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In John 18, Jesus was brought before Pontius Pilate. And at that time, Pilate asked Jesus a series of probing questions regarding his identity. However, Christ's responses were not what Pilate expected to hear. In today's study, we'll consider what Christ's words tell us about himself and about his heavenly kingdom.

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When two people are talking, have you ever heard the phrase that they're not on the same wavelength? Maybe this is a conversation you've witnessed, you've seen two people talking, and you can see that they're just not communicating. Maybe you've been part of that dialogue. Maybe you've been part of a conversation where you haven't been on the same wavelength as the individual that you're talking to. Well, in today's text, we have a paramount example of that. We have Jesus talking. Jesus is talking about religion and philosophy and truth, and Pilate's part of the conversation. He's listening and yet he's not hearing. When Jesus refers to himself as a king, Pilate has no grasp over what that kingdom could possibly be. When Jesus says that his servants would fight for him, Pilate looks around, he doesn't see any servants. He doesn't know what he's talking about. When Jesus says he came to bear witness to the truth, Pilate has to ask the question, what is truth? They are talking past one another the entirety of their conversation. All right, let's return to verses 28 through 32 to see this interaction. To see this conversation, look at verses 28 through 32. So then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the praetorium. And it was early morning, if you remember right. They had already tried Jesus in the dark. And night after dinner, he'd gone to the garden of Gethsemane, he prayed. Then the Romans had come. They'd had pitchforks and torches and all sorts of stuff. They arrested him in the dead of night. They took him to Annas and they took him to Caiaphas. They had this show trial. They asked him questions. They didn't really care what his answers were. When he spoke, they slapped him around. They treated him wrong because they knew they wanted this man dead. They just wanted him dead. With that said, the process would be strung out a little bit because he would go from Annas to Caiaphas, then he'd come to Pilate here. Later he'd go to Herod, then he'd come back to Pilate and so forth. He was ping ponged around after his initial rest. So they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium, and it was early morning, but they themselves did not go into the praetorium, lest they should be defiled. How pious of them were. We will lead the Son of God to those who are going to kill him with the intent that they kill him. And yet we're not going to go into this Gentile building, otherwise we might be defiled. So verse 29. Then Pilate went out to them, since they wouldn't go in, and said, what accusation do you bring against this man? And they answered and said to him, if he were not an evil doer, Pilate, we would not have delivered him. Up to you. You see this right away. You sense that their interaction is not normal. The Jews don't like Pilate, and Pilate doesn't like the Jews. Pilate gets up, what are these knuckleheads doing? What accusation you got against this guy? And the response to him is, come on, Pilate, you know the deal. If he wasn't guilty, why would we be here? Of course he's an evildoer. That's why we brought him to you, because he's done evil. Acts 20:31. Then Pilate said to them, well, then you take him. You take him and you judge him according to your laws. You do this all the time. You judge all sorts of people. Why are you bringing him to me? But then they give the answer. Therefore the Jews said to him, it's not lawful for us to put anyone to death. You see, they had already established his guilt in their mind's eye without any witnesses, without anything. They thought he was guilty. And their desire was to take him to Pilate that he would be put to death. And so they say this in verse 32, that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled when he had prophesied, signifying by what death he would die. Jesus had said he would be lifted up, which was a euphemism for being crucified. He already told his disciples that. And that was God's intention, that he'd be crucified and not stoned. All right, let's stop there. At the end of verse 32, let's talk about Pilate. For a guy with a lot of power in Jerusalem, in Judea, Pilate was a terribly unpopular man. Terribly unpopular. Now, on the one hand, the Jews hated him for obvious reasons. Pilate is the Roman governor. He's in charge. He is given the responsibility of oversight for this province, this part of the Roman Empire. However, Pilate could be a cruel man. And. And he'd enforce that cruelty in various Times and in various ways. One of the things that Pilate had done is Pilate. Initially, his headquarters were over near an area called Caesarea by the sea. It's over near what modern Tel Aviv sort of area. At one point, Pilate had decided to take the Roman legion, so to speak, into Jerusalem. But to do so with the banners that had the head of Caesar