Pilate

Good morning. This morning we are continuing on in our series,

Conversations Jesus Had.

This is an overview of the life of Christ, specifically focusing on people that

Jesus spoke to while he was on this earth.

We have so far covered 13 different people, or in some cases it was groups of

people, but 13 different people we've covered.

And today we move on to person number 14, which is Pontius Pilate.

Pontius Pilate was the governor of a province in the Roman Empire that was known as Judea.

And it's a section of land within the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago that includes

Jerusalem and a big portion of the nation of Israel.

Pilate, because of his interaction with Jesus, is by far the most famous governor of that territory.

In fact, perhaps I would guess most of you that came in here today have already

heard of Pilate before I just talked about him, even though you cannot name

any other governors of that province. Is that true?

I would imagine probably most of you cannot name of any. I mean,

there were other ones. He wasn't the only guy.

There was someone before him. There was someone after him. But I would guess

most of you in this room could not even possibly name those people.

The guy before him's name, the guy who held his office before he did,

that guy's name is Gratus, G-R-A-T-U-S.

The one who took the position after of Pilate's time's name was Marcellus, M-A-R-C-E-L-L-U-S.

They are both real historical figures. They were governors over Judea.

You can find them both on Wikipedia. Like, Grotus has a little Wikipedia article.

Marcellus has a Wikipedia article. But I'll tell you, if you go look them up,

you will see their articles on Wikipedia are quite small, okay?

And then Pilate, on the other hand, if you look up his Wikipedia article,

it is huge, and you will scroll and scroll and scroll, Okay?

And the main reason that he has a huge Wikipedia article in comparison to the

guy who held the job before him and the guy who held the job after him has everything

to do with something that happened on one particular day during his administration.

One particular day, the last day of Jesus' life.

One reason that Pilate's name is so well known is because it is found in some

of the early Christian creeds that we have been reciting for centuries.

Okay? Some of the early creeds that Christians have been reciting for a long time include his name.

Probably one of the most well-known ones would be the Apostles' Creed.

So I'm going to read it to you. It's gonna come up on the screen and I'm gonna

read to you. This is the Apostles' Creed, the text of the Apostles' Creed.

This is a summary of Christian doctrine from the fourth century.

So apparently at some point in the fourth century, they thought like,

we need to summarize what it is we believe when people ask.

So this is what they came up with at the time.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth,

and in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under who?

Pontius Pilate. There he is. Was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell.

On the third day, he rose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty.

From there, he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.

I want you to notice in that creed, aside from the members of the Trinity,

the only people that are mentioned by name are the Virgin Mary and Pontius Pilate. Did you catch that?

Like this is a summary of Christian doctrine. The Apostle Paul did not make it in there.

There is no St. Peter in there. There's no Abraham.

Moses didn't get in there. Just the one who birthed him and the one who authorized

his death by crucifixion.

The church and the denomination that I grew up in recited that creed a lot.

And there are churches to this day that recite that creed or read that creed

or say it all together as a congregation monthly, sometimes even weekly.

So the reason that we have heard of Pilate has almost nothing,

like the reason we've heard of Pilate when we have heard of almost nothing about

any other Roman governors, that doesn't have anything to do with how he handled his career.

And it has everything to do with how he handled one particular incident that

happened on one particular day in the first century.

And that's what we're gonna look at. So if you have your Bible, go to John chapter 18.

John 18 · chapter mention

We will see what all the fuss was about. John chapter 18.

John 18 · chapter mention

Starting in verse 28, our text this morning is John 18, 28, going to John 19, verse 16.

John 19:16

And so I'm going to read the whole thing, but I'm going to read a little bit

and explain, like take breaks and I'll explain as we go along.

So John 18, starting in verse 28, begins this way.

Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters.

So do you guys recognize the name Caiaphas? Okay, that's very good.

You should, because he was the conversation that Jesus had last week,

right? That's the character that we learned last week.

Our associate pastor, Doug Davison, preached on Jesus' conversation with Caiaphas

and the sham trial that took place.

And so we're picking up where we left off from last week. They took Jesus from

Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters, okay? Pontius Pilate.

It was early in the morning. They did not enter the headquarters themselves,

otherwise they would be defiled and unable to eat the Passover.

These are Jewish people. They're very religious. They were concerned about being

ceremonially clean or ceremonially unclean.

So I think this is because this was a Gentile's house or a Gentile's palace,

whatever it was, they were like, we can't go inside there and get dirty.

We can't go there and be ceremonially unclean because we want to be clean for

the Passover. So they don't go inside.

Verse 29, Pilate came out to them, which in some ways seems pretty nice.

You know, if you're inside your house or wherever it is, you know,

and there's people in the front yard, they're like, we want to talk to you,

but we can't go in there because of how dirty you'll make us.

Like, wouldn't you imagine you'd be like, well, then fine, you know,

but he goes out and talks to them.

And he said, what charge do you bring against this man?

Now, obviously, there was more conversation that happened than just this,

because you would not, like, you would not, if there was a bunch of people in

your front yard, you would not open, even if you're a governor,

you don't open the door and just go, what charge do you bring against this man?

