And we know what he'll do to you.

Friend of Caesar is kind of a technical term for being in Caesar's inner circle.

He says, listen, if you want to be in that inner circle, you don't want to be an enemy of his, then you better get rid of this son of God.

And so, verse 13, when Pilate heard these words, he acquiesced.

He brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the stone pavement in an Aramaic Gabbatha.

It's a raised platform of some kind that has a throne on it, the judgment seat.

It's the word Bimah, the Bima seat of judgment.

This is where they would render verdicts for trials.

And Pilate deigns to sit there as if he has some actual authority.

And then John notes this for us.

Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover.

It was about the sixth hour.

He's essentially saying, they gotta hurry this thing up according to the Jewish calendar, or else it's gonna be too late.

And then Pilate says, in these three words, something so profound.

He said to the Jews, Behold your king.

I don't know if there is any dramatic irony in the Bible more profound than this.

Pilate has no idea.

He's just trying to mock the Jews, isn't he?

But is he a king?

Is he your king?

Whether you want him or not.

What Pilate intends as mockery and political maneuvering is in fact the very reason the universe was made.

So that you would behold your king.

So that you would see Jesus in all of his glory and all of his splendor, so that you would come to know him and worship him, to see your king, to call him yours, to call him king.

And to behold him in all his glory.

He says, Behold your king, and he has no idea that he is.

And oh, what a profound mystery that our king's glory is on such vital and powerful and unstoppable display as they nail him to a wooden beam, raise him in the air, and watch him bear the wrath of God Almighty for the sins of some who even crucified him that day.

Brothers and sisters, behold your king.

Or would you say with the Jews, Away with him?

Verse 15, crucify him.

Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king?

The chief priests answered, This is the nail in the coffin for them.

We have no king but Caesar.

Going all the way back to Saul, isn't it?

They didn't reject you, Samuel.

They just rejected me.

Do you still say, I have no king but Caesar?

I think what John would tell you is please just see yourself from heaven's point of view.

See yourself from a perspective you've never seen before.

See Jesus like you've never seen him before.

Imagine for a moment what you look like in Jesus' omniscient eyes.

Jesus teased all of your hypocrisy.

He sees all of your apathy towards him.

He sees every morning that you roll over and hit the alarm.

It's too early for devotions.

He sees when you open up that website.

He sees when you cheat on your taxes.

He sees that when you speak unkindly to your spouse.

He sees all of it.

And he says, Father, forgive them.

They don't even know what they're doing.

Behold your king.

See that the greatest irony is not how low are those who think themselves high, but how high is he who was brought so low.

I think what John is pleading with us to do with this text is just to see ourselves anew.

And to see Jesus with a fresh set of eyes.

Not like Pilate, not like the Jewish leaders.

But imagine that today God is reading the story of your life.

What do you look like?

What does he see?

And where is Jesus in it?

Is your life one of sad, tragic, dramatic irony from heaven's courts, or is it one of contrition?

One of worship, one of love, one of beholding your king.

The ultimate irony here is that Jesus himself was never and could never be subject to any form of irony.

Because he knows everything.

There is nothing unexpected to him.

There's nothing unknown to him.

Only to us.

Pilate goes on to nail a sign onto the top of the cross, doesn't he?

Three languages.

And it says, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

Oh, if he only knew.

Oh, if he could only see.

Just who he had crucified.

Do you see?

Do you behold him as your king?

Behold your king.

Let's pray.

Father, you have put us on trial.

We are laid bare before you.

We ask.

Give us eyes to see our sin the way that you see it.

And give us eyes to see the Savior in all of his glory.

Hallelujah, what a savior we have.

It is his life and his death that forms the basis of everything that we are.

And so we ask, Father, penetrate our hearts with the gaze of Jesus Christ.

May we see him for the king that he is and wonder at his beauty.

You alone have authority.

And so we bow our knees in submission to you.

And even now we come before your table as grateful servants that we've been granted a seat at the table of a king.

We ask, search our hearts in this moment.

Pry open those secret doors where sin still hides, and bring them out into the light so that we might confess them and render unto you pure devotion for the sake of your son and our king.

We pray this in his name.

Amen.

And now for parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to iBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with Jesus.