mounted or established or demonstrated on top with a phraseology that intimated that he was God. And his plan was to take this into the city. Now, of course, the Jews got a lot of stuff wrong, but they did get this part right. There's only one God, and any graven image on the top of a flag, they're going to march in. They're willing to lay down their lives to stop it. So you have Pilate, he brings in his legions, got Caesar established. And the idea is that Caesar is God, and he thinks he's going to go into Jerusalem, and that's going to go well. Well, it doesn't. And the zealots and others rebel against Pilate. And so he rounds up a bunch of them. He rounds up leadership, and I believe it was at the amphitheater near Caesarea by the sea. And. But he rounds up the leadership of the Jews, and he says, all right, you guys, you think you're going to rebel against me? Well, let me show you how it's going to go. I've got my men right here, and they've got their swords drawn. And you're either going to do what I say and you're going to allow my ways to go and my flags to be unfurled and my banners to go forth and Rome's rule to be established in a clear way with Caesar at the top. You're going to allow that or you are going to die. And the Jews, to their credit, they laid down, they stretched out their necks and they said, all right, then, take our heads off, because we would rather die than yield to the banner of Rome, than yield to you in this manner. So they called his bluff. Now, Pilate was in a bit of a bind because he had already had uprisings locally. And as a Roman governor, he really had two responsibilities as Rome governor. Number one, to advance the money and the taxes from the people to Rome. That was job number one. Job number two was to keep the peace. There couldn't be uprisings. So. So he had to keep uprisings down. And the Jews had demonstrated in times past that they were willing to rise up against him. And that'll shade everything that we're going to see in the balance of this text. So the Jews rebelled against Pilate. They didn't like him, and frankly, they'd already neutered him and his powers a little bit by rebelling against him in other intervals. And that's why they have the bravery and the temerity to go up to him and go, yes, we brought evildoer. Of course he's an evildoer, Pilate. You should know better. The back and forth demonstrates their contempt for this man. But it wasn't just the Jews who disliked Pilate. It was also the Romans. If you were a Roman aristocrat and you had the opportunity to be given a place to govern, you did not want to be sent to Jerusalem, you did not want to be sent to this region. This was not a plum prize. This was someplace you sent someone when you just wanted to get them out of the way. It was someone where you would send a mediocre man to that mediocre place, hoping that it all would work out. When Pilate was sent there was not because he was the smartest, the bravest, the best. He was sent there because he was not thought that well of. And the proof that Rome didn't think that well of him is that not terribly long thereafter, the Emperor Tiberius in 36 AD would depose Pilate, would just call him back, and his career would effectively be over. So this is an unpopular man and a man that was deemed as mediocre even by the very people that had sent him there. So with that said, why did the Jews take Jesus to this unpopular, weakened individual at this time? Verse 28. Well, as we talked about last week, the problem the Jews had was that in theory, they could not kill. They could not enforce capital punishment on their own. But that was something that Rome had reserved for itself. You see, Rome had watched in the empire that when it allowed those that it governed in various parts of the empire to enforce capital punishment on their own, what they found is that the local municipalities and the local regions would simply go about the process of executing their enemies. And sometimes that worked against the will and desire of Rome. So they said, well, anyone who you think needs to die, we want to evaluate this first in order to get a sense for the motivation by which you want them dead. So Rome didn't want the Jews or didn't allow the Jews to force capital punishment on their own. And yet there were other times where the Jews just went ahead and did it anyway. Can you think of anyone in the Book of Acts that the Jews just killed because Time for a man to die. What do we got? Stephen? Right, you got Stephen. How did he die? By what? By. By stoning? Right. And there was other times when the Jews had picked up stones to throw at Jesus. Remember those times he said things and they said, all right, this man's got to die. They started looking around for stones, and he disappears in their midst. So how can it be both? How can they, on the one hand, say, oh, Rome is the only one who can allow us to kill anybody, therefore we'll yield to Rome in this matter? And how can they say that here and yet at other intervals just go around stoning people? What's the deal? Well, the deal is this, among other motivations, that on this particular occasion, Christ was such a notable individual. His notoriety was so great that