With no explanation, right? Obviously, they had said some things,

and then he responded with this.

John doesn't record what they said, but I think it's Luke. Yeah,

Luke records what they did say.

When they, when the people that handed Jesus over to Pilate showed up,

they said, and this is according to the gospel of Luke, he, referring to Jesus.

He claims to be Messiah, a king.

Okay. And so I think that as they start, as he's asking these questions,

he is responding to what they're saying.

He realizes these are legal proceedings that they are asking him questions about.

So they answered him. This is in response to what charge do you bring against this man?

They answered him, if this man weren't a criminal, we wouldn't have handed him over to you. Okay.

So when you just look at that, it looks like at At first they tried to not answer, didn't they?

Right? So he says, what charge do you bring against this man?

And they're like, he's bad, okay? He did something wrong.

Just trust us, okay? We wouldn't have brought him to you if he weren't bad.

So then Pilate says to them, verse 31, take him yourselves and judge him according

to your law, which makes sense to me. They're coming to him for legal proceedings.

He says, what's the charge? They go, just trust us. He's bad.

And he says, no, like, I'm not going to do that. Like, then you go handle him then.

Like, I'm not going to just do whatever you want based on nothing because you

haven't explained the situation to me.

Now, as he talks here, you can tell that there are two different authorities

and two different sets of law that are in the land at the time, right?

Because he says, take him yourselves and judge him according to your law.

So it looks like what happened at the time is the Roman Empire is in charge.

The Roman Empire has taken over a huge chunk of land all around the Mediterranean,

conquered many different countries.

And so the top authority in their empire would have been the Roman Empire and

the top laws, like the laws that the Romans are enforcing would be Roman laws.

Then in addition to that, it looks like these countries that they took over

were able to maintain at least a little bit of autonomy when it comes to their

local leadership and their local laws.

That some of these nations that were conquered by Rome, yes,

they were under the authority of Rome.

Yes, they had to obey Roman laws. But then within that, these nations would

have their own leaders that were local that were enforcing the laws of that nation.

So we have the Roman law, but then apparently the Sanhedrin is also like a local

Jewish leaders with local Jewish laws that they're enforcing on the people.

So when they don't say to him, like, this is what we want you to do.

This is the Roman law we think he broke.

This is the thing that we want you to do as the governor of our province for,

you know, from the perspective of the Roman empire, he says,

well, fine, if you're not going to tell me, go handle him under your local law.

And they say back, it's not legal for us to put anyone to death.

And that's where he realized, oh, so that's why you're here.

Because whatever the thing is that you're dealing with, you want to deal with

it as far as capital punishment.

So when it says it's not legal for us to put anyone to death,

it seems to me, I mean, if you look at the Old Testament, it was legal for them to put people to death.

So it's not like their laws that made it not legal for them to put anyone to death.

It would have been, I guess, Roman law that forbid them from being able to do

capital punishment within the Roman Empire.

So they're saying, we have to go to you because the thing that we want to do

to this guy, only you can authorize. So.

What's the next part? So verse 32, they said this so that Jesus's words might

be fulfilled, signifying what kind of death he was going to die, right?

They wanted him to die by crucifixion. That would fit with what Jesus had said

earlier, like back in when he was talking to Nicodemus, and he said that he

would be lifted up for the nation.

So there's a particular way he's going to die. And then verse 33,

then Pilate went back into the headquarters, summoned Jesus and said to him,

are you the king of the Jews?

This is another place I was talking about earlier, where you can tell other words were said.

Remember how I told you that they said, he's the Messiah, a king,

right? They had to have said something like that.

Otherwise, this wouldn't make sense. Like if you just said, he's bad.

And then he said, okay, well, judge him according to your law.

And they go, but we want to do capital punishment.

Like the next thing wouldn't be, let's take Jesus inside and you go.

Are you the king of the Jews?

Like there would be nothing to motivate that question, right?

So they had said things and they had said, like I said, the gospel of Luke said

that they said, he's claiming to be the Messiah.

That's why we think you need to be concerned about this. Now,

okay, Jewish people have a Messiah.

Roman people, they don't believe in Messiah. That's a specifically Jewish thing.

So they're explaining it to him.

Messiah is a king, okay? You don't know what Messiah is. We know what Messiah

is. Messiah is the one who's going to rise up and he's gonna be in charge of everything.

And so as we're accusing him of these things and you're sitting there,

well, should I take this seriously or not? Well, we're telling you this,

he's like the most serious king of our land.

And do you think that Caesar really wants to be, wants sections of his empire

to be having these like rival kings spring up, right? So that's the way they pitched it.

So then Pilate starts with, well, are you the king of the Jews? Jesus answers back.

Are you asking this on your own or have others told you about me?

I'm not a Jew, am I? Pilate replied. Your own nation and chief priests handed

you over to me. What have you done?

Right, I'm just asking you the question that they said, like based on how they're

accusing you. I'm not one of you, I don't know. What is it you've done?

Why are they so mad at you?

Jesus says in verse 36, my kingdom is not of this world, said Jesus.

If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I wouldn't

be handed over to the Jews.

As it is, my kingdom does not have its origin here.