if they were. If the Jews were to stone them of their own accord, they knew they'd have their own uprising on their hands. It would be better to let the Romans do it. They're like, hey, guys. Hey, guys, I got an idea. Will, let the Romans kill him. And therefore, blood's not on our hands, so to speak. Although later on they would chant that blood can be on our hands. With that said, that was part of the idea. The other issue was that it was Passover and the area. There was more attention being given to all the incidents in Jerusalem on this particular week than throughout the rest of the year combined. And the reason why was because it was Passover. And remember, the whole of the nation had come together. So if they were to have stoned or killed Jesus on their own that very evening, it would have caused them a great disruption. So they bring him to Pilate with the idea that he'll do their will for them. But Pilate knows what's going on. He may have been an unpopular guy. He may have been a mediocre man, but he wasn't an idiot. He knows what's going on here. He knows that they want him to do their dirty work. He doesn't trust these Jewish leaders as far as he can throw them. They don't trust him. He doesn't trust them. If they want this guy dead, they have reasons for wanting him dead that are not on the up and up. So he says, all right, well, Jesus, come on in. Let's figure out a little bit more about you, about what you're all about. So let's look at verses 33 through 36. Then Pilate entered the praetorium again, this is the home of the magistrate, and called Jesus and said to him, are you The King of the Jews. That's interesting. Interesting question. And Jesus answered him and said, are you speaking for yourself about this? Or did others tell you this concerning me? And Pilate answered and said, am I a Jew? Your own nation? And the chief priests have delivered you to me, so what have you done? And Jesus answered, and he answers the first question first. He says, my kingdom is not of this world. If it were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from here. All right? For whatever reason, Pilate brings Jesus into the praetorium and he has a question for him. And his question is different than what he had just asked the Jewish leaders. He asked the Jewish leaders, what has this man done? But that's not what he asked Jesus. He doesn't say, what have you done? He asks him there in verse 33, are you the King of the Jews? Which is interesting. And Jesus turns around and says, hey, that's an interesting question. Are you asking this because you want to know, or did someone say something to you about this? And that's the reason for the question itself. Now remember, whenever you read incidents like this that occur in one gospel account, it's healthy and helpful for you to look at the other gospel accounts in order to get a rounded view, a rounded understanding of what's taking place. Now, in the book of Luke, we read that the Jewish leaders, when they came to Pilate, they had first salt to the ground against Jesus. And they did so by saying this to Pilate. They said, we found this fellow forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar and saying that he himself is Christ, a king. All right, so do you see what's happened? The book of Luke says that when they went to Pilate, they knew Pilate's soft underbelly. They said, we found this guy, this fellow, this Jesus. And you won't believe it. Pilate, what he's been doing, he's been telling the Jews that they should not pay taxes. Can you believe it? Now, why would that be an affront to Pilate? Because remember, we said he had two jobs. The one hand is to extract the money from the people to send the Rome. The other thing is to keep the peace. And right here they're saying, this Jesus, this Jesus, he's guilty of sedition. He's saying that they shouldn't pay, we shouldn't pay taxes. Can you believe it? He shouldn't pay taxes. Beyond that, he's saying that he himself is a king. Now, you're not going to stand for that. Pilate, are you. You're the one who put Caesar as God, you know, the banners and all, that the Roman emperor himself would not stand for this right, that this man is a king in our midst? Well, that's what he's been telling everybody. So you see, what they tried to do with Pilate is they tried to undermine Jesus by making claims that he was a seditious individual. And they thought that if we just make him look like a threat to Rome, a threat to Pilate, that Pilate's such a dope that he'll go, okay, gosh, I gotta kill him then if he's guilty of these things. However. However, Pilate decides, well, he'll just ask him himself. So he asks him. He says, are you the king of the Jews? And the reason he asked it is because others had told him. And Jesus knew it. Jesus knew it. This is why Jesus said, are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning me? Now there on the balance of those verses, in verses 35 and 36, Jesus affirms. He says, you know, Pilate, even if they are saying things against me with the desire of wanting me dead, even though the Jews are not being on the up and up about things, this talk about me being a king, it's true I am a king and I have a kingdom, but it's not the sort of kingdom that you might be thinking of. So verse 36, Jesus affirms he is a king. But his kingdom, he says, is not of this world. See, he's saying he's referring to a kingdom in a way they didn't understand at that time. The way that they understood kingdoms at that time were based on geographical landmarks. That mountain over there on the other side of that is where the Moabites are. That river over there on the other side is where the Philistines are. That's the way they understood kingdoms as geographically bounded. But Jesus says, I am a king and I have a kingdom. But it's not from here. And you can't point to a mountain or river or anything as the marker where my kingdom starts. My kingdom encompasses everything. It is a transcendent kingdom, a spiritual kingdom. Now, if you're a pilot, remember talking past one another, listening but not hearing. So Pilate takes all this in. You're a king then, right? But you're thinking to yourself at the same time, what kind of king allows himself to be taken to chains in a garden in the middle of the night? What kind of king is rolled in Here, in the dead of night, in chains, you're a king. What kind of kingdom can you possibly have? And Jesus says, well, here, if my kingdom were of this world, the way that you're interpreting the term king, kingship and kingdom to mean, my servants would be right here fighting. If my kingdom were impacted by Rome and its oppression and its authorities and army, then my servants would fight back. But. But my kingdom is not threatened by anything that's going on right now at all. In fact, this is all part of the plan. He says, if this weren't part of the plan, if my kingdom was threatened in any way, shape or form, you can rest assured the armies of heaven would be loosened to affect the things going on right here and right now. But what the Jews are doing and what you're about to do is no threat to it. In fact, it's part of the plan. You know, as A side note, 21st century, the world can persecute Christians. The world can burn down churches. The world already crucified our Savior. But you know what? In the midst of all that, not a single pebble has been loosened in heaven. The world has crucified Christ. It's persecuted the church. Blood of martyrs stains the entire globe. Churches have been affected, churches have been burned down. All this manner of things have happened against Christians. All these manner of things have happened against Christ. And yet at the same time as that has happened on this mortal coil, not a single pebble, not a single pebble has moved or been nudged an inch in the glorious heavenliest state that Jesus came from. Psalm 2 says this. Why do the nations rage? And you could say this about Pilate and Rome and the Assyrians and all manner of others, the Babylonians. Why did the nations rage? Why does emperors and the like do these things? Is this not a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, the rulers, take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, meaning Christ, saying, let's break their bonds in pieces and cast their quads away from us. But he who sits in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord holds them in derision. Jesus was not threatened by what was going on here. The King of kings, the Lord of lords, was sitting right there in chains in the praetorium of the Roman council there. And in a sense, you could say, this is a bad day for Jesus. Well, it wasn't going to be the funnest day, that's for sure. But on the other hand, all this is part of the plan. And no matter what the Romans, no matter what the Jews could do against Jesus. No matter if they smacked him around the crown of thorns or what have you, none of it, none of it could move the needle whatsoever in heaven. None of it could dislodge a single pebble. The nations rage. They've always raged, Pilate, the Jews, these others, they rage against God. And yet even the raging is part of his decretal will, and none of it is a threat to his throne. And so that's what he says. If I was genuinely threatened by you, Pilate, trust me, trust me, my servants would be here, and you would see what it means to have chariots of fire all around you the way Elijah once saw it there outside of dothan. You'd see it with your own eyes, and they'd be coming for you. But I'm not threatened by this. In fact, this is part of the plan. All right, so let's look at verses 37 through 38. So Pilate therefore said to him, are you a king? Then? Pilate's a slow learner. Are you a king? Then Jesus answered, yes, yes, you rightly say. You rightly say that I'm a king. For this cause I was born. What cause? The cause where he's standing there in chains for this cause, for this day, for this moment, for everything that's going on right now. For this cause I was born and I came into the world that I should bear witness to the truth. And everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. Remember that difference between talking past one another, the difference between listening and hearing? Those who are of the church, those of regenerate hearts, those are born again, sons and daughters of the most high king, whose hearts have been converted and opened up