So apparently there are different kinds of kings and there are different kinds of kingdoms, right?

And Jesus believes in different kinds of kings and different kinds of kingdoms.

When he says my kingdom is not of this world, he's contrasting it with,

there are kingdoms that are kingdoms of this world, right? There are political

leaders and kings and presidents and whatever that are in charge of areas of the world.

And my kingdom is not like one of those, not one of these government things.

In fact, if it were, then we would handle this the normal way.

I wouldn't have got even handed over to you. Like if this was like a government

thing and I'm in charge of this land and you're in charge of that land,

like my people would have fought so that I wasn't handed over to you.

But that's not the kind of kingdom I'm a part of.

My kingdom does not have its origin here. So I think Jesus is being specific

here because he's been asked a yes or no question.

Are you a king? Yes, no. and he needs to answer it in the right way.

He can't say no because he is the king, but he also needs to say,

I'm not a king in the way that the Roman empire has anything to worry about, right?

My kingdom is not of this world. I am not the king of a human government that

is set to try to like rise up and overthrow Rome.

That's not what I'm here for. I am a king, but I am not a king in any way that

the Roman empire has anything to worry about.

And it seems as though Pilate gets that, he believes that because as the story

goes on, He says multiple times that he has no charge, there was no,

how's he phrase it? There are no grounds for charging him.

You'll see that coming up in the story. Multiple times, he says,

there's no grounds for charging him.

So Pilate realizes whatever kind of king Jesus is, it's not the kind of king

that the Roman Empire should have any concern about.

So they keep talking, verse 37. So remember, this is the conversation between

Pilate and Jesus. You are a king then, Pilate asked.

You say that I'm a king, Jesus replied. I was born for this and I have come

into the world for this to testify to the truth.

Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.

So he's saying that my kingdom and the reason that I'm here is about testifying

the truth to everyone And then Pilate says back, what is truth?

Which is interesting. I assume that he said it in sort of a cynical way.

Like how can you even know what's true and what's not? Who can know what's true?

But I want you to think about this. Pilate asked the word, he said, what is truth?

And he said it to the inventor of truth.

And then maybe didn't stick around long enough to get the answer.

Because it says, after he said this, he went out to the Jews again and told

them, I find no grounds for charging him.

And so I want you to notice that because this is the first of three times that it's gonna come up.

There are at least three times in this passage where Pilate indicates his awareness

of Jesus's innocence or at the very least, his awareness of not enough evidence

to do anything about what they're concerned about.

Verse 39, you have a custom that I release one prisoner to you at the Passover.

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

Now, this is an interesting part of the story. This, apparently there was a

tradition that Pilate had with the people of Israel or the province of Judea at this time.

It's not something we really know about from extra biblical literature.

We mostly know about this just from the Bible, but apparently Pilate had a relationship

with the Jewish people in such a way that he would release one prisoner.

I assume it was one political prisoner, someone that the Roman empire was mistreating,

that the people felt like shouldn't be in prison and he would release them at Passover.

So this must've been sort of a, hey, we're in charge of them and they don't

really love us, but let's occasionally do a nice thing for them.

I think that that's what's going on here. Because you remember,

Pilate doesn't care about Passover.

That's not important to him. Pilate's a Roman. He doesn't know about Passover.

He didn't grow up celebrating it. There was no like little, hey,

let's get our Passover decorations out.

Like that was not a thing for him. And then one day as an adult,

he becomes the governor of a province where that's a very big deal.

And so he didn't care about it until one day when he did care about it,

because he's the governor over a group of citizens that he's very aware of what's

important to them and what's not. And he's aware of their religion.

He's aware of what their big national holidays are and all that.

And so at some point, I don't know how many years that had been going on at

this point, but at some point he set up this sort of tradition where it's okay,

on your big day, on your big holiday, I'm going to do this thing.

I'm going to undo a decision that you guys didn't like.

You know, won't that be great? And so that's what he does. And the reason he

brings this up at this point, I think, is he's trying to end this trial without

having to make a big deal of it.

And so he already thinks to himself, I have no grounds for charging this man.

All right, I can't do anything about this. They want me to punish him.

He hasn't done anything wrong. There's nothing to do.

So if I do a big trial, they're going to be frustrated, injustice, and all this.

What if we can just, instead of fighting this whole thing out,

what if we can just lump Jesus in with the prisoner that gets released at Passover?

I mean, It's perfect, like it's that, it's tomorrow.

Let's just do that and avoid this whole rigmarole. It does not work.

They shouted back. This is the next verse. They shouted back,

not this man, but Barabbas. Now, Barabbas was a revolutionary.

So the crowd of people there say, no, no, yes, we want you to release.

We want you to release one of the prisoners, but not Jesus. We want him to be punished.

We want you to release Barabbas as the one.

Now, how does this happen? When you look at this story, and there's some things

in here that I think are interesting, it seems to me that this story probably

took place over a longer period of time than it takes to tell the story or that

it takes to read the story.

You can read the story in just a few minutes, but I think it took more than

a few minutes for all of this to happen.

So when you compare this part of the story to Matthew, Mark,

and Luke, it looks like there was enough time with all of this trial and Pilate

talks to these people and then he talks to Jesus and he goes back and talks to the people.

Enough time seems to have passed, enough hours have gone by,

that by the time he starts talking about releasing prisoners,

there's a crowd of people that have formed.

It's not just the chief priests and the elders anymore, okay?

There's this big group of people that are there.

And so he says to this group of people, hey, how about Jesus be the one that

I release since it's Passover and all that?

And the whole crowd all together says, no, not Jesus. We want Barabbas to be released.

We want to make sure Jesus is punished and we want Barabbas to be released.

How did that happen? Like how did all these people happen to agree on this one particular guy?

I don't know if you've talked because if you typically talk to a crowd of like,

you know, like a big crowd of people and you ask them their opinion about anything.

You're going to get like hundreds of different answers, but here they're all

going like, we've all agreed to this.

Why? And this is what I'm saying to you. I think it's because the story took

longer to happen than it takes to read.

Matthew's account, John does not say this, but in Matthew's account of this

story, it says that the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to

ask for Barabbas instead of Jesus.

So at some point as this is going on, maybe while Pilate is interviewing Jesus.

I don't know exactly when and how, but at some point, it must have taken several

minutes, okay, if not longer, the chief priests and elders had to go around

and get this whole crowd into, hey, we're all going to be united on this.

When he comes out and says, hey, should we release so-and-so,

we need to go, no, Barabbas, we're all going to say it at the same time.

So we're all in agreement.

There's going to be no way that he's going to be able to be like,

well, I can't tell what you really want. Like, it's going to be really obvious

what we want. We're going to make sure we do this.

And so they all get together and they do that, and they all cry out for Barabbas to be released.

All right, chapter 19, verse one, which is the next verse. It says this.

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.

Flogged means whipped. And this is crazy to me that this is the next thing happened.

Considering what has been said and considering what's about to be said, this is crazy.

Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. I don't know if this is the big flogging

that happened pre-crucifixion later on and if this was a smaller one.

Like, I don't know if he was flogged twice or once.

But they beat him. Like, they physically harmed him even though Pilate had just

said there are no grounds for charging him.

And so that's the part that seems crazy to me because it seems different than

the American justice system, okay?

And I'm not even saying the American justice system never has any injustice

in it because I believe it does. I believe injustice is everywhere that sinners are.

But it seems to me that this kind of thing I'm thinking happened back then more

often than it does now, that an authority figure would be able to say,

okay, this person is innocent, let's beat them.

Like typically that does not happen in our culture regularly.

I have a feeling it happened more often back then that they would be able to

say, there's no reason to do this. Now let's have this guy whipped.

But I think the reason why he's doing it is to satisfy this crowd of people

that are angry at him. I think he's trying to meet them halfway.

That he's saying, I believe this man is innocent and should be released.

You believe he should be criticized. You should believe he should be crucified,

okay? So you're saying crucifixion. I'm saying release. Release.

So how about we meet in the middle, okay? I'll have him whipped,

okay? We'll beat him. And so here's the thing, that's more than I think he deserves.

It's less than you think he deserves, but at least we can like,

you know, we can all, there's no reason to argue about this, right?

Once I show you how bad we've treated him, hopefully, this is what I think he's thinking.

Hopefully the people will be like, well, we really wanted a crucifixion,

but at least like this guy that we hate, like he really was,

you know, he really did treat him terribly.

And so like, that's good enough. And it was sort of, I think he just thought

that would like settle everything down. It does not work, but let me keep reading.

So he, absolute injustice, has a man that he knows he has no grounds to charge him.

He has announced that he has no grounds to charge him. And then he has him whipped.

The soldiers also twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head

and threw a purple robe around him.

And then they repeatedly came up to him and said, hail king of the Jews.

And we're slapping his face.

Pilate went outside again and said to them, look, I am bringing him outside

to you to let you know. Now here's the second time.

I find no grounds for charging him.

I had him whipped because he hasn't done anything wrong, right?

We have just beaten him and humiliated him and called him a king and acted like he was a fake king.

And now there's blood going down his head because we shoved these thorns on

his head and we've been slapping him in the face and we've been whipping him.

And I show you, hey, here, I did it. I did what you want. You want him to be mistreated.

That's what I did. But this is as far as I can go because there's no grounds to charge him.

Verse five, then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

Pilate said to them, here is the man. And I think that's the whole point.

We're going to display to you what we've done so that you all will go,

well, that's less than crucifixion, but at least something was done.

Thanks, Pilate, for at least listening to us halfway. And that'll settle everything

down. I think that's what he was hoping for. It is not what happened.

He said, here is the man. And they were able to see how he had been treated.

And still, verse six says, when the chief and the temple police saw him, saw him beaten.

They shouted, crucify, crucify.

Pilate responded, take him and crucify him yourselves, for I find no grounds for charging him.

This is now the third time that he has said that.

I can't do it. If you guys want him crucified, you're going to have to take

him off and crucify him, but I am not going to use my power as a governor in

the Roman empire to do this. It's not the right thing to do.

I cannot do it. I can't do that. You guys go do it yourselves.

There are no grounds for charging this man. He knew it. He knew it, he knew it.