and. And the spirit indwells, they hear his voice. But Jesus is not talking to someone who hears his voice. He's not talking to someone who's capable of understanding even what he's saying. So it says here that for this cause I was born, this cause I've come, in this world, I should bear witness to the truth. And everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. And Pilate has a chance. He has an opportunity, so to speak. Opportunity? Jesus just said something that would have, you know, titillated the ears of ancient man, of those who had grown up in either Greek or roman societies. Jesus says something that tickles the ears of those who are philosophically inclined. And he says, I came to bear witness to the truth. And in this moment, Pilate has an opportunity to ask the greatest authority on truth that's ever lived to explain what truth is to unpack it for me. You came to provide the truth, to share the truth, Bear witness to the truth. Oh, my goodness. Let's sit down. I have some questions. Greatest opportunity man's ever had right here. What does he do instead? Well, we see it in verse 38. Pilate asks him very sarcastically. He says, what is truth? And what does it say he does thereafter? Says that when he had said this, verse 38, he went out. He went out again to the Jews and said to them, I find no fault in this man at all. So Jesus has told Pilate, and they've got all the time they need right there. But Jesus told Pilate, I came to bear wisdom, the truth. Pilate could have mined into that, found out some details, learned about the truth, and instead he mocks this idea of truth, and he leaves without another word. He just leaves the room, what is truth? And he's gone, right? But when he goes out, he goes to the Jews who didn't like him, and he didn't like. And he says, you know what? The things that you were telling me, I don't find it to be true. This guy is harmless. I'm talking about truth and the like. This guy's harmless. I find no fault in him. The things you were telling me, they're not accurate based on my assessment of things. All right, let's. Let's look now at our last verses. Verses 38 through 40, verse 38. So again, Pilate said him, what is the truth? And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, I find no fault in this man at all. But. But you have a custom that I should release someone to you at the Passover. This was a tradition that they had, that the Roman leadership would release a prisoner of the Passover to pacify the crowds, right? They'd chant someone's name, and the governor would give them the man they chanted for. And it was a way to kind of keep the peace, because, remember, that's one of the objectives that Pilate has, to keep the peace. So he says, you know, we have this tradition. We've been doing this for a little while at Passover, I release someone to you, you chant their name and the like. How about we just make it this guy? Let's just simplify things. Let's just make it this Jesus guy here. So he says that you have a custom that I should release someone you had the Passover to do. You therefore want me to release to you the king of the Jews and Then they all cried out, not just like two or three loud people, but they all cried out saying, no, not this man, but Barabbas. Barabbas. Now, Barabbas was a robber. And other texts also tell us he was a murderer. All right, let's linger on this last bit with our remaining time. You know, six separate instances in the Gospels, Pilate vouches for Christ's innocence. Now, Pilate had seen guilty men before he knew what guilt was, and this wasn't it. And other people would pick up on that too. Remember, you had the two thieves on the cross either side of Jesus, and for a while they're both mocking Jesus. But at one point, the one thief turns to the other thief and he says, you know, by the way, you and I deserve what we're getting. We're here on the crosses for a reason, because we done wrong, we're guilty. But this man, he's innocent. People, if they spent any time whatsoever really considering the facts before them, considering the ministry of a man who went around healing, doing miracles and raising the dead and the like, they would say, you know, that's not the sort of man that we need to kill. In fact, we need more of this sort of guy. We don't understand everything he's saying, but good things seem to flower where he goes. But again, those who are threatened by those good things could not see the good things and they simply wanted him dead, whether he had done anything wrong or not. Well, Pilate says, I've seen nothing wrong in him. This man is innocent, as near as I can tell. And again, it's not because Pilate was a saint or Pilate was trying to do the right thing. Pilate was guilty of a tremendous sin. At this very moment, he's guilty of the sin of pragmatism. If he believed. If Pilate believed that Jesus was innocent, what should a righteous judge do? Let him go. Right. It doesn't matter what nation state you're in. If someone is brought before you under presumption that they're guilty of, you interview you, them, try them, you examine them, and you determine that this man is innocent. Then what should you do? Irregardless of what nation state or