Verse 7, we have a law, the Jews replied to him, and according to that law,

he must die because he made himself the son of God.

When Pilate heard this statement, he was more afraid than ever.

This is interesting because it says at this point, Pilate was afraid,

but it doesn't just say he was afraid.

It says he became more afraid at this point than he was before,

which makes you realize up to this point of the conversation,

Pilate was already afraid.

Pilate was already seeing this and he was going, wow, I can see what justice

is and I can see what these people want and we're not going to be able to get

on the same page and I don't know what's going to happen and I don't want them

to riot and I don't want to lose my job and I don't want them to kill me and

I don't want to do something wrong to an innocent man.

So Pilate was already scared, like he's already emotional about this and upset

and then when he heard this statement, he was more afraid than ever.

He got even more afraid when something was said.

What was it that was said? The thing that had just been said was,

he made himself the son of God.

So why did he get even more scared at hearing that? I don't know,

but I think it's possible that maybe he thought that he was the son of God.

When they said, this is the claim he's making, I think there might have been,

Pilate might have gone, uh-oh, what if he's right?

And I don't even mean this in like the way Jewish people thought of it,

like believing in the Messiah. Remember, Pilate is Roman, right? He's not Jewish.

So I think Pilate very likely believed in all sorts of gods, right?

He's a Roman. The Romans believed in all sorts of gods. And I think they believed

that those gods were able to have like children.

And so, and maybe there would be people on this earth you go,

wow, that's the son of a God.

And so when Pilate hears this, I think there's a concern in his mind.

And it's like, well, these people are really wanting me to do this,

but what if it's true? What if the claim is correct?

Like, what if this guy is the son of one of the gods? Like, I don't want to

do something I don't wanna be on the bad side of the gods.

I don't wanna do something that gets a God angry at me. I mean,

I don't want these people to be angry at me, but I certainly don't want a God angry at me.

I don't even know what to do at this point.

Verse nine, he went back into the headquarters and asked Jesus, where are you from?

Maybe he's trying to get to the bottom of what the son of God stuff means.

Where are you from? But Jesus did not give him an answer.

He just stood there.

And so Pilate said to him, You're not talking to me?

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

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

if it hadn't been given to you from above.

Jesus spoke probably unlike any other prisoner that Pilate had ever interviewed in his whole life.

That he's sitting there going, where are you from? Jesus doesn't say anything.

He goes, you're not going to talk to me? You think you're just not going to

talk to me? Do you not realize I could have you killed right now?

Do you not realize I'm your only hope of being released right now?

Do you not realize the authority I have? And Jesus does not beg for mercy.

He just points out where Pilate's power comes from. It's not even your power.

It's power that's been delegated to you from above.

And I don't know what Pilate, I don't know how he took that.

Like, did he take it like power delegated to him from Caesar who was above him?

Maybe he took it that way, I don't know. I think Jesus was referring to God,

that the authority that Pilate has ultimately has been delegated to him by God.

That is where all power comes from above.

The reason I think that Jesus is referring to God is because the very next sentence

is not political, it's spiritual, right?

He says, you would have no authority over me at all, Jesus answered him,

if it hadn't been given to you from above.

This is why the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.

He's saying that the authority has been delegated by God. And so you are,

if you do the wrong thing with me right now, that's a sin.

But the one who handed me over to you, that person is sinning even bigger.

He knows better. I think it's a reference to Caiaphas.

Because technically there's a whole, like a whole group of people showed up

and handed Jesus over to Pilate.

And yet the way Jesus refers to it, he says, the one who handed me over to you.

So I'm assuming the one is not the whole crowd, but rather Caiaphas,

who's the leader of this bunch.

And so I think he's saying like the high priest of Israel, like he knows about,

he should know about authority from above even more than you, Pilate.

He's sinning even bigger than you are. What you're doing is wrong,

but he really knew better.

Verse 12. from that moment, Pilate made every effort to release him.

Something about real like, okay, so there's this authority that's come from above.

I'd be careful in how I use it. So what does Pilate decide at that point?

I've got to release this guy. I've got to make sure we don't punish this guy.

Somehow I've got to free him.

He made every effort to release him. Whatever we do from this point on,

I've got to make sure that I do not do the wrong thing.

These people are screaming for his head, but I cannot let that happen.

It's not the right thing to do. I've got to make sure that we release him.

But the Jews shouted, if you release this man, you're not Caesar's friend.

Anyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.

So he's saying, we've got to find a way to release them. And they're going,

I don't think so. What would Caesar think of this? What would your boss think?

There's this rival king that's rising up within his empire and you did nothing.

What's your boss going to think when we tell him that he made himself a king

and you did nothing. And we kept telling you and you didn't do anything about it.

And so I just want you to notice at this point, the incredible pressure that

is on Pilate. Like Pilate is being like strongly pulled into two different directions

at this point at the same time.

Because he has his conscience on one hand telling him what the right thing is

to do. And then he has the crowd of people that are telling him to do the exact opposite of that.

And then mixed in with his conscience is probably whatever information he has.

The fact that they said he's the son of God and maybe he's wondering,

well, what if he is the son of a God?

Also, a little bit later in the story, not in John's version,

but I think it's in Matthew's version.

Pilate's wife also has this dream about Jesus. And she sends a message to Pilate

that day that says, like, I

suffered terribly in a dream. I had nightmares about this guy named Jesus.

So when he shows up, like, don't do anything to him. He's a righteous man.

Don't do anything bad to him. I had this serious nightmare about him.

And so now he's hearing about the nightmare and the son of God.

And is that a message from one of the gods through her to him?

And he can look at the guy and tell, he hasn't done anything wrong that we should

do this. and so his conscience is pulling him in one way, the crowd is pulling him in the other way.

On one hand, he's trying to decide, am I gonna do the right thing?

Or on the other hand, he's trying to decide, am I gonna do what's best for my career?

And that's really not a situation that's unique to him. Sometimes we find ourselves

in these same situations, do we not?

Have you ever been in a situation where you're trying to figure out whether

you're gonna follow your conscience or what the crowd is saying you gotta do?

Have you ever had to choose between doing the right thing and doing what's best for your career?

Yeah, this is common to humanity and he's going through it right now.

When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside. We're in chapter 19, verse 13, right here.

He brought Jesus outside. He sat down on the judge's bench in the place called

the stone pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha.

Actually, this place, the stone pavement, is the place where the message arrived

from his wife about the nightmare.

It was the preparation day for the Passover, and it was about six in the morning.

And then he told the Jews, here is your king. But they shouted,

take him away, take him away, crucify him. Pilate said to them,

should I crucify your king?

I don't know why he phrased it this way. It almost seems like he's purposely antagonizing him here.

And then they say, we have no king but Caesar.

And that's also a crazy part of the story to me. Because from what I can tell,

that's not the kind of thing they said.

Like, I'm not a professional historian, but I have been preaching the Bible for a while.

And I think I am above average in my familiarity with like the history and the

culture of this time period.

And my best understanding of this time period is the Jewish people in Judea,

they resented the fact that Rome had conquered them.

They were not going like, oh, Caesar, right? We have no king but Caesar.

They did not say that kind of stuff. They wanted their independence.

They wanted to be freed from these people. They hated Caesar. They hated the Romans.

And then all of a sudden this day, they say, we have no king but Caesar.

It seems to me these people, they probably hated him the week before,

but now that it's convenient, they love him.

Verse 16. So then, and this is the last verse that I'm going to read to you from this passage.

So then, because of them, he handed him over to be crucified.

Therefore, they took Jesus away. So I want you to notice it says,

because of them, meaning because of the pressure from the crowd,

because the crowd kept screaming, because he thought they were going to break

into a riot, because he thought he was going to lose control over the citizens

of his area, because of all this external pressure.

He did what he knew for sure was wrong and handed him over to be crucified.

And so that's where we're ending today. The plan is to pick up next week,

like shortly, right ever, where we loft off today.

So this conversation with Jesus, with Jesus and Pilate, if the Lord wills,

the plan for next week's conversation is to be a thing that Jesus said while

he was on the cross, a conversation that Jesus had while he was on the cross.

So basically, they take him away to the cross. Next week, we pick up with him on the cross.

As we close, let me give you four observations, like four observations that come from this story.

Number one, human authority is delegated authority.

I think this is important for you to get, so let me explain it to you.

Human authority, the authority that human beings have is delegated authority.

It comes from somewhere.

Look at John chapter 19, verse 11.

John 19:11

I'm gonna reread it to you. I've already read it to you earlier.

This is right after Pilate says, don't you realize I have the authority to release

you or the authority to crucify you?

Jesus says back this, you would have no authority over me at all if it hadn't

been given to you from above.

Human authority is delegated authority. It comes from above.

So when you think about this, this is just true in every realm.

There's a teacher and the teacher's in charge of her classroom.

Right? The teacher has authority over the students.

Where does the teacher get the authority over the students? Well,

it's a delegated authority, right?

It's not just originating in her or in him, right? It's a delegated authority.

The principal delegates authority to the teachers to be in charge of the classrooms.

Well, where did the principal get it from?

Well, I guess the principal gets it from the school board. Okay,

well, where's the school board get it from?

You know, and if you keep going up on this part and then this one,

and you just keep going up and up and up, like the last stop on that train is God.

Like all authority comes down from him because he's the one that has all authority

originally. Same thing for like a police officer, okay?

Where does the police officer get his authority from? Like if let's say it's

one from Marion County, right?

Well, it'd be the sheriff, right? The sheriff deputizes the officers.

Well, where does the sheriff get his power from? And then you say,

you know, whatever, the voters. And you keep going up and up and up.

Ultimately, all human authority finds its source in God.

God is the true creator of everything, right? So he made everything.

Or like, well, who owns all the things? God does. He made all things.

He's the creator of all the things. He owns all the things. So he is the one

that has ultimate authority over everything.

Or you could call it original authority, meaning it wasn't delegated to him

from someone else, right? It starts with him. He's the one that has all of it.

And then anyone that has any sort of authority or any sort of influence or any

sort of power, it comes from the one who made all things.

Humans don't have ultimate authority. None of us do.