culture you're in, you let an innocent man go. Pilate doesn't. He tries to barter. He could have just said he's innocent. Out you go, Jesus, and don't come back, you know, high priest, unless you got someone really guilty next time. He could have sent him back. But remember, he was had this relationship with the Jews where He was always concerned that they were going to have this uprising. They already had the zealots doing all sorts of stuff in the society. And he's trying to keep the peace. So he's like, all right, all right, all right. What's the pragmatic solution to this? Surely politics can save me. So he comes up with a political answer. And he sits there thinking, well, what to do, what to do? Well, I know, I know. We have this tradition here by which the Jews will request that I release someone, and I release someone, and then everyone's happy and the like, and they go back to their Passover parties and so forth, and everyone's happy. Maybe let's do this. Let's do it with this guy. I'll release him as a sign of my magnanimous and the like. I'm magnanimous. And the Jews, you know, they'll be appeased, and they'll just go figure all this out on their own. So he tries that. However, the Jews respond, and they respond by chanting the oddest thing. They say, no, no, no, no, no. Away with this man. Crucify him. Crucify him is what they'll say later on. Let his blood be upon us and our children. Man, there's bloodlust going on here. So not only do they chant that about Jesus, but they chant something positive about a man named Barabbas. They say, release him. Barabbas. We want Barabbas. We want Barabbas. Now, to Pilate's ears, he had to be going, oh, my good golly. You know Barabbas? I know Barabbas. That's the guy who's in jail for appropriate reasons. This guy is a thief. And for what it's worth, no culture likes thieves, right? Roman, Jewish. Otherwise, no culture like this. He's a thief, he's a robber, and the like. He also is guilty of murder. You want that guy? You want Barabbas? And they say, yes. They cry out again and again, saying there in verse four, not this man, but Barabbas. Now, Barabbas was a robber. So let me. Let me close this morning by drawing out the microcosm that we're seeing here. So why did Jesus come? Why was he standing here to begin with? Why did Jesus come? He came to save us, right? That's the means. You and I are guilty. The wages of sin is death. If God were to judge Pilate, if he was to judge any man or woman in this room, we would all be judged by the same criteria that we've all fallen short of. The laws and decrees of holy God. There is none who are righteous. No, not one. So all of us stand under the condemnation of a holy God who hates sin. And you don't get, like, you know what is engulf some mulligans. You know, that's the way with this work. Even if he gave you a bunch of mulligans, you've already gone through them. You don't have any more. So with that said, you've sinned more times than you can possibly count. You've broken the laws of holy God more times than you can. And if God is holy and God is just and God is righteous, he has to deal with that, right? He has to deal with it. Otherwise he's not holy, righteous, or just. He's a pragmatist. If he doesn't, he's like Pilate, kind of. You're looking at the circumstances differently. No, if God is holy and righteous and just and you're a sinner, then you deserve condemnation. That's our problem. We talk about this every time we do the Lord's Supper. Our problem is that we are sinners. The wages of sin is death. God is holy and just. And if he is the. He has to deal with us. It's a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God, which is exactly the condition, the situation, the cataclysm we would be in if not for what we see in today's text and today's text, Jesus is telling Pilate, and he's telling the culture around them, whether they're paying attention or not, that he is the very fulfillment of that which that passage says in Isaiah 53, that out of God's love for us, he would send one to atone for us. He would send one to pay our price. He would send one to take our debt. And on Calvary, that's just what would happen on Calvary, Jesus Christ would go to the cross. Your sins, my sins, would be placed, imputed upon him, as if he's the one who did it. In a very real sense, what we see here with Barabbas is a microcosm of that. Free Barabbas. Free the guilty. Free the guilty. Crucify the innocent. What they were chanting for, in a very real sense, is what Jesus came to do. To let guilty individuals who are rightly convicted of their sins, to let them be set free, Free, spiritually speaking. And he was willing to step into their place. The Jews had an opportunity to have Jesus freed. They say, no, crucify him. Give us Barabbas Barabbas is a type of you. He's a type of me. He's a type of all of us who have been spared because Jesus stepped into our place. The Gospel. The Gospel, as we've said, contains a problem. Solution. The problem is that we are sinners. The solution is that Christ came to die for sinners. We've considered that in part this week, and over the next couple weeks leading up to Easter, we will consider that at greater length. Let's pray.