Humans do not have like original authority. Only God does, which means human

authority is entrusted to people by God.

And the people that have it are responsible to do with their authority whatever

God wants them to do with it.

It's God's authority. And then as he passes it down, the people that receive

authority from God and then have a particular ability to say,

you do this, you don't do that, their authority comes from God.

They are responsible to do with their authority only what God would have them do with it.

Human authorities are never supposed to do just whatever they want to do.

Did you know this? This is so important. This applies to you.

This applies to many of you.

Whether you are a CEO of a national corporation with multiple employees that

answer to you, or whether you are a single mom that has one kid,

your authority that you have is delegated.

You are accountable to God for what he has entrusted you with.

It's so important for living.

Observation number two, some sins are bigger than others.

Okay, so all human authority is delegated authority. But a second thing we learned

from the story is some sins are bigger than others.

I actually get this from the same Bible verse. It's just the second half of

the verse. So you would have no authority over me at all, Jesus answered him,

if it hadn't been given to you from above.

And then look what he says. This is why the one who handed me over to you who

has the, what are the next two words? The greater sin.

Wait a minute, so there's some sins that are greater than other sins?

Yeah, I believe that Jesus believed the high priest was more wrong than Pilate.

That the high priest and what he was doing on this particular day,

he was actually sinning worse than Pilate was, probably because he should have known better.

And so I don't want to spend a ton of time on this, but I figured this phrase,

the greater sin, is an opportunity for me to point out that not all sins are the same.

A lot of Christians believe that they are, okay? In fact, I can remember when

I did youth ministry here in this town, before I went off and did it in Dallas,

Texas, I did youth ministry here in Ocala.

And I can remember we did a game with the kids one time. It was a true false

quiz, and it was titled something like, is that in the Bible?

And so we read these sentences and asked kids basically like,

is that in the Bible? Yes or no? And so we just found a bunch of verses.

I put verses in quotes because we've grabbed like half of them were verses we

actually found in the Bible.

And then we like just made up stuff and mixed it all in. And then we read it

and said, okay, is this in the Bible? Is this not in the Bible?

And if I remember correctly, we got to the point where I read this out loud.

I said, all sins are the same in God's eyes.

And I think we really stumped them. I think there were a ton of kids that were

like, yes, that's a Bible verse. It is not.

Now, I think the reason that people believe that is because there is some truth to it.

I think there are a couple of ways in which sins are all equal,

but it's not in every way, okay?

But I believe there are at least two ways that sins are equal,

and so I will tell you that.

I believe that all sins are equally damnable, and I believe that all sins are equally forgivable.

So let me explain that. I believe all sins are equally damnable.

What I mean by that is All the sins that anybody does, they are equal in their

ability to classify you as a sinner.

It's not like there's some sins that like, whoa, that's so bad.

Now you're a sinner. And then there's medium sins where like,

oh, that one's like, that one's small enough. You're not even really a sinner, right?

Like any sin you do, any sin you do, they're all equally damnable.

They all are equal in their ability to get you classified as a sinner,

to get you classified as someone who is worthy of judgment, to put you on God's bad side.

All sins are equal in their ability to make you worthy of God's judgment and

to be separated from God.

Also all sins are equally forgivable. By that, I mean, I don't think there's

a time where God says, okay, well, let me forgive you, but oh,

wait, whoa, no, that's so big. Like, I can't even do anything about that. Sorry.

Like, that's just, that's so right. Like, there's just, you know,

there's just too much of that. I didn't realize there's so much,

there's no way I can forgive that.

But then this one, like, that's hardly nothing. I didn't even notice.

If you would've said it, I wouldn't have noticed.

You know, that's fine. I'll forgive you. Like, there's, there is no,

like, this is really big. This is really small. So I can, I can,

I can't forgive this one, but I can forgive this one. Or I, this is so many.

And so like, it's like, it's just, you went way over the number.

I was thinking, you know, there's no, there's no, there's so many or so many,

like sins are forgivable.

If you believe in Jesus Christ, he died on the cross for your sins.

You believe in Jesus Christ, you repent of your sins.

He forgives you of your sins. He forgives you of all of your sins.

They're all equally forgivable.

Now I say that, and I do need to address one other thing real quick before we get off this topic.

I don't really want to, but, because I don't really want to do a tangent of a tangent.

But if I don't, someone's going to come to me afterwards and say,

well, what about the unforgivable sin? Isn't there a thing in the Bible about

the unforgivable sin? Okay, let me address that. Yes.

So Jesus does speak, I think it's in Matthew and in Mark, he does speak of the

blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, and he talks about it as a sin that will never be forgiven.

And so I don't have time to do a whole sermon on that this morning.

I have preached on that before.

If you want to come up to me afterwards, I will be happy to direct you to the

place on our website where we preached, like I spent a lot of words preaching on that passage.

But for now, let me just say quickly, the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is one of two things.

Either it is an exception to the rule, all sins are equally forgivable and all

sins are equally forgivable except for one.

And that is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. There's one sin that God has decided

I'm never going to forgive that one.

So there's one, so there's, all sins are equally forgivable with one exception.

Or, and this is what I believe personally, the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit

is a sin that the person who is committing it will never seek forgiveness for.

I believe the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is something that comes out of the

mouth of a person whose heart is so hard, they are not ever going to repent.

They are not ever going to ask for forgiveness or turn to God,

and therefore they will not be forgiven.

Okay, so if that's correct, all sins are equally damnable. All sins are equally forgivable, right?

So that's where we get this from. But just because all sins are equal in those

two ways does not mean that all sins are equal in every other way imaginable because they're not.

Some people are guilty of greater sins than others. And we see this in the Bible.

I mean, I feel like I need to address this. Someone came up to me after the

first service and they were like, well, but if you say that some are worse than

others, you know, like what about people that say things like,

well, all I did was tell a lie. At least I didn't murder.

Like people are gonna use that as an excuse.

My purpose in bringing this up is not so that you'd use this as an excuse.

I just think you need to recognize what is common sense and all throughout the

Bible by implication, that some sins are greater than others.

Genocide and gossip are not the same, okay? And if you start using like,

well, so then that means it's fine to gossip? Like, no, it doesn't mean it's fine to gossip.

I'm just saying they're not the same. If you start using at least it's not genocide

as your reason for gossip, you're already in a bad way.

So the point isn't that it's not wrong. The point is they're not all the same.

They're not all the same. Look at Matthew 10, verse 15. Jesus said this to his

Matthew 10:15

disciples on an occasion.

He said to them, I assure you, it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment

for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.

And the town he's referring to is a town that rejected the preaching of the

gospel from the disciples.

So he's saying that particular town should have known better.

That particular town rejected the preaching of disciples.

It will be worse for them on the day of judgment than Sodom and Gomorrah.

Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities in the Old Testament that they would have

said like, well, those people are really bad.

He's saying, well, they're not as bad as you could be. There's an even greater

sin than that. That town rejecting the gospel of Jesus Christ is even worse.

I think this is something you realize anyway, right? When we look at their criminal

justice system, our criminal justice

system, we don't treat murder and shoplifting even the same, right?

So we cannot say all these things are the same. They're not the same.

It's important to recognize that. On the other hand, that is not excuse to be

like, Okay, well then I'll just do a bunch of little ones.

Like they're all equally damnable and you need Jesus to forgive them and thank

God they're all equally forgivable.

All right, number three, third observation. In this story, people like Pilate

make decisions that they are responsible for.

And yet at the same time, God is enacting his plan of salvation.

I wrote an article in the church newsletter about this. I think it was two weeks

ago and it discussed this idea.

It had the word predestination in the title. And when you got to the end,

it talked about the story of Joseph and how Joseph's brothers were making decisions,

but God was also the one responsible for what was happening.

And I just wanted you to see that applies to this story as well.

Like real people in this story, like this story is a story of real people who really lived,

and Pilate and the chief priests and Caiaphas, they made decisions that were

real decisions that they chose to make and they're responsible for the decisions.

And at the same time, God is also enacting his plan that Jesus would die on the cross for our sins.

Like this is the way it happened, that Jesus would die for us.

And then the fourth observation, and we'll close with this one,

is Jesus died on the cross as an innocent man in the place of the guilty.

I think Pilate was aware of this at the time. Jesus died on the cross as an

innocent man in the place of the guilty.

And just like in this story, Barabbas was released from his punishment.

Remember when they cried for Barabbas to be released instead of Jesus?

Barabbas was released from his punishment and Jesus died that day instead of Barabbas.

And in a very similar way, Jesus took our punishment so that we could be freed

from the consequences of our sins.

I don't know if you've ever thought about it like that. Many Christians have

noticed this. It is not unique to me to point this out, but I think it's important

to point it out when we come to passages like this.

We are like Barabbas in that we are sinners that Jesus died in the place of.

And that is good news. That is an important reminder of the gospel.

Thanks, Mariah.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for like this narrative, this story. It's incredible. It's emotional.

Like reading it and just spending a little bit of time I'm thinking about what

it would be like to have gone through this. It's like, it's an incredible, emotional story.

And yet it sounds just like the kind of thing that would have happened,

because it did.

And so we thank you, Jesus, for going through this for us. That they would put

a crown of thorns on your head when you deserve a real crown.

It was so unjust.

And so I thank you, God, for enacting your plan, even in the midst of decisions

that humans were making at the time.

I thank you, Jesus, for dying in our place.

We deserve the ones to be punished for our sins, that you would take our place and set us free.

It was the most beautiful thing in the Bible. And so we thank you for that. We praise you for that.

We thank you for the story as a reminder of that. I pray that we would always

worship you for that and that we would live our lives for you and particularly

those of us in this room that have any kind of authority at all.

I pray that you would help us to recognize our authority has been delegated to us from you.

We are not to just use it however we want. I pray that you'd help us to be people

who handle our authority well, that we would do what is your will with what

you have entrusted us with.

And we would do that in reaction to the great mercy that you have shown us in

Jesus dying on the cross for our sins.

So thank you for all this. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Let me end with these good words from God's word. This is from 1 Peter chapter three.

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous,

that he might bring you to God. That is good news. Amen.

Thank you.